Linus Torvalds Is Pleased With His Nexus One [Creator of Linux Happy with Google's Smartphone]

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You may think the man who developed the Linux kernel originally would be a huge tech guy and would have tried every smartphone under the sun. Well, actually, Linus Torvalds admits that he hates phones, but the namesake of the Linux kernal decided to purchase the new Nexus One and he enjoys it.

Although some in the open-source community are unhappy with some closed-source parts of Android, Torvalds doesn’t seem to mind. He says he’s loved the concept of having Linux on a phone for sometime. He explains that he purchased an early Chinese Motorola phone that ran a version of Linux.

The father of Linux also explains that he purchased a HTC Dream aka T-Mobile G1 when it first came out to try out Android but found himself rarely using the device. He explained that he finds the Nexus One’s form factor appealing as he says, “I no longer feel like I’m dragging a phone with me“.

Some in the open-source community were unhappy with Google branching Android off of the development tree of the Linux kernel. Torvalds himself doesn’t mind, saying, “I don’t worry about out-of-tree development for odd devices too much.”

Last week, in Torvald’s native Finland, cell phone giant Nokia made their mobile OS Symbian open source. The head of the new non-profit Symbian Foundation at that time, charged, “About a third of the Android code base is open and nothing more. And what is open is a collection of middleware. Everything else is closed or proprietary.“