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Linux Software

Now It's Doctor Linus Torvalds 183

Posted by Roblimo from the long-overdue dept.
Uart writes "Linus Torvalds, is the youngest recipient (at 29) ever of The University of Stockholm's honorary doctorate. Read about it here." (From Linux Today).
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Now It's Doctor Linus Torvalds More

Now It's Doctor Linus Torvalds

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  • I would like to offer a constructive criticism of your posit there's alot of people out there that don't have a degree and are alot more intelligent than those who do.

    There is a common confusion to both sides of the academic/non-academic struggle: education does not equal intelligence. Further, neither is an acceptable substitute for the other.

    I would encourage you to view Linus' honorary doctoral degree as a validation by academia of his efforts and philosophy, instead of a slap in the face to the self-educated.
  • Current Poll = Most Powerful Doctor Linus Torvald + PhD = Dr. Torvald My vote is for Dr. Linus Torvald!
  • It should be pointed out that PhDs are given out for a new contribution to the field in which you are in.

    The only difference between Dr. Torvalds and other Drs is that Dr. Torvalds did not apply for his PhD, but still went through _all_ the work any other graduate student would go through.

    And he did it in a lot less then the normally allocated seven years, too. Linus fully deserves this.

    (Now he just has to write a book - if he hasn't already. :))
  • He's just a really good hacker. He doesn't care much about software politics. He prefers free software, because he gets annoyed at not being able to fix bugs.

    And that, my friend, is exactly why most people consider him to be a rebel.

  • So his Torvaldness gets his honorably doctorate degree. What about Alan Cox, and all other contributors to the Linux / Open-source movement?

    What about the people of FSF? Aren't their contribution important as well?

    Hmmm....

  • So.. which part of that quote were you referring to in your statement..? Just in case, I'll examine the whole thing..

    "He's just a really good hacker."

    There are a lot of those around. They aren't considered rebellious, they're considered to "have a bright future" or "we need more of them".

    "He doesn't care much about software politics."

    Ok, now he's been lumped in with Joe Public and the rest of the "real world". I kind of doubt that would make him a rebel in the average person's eyes (unless you consider the average person to be someone who participates whole-heartedly in the BSD vs. GPL licensing holy war).

    "He prefers free software, because he gets annoyed at not being able to fix bugs."

    Maybe, at a stretch, you could consider this rebellious. Not when you consider the context, however. The point is, he doesn't care one way or the other. He isn't out to change anything. Therefore, he's not much of a rebel, now is he? If that /does/ make him a rebel, you should get a dictionary from a more *ahem* established source.

    Richard Stallman, on the other hand, is mostly known for being a rebel at this point (even more than for his programming ability, one might say, even though he gave us the gift that is Emacs).

    So, care to explain? I tire very easily of vague assertations, especially when they appear to be bereft of a stable foundation of /any/ kind..

  • You claim that the time period for a PhD is usually less than 4 years?? And that a bachelor+PhD should take 7 yrs total normally?? "Most people" get their PhDs by the time they're 26 or 27?

    Frankly, I do not know which planet you live on but here on Earth, I doubt if you can make such sweeping generalizations. I do not know exactly what the scene is like in the humanities or in Physics/Chemistry/Biology but speaking for Computer Science, the average would be around 5 yrs after bachelor's (speaking both from what I've seen after 3 yrs of grad school as well as from www.cra.org). If you're in theory, you tend to finish a little faster than in Systems, where you have to spend more time actually building something to evaluate. It also varies a lot from field to field (within CS) and from school to school. E.g., Out here in Wisconsin-Madison, a computer architecture PhD will easily take around 6 yrs on average. People at MIT take forever to graduate :) [ok there is some truth in that last bit]

    Yumpee

  • A person who receives an honorary doctorate *shouldn't* call themselves a "Doctor." Linux Torvalds or not.

    They *can*, but *shouldn't*. Besides not working for it, it devalues the degree for those who work for it. Plenty of people have honorary degrees certainly don't insist on the Dr title (and often keep it quiet, or suggest to not call them Dr). Example? "Dr." Anne Landers (you'll never see her call herself that). Of course, there are those that do, unfortunately.

  • It's a sound idea - but I've found that most slashdotters don't like to have their beliefs raked over the coals. And to be honest - nobody does. I just had this gut feeling that as soon as a moderator saw that, he was going to -1 me. I was hoping he would glance at my article before it got zero'd, and remember that the moderation system was designed to promote good comments... even if the moderator disagrees with them.

    I wasn't begging... I was just asking them to be sure why they were marking me down before they did. And was it really necessary to -1 my request for the moderator(s) to pause for a few seconds before commiting the changes? Stuff like this doesn't have it's own forum to be discussed in...

    --

  • Ask Dr. Linus Column (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Q: Dr. Linus, for the past few weeks my throat has been itchy, my nose has been stuffed up and I've been waking up in the middle of the night with my sheets soaked with sweat. I've tried taking asprin, tylenol and advil but nothing seems to work. What would you suggest? Your standard decongestants haven't been doing the trick either. - Joey Buttafuco
  • Suddenly I feel compelled to change my vote in the Slashdot poll....

    Alas, there is no "Dr. Linus Torvalds" option.

    *sniff*
  • I think that alone should qualify him.
  • If I remember correctly Bill Gates got an honorary doctorate from the only dutch private university Nijenrode. This university deals in business administration, and related subjects. No technology at all. Although they call themselves a university, it's more a school than an institution dedicated to science.

    The shop where I always go to rent black and white tie, and morning suits, showed me a picture of Bill in his white tie dress, receiving his doctorate, because he had provided the suit. After I told him I don't like old Bill all that much he started complaining about the lack of style on Bill's part because he wore sneakers under his white tie.

    I quite enjoyed the sight of Bill dressed up as a penguin though. :)

    Tob (who openly admits to actually enjoying wearing formal dress, as opposed to the norm in our circles.)
  • No, it wasn't necessary, but relax man. You've got enough karma to last you until rapture. Two negative points aren't gonna hurt you THAT bad, and the comment wasn't so important that the /. community needed to be reading it. Personally, I agree with you that moderators -1 comments too frequently - the moderation system is designed to promote good comments.
  • And people donating money to colleges to get a building named after them or more often a honorary degree deserve it? I'm sorry but if colleges only ave them out to people who desreved it then it wouldn't bother me as much but colleges give out degrees left and right. Just so they can get good press or money.
  • I can see the media calling right now to congratulate him..

    "Hello! Way to go, Linus! (Can I call you Linus?) Hey, I've always wanted to say this, so.. [ahem] ... What's up, doc? Heh, get it? Get it? What's up...--anyways, just called to get another quote for my article, and.." *CLICK* "..hello? Hello..? ... Aw man, not again.."

    Poor Mr. Torvalds.. It's a good thing they're blocking his calls for him at work..


    James
  • > Bill Gates: College dropout.
    > Linus Torvalds: Doctor.

    BG: FUD
    LT: PhD

    dave
  • I picked Dr. Evil, but now I want a recount.
  • What's wrong with Logan, or do they want one down the street? :-)
  • Is it common practice to refer to someone who recieves an honorary Doctorate as Dr.? Or another way to put it, does an honorary Doctorate carry the same weight as a PHD earned through school?

  • It was announced in May that he *would* receive an Honorary Doctorate. This article is about the fact that he actually *received* it.
  • Alan may have got his PhD back at Swansea along with the rest of us in the EE gang (I left around about the time of his arrival there). Or maybe he's still writing it up. Or maybe not. Dunno, ask him.

    Whatever the answer is though, I bet he supports Linus's award totally. Just because so many other people have contributed to Linux doesn't in any way detract from Linus deserving this for the system which he started from scratch and for which he is the main standard bearer.
  • "Was going to get" is old - from May. "Has gotten" is new; the ceremony was held Friday.

  • Re:Add him to the poll!!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's Torvalds, not Torvald. Dr. Linus Torvald probably doesnt exist. :)

  • Re:Formal wear is GREAT! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wow, you're just so "wild." I'm sure all those "squares" have never run into someone as "avante garde" as you before. Undoubtedly, your "bohemian appearance/appendages/philosophy" really "throw them a curve." On behalf of all the normal, boring people, let me thank you for keeping us all "on our toes."
  • I have a theory I'd like some feedback on (yes, it's on-topic... =)

    From what I can see (which is admitedly not much), it seems that the people who are _best_qualified_ to do computer jobs (with a few notable exceptions) are also the _least_credentialed_. All the CS BS degree holders I've ever seen are, shall we say, a little lacking in ablity. They know the theories, but they don't have *any* real-world experiance using those theories, and are no better than a beginner. However, those who decided to forgo college (usually because it seemed a waste of time for them, b/c they allready knew the material) have a lot of real world experiance, and are just better computer people.

    ok, I'm done. Stick a fork in me...

    -- ioctl
  • Just a quick post to give congratulations to one of the world's most famous programmers. It may be honorary, but Linus deserves that recognition for his work, and his inspiration for others to work alongside him.

    Code on.
  • honorary or otherwise, when you receive a PhD your "name" becomes "John Doe, PhD" not "Dr. John Doe".

    "Linus Torvalds, PhD." -- that just sounds cool.

  • ... (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @07:03AM (#1658636)
    My opinion? He should have rejected it out of hand out of hand. Universities aren't the exclusive purveyors of knowledge - there's alot of people out there that don't have a degree and are alot more intelligent than those who do. Linus is consenting to let them continue the facade that you "need a degree to do anything useful". That's complete bunk - and the [ free software | open source ] movement was a slap in the face to conventional learning.

    I'd like to see, for once, highly technical jobs that judged you on the basis of your skills instead of "I'm an MSCE", or "I have a BA in *blah*".

    --

  • Incidentally, how come other major contributors to UNIX and Linux development (Rob Pike immediately comes to mind, as he only has a B.S. yet is a full research MTS at Bell Labs) haven't been conferred such honors? Why? Publicity. Hype. Lobbying. That's about it.

    That's just the normal Swedish habit of stealing everything from us.. Now they are trying to steal Linus from Finns!
    --
  • Several things. Go research, and get your US-centric head out of your ass.
  • I Guess this brings a whole new meaning to "Dr. Linux" :). Nice to see our favorite programmers well educated.
  • Indeed, congratulations. Moral objections to universities aside, Linus Torvalds deserves it very much -- a lot more than some others who have even real PhD's. He gave something to society, and this is yet another way of repaying him for it.
  • Think he got any Red Hat shares through the IPO? I mean, after all, if anyone deserved shares, it was him. :-)

    He might be doing better than we think ...

    D

    ----

  • Ummm... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am not trying to start anything, but this has always been my opinion on the Linux god status... what did he do that was so great? he took an existing concept (Unix) applied it to an existing architecture (Intel x86) and released it under an existing license (GNU) he just got publcity. i am not saying he is not a good programmer (i was i was half as takented as he was), but he has not done anything ground breaking or new ore anything that already is out there (plenty of Unixen out there already) if he wrote it all himself, then i would be more impressed, but it's like saying i am a master musician because i can play the Bethoven and Bach on a guitar.....i might be a good musician, but far from a genius.

  • Re:... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Excuse me, if there wasn't the Internet we would *NEVER* have free software on our pc's. The universities used the early Internet too. Besides the place or degree doesn't matter, it's the people that count!

  • Actually, Stocholm University doesn't have a CS department. I believe it is the Mathematics Department that is honoring Linus.

    -
    /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
  • Linus already have a honorary doctorate here in sweden. I don't remember what school it was, but it was defenitly not one in Stockholm. By the way, RMS has a honorary doctorate at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

  • Re:what a waste (Score:3)

    by Hobbex ( 41473 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @08:34AM (#1658650)

    Yeah sure, but here in Finland education is free, paid by the gov.

    There is no such thing as free sex, I mean lunch.

    Your paying the government back for that education in the form of taxes every day you work in Finland. The "government" is not some magical thing that makes money, its (at least it supposed to be) you and a lot of other people.

    Unless of course you are planning to split the country as soon as you have earned your "free" degree. Like me :-).


    -
    /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
  • Here in .au we have a HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) where University costs approx $3,000/yr (australian - US$2,000). You can pay this upfront and receive a 10% discount, or it is taken out as an additional tax when your salary after graduation exceeds $27k
  • Yes, I also remember that Linus got a honorary doctorate. I believe it was the university of Uppsala, but I have not been able to find with any search-engines. I am quite certain of this, though.

    confirmation anyone?
  • Er, SU _does_ have a CS department. It's a joint venture between the University and the Royal Institute of Technology, but it's more SU than KTH.
  • As far as been able to tell (I've been programming professionally since 1991). Neither means a damn alone. I've worked with people who have advanced degrees and college dropouts. The best people to work with are the ones that 'breathe' technology.

    There are a few things that I think gave me an advantage starting out: A solid math/physics background of proofs and derivations. This is essentially all programming is, though very simplified for the majority of it. The other is a bit of advice from the best prof I had ... EVERYTHING is data driven.

    That said the program snippets that you write in college are usually too trivial to give you even a sense of what a robust application is -- so the programming exp isn't.

    Most college CS can give you some background on the (non-obvious) paths to disaster in software projects. Listening to the old guys that have BTDT can do the same ... the problem with the these generalizations is that neither means that you learned (internalized) anything. I've seen CS grads that didn't understand databases, understand structured code, etc. On the college drop out side I've never found one that didn't understand databases, but they may have misused them and/or wrote disasterously unmanagable code (it made perfect sense to them).

    You do need to know some theory and you need to spend some time applying it to the real world. If you got a CS degree and can't figure out how to apply the theory, maybe you should've paid attention in those physics or chem classes (that's what the real value of them are after all).

    If you've just hacked together a game .. maybe you should get you hands on one of those software architecture books and figure out how to apply it to what you wrote, what you think could have been better, more flexable ... and for god's sake don't treat the flamin book like it's right and your wrong...for most of 'em 3/4 of it is utter crap and/or too specific to a particular domain to be of much use ...

    Just 'cause it works that way doens't mean it's the best way.
  • Yup, that was what I thought as well. It certainly feels like the university is just trying to cash in on Linus's newfound fame. It could also be that they are trying to show the IT companies of Sweden that they dig the new technlogy and are hip with all the latest trends... :(
  • Rob has clearly put out the poll for "the most powerful doctor" too early. Linus is by far the post powerful doctor.
  • Well.. Linus Torvalds had already got himself a Masters Degree in Computer Science a few years ago, so your argument does not hold.
  • In the USofA maybe, but not in most European countries where the "PhD" is never used.
    Dr. D.
  • He has a CS MSc.

  • Re:... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I seem to recall having free software on my PC after downloading it from BBSes back in the day before the internet was so popular. The Internet was very important in the technological revolution but it is not necessarily the only way.
  • Ha ha ha...read the article. Written by an assistant professor at UBC? Jeesh. Slashdot, according to the article, is part of a greater cult of open source users, where good is mutually exclusive with mircosoft. That guy's probably got a doctorate too though. But its in Business Administration. Sometimes I wonder how people get their degrees. The article would make an interesting /. discussion in itself. Then again, the article was written for Conrad Black's media empire, Southam. Southam is to media as Microsoft is to software.
  • I'm not so sure of that. Perhaps he could earn a PhD in sociology by turning Linux development into a thesis on large-scale cooperation in software development. However, I doubt anybody would accept "I wrote a UNIX clone for the x86" as a computer science thesis.

    As for the time period, the time period is normally seven years *total*, that's bachelor's plus PhD (PhD's rarely take more than 4 years by themselves), and Linus has taken more than that. Most people get their PhDs by the time they're 26 or 27 or so, and Linus is 29.
  • LOL

    sort of like the marketing department telling the engineering department that their product is technically inferior...

    I wonder how this guy gets off calling Torvlads a "pompus ass"???
  • Hopefully he can go down in history as the man who started the revolution that brang down Microsoft and revolutionarized the computer industry!
  • One thing I've never understood about honorary doctorates is who is it best for? Are the universities being selfish, wanting to claim the next great mind or famous person as their own? Like universities giving honorary degrees and such to movie stars. I think Linus totally deserves the title Dr. and he's done more than the equivalent of work to get it. But is the University of Stockholm in it just to claim him and his lately growing fame as their's also? I'm just supicious of motives is all:)
  • He's not. off the hook - he's busted. Slashdot called him on it. :)

  • Really this is a case of politics. His contribution amounts to a small amount of one element of the computer system. His name rarely appears in any of the man pages or kernel source files and how much are you actually going to get done with just the kernel? How many times is Linus the one to ask when you're having trouble getting something done on Linux?
  • 51% noted :)

    But how does one go about awarding "a community" for something?
    Good one Linus, good one everybody :)
  • About the only thing a degree is good for is impressing people who are impressed by degrees

    Exactly. I couldn't have said it better. (I too have a Masters in computer science, by the way.)

    I suspect that Linus Torvalds might have similar thoughts.

    I would be surprised if he doesn't.

    --

  • Now Linus should be in the
    Slashdot Poll for most powerful doctor [slashdot.org] :)

    Let's start a poll for that
  • I suppose George Bush being given an honorary degree by the University of Toronto (at a ceremony which half of the faculty walked out of in protest) rather blows a hole in this theory.

    Honorary degrees are often bandied around by institutions to give them good press and get them in well with the famous and influential. Whilst I can see Linus' contributions to computing are as good a portfolio of evidence as any thesis, I certainly wouldn't suggest that honorary degrees, which are given out generally for political rather than academic reasons, are "closer to what the real meaning of the degree should be."

    So yes, congratulations to Dr Linus Torvalds, but we all knew you were this good before any university thought what good publicity they could get out of it.

  • Well, obviously, you can't. Let me put it this way.. I don't have a problem with anyone awarding Linus. He's a good guy, he's a good hacker, and he's contributed.. a lot. The same reasons why I think it's cool that Richard Stallman and Larry Wall got awards for their contributions. I simply think they could phrase the reasons for awarding him a little better. I like and support all of the above parties, but the misconceptions and outright lies are getting to be a little too much.

    I can see us reading books decades from now that mention vague references to "an earlier inventor of what we all came to know and love as Linux..".. Like the forgotten pages of history or something. ;)

  • Before you post, read the article. He called him "pompus". The word "Ass" is not there. Are your eyes so blinded by the "Linus Effect", that you can't read?

  • Re:Really Dr.? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ah, these silly differences in academic titles around the world... I guess you are coming from some english-speaking (or culturally anglo-centric) country - where one gets a PhD say in Physics or similar subjects.
    I don't know how this is organized in Sweden exactly (perhaps some swedish /. reader could comment), but in Germany every doctorate is awarded as a "Dr."

    Thus, if Karl Krause is awarded a doctorate in law, he can call himself Dr. jur. Karl Krause, if it is medicine, Dr. med. Karl Krause, if it is Physics, Chemistry, Dr. rer. nat. Karl Krause... The subject abbreviation is _optional_, though.
    A honorary doctorate is a Dr. h.c. (honoris causae, Latin).

    The prefix "Dr." even becomes official part of the name, i.e. you can go to the authorities and ask them to print a new passport / id card including the title.

    So, don't ask Linus for any medial treatment, except perhaps for a lack of globality... ;-)

    Heraklit (just too lazy to log in)


  • Agreed. A few professors at my college planned an operating system as their thesis - no actual code. If this is enough, Linus is more than eligible.
  • Linux is an interesting piece of engineering but it is of little scientific meaning. Therefore it is unsuitable as a Ph D. thesis since the goal of a Ph D. thesis is to contribute to science. This does not mean that it is unsuitable as a research subject. For instance there is very little scientific material about the OSS development model (at least not that I know of) so that might be an area where research can be done. Apart from that there is little revolutionary I can think of. Basically the design is 20 to 30 years old tweaked with some modern stuff like clustering and stuff like that (mostly copied from other operating systems).

    Of course Linus seems to be intelligent and knowledgable enough to write such a thesis but as far as I know he hasn't done so.
  • Wow... a little bitter? (Get the impression this guy lost money on Corel stock?)

    To be fair, though, he never used the word ASS.

    Joe
  • used it???

    They practically invented it. News and sendmail were created by students, So was ftp, I think. Not to mention BSD (we all know what the B stands for I hope).

    So your statement should be:
    "without universities we would *NEVER* have free software on our pc's"

    And remember Bill Gates was a University drop out and Linus did finnish university. If you have brains, universities are an excellent place to train them and learn how to use them. Some people manage to aquire those skills elsewhere but most people don't.

    "Besides the place or degree doesn't matter, it's the people that count!"

    Now there's something I can agree with.

  • "I'd like to see, for once, highly technical jobs that judged you on the basis of your skills instead of "I'm an MSCE", or "I have a BA in *blah*". "

    This has been my experience in Silicon Valley. They often could care less about how much education or seniority you have as opposed to your skill. Even Linus has commented on this.

    I know people who have risen to the top of their fields as engineers who never graduated from college. It's also not unusual for someone with less education to earn far more than someone with a Phd. It all depends on skill.

    I figure once I graduated from college future courses and further education is not that important as long as I keep current with the technology. In fact, when reviewing resumes, often I only skim the education part out of curiosity. I could really care less.

    In Silicon Valley my experience has been that experience and skill has far more importance than education. If a company is going to give you trouble over your education (or lack thereof) then it's probably not a good company to work for to begin with.

    Getting started without a degree can be more difficult, but with the shortage of qualified engineers, more and more companies offer internships. That's how I got started. My internship opened at least as many doors as my diploma did.

    I'm not saying that an education is a bad thing either. I feel that immersing ones self in many different areas of knowlege is a good thing and produces a more well-rounded individual. Even those non-engineering related courses can prove invaluable from time to time. It's much more difficult to immerse ones self in many different areas when one has to work 40+ hours a week. Also, multi-talented engineers are far more valuable than someone who only knows a narrow field.

    However, it is rather cool to have people call you doctor. Next thing you know Linus will have a blue police box and will be known as THE doctor.
  • Most people certainly don't get their Ph.Ds by the time they are 26 or 27.

    This is only true in cases either 1) when the field requires a Ph.D for a job to be attained, or 2) when the person elects to pursue a Masters and a Ph.D as a full time pursuit.

    Fields like education typically do not have 26 and 27 year old Ph.Ds. My parents are both doctors of education (mother is a Ph.D and father is an Ed.D), and neither of them got it until they were past 35 years old (my dad got it at 38, and my mom got it at about 43). They both held full time teaching positions while they were pursuing their graduate schooling, and it took my parents 16 and 21 years, respectively, to get their doctorates.

    Now, a physics person who can get into a graduate school (and afford the cost) straight out of college CAN finish a Ph.D in about 3 or 4 years. But the length of the doctoral thesis (the paper itself, mind you; not the actual work involved) is about a tenth of that required of someone studying in education or English. The difference between physics Ph.Ds and Ph.Ds or Ed.Ds or whatnot in the humanities is that the people in the humanities tend to get their degrees while holding steady jobs in the field, while high level physics degrees are typically required to land desirable jobs in the field.

  • Yes, that is basically how it works here.

  • Warning: The opinions expressed herein are strong, and may warrant others to label it "flame bait" or "troll".. However, you may want to pause and consider a few moments before rendering a verdict. ;)

    "A small element, but essential - where would the open-source movement be today without a favourite OS underneath it?"

    I'm not sure what you mean. I'm skeptical about the Hurd, although I'm confident that if the Linux kernel hadn't stolen the spotlight, it would have been ready long ago (not much interest in developing it since we already have a GPL'ed kernel, after all).

    "(No, I'm not saying open-source wouldn't exist, nor that it's only linux that's open-source. But there is a 'certain relationship' between the d00ds at the FSF and, say, Debian...)"

    That registers even less. So who are we blaming for the GNU/Linux OS here..? Are we calling the kernel the OS..? It just doesn't.. add.. up.. Not how it was stated, anyway. Of course, I can't help but wonder if you are implying that the FSF is a bunch of warez d00dz of not.. ;)

    Also, who the hell cares where the "open source movement" would be? That's the most idiotic thing anyone ever came up with. Personally, I think that ESR is a fool, even though he is a big contributor. "Open source", indeed. That term is sooo easily corrupted. The thought of trademarking it to avoid such corruption is completely ridiculous. Open source means less than nothing. It certainly doesn't imply "free software". The SCSL is open source. So is the NPL. Does that make them good licenses? Don't worry, you won't have to put your thinking caps on for this one: The answer is NO!

    At least the BSD license doesn't try to sucker you. It lets you know up front that it's just a step away from being "public domain". There wouldn't even be an open source movement if not for the free software movement, the original and other faction in the community. Free software is also a little bit ambiguous, thanks to the "intricacies" of the English language.. However, it's a little harder for companies to corrupt, don't you think? After all, not all "open source" products are necessarily zero-cost, so the other meaning of the term wouldn't apply too well on those. Even if it did, you wouldn't be so easily suckered because you would realize there was a couple definitions. Just look at the license. The term "open source" is a lot easier to rip apart through the media. Everyone can get a warm fuzzy feeling about the latest "open source" project..

    Ugh.

  • Politics aside.. (Score:3)

    by Kitsune Sushi ( 87987 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @11:02AM (#1658696)

    I think it rather odd that they chose Linus of all people to refer to as a "rebel". I don't think there's anything particular "rebellious" about him. He's just a really good hacker. He doesn't care much about software politics. He prefers free software, because he gets annoyed at not being able to fix bugs, but he's not against proprietary software either. He doesn't really care. People can use whatever.

    If someone would care to explain why this makes him a rebel, please feel free. :)

    They got the "computer genious" part thing right though.. Though I could have done with the obligatory Transmeta plug..

  • It IS deserved (Score:4)

    by Grimwiz ( 28623 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @11:32AM (#1658699) Homepage
    I was told that a doctorate was awarded for
    expanding the field of human knowledge, this is
    the reason you have to choose a unique field
    when you do one at college.
    Linus has, (possibly inadvertantly at the time)
    changed how we look at computer software.
    I also think he has expanded the field of
    achievements in computer science. 7 years ago
    when I first saw the paradigm he was putting
    forward I knew this was something new which was
    only then starting to become reality due to the
    internet.
    I believe he may deserve a doctorate for three
    reasons...
    1) He's a very good programmer and a smart cookie.
    2) He's popularised a new way of producing software.
    3) He's changed the course of history.
    Now he'll have to field silly phone calls from
    panicing babysitters who pick up the phone book
    and look at the first Dr. they see.
  • both :)
  • Umm, your own numbers seem to support my age range. You say it takes 5 years after earning a bachelor's, or 6 for some fields. Since most people finish a bachelor's degree in 4 years, and are therefore 22, that would mean they earn their PhD by the time they're 27 or 28. I said "26 or 27," which is pretty darn close.
  • You'll notice that we're talking about computer science, which is a math/science degree. We're not talking about English or Humanities PhD's - I know that these take longer.

  • Re:Honorary degrees mean more (Score:4)

    by jilles ( 20976 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @10:17AM (#1658720) Homepage
    27 years of programming is not the same as an academic title.

    "But counting soley on a degree to evaluate a person's worth is plain oversimplification"

    I agree with you on that.

    "A technical exam at the interview is both more fair and certain."

    There's a lot more than technique you learn at a university. You can't test that in a simple technical exam. A university diploma certifies you as a person who got through a school that is known to be tough and challenging. This qualifies you as somebody with a certain amount of cleverness. On the otherhand if you drop out of college, that generally is a sign that you don't have what it takes to finnish college. This does not necessarily qualify you as an idiot but it is not exactly proof of the opposite either.

    "But honorary PhDs are closer to what the real meaning of the degree should be"

    Honorary Ph Ds are usually given to people who contributed in a positive way to society. Nelson Mandela for instance has several honorary Ph Ds. Seen in this light, Linus Torvalds Ph D. is entirely justified since he contributed to society. A honorary Ph D. is not the same as a normal Ph. D. since it does not have the requirement that you also contributed to science (which neither Mandela or Torvalds has done as far as I know). Often of course honorary Ph. Ds are given to people who did contribute to science but that is beside the point. It is not a requirement for receiving one.

    A degree merely classifies you as somebody who reached a certain milestone. To get one you have to pass tests. If you fail those tests you don't reach your milestone (at least not in a verifiable way) and you don't get a degree. It's that simple.

    So when you apply for a job and you can say I have this degree, your future employer knows what you are capable of.

  • If you say so.. I guess. I don't think I "almost" have anything. I'm pretty well versed on the relavent facts. My point being that Linus is hardly the main contributor. No one is the main contributor. Unless you count the community as a whole. Some individuals have contributed more than others, but /no one person/ has single-handedly developed 51% of the GNU/Linux system. Not even close. Not by a mile.

    Hence, three cheers for the community.

  • We once had DR Dos but I don't recall any DR Windows. And now we have DR Linux :)
  • You think writing about how good an idea OSS developement would be worth a PhD, but actually doing it, being compared to the richest company, changing the way many people think about software, AND bringing Unix to the (cheap hardware) of the desktop, isn't?
    (I know he didn't do it alone, but it wouldn't have been done without him.)
  • True, it's the mathematics and science department. If anyone's interested there exist a CS department in Stockholm, but it's at KTH. (the Royal Institute of Technology)

    I wrote in about this to /. before, unfortunately I couldn't find any english links. (This was on Friday, when it actually happened, *ahem*.) The links I found then can be found on www.idg.se [nyheter.idg.se] that link should take you directly to the article. It's in Swedish though.

    Furthermore, he (Linus) was refered to as "Dr." in a Swedish paper, so it might be correct. Assuming that the writer had done his research. ;-)

    And nice to see you again Hobbex! :-)
  • Dr. Linus Torvalds sounds *really* cool, and I believe he deserves it, but I find these kind of things annoying. When a person works to achieve a level high enough to earn a Dr. in front of their name, they should be recognized for that. Linus Torvalds is best known for one thing. Linux. And though Linux rocks beyond belief, he shouldn't be getting the same recognition as someone who has worked to get a college degree. The two activities are not comparable.

    Linus deserves an award, but not this one.

  • Re:Really Dr.? (Score:3)

    by thal ( 33211 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @07:11AM (#1658733) Homepage
    the real question is should you feel entitled to a special title just because you spent more time in school or did something that impressed some university? when i left my high school, the principal and all of the vice principals were "doctors". it's actually getting quite common these days, relatively. i think our good ol' modest linux figurehead would prefer simply "linus".

    however, some good linux propaganda would be:

    Bill Gates: College dropout.
    Linus Torvalds: Doctor.

    Who do you want behind your system?


    of course this is pressuming bill gates never got an honorary doctorate and he probably has. damn it.
  • iirc, Basic for the Tandy 100 ('83? '84?) was the last thing for which Gates personally coded anything.

  • Re:... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Let me guess... you don't have a university degree. But you think you are one of the people who are alot more intelligent than those who do.

    Free software/open source STARTED IN UNIVERSITIES!!! They are by far one of the best places of intellectual freedom and free information exchange. Universities are the epitomy of open source methodology.
  • >After I told him I don't like old Bill all that
    >much he started complaining about the lack of
    >style on Bill's part because he wore sneakers >under his white tie.

    My first reation was that this was the best thing I'd ever heard about Bill.

    A fraction of a second later, I remembered Apple's Christmas Ball where Jobs strongarmed the Macintosh team into wearing tuxes--they did, but wore tennis shoes.

    There's some kind of pattern here :)

  • Re:Really Dr.? (Score:5)

    by Bassthang ( 78064 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @07:14AM (#1658738) Homepage
    No. Or more precisely, a different kind of weight. That is acceptance by the senior academic hierarchy of the importance of your (possibly non-academic) achiements; as opposed to the recognition by your peers in your specialist subject of a level of knowledge of that field and of research in general that is signified by a normal PhD.

    So the big-wigs at Stockholm think Linus is hot stuff, whereas the CS department there would in theory require him to submit a thesis if he wanted a PhD from them!
  • and this is part of a horrid breach of etiquitte by the medical profession.

    The M.D. was constructed specifically to borrow the legitimacy of the Doctors of the Universities, in an attempt to produce physcians that were something short of dangerous.

    Having insisted on being called Dr. for several generations, even though they lacked the distinguishing characteristic of Doctors--the contribution of new knowledge, they then attempted to monopolize the title, as "real doctors."

    The holder Ph.D. is a Doctor, those with M.D.'s and J.D.'s are not.

    Dr. Hawk, J.D., Ph.D., Esq.
  • that Caldera's new distro will be called "DR Linux"?
  • Where are his publications (his non source code ones), where is his dissertation, where's the scientific contribution. Right, there isn't any. Hacking away at the linux kernel is definately not the same a graduate student has to go through.

    He deserved his title for his contribution to the community. I congratulate him with that. Hip Hip Hurray for Linus!
  • I have strong suspicions Linus job at Transmeta is to simply create a lot of hype and thus investment money, something they never would have pulled of without him.

    Something that strengthens me in this opinion is that he manages to coordinate the linux kernel development in the time of his boss, something that could hardly be described as a light weight job.

  • I had originally intended on ignoring the lack of attention to detail.. However.. The man who set down the rather expansive foundation for this great accomplishment, perhaps..?

    Of course, if you really get down to it, no one person should recieve all the credit for creating the GNU/Linux system. Yes, Richard Stallman started it all, gave us Emacs, GCC, and so much more, gave us the GPL, and began a philosophical movement (which has now been factionized and corrupted). Yes, Linus Torvalds gave us the Linux kernel. Yes, this is all very good. The reality of it, however, is despite the fact that the GNU Project held it together until Linus gave them a final piece to their creation (and the rest being history, as they say..), it took a vast array of individuals all over the world to really bring all of this into being.

    One person, or even a small group of people, can't put an entire OS together from scratch (well, not in any /sane/ amount of time). With the contributions of like-minded people from far and wide, however.. Well, we all know what can be accomplished when /that/ happens. :)

    The true accomplishment, then, is the community's. Of which people like Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds are a part. Yes, they are widely renowned and respected (and even famous enough to be otherwise.. ;), but they are still a part of the community, and the entire community deserves the credit.

  • Everything in this day and age revolves around politics and PR issues, however. Most people seem to ignore the fact that Richard Stallman begat the GNU Project, which began this whole thing. And more importantly, that it wasn't just Stallman or Torvalds who put the entire thing together. There are many key contributors.. And beyond the more "well-known", there are thousands of hackers who have added something here or there.. Without the assistance of all of these different people from all over the world, nothing would have been possible.

    Anyway, to add a little sense into my usual rant, if you always asked Torvalds for help when you had a problem with your OS, you'd get the stick. Big time. ;) It sort of depends on what the problem is in regards to as to who you should ask.. The GNU Project is usually a good default for someone to bother (especially if it's GNU software.. not much of that floating around these days, is there..?).

    (As an aside, all of those "Stallman-slammers" who think he's an egotistical bastard who never did anything to deserve credit.. credit being something he doesn't seem to care about anyway.. I wonder what compiler you use..? ;)

  • I think our illustrious moderators have finally learned what a troll message is. However, it may have been dumb luck. We'll need more samples to determine if they've actually developed the ability.
  • I disagree. As a previous poster asserted, I too believe that Universities are not the only source of information and intelligence. It's good of them to recognize this fact and publicly state that they think Linus has done work and has intelligence equivalent to that of someone who has taken the standard route to a PhD.

    In response to the poster who said that he should 'reject it out of hand': why? They are clearly stating that they acknowledge that they are not the fount of all intellect. They are saying "Linus, you rock! You didn't take the normal road, and look how successful you've become! For all those who might spurn your status because you don't have an official doctorate, here! We want to say that we think what you've done is as good or better than someone else's doctorate."

    Power to those who pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. And congratulations, Linus!

  • Honorary degrees mean more (Score:5)

    by jflynn ( 61543 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @07:23AM (#1658765)
    I'm completely with you on the general uselessness of college certification. After all, I'm a college dropout myself but like to pretend that 27 years programming means something too. This is not to say that lots of smart people don't have degrees, or that college is a bad idea, they do and it's not. But counting soley on a degree to evaluate a person's worth is plain oversimplification. A technical exam at the interview is both more fair and certain.

    But honorary PhDs are closer to what the real meaning of the degree should be. Someone who has not only mastered their field, but contributed to it significantly. In that sense I think this award to Dr. Torvalds is right on, and he deserves congratulations for it. If only all degrees were so well bestowed.
  • From what I understand, Linus is foremost a practical person. He will include/exclude code from the kernel because that code is good or bad, not for any particular ideology. And I don't see any practical reason for him to refuse such an honor. Unless I'm mistaken, he has at least a BS from the University of Helsinki. Refuse an honorary degree to show you don't need a degree although you already have a lesser one? Doesn't make sense to me.

  • Two Issues:

    a) Linus wrote the Linux kernel, he hasn't lifted a finger towards marketing it. Perhaps you might argue he enabled others (eg: Redhat, etc) to pursue such a model....

    b) The whole Open Source business model is far from proven in my mind. We only have one significant company to point to, and that is Redhat software. While I like Redhat and would love to see them succeed; lets be realistic here. Redhat is a startup company, which isn't even profitable yet. Their current revenues are NOT coming from the much hyped "support" model, but rather from selling shrink wrapped CDs. What they're essentially selling is convenience. There "convenience" sales are not insignificant, but I have my doubts as to weather that will hold out. Futhermore, RedHat hasn't produced all that much in terms of code (not that I fault them in the least). They simply didn't have the resources and most of the work is/was done the the community.

  • That's Nice... (Score:4)

    by LHOOQtius_ov_Borg ( 73817 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @07:30AM (#1658779)
    Gee, well, that's nice for Linus and all, and I'm happy for him. It doesn't entitle him to call himself Dr. Torvalds, but who cares? He's a smart guy, did great work for the open source community, and deserves to be rewarded for it. What this really means to his life and work, though, is probably nothing...

    Incidentally, how come other major contributors to UNIX and Linux development (Rob Pike immediately comes to mind, as he only has a B.S. yet is a full research MTS at Bell Labs) haven't been conferred such honors? Why? Publicity. Hype. Lobbying. That's about it.

    Linux is a good OS, but it's not the end-all and be-all of UNIXen and UNIX-like variant OSes (sorry, but I pick OSes by their strengths for a particular job, and I will go to NetBSD, Solaris, and Irix as much as Linux... and NT on those rare occasions where it makes sense...), but the one thing it has over all others is good PR (and impeccable (Internet) timing)...


  • <joke>
    Ouch. A BS or BA at my school costs $120,000... give or take a year. If it's possible to get an honorary doctorate for $10K, sign me up!
    </joke>

    -Chris

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