The Millenium Technology Prize is a Finnish award designed “to improve the quality of life and to promote sustainable development-oriented research, development and innovation.” It’s awarded every two years. Sir Tim Berners-Lee won the prize in 2004. The 2012 Grand Prize winner will be announced on June 13 in Helsinki, Finland. The finalists this year are Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, who has been contributing to the area of stem cell research, and Linux creator Linus Torvalds. → Read More
Since we all know that Android runs a modified version of Linux, you’d think that the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, would absolutely love Android handsets. Nope. As a matter of fact, the man hates cell phones. Torvalds says that he got the G1 when it came out but rarely used it because of his distaste for the distracting gadget. So why does he call the Nexus One a winner? → Read More
Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel, has an absolute disdain for mobile phones. All of the ones he has purchased in the past, the man writes on his personal blog, ended up being “mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights” even though they were naturally all phones run on open source operating systems.
Things have changed now, he adds, now that he has caved and bought Google’s Nexus One a couple of days ago. Torvalds has owned a number of phones before, including Google’s G1 device and ‘one of the early China-only Motorola Linux phones’, but it took for Google to add multi-touch capabilities to the Nexus One before he finally broke down and bought one from the company’s web store. → Read More
We all know and love Fake Steve Jobs, right? We all know that Linux users copy everything that Mac OSX and Windows do, right? So it should come as no surprise that the Linux Foundation is copying Fake Steve in their new Fake Linux Torvalds competition! Not content with a single fake Linus Torvalds, there will be four fake Linus Torvaldses (Torvaldi?)! And in true Linux geek fashion, the competition will take place on both Twitter and identi.ca, the free software micro-blogging alternative! → Read More
The above video may or may not be an accurate depiction of the early days of Linux. → Read More
Usually when open source advocates and coders talk about Microsoft, they spell it with a $. But Linus Torvalds, coder extraordinaire on the Linux kernel, has some kind words for the Redmond giant. He praised Microsoft’s choice to make some of its software more accessible to open source programs and programmers as a step in the right direction. It’s clear that Microsoft is going to have to do more to comply with the widespread and increasing penetration of open source software, but first they have to take baby steps. Torvalds gives props to Microsoft for sharing [CNET News] → Read More
At a recent Linux conference in Melbourne, Australia, Linus Torvalds said the following about Windows Vista and Mac OS X. “I don’t think they’re equally flawed – I think Leopard is a much better system. [But] OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.” It must be weird being the guy behind a famous open source operating system. He probably shakes his head in disbelief at the thought of people paying money for operating systems that he considers inferior to Linux. → Read More
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