Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds Meet for the First Time

A very special chapter in tech history was recently opened at a private dinner: For the first time, Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel, met personally.

A premiere at dinner

The meeting took place as part of a dinner, to which Mark Russinovich, the creator of the Sysinternals tools and today’s chief technology chief at Microsoft Azure. Although Gates and Torvalds have been among the most influential personalities in the computer world for decades, they have never had direct contact up to this point.

In the past, Microsoft and Linux have been competing with each other for a long time, especially during the early 2000s when the Redmonder openly described the free operating system as a threat. However, this relationship has changed significantly in recent years: Microsoft now supports Linux on several levels, including with the Windows subsystem for Linux (WSL).

In addition to Gates and Torvalds, Dave Cutler was also present, who was instrumental in the development of Windows NT and is now a technical expert at Microsoft. He also met Torvalds for the first time. The atmosphere of the meeting seems to have been relaxed – Mark Russinovich commented on the event humorous on LinkedIn: “No important kernel decisions were made.”

Symbolic picture

The meeting is often seen as a symbolic moment: it not only marks the gathering of two technical visionaries, but also symbolizes the changed relationship between proprietary and open source software. While Linux dominates in areas such as server operating systems, mobile platforms (Android) and embedded systems, Microsoft is still a giant in the desktop and cloud market- both worlds are now increasingly influencing each other. Even if dinner has not produced specific technical results, it remains a remarkable moment in tech story: an evening on which former rivals met at eye level.