Linus Benedict Torvalds (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈliːnɵs ˈtuːrvalds] ( listen); born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator.
Early years
Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland. He is the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds,and the grandson of poet Ole Torvalds. Both of his parents were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority (5.5%) of Finland's population. Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the American Nobel Prize-winning chemist, although in the book Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Torvalds is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for Linus the Peanuts cartoon character", noting that this makes him half "Nobel-prize-winning chemist" and half "blanket-carrying cartoon character".
The Linus/Linux connection
Initially Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server where the kernel was first hosted for downloading, named Torvalds' directory linux.
Authority and trademark
About 2% of the Linux kernel as of 2006 was written by Torvalds himself.Since Linux has had thousands of contributors, such a percentage represents a significant personal contribution to the overall amount of code. Torvalds remains the ultimate authority on what new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel.
Torvalds owns the "Linux" trademark, and monitors[25] use of it chiefly through the Linux Mark Institute.
Recognition
Academics
In 1997, Torvalds received his Master degree (Laudatur Grade) from Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki. Two years later he received honorary doctor status at Stockholm University, and in 2000 he received the same honor from his alma mater.
In August 2005, Torvalds received the Vollum Award from Reed College.
Industry
In 1998 Torvalds received an EFF Pioneer Award. In 2000 he was awarded the Lovelace Medal from the British Computer Society.In 2001, he shared the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Well-Being with Richard Stallman and Ken Sakamura. In 2008, he was inducted into the Hall of Fellows of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.[33][34] He was awarded the C&C Prize by the NEC Corporation in 2010 for "contributions to the advancement of the information technology industry, education, research, and the improvement of our lives".
Media
Time magazine has recognized Torvalds multiple times:
In 2000, he was 17th in their Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century Poll.
In 2004, he was named one of the most influential people in the world
In 2006, the magazine's Europe edition named him one of the revolutionary heroes of the past 60 years.
InfoWorld presented him with the 2000 Award for Industry Achievement.In 2005 Torvalds appeared as one of "the best managers" in a survey by BusinessWeek.In 2006, Business 2.0 magazine named him one of "10 people who don't matter" because the growth of Linux has shrunk Torvalds' individual impact.
In summer 2004, viewers of YLE (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) placed Torvalds 16th in the network's 100 Greatest Finns. In 2010, as part of a series called The Britannica Guide to the World's Most Influential People, Torvalds was listed among The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time.
In 1996, an asteroid (9793 Torvalds) was named after him.
The 1999 novel Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson features several characters who use "Finux", a Unix-like operating system developed in Finland.
In the 2001 film Swordfish, the uber-hacker Axl Torvalds was a reference to Linus because of his contributions to Linux which is the primary operating system of hackers.
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