Founder:
Linus Torvalds
Born
December 28th 1969 Helsinki, Finland. Creator of Linux computer
operating system. The story of Linux is one of the great
fables of computing yet it begins as recently as 1991. That
was when Linus Torvalds, a 21-year-old student at Helsinki
University, decided to write his own computer operating
system. Only a nerd would try; most folk buy their computers
with the operating system already installed. And only a
master nerd would succeed.
In some important respects, Torvalds’ Linux is better than
the world’s principal operating system, Windows. It is more
compact and it runs faster. It is also more stable, so it
is preferred for use on the Internet, powering web servers
that can be left unattended, without operatives to "turn
off and then start again", as Windows still so often requires.
Linux therefore was and remains a free program. Anyone can
use it without charge, on condition that any improvements
they make are also uncopyrighted and freely available. The
nerds of the world took up Torvalds’ challenge. Of Linux
today, only about 2% was written by the master himself,
though he remains the ultimate authority on what new code
and innovations are incorporated into it. Again, the contrast
with Windows is striking. How that system works is a proprietary
Microsoft secret. An operating system is what controls a
computer but finding out how it does so is a lot harder
than looking at the engine of a car. Computers translate
everything into ones and zeroes. It is impossible to see
what is happening from this digital stream. Because the
original quantities and instructions that make up Linux
have been published, any programmer can see what it is doing,
how it does it and, possibly, how it could do it better.
Torvalds did not invent the concept of open programming
but Linux is its first success story. Indeed, it probably
could not have succeeded before the Internet had linked
the disparate world of computing experts. In making Linux
an open language, Torvalds gave up the opportunity of growing
rich from his work. This too is part of nerd culture, which
thrives on the satisfaction of authorship and the respect
of one’s peers rather than a portfolio of shares and a sports
car in the drive. Today Torvalds lives in a rented bungalow
though, admittedly, in California, where he moved in 1997
to work for a mysteriously secretive company called Transmeta.
The results of that project were unveiled in January this
year, prompting some observers to suggest that the Finnish
dragon-slayer was now taking on the world’s foremost chip
manufacturer, Intel. Transmeta’s new Crusoe chips contain
an array of computing tricks, allowing it to run programs
intended for Intel processors but using a fraction of the
power. For mobile devices this will be ideal. The first
applications are expected this summer. Linus Torvalds did
not invent the Crusoe, of course, just as most of his Linux
system was written by others. But this computing genius
has quite a knack for being in the right place at the right
time.
