Linus Torvalds became US citizen

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1034808/focus=1035455

by sasvari • 16 years ago

176 175 16 years ago

thread.gmane.org

ciupicri3• 16 years ago

Now he'll never get rid of US taxes.

keltex• 16 years ago

Yep. U.S. citizens get the benefit of their worldwide income being taxed.

ephesus• 16 years ago

Only income above the equivalent of $80,000.

tlrobinson• 16 years ago

Probably better for him if he doesn't have to pay taxes to Finland, since they're much higher.

pavlov• 16 years ago

He doesn't pay taxes to Finland because he's not living in Finland.

(Only certain countries like the USA tax their non-resident citizens.)

roadnottaken• 16 years ago

This makes me proud :)

mike-cardwell13• 16 years ago

What of exactly?

sp3322• 16 years ago

The USA, for being appealing enough to make Linus want to (first) move here and (now) take on citizenship, instead of just telnetting from Finland - or anywhere else on the planet he might have liked better.

unwind• 16 years ago

A quick check of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_nationality_law#Dual_ci...) seems to indicate that he's still a Finn, since Finland permits dual citizenship.

The USA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_nationality_law#D...) seems to permit it, too.

Of course I can't know if Mr Torvalds has done anything in particular to only be a US citizen, but at least that doesn't seem to be the default.

nkassis• 16 years ago

That's interesting. I've heard that dual citizenship wasn't exactly liked by the US government. I was under the impression that US citizens that move to other countries had to renounce their US citizenship before becoming citizen of the other country.

vessenes• 16 years ago

That might be so, but you're definitely not required to drop your citizenship elsewhere if you become a citizen here: the US just wants to be your 'number one' squeeze, as it were.

Also, the US really hates it when you change your nationality for tax purposes. That is, when you change it AWAY from the US for tax purposes.

ojbyrne3• 16 years ago

http://www.richw.org/dualcit/faq.html#noway

Struck down by the courts a very long time ago.

statictype• 16 years ago

Not true. You can hold US Citizenship and gain citizenship of other countries as well. The question is whether the other country will allow you to keep your US citizenship or not.

For example, I believe Singapore requires you to renounce any other citizenship you have if you are eligible to become a Singaporean.

billmcneale• 16 years ago

> I've heard that dual citizenship wasn't exactly liked by the US government. I was under the impression that US citizens that move to other countries had to renounce their US citizenship before becoming citizen of the other country.

Definitely not true, or at least not mandated by the US (the other country might require it, though).

forinti• 16 years ago

But don't you have to renounce all other allegiances?

Uruguayan law says that even if you renounce your uruguayan citizenship, you still keep it. I think this was put in place exactly because lots of Uruguayans were leaving for the USA (lots of Uruguayans is something like 50).

compay• 16 years ago

No, the USA does not require that.

portman• 16 years ago

I'm a dual citizen of the UK and US.

Among my close friends, I know Canadian, Israeli, and Australian dual-citizens.

I've never heard of having to "renounce all other allegiances". (Note: it's entirely possible that there is some obscure method of obtaining US citizenship that requires it; but that's not the norm.)

sbalea• 16 years ago

I went through the naturalization process, most likely the same process that Linus Torvalds went through. When you take your Oath of Allegiance, you swear to renounce all foreign affiliations. However, the US government does not check that you actually go through with that formally. Since many countries do not revoke your citizenship upon you acquiring another, most naturalized people do hold dual citizenships.

As far as I know, Uncle Sam only gets pissed when you acquire another citizenship after you are already an American (either by birth or by naturalization). Even so, there are provisions in the law that account for the situation when a second citizenship is bestowed upon you without you actively requesting it (some countries do that automatically when you marry one of their citizens)

kloncks• 16 years ago

That totally depends on the country. I'm a dual citizen of the United States and Egypt.

Most countries allow dual citizens. Also, I do know that some people have triple citizenships.

planckscnst• 16 years ago

Even more interesting, he's interested in the latency work that Desnoyers was working on last week.

expnsv_hdphns• 16 years ago

I'm sick of all these low-wage foreign workers stealing our precious jobs.

ceci• 16 years ago

Dude, Linus Torvalds is not a low-wage foreign worker. He has done more to provide you with a job than you have done to get yourself a job.

Opensource softwares have helped the US economy because lots of today's internet giants like Google benefitted from the use of opensource tools. They are paying taxes and employing Americans, ain't they. Linus Torvalds is synomymous with opensource.

Mr America, if i might ask, what have you done to provide a job for yourself, because if you can't even provide a job for yourself, how do you provide for others.

Make yourself competitive, read more and stay away from TV etc and you will soon land a job.

mike-cardwell13• 16 years ago

It's called a "joke"

philwelch9• 16 years ago

Before you ask, you've been downvoted for failing to grasp irony.

geebee• 16 years ago

The irony here is obvious, but I'm not exactly sure what to infer from it. I've always felt that this one of the big problems with irony in debates that merit serious discussion - they allow someone to mock an opposing point of view, but not really (really?). I suppose that this is part of the purpose of irony as well, to keep people on their toes, and make them think about things in new ways.

Irony can also be used to put a clearly stupid sentence into someone else's mouth, and then claim, when that other person objects, that they just don't get irony.

I'm not sure what the intent is here, but the way I read it, the post may have been intended to mock people who believe that large scale employment-based visa programs (like the H1B) have had some negative effects, displacing some US citizens in the tech job market and deterring other Americans from entering the field altogether. The post suggests that these people would oppose the presence (and naturalization, I guess) of extremely talented foreign nationals or immigrants.

All I can say is that even the most ardent opponents of the H1B visa (such as Norman Matloff) strongly support a substantial number of visas for talented people (I think his ideal figure was 15,000/yr). So aside from the true bozos on various discussion forms, there's pretty much nobody in this debate who would make a statement like this (oh, but nobody did, it's irony. Right? Or is it?)

Clearly, this was an extremely popular post (over 100 karma points), and I suspect that's because it goes to the heart of what has made a lot of people so frustrated with the current H1B/employment immigration system. And if you feel this way, you probably see the post as kind of brilliant, rather than a cheap shot.

To me, this has always been the problem with bringing irony into a debate that is actually pretty complicated and nuanced.

mike-cardwell13• 16 years ago

They only take the jobs you don't want. Like cleaning hotels and hacking kernels.

jimbokun2• 16 years ago

"Like cleaning hotels and hacking kernels."

For the vast majority of Americans, the former is probably a more desirable profession than the latter.

subbu• 16 years ago

I wish my country was like yours too!

sethg2• 16 years ago

Now Linus can make the same complaint.

dctoedt2• 16 years ago

Not to be all nationalistic or anything (and it's been said before), but it is interesting that people seem to immigrate to the U.S. far more than they emigrate from it.

kiuyhjk16• 16 years ago

Perhaps because those in it are unaware that there are any countries out of it?

When good americans die - they go to Paris

jan_g• 16 years ago

That is generally true for all developed countries.

duke_sam5• 16 years ago

Except Ireland. We're generally very good at getting the hell out of dodge when the government manages to do something horrible to the economy.

avar4• 16 years ago

I think not learning a second language has a lot to do with it. It's easy for most Europeans to pick up another language since they've already mastered a foreign language or two (including English).

But it's much harder for someone from the US to move to central Europe, aside from the UK and some enclaves that speak English.

jimbokun2• 16 years ago

That is certainly part of it. But I also think some other countries do a worse job welcoming immigrants. Japan notoriously so. Is it easy to become a citizen of China or India if you want to "outsource yourself"? The EU gives essentially a free migration pass to all member countries, but how is it coming from outside of Europe?

Any of you hackers care to comment on the situation in your nation of origin, or the one where you live?

borism4• 16 years ago

I know quite a few immigrants who love the standard of living but hate how USA dismembers them of their cultural identity and plan to emigrate back home or to some other place (truth be told not many did so far).

Not to mention hundreds of thousands of americans planning to retire abroad.

goatforce52• 16 years ago

I'll guess he originally came in on an EB2(C) visa, which is for people of exceptional ability in their field who the US will allow in, regardless of whether or not they have a specific job offer.

This means that, until he became a citizen, he'd immigration status in the US would have been: "exceptional alien".

That's not a status i'd give up easily. :)

muriithi• 16 years ago

Is there also an expedited path to citizenship for "exceptional alien" ?

I was reading an article today about an Indian nanny who saved the life of a 2 year old Israeli boy during the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Israel honored her by granting her honorary citizenship and temporary residency in Israel.

Link : http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/09/14/israel.mumbai....

sethg2• 16 years ago

N.B.: Indian citizens cannot be dual nationals: if they accept citizenship or a passport from another country, they lose their Indian citizenship. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_nationality_law#Automati...) I assume this is why the nanny’s Israeli citizenship is only “honorary”.

solutionyogi• 16 years ago

This is absolutely incorrect. EB2 Visa (i.e. Employment Based Category 2 Visa) definitely needs employer sponsorship. Also, there is no EB2 (C) category. (C) -> Probably specifies that the particular visa category is 'Current'.

goatforce52• 16 years ago

The first two categories require a job offer. The third is for people who are so freakin' awesome that their mere presence will make the US a better place.

"National Interest Waiver - Aliens seeking a national interest waiver are requesting that the Labor Certification be waived because it is in the interest of the United States. [...] Those seeking a national interest waiver may self-petition (they do not need an employer to sponsor them)"

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b...

So, it is employment based, but without any sponsorship required from a particular employer. You're self-certifying that you're really really really good at what you do, and what you can offer to the US will benefit the US as a whole.

They will, of course, want lots of evidence to support the above.

The upside to this route is that you're not tied to a particular employer.

scrrr3• 16 years ago

Countries are such an old-school concept somehow.

EDIT: Downvotes? Come on. Especially today, especially in our world of modern technology, physical location is less important than ever before. Where's the sci-fi novel where they abolished countries after they found out we all live on a tiny planet orbiting one of a billion stars?

exit3• 16 years ago

yes. symptom of a dark age.

mike-cardwell13• 16 years ago

There is more to a country than being a place of work.

scrrr3• 16 years ago

Sure, but this is also true for the city you are in, the neighborhood and the street.

I'm not historian but I suppose throughout history the space that we call home became bigger and bigger as time went by. Perhaps first it was a cave, at some point it was a village, then it was a city and eventually it was a country.

I guess what I mean is that eventually countries will go away. And calling them "old-school" was assuming we were there yet. But maybe we are not yet. But surely you would agree one day this day will come?

kiuyhjk16• 16 years ago

Welcome to Europe. 500 years ago it was mostly principalities and city states, tried empires for a while, then we had countries for a few 100 years - now we are trying to abolish them again. It's very much a British (actually English) idea that countries are eternal and inviolate.

IIRC Singapore and a bunch of other high tech SE Asian countries essentially did the same thing. Anybody with a high tech qualification, eg a CS degree, could live and work in any of the club no questions asked.

davidw• 16 years ago

> It's very much a British (actually English) idea that countries are eternal and inviolate.

France is pretty nationalistic too, no? They're one of the harshest countries in Europe in terms of minority languages, if I recall correctly.

cookiecaper2• 16 years ago

Government should be as local as possible because it gives the most power to individuals to govern themselves. In the US, theoretically, the feds are not really supposed to be able to do much, though obviously that's not how things have worked out.

ugh3• 16 years ago

I don’t think local government contradicts freedom of movement. It seems to me that both is possible, with little federal oversight. The biggest problem is inequality – the EU is perfectly happy to open the borders between its very similar member states but will vigorously protect its outer border.

ramki• 16 years ago

up voted for irony and funny comments.

known• 16 years ago

Renunciation of U.S. Citizenship

http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html

ciupicri3• 16 years ago

I wonder what happens if you want your U.S. citizenship back (not reversing the renunciation).

Linus Torvalds became US citizen

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