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Linus Torvalds for Nobel Peace Prize?
- standalonematt 17y agoWhat about the economics prize (I know, not a real nobel prize) going to members of the free/open source software community. Their works have really shown that great things can be built by a community of people, with limited central leadership and without a clear profit motive.
- philwelch 17y agoThe economics prize usually goes to an economist, not to someone who actually demonstrates something about the economy in practice.
- standalonematt 17y agoThanks for that - I don't really know much about the criteria for awarding the economics prize.
- gtt 17y agoIMO, Stallman should be nominated too.
- jff 17y agoYou're right--Gore started the job of devaluing the prizes, now we just have to give one to Stallman and nobody will ever care about the Nobel Prize again.
- omouse 17y agoWithout RMS there might not be a GPL nor Linux licensed under the GPL. There would probably be no open source movement either because it relies on free software. So you can stop with the insults now.
- holdenk 17y agoThe thing is there are a lot of GPL-like licenses. Linux might have ended up under a BSD-style license rather than a GPL license. While things certainly would have been different, I'm not convinced they would have been worse. The assertion that there would be no open source movement without RMS is a bit difficult to believe, unless we are going for a very narrow definition of open source.
- prodigal_erik 17y agoLinux under BSDL? We already know how that would end. We'd lose half a generation's best work because it's trapped in the wreckage of vendors' failed proprietary forks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars
- antonovka 17y agoYour argument makes the unfounded assumption that those vendors would have done the work you "lost" if the code had been GPL licensed. As a counterpoint, FreeBSD has progressed at a steady clip -- I fail to see how it is significantly behind Linux, and is significantly ahead in many areas.
- Aegean 17y agoIt falls behind by not being as popular. I think this is not a result of BSD being inferior, it's just how things came into being. I don't have numbers on BSD developers or the rate of improvement, but I guess one reason for it is that BSD license put off more developers compared to GPLv2.
- ilkhd2 17y agoSo do you think that success of MacOS X (derived from FreeBSD)does not show benefitsof BSD model? Or Microsoft's use of NetBSD? And also, many developers put off by GPL( I am for example), The objective reasons for being not as popular I think, that FreeBSD never positioned itself as a desktop system, and many small things (such as how fast it boots) are neglected. Yet, overall simplicity and order is attractive to me; a lo easier to understand internals IMHO.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago> Gore started the job of devaluing the prizes cough cough Henry Kissinger.
- hyperbovine 17y agoPeople began laughing when they didn't award Gandhi, and haven't really stopped since.
- chasingsparks 17y agoI'm a big fan of Torvalds as a person and Linux as a movement. However, taking intent of the peace prize in mind -- "during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." -- I don't really see his eligibility.
- patio11 17y agoWell, the only true test for his eligibility is "Does awarding the Nobel Prize to this person advance the interests of the Nobel Committee?", but given that an award to Linus doesn't obviously embarrass George Bush, I'm thinking you're probably right.
- enntwo 17y agoIt is a nice thought, but it does seem to not fall under the scope of the prize. It would probably make more sense to pursue the creation of a Nobel (or other global prize) category for Compuational/Information Sciences. The impact of progress in this field have just as much, if not more, of an effect on the world today as the other Nobel fields (Chemsitry, Biology, etc.) Note: I am not saying this is a realistic possibility, but it is probably more likely than a computer scientist winning the peace prize. It seems like there are plenty of people in the field (as well as other Engineering related fields that are more relevant to the world now than they were during the creation of the Nobel prizes) that justify a global acknowledgement. Considering the importance of the internet in global daily life, and the fact that now jQuery is used on 1/5th of the world's websites, it seems Resig has had enough influence on the world to deserve metion too. Remember, the Nobel prizes stress more recent accomplishments over past successes.
- acg 17y agoI understood that there is no Nobel prize for Mathematics, which computing is considered an extension of. Nobel deliberately committed Mathematics. Would it be wrong to add a Nobel award against Nobel's wishes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize#Lack_of_a_Nobel_Prize_in_Mathematics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize#Lack_of_a_Nobel_Pri...
- michael_nielsen 17y agoTorvalds, Stallman, and Lessig would make an excellent combination, in my opinion - they've done incredible things to expand the intellectual commons, and that does great things for the "fraternity of nations". Think of all the international friendships and other relationships maintained using open source tools and the ideas of open culture. The nomination process is described here: http://nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/ http://nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/
- a-priori 17y agoWhat I would like to see is it awarded to "the open source community" as a whole, with that trio accepting it.
- antonovka 17y agoOther than Lessig, that trio does not even begin to represent me or innumerable other open source developers. RMS and Linus represent GPL and Linux developers, who are are only one component of the broader community. The GPL/Linux ideals are clearly and fundamentally opposed to my own, and I would be insulted if RMS and Linus accepted the award on behalf of the open source community at large.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- henrikschroder 17y agoYes, the peace prize has sometimes gone to controversial or unexpected people, but that doesn't mean the process is completely without rules. First, these people can nominate for the peace prize: http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_committee/who-can-nominate/ http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_committee/who-ca... If you're not on that list, sending Norwegian Ubuntu CDs to the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee as the article suggests is going to achieve absolutely nothing. Second, read the actual will of Alfred Nobel: http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/alfred-nobel/testament/ http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/alfred-nobel/testament/ "and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses" Does Linus Torvalds fit that description? Not even remotely close. If the author of the article had spent a few more minutes actually researching the rules, and not just browsing Wikipedia, he could have avoided writing the thing altogether.
- mieses 17y agoso what. they stopped following those rules a long time ago. regardless, torvalds would decline since he seems to have integrity.
- mahmud 17y ago"benevolent dictator"?
- omouse 17y agoDisgusting. If anything, Richard Stallman should be nominated for it as he has done far more and the Free Software movement is much more in line with the intent of the Nobel Peace Prize.
- mieses 17y agoi would agree with you. stallman is a better fit for a nobel. he's such an inspiration. torvalds just works hard, which is so trivial and boring.
- igorgue 17y agoto be fair... both work hard
- mieses 17y agonobels are often awarded for working hard at being inspirational. i guess that is also a kind of work.
- selven 17y agoWhat he's saying is that Linus is a more behind-the-scenes person, not a public figure (although he does make quite a few controversial forum posts). RMS is out there, at the front, campaigning for his ideals.
- whatusername 17y agoMaybe it's because I'm up late - but I read sarcasm in that post.. RMS talks a lot (similar perhaps to the latest Nobel prize winner* (nominated 8 days into office)), whereas Linus gets stuff done.
- selven 17y agoThat's essentially what I said, just the bias is swapped.
- markbnine 17y ago"Linux helped sequence the human genome, helps protect the world computer infrastructure from viral attack, and is now the pathway for millions to learn computer programming and participate in new international efforts" Using this logic, Bill Gates should also be up for the award (and considering his philanthropy, maybe he should). There is a paradigm problem here. One does not award the builder of Mother Teresa's orphanage a peace prize (even if it is quite nice). The award goes to Mother Teresa.
- adw 17y agoIf the Gates Foundation nail malaria and other diseases of poverty then he should.
- pmjordan 17y agoI wouldn't really call malaria a "disease of poverty" - it's a bad idea to take the most effective prophylactic indefinitely (it's an antibiotic), and it can have plenty of side effects - and it's nowhere near 100% effective. (coincidentally, I've been taking it for the last 3 weeks) So non-poor people who live in affected regions can't keep on taking it either and therefore can and do catch malaria. It is treatable if caught early enough (I guess this is your poverty angle?) but anything but pleasant even if treatment is successful. Moreover, once you've had it, it can come back anytime during the rest of your life, rich or poor. Of course, that makes it no less of a problem, and curing it once and for all would certainly be prizeworthy.
- DenisM 17y agoWell, that would make for one awkward acceptance speech. If you've seen Linus giving presentation you can imagine...
- pmjordan 17y agoHe'd certainly start by insulting everyone not using git...
- zandorg 17y agoI think some people see the Nobel as "Awards for great things", but really it hasn't caught up with the times. Politics is also involved. So it's "Awards for whoever they THINK has done great things" - also bound by categories which don't even include mathematics (the non-Nobel/pseudo prize is for Economics)...
- motters 17y agoIt's not at all clear to me that when Torvalds started Linux he was necessarily trying to advance world peace. His motivations seem to have been much more practical and somewhat self motivated (scratching a personal itch). If they're handing out prizes Richard Stallman might be a better candidate, since his motives were explicitly altruistic from the outset (advancing freedom for computer users).
- nzmsv 17y agoLinus deserves this way more than Obama does. Why? Because you don't give prizes for expected good work. You give a prize looking back on what's been accomplished. I think this nomination will help inspire the next generation of young hackers, and I say go for it.
- mdemare 17y agoLinus deserves a Nobel Prize, but he likes flamewars way too much to get the Peace Prize. How about literature? Why should that be limited to writers of human languages?
- ajaimk 17y agoHe has my vote if that matters.
- known 17y agoRMS is not as diplomatic as Linus.
- rmason 17y agoI twittered that Linus is more deserving of a Nobel than either Obama or Carter. But Ronald Reagan though freed something like 125 million people and he never received it. Bill Clinton single handedly has raised over a billion dollars for the third world poor and he hasn't received it.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- diego_moita 17y ago> But Ronald Reagan though freed something like 125 million people and he never received it. No, he didn't. Gorbachev did.
- Aegean 17y agoRMS and Torvalds should share the prize. RMS deserves it since he's the founder of the idea of free software, and Torvalds deserves it because based on the idea he created a collaborative movement of exceptional engineering.