Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: Fake Linus Torvalds competition

Aug 26th 2009
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fake-linus We all know and love Fake Steve Jobs, right? We all know that Linux users copy everything that Mac OSX and Windows do, right? So it should come as no surprise that the Linux Foundation is copying Fake Steve in their new Fake Linux Torvalds competition! Not content with a single fake Linus Torvalds, there will be four fake Linus Torvaldses (Torvaldi?)! And in true Linux geek fashion, the competition will take place on both Twitter and identi.ca, the free software micro-blogging alternative!

The premise is simple enough: the four fakes will tweet on Twitter and … uh … micro-blog on identi.ca, pretending to be Linus Torvalds. You, the Linux using community, will follow along at home, presumably while you all recompile your kernels, and vote for which fake Linus you like the best. All I know right now is that the four fakes are “well-known community and media leaders”. Who could they be?!

To make this competition even more compelling, it even has its own rap song and video! Hooray!

All snark aside, the song and video are pretty funny (and well done!) and this looks to be a pretty fun way for the Linux community to interact.

Taking a page from the popular FakeSteveJobs blog (http://www.fakesteve.net/), we’ve invited four well-known industry and community leaders to guest tweet as if they were the real Linus Torvalds during the weeks leading up to LinuxCon (http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon).

These FakeLinusTorvalds (FLTs) will be tweeting live from our Identi.ca (linuxfoundation) and Twitter feeds (www.twitter.com/linuxfoundation) beginning today, and their identities will be revealed at LinuxCon, directly after the Kernel Panel (http://linuxcon.linuxfoundation.org/meetings/1564), featuring the real Linus Torvalds, on September 21, 2009.

During the final two weeks prior to LinuxCon, we’re inviting you to vote for your favorite FLT here at Linux.com. The winner will be chosen based on community vote and will be presented with the “coveted” “Silver Penguin” award on stage at the conference.

Visit this page often to get updates on the best tweets of the week and to participate in the ongoing speculation about who is behind these FLTs. Who knows? Maybe even the real Linus will weigh in.