14 DAY TRIAL // According to Time Magazine's latest edition, Linus Torvalds is officially a hero! Linus is cited in the "Rebels & Leaders" category along with Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev and others. In the article 60 Years of Heroes, Linus Torvlads was selected one of the heroes of the past 60 years:
"Linus Torvalds was just 21 when he changed the world. Working out of his family's apartment in Helsinki in 1991, he wrote the kernel of a new computer operating system called Linux that he posted for free on the Internet -- and invited anyone interested to help improve it."
This year, 25 August marked the passing of 15 years since he first posted that announcement on the internet and since then, Linux powers everything from supercomputers to mobile phones around the world. Now, Linus Torvalds is known as the godfather of the open-source movement, in which software code is developed and shared in a collaborative effort, and not kept locked up by a single owner.
Linus Torvlads earned a place in history by giving away his software and he has also made some money from stock options given to him as a courtesy by two companies that sell commercial applications for it. Time Magazine ended the article on Linus Torvalds by saying: "But his success isn't just measured in dollars. There's an asteroid named after him, as well as an annual software-geek festival. Torvalds' parents were student radicals in the 1960s and his father, a communist, even spent a year studying in Moscow. But it's their son who has turned out to be the real revolutionary."