44 years ago, somewhere in Helsinki, the capital and the largest city in Finland, was born Linus Benedict Torvalds, the founding father and the chief architect of the Linux kernel.

Born on December 28, 1969, Linus Torvalds is a Finnish/American software engineer who created the Linux kernel. He also created the extremely popular Git revision control system and Subsurface, an open source diving log software.

In 2012, the Technology Academy Finland (previously known as Finnish Technology Award Foundation and Millennium Prize Foundation) awarded Mr. Torvalds with the Millennium Technology Prize for the creation of an open source, POSIX-compliant and UNIX-like operating system for computers.

I, Marius Nestor, and the entire Softpedia Linux team wish a happy, happy birthday to Linus Torvalds, wherever you are, and a Happy New Year!