The Origins of Linux - Linus Torvalds

[Recorded Sept 19, 2001]
Linus Torvalds, the creator of the operating system phenomenon Linux, tells the story of how he went from writing code as a graduate student in Helsinki in the early 1990s to becoming an icon for open source software by the end of the decade.

And I want to thank you all for attending and as well as bearing with us the flexibility of the environement

and the historic days that we are in.

Some of our lectures are called history lectures. We had Gene Andall a couple of weeks ago who is a

it was a really stirring experience. We have other lectures that we think are history in the making.

The more I thought about it tonight, how do you make history so fast lecture series.

Thats the theme to the hole revolution that one individual and many thousands and 100's of thousands

really started to make a difference.

I'm honored tonight to have someone who is in that fast track.

While his career is only starting, as we all know, there is so much to be told on the story of how it

all happened.

In 1991 Linus was a 2nd year student of Computer Science at Helsinki and a self taught hacker.

Notice that we in the Museum world consider ten years as things of historical significance.

At the time, if you'll recall, people were inspired by Richard Stallman.

GNU free soft ware movement, quality software that can be used by a lot of people.

GNU C compiler at the time but no real operating system.

I was told that there was going to be a GNU Kernel. That wasn't fast enough for years down the road f

or someone called Linus Torvalds.