Linus torvalds

Linus Torvalds in 2002

Linus Benedict Torvalds (Helsinki, Finland, December 28, 1969) is a Finnish-American software engineer, known for initiating and maintaining the development of the kernel (in Spanish, kernel) Linux, based on the free Minix operating system created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum and some tools, various utilities and compilers developed by the GNU project. He is currently responsible for the coordination of the project. He has also developed the Git version control software.

Biography

Linus was born in Helsinki, Finland, on December 28, 1969. His parents are Anna and Nils Torvalds, both journalists. He is the grandson of the statistician Leo Törnqvist and the poet Ole Torvalds, and the great-grandson of the journalist and soldier Toivo Karanko. Torvalds belongs to the Swedish-speaking community in Finland. His parents took their name from Linus Pauling (American, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1954). He began his computer adventures at the age of 11 when his grandfather Leo Törnqvist, a mathematician and statistician at the University of Helsinki, bought one of the first Commodore VIC-20 microcomputers in 1980 and asked him for help using it; thus his first line of code was made in BASIC language.

At the end of the 1980s he came into contact with IBM and PC computers and in 1981 he acquired a computer with a model 80386 processor from Intel. In 1988 he was admitted to the University of Helsinki, where he studied computer science. That same year Professor Andrew S. Tanenbaum brought to light the S.O. Minix for didactic purposes. His academic career was interrupted after his first year of studies when he joined the Nyland Brigade of the Finnish Army in the summer of 1989, selecting the 11-month officer training program to fulfill Finland's compulsory military service.. He earned the rank of second lieutenant, with the role of artillery spotter.In 1990 he started learning the C programming language at his university.

At the age of 21, with a year of programming experience (in C), I already knew enough about the Minix operating system to borrow some ideas and start a personal project. Based on Design of the Unix Operating System , published by Maurice J. Bach in 1986, he created an implementation that runs any type of program, but on an architecture of compatible computers , IBM/PC.

This personal project culminated on October 5, 1991 with the announcement of the first version of Linux capable of running BASH (Bourne Again Shell) and the compiler known as GCC (GNU Compiler Collection).

In January 1992, the General Public License (GPL) was adopted for Linux. This adds freedom of use to Linux totally opposite to those of proprietary software, allowing its modification, redistribution, copying and unlimited use. This licensing model facilitates what is known as the bazaar development model, which has given unprecedented stability and functionality to this operating system.

In 1997 he received the 1997 Nokia Foundation Award from Nokia and the Lifetime Achievement Award at Uniforum Pictures. That same year he finished higher education (1988-1997) after a decade as a student and researcher at the University of Helsinki, coordinating the development of the operating system kernel since 1992.

He worked at Transmeta from February 1997 to June 2003. He currently works for the Open Source Development Labs in Beaverton, Oregon. Only 2% of the current Linux code is written by him, but, in addition to his paternity, the management of the operating system's kernel continues to rest in his person.

In 2005 he created Git, a version control software, thinking about the efficiency and reliability of versioning applications when they have a large number of source code files.

Making Linux

In Finland, Linus Torvalds, then a Computer Science student at the University of Helsinki, decided to make the then-heavy investment of US$3,500 to buy a new computer with Intel's 80386 microprocessor, which ran at 33 MHz and had 4 MB of RAM. The payment would be made in installments, since he did not have such an amount of money in cash.

Normally, he used this computer to have telephone line access to his University's computer network, but because he did not like the operating system he was working with, called Minix, he decided to create one himself. Initially, he wrote a low-level language program without Minix. On the first few tries, he managed to boot the computer and run two processes that displayed the string “AAAAABBBBB”. One would use it to read from the modem and write to the screen, while the other would write to the modem and read from the keyboard. Initially, the program booted from a floppy disk.

The next need he had was to be able to download and upload files from his university, but to implement this functionality in the emulator software it was necessary to create a disk controller. So after continuous hard work, he created a driver compatible with the Minix file system. At that point, he realized that he was creating something more than just a terminal emulator, so he set about creating an operating system from scratch. However, faced with the option of keeping the unfinished core, he decided to share it. "My reasons for launching Linux were pretty selfish," he declared, "he didn't want the headache of trying to deal with parts of the operating system that he saw as crap. He wanted help & # 34;.

Privately, Linus named his new system Linux, but when he decided to make a public presentation he thought it was too self-centered to call it that and proposed calling it Freax (a combination of free (" free") and the letter X to indicate that it is a system similar to Unix). However, his friend Ari Lemmke, who managed the FTP server where the kernel was first hosted for download, renamed it, without consulting Linus, because he thought Freax was not a good name.

After announcing on August 25, 1991 his intention to further develop his system to build a Minix replacement, on September 17 he uploads Linux version 0.01 with 10,000 lines of code to the FTP server provided by his university. From that moment Linux began to evolve rapidly.

Authorship and trademark

As the popularity of Linux spread, Microsoft branded it a cancer by describing open source software as an affront to capitalism. Linus was introduced as a Finnish software socialist activist threatening the software industry. However, Linus stated that he found "people who think open source is anti-capitalism kind of naive and a bit stupid". In an interview, Linus stated that "I don't think planned economies five years will work, and I don't think it will work when designing software either. Linux development has always been a kind of open market, where development direction is set by customer demand, along with obviously a lot of what I just call good taste: avoiding things that are obviously going to be problematic in the long run... #34;. Although Linus believes that "open source is the only right way to make software," he has also said that he uses "the best tool for the job," even if that includes proprietary software.

As of 2006, it is estimated that approximately two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Linus himself. Because thousands of people have contributed to the Linux kernel, this percentage is one of the largest contributions to it. However, he stated in 2012 that his own personal contribution is now mostly fusion code written by others, with little programming. Linus retains the ultimate authority to decide what new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel.

Owns the "Linux" and oversees the use of the mark through the non-profit organization Linux International.

Private life

Linus Torvalds is married to Tove Torvalds (Finnish karateka). They met in 1993. Years later, Tove Torvalds and Linus Torvalds married and had three daughters, two of whom were born in the United States.

Linus Torvalds defines himself as an atheist, to which he adds that in the United States, unlike Europe where religion is a personal matter, it is highly politicized. When Torvals is asked about his opinion regarding the separation between state and religion, he answers: & # 34; It is a bit ironic, that in many European countries, there is a close link between state and religion & # 3. 4;.

In 2010, Torvalds became a US citizen and was registered to vote in the United States. He is not affiliated with any party, stating "I have too much personal pride to want to be associated with any of them, frankly."

Since the year 2000, Linus has developed quite an interest in diving, which has led him to obtain numerous certifications. It is also the reason that he later developed the Subsurface project.

Disputes

Linus has earned a reputation as someone nobody wants to work with. In a conference at Aalto University he stated that NVIDIA was “the worst company they had ever dealt with” and “ focus of continuing problems for Linux" later giving them the middle finger. Linus also criticized Richard Stallman for having "black or white" thinking. However, despite Linus stating that &#34 "[I was] not a good person and I don't care" and an advocate of personal intimidation and violence, she announced in a statement that she would be taking a break from her activities to learn to control her emotions.

Acknowledgment

• In 1996, an asteroid was named after 9793 Torvalds in honor of Linus Torvalds.
• In 1998 he received the Pioneer Award from the EFF.
• In 1999 he received the honorary doctorate degree at the University of Stockholm.
• In 2000 he received the title of an honorary doctor at the University of Helsinki.
• In the poll «People of the Century» of the magazine TimeLinus Torvalds got position number 17.
• In 2001, he shared the Takeda Award for Social and Economic Arts with Richard Stallman and Ken Sakamura.
• The 2001 film SwordfishIt contains a Finnish character (the number one hacker in the world) called Axl Torvalds.
• In 2004, he was named one of the most influential people in the world in the magazine article Time.
• In the summer of 2004, he obtained the number 16 in Suuret Suomalaiset.
• In 2005, he was named one of "the best business administrators" in a magazine survey BusinessWeek.
• In August 2005, Linus Torvalds received the award Vollum Award of Reed College.
• In 2006, the magazine Business 2.0 He named it "one of the ten people who don't care" because Linux's growth and importance had overshadowed Linus' individual impact.
• In 2006, the magazine Time He named him as one of the revolutionary heroes of the past 60 years.
• In 2008, he was included as a member at the Museum of Computer History in Mountain View, California, "by creating the Linux kernel and managing the open source development of the widely used Linux operating system."
• In 2010 he received the NEC Corporation's Cblood Award for "contributions to the advance of the information technology industry, education, research and improvement of our lives."
• In 2012, the Finnish Academy of Technology awards the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize (which shares with Dr Yamanaka) "in recognition of its creation of a new open source operating system for computers that lead as a Linux kernel."
• In 2012, at the Internet Society Conference Global INET In Geneva, Switzerland, Torvalds enters the Internet Fame Hall, one of ten in the Innovative category.
• In 2014, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award.
• In 2018, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award.