Linus Torvalds: Just for Fun

To Tove and Patricia, Daniela, and Celeste. I always wanted to be surrounded by young women, and you made it so.

To Tia and Kaley. Boy do I feel blessed.

This wouldn't qualify as acknowledgments without the dropping of some important names, so here goes:

We acknowledge our editor, Adrian Zackheim, who caved in to our every demand; Erin Richnow, the HarperCollins assistant editor who was more on top of this project than we were; our agents, Bill Gladstone of Waterside Productions and Kris Dahl of ICM, who couldn't have been speedier in the forwarding of our checks to us; Sara Torvalds, who has the best backup memory on the Fennoscandia peninsula - and operates in three languages - and William and Ruth Diamond, who read the original manuscript and kept repeating, "No, really, it's good. "

During the euphoria of the final years of the twentieth century, a revolution was happening among all the other revolutions. Seemingly overnight, the Linux operating system caught the world's attention. It had exploded from the small bedroom of its creator, Linus Torvalds, to attract a cultish following of near-militant geeks. Suddenly it was infiltrating the corporate powerhouses controlling the planet. From a party of one it now counted millions of users on every continent, including Antarctica, and even outer space, if you count NASA outposts. Not only was it the most common operating system running server computers dishing out all the content on the World Wide Web, but its very development model-an intricate web of its own, encompassing hundreds of thousands of volunteer computer programmers-had grown to become the largest collaborative project in the history of the world. The open source philosophy behind it all was simple: Information, in this case the source code or basic instructions behind the operating system, should be free and freely shared for anyone interested in improving upon it. But those improvements should also be freely shared. The same concept had supported centuries of scientific discovery. Now it was finding a home in the corporate sphere, and it was possible to imagine its potential as a framework for creating the best of anything: a legal strategy, an opera.

Some folks caught a glimpse of the future and didn't like what they saw. Linus's round, bespectacled countenance became a favored dartboard target within Microsoft Corporation, which was now faced with its first honest-to-goodness competitive threat. But, more often, people wanted to learn more about the kid who -- if he did not start it all-at least jump-started it and was, in effect, its leader. The trouble was, the more successful Linux and open source became, the less he wanted to talk about it. The accidental revolutionary started Linux because playing on a computer was fun (and also because the alternatives weren't that attractive). So when someone tried to convince him to speak at a major event by telling him that his millions of followers just wanted to at least see him, in the flesh, Linus good-naturedly offered to participate in a dunk-tank instead. That would be more fun, he explained. And a way of raising money. They declined. It wasn't their idea of how to run a revolution.

Revolutionaries aren't born. Revolutions can't be planned. Revolutions can't be managed.

Revolutions happen....

-David Diamond

X-Authentication-Warning: penguin.transmeta.com:torvalds owned process doing -bs

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 14:12:27-0700 (PDT)

From: Linus Torvalds

To: David Diamond

Subject:Ho humm..

MIME-Version: 1.0

I hope this is still your email address. I noticedthat I didn't have any contact information for youanywhere, probably because I've trashed your businesscard along with all the others, and because you'veactually contacted me by phone much more than byemail.

I've thought a lot over the weekend, and if you'reinterested, I think I'm getting more and more interested.Let's cut a deal: If you think we can make afun book, and more importantly if you think we canhave fun making it, let's go for it. You'd drag me(with family) camping and (without family) skydiving.Things that I wouldn't ever do otherwise, justbecause I think I'm too busy. Give me an excuse to dothe things I haven't done during the last three yearseven though all the opportunities are there . . . Somaybe I wouldn't read a book about me when it's done,but at least I'd have fun with it.

Linus

... And sometimes, revolutionaries just get stuck with it.

Linus Torvalds

The authors wish to acknowledge the following establishments for their role in creating this book -- or at least making it fun. (None of these places have paid us any money. Which is a damn shame.)

FM 107.7 the Bone. Classic Rock That Rocks; Zelda's Restaurant, Capitola; Kiva Retreat House, Santa Cruz; Hagashi West Restaurant, Palo Alto; Malibu Grand Prix, Redwood Shores; Bodega Bay Lodge, Bodega Bay; Saturn Cafe, Santa Cruz; Cafe Marmalade, Ross; Half Moon Bay Boardshop, Half Moon Bay; Santa Cruz Billiards, Santa Cruz; Cafe Reyes, Point Reyes Station; California Sushi and Grill, San Jose; Santa Clara Golf and Tennis Club, Santa Clara; Ideal Bar and Grill, Santa Cruz; Silver Peso Bar (UWhere Janis Played"), Larkspur; Rosie McCann's Irish Pub and Restaurant, Santa Cruz; Mayflower Inn, San Rafael; Grover Hot Springs State Park, Markleeville; Left Bank Restaurant, Larkspur; Potrero Brewing Company, San Francisco; The Rice Table, San Rafael; Ross Valley Swim and Tennis Club, Kentfield; Fallen Leaf Lake Marina, Fallen Leaf Lake; Peer's Coffee and Tea, Greenbrae; Hawthorne Lane Restaurant, San Francisco;Indian Springs Resort, Calistoga; Samurai Sushi, Sausalito; BlowfishSushi, San Francisco; Paramount's Great America, Santa Clara; Robata Grill Sushi, Mill Valley; Buckeye Roadhouse, Mill Valley; Barnes and Noble, San Jose; Sushi Ran, Sausalito; 23 Ross Common, Ross; KFOG-I04.5 FM; Rutherford Grill, Rutherford; In-N-Out Burger, Santa Rosa; Seto Sushi, Sunnyvale.

SETTING:This book has its origins in a late-model black Ford Expedition in the southbound lanes of Interstate 5, somewhere in California's Central Valley. Linus and Tove Torvalds and their young daughters, Patricia and Daniela, are accompanied by an interloper as they travel 351 miles to Los Angeles, where they will visit the zoo and an IKEA outlet.

DAVID:Now I've got a fundamental question to think about, and it's sort of important. What do you want to get across in this book?

LINUS:Well, I want to explain the meaning of life.

TOVE: Linus, did you remember to fill the gas tank?

L:I have a theory about the meaning of life. We can, in the first chapter, explain to people what the meaning of life is. We get them hooked that way. Once they're hooked and pay for the book, we can just fill up the rest with random crap.