Linus Shares the Millennium Technology Prize 111
udas writes "The Millennium Technology Prize is awarded every two years for a technological innovation that significantly improves the quality of human life, today and in the future. This year, Linus Torvalds, Linux's creator, and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, maker of a new way to create stem cells without the use of embryonic stem cells, are both laureates for the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize. This prize, which is determined by the Technology Academy of Finland, is one of the world's largest such prizes with candidates sought from across the world and from all fields of technology. The two innovators will share over a million Euros. The final winner will be announced by the President of the Republic of Finland in a special ceremony on June 13, 2012."
Re:Innovation (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget, first to write a distributed version control system. That's at least as important as the Linux kernel.
No. Here is an obscure reference [wikipedia.org] explaining otherwise.
git is a fine tool, but not first or even second.
Re:Tech Acadamy of FINLAND!!! (Score:5, Informative)
The Open Source movement, rather than the FSF, is the reason we have such major open source software such as Open Office, Firefox, Chromium, Apache, Android, and so on - if you notice, most of them are not GPL, and even Linus has decided not to make his kernel GPL3. If anything, companies like Sun went for things like the CDDL because it is not GPL. Oh, and before anyone says 'Android is Linux', Android is released under an Apache license and not GPL 2 nor 3.
I'd credit the likes of the OSI in helping popularize the Open Source model and bringing it to where it is. Unlike the FSF, it is not hostile to corporate interests and prefers to promote the advantages of this development model, rather than moralizing about the 'ethics' of 'Free Software'. Speaking of which, what is this 'community' that RMS, and you are talking of? People typically buy/download for free/copy software that they want to use, and use it. Most people don't, and won't, tinker w/ source code, nor pay someone else to tinker w/ them - if a software doesn't work the way they need, they either look for alternatives or workarounds.
Re:Tech Acadamy of FINLAND!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Problem is that the FSF/GNU has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that they are incapable of producing a kernel on their own.
GNU needed a free kernel. They started to (slowly...) work on that and called it Hurd. Then Linux, also a free kernel, just like Hurd, came along. Unlike Hurd, Linux was ready to ship. What that means to Hurd? It means Hurd was not vital anymore, resources could be allocated to other, more pressing, problems.
Linux made Hurd unnecessary.
If you think I'm bullshitting, RMS said in an interview:
"The work that is needed is at the driver and firmware level. That's why our high priority task list includes items relating to free drivers, but not the HURD."