Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Linus Torvalds threw a t-shirt at me

March 22, 2004 | Comments: (0)

Linus Torvalds threw a t-shirt at me

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Yes the headline is correct, and yes I was slightly injured in the incident. But how did Linus Torvalds, an amiable fellow who also happens to be worshipped by uber geeks worldwide, find himself stooping to the rote chore of chucking t-shirts off a stage to a wildly enthusiastic crowd? Don't they usually hire a team of fresh faced temps for that? Well, here at BrainShare in Salt Lake City Linus was recruited in a whirl of excitement by Novell vice chairman Chris Stone during a keynote demonstration to throw the shirts, which were printed with something about "no bull" in derision of Microsoft's Longhorn. Linus looked a little surprised when Chris passed him a stack of the tightly wrapped black shirts, as if he had no idea what was role the shirts played in the technical demo. But he cheerfully obliged, and the first shirt he hurled into the crowd sailed directly toward me. I found myself reaching up-- not that I really wanted the XL size shirt that would be one of hundreds I am offered each hour at tech conferences like this one every week. My reach was more of a self defense move. But still, it is thrilling in some small way to catch something thrown off a stage, especially when the hurler is the leader of the free OS world. However, a strong and super enthusiastic man to my left reached up at the same time and grabbed the shirt with a greed and fervor that kind of disturbed me. And, he squished my finger in the process. But the man looked so pleased to have the shirt thrown by Linus that I was happy to relinquish my grip. Needless to say, there is a lot of excitement here at BrainShare.

Posted by Cathleen Moore on March 22, 2004 05:10 PM

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