Linus Benedict
Torvalds, a native of Helsinki, Finland, is a renowned computer programmer, inventor of the Linux
kernel and co-author of the project. He is currently employed by Open Source Development Labs, Inc. and is
married with three girls. He is the author of books, "Open sources", and "Just For Fun".
Linus Torvalds wrote Linux in 1991 when he was only 21 years old and a computer science student at the University of Helsinki. Linux is undoubtedly one of the world's most popular operating system kernels today, but in fact, the birth of Linux seems full of serendipity. This is because Linus had become interested in Unix while studying at the University of Helsinki in 1991 and was trying to do some development work on Minix. Therefore, he wanted to build a UNIX-style operating system for his AT-386 computer (Bitzer 2004). In addition, because he commonly needed to use his Terminal Emulator to access newsgroups and mail on the university's mainframe, he wrote his disk drivers and file systems to facilitate reading, writing and downloading files. Then the first Linux kernel was born. At that time, Linux was welcomed and loved by many computer enthusiasts. One reason is that it is one of the operating systems whose source code is available as free software under the GNU General Public License (Balakrishnan 1999). As a result, people could add to it, modify it, and then spread the libertarian spirit of the open-source movement, regardless of the gains or losses.
In late 1996, he moved to Silicon Valley, California, to work for Transmeta, then left in 2003. He is now employed by Open Source Development Labs, Inc. and works full-time on the Linux kernel. In addition, Linus earned many certifications due to his interest in scuba diving in the early 2000s, leading him to create the Subsurface project. Although Linus has made considerable contributions to the development of computer science, it is clear that he is not satisfied with his current situation, and he would continue to work for the development of the field of computer science.
He has acquired a lot of significant achievements, such as
Furthermore, he has plenty
of funny anecdotes, such as the Linux trademark being derived from a penguin biting his finger, being a
low-profile hacker and serving in the military during his college years.
In October 2022, the latest news said Linus Torvalds was considering removing support for the Intel i486 processor from the Linux kernel.
Balakrishnan, S. 1999. The Linux Operating System., p. 9.
Bitzer, J. 2004. Commercial versus open source software: the role of product heterogeneity in competition. Economic Systems 28(4), pp. 369–381. doi: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2005.01.001.