“Almost 400 software programmers, dressed T-shirt casual, lined
up on a recent balmy evening outside the Four Seas Restaurant, in
the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown district.”
“One shopkeeper left her souvenir shop and crossed the street to
ask what was going on, laughing when she learned it was a computer
industry event. No one bothered to explain that they were lined up
to hear the software industry’s latest wonder boy, Linus Torvalds,
the 29-year-old creator of Linux.”
“Linux, the renegade version of the Unix operating system —
given away over the Internet and maintained by a group of far-flung
programmers — has such a following that its creator Torvalds is as
idolized as some rock stars. Now, some Linux start-up firms hope
the growing Linux momentum will translate into capital and
investors will line up to buy their stock.”