What Is the History of Linus Torvalds?
The name of Linus Torvalds is familiar to anyone involved in the open source software movement. Torvalds is the man behind the Linux operating system, an open source OS that rose from a hobby project to become one of the three dominant operating systems in the world. Today, millions of computers run Linux on an OS derived from Linux, and Torvalds' philosophies about software have informed countless open source projects over the years.
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Early Years
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Linus Torvalds was born on December 28, 1969, in Helsinki, Finland. From an early age, he was encouraged to read and learn about subjects that interested him, and in the mid-1970s a gift from his grandfather introduced him to the subject that would dominate his life. Torvalds received a Commodore Vic 20 computer, and rather than become entranced by the few games that were available for the machine, he became captivated by the possibilities the computer represented. As he grew older, Torvalds taught himself BASIC programming, then began to venture into assembly language code.
Freax
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In 1991, while taking computer programming classes at the University of Helsinki, Torvalds bought his first IBM-compatible PC. Rather than use the pre-installed MS-DOS operating system, he wanted to install a version of the UNIX operating system similar to that on the University's own computers. Unfortunately, the cost of a UNIX license was far too prohibitive, so he set about creating his own version of UNIX from the ground up. Originally, he planned to call his operating system "Freax," but the friend who oversaw distribution offered the files from a directory called "Linux," from "Linus's Unix," and the name stuck.
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Linux
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Linux might have gone the way of many other vanity software projects and been forgotten, had not Torvalds made an important choice early on. He decided to release his operating system completely free of charge and distribute it under the GNU General Public License, which allowed users to freely distribute and modify the files as long as they provide the source code to interested parties. This drew the attention of many technically skilled hobbyists to Linux, all of whom began to offer their own tweaks and enhancements to the program. Torvalds welcomed these additions, and Linux quickly became a successful, secure, and technically advanced operating system. The success of Linux earned Torvalds an instructor position at the University in 1993, where he met his future wife, Tove.
Success
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The adoption of Linux by corporate computer manufacturers during the 1990s fueled an explosion in the number of Linux users worldwide. Torvalds eventually retired from the University to work at the Open Source Development Lab in Oregon, aided by substantial stock options presented to him by the Red Hat and VA Linux distribution companies. Though his own code represents only around 2 percent of the modern Linux kernel, he remains the principal guide of the operating system's development, and an important figure in the open source software movement.
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