Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds

Birthname	Linus Torvalds
Date of Birth	28 December, 1969
Birth Place	Helsinki, Finland
Nationality	Finnish-American
Occupation	Code Manager
Biography	Known as the creator of the Linux operating system and Git versioning

Linus Benedict Torvalds ( born 28 December, 1969, Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish-American Code Manager and Maintainer. Linus is the creator of the Linux Kernel; a foundation for the open-source operating system, and Git, the world's most popular version control manager.

Today, Linux runs the internet . Linux is, by far, the most popular foundation for mobile phones and servers. Linus remains involved with Linux through his position as a fellow at the Linux foundation, where he is responsible for moderating changes to the Kernel's source code

Personal Life

Early Life, Education

Torvalds was born into a family of two journalists, and five siblings. Linus' interest in computers began early. Torvalds' interest in computing was sparked by his Grandfather , a professor of Statistics at the University fo Helenski. By the age of ten, Torvalds was writing programs in on his grandfather's computer, in BASIC. . In the words of his sister, Sarah, "Just give Linus a spare closet with a good computer in it and feed him some dry pasta, and he'll be perfectly happy." Linus was often received as an introvert; quiet, studious: he preferred to be with books over people. Torvalds has described his father as "virile," wearing "bullet-proof vests" and pushing he and his siblings into sports and activities, which he was often apathetic towards

Torvalds' received his master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Helsinki . Today, Torvalds remains the most well-recognized alumni from that program. Linus, in particular, credited the University with giving him "pretty free reign to work on Linux."

Family and Views

While at the University of Helsinki, he met his wife, Tove.. Tove was a student in a class Linus was teaching; she asked him on a date via email. The pair went on to have three daughters, two being born in the United States.

Torvalds has, in prior decades, described himself as being liberal, yet ultimately apolitical. In particular, Torvalds fears "organized religion because it usually leads to misuses of power." Torvalds has also described his distaste for the politicalization of religion, of the kind found in the United States: "religion has become politicized, so you have the fringe people in the news. And then people are afraid to talk about it because it has political implications, and that's usually not true in most of Europe. Religion is a personal matter, but does not matter for anything else. And I think that's how it should be done."

As a native Finn, Torvalds has described his homeland as being full of "virile men" and Caribou. Torvalds credits his exposure to technology as a child to Finlands' technological and electrical prowess. In Tovalds' words, the country's small, homogeneous population and forward-thinking ideology allows for the quick adaptation of new technologies. At the same time, the country's dark, dreary climate further pushed Torvalds' into his work: "Programming. Sex. Drinking. There's not much else to do [in Finland]."

Ultimately, Torvalds moved to the United States for a chance to work on more advanced technology. He also described himself as being "completely converted to the U.S. believe that you encourage people to do things by rewarding them, as opposed to be fair by even rewarding bad people." Torvalds described what he perceived to be a more competitive, yet less envious atmosphere in the country. Yet, in many ways Torvalds maintained his non-capitalistic upbringing. After receiving an overture to work together from Steve Jobs, Torvalds stated "I think he was surprised that his arguments, which were the Apple market share arguments--which would have made an impression on people who did this for commercial reasons--had absolutely no impact on me"

Linux

Torvalds' motivation for creating Linux was simple: he disliked MS-DOS. As a student at the University of Helenski, Torvalds had grown accustom to an UNIX system interface. However, there were no UNIX implementations that were easily available on home computers. Torvalds set out to change this, with his implementation of Linux. Although not a UNIX operating system per se, Linux is a close approximation. Crucially, Torvalds elected to make his implementation free and open source; anyone could build and use Linux, providing a unix-like environment to the masses.

While Linux is--by some metrics--the most widely-used OS in the world, many users do not know they are running it. While Linux proper remains popular in the personal computing, embedded and server side code arenas, the OS has also permeated the mobile space. Android, a Linux-based OS, is now the most popular in the world on a user basis. In addition to smartphones, Android has made forays into other areas of mobile computing, such as tablets, watches and wearables.

Despite Linux's association with the free and open source software movement, Torvalds claims not to care much for open source. In fact, he views it simply as an engine for comments --feedback on his work. In Torvalds' view, open source is "just a superior way of working together and generating code"; the project simply needed more eyes.

Public Image and Contraversy

In the tech community, Torvalds is known for his austere demeanor and pithy speech. Torvalds delights in shaming is Kernel contributors--and throwing insults in general . Excerpts include: “Please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place” and “Guys, this is not a dick-sucking contest.” Torvalds' style of discourse has proven controversial in his community, and outside. On one hand, many defend Torvalds' with his historical argument; respect should be earned . Torvalds is often rude; however, in his view, this is simply transactional. A means to an end. On the other hand, Torvalds' behavior has drawn heavy criticism from concerned individuals and the media. Torvalds has been accused of implicitly tolerating sexism and homophobia, among others, in his community. In fact, Torvalds has been accused by the Linux community of living a "lifetime of not understanding emotions."

Angry Linus

Ultimately, Torvalds' style of management caught up with him. In 2018, Torvalds temporaily stepped down from his position in the Linux foundation, citing his need for sensitivity training. In Torvalds' words: “[I need to] get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately.” . Linus offered the following apology:

“The above is basically a long-winded way to get to the somewhat painful personal admission that hey, I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely. I am going to take some time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately."

Ethical Ramifications

Torvalds' behavior seems symptomatic of a larger set of trends in the technology industry. Torvalds, as a sort of 'strong man' or benevolent dictator, maintains full control over his project. In some ways, this is ideal. As the creator of Linux, Torvalds is an excellent choice to steward the platform's progression. At the same time, however, flaws in Torvalds' character--that without such importance, may be considered minor--are magnified in this context.

In some ways, the problems faced by Torvalds and his Linux Foundation mirror those faced by other open platforms. One example is Wikipedia . While an Operating System is dissimilar from a community Wikipedia, it seems plausible that the foundation can distribute the personal risk of Torvalds' behavior similarly.