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How Finnish programmer's quest challenged
Microsoft and made him a Net star

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Published: Sept. 8, 1996

BY DAN GILLMOR
Mercury News Computing Editor

HELSINKI -- When a Finnish newspaper checked whose name came up most [Image]
often in an Internet search of well-known Finns early this summer,
Linus Torvalds headed the list.

Rock star? No. Olympic hockey player? Guess again. President? Way off.

Torvalds, 26, is a computer programmer. He's known for the software he began
creating as a university undergraduate -- the beginnings of an operating
system that has evolved into one of the world's most interesting and
successful collaborations in technology.

His project, called Linux, is a free computer operating system that by
various estimates runs on between 1 million and 2 million machines around
the world, including thousands of sites from which information is
distributed via the Internet's World Wide Web.

Long arm of the Net

As much as any such venture, Linux has shown the power and reach of the
global Internet, the worldwide network of computer networks, where it was
spawned and from which it draws its essential strength. Led by Torvalds,
programmers in many countries have contributed key pieces of Linux.

In the process the soft-spoken Torvalds, who still controls the operating
system's fundamental development, has become a hero to Netizens who want
better and different ways to work with personal computers -- and who, in
many cases, fear and loathe a Microsoft-dominated world of PC software. The
fact that relatively few PC users use Linux, at least next to the
overwhelming majority running Windows, has not diminished the ardor of its
fans.

Torvalds is no fan of Microsoft, which has a near-monopoly on PC operating
systems and large categories of applications software. But Linux isn't a
political statement, he said recently in his Helsinki flat.

''It's just something I wanted to do,'' he said.

What he did -- and continues to do -- is remarkable, by almost every
account.

'Strong at the center'

''Development projects need to have someone strong at the center, who
understands the structure of the code and overall the goals,'' said John
Gilmore, a well-known Silicon Valley programmer and an activist in the
Internet community. Torvalds has shown those qualities, without which the
Linux effort might have splintered, Gilmore said.

Linux -- pronounced LINN-nucks -- is a clone of Unix, an operating system
traditionally the province of powerful workstations and enterprise-wide
networks. Linux is one of several Unix flavors that runs on lower-powered
PCs powered by Intel microprocessors, as well as several other platforms
including the Power Macintosh and Digital Equipment Corp.'s high-end Alpha
systems. An operating system is the software that acts as a kind of traffic
cop, making sure that a computer's hardware and applications software like
word processors and spreadsheets work well together.

A Commodore at home

Torvalds' quest began in late 1990. Then a student at Helsinki University,
he was looking for a new computer. He had been using the mainframe machines
at the university, and an aging Commodore model at home.

The architecture of the Intel 386 microprocessor looked appealing to
Torvalds, who had been programming since his early teens and had learned
some sophisticated techniques. The 386 was a huge improvement over the
earlier Intel chips, he said, but the operating system -- DOS -- hadn't
changed much from earlier Intel processors.

''I knew I didn't want to use DOS,'' he said. ''I'd seen DOS.''

He tried to get a version of Unix for the new computer, but couldn't find
anything that cost less than $5,000 for a basic system -- ''not an option
for me,'' he said.

So in the spring of 1991, he began writing some software code to handle
specific computing chores on the 386: terminal emulation, hardware
''drivers'' that would let him read and write files on disk drives, a file
system and more.

''I noticed that this was starting to be an operating system,'' he said.
This was Linux, version 0.01.

Spreading the word

That fall, he made the operating system available on the Internet. He also
told a few people about it.

''The first thing I got was a lot of comments,'' he said. Then he got some
requests for improvements and additions. And then he got some code, from
others who were using the system and had adapted it to their own tastes. As
contributions came in, ''It got better and better,'' Torvalds said.

One of the early Linux devotees was Theodore Ts'o, a systems programmer at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who made the Linux code available
on a computer in North America and then contributed his own programming
skills to fix several of the operating system's shortcomings.

Ts'o, who is still deeply involved in the project, said Torvalds' ability to
organize a large number of people has been one of Linux's key advantages.
Another reason, he said: Torvalds ''isn't an egomaniac.''

Actually, Torvalds admits to having an ego: He enjoys running a project
where people depend on him. But he pursues Linux mostly ''because it's a lot
of fun and it's very interesting,'' he said.

In the modest, tidy apartment he shares with his girlfriend, he comes across
as self-confident and brainy, but also somewhat reserved. The reserve is due
in part to the fact that he's more comfortable writing English -- the main
language of the Internet -- than speaking it. He and his Linux colleagues
converse almost entirely in English, and almost entirely by e-mail.

Their global collaboration reached a milestone about a year after Torvalds
began Linux, when they had improved the software to the point that it
supported the GCC compiler, a free program written by Richard Stallman,
founder of the Free Software Foundation, based at (but not part of) the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Compilers translate programming
language instructions into digital instructions that a computer can actually
read and obey. Getting GCC working on Linux meant people could more easily
write applications software to run on the operating system.

A 'real' operating system

Early versions of Linux were numbered 0.01, 0.02 and 0.03, followed by a
jump to 0.10, 0.11 and 0.12. By February 1992, Torvalds recalled, the
project was getting closer to version 1.0, signifying stability in the code
along with the essential features of a ''real'' operating system.

But release 1.0 didn't arrive until March 1994. Networking -- allowing
computers to connect smoothly to each other -- was the last essential
component, and it didn't come smoothly. When version 1.0 hit the digital
streets, Linux already had about 100,000 users, Torvalds said.

Subsequent versions brought new features and supported more kinds of
hardware. Version 2.0, which arrived in June, was the first to support more
than just the Intel architecture, and also had the ability to run on
multi-processor machines, a feature in growing demand.

Software is free

The fundamental copyright for Linux still resides with Torvalds and other
contributors, but the software is free for the taking from several Internet
sites (and can be purchased on CD-ROM). Distribution works this way:

You're free to use and modify Linux, and even make a profit selling copies.
But you also have to distribute the ''source code'' -- the programming
instructions -- that will make what you did available to other programmers
so they, in turn, can modify the system and use your innovation more
effectively. And you have to allow others to redistribute your changes as
well. This process is widely known as ''copyleft'' and was devised by
Stallman and the Free Software Foundation.

''To make money on (free software), you have to give real added value,''
Torvalds said.

For all the value he's added to the computing world, Torvalds hasn't
profited very much himself, at least not financially. Several years ago, he
said, the Linux community helped him pay off the computer he was using for
development, while ''four or five'' Linux users have sent him about $100
apiece as tokens of appreciation.

In addition to his satisfaction from watching the project grow, his indirect
gains have been more substantial than the direct ones. There are the
virtually free vacations, for example: When Torvalds travels to speak about
Linux, he gets reimbursed for expenses and sometimes arranges for the
sponsors to pay for his hotel for an extra week or so.

Meanwhile, the university keeps him on salary as a researcher but allows him
to pursue Linux as an essentially full-time occupation.

Others are making real money. Several companies sell Linux on CD-ROMs along
with applications software including word processors, spreadsheets and World
Wide Web servers; a Web server is software that manages a Web site and
dishes out material to people running Web browsers such as Netscape
Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Caldera Inc., a company founded by former Novell Inc. chairman Ray Noorda,
is probably the most prominent of the Linux resellers. Caldera offers the
operating system plus a host of desktop applications software (including the
WordPerfect word processor) for prices ranging from $99 and up.

What's most important, Torvalds says, is that the basic operating system
''not lock you into anything.

''When it comes to applications, I prefer having the source (code), but I
can always find another one,'' he said, ''If the operating system breaks
you're stuck.''

Linux and other Unixes recently have added a capability that is of enormous
value in a Windows-leaning world: Windows-compatibility, at least in a
limited way, via the ''Wabi'' Windows emulation software that runs on Unix
and can run Windows programs without having to own the Windows software
itself.

''Wabi is good enough for a lot of people,'' said Torvalds, who uses it
mainly to run Microsoft PowerPoint, the one Windows program he says he truly
likes using. Wabi also costs money, though a free version is under
development.

Intrigued by Java

Torvalds is intrigued but skeptical, meanwhile, about Java, the widely
discussed programming language from Sun Microsystems. A Java program can, in
theory, run on any operating system or other software that supports it; Web
browsers were among the first software programs to support Java.

The Java boom is in part spurred by anti-Microsoft fervor, because it might
threaten Microsoft's hegemony on the PC. Torvalds disdains the Java hype,
and doesn't use the language himself. Yet ''the timing for Java is good,''
he said, because people are truly looking for an alternative.

''Microsoft operating systems are bad, and their morals are even worse,'' he
said. ''But they make some good applications.''

Torvalds said he's been offered jobs at several companies, but remains happy
where he is -- drawing a salary at the university, where he can pursue Linux
and other interesting work, and living what he calls an essentially normal
life. (Among other non-Linux activities, he enjoys reading and playing
snooker, a form of billiards.)

Anyway, he laughed, companies considering job offers probably ''assume I'm a
rabid communist and would laugh in their faces.

''I could be bought,'' he said, ''but Linux couldn't be.''

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