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Linus Torvalds became US citizen

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Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#51

Post by trustfundbaby »

compay wrote: post #45
forinti wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But don't you have to renounce all other allegiances? Uruguayan law says that even if you renounce your uruguayan citizenship, you still keep it. I think this was put in place exactly because lots of Uruguayans were leaving for the USA (lots of Uruguayans is something like 50).

No, the USA does not require that.

yes it does ... verbally ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_%28United_St...

But it doesn't mean that you actually renounce citizenship of your home country.

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#53

Post by mike-cardwell »

scrrr wrote: post #38

Countries are such an old-school concept somehow. EDIT: Downvotes? Come on. Especially today, especially in our world of modern technology, physical location is less important than ever before. Where's the sci-fi novel where they abolished countries after they found out we all live on a tiny planet orbiting one of a billion stars?

There is more to a country than being a place of work.

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#54

Post by avar »

ugh wrote: post #49
apgwoz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can live and work permanently in 27 countries (including Finland) without having to change nationality. How? I'd love to be able to do that.

He is a EU Citizen. That’s not that much better than the freedom to work or live wherever you want within the US. It only sounds so impressive because those 27 nations are all substantially smaller than the US. It’s nonetheless one of those achievements of European integration I most certainly don’t want to give up.

The US (mostly) all speaks the same language and has a much more similar set of laws and a largely homogeneous society.

By comparison e.g. Spain and Germany and almost any two countries in the EU you care to name speak different languages, are very different culturally, and have different customs.

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#56

Post by gojomo »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #27
sp332 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA, for being appealing enough to make Linus want to (first) move here and (now) take on citizenship, instead of just telnetting from Finland - or anywhere else on the planet he might have liked better.

You think he obtained American citizenship because he likes the USA more than any other country, including his home one? You don't know his motives. Maybe he just did it because it's more convenient for him to currently work there, and constantly having to organise visas was a pain in the arse? For all we know he hates the USA...?

For all we know he hates the USA...?

For all we know, he's the first in a series of genetically-engineered Finnish super-programmers, part of a growing sleeper cell of infiltrators hell(sinki)-bent on Finlandizing the USA via secret trapdoors in their code, all waiting for the flip of a single bit to instantly erase all memory of the Constitution and replace it with a Scandinavian welfare-state, then killing our leaders and converting us all to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland -- their state religion!

Or maybe he just likes living with his family in the Pacific Northwest. It's hard to tell, for all we know!

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#57

Post by sethg »

muriithi wrote: post #32
goatforce5 wrote: post #21

I'll guess he originally came in on an EB2(C) visa, which is for people of exceptional ability in their field who the US will allow in, regardless of whether or not they have a specific job offer. This means that, until he became a citizen, he'd immigration status in the US would have been: "exceptional alien". That's not a status i'd give up easily. :)

Is there also an expedited path to citizenship for "exceptional alien" ? I was reading an article today about an Indian nanny who saved the life of a 2 year old Israeli boy during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Israel honored her by granting her honorary citizenship and temporary residency in Israel. Link : http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/09/14/israel.mumbai....

N.B.: Indian citizens cannot be dual nationals: if they accept citizenship or a passport from another country, they lose their Indian citizenship. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_nationality_law#Automati...) I assume this is why the nanny’s Israeli citizenship is only “honorary”.

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#59

Post by scrrr »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #53
scrrr wrote: post #38

Countries are such an old-school concept somehow. EDIT: Downvotes? Come on. Especially today, especially in our world of modern technology, physical location is less important than ever before. Where's the sci-fi novel where they abolished countries after they found out we all live on a tiny planet orbiting one of a billion stars?

There is more to a country than being a place of work.

Sure, but this is also true for the city you are in, the neighborhood and the street.

I'm not historian but I suppose throughout history the space that we call home became bigger and bigger as time went by. Perhaps first it was a cave, at some point it was a village, then it was a city and eventually it was a country.

I guess what I mean is that eventually countries will go away. And calling them "old-school" was assuming we were there yet. But maybe we are not yet. But surely you would agree one day this day will come?

Re: Linus Torvalds became US citizen

#60

Post by jimbokun »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #9
expnsv_hdphns wrote: post #7

I'm sick of all these low-wage foreign workers stealing our precious jobs.

They only take the jobs you don't want. Like cleaning hotels and hacking kernels.

"Like cleaning hotels and hacking kernels."

For the vast majority of Americans, the former is probably a more desirable profession than the latter.

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