IN 1991, at the age of 21, Linus Torvalds, then a student a Helsinki University, sat down in his mother's apartment and coded the powerful LINUX operating system. Perhaps even more astounding than his programming prowess is what Torvalds did with it: he gave it away -free! The LINUX operating system became available to anyone who wanted to download it. Instead of money, Torvalds asked people for suggestions to improve the system. Thus emerged an operating system which is more powerful and stable than anything that Microsoft can offer and which is rapidly transforming the computing landscape. Linus Torvalds became Bill Gates' number one enemy.

Today, LINUX is poised to explode in the market, and its creator is on the verge of becoming a household name in even the lowest -tech household. Linus Torvalds is already a folk hero within the technology world, often mobbed at trade shows and forever asked to give interviews by the media. But Torvalds is a most unlikely celebrity: a family man, he lives in a cramped house in Santa Clara with his wife, Tove, a Finnish karate champion, and their two daughters. He claims to this day that he invented the LINUX system "just for fun."

Just For Fun is the eagerly anticipated autobiography of one of the stars of the technology world. It traces the origins of the LINUX operating system and the prospects for computing in the years ahead. Moreover, this is a highly inspirational book, demonstrating how one unselfish person literally changed the world.