Steve Jobs Tried to Hire Linux Creator Linus Torvalds to Work on OS X

MacRumors · Mar 22, 2012

Wired profiles Linus Torvalds the creator of the popular open source operating system Linux. The article reveals that Apple's Steve Jobs tried to recruit Torvalds to Apple with a job offer.

Torvalds has never met Bill Gates, but around 2000, when he was still working at Transmeta, he met Steve Jobs. Jobs invited him to Apple's Cupertino campus and tried to hire him. "Unix for the biggest user base: that was the pitch," says Torvalds. The condition: He'd have to drop Linux development. "He wanted me to work at Apple doing non-Linux things," he said. That was a non-starter for Torvalds. Besides, he hated Mac OS's Mach kernel.

In 2000, Apple had had not yet shipped the first version of OS X 10.0 to the public. Apple had adapted the NeXTSTep operating system after acquiring NeXT in 1997. It wasn't until March, 2001 that the first version of OS X was launched.

Steve Jobs' job offer was at a time when Apple was heavily investing in Mac OS X which would later serve as the foundation for their iPhones and iPads.

Article Link: Steve Jobs Tried to Hire Linux Creator Linus Torvalds to Work on OS X

soco · Mar 22, 2012

I get the allure of the story, but I'm sure that not only did more than just Steve try to hire Linus, but I'm sure this kind of big-name-guy tries to hire other-big-name-guy happens a lot more than most would think.

MrPhineas · Mar 22, 2012

Apparently his distortion field did not always work.

Evangelion · Mar 22, 2012

I heard about this long ago. Like several years ago. I'm not sure that was it mentioned in Linuses autobiography (released in 2001) or what.

GenesisST · Mar 22, 2012

Thank god that didn't get to be through. The guy annoys the hell out of me.

Plus I still have flashbacks of the days where you had to recompile because you sneezed... (exagerated example...). Not that I couldn't managed, but I had other things to do (still do)... Ubuntu is getting there, but too late, I've moved to OS X...

I truly love GIT, though, even knowing he developed it.

Chaos123x · Mar 22, 2012

Wirelessly posted

I think the most popular flavor of Linux is Android.

Peace · Mar 22, 2012

GenesisST said:
Thank god that didn't get to be through. The guys annoys the hell out of me.

Plus I still have flashbacks of the days where you had to recompile because you sneezed... (exagerated example...). Not that I couldn't managed, but I had other things to do (still do)... Ubuntu is getting there, but too late, I've moved to OS X...

I truly love GIT, though, even knowing he developed it.

This.

I also wonder why this story wasn't in Steve's Biography.

Winni · Mar 22, 2012

Evangelion said:
I heard about this long ago. Like several years ago. I'm not sure that was it mentioned in Linuses autobiography (released in 2001) or what.

Yes, it is mentioned in the book "Just for fun".

LeCorsaire · Mar 22, 2012

If Torvalds took the job offer

Scott Forstall would not have as nice a job today.

MacRumors said:
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Wired profiles Linus Torvalds the creator of the popular open source operating system Linux. The article reveals that Apple's Steve Jobs tried to recruit Torvalds to Apple with a job offer.In 2000, Apple had had not yet shipped the first version of OS X 10.0 to the public. Apple had adapted the NeXTSTep operating system after acquiring NeXT in 1997. It wasn't until March, 2001 that the first version of OS X was launched.

Steve Jobs' job offer was at a time when Apple was heavily investing in Mac OS X which would later serve as the foundation for their iPhones and iPads.

Article Link: Steve Jobs Tried to Hire Linux Creator Linus Torvalds to Work on OS X

Winni · Mar 22, 2012

Peace said:
I also wonder why this story wasn't in Steve's Biography.

Why would it? Do you expect that the book is filled with all the things that did NOT work and a list of people that did NOT want to work for Steve Jobs?

This event makes a certain sense in Linus's biography, because it underlines some of HIS convictions, like NOT signing NDAs and NOT giving up on Linux because somebody wants to buy the man behind it. Also, Linus mentioned explicitly that several technological aspects of Steve's idea did not make any sense for him and that he told him so.

JoeG4 · Mar 22, 2012

Now if only MS would do the same :|

IJ Reilly · Mar 22, 2012

Winni said:
Yes, it is mentioned in the book "Just for fun".

Published in 2001. That's why they call it "news."

Winni · Mar 22, 2012

GenesisST said:
Plus I still have flashbacks of the days where you had to recompile because you sneezed... (exagerated example...). Not that I couldn't managed, but I had other things to do (still do)... Ubuntu is getting there, but too late, I've moved to OS X...

The last time anybody had to compile a Linux kernel was like ten years ago. You're really spreading last decade's news here.

But yes, Ubuntu IS getting there - and, sadly, OS X is losing it rapidly. It's apparent that OS X is nothing but an afterthought for Apple and that iOS is their future. And that won't be my future. I'm preparing to migrate the Macs in our house to Ubuntu.

----------

IJ Reilly said:
Published in 2001. That's why they call it "news."

Exactly. It only took the Steve Jobs fan club eleven years to dig up that little gem and talk about it.

IJ Reilly · Mar 22, 2012

Winni said:
Exactly. It only took the Steve Jobs fan club eleven years to dig up that little gem and talk about it.

That's a little harsh, since it was Wired that thought this was something nobody had heard about before.

q64ceo · Mar 22, 2012

It perplexes me to think that all these years after releasing Darwin as open source no one else really uses it as their base. Darwin is a powerful OS.

All these new Linux flavors have no idea what they are giving up by not going down that lane.

GenesisST · Mar 22, 2012

Winni said:
The last time anybody had to compile a Linux kernel was like ten years ago. You're really spreading last decade's news here.

That's why I used an English concept called the past tense...

If you want to be precise, I worked with it (along with Solaris, AIX, and other UNIXes) at irregular interval between 1995 and now.

mdriftmeyer · Mar 22, 2012

This is news to folks? Yes, Linus was asked in 1997 when us NeXT folks merged with Apple and we had MkLinux being used to bootstrap onto PowerPC Hardware.

We reached out to Linus for that process.

EricBlue · Mar 22, 2012

Anybody who looks down on Torvalds.

For all his arrogant style and other bad traits. You still have to acknowledge that he created two extremly popular and wellwritten software: linux and git. And giving away it for free to the public. That's a huge thing.

coolspot18 · Mar 22, 2012

Winni said:
But yes, Ubuntu IS getting there - and, sadly, OS X is losing it rapidly. It's apparent that OS X is nothing but an afterthought for Apple and that iOS is their future. And that won't be my future. I'm preparing to migrate the Macs in our house to Ubuntu.

I have to agree with you, the number of bugs in OS X these days is shameful.

admanimal · Mar 22, 2012

Winni said:
But yes, Ubuntu IS getting there - and, sadly, OS X is losing it rapidly. It's apparent that OS X is nothing but an afterthought for Apple and that iOS is their future. And that won't be my future. I'm preparing to migrate the Macs in our house to Ubuntu.

Good luck with that. Ubuntu is still a user experience nightmare compared to OS X or Windows 7. The fact is that even an iOS-like OS X is better suited to the needs of most of the computer using population than anything resembling the current state of Ubuntu.

Hellhammer · Mar 22, 2012

GenesisST said:
Thank god that didn't get to be through. The guys annoys the hell out of me.

Plus I still have flashbacks of the days where you had to recompile because you sneezed... (exagerated example...). Not that I couldn't managed, but I had other things to do (still do)... Ubuntu is getting there, but too late, I've moved to OS X...

I truly love GIT, though, even knowing he developed it.

I think your conclusion is far-fetched. Torvalds working for Apple would not have meant that OS X would have become another Linux. I'm pretty sure Steve would still have made the final decisions on ideas - Torvalds being the guy who turns ideas into actual code.

lavem · Mar 22, 2012

I read about this a long time ago. I thought it was in a book by Alan Deutschman. The Second Coming of Steve Jobs but I can't find any reference in the index. Must have been in the Linus Torvalds biography but I don't have that to hand to check.

Edit:

Yes, it was in Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. Page 149. If you look at it on Amazon you can bring up the page by searching for Steve Jobs. That was way back in 2002!

Evangelion · Mar 22, 2012

Linus would have been a good fit at Apple. In some ways, he's like Steve Jobs: he insists on correct solutions, even if they are harder to do. He knows what he wants, and he's not afraid to push people to get it. And yes, he can be a bit of an ass.

But he basically hated OS X. But his personality would have been a good fit. And there's no chance that he would stop working on Linux.

Winni said:
The last time anybody had to compile a Linux kernel was like ten years ago. You're really spreading last decade's news here.

But yes, Ubuntu IS getting there - and, sadly, OS X is losing it rapidly. It's apparent that OS X is nothing but an afterthought for Apple and that iOS is their future. And that won't be my future. I'm preparing to migrate the Macs in our house to Ubuntu.

----------

Exactly. It only took the Steve Jobs fan club eleven years to dig up that little gem and talk about it.

Oh, it seems we have a new uber-negative person in the forum. Good luck with Ubuntu.

kurosov · Mar 22, 2012

EricBlue said:
For all his arrogant style and other bad traits. You still have to acknowledge that he created two extremly popular and wellwritten software: linux and git. And giving away it for free to the public. That's a huge thing.

Not to mention he is one of the above.

Rocketman · Mar 22, 2012

This story is really about, but does not address, the path not traveled. What would it have taken, to get him to say yes? A different kernel? A bigger salary? Continued open source of non core OS technologies?

Mac OS is after all is said and done BSD UNIX with a windowing environment, a few proprietary APIs and a few proprietary services, most of which actually work with open BSD just fine.

Rocketman

Steve Jobs Tried to Hire Linux Creator Linus Torvalds to Work on OS X

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