Linus Torvalds created Linux, the open-source operating system kernel, and Git, the distributed version-control system that has become fundamental to modern software development. Torvalds began Linux in 1991 while a student at the University of Helsinki, initially writing a Unix-like kernel for his own 386 PC and releasing the source code publicly later that year. Developers around the world joined the project, and Linux grew into one of the largest collaborative software efforts in computing history. Linux runs a majority of websites whose operating systems can be identified and forms the basis of Android; by 2017, it powered all 500 of the world’s TOP500-ranked supercomputers
In 2005, after Linux kernel developers lost free access to BitKeeper, the proprietary version-control system they had been using, Torvalds created Git as a fast, fully distributed replacement designed to handle a project of Linux’s scale. He turned over its maintenance to Junio Hamano within months, and Git subsequently spread far beyond Linux, becoming the dominant version-control system in software development and the foundation for platforms such as GitHub. Through Linux and Git, Torvalds reshaped both the infrastructure on which modern computing runs and the way software is developed collaboratively.
Citations: