Ole Torvalds Ole Torvalds Ole Torvalds (4 August 1916 – 8 February 1995) was a Finnish-Swedish journalist and poet. He was the father of journalist-politician Nils Torvalds and grandfather of software engineer Linus Torvalds of Linux kernel fame. His full name was Ole Torvald Elis Saxberg, but he was also named Karanko after his step father, Toivo T. Karanko. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority. In 1935 when he had moved to Helsinki for studies he changed his name to Torvalds. In 1944 he was awarded a literature prize from "Svenska Dagbladet" (shared with Harry Martinson, Lars Ahlin and Elly Jannes).
Linus Torvalds as magic values. Torvalds has described himself as "completely a-religious—atheist", adding that "I find that people seem to think religion brings morals and appreciation of nature. I actually think it detracts from both. It gives people the excuse to say, 'Oh, nature was just created,' and so the act of creation is seen to be something miraculous. I appreciate the fact that, 'Wow, it's incredible that something like this could have happened in the first place. He later added that while in Europe religion is mostly a personal issue, in the United States it has become very politicized. When discussing