Linus Torvalds
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds; born December 28, 1969) is a Finnish-American software engineer who is the creator and, for a long time, principal developer, of the Linux kernel, which became the kernel for operating systemssuch as GNU and years later Android and Chrome OS. He also created the distributed revision control system git and the diving logging and planning software Subsurface. He was honored, along with Shinya Yamanaka, with the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition...
NationalityFinnish
ProfessionEngineer
Date of Birth28 December 1969
CityHelsinki, Finland
CountryFinland
I like to think that I've been a good manager. That fact has been very instrumental in making Linux a successful product.
I see myself as a technical person who chose a great project and a great way of doing that project.
I don't have any authority over Linux other than this notion that I know what I'm doing.
I don't expect to go hungry if I decide to leave the University. Resume: Linux looks pretty good in many places.
I actually think that I'm a rather optimistic and happy person; it's just that I'm not a very positive person, if you see the difference.
Hey, I'm a good software engineer, but I'm not exactly known for my fashion sense. White socks and sandals don't translate to 'good design sense'.
That's what makes Linux so good: you put in something, and that effort multiplies. It's a positive feedback cycle.
I very seldom worry about other systems. I concentrate pretty fully on just making Linux the best I can.
The cyberspace earnings I get from Linux come in the format of having a Network of people that know me and trust me, and that I can depend on in return.
You won't get sued for anticompetitive behavior.
The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it.
Avoiding complexity reduces bugs.
If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot of different places, just write a Unix operating system.
A lot of people want to have market share numbers, lots of users, because that's how they view their self worth. For me, one of the most important things for Linux is having a big community that is actively testing new kernels; it's the only way to support the absolute insane amount of different hardware we deal with.