Torvalds the "5th Most-Powerful Man in Tech" 594
An anonymous reader writes "According to silicon.com, Linus Torvalds is the fifth most influential man in technology. The bio they have written for him isn't the most flattering to the open source community though. I quote: "If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
It goes on to say: "In truth Torvalds best work is in the past"... which seems to negate their own argument for having him in there.
Also in the Top 5 is Steve Jobs (1) who comes out on top of Bill Gates (2).
As an interesting aside, the writer of the Sobig virus even makes it in at Number 42..."
Agenda setting (Score:5, Insightful)
Power or Influence (Score:5, Insightful)
Top 5 (Score:0, Insightful)
Torvalds might only be fifth... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice having people in the upper-levels of Linux kernel development who actually read and post to mailing lists...
Influential or powerful? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill Gates is powerful, because he's so insanely wealthy. He then can influence all sorts of people with his power.
Linus Torvalds may be influential in tech circles, but whether that translates into any normal interpretation of "power" is another question.
Good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's deserving. (Score:4, Insightful)
Jobs is overrated (Score:2, Insightful)
Due to the locked-in relationship of the hardware and software, his influence is limited for the most part to the tiny Mac world. This could change as soon as his music store goes beyond its limited beta situation.
Negate? No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does that negate their own argument?
Power doesn't mean "how much have you coded recently", it means "how much influence do you weild."
Bill Gates hasn't coded anything in over 10 years, but he's made the list - are you suggesting he's not a power either?
Carly whatshername (Score:2, Insightful)
On looking for her biography, I currently get a 'page cannot be found' message...
Cheers,
Ian
Well... yeah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ryan Fenton
Re:Pff (Score:5, Insightful)
"If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
But I DO have posters of Torvlads on my walls :(
Besides, they clearly displayed their cluelessness by not listing Carrie Ann Moss and Natalie Portman, who enjoy an almost exclusively geek following and great popularity therein....
Re:Torvalds might only be fifth... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Bill G and Steve J actually did any development any more then you could make this a valid comparison.
ID / John Carmack (Score:4, Insightful)
No Richard M. Stallman? (Score:5, Insightful)
He may not be at the top, but he should be on the list. And above the Sobig author...
no RMS? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Linus gets to #5 being the embodiment of Open Source, how can they neglect GNU ?
Power and Influence do not = $$$ (Score:2, Insightful)
The Linux crowd and Torvalds have been hugely successful in starting a movement away from proprietary OSes and again making this movement more visible. Of course *BSD was there first as well as GNU, but with Linux the concept was popularized among the clued in folks in the IT world. Whether you like Tovalds or not, you cannot refute that he has influenced the IT world tremendously with his work.
The best thing is that neither Jobs nor Torvalds needed to be the dominant market leader to influence anyone. There is more power in thought than money. That is the way things should be everywhere.
Stupid comment. (Score:1, Insightful)
postscript
Actually I've found most members/users of open source (averaged) take the most respectful stance to women I've seen from any other group (including pro fem/left/right/religious agenda groups). All with little to no effort, it does seem quite natural.
I'm kind of curious what kind of carry over or representation there is to the larger population. Diversity is not something open source population lacks.
Journalistic fluff (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:no RMS? (Score:2, Insightful)
RMS is a zealot, and for every person he brings into his way, he alienates two others. RMS's influence is limited becaue of the numbers of people that he alienates.
As a good example of what Linus does right, compare the *BSD community to the Linux community. Regardless of technical merit, Linux has been far more successful while the BSD community forks again and again. Linus is the steady hand that everyone looks to. Linus has stayed above the arguments so that he can have the authority to mediate the arguments, rather than have Linux suffer a fork.
Strange Headline (Score:3, Insightful)
Greg Dyke (Score:2, Insightful)
For the worlds worst example see FOX News.
Jobs? At this late date? (Score:3, Insightful)
The most innovative hardware technology in computing today is coming from Sony. Everybody else has architectures from the past; Sony is actually selling new ones, in volume.
Incidentally, Motorola is about to bail out of the semiconductor business. They're trying to sell off their semiconductor operation. Sad.
Re:Jobs? At this late date? (Score:1, Insightful)
-Introduced the whole "Legacy Free" concept
-Introduced a modern UNIX-based OS
-Introduced 64-bit systems at prices competitive with the best 32-bit systems
-Released some of the most visually attention-getting industrial designs in the industry.
Is he an "Adgenda Setter?" I don't know. But he has allowed Apple to take significant steps.
Where is Larry Wall? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Darl? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to be skeptical of the methodology. This is just a list of the top 50 best known people in tech. It says nothing about influence.
Take for example the listing of Knuth who has been retired for several years at this point. About twenty of the people on the list are CTOs or CEOs of barely known startus with a 95% probability of disappearing without a trace.
They got a small number of positions right. Linus, Gates are near the top. But why are Balmer and Tim Berners-Lee right at the bottom?
Nobody active in the IETF or OASIS standards processes is mentioned - these are the people who really set trends for the industry.
The secret of these lists is that the real parameter being measured is number of press mentions in the rag that compiles them which in turn tends to translate into number of advertisements...
Re:Serious problem here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Boy's club mentality"??? Maybe there are few women on the list because few women choose to enter technical fields. In all my electronics and computer science classes, there were a very small percentage of women, and there was no "boy's club mentality" either. In fact, most of the guys would go out of their way to help the women.
Interesting Microsoft quote (Score:2, Insightful)
The Chinese government is looking to develop its own 3G standard, while its support for the development of an open source alternative to Windows has already had Microsoft, somewhat ironically, complaining of anti-competitive practices.
I know most people on slashdot saw that as irony, but until PHB reads it, chances are he/she will not. So I am glad that at least silicone.com wrote it. It would be better if Wall Street Journal published similar assessment, but for now, I take this as a positive sign.
Re:A guinness man? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Serious problem here.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Serious problem here.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The same argument "women dont want to enter the field" was used for most fields that were predominatly men, until that is women no longer felt there was a social barrier.
Re:Well... yeah! (Score:2, Insightful)
Often people choose Bill Gates way because alternatives have been eliminated. People are choosing the Linus way because they want to. Which power would you rather have?
It's not a list of powerful ideas. It's a list of powerful men. Because of what Linus has come up with in the past thousands+ will stop and listen to what he has to say about anything. I definitely consider that power in the man. I would give him that power BECAUSE he proved to me Free software is a great idea, not because Free software is a great idea. Although I agree the idea of free software can change peoples minds about how it should work which is definitely power in the idea.
Re:Serious problem here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Technical fields are intimidating to just about everyone, except the truly gifted, and there are about as many gifted women in IT as there are gifted men.
The root of the problem is social.
Extremists gather in groups to tell women there is a vast conspiracy to keep women away from computers. Then when a woman encounters a troll who attacks anyone and will use anything they can think of as an insult, she thinks: "they are right. Everyone is out to get me. I give up." The problem when you train people to play a victime, they become one and don't even try. No matter who a person is, no matter where a person goes, no matter what they do, there are people who will shit on them. One has to learn to deal with these wackos, not cave in.
Then their is the fact that most men are stripped of their emotions. From childhood, they are taught they shouldn't have any. No wonder most of them become obsessed with machines. Women tend to be more normal [atypical.net]. "most of those females I know who program and use *NIX as much as I do don't obsessively do so. On the contrary, most men I know who program and use *NIX do so all night long, sustaining themselves on Jolt and Oreos."
Well, if all these women want to enter the field so much, why don't I see many women's names in open source projects? All they need is a computer, some books, and a webpage. No "boys club" conspiracy can stop them from doing it. Do you think SourceForge and Freshmeat delete projects because they are run by women?