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Torvalds Dubbed Most Influential Executive of 2004
quamaretto writes "CRN has named Linus Torvalds the most influential executive of 2004, in the magazine's feature list of the top 25 executives of the year. For perspective, he is followed by Sam Palmisano of IBM and Steve Balmer of Microsoft. The coverage of Torvalds is 5 pages, including pictures, a written article, and a lot of interview material. Topics are business centric, including SCO, OSDL, and Torvald's personality in development and management."
Linux is better than M$!
:)
Linus is better than Balmer!
Yeah yeah yeah
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
an executive? What company is he in charge of these days?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Given Linux's penetration of business-level computing, and its influential role on software development as a whole, this is not really as surprising to hear as some might think. Still, it is excellent to see someone recognize this.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Get a life and get a girlfriend, you pasty fat moron
Linus Torvalds has sold out. Big time. Just a tool for The Man now.
I think it's ironic that a normal guy who doesn't have millions in the bank (as far as I know of course, please prove me wrong if neccesary) is seen as more influental than those IBM and MS bigshots.
:)
Funny
This is the sig that says NI (again)
bash: exec: Linus Torvalds: not found
"an executive? What company is he in charge of these days?"
Do they have stock options?
It seems rather odd that Steve Jobs isn't on that list, considering how much the stock price of Apple has gone up this year. The iPod is big news, and the company seems to be coming back into relevance in the Scientific, educational and home desktop markets. Instead, Michael Dell is on there, and all he's done is put a lot of machines together and put out a copy-cat MP3 player. (He's done a good job at it and made a lot of money, don't get me wrong. He's no innovator, though.)
Interviewer: What do you think of _____?
:-)
Linus: Oh I don't know. Doesn't really matter. I just like to code.
Copy-paste as needed.
Laugh at stupidity: mod idiots +1 Funny.
huh...Linus doesn't look a thing like I pictured him.
/First time seeing a pic of the guy
Fellow Linux Users, You know me as Linus Torvaulds, the Norwegian university student who around ten years ago wrote Linucks from scratch in an effort to join ACM on campus. I did not do this to help further the field of computing. I did this simply because I know that a lot of guys major in Computer Science and other computer-related majors in college, and I thought that joining ACM would be a good way to meet other guys and perhaps explore my latent homosexual tendencies. It is here, with this group, on a field-trip to Michigan that I met Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda and his friend, Jonathan "CowboyNeal" Pater. Upon seeing Cowboi, I immediately fell in love. CowboyNeal, or as I affectionately called him in email messages to him, Cowboi, had more feminine curves than most women I've known in his morbidly obese body. I found him very fetching from the get-go. However, at the time, CmdrTaco and CowboyNeal were an item. How would I endure? How was I to survive when my beloved Cowboi was betrothed to another? I followed my heart and decided to talk to Taco about this and hopefully to at least let my feelings be known. Taco took this very well. He accepted and welcomed my feelings for Cowboi, saying that any man would clearly be attracted to his supple feminine curves. He offered to buy me a drink at a local pub. I took him up on it, and that was my first mistake. After a few minutes at the pub and a few sips of my drink, I began to realize that I had made a horrible mistake. My vision began to get cloudy. I couldn't speak very well. I wasn't sure what would happen to me. Taco held me close and told me everything would be okay. He took me back to his apartment, where he performed oral sex upon me, with a little twist; he blew the semen from our overture out of his nose. Yes, this was the invention of the horrible practice of "taco snotting." From this day forth, I have been writing Linucks as a way to get even with Taco and Cowboi. I wanted Cowboi much more than Taco, and when I lost my gay virginity to him, I was enraged. It's became my life, my curse, my mission to make Taco pay by wasting his life promoting software made by dirty, hypocritical gays like Richard M. Stallman. Linucks has turned out to be much bigger than I had thought. I have added special features to it to make it scale not quite as well as NT. I have subtracted features from it, such as USB support and support for other architectures that make it clearly an inferior platform to NT. Still, Taco insists on spending his life promoting such a system. It's obvious to me that my ultimate revenge has been exacted. I'm tired of hiding behind lies. I hope Cowboi will, someday, be mine. Linus Torvaulds
I for one welcoem my new new Lnus overlord.
sorry 'bout the mess...
Linus needs to return to his marxist roots. This bourgeois facade that he is starting to accrue is so unbecoming of the Linux ethos.
He may be a great person, a great kernel programmer, a great executive, but influencial??? He influences what gets into the Linux Kernel and what doesn't. He doesn't set trends. He doesn't guide where the industry is going.
Applications do that, not the kernel. Firefox has an influence. Sure Firefox is Open Source, but Linux has nothing to do with that. Features in desktop environments such as KDE and Gnome can be influencial, an Operating System as a whole can be influencial - but Linux - who deals only with the Kernel. I just don't see it.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is Linus Torvalds influencing the industry? What executive decisions has he made that made that changed everything?
Is he really the most influential executive? It is not a list of the 'best' executives or the most popular executives. It is a list of the most influential executives.
On most days, he toils before a glowing terminal, playing his keyboard like a baby grand, not much different from his early days conceiving the kernel in Helsinki back in 1991. But now Torvalds orchestrates thousands of Linux developers distributed around the globe, synthesizing and arranging the bits into the masterpiece that disrupted the software establishment, crippling Sun, reviving IBM and giving Microsoft a taste of mortality.
Certianly a great number of supporting applications helped, but I wonder where the OSS movement would be today with the Linux kernel.
But when most people think about what an "executive" is, running a company, or being high up in the managerial food chain in terms of running a company, that is what most people think of.
Without question, Mr. Torvalds is some kind of executive, but his duties differ by miles from what most executive like Ballmer / Gates, and all the rest of 'em do.
Isn't whipping out a dictionary and quoting verbatim a little antagonistic?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
So what do you think of the Bill Gates vibrator story?
"I don't"
So you give away this software totally for free? Yecch! I'd hate to have dinner at your house!
"I know, and you won't."
--Chag
I really don't know where to sit in the debate about Linux/Linus and Slashdot. This site really seems to worship Linus Torvalds as a God of Computing, and any mention of him in a positive light always seems to turn up here.
Myself, I am a very happy Linux user, and I really admire Linus for what he's done. But it seems ridiculous the number of times that Linus is noted on this website. Sure, this is news for nerds, but come on, there are many other subjects of interest that are being ignored for the sake of bowing and scraping at the feet of the mighty Linus.
This is just a personal opinion of the editors choices in greenlighting certain posts vs. others, not of Linus himself. (flame on!)
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
</sarcasm>
its about making linux (a kernal) enterprise ready and as a side effect causing real competition to happen again in the market place.
Or in other words, causing the others on the list to alter their ways..... hence most influencial...
and the other side of that coin..
Do the others on the list influence Linus and what he does?
probably not or very little...
More power to Linus!
There goes geekdom. I hope he wore the Tshirt and pants with matching stains to prove he isn't a real executive.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
sorry, but this list is bogus. Anyone heard of STEVE JOBS? Come on, this is a joke, its got a bunch of no names, no names cause they havnt done much, but jobs is absent. Whoever made up this list has probably had some serious brain damage.
Read his (??auto??)biography. If I recall he scooped $20M just from just one Linux company's share options. The company gave Linus a bunch of share options in recognition of his efforts and he cashed up nicely when they went public. Good for him!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Linux definitely has an impact and Linus definitely influences Linux. Just because he doesn't use nasty methods to influence (eg. ballmer/Gates style) does not make him less influential. Indeed Linus' influence is fairly hidden from view, making it all the more effective.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Interview: What irritates you most about the software industry?
Linus: Bad spellers. Definitely...
Thats all fine and dandy that someone called him that, but who are they? I personally have never heard of CRN. I looked around briefly on their website and could find nothing that would allow them to make that qualification any more than some bum who watches cnn every week.
Come on people its the the internet, it doesn't take a lot to put up a website that looks legit and offer opinions on current issue, it doesn't make it news. This is not a linux/windows issue its an issue that has existed ever sicne the press has. How legit is your informaiton
The author goes to pains to find the good in Ballmer. Keywords are man of 'action' and 'energy', and these two words are repeated, with the failure of discovery of another virtue.
Key point is Ballmer's interest in 'innovation'. Goes in line with Microsoft's PR, sounds like there was no research on this man, just interview someone at Microsoft about its CEO.. they'll just repeat the company bottom line.
When I hear 'energy', for some reason reminds me of 'developers, developers, developers'. Makes me proud of Linus' laziness.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Finally, you can be called an executive without actually being part of a corporation.
M
Executive Vice Presidentisimo
This is almost as good as saying Darl is on crack. Linus, as the accomplished veteran of alt.fan.warlords, apparently still knows phony hubris when he sees it.
[Linus toadie mode: off]sigs, as if you care.
Real programmers have sixteen fingers.
I have 8. Does octal count? I also have two thumbs for when I need to use straight binary.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Couldn't resist quoting Linus :-)
Anyone heard of STEVE JOBS?
Nope. Who is he, and what has he *personally* done to shape the world of computing this year?
What influence did Jesus of Nazarath have? He didn't create the Catholic Church. He founded no church. On his own, Christ would not have become the religious success that he is except for the Catholics, the Protestants, etc. If someone doesn't like what he said, they create their own brand of righteousness. So what influence does Jesus have. He's said that sin is wrong, but that hasn't stopped anyone, so where is this influence?
Don't get me wrong, I have respect for what he's done and that he's been able to do it, its far more then I can ever see myself being able to do and he deserves every praise for that, but most influential? That's really streching it.
This does not sound like a Mac Zealot to me, and they do have a valid point. Steve Jobs has done quite a bit with Apple. Maybe not in the past year, but overall has turned the company around. So, he might not have made the list, but dont get angry at the poster.
Them's fight'n words!"
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
What people think is very rarely the truth.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
gotta love it!
The kernel is the cathederal, all the bits tacked onto the kernel are the Bazaar, all set out with stalls, called Redhat, Kde, Suse, Debian, Gnome, Mandrake, I could go on, but it would get boring after a while and yes of course Linus is the Pope, and he has his high priests and magicians as well.
People like Gates have a hobby of making money. People like Torvalds have a hobby of making good things. People used to think it was good idea to own other people AKA slavery (tm), all that has happened is, that they transfered the concept from owning people to owning ideas. Owning ideas is morally reprehensible, ideas want to be FREE.
'His home is one of the newer ones in the neighborhood and is furnished casually, with a few pieces in Danish modern.'
;)
Does that mean IKEA?
The coverage of Torvalds is 5 pages, including pictures, a written article, and a lot of interview material.
Is there a centrefold? :P
Suck it, bitches.
I don't see the names "Schmidt", "Brin" or "Page" in that list. What gives?
he said "penetration"... huh huh uh huhhhh
that a website interested primarily in server technology would pick the instigator of the most popular OSS server technology as their "chief executive". Or that the poster wouldn't point this out. No sample bias there.
The perpetual lip-service and cow-towing before Linus continues.
What did he do in 04 that influenced other business' in their executive decision process?
Fortune 5 companies use either HPUX or Solaris for high-end, high-avaiable server needs. I didn't see HP or Wal-Mart switch from HPUX or Solaris in '04.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
"I guess you could call the belief in sharing of knowledge a 'philosophy,' but I just think it's a fact. It's what differentiates science from alchemy or witchcraft." --Linus Torvalds (2004)
UBU
I thought IKEA was Swedish.
My other first post is car post.
it's kind of the same thing...
Carefull now, I say. MS is not the only player to start the attack with an 'embrace' move.
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
Pwned. Better luck next time, ass.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
Money is not everything.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
If so you already know what it would be like. :)
br The UI and its...inconsistencies is going to be one of the hardest things for any OSS projects I've seen is going to have to get over (if competing with more singularly visioned software is what you want to do).
Quack, quack.
Steve Jobs. Yeah he's been an awesome influence to the entire Apple community. To any member of the Apple community, this *is* the world, so I understand your confusion.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
I'm not a hero-worship kind of guy, but I LOVE that photo of him they took partially from the side. He looks so frigging presidential - he has the look of a hero. He would easily fit in with the other heads on the side of the mountain.
Of course he's an influential executive. Executive in being the final arbiter of the most massive community-resourced code effort the planet has ever seen. Influential in that his role cannot be ignored just because he isn't paid obscene amounts or makes cute statements aimed at brokers. It's like something out of Lao-Tze, he has become the still point in an endlessly churning industry.
My God, the entire culture should take a leaf out of his book. Ownership does nothing. Sharing is what makes things happen. It is a practical philosophy.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
But when will Linus be dubbed singing "like a rhinestone cowboy."
I don't get it.
Paraphrasing (?) an spanish poet called Joaquin Sabina:
Bill Gates is so poor that the only thing he has is money....
Linus may not be a rich man, but what he has (the respect, love and admiration of the computer world) is of much more importance than the billions that Gates has and the trillions he may have in the future....
PENAROL: Seras eterno como el tiempo y floreceras en cada primavera.
Nar it's cause netcraft confirms it, Steve Jobs is dying.
LOL you mean bastid =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
according to RMS.
Linux is influential, with ramifications through-out the whole computer software industry and probably beyond. I don't think anyone is questioning that, so we move to the second part, Linus' personal influence over Linux.
While Linus may not have control the way MS and Apple does over their software, from an external point of view Linus stands completely unchallenged. Linux is, like it or not, in most peoples' mind personified by Linus. Whatever he says or does with the kernel is considered an influential decision of where Linux is going.
And if you don't think Linux is the big talker, there's a lot of power in understatement. Like this quote: "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect." Sounds as if he's a giant that accidentally stepped on an ant.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The only people I know who have an Apple computer at home, also use Apple at work. I strongly suspect that is the general trend.
For home, most people choose 1) what they have at work, or 2) something capable of web and email, or 3) something to play games on. For 2, everything works, but a PC is cheapest. For 3, PC has the games and game hardware first.
He has, by the example of his competent leadership, demonstrated that important business software can be developed under a free software license.
This has influenced the industry so that 1) it is much more likely to rely on free software (Linux and other), and 2) it is much more likely comtribute to, and to release software of its own under a free software license.
Isn't whipping out a dictionary and quoting verbatim a little antagonistic?
...
i would say, definitely no. it is because people are afraid of dictionaries that the literacy rate is so low.
have more respect for the actual definitions of words, and you may find your life becoming a lot richer for it
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
which explains the respect. Executive is inappropiate for business founders and especially so when love istead of money is the goal.
Unlike (perhaps all) the others though torvalds power is very different to the usual executive power eh?
Most respected boss?
Anyone heard of a company as sensitive to the whole community as linux? (not retorical; I want to work there!)
A blog I run for the wealth
I don't do handhelds. If it doesn't fit in my pocket, it might as well be a real computer. And none of the handhelds are.
Typical Linus, iron fist in a velvet glove. Wonderful stuff. I was conflicted about this issue (whether or not to get a powerful handheld) but the belly laugh when I read this convinced me to keep computing on my desk (or lap) and keep the gadgets pocket sized.
Congratulations Linus on your deserved selection as most influential.
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
plagiaristic
adj : copied and passed off as your own; "used plagiarized data in his thesis"; "a work dotted with plagiarized phrases"
No. And yes, I just HAD to post this. It's in my nature.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
That is the point....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... if there is no profit or money involved then the same person demonstrating managerial capabilities all of the sudden lacks them all?
Give us a fscking break.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For now, quoting is still fair use.
Of course, all bets are off when The Shrub's new IP Czar takes control, public domain is abolished and quoting becomes a "Terrorist Act" that gets you declared an "Enemy Combatant"
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
bush: /bin/laden: Command not found
Víctor R. Ruiz
rvr(at)blogalia.com
I'd say shift in society.
P2P, blurred distribution.
The Internet, blurred countries.
OpenSource, blurred company definitions.
Working from home, blurred office space.
The problem is that there are an hell of a lot of fat cats (and governments) who don't want to see this kind of level playing field (it's not good for business), or maybe don't even realise whats happening.
Personally I believe that this kind of 'community' working approach is the only way to reduce waste to a sustainable level.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.