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Linus Torvalds Officially a Hero

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the laurels-for-tux dept.

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."

3 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. My Heroes by quokkapox · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Linus, RMS, Tim Berners-Lee, and Jimmy Wales are my biggest heroes. We need more people like them to stand up and say "I know the way, follow me, let's do this". We need more people like them who value long-term progress over short-term profit. You guys rock. Keep it going. Lots of smart people look up to you.

    --
    it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
  2. RTFA by otacon · · Score: 0, Redundant

    It referes it's published by Time Europe i.e. Heroes from Europe i.e. Linus is from Finland i.e. Finland is in Europe.

    --
    In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
  3. Re:Some would call it Communist by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The very notion that you would write something - software in this case - and then not (a) try to charge an arm and a leg for it,

    Libre != Gratis. Companies are starting to see that Free software can be sold for quite a lot of money. This is coming at the same time as a shift where companies aren't selling what's in the shrink-wrapped box - they're selling what's in their support/analyst staff's heads.

    This couldn't have come at a better time for the free software movement. The result is that business software alone is useless unless you really know what you're doing. As MySQL - making a fortune selling something that's also available, for free, on their website.

    These days, you're as likely to see an OSS person in a suit as birkenstocks.