neal writes "Fortune has an article that selects Linus as one of the'people' to watch in 2000! " Just another sign of the recognition that Linux and Open Source as a whole has garnered over the last eighteen months or so. Here's to 2000 being even better than 1999.
It's amazing how much positive feedback that one man generates. There's not a lot of computer people we can point to that we can say, "Now THAT person embodies a lot of good things in the computer community, and good things to come."
Even MS boosters don't rally behind Bill like this. (I should know.)
Indeed. What fascinates me is how much respect Linus gets. When he says something, people really listen. Contrast that to Bill Gates. Most people I know don't really care what he says. ----
I think it has a lot to do with his personality. If you've ever read any interview with Linus, you get the impression that he is a frank, straightforward man who has nothing to hide. He has his principles and plays by them. Contrast this with most top businessmen, (and please don't misunderstand, I'm not putting them down) who usually speaks in techno-babble (or is that biz-babble?) and try to sound "deep" with big words. They may not be insincere in any way, but somehow the "professional" and "biz" manner makes people feel they are far away. With someone like Linus, I think people can identify with him more. You almost feel like he is very approachable and won't turn up his nose with a "what a stinky beggar" attitude. (No, I'm not saying biz people have this attitude, but I'm talking about people's impressions here.)
If I were to choose between the "Linus type" and the "big CEO type", I'd choose the former, even if the latter has bigger bucks. I think many people would do the same.
--
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
Re:could it be
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Anonymous Coward
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it wasn't meant to be:(
oh well, first will do then.
Hmm...I guess
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Anonymous Coward
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it's better than the idea of Bezos *guffaw* being Time's Man of the Year...
Umm, I guess they want to pay him because the company he created basically defined what a successful e-commerce operation should look like, beat much larger competitors hands down, and has been providing excellent service to bookworms like me all around the planet. They only recently screwed up with the "one-click" litigation issue. --
Last time I checked, a -589% EPS was NOT successful (See for yourself).
I work for a company that builds.com businesses, and we laugh whenever we hear about Bezos, etc. He typifies the American "get rich quick" Dream which has been exponentiated by the ridiculousness of Yahoo's $400+ stock price. He ran what would have been the greatest e-commerce business model into the ground because he was impatient. Amazon will not be profitable for at least 3-5 for years (and that's generous). That is, unless they reincarnate Sam Walton to run their warehouses, or merge with FedEx or UPS. Watching Bezos strip Amazon's gears gave me more respect for *gasp* Bill Gates and what he was able to do business-wise in a new field with technology back in the day.
Sure, I'm jealous. But he still ain't Man of the Year.
Why should he be man of the year, for this list anyway. For the list that this article is referring to, even Bill Gates is much more deserving of the title.
-- --
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Re:doesn't surprise me
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Anonymous Coward
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Er--I thought Jeff Bezos was on the original Linux design team?
I care. When I have the need to use a strange new hardware device that I don't know much about, I find that the kernel Mr. Torvalds shapes is easy to configure, debug, and fix. Might I mention that the kernel is very flexible and most reliable. So, I'm not surprised when a kernel he hacks creates a great impact on the computing industry. If you don't watch what he does, you might be in the dark.
Where the hell have you been, the north poll? More people know who Linus is and where he works (transmeta) than people know who bill gates is. ======= There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
I think the point the original poster made (I'm a bit surprised, too) is not that he works for free for Transmeta but that he works for free for Transmeta. Can this be confirmed?
Eric
Re:free?
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Anonymous Coward
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Don't start flaming unless you understand the question. He didn't ask if Linus works for Transmeta, he asked if he works for FREE for Transmeta.
Where the hell have you been, the north poll? More people know who Linus is and where he works (transmeta) than people know who bill gates is.
Ummm, I'd be more than willing to put money up that says you are wrong. Outside of the geek community, Linus is hardly known at all. Sure, he is poping up more and more, but he isn't as well known as Steve Jobs, let alone the (in)famous Mr. Gates.
And ease up a little. It's people like you that turn people off to this little "open source" movement. Here is a newbie, with a simple question and you flip out on him. I'm sure when you arrived at slashdot, you knew every major player, their bio's and current job right?
He has children to support. He's not living in a cheap part of the country. I doubt he's volunteering at a commercial company. (Especially when every article about his says that he works there, as does he.)
--
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
I'm not going to claim that I'm a specialist or anything like that, but didn't it say that he worked "free for Transmeta" and not "for free for Transmeta"? One can debate the difference of course, but the point the editor is trying to make I guess is that Linus isn't bound to Linux or any of the distributions.
My 86 year old grandmother hasn't the slightest clue who Bill Gates is, but she read an article about linus recently (I believe it was in a tabloid), and was asking me about him. And no, I wasn't flipping out on him. I apologize if it came out like that. I was actually just trying to add some humor to a rather boring monday. ======= There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Interesting. You're calling me an idiot, yet you are unable to produce ONE sentance with correct grammer. Quite pitiful. My condolences to your family for having to raise you. And please, next time, I might take you just a bit more seriously if you had an actual account with/. It's not as though it would take a large amount of your precious time to set up... Time that you could better use mating with you sister... ======= There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
I'm not going to claim that I'm a specialist or anything like that, but didn't it say that he worked "free for Transmeta" and not "for free for Transmeta"? One can debate the difference of course, but the point the editor is trying to make I guess is that Linus isn't bound to Linux or any of the distributions.
I think that the point was supposed to be that he works on Linux freely, and for Transmeta.. Odd way of wording that though.. I'm sure Transmeta pays the man.:-)
---
-- - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Re:free?
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Anonymous Coward
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neither can you spall a sentaaanncee with corrrrrect spellin, cant cha? try mod_speling, next time.... hehe.
Just because your grandmother - who must know nothing about the computer industry - accidentally happened upon an article about Linus, that doesnt mean that Linus is better known than Gates. The difference between the popularity of Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds (regarding computers) is about the same as the difference between Albert Einstien (sp?) and Dmitri Medeleeff (regarding science).
-- --
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I really hate to send a reply just to agree, but yes, they certainly do. Linus himself had stated that he's gotten his "well paid job at Transmeta" because of his success with Linux.
The point he was trying to make while saying it (in an interview last summer) was that even though he hasn't made any money off the actual Linux source, Linux and the fame it brought him has gotten him a nice paycheck at Transmeta.
Well, I am the original poster, and this is a rather amusing thread. If any of you had actually read my question, you can see that I question Linus working FREE, that's right, FREE for Transmeta. The article points out that Linus works free for Transmeta. Therefore I question it.
-- Sosumi. just kidding. DONT!
Re:free?
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Anonymous Coward
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maybe some of us could try mod_personality.... but on the other hand who would know what to do with one...
DOWN with the MAN, whomever he IS...
Re:free?
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Anonymous Coward
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You are both pathetic !! You're spitting on each other over some stupid spelling mistakes. To the guy who made the remark about the sister: trash-minded animals like you should be wiped off the face of this earth.
Re:free?
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Anonymous Coward
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Yep. Too bad it ain't you.
Re:free?
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Anonymous Coward
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...the north poll?
Let me guess--that would be Bradley leading Gore in New Hampshire, right?
Idiot.
Re:free?
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Anonymous Coward
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Yes, I agree. We are all pathetic. Just like/. . But on the other hand, hey, it's fun flaming each other. Can anyone tell me why one would even post anything on here it if wasn't for fun? As for me, I just like to sit back and watch while others are biting each other's heads off. Quite funny.
The vaguely anticapitalist crusade is about the only faintly new comment, and only insofar as that's a three word way of nicely describing the ambiguity of the relationship between "free software" and "business."
Boy, this is liable turn into an illuminating thread... NOT.
-- If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
It would have been more interesting if...
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Howard+Beale
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he was one of People's "25 most intriguing people of '99":)
Re:It would have been more interesting if...
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SatanicPezDispenser
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...or People's Sexiest Man Alive? --I saw what you did,and I know who you are.
-- Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
http://www.jackiereaper.com
Well, this is going to start one more of those long whiny threads about "well why the hell does it matter?" that followed the Time POTMillennium article. (Or will it? After all, this is Linus himself...)
So let me get in my $0.02: it does matter. Your marketroids and PHBs will look at Fortune, and say, ooo, Linux! A new buzzword! And maybe, just maybe, they'll ask their sysadmin to try it out, instead of attempting to install it themselves on their ultra-new winmodem-equipped laptop. One can wish, right? Especially in this season?
As for AE on the cover of Time magazine, maybe they'll say, ooo, Einstein. Isn't he the E=mc^2 dude? and then take a few moments to learn about some of the radical and cool stuff physics / astronomy has accomplished in the last fifty years. (And let me assure the unconvinced - long after the Civil war, India's independence and even WWII have faded into obscurity as long-ago provincial conflicts, Einstein's accomplishments will be remembered and used on a daily basis!)
Or maybe the PHB's will pick up a few more unemployed physics grad students? That wouldn't be so bad either...:)
-- "I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
Re:Why this *is* important
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Anonymous Coward
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"We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom." - Kodos, Simpsons Episode 4F02
The fact that you chose that as your signature, when there are much better lines from the Simpsons than that, and much better quotes from something other than the Simpsons, just shows what a pathetic little pimple-faced 14-year old you are.
Re:Why this *is* important
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Anonymous Coward
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ust shows what a pathetic little pimple-faced 14-year old you are.
Please, don't make fun of the trolls. Just because they live under a bridge and are always in the dark, does not mean that you can poke critism at them. They are fragile and cannot communicate as effectively as us. Be considerate in the future and not rub it in. Its Christmas. Just because they have a shitstorm and need to post, please show some mercy as trolls have feelings too. Thank you!
I believe you mean...
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Anonymous Coward
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here's to 1900 being better than 1999. Now _that_ is something I cannot argue with. Back to simpler days...
In case you were wondering, these are the other people that Fortune has picked besides Linus as people to watch in 2000:
Jeff Bezos- Amazon.com Mike Armstrong- AT&T Jill Barad- Mattel Jeffrey Immelt- General Electric Michael Eisner/Steve Jobs- as Disney/Pixar and not as Apple CEO David Komansky- Merrill Lynch John Reed / Robert Rubin / Sandy Weill- Citicorp Bill Ford Jr- Ford Motor Co. Mary Meeker- Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Chris Gent- Vodafone Nobuyuki Idei- Sony Bill Gates- Microsoft Lou Gerstner- IBM Peter Drucker- business management guru Carly Fiorina- HP
Hmm, Linus, Bill Gates, Carly Fiorina, and Jeff Bezos: only four computer people. Or should that be : wow, four computer people. In any case, I think only one (guess which) is a real computer person, the others are just businessmen who have something to do with computers.
Of course it's business people, but then they shape the business.
Linus made it into the list I suspect as symbolic of the Linux dot IPO dot frenzy.
BTW, Steve Jobs? You may have noticed him on the list, had a little to do with Apple. Nobuyuki Idei, Sony president, they do plenty with computers and more importantly consumer electronics. Mary Meeker's an internet analyst; isn't that computing related enough either? And Mike Armstrong, AT&T... nah, they have nothing to do with computing...
The list shows computing and it's uses are all pervasive.
-- "You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
Re:in good company?
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Anonymous Coward
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Mattel?
Why the hell Mattel?
What about LEGO???
print "\"$wittyTagLine\" -- $randomPerson \n";
Re:in good company?
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Anonymous Coward
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Slashdot, your script sucks. I previewed that before I sent it.
Please don't try to isolate the bug and send a report to Rob Malda--he would really hate that. It's much easier for him to find and fix the way you reported it.
-- spawn_of_yog_sothoth
Every good ship needs a figurehead.
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belgin
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And for the GPL, the media has selected Linus Torvalds. There are people who have only the vaguest idea of what that free software thingy is, but they have heard of Linus Torvalds to one degree or another. As/. discussion on the TIME POTC pointed out, it is not always the most talented or brilliant who becomes the icon for an ideal, but the one percieved to start things and is known to the people.
Another example of this in American history is General George Washington. He hardly ever won a battle in our Revolutionary War, but was hailed a great leader of men and was pretty much offered the position of King of the United States of America, if he wanted it. (He didn't.) It doesn't matter too much what he did and didn't do, because he was a cultural icon. He symbolized a great freedom in the minds of the residents of a struggling group of colonies, and later in a young nation. Einstien also falls into the category of cultural icons for the twentieth century.
Linus is stepping into the same role (on a smaller scale for now) in the concept of open source. People outside the open source community see him and say, "Oh, that's the guy who wrote Linux. He represents that free software movement." Whether it is good or bad, this is the path that I see before us.
B. Elgin
--
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
Re:Every good ship needs a figurehead.
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MDX-F1
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Another example of this in American history is General George Washington. He hardly ever won a battle in our Revolutionary War, but was hailed a great leader of men and was pretty much offered the position of King of the United States of America, if he wanted it.
I think you're short-changing Washington here. In military terms, he was responsible for the Trenton/Princeton campaign of 1776 (which had a crucial impact on colonial morale), and the final campaign of the war which ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. In less tangible terms, he inspired a great deal of loyalty in his troops, which no doubt enabled the army to endure in very difficult circumstances.
The point of this is that while Washington may be mythologized, he really does have some pretty important accomplishments to his name. Hope this didn't get too far off-topic, but I thought it was worth mentioning since you were comparing Washington and Linus.
Re:Every good ship needs a figurehead.
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belgin
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The point of this is that while Washington may be mythologized, he really does have some pretty important accomplishments to his name. Hope this didn't get too far off-topic, but I thought it was worth mentioning since you were comparing Washington and Linus.
I agree with you.
Washington did some very important things for the American Revolution, but I was trying to illustrate that the public faith in him outstripped his actual accomplishments. Similarly, Linus is often credited as if he is solely responsible for everything that Linux has become.
Important figures they both are/were, but their actions did not correlate with the full degree of respect and credit they are given. This is why they are cultural icons. Their great actions inspired further actions that led to a great result. Culturally, they are often creditied with all the results of people who followed their examples. This is also true of Ghandi, Einstein, even Hitler, and countless others, good and bad.
B. Elgin
--
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
Linux was, I'm sure, put on the list due to the sudden upsurge of popularity and fame regarding Linux. But, if I were choosing, I'd have had a hard time deciding who's responsible for Linux doing so well. Sure, Linus started it, but without many others, it probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere... The community as whole is self-reliant, and requires the whole of itself to thrive as it does. Linux is not now, nor has it really ever been, a one-person job, so it's hard to credit one person as being more important than others. Too bad it wasn't things to watch. I'd be much happier having seen "The Linux Community" instead of Linus.
But good for him, nonetheless.
-- Devilled Eggs - A disturbing little creation of mine.
Carly Fiorina pr0n?
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Anonymous Coward
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And for the GPL, the media has selected Linus Torvalds.
No, they didn't. The article didn't say anything about the GPL. If you were to poll the media, I'd say that a good number of them will have heard of Linux, and that the vast majority will have never heard of the GPL. The reason for the Linux hype is because it's quality free beer -- the "free speech" aspect has almost nil to do with its overall popularity. Why did you mention the GPL in regards to this article, anyway?
If you were to poll the media, I'd say that a good number of them will have heard of Linux, and that the vast majority will have never heard of the GPL.
You are right. When I was writing my comment, I was doing something of a mad lib. People outside of the open source community tend to use the words GPL, Linux, free software movement, and open source VERY interchangably, when they know more than one of the words. I know this, because I spent a while at the outermost fringes of vague knowledge myself. I would still consider myself as a semi-knowledgable observer of the open source community more than a member of it.
I simply used that random lack of knowledge in my comment to place terms where one of these buzzwords would go. I apologize for not making this clear in my original comment. I like to write comments that point out the perspective of those who are less knowledgable than the average/.er, and sometimes forget to document what I am doing.
B. Elgin
--
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
Heh, I gotcha, no problemo. Re-reading what I wrote, I didn't mean to be so brusque with you -- I had some dog barking in my ear and took my annoyance out on you. Take care.
Cheers, ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
RMS has insisted
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Anonymous Coward
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that it be called GNU/People to Watch because People to Watch is just the operational part of tha magazine, and without the GNU tools, there would be no People to Watch.
He is also running off photocopies of the magazine because he of course touts Free Magazine through the GNU project.
He works free for a Silicon Valley chip-design startup called Transmeta.
Since when? So basically Mr. Linus works for free, and then lives off stocks that CEO gave him? Nothing wrong with that, I would like some sweet Linux tech stocks.
IIRC he got paid a crap load of money for developing a new generation CPU. I though he was still getting paid, maybe not.
I would work for free if I got a crap load of differant Linux stocks and didn't have to worry about money and paying the bills.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w use Joke() or die ("You can't take a joke!\n");
But I think this is wrong. We need to take a stand and say "NO MORE SLAVE LINUZ LABOR! SET HIM FREE! NO MORE SLAVE LINUZ LABOR! SET HIM FREE!"
Free Linuz Free your source Free your mind!
--
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Who's Dmitri Medeleeff?:) From some searching I did, I believe the name is Mendeleeff and he published Periodic Law of the Elements. I found this link on yahoo and google. Pretty weak...but it mentions his name!:)
-- Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
Sorry about the mispelled name, I didnt catch it on my preview. And correct, he did create the Periodic Table and was the first to start putting elements into families (such as alkali metals and halogens).
-- --
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Re:Another article on the subject...
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Anonymous Coward
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COULD SOMEONE PLEASE MODERATE THIS UP???? THIS IS A PRETTY GOOD ARTICLE!!!!
I'm not quite sure why everyone jumps up and down like happy 1st-graders who just got out early. This article evokes images of small children who will get ecstatic whenever anyone mentions them, because they love the attention. Usually, people who like the limelight that much will end up doing stupid things to get it back when it fades.
Can't we just accept that Linux has been noticed by the big boys? It isn't like Linus is a huge surprise on the Fortune list. I agree that it's good that Linux still has that limelight. Do you think Fortune picked him because he had helped start a stable, fast, open source operating system?
Well, maybe. But more likely, they chose him because he's the figurehead of a movement which has of late been spawning Wall Streets biggest IPOs in history. Fortune 500 notices that sort of thing.
Okay, Linux has been noticed. Everyone knows it's there, everyone knows what it is (more or less) and everyone knows what it's doing. Anyone interested in business has done at least a little research into the subject of this thing. We can stop leaping for joy and shaking hands now. Accept it: Linux is famous. Famous, famous, famous. Now push up your sleeves (or not, if you're wearing a t-shirt) and do something about that fame. Retain it. Make Linux an operating system worthy of market share. (you might say it is already, but it isn't. if it was, it'd have the market share already)
The work is yet to come. The Linux movement has yet to put out a product that can compete on every level with Windows. Sure, it's more stable and probably a bit faster. But do you think that's what Joe Computer-User looks for? He wants something that'll run all his existing programs, run all the future programs he might need, and most importantly, be easy to use. He needs to sit down at that Linux computer in the store and pick it up so fast that he might as well be using windows. Then, after he gets a feel for the differences, lay him with the stability, cost, and all that jazz.
A lot of the people working with Linux look down on GUIs and prefer their command lines. But we have to face the fact that without the most user friendly interface possible, Linux will never survive outside of hackers and others who like to type cryptic commands into a black screen with white letters and make things happen.
-- Then again, I could be wrong.
Re:Wonderful news!
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Anonymous Coward
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wow that was really creative, in an intensely funny kind of way. You're my hero.
Why thanks! I also do weddings and bar mitzvahs.
Why?
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Anonymous Coward
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"Fortune has an article that selects Linus as one of the'people' to watch in 2000! "
The spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes on/. bug me sometimes, but I learn to live with them. (Thank God Linux/Unix people can articulate themselves when they write books!) But, why, oh, why, was "people" quoted? Is he really a "penguin"? Or a "team of 'people'"?
Nobody cares about linux
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Anonymous Coward
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I don't think business types or most fortune readers actually give a crap about linux. If anything, they just like exploiting and feeding off of the hype of a well established nerd community demographic.
people to watch..makin' no sense
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karmalien
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Linux's linux waslucky to get the recognition that it does. once windows came out computers became "user friendly". most kids raised on windows who are now teenagers or in the early twenties all realized it suck at a bout the same time.. being the rebels that our generation is we go against the grain and look for an os unlike windows..this generation also being lazy apathetic idiots was in need of an os that was simple like window so it can be easily matered, once master of linux this teen could brag to his other nerd friends that he know linux. thus it spreads through peer pressure... linus was lucky that his os was to say "at the right place at the right time" i predict linux will fall soon and sell out and some other underground os will pickup say maybe v2
Bill Gates, the visionary
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Nicolas+MONNET
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Bill Gates, the visionary who did'nt mention the Internet ONCE in his visionary book "The Road Ahead" in 1995.
my new girlfriend read about him
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rvr
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and that about did it for me! she read about openSource in Atlantic Monthly. so he is getting well known outside geeky circles and squares.
i *knew* she was meant for me, asked her out again. and the rest is history. thanks OpenSource and Linus for providing this litmus test.
Re:my new girlfriend read about him
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Anonymous Coward
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If that was supposed to be funny, I'm here to tell you you failed miserably. If it wasn't, you should probably go stick your head in the oven right now. That's got to be the second-lamest girlfriend-selection criterion ever used. (#1 = big tits)
Re:Another article on the subject...
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Anonymous Coward
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COULD SOMEONE PLEASE MODERATE THIS DOWN???? THERE APPEARS TO BE A PATHETIC SACK OF SHIT HANGING AROUND WITH A BUSTED CAPSLOCK KEY AND A STICKY INDEX FINGER!!!!
Re:Another article on the subject...
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Anonymous Coward
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Boy am I going to be in trouble when someone starts running order-n correlative letter-sequence frequency analyses on AC posts and realizes that I write every single one of them.
Slashdot Mirror
It's amazing how much positive feedback that one man generates. There's not a lot of computer people we can point to that we can say, "Now THAT person embodies a lot of good things in the computer community, and good things to come."
Even MS boosters don't rally behind Bill like this. (I should know.)
What's your damage, Heather?
it wasn't meant to be :(
oh well, first will do then.
it's better than the idea of Bezos *guffaw* being Time's Man of the Year...
he should have been man of the year since he got linux rolling...
either we are networking or we areNT networking
who cares?
I care. When I have the need to use a strange new hardware device that I don't know much about, I find that the kernel Mr. Torvalds shapes is easy to configure, debug, and fix. Might I mention that the kernel is very flexible and most reliable. So, I'm not surprised when a kernel he hacks creates a great impact on the computing industry. If you don't watch what he does, you might be in the dark.
Sosumi. just kidding. DONT!
Boy, this is liable turn into an illuminating thread... NOT.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
he was one of People's "25 most intriguing people of '99" :)
So let me get in my $0.02: it does matter. Your marketroids and PHBs will look at Fortune, and say, ooo, Linux! A new buzzword! And maybe, just maybe, they'll ask their sysadmin to try it out, instead of attempting to install it themselves on their ultra-new winmodem-equipped laptop. One can wish, right? Especially in this season?
As for AE on the cover of Time magazine, maybe they'll say, ooo, Einstein. Isn't he the E=mc^2 dude? and then take a few moments to learn about some of the radical and cool stuff physics / astronomy has accomplished in the last fifty years. (And let me assure the unconvinced - long after the Civil war, India's independence and even WWII have faded into obscurity as long-ago provincial conflicts, Einstein's accomplishments will be remembered and used on a daily basis!)
Or maybe the PHB's will pick up a few more unemployed physics grad students? That wouldn't be so bad either... :)
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
here's to 1900 being better than 1999. Now _that_ is something I cannot argue with. Back to simpler days...
In case you were wondering, these are the other people that Fortune has picked besides Linus as people to watch in 2000:
Jeff Bezos- Amazon.com
Mike Armstrong- AT&T
Jill Barad- Mattel
Jeffrey Immelt- General Electric
Michael Eisner/Steve Jobs- as Disney/Pixar and not as Apple CEO
David Komansky- Merrill Lynch
John Reed / Robert Rubin / Sandy Weill- Citicorp
Bill Ford Jr- Ford Motor Co.
Mary Meeker- Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
Chris Gent- Vodafone
Nobuyuki Idei- Sony
Bill Gates- Microsoft
Lou Gerstner- IBM
Peter Drucker- business management guru
Carly Fiorina- HP
Linus was listed last in this list.
Another example of this in American history is General George Washington. He hardly ever won a battle in our Revolutionary War, but was hailed a great leader of men and was pretty much offered the position of King of the United States of America, if he wanted it. (He didn't.) It doesn't matter too much what he did and didn't do, because he was a cultural icon. He symbolized a great freedom in the minds of the residents of a struggling group of colonies, and later in a young nation. Einstien also falls into the category of cultural icons for the twentieth century.
Linus is stepping into the same role (on a smaller scale for now) in the concept of open source. People outside the open source community see him and say, "Oh, that's the guy who wrote Linux. He represents that free software movement." Whether it is good or bad, this is the path that I see before us.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
Linux was, I'm sure, put on the list due to the sudden upsurge of popularity and fame regarding Linux. But, if I were choosing, I'd have had a hard time deciding who's responsible for Linux doing so well. Sure, Linus started it, but without many others, it probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere... The community as whole is self-reliant, and requires the whole of itself to thrive as it does. Linux is not now, nor has it really ever been, a one-person job, so it's hard to credit one person as being more important than others. Too bad it wasn't things to watch. I'd be much happier having seen "The Linux Community" instead of Linus.
But good for him, nonetheless.
Devilled Eggs - A disturbing little creation of mine.
anyone?
And for the GPL, the media has selected Linus Torvalds.
No, they didn't. The article didn't say anything about the GPL. If you were to poll the media, I'd say that a good number of them will have heard of Linux, and that the vast majority will have never heard of the GPL. The reason for the Linux hype is because it's quality free beer -- the "free speech" aspect has almost nil to do with its overall popularity. Why did you mention the GPL in regards to this article, anyway?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
that it be called GNU/People to Watch because People to Watch is just the operational part of tha magazine, and without the GNU tools, there would be no People to Watch.
He is also running off photocopies of the magazine because he of course touts Free Magazine through the GNU project.
Come on buddy, you giving all us trolls a bad name.
.
Take all good things in moderation, including moderation.
He works free for a Silicon Valley chip-design startup called Transmeta.
Since when? So basically Mr. Linus works for free, and then lives off stocks that CEO gave him? Nothing wrong with that, I would like some sweet Linux tech stocks.
IIRC he got paid a crap load of money for developing a new generation CPU. I though he was still getting paid, maybe not.
I would work for free if I got a crap load of differant Linux stocks and didn't have to worry about money and paying the bills.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Joke()
or die ("You can't take a joke!\n");
But I think this is wrong. We need to take a stand and say "NO MORE SLAVE LINUZ LABOR! SET HIM FREE! NO MORE SLAVE LINUZ LABOR! SET HIM FREE!"
Free Linuz
Free your source
Free your mind!
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Once you're branded a computer person can you ever not be one?
Bill Gates used to be a computer person he even wrote some useful programs... Of course that was before he went to the dark side.
But that would make 2 actual computer people on the list, and a lot of buisness people related to computers.
To be exact:
Linus, Bill Gates, Carly Fiorina, Jeff Bezos,
Steve Jobs, and Lou Gerstner
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Who's Dmitri Medeleeff? :) From some searching I did, I believe the name is Mendeleeff and he published Periodic Law of the Elements. I found this link on yahoo and google. Pretty weak...but it mentions his name!:)
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
COULD SOMEONE PLEASE MODERATE THIS UP???? THIS IS A PRETTY GOOD ARTICLE!!!!
I'm not quite sure why everyone jumps up and down like happy 1st-graders who just got out early. This article evokes images of small children who will get ecstatic whenever anyone mentions them, because they love the attention. Usually, people who like the limelight that much will end up doing stupid things to get it back when it fades.
Can't we just accept that Linux has been noticed by the big boys? It isn't like Linus is a huge surprise on the Fortune list. I agree that it's good that Linux still has that limelight. Do you think Fortune picked him because he had helped start a stable, fast, open source operating system?
Well, maybe. But more likely, they chose him because he's the figurehead of a movement which has of late been spawning Wall Streets biggest IPOs in history. Fortune 500 notices that sort of thing.
Okay, Linux has been noticed. Everyone knows it's there, everyone knows what it is (more or less) and everyone knows what it's doing. Anyone interested in business has done at least a little research into the subject of this thing. We can stop leaping for joy and shaking hands now. Accept it: Linux is famous. Famous, famous, famous. Now push up your sleeves (or not, if you're wearing a t-shirt) and do something about that fame. Retain it. Make Linux an operating system worthy of market share. (you might say it is already, but it isn't. if it was, it'd have the market share already)
The work is yet to come. The Linux movement has yet to put out a product that can compete on every level with Windows. Sure, it's more stable and probably a bit faster. But do you think that's what Joe Computer-User looks for? He wants something that'll run all his existing programs, run all the future programs he might need, and most importantly, be easy to use. He needs to sit down at that Linux computer in the store and pick it up so fast that he might as well be using windows. Then, after he gets a feel for the differences, lay him with the stability, cost, and all that jazz.
A lot of the people working with Linux look down on GUIs and prefer their command lines. But we have to face the fact that without the most user friendly interface possible, Linux will never survive outside of hackers and others who like to type cryptic commands into a black screen with white letters and make things happen.
Then again, I could be wrong.
wow that was really creative, in an intensely funny kind of way. You're my hero.
Why thanks! I also do weddings and bar mitzvahs.
The spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes on
I don't think business types or most fortune readers actually give a crap about linux. If anything, they just like exploiting and feeding off of the hype of a well established nerd community demographic.
Linux's linux waslucky to get the recognition that it does. once windows came out computers became "user friendly". most kids raised on windows who are now teenagers or in the early twenties all realized it suck at a bout the same time.. being the rebels that our generation is we go against the grain and look for an os unlike windows..this generation also being lazy apathetic idiots was in need of an os that was simple like window so it can be easily matered, once master of linux this teen could brag to his other nerd friends that he know linux. thus it spreads through peer pressure... linus was lucky that his os was to say "at the right place at the right time" i predict linux will fall soon and sell out and some other underground os will pickup say maybe v2
Bill Gates, the visionary who did'nt mention the Internet ONCE in his visionary book "The Road Ahead" in 1995.
and that about did it for me! she read about openSource in Atlantic Monthly. so he is getting well known outside geeky circles and squares.
i *knew* she was meant for me, asked her out again. and the rest is history. thanks OpenSource and Linus for providing this litmus test.
COULD SOMEONE PLEASE MODERATE THIS DOWN???? THERE APPEARS TO BE A PATHETIC SACK OF SHIT HANGING AROUND WITH A BUSTED CAPSLOCK KEY AND A STICKY INDEX FINGER!!!!
Boy am I going to be in trouble when someone starts running order-n correlative letter-sequence frequency analyses on AC posts and realizes that I write every single one of them.
who are "m$ supporters" ?
!?
Who downrated my post? what, can't take the heat? =)
hehe, just kidding, please don't put me down to -1...