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Linus To Recieve Honorary Doctorate
JariK writes "Linus Torvalds will recieve an honorary doctorate
from the University of Stockholm Mathematical Department. The information can be found,
regrettably in Swedish only.
" Well, my Swedish is rusty - anyone post a translation below?
This is the best translation I can do with my limited Swedish:
"Our best wooden furniture does not compare to the genius of Linus Torvalds. We bow and scrape before him, and in respect, we silence our mobile phones. We give him the door codes to our buildings so that he may visits our flats. We let him wear his shoes in the house. Cars stop in the streets for him. We drink Aquavit to him, and we compose and sing songs to him at our Kreftskivas. We name species of crayfish after him. Last year Stockholm was the Culture Capital of Europe, this year it is the Linus Capital of Europe, and we will name him winner of Eurovision automatically."
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What Linus did is, he conducted a large scale experiment in software engineering. He tried a bazaar style development on a scale that nobody before him did. As a result, we know more about this software development process today than we did before.
If you read some academic magazines, such as, Communications of the ACM, you will find that many respected researchers complain about the lack of experimentation in CS. Linus did it. Sure, he didn't really plan to do what he did and he didn't write his findings properly up; that's why he gets a honorary degree and not a "real" one. Or maybe ESR should also get a degree, because in CatB, he wrote much of what Linus discovered up (he even verified the experiment on a smaller scale).
And regarding the complaints that the degree comes from a mathematical faculty: it doesn't. The article says "mathematical and natural science faculty". In Europe, CS (including software engineering) is often more closely associated with mathematics than with the engineering disciplines.
So, keep cool.
Chilli
-=- Just a random lambda hacker
Young computer genius to receive one of this year's honorary doctorates
This year's honorary doctors at the University of Stockholm have now been appointed. Among them is the 29-year-old Finnish-Swedish Linus Torvalds, creator of the world-famous Linux operating system. Torvalds lives in Santa Clara, USA.
[snip other doctorates]
The honorary doctors will be promoted (?) at the traditional installation- and promotionceremony in the Blue Chamber of Stockholm City Hall on Friday the 24th of September, when new doctors and jubileedoctors (?) will be promoted as well. New professors will also be installed at this time.
Please note that Linus hasn't earned a degree. He may be the most brilliant man to ever touch a computer, but there is a lot more to earning a degree than demonstrating that your brilliant. What about a thesis?
I've always seen honorary degrees as nothing more than a way for the academic elite to maintain their stranglehold on 'intelligence'(i.e., the attitude that your not truly intelligent until you have a degree). What happens when great things are created by people without the academic stamp of approval? Some school rushes in to give them the stamp so that they can now be 'officially' intelligent.
Linus, refuse their degree. Tell the world that you were smart enough to guide the development of one of the world's greatest software systems without a degree, and that others can do the same.
People who have earned real doctorate degrees have every reason to be proud. It's something that takes years of hard work to obtain. Those achievements shouldn't be watered down by giving 'honorary' degrees to people who haven't done the work, just so universities can be the gatekeepers of intelligence.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba