Linus Torvalds for Nobel Peace Prize?

http://www.ridenbaugh.com/index.php/2009/11/18/a-northwest-nobel-option/

by edw519 • 17 years ago

94 69 17 years ago

gtt• 17 years ago

IMO, Stallman should be nominated too.

jff• 17 years ago

You're right--Gore started the job of devaluing the prizes, now we just have to give one to Stallman and nobody will ever care about the Nobel Prize again.

omouse3• 17 years ago

Without RMS there might not be a GPL nor Linux licensed under the GPL. There would probably be no open source movement either because it relies on free software.

So you can stop with the insults now.

RyanMcGreal• 17 years ago

> Gore started the job of devaluing the prizes

cough cough Henry Kissinger.

chasingsparks2• 17 years ago

I'm a big fan of Torvalds as a person and Linux as a movement. However, taking intent of the peace prize in mind -- "during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." -- I don't really see his eligibility.

patio11• 17 years ago

Well, the only true test for his eligibility is "Does awarding the Nobel Prize to this person advance the interests of the Nobel Committee?", but given that an award to Linus doesn't obviously embarrass George Bush, I'm thinking you're probably right.

enntwo• 17 years ago

It is a nice thought, but it does seem to not fall under the scope of the prize.

It would probably make more sense to pursue the creation of a Nobel (or other global prize) category for Compuational/Information Sciences. The impact of progress in this field have just as much, if not more, of an effect on the world today as the other Nobel fields (Chemsitry, Biology, etc.) Note: I am not saying this is a realistic possibility, but it is probably more likely than a computer scientist winning the peace prize.

It seems like there are plenty of people in the field (as well as other Engineering related fields that are more relevant to the world now than they were during the creation of the Nobel prizes) that justify a global acknowledgement. Considering the importance of the internet in global daily life, and the fact that now jQuery is used on 1/5th of the world's websites, it seems Resig has had enough influence on the world to deserve metion too. Remember, the Nobel prizes stress more recent accomplishments over past successes.

acg• 17 years ago

I understood that there is no Nobel prize for Mathematics, which computing is considered an extension of. Nobel deliberately committed Mathematics. Would it be wrong to add a Nobel award against Nobel's wishes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize#Lack_of_a_Nobel_Pri...

Locke1689• 17 years ago

We sort of have a Nobel Prize for CS -- the Turing Award. This could also be compared to the Fields Medal for mathematics.

tolmasky• 17 years ago

I agree that it would be nice to have a CS nobel (or engineering, etc.), but that thought is unrelated to the peace prize question. A CS prize would be handed out with respect to technical merit, just like the other scientific ones.

However, the peace prize would be awarded based on promoting peace. For example, if Twitter one day actually enabled a revolution to take place, it could arguably be eligible for the nobel peace prize, but probably not the CS prize. Similarly, solving a very hard algorithmic problem would get you the CS prize but not the peace prize.

I think the question of whether Linus deserves the award is a very interesting one indeed, because it leads to a much more fundamental question:

"If I cure world hunger, I deserve the prize. But what if I write a script that runs in the background and five years later cures world hunger, do I still deserve the prize?"

Its just automation right?

I think Linux is itself prize-worthy, and thus since we can not hand the award to Linux itself, I think it would be a wonderful statement to give it to its original creator. I believe Linux really has changed/helped the world that much, and I think it would also make the important statement that politics isn't the only way of improving the world.

chaosprophet• 17 years ago

>I don't really see his eligibility. Remember a certain US president getting it for writing speeches???

chasingsparks2• 17 years ago

I am not an Obama fan (at all) but I can follow their logic. He does hold promise in the specific area of promoting peace. However, I certainly don't think he did the most in this area over the last year.

That's one reason why I think the Nobel prize is a perversion. The set of eligible people is not one or two people. There are a lot of people who do great things and in the end, the selection is fairly arbitrary. Honoring someone for doing someone honorable is good; Conferring enormous authority to one person by granting them a prize diminishes the authority of other great people.

Take Krugman. He got a Nobel for a very very specific area of economics. He now writes on an area that was not his specific focus nor has he proven himself particularly insightful. However, if he gets in an argument with other respected economists, the general perception is, "who has the Nobel?"

henrikschroder3• 17 years ago

To be fair, the main reason Obama got the prize was for the dramatic change in diplomatic relations between the US and, well, everyone else. The previous eight years basically consisted of a repeating monologue of "It's our way or the highway", whereas now the US is actually engaging in dialogue.

That said, I completely agree it was premature and that he shouldn't have gotten it before having actually achieved something more than making pretty speeches.

maw• 17 years ago

The idea is similar to Norman Borlaug's Nobel, although I'd argue that the case for Torvalds isn't nearly as strong, or, at least, far more diffuse.

On the other hand, it isn't hard to think of worse recipients.

cabalamat• 17 years ago

Linux, and free software in general, most certainly does promote "fraternity between nations" since it's all about people collaboratively developing something that benefits the entire human species. Though personally I'd be more inclined to give the prize to Stallman.

michael_nielsen• 17 years ago

Torvalds, Stallman, and Lessig would make an excellent combination, in my opinion - they've done incredible things to expand the intellectual commons, and that does great things for the "fraternity of nations". Think of all the international friendships and other relationships maintained using open source tools and the ideas of open culture.

The nomination process is described here:

http://nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/

a-priori• 17 years ago

What I would like to see is it awarded to "the open source community" as a whole, with that trio accepting it.

antonovka4• 17 years ago

Other than Lessig, that trio does not even begin to represent me or innumerable other open source developers. RMS and Linus represent GPL and Linux developers, who are are only one component of the broader community.

The GPL/Linux ideals are clearly and fundamentally opposed to my own, and I would be insulted if RMS and Linus accepted the award on behalf of the open source community at large.

henrikschroder3• 17 years ago

Yes, the peace prize has sometimes gone to controversial or unexpected people, but that doesn't mean the process is completely without rules. First, these people can nominate for the peace prize:

http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_committee/who-ca...

If you're not on that list, sending Norwegian Ubuntu CDs to the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee as the article suggests is going to achieve absolutely nothing.

Second, read the actual will of Alfred Nobel:

http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/alfred-nobel/testament/

"and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses"

Does Linus Torvalds fit that description? Not even remotely close. If the author of the article had spent a few more minutes actually researching the rules, and not just browsing Wikipedia, he could have avoided writing the thing altogether.

mieses3• 17 years ago

so what. they stopped following those rules a long time ago. regardless, torvalds would decline since he seems to have integrity.

mahmud• 17 years ago

"benevolent dictator"?

omouse3• 17 years ago

Disgusting. If anything, Richard Stallman should be nominated for it as he has done far more and the Free Software movement is much more in line with the intent of the Nobel Peace Prize.

mieses3• 17 years ago

i would agree with you. stallman is a better fit for a nobel. he's such an inspiration. torvalds just works hard, which is so trivial and boring.

igorgue• 17 years ago

to be fair... both work hard

standalonematt2• 17 years ago

What about the economics prize (I know, not a real nobel prize) going to members of the free/open source software community. Their works have really shown that great things can be built by a community of people, with limited central leadership and without a clear profit motive.

philwelch• 17 years ago

The economics prize usually goes to an economist, not to someone who actually demonstrates something about the economy in practice.

standalonematt2• 17 years ago

Thanks for that - I don't really know much about the criteria for awarding the economics prize.

markbnine• 17 years ago

"Linux helped sequence the human genome, helps protect the world computer infrastructure from viral attack, and is now the pathway for millions to learn computer programming and participate in new international efforts"

Using this logic, Bill Gates should also be up for the award (and considering his philanthropy, maybe he should).

There is a paradigm problem here. One does not award the builder of Mother Teresa's orphanage a peace prize (even if it is quite nice). The award goes to Mother Teresa.

adw• 17 years ago

If the Gates Foundation nail malaria and other diseases of poverty then he should.

pmjordan2• 17 years ago

I wouldn't really call malaria a "disease of poverty" - it's a bad idea to take the most effective prophylactic indefinitely (it's an antibiotic), and it can have plenty of side effects - and it's nowhere near 100% effective. (coincidentally, I've been taking it for the last 3 weeks) So non-poor people who live in affected regions can't keep on taking it either and therefore can and do catch malaria. It is treatable if caught early enough (I guess this is your poverty angle?) but anything but pleasant even if treatment is successful. Moreover, once you've had it, it can come back anytime during the rest of your life, rich or poor.

Of course, that makes it no less of a problem, and curing it once and for all would certainly be prizeworthy.

DenisM• 17 years ago

Well, that would make for one awkward acceptance speech. If you've seen Linus giving presentation you can imagine...

pmjordan2• 17 years ago

He'd certainly start by insulting everyone not using git...

zandorg• 17 years ago

I think some people see the Nobel as "Awards for great things", but really it hasn't caught up with the times. Politics is also involved. So it's "Awards for whoever they THINK has done great things" - also bound by categories which don't even include mathematics (the non-Nobel/pseudo prize is for Economics)...

motters• 17 years ago

It's not at all clear to me that when Torvalds started Linux he was necessarily trying to advance world peace. His motivations seem to have been much more practical and somewhat self motivated (scratching a personal itch). If they're handing out prizes Richard Stallman might be a better candidate, since his motives were explicitly altruistic from the outset (advancing freedom for computer users).

nzmsv• 17 years ago

Linus deserves this way more than Obama does. Why? Because you don't give prizes for expected good work. You give a prize looking back on what's been accomplished.

I think this nomination will help inspire the next generation of young hackers, and I say go for it.

mdemare• 17 years ago

Linus deserves a Nobel Prize, but he likes flamewars way too much to get the Peace Prize. How about literature? Why should that be limited to writers of human languages?

ajaimk• 17 years ago

He has my vote if that matters.

known• 17 years ago

RMS is not as diplomatic as Linus.

rmason• 17 years ago

I twittered that Linus is more deserving of a Nobel than either Obama or Carter.

But Ronald Reagan though freed something like 125 million people and he never received it.

Bill Clinton single handedly has raised over a billion dollars for the third world poor and he hasn't received it.

diego_moita• 17 years ago

> But Ronald Reagan though freed something like 125 million people and he never received it.

No, he didn't. Gorbachev did.

Aegean2• 17 years ago

RMS and Torvalds should share the prize. RMS deserves it since he's the founder of the idea of free software, and Torvalds deserves it because based on the idea he created a collaborative movement of exceptional engineering.

Linus Torvalds for Nobel Peace Prize?

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