Torvalds: A Solaris skeptic, Dec 22, 2004

Torvalds discussed Solaris, his improvisational programming style and other issues in an interview with CNET News.com.

Sys-Con’s search for the Top Twenty Top software people in the world is nearing completion with Linus Torvalds, “ ‘Benevolent dictator’ of the Linux kernel,” in the lead so far.

Last week, a group of Open Source pioneers joined a running battle over the future of software patents in the European Union. Over the next several weeks, Europe may adopt the same legal framework that has allowed a bunch of con artists to wreak havoc on the U.S. software industry.

... Linus Torvalds, the 34-year-old Finnish programmer and composer of the Linux kernel, is being honored as CRN’s most influential executive of 2004 because of his devotion to the Linux development process for nearly 15 years

The creator of Linux has urged the EU Council not to adopt a draft directive on software patents as he considers it 'deceptive, dangerous and democratically illegitimate'

And if there is anything I've learnt from Linux, it's that projects have a life of their own, and you should _not_ try to enforce your "vision" too strongly on them.

Linus Torvalds [pronounced LEE-nus] started a revolution of sorts in the computer industry when he created the Linux operating system and decided to share it with fellow programmers on the Internet.

He discussed via e-mail his move to Portland, the state of Linux and Microsoft.

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is being honoured at The Economist's Third Annual Innovations Awards.

The event is held in San Francisco and awards innovators in six categories: bioscience, computing, energy and the environment, communications, "no boundaries" and social and economic innovation. Entries were nominated by Economist readers and journalists and the winners were chosen by a panel of 17 judges.

As the countdown continues to silicon.com's fifth annual Agenda Setters poll of tech's 50 most influential individuals, it is time to look back at those individuals who held top 10 positions in 2003. Today we review the year that's been in open source.

Linus Torvalds is among the select few who have made the Agenda Setters poll every year since its inception in 2000. Last year, he reached his highest spot ever, coming in a number 5.

Though he remains active in and vocal on open source issues - he's now working for the Open Source Development Labs in Beaverton, Oregon - Torvalds is chosen again and again for what he represents. He's the symbolic leader of the open source movement, the embodiment of the idea that there's always an alternative.

Linus Torvalds created the first iteration of the Linux operating system 13 years ago. Since then, he has been the technical shepherd coordinating the volunteer work of more than 1,000 people who actively contribute code and ideas to the Linux kernel -- the core program. He's also the symbolic leader of a movement made up hundreds of companies that are involved in Linux development, in addition to the thousands of volunteers. That has helped Linux become the No. 2 operating system worldwide for server computers.

Torvalds recently spoke with BusinessWeek Senior Writer Steve Hamm. Here are edited excerpts from their conversation:

Linus Torvalds has been called on to help Australia's peak Linux association in a battle to stop local companies attempting to trademark the word "Linux".

Torvalds has been called on to help Linux Australia Inc -- which represents open source developers orbiting the Linux software platform -- prove his right to trademark the term in Australia much as he did in the United States in 1997.

You sort of have to feel sorry for Richard Stallman. Poor old RMS, sitting in his dingy office in the comp sci building at MIT, issuing proclamations about the difference between free software and open source software, and insisting that everyone call Linux "GNU/Linux", worrying that the efforts of the GNU Project might be forgotten. But perhaps he has a point.

Linus Torvalds, the Finnish-born inventor of the Linux computer operating system, is Portland-bound.

The Oregonian reported Thursday that Torvalds is moving to Portland from California to oversee the Open Source Development Labs in Beaverton

Linus Torvalds and Linux 2.6 kernel maintainer Andrew Morton have announced a new way of tracking contributions to Linux: the Developer's Certificate of Origin.

Under the new kernel submission process, contributions to the Linux kernel may only be made by individuals who acknowledge their right to make the contribution under an appropriate open-source license. This acknowledgment, the DCO, is used to track contributions and contributors to Linux. The DCO ensures that appropriate attribution is given to developers of original contributions and derivative works, as well to those contributors who receive submissions and pass them, unchanged, up the kernel tree. All contributors are called upon to "sign off" on a submission before it can be considered for inclusion in the kernel.

Over now to Tanenbaum himself, who has made an entertaining attempt to set the record straight here (you may not get in right now, as traffic is already heavy). He observes that Brown, who flew to Amsterdam to interview him in March, is "not the sharpest knife in the drawer", and says: " I quickly determined that he didn't know a thing about the history of UNIX, had never heard of the Salus book, and knew nothing about BSD and the AT&T lawsuit. I started to tell him the history, but he stopped me and said he was more interested in the legal aspects. I said: 'Oh you mean about Dennis Ritchie's patent number 4135240 on the setuid bit?' Then I added: 'That's not a problem. Bell Labs dedicated the patent.' That's when I discovered that (1) he had never heard of the patent, (2) did not know what it meant to dedicate a patent (i.e., put it in the public domain), and (3) really did not know a thing about intellectual property law. He was confused about patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Gratuitously, I asked if he was a lawyer, but it was obvious he was not and he admitted it. At this point I was still thinking he might be a spy from SCO, but if he was, SCO was not getting its money's worth."

A study challenging the origins of Linux states that the open-source software frequently is taken or adapted from material owned by other companies and individuals. It also directly questions Linus Torvalds' claim to be the inventor of Linux.

The information is contained in a book by Kenneth Brown, president the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Portions of the book will be released later this week.

The creator of the Linux operating system, Linus Torvalds, has weighed in on the issue of backporting features from newer Linux kernels into older ones, calling the practice a good thing for the most part.

Torvalds comments, in an e-mail interview with internetnews.com, came after SUSE'S CTO, Juergen Geck, told an audience at the Real World Linux Conference in Toronto that Red Hat's practice of backporting features from the 2.6 kernel into the 2.4 Kernel is a "bad thing" because it interferes with standardization of the open source operating system.

Linus Torvalds, the "father" of Linux, is an expert in, and exponent of, open-source development. InformationWeek recently exchanged E-mail with him.

InformationWeek: Can you give us a quick update on your work at the Open Source Development Labs? Where do things stand in the effort to develop "data-center Linux"?

Torvalds: My work personally is very simple: My sole responsibility is literally to "maintain the Linux kernel." We were very careful indeed to make it clear that different OSDL projects do not actually in any way impact my maintenance, and as such I'm totally independent of other OSDL projects, like the data-center Linux project. Same goes for Andrew [Morton, who maintains the Linux kernel].

Corporate jets fly him to a rock-star welcome from thousands of laptop-toting admirers, and, at age 34, he already has earned his place as a technology demigod.

For Linus Torvalds it has been a long, strange road since 1991, when, as a computer-science student and erstwhile hacker at the University of Helsinki, everything changed -- though he didn't have a clue at the time it had.

That was the year the then-21-year-old Finn finished eight months of work on an innocuous little computer operating system he dubbed Linux. What he did next, though, led to the program today being a serious challenger to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows empire.

Novell Inc. underscored its commitment to Linux Monday by surprising BrainShare conferencegoers with an appearance by none other than Linus Torvalds, creator of the freely distributed operating system.

The Finnish programmer, whose decade-old program today challenges Microsoft's long-dominant Windows, was greeted by thundering applause -- and a couple of Finnish flags -- as a crowd of 6,000 welcomed him to the opening session of BrainShare's 20th annual edition of tech-related workshops and seminars in the downtown Salt Palace Convention Center.

Linus then went on to explain how, in his view, OSDL functions.

"No, you should think of OSDL as two different kinds of entities (and first off, you should realize that I do not officially speak "for" OSDL in any form what-so-ever--I'm a developer, and that, and only that, is my job):

"A go-between and contact point for different companies. Neutral ground, in other words, for companies to try to figure out what their common needs are, and how to document them as a guide for developers. This is the side of OSDL that does things like the DCL drafts, but it also ends up doing a lot of "unofficial" networking between companies that all have slightly different needs and wishes. And that's the side that I'm not really affiliated with, although it's useful to me too: the documents end up being a somewhat more organized way of knowing what different people end up actually wanting.

Webmaster's note: It's come to our attention that Linux fans in Australia have dunked Linus Torvalds in a pool. Pictures available.

Computerworld: How do you feel Linux on the desktop is progressing?

Linus Torvalds: Last year was good but I’m seeing a lot more noise about it this year. The server space is easier to tackle first with any operating system as it can be applied to specific tasks such as mail serving; however, the desktop is harder to sell.

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