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Linus Torvalds Announces Autobiography 134

Keith Whitsitt wrote in to say that Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is writing his autobiography. Published by HarperCollins, co-authored by David Diamond, entitled "Just for Fun:The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary". The article is pretty funny, talking about how it will reflect Torvalds "Quirky irreverent personality" as well as how it will be about business, Linus, and Linux. Hell I'll read it, but isn't Linus a bit young for the autobiography? I keep pitching my epic space opera about alien robots who infest our planet and live off celebrities dryer lint to various publishers, but nobody wants to publish a book written by a leader of mexican food, and starring a hero named Litmus VanCenturfuge and his sidekick Pipet Jerks. I keep telling them my parents would buy copies. I bet Linus will sell copies to people besides his parents.
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Linus Torvalds Announces Autobiography

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  • by 31337du0d ( 207612 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @06:58AM (#596357) Homepage
    How about Penguin?
  • Oi! He wrote fetchmail, among a long and varied hacking career including big emacs contributions, and being one of the main ncurses developers. He may not have done as much as Linus or RMS, but chances are he's contributed much more code to the average Linux distro than you have; I know he's added much more than I have. So, please, show some respect; he's a hacker as well as a journalist, and even if you don't agree with what he says, his experience of hacking gives him some right to be listened to.

    Savant
  • The difference between your book and Linus' book, and why you might have a harder time getting yours out there...

    We already know Linus is a writer ;)

    Good luck on your space opera!
  • I would write the book solely to be able to answer the same old questions we see in every interview once and for all. Just get it over with. Any time they ask the same old "so what got you started?" thing, I'd just reply "RTFB" and get on with life.

    Also, will the book include and audio CD with the "famous" "Hello, this is Linus Torvalds" sample?
  • Didn't Brittany Spears' autobiography come out a year or two ago? I would think Linus would have more to say than she did, so what the hell, he may as well get his book out there. It may have been better to wait until there's more to say on the Transmeta phase of his life, unless he wants the book to end with some uncertainty there, thus he can have a dramatic close to the book that leaves his future success in question.
  • by MartinG ( 52587 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @07:34AM (#596362) Homepage Journal
    No.

    Linus has played and continues to play a part in starting a revolution in computing. Whether he did that by "reimplmenting a 30 year old OS" or by having entirely new ideas or by redecorating his house, or by shaving his head, or by anything else at all is unimportant.
    The undenyable fact is that the way people (including individuals and businesses) view computers and their operating systems is changing. This is due in part to the work of Linus. That makes him a revolutionary.

    Thompson and Richtie are more like visionarys than revolutionaries (acciedental or otherwise) to me. (as is RMS for that matter)

  • by Dannon ( 142147 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @07:35AM (#596363) Journal
    I'd suggest Linus - The Christmas Ornament, but Hallmark already has a few I'll wager, in its Peanuts collection...

    ---
  • Its not like you can survive selling free software... (please forget the technicalities for this post)
  • See.....
    Linus rescue a colony of furry penguins.

    Furry penguins? d00d, pengiuns have feathers. They're birds! :)

  • Awh come on rob, I wanna read about the robots and their brave leader Litmus!

    :)
  • So... will the book come with a copy of Linux?

    Which distribution?


  • by Anonymous Coward
    Geek Appeal? [amihotornot.com]

  • Um so he has a honorable PHD, wrote some of the most popular free software, re-engrized the free software movement, helped develop a CPU and also has time to develop a famliy, while moving from his native land/launage. And he is how old? 30-40?

    Looking at this rationally, the key item is that he wrote the Linux kernel. It had the side effect of re-energizing Stallman's free software movement, but that wasn't something Linus really did. Moving, having a job, and raising a family are not typically reasons that you write an autobiography, you know?
  • Ya know, if they ever release "Linus - The Toilet Paper", I think Microsoft will be the biggest customer of that particular item. :-)

    well, thats figures MS produces loads of BS
  • Pretty soon my kids will be begging for Linus pajamas and lunch boxes.
  • What fucking morons! You took action on what I pointed out to you, and moderated me down. Well I don't give a shit about my karma in this environment, so eat my fuck and die.
  • Will he include that part where the devil visited him and asked him to go easy on his 'ol friend Bill?

    Adler

  • by Anonymous Coward
    If you're looking to publicize your own autobiography, why are you posting anonymously Mr. Gore?
  • As someone else here said, there's an important difference between "revolutionary" and "visionary." You might call RMS the visionary and Linus the revolutionary. Linus didn't start out with the goal of writing a world-class operating system for the masses -- it was just a neat hack at the beginning. Stallman had that idea, though. The difference is that Linus went out and did what Stallman only talked about. As such, there is room in the world for both visionaries andrevolutionaries -- in fact, they're both necessary, and they have a symbiotic relationship.
    --
  • The bits and pieces of Linus' life that I've heard sound like they'd make an interesting read, just like most of the people out there changing the world, in however minor ways. Yeah, to some the life history of a hacker will be boring, but to others, who don't know about late night hacking runs, etc, it may prove to be enlightening (Any drunk - fixmes in Linux's history?).

    aside to Taco: Don't feel too bad. The editors don't like stories from talking felines either. Can you honestly think of a better premise for a love story than the extinction of humanity? I didn't think so.

  • I value Linus' contribution to the free software movement and etc... but I am absolutely against turning him into some kind of semi-God. I wouldn't buy his biography as much as I wouldn't buy Bill Gate's biography either... when will Slashdot get more serious ?
  • I would imagine there can be more than one. :)
  • THe person that modded this as insightful might need to um, how should we say, "get some" before the rest of his brain rots away. Pardon the political incorrectnous, but seein the above comment modded as insightful was just too funny not to comment on.

  • See.....
    Linus take on Tannenbaum and obliterate Minux

    See.....
    Linus take on Bill and Lynne Joltz and
    leap ahead of 386BSD

    See.....
    Linus take on the Devil (either BSD or Bill
    Gates)

    See.....
    Linus rescue a colony of furry penguins.

  • hahaha....there are some things you just shouldn't say ;P

    -sK

  • Will there be a CVS tree which we can all contribute developments to? ;)


    --------------------
  • That line is a joke. Humor. Fun. You see, when Linus releases a new patch collection, he (usually) prefaces it with a line similar to the above. I believe that in one of the recent releases, Linus quipped about how it had the blessing of the pope, who "(shh) nobody tell--plays Quake3 behind locked doors".

    It is pretty much impossible for Linus to thoroughly test the code he releases, particularly the stuff submitted to him by other developers, which often is for hardware he doesn't have. This is part of the development process. When he releases a new mini-version, everyone gets it and tries it out, and bugs are found.

    If you believe that testing in Linux is faulty, well then, sign up and do some QA, and quit your fucking whining.
  • I'm sure he's getting enough from Transmeta to feed the new mouth! Well, I hope, cause I could and I'm sure he's getting a lot more than me :)
  • Hey CmdrTaco, no offense, but if I came and worked for Slashdot, would I get a pass at the pipe too? But seriously, I don't think the guy is writing an autobiography for all the petty reasons he's already been flamed for, its just he's already done more than enough towards the digital revolution to write a book on.
  • Exactly typical moderation, I'd say.
  • It's time for the published Space opera...

    Please go immediately to http://www.iuniverse.com, submit your manuscript and slashdot yourself.

    You'll sell millions of copies, obviously.

    (And who said the internet wasn't your friend

    davemc
  • Shouldn't he be writing kernel code?? :-)


    -- Thrakkerzog
  • How about an epic alien opera about dryer lint that lives off space robots and infests our planet with businesses with a quirky and irrevernt personality who are all part of a revolution lead by mexican food and pitched at celebrities who like linux "Just for Fun" such as Linus?

    It'd be co-autored by David Diamond in collaboration with Linus's parents of course.

    -Daniel

    P.S. Seriously though, at this point an autobiography may be a bit much; how about an interesting except from my life revolving around computing issues that have recently become popular. Lots of authors do that and they don't call it an autobiography... Like that cliford stoll book or something, but better.

  • Um. No. It's his time, and he can do with it what he chooses.

    But anyway, it's probably not going to be written that much by Linus anyway. In general with these celebrity books co-author means ghostwriter.

    Typically an author will pass interesting titbits, or perhaps chapters, and the ghostwriter will put them together.

    Everyone does it - Bill Gates, film stars, etc.
  • I think he's contributing to the 2.4 kernel config system (or so he claims in LJ.)
  • That Clifford Stoll book you are referring to is 'The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage' [amazon.com].

    He's since gone on to write a few more; maybe writing pays better than computing!

    I agree though, that producing an autobiography at Linus' tender age is a bit ridiculous. A 'life' excerpt book sounds a much better idea. OTOH, if biographies of certain footballers get written when they are in their 20's, why shouldn't Linus jump on the bandwagon ?
  • by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @07:26AM (#596393)
    I don't know about this. Linus decided to write a UNIX kernel because he didn't like Windows or MS-DOS. Brilliant, that he pulled it off. But in all honesty, he's pretty much spent the last ten years tweaking his kernel and managing other people. That's cool, but an _autobiography_?

    Linus became a folk hero because of what his creation touched off. It enabled idealistic rants of a previous generation of isolated and fading UNIX geeks to go mainstream. And it isn't the kernel that gets attention any more, but KDE and Gnome and The Gimp and Apache and all the application people who are trying to conquer the world.

    I expect Linus's book to be on par with "Weaving the Web," by the creator of the web, Tim Berners-Lee. It was interesting in a technical sense, but it was obvious that his views and ideas were not what people think of when they think about the web.
  • If anyone is interested in co-author David Diamond, you should check out this profile [mercurycenter.com] of Linus he wrote.

    Or at least, The Register says he wrote it. Damned if I can find his name on it anywhere. Anyway, it's kind of cute.

  • I see Linus is now enjoying his celeb statas and trying to make a buck off his story of linux. Which there is nothing wrong with that. Linus had been very careful on how he profited from Linux. I think this is a very "safe" for him to profit from linux without stepping on alot of toes.
  • Linus wrote a kernel, not an OS; and in that that kernel is not quite Unix-standard, though it appears to be from outside, and it employs more modern algorithms than in the original Unix kernel, etc; so yes, the design was new. This is not however the revolutionary bit. By releasing it under the GPL he showed what would be to most computer users at that time a pretty revolutionary outlook. There were others previous to him, like RMS, who equally were revolutionaries in that sense, but that doesn't make Linus less of one, considering that Free Software / Open Source had then a mere fraction of the popularity it enjoys today.

    Savant
  • How did he know so much about running, organizing, succesfully managing a project of such size when he was just a grad student?

    I know it didn't all just happen over night, but the man has some serious organizational skills. Did he have a mentor, or was it just natural?
  • Then there could also be different distributions of the biography. The main advantage to purchasing a copy of a distribution would be the TECH SUPPORT to help the user get throught th BIG words.

    And Cmdr Taco and Malda could open a new web site:

    www.biodot.org
  • Yes. But your chances of getting your changes merged are small. :-). Actually, it might just be non-Free...
  • How does he have the time to write an autobiography? kids, the Linux kernel, Transmeta, and now a book?

    Geez, maybe he should give time management seminars, because he seems to be doing a hell of a job managing his.

  • Stallman has a special place in the book "Hackers" by Stephen Levy. The is the book that dubbed him the "last true hacker". Incidentally, many, such as ESR, believe that Linus was the man to disprove that title.

    The book focuses on the history of computing in three phases, the infamous TMRC / AI Lab at MIT, the Homebrew Computer Club, and the early days of video game software for Apples. However, there's a small section at the end about RMS and GNU where Stallman gets to air some of his ideas. It's a nice way to close the book, because it connects back to the tradition that started at MIT, and was almost destroyed after the days of the Altair. And I, for one, have always found RMS's mission interesting.

    Anyway, whether or not you like Stallman, Levy's book is a good read for any geek. It's a great way to connect with hackerdom's roots.

    --Lenny

    PS- I also recommend "The Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder. It's a good look at the hardware side of things, and though it was written in the 70's, much of the book is still relevent today.

  • That's very unlikely, especially considering its an AUTO-biography, meaning Linus writes about himself.

    Jeremy
    http://www.tech-seek.com It's for sale.. if interested, email me
  • A quote leaked from the manuscript at the publisher:

    "I wanted to create an OS better than the example OS use in my OS class: MINIX. I never did succeed in making Linux better, but I had a lot of fun on the way."

    Doesn't this say it all?
  • A distro CD inside the back cover?
  • Linus Torvalds - b. 12/28/1969
  • Um, I think perhaps that you meant "self-effacing", as in he modest about his accomplishments. Of course, I did have a good laugh envisioning Linus carving a Windows logo onto his chest or some other act of hideous defacement.

  • Plus really Linuz put in the "final peice" of the 100% pure GNU useable OS "puzzle". I say "useable" because not many people are using the hurd kernel is a productive envoriment.

    Linuz (with the help of others) slaped that final kernel peice in and said "Done, there you got %100 hackable freely avaiable OS with all the tools and toys you could ask for"

    Sure there where/is other %100 GPL OS out there, but not really as mainstream as GNU/Linux and not as useable as GNU/Linux.


  • :
    ----------
  • Will it be open source? Can I contribute?
  • How can one write an autobiography if they are dead? Look up autobiography in the dictionary.
  • A self-documenting OS
  • It's a joke, retard.
  • hey you can't blame the guy... guess transmeta is did not meet all the media fuzz and stuff (see it rhymes), a man's gotta look for alternatives to make a livin.
  • Didn't Brittany Spears' autobiography come out a year or two ago? I would think Linus would have more to say than she did

    Now now, that's not a fair comparison at all... virtually everyone has more to say than Brittany Spears. Yeesh. ;)

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Maybe. Maybe if it's something like the excelent Hackers, (which was reviewed on Slashdot not too long ago, and i have read twice) just maybe i'll buy it...

    But yes, Linus is far to young to be writing an autobiography. :)
  • its released as open source / with copyleft; everything else wouldnt really fit the story ;-)

  • So you're saying that 2.4 could be out the door already if he hadn't been writing this??? Grr! :)

    Mike Roberto
    - GAIM: MicroBerto
  • Who should play Linus in the movie? John Denver would have been good, but he needed more flying lessons.
  • Gee, I thought ESR was the Accidental Revolutionary.
  • It seems I've made another zit-pincher mad...... Oh well, not all of us are "in" enough to go to work on a skate board.
  • He'll be able to release updates over the years, and see a greater profit.
  • Yeah, Hes got another kid now and daddy has to make some extra money to feed the new mouth!!
  • You can write a biography on anyone, so go right ahead. The hard part is finding information without just pasting press clippings together. You'll do best if the subject and their friends and associates are involved. Otherwise you just make stuff up, but then it's called a "novel" not a "biography".
  • hmmmm interesting story line...

    maybe you should go take a nap?
  • Is this gonna slow down the production of the 2.4 kernel? I personally think he should be concentrating on the kernel more than a book!
  • I wonder if he'll write his autobiography by accident, like he did his favorite OS [cnet.com].

  • He's written a few books, probably with the help of a few ghost writers here and there. I did a search on amazon.com and here's what came up http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-fo rm/107-2450847-6004559 - not all are by Bill himself, but a few are, including, "the Road Ahead" which is a rather interesting look from a 1996 perspective.
  • by Snowfox ( 34467 )
    "AHA, I say! So THAT'S how you make money when you give your code away..." - Snow's PHB
  • Here are the mandatory comments:

    1. It should be Open Source
    2. Linus is too boring
    3. (Offtopic) Gore/Bush sucks.

    Ok, here's my point. This actually sounds interesting. Every interview Linus has given has shown him to be more articulate and interesting than the majority of people in the so-called technology industry today. His story is interesting to me, and he doesn't have to be 65 to have lived an exciting life. I'm not completely sure why people think you have to be old to have really experienced much. We're talking about an individual who in university started writing some code that is now on over 5% of the computers out there right now. The amount of fame, and infamy he has simultaneously recieved is astounding.
    Also, I'd love to hear his take on the amount of hype, money and politics surrounding Linux, especially considering how he has long avoided those issues.
    There are a few programmers I really respect (among Michael Abrash, Carmack, Linus and Stallman) and of those, I have enjoyed reading their writings, technical or otherwise; I'm looking forward to this book, even if I can't download it for free off the internet. :)
  • Maybe the title should be "Linus in a Nutshell"

    LINUS - "Help, Help i'm in a nutshell..."

    *Shrug* better get some more coffee, sorry...

    E.
  • Jeez if is coinicides with kernel releases we might actually have it before he is in a geriatric ward. I wonder if it will have USB support?
  • I'd buy a copy. So you have three preorders now. what publishing company could resist that media hype?
  • ofcourse you can be too young to write your autobiography... you have to be able to write in the first place..

    //rdj
  • Heh. On the other hand, she did a great job with semiconductor physics [britneyspears.ac]. Maybe it's time for "Britney's Guide to the Linux Kernel".
  • by Mr T ( 21709 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @07:30AM (#596435) Homepage
    I think it's critical to pen an autobiography early in life as it will be a chapter in your real biography which will be written after your death or late in your life.

    This will be the chapter where the world is first exposed to your true arrogance, your insecurities,your odd behaviorisms, and all that stuff you didn't want them to see initially. Just think about how they will react. Getting that monkey off your back has to be a taste of true freedom that will enable you do go that much farther next time. This is a critical step in character development for the character of you in the real biography.

    I say that whoever signed this deal also extends one to Stallman. I know that cat has some stories to tell.

  • Linus Torvalds is writing a program to automagically generate a biography? Cool!

    Oh wait --

  • Yeah, I always thought it was funny, you know, all the great men, when you see them in paintings or on monuments or whatever, they are all so old.

    It kind of makes you wonder how they looked, and how they thought when they were, say, 30 years old. I can imagine, if a person writes an autobiography when he's 80, he is going to have a different angle on his life when he was 20 than he does when he writes it at 30.

    Even better, write the stuff down before you do the revolution. That's going to be something for the historians of the future. (Hm, I've copied everything I've got to tape the last couple of years, now it's time to do something revolutionary.... :-) )

  • i think unix was about 20 years old only when linus started to work on linux

    although i do agree with you that it's not that revolutionary.

  • by jonfromspace ( 179394 ) <jonwilkins@gmail.cTOKYOom minus city> on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @07:32AM (#596439)
    Linus - The Action Figure
    Linus - The Breakfast Cereal
    Linus - The Fragrance

  • I keep pitching my epic space opera about alien robots who infest our planet and live off celebrities dryer lint to various publishers, but nobody wants to publish a book written by a leader of mexican food, and starring a hero named Litmus VanCenturfuge and his sidekick Pipet Jerks.

    Would this be an autobiography? Dude, you're more whacked than I thought...
  • What next, film, TV, stage ... Geek dramas have made the screen such as the "Pirates of Silicon Valley". What is necessary is "dramatic content". This means a conflict that builds into a climax and characters with quirks. In Pirates, the conflict was PC newcomers versus established computing and Apple vs. MicroSoft. Bill and Steve had numerous quirks. What about Linus? I guess not as dramatic.
  • I for one would steal the autobiography of CmdrTaco from the shelves of my favorite bookstore or genetically modified taco section of my local grocery. As far as Linus goes..., I think he should publish his in the form of an incomprensible free code file on MSN, just to confuse the eXecs at MS. Will we learn about his sex life and his struggle to raise geekdom to kingdom, or will this just be another of those "poor struggling genius, socially conscious, truly democratic, power-to-the-people-who-can-afford-a-laptop," trips?
  • Read The Fine Binary??????? No thanks, I want to see your source ;).
  • by Priestess ( 30745 ) <adam@NOsPaM.icomicpress.com> on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @08:05AM (#596449) Homepage
    Thompson and Richtie are more like visionarys than revolutionaries
    Exactly. Re-inventing a thirty year old OS is precisely revolutionary, it's history comming around again, revolving back to where it used to be.

    Raising a people's army and overthrowing the government isn't new, it's been done thousands of times before, but that doesn't stop it being revolutionary.

    Pre......
  • by klund ( 53347 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @06:53AM (#596459)
    HarperCollins? Couldn't he have picked a better publisher? As far as I'm concerned, HarperCollins has the worst reputation for publishing tabloid quality books of any publisher that I know.

    If I recall correctly, HarperCollins published Canter and Siegel's book, "How to make a fortune on the information superhighway". Canter and Siegel were the green card attorneys that "invented" spamming to newsgroups. They ruined usenet for everyone. And HarperCollins published their book, explaining how to do it.

    I still have my original Joel Furr "Green Card" T-Shirt.
    --
  • Yes, you can send diffs that are indented as written in CodingStyle [usrsrclinu...odingstyle] to the people listed in the MAINTAINERS [usrsrclinuxmaintainers] file.

    You can also Report Bugs [usrsrclinu...rting-bugs]

    --
  • by Rombuu ( 22914 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @07:16AM (#596462)
    So, reimplmenting a 30 year old OS is revolutionary now?

    Thompson and Richtie may be revolutionaries for designing unix in the first place, but redoing someone elses work hardly seems revolutionary.

    Heck, someone is going to call Gjs Van Sant's Psycho original next...
  • Linus - The Action Figure
    Linus - The Breakfast Cereal
    Linus - The Fragrance
    Ya know, if they ever release "Linus - The Toilet Paper", I think Microsoft will be the biggest customer of that particular item. :-)
  • Here's an interesting thought - publish hardcopy editions of the web diaries of various notables.

    While an autobiography might look a bit shaky, something like, oh, The Compiled Diary of Alan Cox might be taken more seriously by the geek crowd.

    OTOH, Linus's autobiography will probably sell like hotcakes to the business crowd that's just heard about this "Linux" thing.
  • that would be an autobiodactylograph (but my greek is a little rusty I fear)

    //rdj
  • by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @08:13AM (#596475) Homepage Journal

    So, reimplmenting a 30 year old OS is revolutionary now?

    Yes, because amazingly, after he reimplemented a decades old OS, people started using it. Something about his project attracted people, and that's a social achievement, combined with good luck/fate (e.g. BSD's legal troubles).

    Luck, being in the right place at the right time, resulting in social achievement ... sounds like every revolution I've ever heard of.


    ---
  • After Steven King made the historic forway into e-publishing, I'm wondering if Linus will also take the opportunity to publish his book under a special or alternative license that will free it from possible future draconian publishing restrictions.

    Do you think that the negatives still outweigh the benefits (ie., getting his contact turned down), or is it about time to start really pushing our open ideals to other industries.

    --

  • There's an idea. An open source biography, with Linus (and co-author) retaining 'control' over the kernel (birthplace, schooling, etc.). The rest of it put out on the web to see if other writers can improve it. It gets submitted to testers (editors) to see which version works best and is then released. Of course, bootleg copies of alternate versions will float around. And naturally, it will be free, although anyone can develop add-ons and components that they wish to charge for...

    Heh...

    Eric Gearman
    --
  • by vees ( 10844 ) <rob@vees.net> on Tuesday November 28, 2000 @09:18AM (#596485) Homepage Journal

    When he wants to publish "Linus Version Two: Just Outta Beta" forty years from now, will HarperCollins still have the rights?

    He's just getting a head start, just like other famous "younger" people like Tiger Woods [amazon.com]. When he's in his seventies, he'll publish all over again to appeal to the gray-haired Geek Generation.

    --

  • I think that Linus should do what Greenspun did when negotiating the rights to his book "Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing". The publisher got to put the book in print, but Greenspun retained the right to put the book online. Brilliant, I say. Linus should do the same.
  • I think that Linus should do what Greenspun did when negotiating the rights to his book "Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing". The publisher got to put the book in print, but Greenspun retained the right to put the book online. Brilliant, I say. Linus should do the same.

"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." -- Bertrand Russell

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