Textbook of Linux

b. 1967, Australia — Principal author of Samba and rsync; Australian computer scientist

Also known as: Tridgell, Tridge

Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell wrote Samba (1992), reverse-engineering the SMB protocol so Linux and Unix systems could serve Windows file shares. For much of the 2000s Samba was the single most common way for Linux servers to appear in a Windows-dominated corporate network, and it remains the default on NAS devices and on Linux desktops that talk to Windows.

He also wrote rsync (1996), whose delta-transfer algorithm — only sending the bytes that differ between source and destination — was his PhD thesis. Rsync transformed backup, mirroring, and large file synchronisation; the same algorithm underlies git packfiles and is embedded in countless other tools.

Later, Tridgell's reverse-engineering of BitKeeper's protocol — intended to let free tools exchange kernel-project data — triggered the BitKeeper licence dispute in 2005, which in turn led directly to Torvalds writing Git.