Linus Torvalds was speaking at a forum on June 14, at the Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship in Otaniemi, in his native Finland, where among other things he was taking Q&A from his audience.
Apparently, he's just about fed-up with Nvidia's continued belligerency on their lack of support for both Linux as a whole, as well as for their own customer base running Linux.
During the speech, one lady explained she was trying to get Linux working on a laptop she owned with an Optimus chip from Nvidia,which is a Santa Clara, California based company that is one of the largest graphics chip suppliers in the world.
"I was expecting that Nvidia would kind of chip in and do something...[but] they said flat out 'no' they're not doing any support," she said.
Torvalds replied, ""Nvidia has been one of the worst trouble spots we've had with hardware manufacturers. And that's really sad because Nvidia tries to sell chips, a lot of chips into the Android market. And Nvidia has been the single worst company we've every dealt with," he said.
And as you will find in the YouTube video linked below at 49:59 mark into the forum, Torvalds continued ""So, Nvidia, f*** you," he said., gesturing with his middle finger.
He continued. "I think it's really sad when you sell hardware and use Linux and you are being really difficult about it."
He then qualifies his statement furthermore, "Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that other companies are perfect either."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=MShbP3OpASA
Its widely know how Torvalds is not afraid to express his opinions on matters.
So it is understanding that this very type of thing is what brings out his passion of Linux, its integrity, its security and rightfully so.
And Nvidia of course is not obligated to support Linux--in the context that Torvalds is talking about--if Nvida deems Linux is not worth devoting resources to.
Linux Torvalds gives the "one finger salute" to Nvidia (YouTube link to full video)
