“A Cinderella by the name of Linus Torvalds stole the Comdex
ball from the likes of Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Hewlett-Packard’s
newly appointed chief Carly Fiorina.”
“Torvalds is an unlikely technology celebrity, and seemingly
unfit to address the masses at the nation’s largest technology
gathering at the Las Vegas show’s 20th anniversary event. He hasn’t
founded an internationally known company. He doesn’t have Bill
Gates’ $90 billion net worth or Fiorina’s $80 million annual
paycheck. But what he does have is an army of technology supporters
– call them the Linus Legion – bent on pushing his so-called “open
source” Linux. They’re trying to build the operating system that
bears his misspelled name into an alternative for running computers
ranging from the biggest mainframes down to the smallest of
handheld personal organizers.”
“Is Linux for real? Ask the 30,000-plus guests who visited
the Linux Business Expo, part of Comdex, the nation’s largest
technology trade show. To be sure, there’s a buzz about Linux,
and it stems from the fact that the guts of it are available for
free. Since Torvalds invented the Unix variant in 1991, he’s given
away the programming instructions to anyone who wants them. Anyone
who wants to tinker with his work can do so for free, too.”