What's Mr Torvalds up to these days anyway?

[Calum]

Well, for a start he's working on the next Linux kernel  

quote:eWEEK: Is Linux adoption negatively or positively affected by the current economic climate? Some people say the fact that it is an affordable OS drives adoption in tough times, but critics like Microsoft say that it is just as expensive to support and so is no more affordable. What are your thoughts in this regard?

Torvalds: I just don't think economic forces are all that important at that level. I don't think the people who adopted Linux a few years ago did it for any "boom" reasons, and I don't think the people who adopt Linux today do it for any real bear reasons. It makes a good story how Linux saved Amazon millions, but I bet that was a after-the-fact big perk, and that they started using Linux largely for other reasons. Don't get me wrong, I think economy matters, but I just don't think it is driving (Linux sales).

Fantastic! compare these words to those of the estimable Mr W.H.Gates for a more illuminating idea of why this quote makes me smile. And just for good measure, here's an excerpt from one of my favourite books about Mr Gates' sentiments.

does anybody else have anything to report about what Mr Torvalds has been up to or will be up to soon?

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[dbl221]

I thougth he was working for that chip company........Transmetta.  I could be wrong.

As for M$ and open-source I have a tale to tell.  My brother in law coded at M$ for 11 years after graduating from Waterloo.......he and other coders at M$ use open-source tools like perl all the time.......M$ even payed to have a port of perl for M$ OS's........the company line was......you can "use open-source tools just don't include any of it in the shipped product, because of the GPL problems this would create".

M$ includes perl in their NT 4 resource kit.

comments:........

[Calum]

Here is Linus' homepage! isn't it cute?

It looks like he is still at Transmeta, and here's a little bit about them.

[Calum]

well, nobody has anything to add here, so maybe nobody wants to know! but in case you do here's the rampantly unofficial Linus Torvalds FAQ.

[voidmain]

Heh heh, they liked the number 13 so much when writing the FAQ they had to use it twice.