Fun book/biography of the story around the birth of a new operating system (well a derivative operating system) that was critical to the history of computer software.

The most important impact of the Linux story is the potential productivity of a motivated decentralised force that have a shared objective under an open software development mind set. The socioeconomic impact of this success is still playing out today and will continue to do so with all sorts of opportunities and contradictory failures.

Google would have never existed if it wasn’t for this predecessor example of impact from open technology. And yet this is somehow paradoxical because it flies in the face of what the free software movement has tried to achieve.

Paraphrasing Brand:
- Free information wants to be owned.
- Owned information wants to be free.

Abd these two sides wrap around eachother... ( )

a fascinating memoir about the creation and evolution of the Linux operating system, one of the most important and influential open-source software projects in history. Torvalds provides an engaging and candid account of his personal and professional journey, from his childhood in Finland to his unexpected role as the leader of a global community of developers. He also shares insights into the unique culture and values of the open-source movement, and the challenges and rewards of building a collaborative, decentralized software ecosystem. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in technology, innovation, and the power of community-driven development. ( )

Indeholder "Forlagets kommentarer", "Indledning", " Takord", " Introduktion: Gule huskesedler fra en revolution", " Indledning: Meningen med livet (1)", "En nørd fødes", "Et operativsystem bliver til", "Ballets konge", " Eneretsbeskyttelse (Intellectual Property)", " Kontrollens endeligt", " Bare for sjov i fremtiden", " Det fornuftige ved Open Source", " Berømmelse og rigdom", " Meningen med livet (2)", "Ordforklaringer", "Stikordsregister".

"Forlagets kommentarer" handler om diverse overvejelser om EDB-udtryk.
"Indledning" handler om diverse indledningsindledninger.
" Takord" handler om tak til familie og venner, spisesteder og sushi-takeaways og lignende.
" Introduktion: Gule huskesedler fra en revolution" handler om at revolutioner bare sker. De kan ikke styres eller planlægges i forvejen.
" Indledning: Meningen med livet (1)" handler om snak i en sort Ford Expedition et sted i Californien med Linus, Tove, Patricia, Daniela og journalisten David Diamond. Livets mening er at have sjov, mens man er her. Så lad os læne os tilbage og nyde turen.
"En nørd fødes" handler om en opvækst med en karakteristisk stor næse og nørd-udseende. En VIC-20 med Basic på. Skægt at lære latin i gymnasiet: Norsen i Unionsgatan. Derfra til Helsinki Universitet, hvor han var otte år om en master i datalogi. 11 måneder som værnepligtig - nu sekondløjtnant af den finske reserve. Kedeligt og koldt, men bagefter har man noget at snakke med andre finske mænd om. Finland, Internet, Nokia, mobiltelefoner.
"Et operativsystem bliver til" handler om Commodore VIC-20, Commodore C64, Amiga. Sinclair QR og Q-DOS. Han køber en Sinclair QR i ca 1987 for næsten 16000 kr. Cpu'en er en 8 MHz 68008. En driver til diskettedrevet er så dårlig at Linus skriver en ny. Og undervejs finder han fejl i operativsystemet. Efter 11 måneder i militæret mener han ikke at han behøver motion i resten af sit liv. Han er på andet år på universitetet og skiller sig af med Sinclair computeren, der nu er for underlig og umulig at få dele til. Operativsystemet har ikke memory protection, så man kan nemt crashe maskinen med en fejl i et program. Intel 386 er på vej på banen og han møder Andrew S. Tanenbaums bog om konstruktion af operativsystemer. Bogen beskriver Minix, som er en miniudgave af Unix. Linus bliver fanget ind med det samme. Det er 1990 og Universitetet har købt en MicroVAX, der kører Ultrix. Bedre end den VAX, der kørte VMS, men ikke godt. Og en 386-pc koster 17000 Finmark på det tidspunkt. Linus er på første årgang, der bliver undervist i Unix og læreren er ofte bagud for de studerende. Linus er fascineret af enkeltheden i Unix. Seks systemkald, fork, exec, open, close, read, write. Et supergennemtænkt enkelt system forfattet af Dennis Ritchie og Ken Thompson. I 1991 får han købt sig en 386-pc. 16 Mhz og 4 Mb RAM og en 14 tommers skærm. Han spiller Prince of Persia på den, indtil Minix dukker op i postkassen en måned og 170 dollars senere. Han opgraderer med patches fra Bruce Evans og begynder at skrive programmer selv foruden at hente programmer fra universitet og skrive dem om til Minix. Han skriver også et terminalemuleringsprogram i assembler for at lære arkitekturen og protected mode at kende fra bunden. Det udvider sig til at kunne skrive filer og læse fra et diskdrev. Faktisk bliver det til et operativsystem. Inden et år har glade brugere startet en indsamling og betalt hans computer, så han slipper for at skulle afdrage på den. Han får fat i POSIX-beskrivelserne af systemkaldene i Unix og begynder at programmere dem ind i sit terminalemuleringsprogram. Efter nogle måneder får han i september 1991 nok af dem til at virke til at han kan få en shell (bash) oversat uden mangler. Bash er ganske kompliceret, så nu kan han uden videre få flere andre programmer oversat, heriblandt cp og ls.
17. september 1991 lægger han en version 0.01 op på et ftp-site og beder om kommentarer. Man skal have Minix installeret for at kunne bruge det, så det er en begrænset skare, der lægger mærke til det, men lynhurtigt samler der sig en gruppe, der hjælper med de manglende stumper som fx grafik og nettilkobling.
"Ballets konge" handler om at han møder Tove, der er elev på et af holdene, han underviser på universitetet. Han holder ligefrem fri fra computerskærmen i flere dage. Hun er karatemester og de bliver gift og får børn. Imens kommer 80486 cpu-en til. Og version 1.0 af linux-kernen bliver frigivet langt om længe. Linux og Tove flytter til Californien og han får arbejde ved Transmeta.
" Eneretsbeskyttelse (Intellectual Property)" handler om Linus' mening om copyright. Det er en form for eneretsbeskyttelse, som er relativ mild. Softwarepatenter. Virksomheder har bunker af patenter. Enkeltpersoner har ret få.
" Kontrollens endeligt" handler om at lave et godt produkt eller en god standard (GSM) og så slås om at være bedst, i stedet for at forsøge at binde og baste forbrugeren. Regionskodede DVD'er fx. Sun, Java, Microsoft. Palm Pilot, Handspring, Visor.
" Bare for sjov i fremtiden" handler om at Linux vil finde vej ind i alle mulige produkter.
" Det fornuftige ved Open Source" handler om at gøre Linux frit tilgængeligt og lade udbredelsen ske af sig selv.
" Berømmelse og rigdom" handler om at tingene ændrer sig, men han er nu stadig ret meget den gamle Linus.
" Meningen med livet (2)" handler om at have det sjovt, så længe man er her.
"Ordforklaringer" handler om chip, pipe, Lisp og RAM.
"Stikordsregister" er et opslagsregister med indgange for Amoeba operativsystem, Ultrix, men ikke Yggdrasil.

Hurtigt læst bog med nogle forudsigelser, der ramte rigtigt henover de næste tyve år. Den anden slags er der også. I skrivende stund har jeg lige set en youtube video om Piccolo OS, der kører på en Raspberry Pico med preemptive tidsdeling. Her er ikke noget om Raspberry, men om Palm Pilots og Clive Sinclair. ( )

»And I have a wife to make the decisions that complete my wardrobe, to pick out things like sandals and socks. So I never have to worry about it again.«

Those who know me a little better know that I fell in love with Linux some 27 years ago. In March 1995 IBM OS/2 Warp was replaced by (I think) DLD - the Deutsche Linux-Distribution - and I was… free.

»As I read and started to understand Unix, I got a big enthusiastic jolt. Frankly, it’s never subsided. (I hope you can say the same about something.)«

How could I not admire the person who started it all - Linus Torvalds. Torvalds is just a few years older than me and I was delighted and highly amused to find him very relatable in the first half of the book:

Be it then…

»It probably won’t surprise anyone that some of my earliest and happiest memories involve playing with my grandfather’s old electronic calculator.«

(In my case, it was a programmable calculator which I got from Joseph who was never shy to help with my computer needs!)

… or be it now…

»When I’m sitting in front of the computer, I get really upset and irritable if somebody disturbs me. Tove could elaborate on this point.«

… my wife also would have a lot to tell you about disturbing me while at my computer.

The entire first half in which Linus remembers his childhood and youth is amusing, engagingly written (despite Linus clearly not being an author) and - to me - highly enjoyable.
I had some issues with David Diamond’s parts: Diamond is a journalist who increasingly writes from the perspective of a friend. He gets too close to his subject and his parts are weak. They emphasise Diamond’s lack of distance to Torvalds and show that closeness doesn’t necessarily lead to better results.

Nevertheless, Torvald’s parts were so good I thought I had a five-star read in front of me after a string of ok’ish books.

Sadly, the brilliant first half was followed by a woefully outdated (the book was first published in 2001, my edition is from 2002) and slightly preachy second half: While Linus Torvalds is undoubtedly brilliant at what he does, he’s neither a great writer nor a great philosopher. (At least not in my book.)

Nokia is still the biggest thing in cell phones, the Palm Pilot is the next big thing and Linus talks about the meaning of life (“Survive, socialise, have fun!”). Quite a few times entire sentences get repeated (“shoulders of giants”, anyone?) and Linus drones on and on about the merits and demerits of people in open source and intellectual property (an entire chapter…).

At times, Linus becomes preachy and acknowledges it (»Okay. You’re right, I should stop preaching.«) instead of fixing it.

On the other hand, years before Android (2008) Linus had the right idea:

»And where is Linux itself, and open source generally, in all this? You won’t even know. It will be inside those Sony machines. You’ll never see it, you’ll never know it, but it’s there, making it all run. It will be in that cell phone, which is at the same time acting as your very own personal communications hub for the rest of your electronic widgets when you’re away from your wireless local area network.
You’ll see. It’s only a matter of time. And money.«

So when Torvalds talks about his profession, he’s just as one might imagine him to be. It’s massively felt that this book has remained for 20 years in relative obscurity and has never been updated to the developments of the last two decades - an age or two in information technology.

And yet: If you read this without expectation and “Just for Fun”, you might at least enjoy part of this amazing ride.

I’m looking forward to one day reading Walter Isaacson’s take on Linus Torvalds.

Till then I’ll leave with three star out of five and this final piece of wisdom by Linus:

»Linux has instead brought people both the entertainment of an intellectual challenge and the social motivations associated with being part of creating it all. We may not have seen each other face-to-face very much, but email was much more than just a dry exchange of information. Bonds of friendship and other social ties can form over email.
This probably also means that if and when we ever meet another intelligent life form in this universe, their first words are not likely to be “Take me to our leader.” They’re more likely to say “Party on, dude!”
Of course, I might be wrong.«

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Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam ( )

bio of Linus Torvalds, developer of Linux, interesting, but not scintillating