Just for Fun (book)

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Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary is a humorous autobiography of Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, co-written with David Diamond. The book explains Linus' view of himself, the free software movement and the development of Linux.

Once upon a time Linus Torvalds was a skinny unknown, just another nerdy Helsinki techie who had been fooling around with computers since childhood. Then he wrote a groundbreaking Operating System Kernel and distributed it via the internet — for free. Today Torvalds is an international folk hero. And his creation of the Linux kernel is used by over 12 million people as well as by companies such as IBM.

While Linus's software was indeed groundbreaking, it wasn't a whole operating system, and he didn't claim it was. Linus's contribution to the operating system was its kernel, "Linux". The operating system as a whole, written as hundreds of separate projects, many under the umbrella of the GNU project, later also became known to many as "Linux".^[1]

Now, in a narrative that zips along with the speed of e-mail, Torvalds gives a history of his renegade software while candidly revealing the quirky mind of a genius. The result is an engrossing portrayal of a man with a revolutionary vision, who challenges our values and may change our world.

Just for Fun has been translated into numerous languages including the first official language of Linus's home country Finnish, and later to his own first language Swedish (Linus is a member of the Swedish speaking minority in Finland). The kernel that Linus started and still maintains for fun, is now a part of the operating systems used by over 60 million people on the desktop and even more in web services.^[2]

[edit] Editions

ISBN 0-06-662072-4: Hardcover (2001)
ISBN 0-06-662073-2: Paperback (2001)
ISBN 0-694-52539-1: Audio Cassette (abridged) (2001)
ISBN 0-694-52544-8: Audio CD (abridged) (2001)

[edit] References

^ Torvalds, Linus. Notes for linux release 0.01. “Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere. To get a working system you need a shell, compilers, a library etc. These are separate parts and may be under a stricter (or even looser) copyright. Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software...”
^ Abramson, Ronna (2004-12-15). Linux Looms Larger Than Thought. TheStreet.com, Inc..