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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?
I know this is contentious, but I quite like being the devil's advocate. Isn't Bill Gates more suited to the Nobel Peace Prize?
His philanthropy is unparalleled (by monetory value alone, anyway). His influence on the world of computing is undisputed. I'm not saying his influence has been good or bad... just that he's had influence. The world wouldn't be the same without Windows. Regardless of which operating system you favour (for me, it's a tie between OSX and Ubuntu), you cannot deny that Windows has been an important component in the spread of information and education across the world, and enabled all kinds of communication.
A lot of this stuff would have happened anyway, without Windows... but then I could argue that the US civil rights movement would have happened at some point without Martin Luther King (a previous Nobel Peace Prize winner).
I was hoping somebody would point that out. I'd just say that, if you can get an award for things that you're *going* to do, Linus should start telling people that he's going to work hard for world peace in version 3.8 of the kernel. It'd be a no-brainer!
For that matter...I'm working on version 6.0 of the linux kernel, which will not only end hunger, but make fusion-based power a reality and cure cancer. Who's gonna nominate me?
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Considering the amount of time and money that Gates has put into philanthropy, I think that someone could make a decent argument for Gates, or at least the Gates Foundation to receive the Peace Prize.
The example that Eric Schmidt stated to the New York Times was that Tim Berners Lee should have been given a Nobel Prize, but the Nobel community doesn't consider computer science to be in the same spectrum as other traditional life or physic sciences. I think both Tim is without question worthy of a Nobel, and there's a strong case for Linus as well, but it's questionable whether either has the political clout to win.