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Linus Shares the Millennium Technology Prize
udas writes "The Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every two years for a technological innovation that significantly improves the quality of human life, today and in the future. This year, Linus Torvalds, Linux's creator, and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, maker of a new way to create stem cells without the use of embryonic stem cells, are both laureates for the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize. This prize, which is determined by the Technology Academy of Finland, is one of the world's largest such prizes with candidates sought from across the world and from all fields of technology. The two innovators will share over a million Euros. The final winner will be announced by the President of the Republic of Finland in a special ceremony on June 13, 2012."
And how is Linux a "technology innovation" ? I could barely even install it a few times (and probably could not install it or get it to work more than a few times). I propose that the next award should go to Bill Gates for the Windows Installer (which I probably used a thousand times to install and deploy a working Windows OS).
Am I getting it right, that plug&play and other features of Windows which simplify users' lives are NOT innovation, but editing config files, compiling drivers (after editing the source to include that certain device id) and whatnot, ARE innovations ?