Torvalds, who is known as Benevolent Dictator for Life of the Linux operating system, consistently exudes a calm optimism about the long-term prospects for the movement he symbolizes. “In science,” as he explained in a 2004 interview in Business Week, “the whole system builds on people looking at other people’s results and building on top of them. In witchcraft, somebody had a small secret and guarded it—but never allowed others to really understand it and build on it. Traditional software is like witchcraft. In history, witchcraft just died out. The same will happen in software. When problems
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