Torvalds, Linus

Linux. Microprocessor version of Unix developed by Linus Torvald. Linux is presently used mostly in network servers and in clusters of microcomputers used for large-scale parallel computation. It is gaining status as an alternative to Microsoft and to Unix, for database applications, because Oracle and other vendors provide Linux versions. 

Another major impetus for open-source software came in 1991, when Linus Torvalds publicly released his first version of an open-source version of the Unix operating system (now called Linux). In 1998, the Open-Source Initiative (OSI) was formed, stimulated by the announced public distribution of the formerly proprietary Netscape Internet browser. 

Open-source software is closely allied to open communications protocols, which allows many different lypes of computer equipment to run the software and communicate with one another. Although the development of cpen-source software is ccmmunal and virtually unrestricted, often there is some sort of central authority that collects and combines the charges made by users. For example, Linus Torvalds still fulftlls this role for Linux software. 

Over the past couple of years the open-source movement has been rallying around Linus Torvalds and his Linux OS. Linux is a Unix-type operating system that has been released into the public domain and is being developed as an operating system standard, much as TCP/IP is a protocol standard. There are a number of computer users who are uncomfortable with Microsoft s dominance of the... 

Linus Torvalds created Linux in 1991 while he was a student at the University of Helsinki. Linux has continued to grow in popularity as an operating... 

In 1964, John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz codeveloped BASIC, an interactive programming language. BASIC became immensely popular as a programming language for personal computers. In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a young student at the University of Helsinki in Finland, released the first version of Linux, an open-source operating system. As of 2010, only Microsoft Windows is more popular as an operating system. 

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