Just a Hobby

On August 25, 1991, a twenty-one-year-old Finnish computer science student named Linus Torvalds posted a brief message to an online message board. "I'm doing a (free) operating system," he wrote. "It's just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu." He was nervous. His code was incomplete. He fully expected criticism from seasoned programmers. But he posted it anyway — and that trembling act of courage sparked a revolution.…