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WHO IS LINUS BENEDICT TORVALDS
Linus was born on December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland, however, his native language is Swedish being his family of Swedish origins.
The name Linus was given to him in honor of the American chemist Linus Pauling, holder of two Nobel Prizes, one for Chemistry and one for Peace, although he prefers to say that his name was inspired by the character with the blanket of the famous comic strip Peanuts. In the 1960s, both of his parents were radical members of the Communist party, and divorced when Linus was just ten years old. At the same age, Linus discovered that he has a strong passion for computers and programming, thanks to the Commodore Vic 20 that belonged to his maternal grandfather, on which he started writing programs in BASIC.
Pursuing this passion, Linus enrolled at the University of Helsinki and in 1996 received a master's degree in computer science with a thesis entitled "Linux: A Portable Operating System".
THE BIRTH OF LINUX
The birth of Linux is due to a series of fortuitous coincidences and Linus great ambition: in those years, Professor Tanenbaum of the University of Amsterdam created an operating system for purely educational purposes called "MINIX ”, which could be installed on a normal Personal Computer. The distribution license, however, did not allow changes to the source code and Linus, dissatisfied with the functionality of MINIX and MS-DOS, but too poor to afford a UNIX system, decided to start working on a new operating system.
On August 25, 1991, the 21-year-old student Linus sent an email to his team announcing that he was working to create a new operating system "which will be just a hobby, nothing big or professional". The first Linux Kernel was released on October 5, 1991, which is why Linux's birthday is celebrated twice a year, respectively on August 25 and October 5.
Linus created Linux starting from the basics and gave rise to a sort of clone of the UNIX operating system. It was Linus Lemmarke's friend who convinced him not to change the name "Linux", which Linus thought sounded too selfish, in "Freax", which represented a mixture of the words “free”, “freak” and “MINIX”, telling him that he had already created a directory called Linux on his FTP server.
Linus Torvalds' decision to make the Linux source code editable by users triggered a heated discussion in computer environments, dividing public opinion: there were those who argued that making the source code public and editable was genius, and who instead said it was the stupidest thing ever heard.
However Linus opinion prevailed and Linux version 0.12 of 1992 was distributed using the GPL (General Public License). Although it, to date, is still freely editable, there are some rules to be respected: Linus still has the right to the final word today on what can or can not be added to the program. In fact, GPL does not allow users to modify and resell the software without providing the source code; all subsequent changes are always released under the GPL license.
Yet there was someone that try to take advantage of this feature. Initially, Linus had no interest in registering Linux as a trademark, but in August 1994 a certain William R. Della Croce Jr registered Linux as a trademark and started asking for the rights to developers. Enraged, Linus took him to court and in 1997 the case was closed and Linus registered the Linux trademark.
LINUX DEVELOPMENT
Linux has been very successful in the computing world, becoming the most efficient alternative to the paid operating systems of Windows and MacOS. The first version of the Linux kernel had just over 10 thousand lines of code, while the number of lines at the end of 2018 was 20,323,379. As absurd as it may sound, about 13% of the Linux kernel is made up of empty lines, which help give it an efficient and uncluttered look.
The number of users is growing year by year, and it is estimated that Ubuntu, the most popular Linux software in the world, has over 20 million users, and that Linux holds 2% of all desktop computers in the world.
Due to the contribution of thousands of developers, Linux is now a widespread and popular operating system among industry specialists: 100% of the 500 best supercomputers in the world use Linux. For instance, every major space program in the world uses it, including NASA and ESA and many private companies, as SpaceX, which employed it to complete 65 space missions, thanks to the application of a fault-resistant Linux system in the powerful Falcon 9 rockets.
In addition, it is estimated that nearly 90% of Hollywood's special effects use Linux in a few production steps. In recent years, among the major contributors to the development of the Linux kernel are Google, Intel, Huawei, Samsung, Red Hat, Canonical and Facebook.
We almost forgot ... even Android is based on Linux!
TUX
There are a couple of stories circulating about Tux, the adorable Linux penguin mascot. Linus has often said that he was the victim of “a little-known disease called penguinitis. Penguinitis makes you stay awake at nights just thinking about penguins and feeling great love towards them". Others simply say that the choice of a penguin for mascots is given by Linus' sympathy for these animals and / or by the inappropriate character of a company logo. However, it seems that Linus was actually bitten by a penguin during a visit to the National Zoo & Aquarium of the Australian capital Canberra!
LINUS BEYOND LINUX
In 1993, when working as a teacher at the University of Helsinki, Linus met Tove Monni, his student and six-time Finnish national karate champion, who took advantage of Torvalds' task of creating an email (at the time it was not a simple thing and immediate!) to invite him out. Three years later the two married, and today they have three daughters.
In 1997 the family moved to the United States, where Linus first worked for Transmeta and then for Opens Source Development Labs, later called the Linux Foundation, where he still works. Over the years Linus refused a job with Apple, offered directly to him by Steve Jobs.
Linus has received a great number of awards throughout his career, including the IEEE Computer Society's "Computer Pioneer Award" in 2014, admission to the Internet Hall of Fame, the Millennium Technology Prize in 2012 and even the honor of having an asteroid in his name, the Asteroid 9793 (also Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie, the inventor of the C language has an asteroid in his honor, find out more about him here).
Among other things, Linus holds over 35 patents, is the author of the distributed version control software of the Git code, and is among the authors of an app for divers called Subsurface. And in 2006, Time Magazine declared him one of the most revolutionary heroes of the past 60 years.
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