Linus Torvalds Moving to the Silicon Forest

Evilive writes "According to KATU News, Linus Torvalds and family will be moving to Portland, Oregon so he can oversee the Open Source Development Labs. Torvalds says he and his family will make the move after his children finish school next week. Sayeth Linus: 'The plan was to try to acclimatize and have time to grow webbed feet (although I'm told there are implants available) by moving during the summer.'"

Comments

Congratulations, Linus!

[Artifex]

I miss Portland, terribly. In fact, last night a co-worker happened to ask me some questions in email about the area, because he's thinking about visiting. Here were my replies:

reply 1:

I know exactly what you mean. Chuck Palahniuk describes it as a town of fugitives and refugees. It's the kind of place where pedestrians and bicyclists have the right of way, regardless of what the street lights might read, and you don't turn into a street until after everyone has crossed (the opposite of Dallas, at least). It's also the kind of place where an office lunch is just as likely to be held in a bar as in the local sandwich shop. Speaking of bars, the area's known for its microbreweries as well. And there's Powell's Books, of course, the largest bookstore in the world, in case you get bored with walking around...

The city itself's only a couple hundred thousand people. You can see a couple mountains from downtown, depending on where you are and how hazy/misty the weather is. There's great scenery just minutes away in every direction. The west stretch of Highway 26 is also called Sunset Highway, for good reason - it runs out to the coast, which has some excellent beaches (look up Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock on Google images for pretty pictures). The weather is generally milder than Dallas; I didn't have air conditioning in my apartment, and only felt I needed it about 3 weeks out of the year, and I kept a kitchen window partly open almost all winter long. As for rain, when I moved up there the average rainfall was 31 inches, and Dallas' was 33 - it's just that Dallas has a few gully-washers yearly, whereas Portland enjoys mist or drizzle a couple times a week much of the year.

I do have to warn you though, it does (or did) have the highest suicide rate in the U.S, probably due in part to the fact that the sky is often overcast, there's less peak light (unless you mean on mountain peaks) at that lattitude, and so forth. However, I actually prefer those conditions to the ones down here, so I was happy during the winter months.

reply 2:

Nice travel-guide-related website: Lonely Planet

events calendar

Powell's history page [comment regarding my relationship with them through my excellent former employer deleted]
If that's not bookish enough, try Reed. "Reedy" is a fitting name for most of the students.

public gardens If you're at all interested in nice gardens to walk through, the International Rose Test Garden is a great place to walk around.
If you have more time, the Japanese Garden is pretty must the only garden outside Japan considered to be "real" (the Mt. Fuji-stand-in doesn't hurt, either)

At some point, if you drink alcohol, or even just eat, you might end up visiting one of these. They've converted a lot of old schools, etc. into pubs along with the usual locations.

You probably won't want to go out there if you don't have much time on your trip, but see if you can recognize this hotel from the picture. [It's this one, Slashdotters]

The Columbia River Highway runs east of Portland, and includes some nice scenery of Multnomah Falls and the Gorge area.

Out west is Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock.

Oh, tying almost everything in town is the MAX, the light rail service. Gues

As Bay Area guy, I love Portland

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of California is based on a semi-arid desert. So it's brown and dry most of the time. Even in San Francisco, where I live, you can see that in the hills around the bay. Now Portland, yes, you get more rain, but that's why it feels like a giant garden. The only minus I can say about Portland is that during the summer, humidity can be higher than in the Bay Area. But honestly, if I could trade places (and stay employed) with a person in Portland, I would do so instantly.

Re:Silicon Forest?

[digitalunity]

Ahem... Listen up.

Vancouver, WA(8 miles north of portland) is nearly always regarded as a distant suburb of Portland. So, with Portland and Vancouver combined, you have:
Intel
Xerox
Tektronix
Sharp
WaferTech(s ubsidiary of TSMC)
Shin-Etsu Hondotai-America(subsidiary of Shin-Etsu Chemical, largest silicon wafer manufacturer in the world)
Kyocera
Fujitsu
LSI Logic
Linear
I'm sure I'm missing many others.

There is a reason we have the name 'Silicon Forest'.

Re:So...

[tabrisnet]

>Does that mean there will be significantly fewer articles about Transmeta?

Actually, he left Transmeta... over a year ago, in order to concentrate more on his Linux kernel work.

http://lwn.net/Articles/36577/

-- tabris
-
Bet nobody with modpoints will read this.

Good choice, Linus!

[Futurepower(R)]

Yes, welcome, Linus!!!

If you need some help in getting oriented or someone to show you around, send me an email.

Living in Portland is far better than in NoCal. NoCal has too many cars and bad smog.

Here's useful info:

Portland has the largest bookstore in the world.

Portland borders on the confluence of the Willamette River and the Columbia River, one of the largest rivers in the world.

One of the 7 WindSurfing Wonders of the World is in the Columbia River Gorge, on the eastern edge of the Portland metropolitan area.

Portland has one of the largest and most successful dealers in contemporary art in the world. The gallery has a funny name, but shows the work of over 1,100 artists.

Portland has the largest park inside a city in the world. The park has over 74 miles of wilderness hiking trails and 5,124 acres.

Portland is the home of Pink Martini, a band that writes multi-cultural songs. One of Pink Martini's songs was once one of the most popular songs in France. You can listen to the music video.

It's a 55 minute drive from downtown Portland to the ski areas. "World Class Skiing in Your Own Backyard."

The K-12 Linux Project, in Portland, is one of the more successful projects for giving Linux to average users, who in this case are students.

On the other hand: Q. Why do hippies come to Portland? A. Because there are no jobs.

Many people don't like the months of rain every year. They say Portland is the perfect place for slugs and ducks. (However, the rain cleans the air.) Those with the correct philosophical orientation call it Liquid Sunshine.