Closed-Source Meets Open-Source: Microsoft’s Founder Bill Gates and Linux’s Creator Linus Torvalds Cross Paths For The First Time in 50 Years
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Closed-Source Meets Open-Source: Microsoft’s Founder Bill Gates and Linux’s Creator Linus Torvalds Cross Paths For The First Time in 50 Years
Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds have never been seen together in a rather friendly outing despite both of them being in the tech industry for more than fifty years. Both of them were seen at a dinner hosted by Mark Russinovich, the CTO of Microsoft Azure. The specifics of why these individuals met together aren’t certain, but seeing them together is still a delight. It would probably be great if we knew what both talked about, but according to Russ inovich, there weren’t “major kernel decisions” made.
Bill Gates & Linus Torvalds Finally Met Together After Decades of Work In The Industry; “No Major Kernel” Decisions Were Made
Shockingly, Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds have never been seen together in a rather friendly outing despite both of them being in the tech industry for more than fifty years. However, this deadlock has now ended, as both of them were seen at a dinner hosted by Mark Russinovich, the CTO of Microsoft Azure. The announcement was posted on LinkedIn, where we spotted Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds together in a picture, alongside Microsoft’s David Cutler. While the specifics of why these individuals met together aren’t certain, seeing them together is still a delight.
Interestingly, Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds are from two very different worlds, since Microsoft’s founder is known to have “commercialized” software, which is what Microsoft is all about. Gates has focused explicitly on monetizing software through licensing and controlling the ecosystem to maximize profits, and his approach has promoted the closed-source environment, utterly different from what Torvalds works on. Bill Gates focuses on innovation through acquisition and corporate control, but Linux’s creator is all about collaboration.
Linus Torvalds, on the other hand, is at the forefront of an “open-source” environment, with Linux collaborating with developers to move ahead. He advocates for software freedom, where devs are given priority, instead of corporations, and this shows that Torvalds is entirely different from what Gates advocates for. Interestingly, Linus has often taken a dig at what Microsoft does and has joked about Windows and all the bugs it contains. Here’s an iconic statement from him on Microsoft:
Microsoft isn’t evil, they just make really crappy operating systems. PC is pretty much like air conditioning … it becomes useless when you open windows. – Linus Torvalds
Probably, the difference in ideologies is the primary reason why both of them haven’t met together, but apart from that, there isn’t a known enmity between the two. It would probably be great if we knew what both talked about, but according to Russinovich, there weren’t “major kernel decisions” made.