Submitted by Linus Torvalds is remarkable, not only for being the technical genius who wrote Linux, but for then being able to inspire and lead an enormous team of people to devote their free time to work on the operating system and bring it to maturity. We sent Richard Morris off to interview Linus, and find out more.
I love how you make it sound like Richard Morris was sent to do the interview on behalf of osnews.
Geek who bad-mouth competitors to gain cheap popularity is not worth any respect.
You can’t respect many geeks then because there’s more OS fanboys than there are OS developers.
In fact you’ll be hard pressed to find any geek that’s has been that involved in an OS and is entirely impartial.
Badmouths competitors, I guess Apple and Microsoft are both off your list too then.
I was going to suggest Balmer as a geek who bad mouths, but realistically he’s just a brute.
[quote]…enormous team of people to devote their free time to work on the operating system…[/quote]
This may have been true for Linux 1.x but now?
Oh well…
Edited 2008-07-21 16:15 UTC
That’s cool and all… but how many Torvalds interviews do we have to have?
Wow, someone actually complained that Linux gets too much press coverage! When Steve and Bill produce the tiniest fart you’ve got every single reporter covering it.
I hope by “you’re” you mean the media, not me.
I just meant there are about a million Linus Torvalds interviews out there, and most of them either consist of the same questions, or are answered in his book _Just For Fun_. I really respect LT, but I’m tired of all of the same old-same old interviews.
Edited 2008-07-21 22:06 UTC
Hopefully more like this one since it’s actually good.
Perhaps in a way you might be partly right… (although I haven’t seen another new Torvalds interview online for at least a month..
) But – in my opinion – there are again so many good points made by Linus in this interview that I cannot help but recommend the story and mark it as a “starred” story also. Just read Linus’ comments concerning software patents, for example:
“patents are very much used to stop competition, which is undeniably the most powerful way to encourage innovation. Anybody who argues for patents is basically arguing against open markets and competition, but they never put it in those terms.
It’s also distressing to see that people patent ideas. It’s not even a working ‘thing’; it’s just a small way of doing things that you try to patent, just to have a weapon in an economic fight. Sad. Patents have lost all redeeming value, if they ever had any.”
Edited 2008-07-22 08:18 UTC
I really admire Linus. He is a modest person, always trying to overcome himself, doing things because it’s fun, and not for trying to get other people’s attention or money.
He is a great person, brilliant, with great talent and passion, a great inspiration for me and for the rest of the world.
Thanks for your work and for making the world a better place Linus, you are a great example to follow
.
Edited 2008-07-21 20:22 UTC
He doesn’t seem to be that nice of a person. He called the OpenBSD folks a bunch of “Masturbating Monkeys”. I watched a talk he gave at Google on GIT (the version control system he created), and be was merciless in his remarks to CVS and SVN. I don’t get the feeling he has a proper respect for those that have come before. IMHO
He doesn’t seem to be that nice of a person. He called the OpenBSD folks a bunch of “Masturbating Monkeys”. I watched a talk he gave at Google on GIT (the version control system he created), and be was merciless in his remarks to CVS and SVN. I don’t get the feeling he has a proper respect for those that have come before. IMHO
He is just trying to be funny in his own way. Don’t take it personal, I find his comments cool and funny.
There’s nothing wrong with having a sense of humor. But there is something wrong with consistently demonstrating exceptionally poor taste. Masturbating monkeys, indeed.
the comments he makes not only are funny but also are food for thought.
Maybe he’s right when he states things like the monkeys.
Sometimes, something that just works is ok enough. In fact, most of the time is.
…maybe, maybe…
Maybe you’re wrong agreeing with Linus. But I’m pretty sure you know, as Linus, nothing about what OpenBSD devs are really doing.
Well, he is a *self-declared* asshole.
I still think he’s good though, and people who create good stuff are often assholes. Simply because they care more about what they are creating than human consideration. Steve Jobs doesen’t really seem like a very nice guy, but he get’s shit done. Same can be said for many others.
I kind of agree. That comment was out of line IMO. He lost a bit of my respect there…
It’s no fun if you can’t say what you think. I don’t always agree with what he says (I am a Gnome user) but I always enjoy him saying it.
Edited 2008-07-21 22:34 UTC
Linus doesn’t have PR and Sales departments that he has to parrot. He calls it like he sees it and is quite candid. He does tend to overstate things in order to get his point across, but despite that I would take his opinions and point of view as genuine. Too many other people tend to say nothing at all for public record, and when they do it’s pre-baked crap that’s politically correct and nobody is offended, but nobody takes it too seriously either.
I think that you have to be willing to risk offending people if you want to be taken seriously.
Even though I’m an OpenBSD user i’ve decided not to give a fsck what Linus says about it or what Theo says about Linux. Not everyone can get along and agree on everything. Both can be assholes and both have good ideas.
Just let it slide and get on with life.
This article gives Linus just a bit too much credit. Technical genius? I think not. Yes he created his own OS but thats about it. I hate reading interviews with him in it because he always feels this need to bash others, in this case Ballmer. He isn’t that great.
No – you are certainly not fair to him in this case. He is just replying some questions concerning Mr. Ballmer’s own dirt throwing against Linux. Now, what is he going to reply? That he humbly thanks Mr. Ballmer for his friendly, insigthful and cooperative comments…? Linus is known for his straight comments but his answer here could even be considered quite polite comparing it to what Mr. Ballmer has been saying about Linux.
Linus:
To me that reply looks more like good argumenting (than bashing) when Linus is just defending Linux (and free competition) against the continuing attacks by an aggressive OS monopolist.
Edited 2008-07-22 15:37 UTC
No, he didn’t. He created a kernel of an OS.
I like what he is saying about licenses that he’s open enough to see that there is something more than only GPL(despite him preffering it).
Unlike certain FOSS-indivudals who want you to a free licence… as long as it’s GPL.
From the article:
Actually, he originally called it Freax (combination of “Free Unix” and “Unix for freaks”). Then Linus’s friend Ari Lemmke managed to convice him that Freax perhaps wasn’t such a cool name as Linus had thought.
Linus’s comment in the interview:
So why does Linus still keep actively avoiding Debian now that he’s been told that Debian has become a no-brainer to install? I’d guess he just dislikes distros that have “GNU/Linux” in their name.
There’s this old controversy in naming the operating system that uses the Linux kernel and the GNU tools and utilities. Richard Stallman wanted to keep the ideals of the GNU project (which existed before the Linux kernel) visible and he suggested to call the operating system first “Lignux”, and then “GNU/Linux” or “GNU+Linux”.
Linus didn’t like those names at all, and he generally doesn’t approve of the GNU ideals (although he does seem to like the GNU GPL license, version 2). After giving up on “Freax”, Linus has preferred to call the operating system that is based on his kernel simply “Linux”.
Wikipedia has an article about the naming dispute:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_controversy
Sorry, but Stallman seems to be an egocentric douche, and I don’t blame Torvalds for ignoring the controversy. Nobody really cares about the “GNU/Linux” vs “Linux” naming except the GNU guys. I mean, shit, why stop with Linux? Why not prefix *every* app with all of its dependencies? Answer: Because it’s moronic, and it doesn’t contribute anything, technically speaking. It’s all about ego masturbation; hence, my original statement at the top of this post.
iirc, the gpl2 have much the same criteria for sharing that torvalds put the linux source under originally, but with better words then he could come up with at the time.
basically for him its not so much a case of etics as a case of convenience. and thats also why he started coding it in he first place, so as to not have to take the trip to the unix lab each time he wanted to test something.
I realize that Linus made minux work on pc hardware, but that is hardly creating an OS. The Linux OS is created by many developers around the world. What would it be like with Xorg, KDE, Gnome, Firefox, etc. It wouldn’t be useful at all. Linus has his place with the kernel but I think gets too much credit for creating the “Linux OS”