In a world where all is fair in operating system war, Linux creator Linus Torvalds giving Microsoft’s Windows 7 a thumbs-up is nothing short of sacrilege. The “blasphemy” took place on October 22nd, 2009, the worldwide general availability deadline for Microsoft’s latest Windows client. As you can see from the picture accompanying this article, Torvalds was in Japan, just in time to witness Windows 7 hitting the shelves. But before the members of the Linux community start turning against the most prominent figure of the open source operating system, they need to know that Torvalds did not stray from the anti-proprietary path. The creator of the Linux kernel was attending the Japan Linux Symposium, and only took the photo as a joke.

“Microsoft tried to torpedo the success of the Japan Linux Symposium by launching their Windows 7 product that same day. They even had setup a big promotion booth across the street from the conference center,” a person known only as Chris explains the source of the image (via Bink). “During a break, we decided to make some fun of Microsoft and dragged Linus over there. When we arrived there, Linus was sold immediately on the product as you can see in the picture. At least that's what the sales guy thought. He obviously had no idea who he was dealing with. But in the end Linus surprisingly did not buy a copy. Wise man!”

Torvalds’ sarcastic gesture toward Windows 7 does in no way change the fact that Linux continues to be largely irrelevant in comparison with its proprietary rival. In fact, according to statistics provided by Net Applications, Windows 7 had surpassed Linux in terms of usage share even before it was available to the general public. Such a rate of success certainly deserves a thumbs-up, perhaps even from Microsoft rivals.

But even before Windows 7 had been completed, Windows had scored a new victory over Linux. The open source platform had had the advantage when it came down to netbooks, and, at one time, was preinstalled on approximately 90% of all “mini-notebooks” or “sub-notebooks.” Using Windows XP, Microsoft turned the situation around, and grew XP’s presence on netbooks to 80% of the machines in just a year. Brad Brooks, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Windows Consumer Product Marketing, noted that this was made possible by the fact that end users found Linux netbooks to be disappointing.