open...

(This was originally published in The H Open in November 2012.) I was lucky enough to interview Linus quite early in the history of ...

Long-time readers of this blog may recall that for some years I wrote for the UK Heise title "The H Open".  Sadly, that closed la...

Even if it now seems likely that Linus Torvalds wasn't approached to add a backdoor to Linux, there are plenty of others that were ...

At the LinuxCon meeting in New Orleans , Linus Torvalds was asked if he had ever been approached by the US government to insert a backdoor...

In case you weren't aware, Linus is on Google+. Here's a recent post : On Open Enterprise blog .

Linux went from being a cool personal hack in a bedroom to software that would eventually change world just over 21 years ago when Linus ...

One of the most important messages in the history of free software – and computing – was posted 21 years ago, on 25 August 1991: On The ...

A constant theme here on Techdirt is that it's not the idea that's crucial, but the execution. Here's someone who seems to agr...

In the 2005 "Grokster" decision, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that file sharing networks could be held liable for copyr...

Last week I wrote about a talk I gave with the title “Innovation inducement prizes as a possible mechanism to unlock the benefits of open in...

I'm sure most people remember DEC - Digital Equipment Corporation - that later rebranded itself as the singularly unmemorable “Digital” ...

A remarkable continuity underlies free software, going all the way back to Richard Stallman's first programs for his new GNU project. An...

Every now and then, a shiver runs through the Linux community as people realise afresh that the entire edifice has a single point of failure...

One of the many arguments against allowing patents for software (alongside the principle argument that software is made up of algorithms, wh...

Users of free software are nothing if not passionate. Most of them care deeply about the code they use, and will happily plunge into the fla...

As everyone knows, GNU/Linux grew up as a project to create a completely free alternative to Unix. Key parts were written by Richard Stallma...

Most people in the free software world know about the famous “LINUX is obsolete” thread that began on the comp.os.minix newsgroups in Januar...

In the famous online argument between Linus and Minix creator Andrew Tanenbaum during the very early days of Linux, one of the more memorabl...

What do you do when you wrote the kernel of the world's greatest operating system nearly two decades ago? Linus tells us : My real ...

One of the unique features of free software is that it can be forked. Indeed, it is one of the most powerful incentives for projects to hew ...