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).
Linux free software. Work began in 1984. Later, in 1985, Stallman started the Free Software Foundation and wrote the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) in 1989. By the early 1990s, many of the programs required in an operating system (such as libraries, compilers, text editors, a Unix shell, and a windowing system) were completed, although low-level elements such as device drivers, daemons, and the kernel, called GNU/Hurd, were stalled and incomplete. Linus Torvalds has stated that if the GNU kernel had been available at the time (1991), he would not have decided to write his own. Although not released until