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Linus Torvalds For Nobel Peace Prize?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm as much of a Linux fanboy as anyone else, but I've never thought of anything in computing as being worth a Nobel Peace Prize. Apparently, there are those who take global collaboration seriously, though..." The suggestion has been bouncing around the Portland Linux community, where Torvalds lives. Is it worthy of wider attention and discussion?
Perhaps we could better decide if we saw a list of Linus' global peace initiatives...
Gregor
There are real people making real change on this planet. While I like Linux as much as the next guy, this is not going to happen.
Is it worthy of wider attention and discussion?
Why do you talk about it? Find someone in this list:
University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes;
Willing to Submit him for it and go back to coding. Don't go campaigning for some person to win the Nobel peace prize, call up your contacts at Washington University and discuss it with them. If you can't convince them to nominate him, it's probably not going to work.
This is not an elected award so I wouldn't waste my time trying to impose outside influence on a committee for a Nobel prize. The committee decides, not the community. I'm sure every profession has their savior/icon that they think deserves this award for revolutionizing something and altering humanity for the better. You're free to talk all you want but it's not going to change anything. Discussing it online is nothing but a waste of time unless your intentions are to embarrass Linus.
My work here is dung.
Absolutely. Peace isn't merely politicians negotiating treaties, public-spirited volunteers planting trees, religious leaders preaching tolerance, or organisations raising money to save endangered species. Peace is an instrument towards achieving open-minded and open-hearted coöperation amongst people from a wide variety of cultures, ethnicities and countries working towards creating solutions for the common welfare. If anyone deserves the Peace prize, Linus Torvalds probably does. Or perhaps the open-source movement, as a whole. Software may not be as visible as loud activists and marching protesters, but it has achieved the kind of collaboration amongst interested private individuals and companies that the environmental movement or any of various well-meaning political groups can only envy.
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
I've always been interested in seeing how computers get used in the far-flung parts of the world, and between OLPC and websites showing off pics of tribemen using Linux on laptops to check prices, weather info, etc., it would seem that Linux has made a difference both in the "developed" world as well as the places where computers may not be as prevalent.
Certainly it stands to reason that not everyone needs access to email, say, but everyone would like to know whether it's going to rain tomorrow, and there may not be a local radio or tv station to provide that info, but a computer with some sort of internet access could. So if I'm only going to use a computer once in a blue moon, or if I'm one who provides computers to folks who only need an extremely limited data set, why not be Linux? It's totally dependable and, most importantly, it's free. This is critical when the local economy may rely more on bartering and the exchange of physical goods for services; I can't imagine Microsoft would be willing to sell Windows for a few dozen eggs.
So yes, I'd be behind such an honor; the whole point of the Nobel Peace prize is to award people who have made other lives better, and providing the platform on which anyone, anywhere can build upon to provide anything, at the most local level, I can't see how this *doesn't* qualify.
Political satire lost all meaning when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Stallman's working for social justice, freedom and equality. He gets chosen less often as a posterboy, but he's the one doing the really important work.
Linus is only popular because his style is convenient for IBM and the other megacorps. He goes with the flow, let's those with power do what they want.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
My thought exactly. I don't want to presume to speak for Linus, but I'd hope he'd be insulted by the thought of being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, since the track record of its awardees (not just Obama, he's merely the most recent example) shows that the prize itself is meaningless at best.
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Not starting a nuclear war with Iran is technically doing nothing, but I still think it's a very, very good idea.
George W. Bush didn't start a nuclear war with Iran and he didn't get a Nobel Peace Prize.
Also, keep in mind that Obama has a few more years in which he could start a nuclear war with Iran.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I tend to agree, though I wouldn't discount Linus that much. He wrote the first versions of the kernel and has been its guiding force ever since, so it's not just a matter of being some random guy in an age long gone. Still, the whole movement in which Linux blossomed was by and large Stallman's creation and initiative, and even though he's a bit loopy and can be a major prick, if anyone deserves it, it's Stallman.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...they work perfectly? So why are Apple products only #4 in reliability in this universe?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I'm a big fan of both Thorvalds and Obama, but I don't believe either of them deserves a Nobel Peace Prize... yet.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They'll give a Nobel Peace Prize to ANYBODY these days...just look at the last guy who got it... Don't flame, I like Obama a lot, but I'll be damned as to why he won a peace prize for stuff he is 'going' to do
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
If anyone, it should be Stallman, for writing the GPL, for starting the free software movement and spreading knowlege of the existence of free software and for explicitly backing a public cause, and basically dedicating his life to it. In comparison, Torvalds is just an above average software engineer/project manager, who doesn't care about the public good so much as writing good code and getting the credit.
That is the point. Stallman founded a religion, and Torvalds gave us a tool. Yes, you needed the religion first, but a lot more people were willing to work on the tool. That was the real tipping point for FOSS.
I'd hate to see the guy who calls his co-opetition "masturbating monkeys" get a peace prize. :)
That aside, I firmly believe that the GPL is the reason for the success of the Linux kernel and of GNU/Linux. Compare the success of Linux and GNU/Linux to other systems which are more stable and have better documentation (like OpenBSD). There are many reasons why this might be, but I think that there would have been far fewer contributions to the Linux kernel if its license did not provide equal access for all contributors. A substantial part of Linux was written by commercial entities who would undoubtedly not be willing to invest in a product which their competition could build upon without contributing likewise in return.
We all owe a tremendous debt to RMS that I doubt will ever be repaid.
Agreed. Those were my thoughts as well. Stallman's insight to see what was coming and draft the GPL has contributed immeasurably to the freedom and variety in the current software landscape. I honestly think it was a stroke of genius to use Copyright law itself in such a way as to create a code base that cannot be bought-out/subverted by corporations. Stallman had the vision to make it possible.
The problem is that without Linus I have a feeling that Linux would now be where Hurd is. Sometimes the people who have the best ideas are not necessarily the best people to implement them.
Is there any reason they can't just give it to both of them?
I dont read
What about giving the prize to someone who has the power to withdrawal troops, but continues the wars? Get this: someone who is actively perpetuating a war gets a peace prize...
Linus, RMS, Eric Raymond, and Theo De'Rahdt are all exchanging ideas, sometimes harshly, they are not exchanging bullets. I'd say they all have a lot to teach politicians.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Obama got it because the whole world was overjoyed with having a non moron in charge of the worlds largest superpower, to top it off he could speak in real sentences !
the nobel peace prize has entered the realm of farce (arafat, kissinger, and obama for smiling nicely) and has destroyed its legitimacy
of course, maybe the whole idea was doomed from the start as a flawed idea
perhaps the prize should be reconstituted as a way to recognize truly deserving underappreciated efforts, such as microlending in poor areas or water purification projects. in other words: no matinee idols or celebrities need apply. this would rule out deserving celebrities like nelson mandela, but it would also rule out the likes of kissinger and arafat. no more stunt prizes like obama's
a prize only for the truly anonymous makes a heck of a lot more sense actually in the realm of what it really means to labor for peace selflessly, which is true peacemaking anyways
so if not discontinued, the prize should be reconsituted with strict guidelines as a prize for the truly anonymous
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That is the point. Stallman founded a religion, and Torvalds gave us a tool.
Really? Maybe you aren't aware of the tools Stallman wrote? Stallman wrote the first versions of gcc, gdb, emacs, etc.
So if you still want to oversimplify it, this is more accurate: Stallman created tools and created open source. Torvalds created a tool.
He's a great speaker when he's reading sentences that someone else wrote. Listening to him speak without a teleprompter aren't nearly as impressive.
That still puts him ahead of the last president, who couldn't seem to talk with or without technological assistance.
...at the expense of solid relationships with our long-term allies. Considering with whom our interests as a country more closely align, do you think this is a good trade? I don't. I think he has a particularly deep hate for the Brits out of some misplaced loyalty to the Kenyan baby-daddy who spawned him, but he's giving the rest of our allies the finger to varying degrees as well.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
No. It was Stallman who gave us the tool; the GPL. This licence is the magic ingredient that makes open source software possible. Without it, without Stallman's contribution, we'd still be stuck with mostly BSD style licences. Private companies would be mooching off and appropriating the work of FOSS programmers, people would be cynical about writing software for nothing, and we wouldn't have a fraction of the fantastic array of software we all have running on our desktops, including the Linux kernel.
We'd all be paying $500 per operating system, and our program suites would mostly consist of massively duplicated pay to use, single function programs or else expensively licensed monolithic program suites like MS Office. Programs provided by private companies with lots of scope to monopolise, little incentive to innovate, and with general contempt for their users. Ask yourself, how would you encode a CD in windows, how would you compile a program, what email client would you use if you couldn't use open source software?
This is what Richard Stallman rescued us from. Restrictive, expensive, bug ridden and often vindictive closed source software. Perhaps you do not like stances. That's fine. But you had best acknowledge that the reason you have a modern web browser to read this site with is largely down to the efforts he made probably before you were even born.
May the Maths Be with you!
My thoughts exactly. I once saw Stallman talking about what he envisions for GPL and freedom of software in the future, and it really looks like he's aiming at a more collaborative and free society. Not only that, but he has taken positive and large steps in getting there, by turning copyright against itself and actively advocating free software and its benefits.
Genius indeed.
I see it as unfortunate that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. If he were more "accepted", his ideas would probably have an even stronger impact.
Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!
It is given to an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field.
It isn't as famous as a Peace Prize, but it does recognize real accomplishment.
I see it as unfortunate that he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. If he were more "accepted", his ideas would probably have an even stronger impact.
A shave and a shower wouldn't hurt in this regard.
Most of these prizes are political anyway. Reagan, Thatcher, and Gorbachev should have won the prize for ending the Cold War in a peaceful way, but since the committee that makes the decision is mostly made of socialist nut jobs they were ignored.
As always, this is just my $0.02 worth.
Computers would have become popular without Windows. All we have Gates to thank for is how well he can market a buggy, incompatible, rarely-updated OS.
Can you compile a Linux kernel without gcc?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I'm not knocking Linus Torvalds' achievements, but I don't see the connection here.
Stallman set out with a vision and objectives (freedom of expression) that are consistent with the merits associated with the Nobel Peace Prize.
I'm not sure Linus' motivations were ever more than an itch to scratch to satisfy his own needs (the lack of a suitably available kernel). He has stated that if either the GNU or 386BSD kernels were available at the time, he likely would not have written his own. It just snowballed from there and he was a better project manager than Stallman in making it happen. The success of Linux may largely be attributed to Linus' technical skills as well as his dictatorial style, which may effective in managing a largely distributed open source project, but is hardly representative of the traits and merits of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Personally, I respect Stallman's philosophical approach to the whole thing way more than Linus' business approach.
I am very sorry to shit on your ego but I doubt you will feel the same when you are a real grown up and actually pay your own way through life.
Are you actually a business person? What is your specialty? If mummy and daddy go broke could your business survive?
I dont read