“I usually don’t do talks like this,” apologized the Finnish
superstar. His presence amid an afternoon lineup of University of
California at Berkeley academics carried echoes of Miles Davis
jamming alongside the Grateful Dead. “I figured, since we have so
many sociologists talking about technology, though, I could play
the technologist talking about sociology–for balance,” Torvalds
added.”
“Those who had come hoping to hold up their Bic lighters during
the slide-show presentation were in for disappointment, however.
Torvalds had shifted gears abruptly from recent performances at
Comdex and Fermilab.”
“He stayed away from describing the current state of the Linux
kernel or predicting the future growth of the Linux-user
population–two topics already vying for “Free Bird” status on the
open source circuit. Instead, he unveiled an entirely new set
list.”