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May25
A Look At Hackers -- Part 9 of 12 -- Linus Torvalds
Quoted as saying, "I just want to have fun making the best damn operating system I can.", Linus Torvalds is rightly credited with develoing the Unix-based
operating system, Linux.

Torvalds first computer was a Commodore VIC-20, which was followed by a Sinclair 9QL.  He hacked the QLs operating system, programming an assembler, a text editor, and a few games.

In 1991, Tolvalds used the Minix operating system, developed by Andrew S.Tanenbaum, as a model to create the Linux kernel, starting with a task switcher (Intel 80306) assembly and a terminal driver.  His call for code contributions
was so successful that he ultimately wrote only about 2% of the current kernel; the success is one of the more prominent examples of free/open source software.  A Unix-like operating system, Linux runs on PCs as well as many other
architectures.

There’s some controversy surrounding Linus Torvalds’ ideology concerning free vs proprietary software.  Even though he championed free/open source software, he uses proprietary code for version control in the Linux kernel.  Be that as it may, Torvalds is still program director of Linux and coordinates the contributed code of volunteers.

By way of recognition, in addition to having had an asteroid named after him, he's been awarded honorary doctorates from Stockholm University and University of Helsinki.  Torvalds was also featured in Time Magazine’s 60 Years of Heroes in 2006.

2 Comments/Trackbacks




Proprietary code for version control is not used any more for 2 years now, instead Linus wrote his own version - git:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29

Yes, I knew about 'git' when I wrote this article, but, at the time, it didn't seem to add to the content. It was an omission, rather than an oversight.

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