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Happy Birthday, Linus

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the slow-news-day dept.

Glyn Moody writes "Today is the birthday of Linus. Just under 19 years ago, on the first day the shops in Helsinki were open after the holidays, Linus rushed out and spent all his Christmas and birthday money on his first PC: a DX33 80386, with 4 Megs of RAM, no co-processor, and a 40 Megabyte hard disc. Today, the kernel he wrote on that system powers 90% of the fastest supercomputers, and is starting to find its way into more and more smartphones — not to mention everything in between. What would the world look like had he spent his money on something else?"

5 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. get real by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    exactly 0% of "that kernel" is extant in today's Linux kernel.

    Let's stop the Linus worship, m'kay? After the whole Alan Cox debacle, Linus was exposed for the total douche he is.

    Open source would be a lot better off with a few less egomaniacs like Linus and a few more - dare I say it? - RMS's.

  2. over 40 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Is he going to invent anything else? Or after 40 do you just give up on life?

  3. ALL HAIL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Linux Torvalds has contributed more to humanity than Bill Gatez, Stev Jobs, and Jesus combined.

    He is teh Messiah.

  4. Re:What would the world look like? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Learn to spell nostalgia and you could score -1, flamebait

  5. Now if only the kernel was stable by babaloo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Maybe if he had started with something else I would be able to upgrade my machine and not have to recompile the video driver for a point.point.point-point.point release. Linux is the only operating system in my network (Ubuntu, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, Windows XP and Vista) that this is a problem for.