[ Thanks to PJ
for this link. ]
“It’s a great month for geek history. Early August
brought us the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC, the machine that
brought personal computing to common folk. And as the month ends,
Linux software buffs gather in San Francisco to celebrate the
deliciously insidious efforts of Finland’s most famous computer
programmer.…All Linus Torvalds wanted at first was an affordable,
PC-compatible version of the advanced Unix operating system. So 10
years ago, in late August of 1991, he set to work building one.…Microsoft understands its peril, but rather than moderating
its behavior, the company has spent the past several months
denouncing open source as literally “un-American.” Yet all that’s
being subverted is Microsoft’s unchallenged domination of the
industry. And in the best possible way, too — not by federal
antitrust lawyers, but a bespectacled geek from Finland.”