Linus Torvalds Officially a Hero

CortoMaltese writes "The European edition of the Time magazine has selected Linus Torvalds as one of the heroes of the past 60 years. From the main article: 'In the 60 years that Time has been publishing an Atlantic edition, extraordinary people have emerged from the churn and turmoil, creativity and chaos of a period that witnessed the aftermath of world war, the toppling of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the vanquishing of apartheid in South Africa, the advance of women, the failure of old certainties and the rise of new fears. These people are our heroes, and in this special anniversary issue, we celebrate them and their many achievements.' The article on Linus is titled 'By giving away his software, the Finnish programmer earned a place in history.' Linus is cited in the 'Rebels & Leaders' category along with Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, and others."

Comments

Heroes

[Anonymous Coward]

If giving away Linux earned him a place as a hero, imagine what would happen if Bill released Windows for free!

Re:Heroes

[EllynGeek]

That would make him a terrorist, by magnifying the problem of windoze botnets, spams, phishes, malware of all kinds, fraud, and identity theft a hundred times worse. We wouldn't even be able to get on the Internet at all- all the world's bandwidth would be devoured by warring malware bots.

Re:Heroes

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, the bots would fill the tubes? I guess the internet is not something you can just dump something on, like a truck.

Re:Heroes

[_Sprocket_]

If giving away Linux earned him a place as a hero, imagine what would happen if Bill released Windows for free!

He would be an "innovator".

Re:Heroes

[s20451]

imagine what would happen if Bill released Windows for free!

He would be poor.

Re:Heroes

[pilgrim23]

I have heard of Linus, after all he is a a Hero. Time Mag says so, and he will be remembered as such. Who is this "Bill" of which you speak?

All Hail

[thejrwr]

All Hail King of the Geeks! Linus! Linus!

And

[Konster]

RMS screams out loud, "No, that is GNU/Hero, damn it!"

Re:And

[One Louder]

Yeah, I'd hate to be a chair in Richard Stallman's office right about now - assuming he actually uses a chair and doesn't just levitate.

Now that he's a hero...

[One Louder]

I hope he saves the cheerleader.

What now?

[mapkinase]

Now he has to get his own comic strip, graphic novel, a movie and a computer game.

No Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer in the list!

[Marcion]

Its brave but correct to go with Linus over Microsoft. Just because you are a huge company does not always equal innovation or contribution to the human race. I personally would have also plumped for Tim Berners Lee (The WWW) over J.K.Rowling (Harry potter) but thats just me...

What *kind* of hero is Linus?

[slightlyspacey]

From the dictionary definition of "hero"

hero
-noun
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child. .....

5. a large sandwich, usually consisting of a small loaf of bread or long roll cut in half lengthwise and containing a variety of ingredients, as meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes.

I vote for number 5 myself with mayo and mustard.

Torvalds a "Hero?"

[writerjosh]

This is the same magazine that awarded YouTube "Time's Invention of the Year for 2006" (source)

Forget any medical inventions that actually save lives, Time would rather lavish praise on Asian boy-band lip-syncers and blows-to-the-crotch videos. So, should we really take it serious when Time calls Torvalds a "hero?" Again, has Torvalds really saved any lives or made the planet any better by giving out a free OS? Yeah, I know, down with Bill Gates and all of that, blah, blah, blah. But Torvalds a "hero?" Come on. Let's get our priorities straight.

Now canonize RMS...

[chepati]

and we have ourselves a religion, complete with folklore, script(ure)s, saints, and heroes. A step closer to world domination...

chepati

At long last...

[denttford]

Linux vs. Minix is resolved.
Take that Andy Tanenbaum!

Thanks to TIMEeurope for resolving that.

Re:RTFA

[east coast]

Finland is in Europe.

I get it now! No wonder all the people in Pittsburgh laugh at me when I tell them that "someday I'm just going to get in my car and drive to Finland".

I always thought it was just north-west of Wisconsin. Damn.

Re:My Heroes

[Da Fokka]

Linus, RMS, Tim Berners-Lee, and Jimmy Wales are my biggest heroes.

Jim, is that you?

Re:RMS would a better choice

[dfghjk]

They probably wanted to pick someone who showers. As I understand it, Linus doesn't claim to be allergic to water.