Textbook of Linux

b. 1969, Helsinki, Finland — Creator of Linux and Git; lead kernel maintainer

Also known as: Torvalds, Linus

Linus Torvalds began writing an operating-system kernel in 1991 as a computer-science student at the University of Helsinki. His intent, as he famously put it in his comp.os.minix announcement, was "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu." It became, instead, the most widely deployed piece of software in history — running the majority of web servers, every Android phone, most supercomputers, cars, televisions, and the International Space Station.

Torvalds picked the GPL for version 0.12 in 1992, which made Linux combinable with the GNU project's userland and legally safe for companies to contribute to. He remains the lead maintainer and final arbiter of what goes into the kernel, though day-to-day review is delegated to hundreds of subsystem maintainers.

In 2005 he wrote Git in a fortnight, after the BitKeeper license dispute forced the kernel project to find a new version-control system. Git has since displaced nearly every other VCS and is now the foundation of GitHub, GitLab, and the broader open-source ecosystem.

Torvalds is known for blunt — sometimes scathing — mailing-list posts, a habit he publicly apologised for in 2018 and has since tempered. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his family and continues to develop Linux full-time, funded through the Linux Foundation.