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Ten years ago, college student Linus Torvalds retreated to his own computer to write code. He quips, "I couldn't afford software that I liked, so I wrote my own operating system." Not only did he write the operating system, he gave it away and invited other software engineers to improve it.
The rest is history. Today, Torvalds has become the key figure in the open source software movement. The powerful operating system he wrote, Linux, has grown into a major force in the computer industry, while its voluntary development model has made Linux the world's largest collaborative project. Hundreds of the world's best engineers contribute to the improvement of Linux. Over 12 million machines, including many of the servers that power the World Wide Web, now run on Linux, as do the top-of-the-line offerings from such hardware giants as IBM and Compaq.
Just for Fun chronicles Torvalds's amazing life—from his eccentric childhood in Finland, to his gangly, geeky teenage years when his greatest joy was writing programs on his grandfather's VIC-20 computer, to his rise to world-wide fame with Linux. Brimming with Torvalds's candid observations and opinions, this is a must-read for anyone who wants to know where high tech and business are going in the future.
Some people are born to lead millions. Others are born to write world-changing software. Only one person does both: Torvalds.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Adam Walkover
reviewed Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary on March 17, 2012
Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary
Kinda split about this one. i went into it expecting a certain character to linus and finding a totally different one.
i guess i shouldn't be surprised. i had the notion of the "rockstar" shattered many moons ago. in the end, linus is just another guy with flaws just like anyone else. heck, linux wouldn't exist if he hadn't accidentially tried to dial the university of helsinki through /dev/hda1 instead of /dev/tty1.
there's a resiliency and an honesty to him i really like, even if he seems to try to avoid every argument. despite this, he still has less-than-favorable things to say about gates, jobs, stallman, and tanenbaum, to name a few, which is good for a few laughs.
in the end, i enjoyed the fact that the book made the legendary linus unremarkably human. the pithy technical bits at the beginning were great. i wouldn't have liked it as much without them. i'm also not entirely disturbed that the book wasn't entirely composed of them.
the switching back and forth between linus and david was interesting and added a little extra perspective. it also wasn't overused to the point of being annoying, which it certainly could have been.
linus does reveal a few philosophical thoughts-- not just on open source, mind you. he offers his law of life, so to speak. interesting as it is, it is not a life changing insight, nor is really anything else in the book.
let's face it: linus did what he did because he enjoyed hacking. and he liked people getting excited about it and providing him new challenges to flex his hacking muscles. so he kept doing it. he didn't set out to change the world or become rich, but he doesn't mind having done either. i think if there's anything that i learned from this book is that linux is great because it is a global community project.
if lance armstrong can be remembered by "it's not about the bike" then linux should be remembered by "it's not about the [initial] creator."
that being said, though it was entertaining to know about linus, i'd probably not be recommending this book as much as i might recommend reading the gpl. ;)
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Add Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary, Once upon a time Linus Torvalds was a skinny unknown, just another nerdy Helsinki techie who had been fooling around with computers since childhood. Then he wrote a groundbreaking operating system and distributed it via the Internet — for free. Today Torv, Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary, Once upon a time Linus Torvalds was a skinny unknown, just another nerdy Helsinki techie who had been fooling around with computers since childhood. Then he wrote a groundbreaking operating system and distributed it via the Internet — for free. Today Torv, Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary to your collection on WonderClub |
