Linux Torvalds named most influential open source voice

computerworlduk.com

15 pointsdreemteem5 comments

Who's Linux Torvalds?

Oh you mean Linus, with an S

Interesting comparison with O'Reilly. Linus talks less but his words have more weight, Tim blogs, tweets, facebooks etc. frequently to get his word out.

It's a common typo for Linux.

edit: Oh I mean, for Linus.

I came to know about Linux first and than Linus and always wondered why Linux was not called Linus.

Unix-inspired systems have traditionally often had the letter X in their name, e.g.: UNIX itself (ex Unics), Irix, AIX, Minix, NeXTStep, Xenix, HP/UX, Linux, Mac OS X in no particular order.

Of course not all do, e.g. Free/Open/NetBSD (though they were originally based on "BSD UNIX"), Solaris/SunOS, etc.

With that "should end in X" idea in mind, Linus chose to name it Freax (because it was a /free/ UNIX).

When he uploaded a very early version to an FTP server at Helsinki, his friend, who administered the server, changed the directory name from "freax" to "linux", thinking the latter was a much better name. Linus at first thought it would be too egotistical to name it that, but he let the name stick. I'm glad he did.

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