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Torvalds the "5th Most-Powerful Man in Tech"
An anonymous reader writes "According to silicon.com, Linus Torvalds is the fifth most influential man in technology. The bio they have written for him isn't the most flattering to the open source community though. I quote: "If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
It goes on to say: "In truth Torvalds best work is in the past"... which seems to negate their own argument for having him in there.
Also in the Top 5 is Steve Jobs (1) who comes out on top of Bill Gates (2).
As an interesting aside, the writer of the Sobig virus even makes it in at Number 42..."
The ranking is the top Agenda setters, not the most powerful folks in tech as the poster states. For this reason I can easily see S. Jobs and Gates towards the top. This is slightly different than influence and worlds different that "Most Powerful".
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They are not the same! Influential people can be those who influence those with power but may have little or no power themselves. Think of advisors to POTUS.
Agenda setters, not most influential people in technology. The title of the article is misleading.
because what hunting rifle has a bayonet lug
... but you can reasonably expect to sit down and have a beer with him after work if you're in the right city. Can you say the same about numbers one through four?
It's nice having people in the upper-levels of Linux kernel development who actually read and post to mailing lists...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Bill Gates is powerful, because he's so insanely wealthy. He then can influence all sorts of people with his power.
Linus Torvalds may be influential in tech circles, but whether that translates into any normal interpretation of "power" is another question.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Stroking the ego of a virus writer, way to go. I'm sure that'll entice her to stop.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
And he's such a regular guy (seemingly) that it probably gives him a bit of a shudder to read that. I don't envy the position Linus is in though, I mean looking back, he didn't set out with the goal of being worshipped globally by computer nerds, he just had this re-write of Minix he was working on. Eesh!
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Jobs' role is overrated. Some Mac "innovations" (like pinhole to eject media) no-one ever follows. He makes a colorful splash with his colorful consoles, which end up meaningless in the tech world (the candy-colored iMac look had more influence on staplers and George Foreman grills than computers).
Due to the locked-in relationship of the hardware and software, his influence is limited for the most part to the tiny Mac world. This could change as soon as his music store goes beyond its limited beta situation.
It goes on to say: "In truth Torvalds best work is in the past"... which seems to negate their own argument for having him in there.
Why does that negate their own argument?
Power doesn't mean "how much have you coded recently", it means "how much influence do you weild."
Bill Gates hasn't coded anything in over 10 years, but he's made the list - are you suggesting he's not a power either?
On looking for her biography, I currently get a 'page cannot be found' message...
Cheers,
Ian
Of course Linus wouldn't be the most "powerful" - he lets others make up their own damn minds. He doesn't own any companies, and he lets others use his ideas with only the agreement to give credit where credit is due, and use derrivative ideas in just the same way. The power is not in the man, but in the ideas. This "ranking" shouldn't be counted as an insult to open source in any way - powerful men are not a particularly valid way to rank ideas.
Ryan Fenton
"If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
But I DO have posters of Torvlads on my walls :(
Besides, they clearly displayed their cluelessness by not listing Carrie Ann Moss and Natalie Portman, who enjoy an almost exclusively geek following and great popularity therein....
I'd say John Carmack is badly missing there. He's been trendsetter since years.
His agenda seem quite influential, much of Linux' success is due to his agenda (through the GPL and software).
He may not be at the top, but he should be on the list. And above the Sobig author...
What about RMS, he has done a lot of work for Free Software.
If Linus gets to #5 being the embodiment of Open Source, how can they neglect GNU ?
One of the biggest problems with a lot of people today is that they equate economic success with success in general. However, in the case of Apple and Steve Jobs, the success is in pushing new boundaries that other companies didn't want to touch. Apple has been VERY influential (and therefore Steve Jobs). They popularized the GUI, they brought a sense of style to computing (which is very important regardless of what anyone may think), they shifted the look of the box itself from the ugly beige box to the sleek designer models and now they are bringing Unix and 64 bit processing to the consumer (It could be argued that Sony did this with the Playstation).
The Linux crowd and Torvalds have been hugely successful in starting a movement away from proprietary OSes and again making this movement more visible. Of course *BSD was there first as well as GNU, but with Linux the concept was popularized among the clued in folks in the IT world. Whether you like Tovalds or not, you cannot refute that he has influenced the IT world tremendously with his work.
The best thing is that neither Jobs nor Torvalds needed to be the dominant market leader to influence anyone. There is more power in thought than money. That is the way things should be everywhere.
Un-news
The most influential are on wall street.
postscript
Actually I've found most members/users of open source (averaged) take the most respectful stance to women I've seen from any other group (including pro fem/left/right/religious agenda groups). All with little to no effort, it does seem quite natural.
I'm kind of curious what kind of carry over or representation there is to the larger population. Diversity is not something open source population lacks.
Not flattering? The main problem with this bio is that it is poorly written fluff by some hack with a lot of space to fill. There's substantially better journalism in People. Ignore this junk.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I'd expect the headline to say "Steve Jobs Most Powerful Man in Tech" rather than focus on Linus being 5th most powerful.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I love the fact that Good old Rupert was knocked down to size by a pioneer in e-izing independent media, Greg Dyke. I have loved the BBC's style of reporting since living in Birmingham for a year. Since then Greg Dyke has moved the BBC to be one of the best news/tv sites on the net. Regardless of what you think of the BBC itself he has paved the way that other media giants are going to intigrate thier services onto the Net.
For the worlds worst example see FOX News.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
The most innovative hardware technology in computing today is coming from Sony. Everybody else has architectures from the past; Sony is actually selling new ones, in volume.
Incidentally, Motorola is about to bail out of the semiconductor business. They're trying to sell off their semiconductor operation. Sad.
I am surprised not to see the PERL GOD, Larry Wall up on that list. He might not be powerful, but he is influential.
Causing Chaos Everywhere,
Nik J.
The strange world of a loner, in a populous city, drowning in society
You have to be skeptical of the methodology. This is just a list of the top 50 best known people in tech. It says nothing about influence.
Take for example the listing of Knuth who has been retired for several years at this point. About twenty of the people on the list are CTOs or CEOs of barely known startus with a 95% probability of disappearing without a trace.
They got a small number of positions right. Linus, Gates are near the top. But why are Balmer and Tim Berners-Lee right at the bottom?
Nobody active in the IETF or OASIS standards processes is mentioned - these are the people who really set trends for the industry.
The secret of these lists is that the real parameter being measured is number of press mentions in the rag that compiles them which in turn tends to translate into number of advertisements...
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
"Boy's club mentality"??? Maybe there are few women on the list because few women choose to enter technical fields. In all my electronics and computer science classes, there were a very small percentage of women, and there was no "boy's club mentality" either. In fact, most of the guys would go out of their way to help the women.
The Chinese government is looking to develop its own 3G standard, while its support for the development of an open source alternative to Windows has already had Microsoft, somewhat ironically, complaining of anti-competitive practices.
I know most people on slashdot saw that as irony, but until PHB reads it, chances are he/she will not. So I am glad that at least silicone.com wrote it. It would be better if Wall Street Journal published similar assessment, but for now, I take this as a positive sign.
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
guiness is hardly the end all of beers. I can think of quite a few stouts, porters, and pub ale's I'd rather drink before I'd have a guiness. My favorite of course being Young's double chocolate stout. Guiness just has a distinction of being readily available worldwide.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
I used to have a girlfriend who worked in IT (around the time of the HP-compaq deal) who acknowleged that Fiorina was the role model for women in IT, and that she wished that she wasn't - because Carly was making them all look bad.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
Why is it that technical fields are intimidating to women? There is no biological reason for them to be inherently adverse to such work. So the root of the problem must be social.
The same argument "women dont want to enter the field" was used for most fields that were predominatly men, until that is women no longer felt there was a social barrier.
Technical fields are intimidating to just about everyone, except the truly gifted, and there are about as many gifted women in IT as there are gifted men.
The root of the problem is social.
Extremists gather in groups to tell women there is a vast conspiracy to keep women away from computers. Then when a woman encounters a troll who attacks anyone and will use anything they can think of as an insult, she thinks: "they are right. Everyone is out to get me. I give up." The problem when you train people to play a victime, they become one and don't even try. No matter who a person is, no matter where a person goes, no matter what they do, there are people who will shit on them. One has to learn to deal with these wackos, not cave in.
Then their is the fact that most men are stripped of their emotions. From childhood, they are taught they shouldn't have any. No wonder most of them become obsessed with machines. Women tend to be more normal. "most of those females I know who program and use *NIX as much as I do don't obsessively do so. On the contrary, most men I know who program and use *NIX do so all night long, sustaining themselves on Jolt and Oreos."
Well, if all these women want to enter the field so much, why don't I see many women's names in open source projects? All they need is a computer, some books, and a webpage. No "boys club" conspiracy can stop them from doing it. Do you think SourceForge and Freshmeat delete projects because they are run by women?