The book "The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time", part of a series from the Encyclopaedia Britannica titled "The Britannica Guide to the World's Most Influential People", lists the top one hundred most important and influential inventors since Cro-Magnon man.

Linus Torvalds is remarkable, not only for being the technical genius who wrote Linux, but for then being able to inspire and lead an enormous team of people to devote their free time to work on the operating system and bring it to maturity. We sent Richard Morris off to interview Linus, and find out more.

Most years, Linus Torvalds comes to Australia. He apparently likes the place, so the creator of the Linux kernel makes his way to the Australian national Linux conference in January. Torvalds is an excellent subject for an interview; he never evades a question, not even if he has a single word to offer as reply. And despite claiming to have a big ego, he is indeed very approachable.

Linus Torvalds is known, rightly so, as the creator of the Linux kernel. What began as his own hobby project now powers major data centres, enabled the netbook market to exist, and has given rise to many a user group install-fest. It's no wonder his opinion is canvassed regularly but the answer may not always be what you expect. Here are some of the best and most defining.

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, says he's fed up with what he sees as a "security circus" surrounding software vulnerabilities and how they're hyped by security people.

As many DistroWatch Weekly readers will be aware, I recently spent a week in Hobart, Australia, at Linux.conf.au. The popular annual conference draws many big names from the open source world, including Linus Torvalds (pictured on the right), chief architect and creator of the Linux kernel.

"Linux really wouldn't have gone anywhere interesting at all if it hadn't been released as an open source product. I also think that the change to the GPLv2 from my original 'no money' license was important, because the commercial interests were actually very important from the beginning.

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, has, along with others like Richard Stallman, literally changed the world of software forever.

As the central element of Linux, the kernel is equally central to open source software in general. Because the community has such a stake in its design and success, the kernel has proven to be the hub around which much discussion revolves. The kernel's creator, Linus Torvalds, also has a stake in its success, and he takes part in the discussion.