Reprinted from “The Beauty of Algorithms and Mathematics”.
1. Everyone with the surname Torvalds is related to LinusLinus was born in 1969 in Finland, and his name is derived from the Nobel Prize-winning chemist and peace laureate Linus Pauling. You may have encountered some people named Linus, but there are very few with the surname Torvalds.The correct spelling of this surname is Torvald (originally referring to the territory of the god Thor), and Linus’s grandfather added an ‘s’ to the end of the name, changing it from Torvald to Torvalds, to make the pronunciation sound smoother.Due to its uncommon nature, there are only 30 people in the world with the surname Torvalds, and they are all relatives, all related to Linus Torvalds.
Young Linus Torvalds with his sister Sara Torvalds2. Linus’s license plate – “King of Geeks”If you encounter Linus on the road, he will appear as a polite, down-to-earth Finnish-American. He lives in a house near Lake Oswego in Portland with his wife, three children, a cat, a dog, a snake, a goldfish, a rabbit, and a pet mouse. The house is his favorite color – yellow, and his Mercedes convertible is also yellow.According to Linus’s neighbors, he drives his Mercedes very fast – shifting gears and flooring it without hesitation. Calm as a maiden, swift as a hare. Moreover, his car is always filled with a lot of plush penguins.On the license plate frame of Linus’s convertible, there is a line that reads: “KING OF GEEKS”, and the license plate itself says “DAD OF 3”.
3. Linus turned down an offer from JobsMany people compare Linus’s talent and personality to that of Steve Jobs; both are exceptionally gifted, detail-oriented, and intolerant of mistakes and mediocrity. Wired magazine reported that around 2000, Jobs invited Linus to visit Apple’s Cupertino campus and attempted to hire him to work on the development of Mac OS X .At that time, Apple was in the midst of preparing the first version of Mac OS X, which later became the foundation for Apple’s development of iOS. It is well known that Android is developed based on the Linux kernel. If Linus had accepted Jobs’s invitation, the two dominant mobile operating systems today: Android and iOS might not exist without Linus.However, Jobs also stipulated that Linus must give up developing Linux, which Linus refused.
4. A temper so explosive it required a signed agreementLinus often uses “mild profanity” in community email communications and frequently expresses criticism bluntly in public. One of the most classic moments was in 2012 when he said, “F**k you, NVIDIA”. Although the manner was questionable, it must be said that this action indeed prompted NVIDIA to accelerate its support for the Linux kernel.Not only does he attack externally, but when Linus gets angry, he doesn’t spare his own Linux either. This January, Linus harshly criticized the Linux system on GitHub, stating that he had just deleted Linux because he hated it and thought it was terrible. He suggested that everyone should use another great system called Windows XP…
In order to reflect and improve his explosive temper, in 2018, Linus took a break from Linux kernel development. He also signed a Linux kernel development agreement, promising not to make derogatory comments or personal attacks against others, to help “make the community a welcoming environment for participation”.5. A socially anxious person without social media accountsAlthough Linus is often blunt in his online criticisms, he does not have his own social media accounts; Google + was the only social media platform he ever used. He even spent some time there checking out tools. After Google + was shut down, Linus has not had any social media accounts.In real life, Linus is also quite shy and often feels uncomfortable during public speaking. Therefore, he rarely attends events, and when he does, he prefers not to give a solo presentation using PowerPoint, but rather to sit down, wait for the host to ask questions, and then respond or discuss with others, which is his favorite way of public speaking. (The NVIDIA incident was like that)
Everyone knows what came next6. The art of Linus managing the Linux communityLinux has grown from a personally developed kernel to the cornerstone of global operating systems, thanks to community contributions. Regarding the growth and changes of the Linux kernel community, Linus believes:
The main reason for Linux’s success today is that we ultimately gained all the commercial benefits, and a common mindset in the tech community – created by geeks, for geeks, and only providing for technical users, hinders the acquisition of commercial benefits.Integrating “technical value and commercial benefits” into a project is highly beneficial.A company that only considers commercial benefits will not produce good products, and focusing solely on technical value is also not a good development strategy for products.