“Exuding Finnish charm in the wake of newfound American fame,
Linus Torvalds down plays his role in creating Linux, the free
operating system that’s suddenly changing the way many technology
firms think about their business. “I’m not actually much of a
visionary. What I am is a very pragmatic technical person,” Mr.
Torvalds, 29, told a warm, responsive crowd here this week at the
first major trade show for Linux. But many adoring fans can’t let
go of the idea that Mr. Torvalds is a genuine hero, a technology
purebred who believes people have a right to good software and that
computers don’t have to crash”
“The Linux camp and the Microsofts of the corporate world will
feed off each other’s ideas for years to come, he predicted.”
“Today, Mr. Torvalds spends a couple of hours each night working
on Linux outside of his regular job at Transmeta Corp., a secret
startup in Silicon Valley funded in part by Paul Allen, co-founder
of Microsoft.”