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DIGITAL BAY -- A Finnish Subversive's Plan to Overthrow Windows Linus Torvalds gives his Linux operating system away for free Tom Abate |
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Updated Feb 16, 1999
IEEE Visto |
Linus Torvalds shares one trait with Bill Gates, and it's not a stock portfolio worth billions.
Both men do, however, enjoy the rare distinction of having created operating systems that run on millions of computers.
But I'm afraid Gates' wealth has misled authorities into focusing on the wrong OS threat.
For while Gates was being grilled in the U.S. Senate yesterday, Linus Torvalds sat in his Sunnyvale home, scheming to one day replace Windows with his own operating system -- Linux -- which he gives away free!
Linux is a variant of Unix; it is popular among engineers and other technical types.
``Linux is outflanking Microsoft,'' Torvalds smiled behind wire-rimmed glasses reminiscent of Lenin.
``Because I don't need to worry about finances I can ignore Microsoft and take over the (computing) world from the grassroots,'' said this 28-year-old, foreign-born revolutionary.
Torvalds started writing Linux in 1991, while still a computer science student at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
He immediately put Linux up on the Internet, knowing computer science students at other universities wouldn't be able to resist tinkering with a free OS.
With this mind candy, he lured unwitting fellow travelers into correcting bugs and posting improvements back on the Internet, where still more innocents contributed brainpower to this insidious software collective.
Think I'm overstating the danger? To date, Linux has infiltrated 3 million to 8 million computers.
So far the invasion has been confined to universities. But Linux hard-liners like Larry Augustin, president of VA Research in Mountain View, are now bold enough to sell Linux-based PCs, using this free OS to unfairly compete with honest firms that pay OS royalties.
But tonight these schemers will make the mistake of coming into the open. Torvalds will speak at a Linux cell meeting in San Jose (see www.svlug.org).
Go, tell these software socialists to take their radical notions of cooperative development and free code back to Europe. Americans demand the right to pay for programs that dominate markets and make entrepreneurs filthy rich.
We won't stand still while some Finnish fellow subverts the most profitable industry in history!
Speaking at the Multimedia Summit, he parodied Moore's Law, which says microprocessor power will double every 18 months.
By contrast, phone companies follow ``Moron's Law.'' It states that they'll promise to deliver technology in 18 months, but will actually take twice as long.
After the laughter died, it occurred to me that Doerr -- who raises money and anoints CEOs for a living -- has better tools than mockery at his disposal.
Why not raise the money for a telco takeover? Surely he knows some
Silicon Valley hotshot who could show the nation how to deliver bandwidth?
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