Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary

OK, perhaps "story" in the traditional sense of the term is stretching it a bit. This whole book is more like a series of e-mails, an exercise in textual communication for someone more used to code language than conversation: choppy sentences packed into short paragraphs, and sometimes just one-liners. The pace is fast, but the quippy tone can get somewhat tiring, though it definitely suits the portrayal of a computer-dominated life. And like an e-mail conversation, the tense often changes, the topics jump back and forth, and the narrators occasionally change, mostly alternating between the Linux man himself and Red Herring executive editor David Diamond, who convinced the difficult-to-pin-down Torvalds to write his story (or at least allow Diamond to poke, prod, and pull it out of him, all the while giving his own impressions and interpretations). But Torvald's tale contains enough informative and entertaining tidbits--on growing up in dark, strangely silent but communication-gadget-obsessed Finland (which boasts more cell phones per capita than anywhere else), on what makes passionate code writers tick, on making the transition from unknown computer geek to world-famous computer geek, on the convergence of technology and ideology, on his work for Transmeta and involvement (or lack thereof) with all the players worth mentioning in Silicon Valley - to keep more than just computer programmers engrossed in his story. For the latter, of course, Just for Fun will be required reading.

If you pick up this book as a geek's guide to the meaning of life (which, believe it or not, Torvalds does ramble on about at the beginning and the end), then you're in for a bit of a shallow take on the whole thing. But if you're interested in the idea of technological development as a global team sport, and how a nerdy Finnish transplant to California got the whole game going in the first place, check out Linus's story... just for fun, of course. --S. Ketchum

Book Description

In this witty and engrossing narrative, Linus Torvalds, the brilliant mastermind behind the latest technology revolution, chronicles his transformation from pale, skinny Helsinki college kid to international folk hero. What began as a childhood hobby soon became the astonishing phenomenon known as the LINUX operating system. A decade after its inception, the LINUX system is still constantly evolving and improving everyday, and Linus describes this in simple, layman's terms without lapsing into mind-boggling technical jargon.

Part autobiography and part business philosophy, Just For Fun brims with biographical detail about the radical spirit and creativity of Linus Torvaids. Torvalds is the first to admit he never intentionally sought fame and fortune. Yet fame and fortune found him when he radically changed the world of technology for one selfish reason-He did it just for fun.