{"id":174113,"date":"2025-06-22T19:58:51","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T19:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/?p=174113"},"modified":"2025-06-23T08:42:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T08:42:57","slug":"a-historic-photo-torvalds-and-gates-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/a-historic-photo-torvalds-and-gates-together\/","title":{"rendered":"A Historic Photo: Torvalds and Gates Together"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let\u2019s wrap up this week\u2019s news with something a bit more on the curiosity side than pure tech, but still very much worth your attention. It\u2019s a photo that recently surfaced on Mark Russinovich’s LinkedIn profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Normally, this wouldn\u2019t make my radar, but this one\u2019s different\u2014it captures a moment that could easily be considered historic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\u2019s that? The photo features four legendary figures who helped shape the world of computing as we know it. But what really makes it special is that it\u2019s the very first time two of them have ever appeared side by side in the same shot: Microsoft\u2019s co-founder Bill Gates and the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the kind of photo that would’ve been nearly impossible to imagine 30 years ago. Back then, the leaders of the Windows and Linux camps were at each other’s throats\u2014trading jabs, insults, and labels that went way beyond polite disagreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to today, and the landscape couldn\u2019t be more different. What once seemed unthinkable is now an everyday reality. Microsoft\u2019s cloud giant, Azure, runs heavily on Linux infrastructure. Going even further, Microsoft now has its own Linux distribution, tailor-made for its cloud operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The published information says, “Linus had never met Bill, and Dave had never met Linus. No major kernel decisions were made, but maybe next dinner.<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, the event\u2019s exact purpose doesn\u2019t matter much, and right now, we can only guess what it was really about. But yeah, I agree\u2014it is<\/em> pretty interesting that top Microsoft executives invited the creator of Linux out to dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What really counts is the photo. It\u2019s a powerful snapshot that\u2019s sure to go down in history, bringing a mix of nostalgia and smiles. Most of all, it reminds us that even the biggest differences aren\u2019t impossible to overcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"From<\/a>
From left to right: Mark Russinovich, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, and Dave Cutler.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, so much has been written about Bill Gates<\/strong> and Linus Torvalds<\/strong> that there\u2019s really not much new to say. Still, seeing them side by side in what\u2019s likely their first photo together\u2014both smiling\u2014is something that feels genuinely uplifting to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the other two people in the photo might not be as instantly recognizable to many of our readers, but that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re any less important. On the contrary, their impact on the computing world has been nothing short of remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man on the left is Mark Russinovich<\/strong>, a software engineer, author, and co-founder of Sysinternals, now CTO of Azure, Microsoft\u2019s cloud computing platform. He has become synonymous with deep Windows diagnostics and cloud-scale management. In the late 1990s, his suite of tools (Process Explorer, Autoruns, Procmon) revolutionized the way administrators and security professionals understood Windows internals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man on the far right is another living legend: Dave Cutler<\/strong>. Let me put it this way\u2014he\u2019s one of the key people behind OpenVMS and the brilliant lead architect who designed Windows NT\u2019s kernel and hardware-abstraction layer\u2014technologies that remain at the heart of every current Windows release, from server farms to laptops. So, it\u2019s no surprise that people often call him the \u201cfather of Windows NT.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds are standing side by side in a friendly photo\u2014what a time to be alive, right? Way to go, guys! Wishing everyone an amazing week ahead!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Linux met Microsoft: a historic photo of Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates standing side by side for the very first time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":174116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2122,53],"class_list":["post-174113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-linus-torvalds","tag-microsoft"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}