Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel and eventually one of the godfathers of open-source software development, tells all in Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. I don’t care much for biography, but this one did pretty well for itself. It starts off with the story of young Linus, growing up playing on his grandfather’s computer–and never really stopping. The subsequent years are a typical nerd routine of sleeping, eating, and computing away in a dark room. He developed Linux as a side project, an exercise in operating system development and exploration in low-level PC hardware. The first public release was a tentative version 0.01 that managed to catch the interest of a couple other folks involved in that geek niche.
And from there Linux just kept growing and growing, with its steadily improving quality and open-ness as its only real advertising. It’s that “accidental” aspect that makes it so interesting–Torvalds didn’t really set out to start an empire, and doesn’t really seem to want one now, either. Torvalds on Bill Gates:
I’m completely uninterested in the thing that he’s he best in the world at. And he’s not interested in the thing that maybe I’m the best in the world at. I couldn’t give him advice in business and he couldn’t give me advice in technology.
I like this bit on the freedom that open entails, freedom from mega-personalities, control freaks, and their whims:
The point about open source has never been that I’m more accessible than anybody else. It’s never been that I’m more open to other people’s suggestions… the issues is that even if I’m the blackest demon from Hell, even if I’m outright evil, people can choose to ignore me because they can just do the stuff themselves. It’s not about me being open, it’s about them have the power to ignore me. That’s important.
Near the end, there are a couple of philosophical chapters on intellectual property, control, and some industry prognostication. I like this gem from the intellectual property section: “The patent system of today is basically a Cold War with IP instead of nukes.” Most of the book isn’t that dogmatic, but just as enjoyable.
Mark Larson 