Linus Torvalds

A true hacker in the classic sense, Linus Torvalds was a computer science student at the University of Helsinki when he wrote the operating system Linux (a contraction of "Linus' Minix") in 1991. The software has proven to be tremendously popular worldwide -- and best of all it's FREE!

Torvalds modestly attributes much of Linux's success to the Net and to Richard Stallman's GNU: Both have facilitated development of his original kernel by fostering collaboration among software programmers and developers.

He's humble, he's brilliant, he gave us all access to Unix -- no wonder Linus Torvalds received more votes than any other nominee