Linux Foundation Public Health prepares global COVID-19 passport as Linus Torvalds encourages vaccine uptake

As the world battles the coronavirus pandemic, governments around the globe are taking different approaches to tackling the problem. While COVID-19 remains a somewhat divisive topic, there's one thing that most people can agree on: vaccinations are going to play a major role in getting things under control.

This is why the father of Linux, Linus Torvalds, has spoken out telling people to "get vaccinated" and "stop believing the anti-vax lies". For anyone who believes "the crazy conspiracy theories" he has a simple message: "SHUT THE HELL UP". Meanwhile, Linux Foundation Public Health has launched the Global COVID Certificate Network (GCCN), described as "an initiative to enable interoperable and trustworthy verification of COVID certificates between jurisdictions for safe border reopening".

The outburst from Torvalds came in a Linux Kernel Mailing List thread in which the Linux creator responded to a post referring to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines as "generic > human experiment that basically creates a new humanoid race". He snapped, telling the poster to "keep your insane and technically incorrect anti-vax comments to yourself".

He goes on to say:

You don't know what you are talking about, you don't know what mRNA is, and you're spreading idiotic lies. Maybe you do so unwittingly, because of bad education. Maybe you do so because you've talked to "experts" or watched youtube videos by charlatans that don't know what they are talking about.

But dammit, regardless of where you have gotten your mis-information from, any Linux kernel discussion list isn't going to have your idiotic drivel pass uncontested from me.

Vaccines have saved the lives of literally tens of millions of people.

Torvalds concludes a fairly wordy and passionate rant by saying:

Get vaccinated. Stop believing the anti-vax lies.

And if you insist on believing in the crazy conspiracy theories, at least SHUT THE HELL UP about it on Linux kernel discussion lists.

Torvalds' explosion comes as Linux Foundation Public Health launches the Global COVID Certificate Network (GCCN). The open source project will see the foundation working with organizations, governments, developers and others to create a global trust registry network and protocol which will make it easier for the various vaccination certificate issued by different countries to be assessed and determine their validity.

In conjunction with the Global COVID Certificates Implementation Toolkit, vendor network, and numerous other components, what is on the cards amounts to a COVID passport that should operate on a global scale.

Image credit: Viacheslav Lopatin / Shutterstock