Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Linux Software

Linus Talks About 2.4 180

Posted by Hemos from the the-press-is-coming dept.
Platinum Dragon writes: "ZDnet ran an e-mail-based interview with Linus about that new kernel thingy. Linus replied to the fluff questions in typical self-mocking Linus fashion. " Check out original story on the release as well -- many people seem to have missed it, and keep submitting it.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Linus Talks About 2.4 More

Linus Talks About 2.4

Comments Filter:

  • 2.5 wishlist (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How about addisng a filter that prevents the user from typing first post ?

  • Re:2.4 *was* vapourware for all of 2000 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    NT5 was vapor.

    Pardon? I had a beta of NT5 (Alpha and x86) from MSDN long before W2K was released. At the end, they just changed the name to Windows 2000. It was late, just like 2.4. Explain the difference between those two products and how the term vaporware fits them.

    I'm going with the Wired definition. Apple produced Copland way back and a few people had it but then it never shipped. I count that as vaporware. And I also stand ready to call Mac OS X missing in action at the end of January.

    Software developers routinely miss ship dates. The disappointing thing is when they don't even have the courtesy to update their estimates as the inevitable approaches. Journalists SHOULD call them on it. It's the only way you have to put pressure on the developers to create more realistic promises and to live up to them.

    -Derek

  • Re:2.4 *was* vapourware for all of 2000 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That's not the definition of vaporware. Vaporware is stuff that's said to be and isn't. 2.4 has been downloadable in pre-releases for ages. It's very difficult to have open source vaporware -- and much easier to spot. 2.4 wasn't it.
  • Anybody else remember the good ol days when not only was it a big deal that a 'major' news site noted Linux, but just as cool would have been the /. link in the middle of the page? I remember a quickies one time linking to stories on 'major' news sites who had linked back to slashdot - it was a big deal cause our favorite hole-in-the-wall website was getting noticed. Esp after Taco had made his editorial on NS's source code release, and then it happened what, a week later? Ah yes, the good ol grass roots days...

    -----
    If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
  • Oh yea. Committies are the way to go. Linux has gotten this far having a committee, so we should implement one now. Oh, and I'm sure when Bill G makes a solid decision, he retracts it if the committee isnt unanimous on the decision. Larry E is also noted for being a major team player, correct?

    Sorry, the sarcasm key was stuck...

    -----
    If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
  • You don't read Kernel Traffic very often do you?

    While true I myself (a non coder) can say Linus is God, you'll find that the other Linux gods (AC, TT, AA, etc) are quick to argue if they don't like the way things are done.

    Their opinions matter, fucking BIG COMPANIES can go screw. If you can understand kernel internals you get an opinion that Linus will respect even if he choses not too implement. "Interested parties" is another word for groupies more concerned with buzzwords then code.

    Aren't I all piss and vinegar tonight?

    kashani
  • Another thing is that if people want to do something different and he stands in the way, then there is more likely to be a split. I mean, I don't see other major commercial projects with one single man at the helm, do you? It should be a committee of interested parties, all the main organisations that use Linux, who decide what happens to it. Big companies like Red Hat and Debian would have a place, along with representatives from the LUGS.

    Enh.

    "[...] other major commercial projects [...]" That's where I think you went off track. This isn't a major commercial project. It's not a democracy. It's Linus's baby, plain and simple. Everyone's been throwing their help into it... Everyone's been benefiting. But in the end, the 'Linu' in 'GNU/Linux' comes from 'Linus'. Should RedHat fall off the planet and Caldera vanish, Linux will still be there.

    At the end of the day, he was the right man with the right project at the right time, but just because he decided to give his project to the world doesn't mean everyone else automatically has a say in what's officially Linux.

    -kapella

  • Yeah. I like to read articles that talk about Linus, but they blew a great chance to ask him some really interesting questions and wasted it on something that makes a Larry King love-in interview look like hard-core reporting. I've seen more interesting news-items on The Daily Show.
    ---
    seumas.com
  • One thing that looked pathetic is that the author of the original Vaporware list never seemed to retract or update his placement of 2.4 on the list -- the only comment that was made was by a different author of a different piece (the one where they suggested they were the inspiration for the soon-to-follow release).

    If any publication considers themselve to be the mitigating factor in Linus' release dates, they need to check their ego, methinks.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • It also didn't qualify in any mannre whatsoever as vaporware either, and you know it.
    ---
    seumas.com
  • The self congratulatory way they (even perhaps jokingly) suggest the release was made because they nudged it on by their vaporware list is a joke. That isn't the kind of follow-up I was talking about.

    Maybe this appeared on Slashdot when I wasn't looking, but if not then I guess you are the one looking like an imbecile for actually browsing Wired on your own. Blech.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • Admit that linux does have its faults, its not the most user-friendly operating system....

    No OS is user friendly. A *shell* can be user friendly (and there a couple for Linux that are) but a shell isn't the OS. Other than this, your post is good.

  • That first article (if you can it that) "Vaporeware list" by Leander Kahney is nothing but crap. He must of had a dead line and needed to produce some dribble.
    Vaporware is a rumor of software or upgrade that never makes it. Beta or spot releases are not Vaporware.
    Wired never did the right thing and apologize, they just congratulate themselves for being a good motivator.
    What is with this 5 minute stories on wired? They are nothing but re-capped press releases. I should get bunch of college kids and recap everyones press releases.
    Opps, Wired beat me too it...

    "The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money." -A. J. Liebling, The Press, 1961

  • Then I wonder what phantom-OS I've been running on my laptop for the last three quarters of a year.

    Vaporware is something that doesn't exist, sometimes (okay, my paranoia says 'most of the time' in the case of one specific company) it is only a marketing concept without a single bit of code.

    When talking about an open-source project in which the source is open all the way through the development traject, you can hardly talk about vaporware. So it had a -test tag attached to its version number.. I've had it running quite well since the 2.3.99pre releases and although much was changed in the implementation, the only thing I've noticed is a few bugs disappearing and sometimes a slight speed increase.

    Erwin
  • What Linus said was essentially just that for the next few months developers should concentrate on making sure that any bugs that come up in 2.4 get fixed, do more testing and fixing, etc.

    The wording "I don't even want to plan 2.5.x or 3.0 at this point yet." may scare those who take that to mean "I don't have any plans for future", of course. It could, of course, mean that Linus doesn't want to write the roadmap for the next release until he's taken a break and seen that 2.4 is stable and works well. Not just on 10000 developer workstations, but on a couple of million other computers, too.

    Now, as Linus stated in the interview, he's not making press releases or alike. That's for companies to do. He's not talking with soothing voice, treating the IT managers like babies scared of dark who need mommy and papa to check that there are no grues under the bed. He's talking like a developer who's got one project released and can take a short break not needing to think about work for a few days.

    I would of course also hope that there aren't all that many "IT manager morons" in important positions.

  • You're in luck, there are already action figures [geekculture.com] for Linux, Woz, maddog, Larry Wall, and others. Nitrozac [nitrozac.com]'s way ahead of you.

    --
  • Dude, if you're 2.4, I think that qualifies as a kernel.

    Ba DUM dum
  • Joined by "High-Kick Tove"!
    Now with TURBO KARATE ACTION!!

    --
  • >In the interview Linus sounds like a stuck up little junior high prick
    Thats your preception alone.. To me the reporter comes off a bit umm disintrested.. In the end my impression is ZD just asigned a random reporter and he asked some kiss up questions and expected some kiss up replys.. Linus dosn't play that...

    >talking back to the interviewer, and having a massive ego.

    You get asked the same 3 questions by 1,000 droolly reporters and see if you don't a. Start having a massive ego, b. Don't start talking back...

    It's accually remarkable how Linus hasn't let his ego explode...

    > This really makes Linus look back,
    (He means "look bad"... I'm a lot worse than this guy when it comes to this sort of thing...)

    In my view Linus is in a space where it dosn't matter what he says...
    If he says "My ship is full of eels" some will find something insightful and prase worthy and others will dream up some mental illness and attribute the comment to it..
  • This being the benifit of having more than one compiler and nither compiler made by the kernel author...
    [The scary part however is the main compiler people use.. GCC.. is effectively in the hands of RedHat...]

    Are there any decompilers for Linux that might be used to catch this sort of thing?
  • >oh yea cause there are so many out there. The only two C compilers are gcc and borland.

    Accually there are sevral... Some Dos shareware.. and three forks of GCC (that I am aware of)..
    Then there is the BSD C compiler...

    But focusing only on Unix compilers.. Get an account on a Sun Sparc or some other liccensed Unix system and run a clean GCC compile on that... then do it again as a cross compile...

    The real issue for me isn't "We could" yeah yeah yeah... will we... Most likely no...

    The source code being available means we know Linus (and his people) didn't insert a trojen.. Right?
    Well no we don't becouse as a rule we don't review the code...
    However we can trust that Linus probably didn't becouse he couldn't cover it up if someone bothered to look.
    But if he ever got cocky... There are people who try to rob the store in broud daylight AFTER showing ID...

    What am I getting at?
    Well in the past we thought it was a reasonable assmption that a commertal pacage didn't contain a back door.. we know better now... It's just to easy to cover up...
    We do know that it's reasonably likely there are no trojens in Linux... not 100%... only 99.44% sure... the rest is that little uncertenly that RMS may have inserted a trojen from the start.. or Sun slipped something into Solarus to infect GCC... or that RedHat is shipping infected binarys...
    Or a massive conspericy between AT&T, RedHat, Sun, IBM, the FSF, the NIS, the Illuminati, NSI, CmdrTacos GF, and my pet dog...

    There are things you could do to be absolutly safe..
    Well accually no... not even that.. becouse if you really want to be paranoid.. we could be in a matrix.. I mean a trojen in the laws of phisics isn't something you can decompile... Enter "The Matrix"

    Anyway... it's a lot less likely...
    But if Intel wanted to they could just infect the CPU with something like User ID...

    Linus is right.. nothing earth shattering... just booring dull zzzzzz....
  • It's always a great sign when someone can joke around about their work. It shows dedication, committment, and they ENJOY the job. How many of us enjoy our jobs?
  • I know people who used to work for MS, and put in long hours testing NT2K, only to have thier hard effort recieve a vapourware award for much the same reasons - ie the final release wasn't out yet. Years of work labeled "vapour". I bet you think that's fair, just because it's not Linux.

    um.. no. if they have public betas that show they have progressed toward the goal they have stated, then i dont believe it would be ok for people to label that as vapour. just like when they posted the story about ms getting the 5 billion dollar lawsuit placed against them i didnt say: "hey i dont agree with it but since its microsoft i'll let it slide". just because i prefer linux doesnt mean i think special rules apply. for the record i used nt for along time before switching to linux. i found 3.51 to be very stable. after ms made the move to 4.0 it got alot worse so i swtiched to linux. but i digress.

    these people aren't the press. they are more like jerry springer or some other talk show.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • lets say that i make a list of who i consider to be a wife beater.

    1)an editor for wired
    2)redifines terms to make article seme sensationalistic

    does that mean that i can publically slander the editors of wired because they fit my personal defination of what i consider a wife beater to be?

    the wired article clearly showed that they had nothing better to do but bash people who are working hard on a project, many for free, that has been realized for many months.

    if the wired editors were real journalists they would be more responsible. alas most of the real journalists are falling the way side because sensationalism is more important that facts/news.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • He needs to be free from monetary constraints in order to realize his true potential, the way Stallman has.

    You should have thought of that before he got a mortgage and a couple of kids. Not cheap. :-)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • In the old Usenet tradition, the best trolls are those which fool the most people (and therefore they don't say "this is a troll").

    That isn't one of them. :-)

  • If you're running Windows, clicking on that link would crash your machine. Patch is available at Windows Update [microsoft.com]
  • The posts probably were moderated. Watch the nightly news, or read your locally published, distantly owned rag, you'll see how well real content fares. falala.
  • Too bad the site doesn't really say how much this costs, even in round numbers. Anyone know?

    I dunno about Linus, but a Stephen Hawkings action figure would kick some serious ass.
  • You read waaaaaay too deep into my post there, buddy. I never made any such comments about Linux ruling or Windows sucking, nor did I say I revered Linus as an all-knowing god. I merely said (or suggested) that the questions were condescending and almost malicious, in my opinion.

    I read the first question as, "Is your OS half as good as your competitors'?" Come on. This is like asking Pepsi if their soft drinks taste "somewhat as good" than Coke's. What do you expect them to say? "No, our drinks suck?"

    Personally, I think this interview was very poorly done. The first question is really two questions, and only the second question is relevant. The first question should have been omitted completely.

    I will agree with you that, "What advantages does Linux have over competitors?" is a valid question, but not, "Why would anybody use your cruddy OS when they can use Windows 2000 or another UNIX?" which is basically what the interview said.

  • Nice. (Score:2)

    by volsung ( 378 )
    I hadn't thought of the flamewar this way. People see this as a zero-sum game where the success of Linux is equivalent to the failure of Windows and vice-versa.
  • FYI, newer versions of modprobe handle 2.4's new directory structure correctly. I believe it's listed in the CHANGES file.

    Okay, odd. My 2.4test kernel doesn't have a CHANGES file (but then, I'm not using 2.4 yet -- LVM 0.9, which is really unstable, was added late in the production cycle; a definite bad move, that. The fixed version will hopefully be added in 2.4.1 -- I'm not using it 'till then). In any event, it's documented. Somewhere.
  • No. I don't agree.

    The more people who are involved in making a decision, the longer it takes to make that decision. Designing/coding/maintaining by committee just simply doesn't work... what you need instead is a team of people with similar goals/motivations who have different but overlapping skill sets making a concerted effort to reach those goals and managed by someone with a bird's eye view of where the whole thing is going.

    It's also worth mentioning that if Linus stands in the way of something, people have a tendency to route around him. It's his kernel, so he gets final say on what goes into it before it gets put up on ftp.kernel.org, but if you bother to take a look the source for the kernels shipped by various Linux distributions you'll notice that they have added in a lot of stuff that Linus rejected. A prime example would be SuSE's inclusion of reiserfs into their kernel. Or Debian including pcmcia-cs into theirs. Or RedHat using the software RAID patches. And so on....

    And there's the power of free software for ya.

  • Wired's questioning of the time-line for releasing 2.4 is as silly as people who complain because RedHat is on 7.0 while Debian is on 2x. "Why are they so far behind RedHat!?"

    Popping out a sham release every 18 months like Microsoft, just to keep your name fresh in people's mind and earning a few extra bucks is fine for some, but it has nothing to do with an actual programming cycle.

    Wired is to the technical industry what Cosmo and Family Circle are to the financial market.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • Eh? Why would a PHB be worried about Linus? For that matter why would a PHB be concerned with the future beyond the next 30/60/90 plan?

    I guess I don't understand how a PHB would be able to develop concern over a "kernel" or even comprehend the concept of a "kernel" developer comment.

    I think it more likely that a PHB would be sold on a distribution (and for lack of a better example) like RH4.2 Then he was sold on 5.2... then 6.2... and maybe just maybe on 7.0

    Just tell him that you will be running 7.2 "soon" and not to worry about the 2.4 since it easier to keep up with the distribution numbers.

    I expect that all vendors will move to the Sun-esque single rev numbers like 7, 8, 9, 10 etc... which is perfect for PHB's. You can hold up fingers to show what you are running. They like that.

    So, the only thing "fluffy" is, perhaps, you calling someone concerned with kernel development comments (from a leader of kernel development) a PHB.

    :)
  • It's just unbelievable; you'd think these people's lives were threatened by Linux or something.

    Their lives aren't, but their livelihoods are. There are many people who only know MS stuff, they don't care about open source, no central control, yada yada yada... It's the same kind of analogy when the automotive manufacturers brought in robots to assemble cars. All the workers thought they were going to be replaced, that they wouldn't be able to work anymore. Some of the people did adapt perfectly and are happier now. Some probably didn't do so well. There is always Fear when change is imminent.

  • > I was surprised and a bit worried when I read Linus saying that about 3.0.

    But what he was saying was the he did NOT have plans for a 2.5 or 3.0 yet. That says to me that either there will be a 2.5 or perhaps there will be such significant changes to warrant a 3.0. But, as of now, he hasn't even started thinking about it.

    When Sun went from Solaris 2.6 to Solaris 7, one of their reasons was that they never ever had any plans to make anything that would be called Solaris 3, and the "2." was therefore just redundant. Linus, OTOH, has not yet ruled out significant changes for a 3.0.

    Wait until you see what is discussed for a 3.0 release (if any) before you start worrying too much.
  • I agree that software version numbering has been really screwed up recently. But I like Linux kernel numbering. It makes sense! Take x.y.z for example. If y is even, it's a stable kernel. If it's odd, it's a development kernel.

    Linux jumped from the 1.3 dev kernel to 2.0 because there was a large conceptual difference. Since then it went 2.1->2.2 & 2.3->2.4. If 2.5 has some revolutionary new concepts, Linus might decide to call it 3.0 when it gets stable. If it's mostly just an evolutionary step-up from 2.4, he'll probably call the stable release 2.6.

    Here are examples of some screwed up software versioning:
    NT's first release was 3.1, then 3.5x, 4.0 (+many service packs), then 2000.
    Windows: 1, 2, 3.x, 95x, 98, 98SE, Me.
    Word: ...6, 7, 8, 2000.
    Excel: ...4, 5, 7, 8, 2000.
    Access: 1, 2, 7, 8, 2000.
    PowerPoint: ...3, 4, 7, 8, 2000.
    AutoCAD: 1.0-1.4, 2.0-2.6, 9-14, 2000, 16.
    Solaris: ...2.0-2.6, 7, 8.
  • I bet there are 100s - maybe even 1000s - of Linux hackers that would buy a Linus action figure!

    LinuxMall [linuxmall.com], Linux Central [linuxcentral.com], Cheap Bytes [cheapbytes.com] or some other Linux retailer could get them made & sell them. They all sell stuffed Tux dolls already.

    Or maybe a co-op buy like the Webplayer Co-op [egroups.com] could work.
  • To a certain extent this is a zero sum game. Every server which is running Linux is not running Win2K. Vis a vis every server running Win2K is not running Linux. And if your company decides to ditch M$ stuff for it's servers, it might very well ditch it's MSCE's too.

    Remember, in 1999 IDC found that Linux market share increased from 16% to 25% over 1999 while NT remained stable at 38%. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that at this growth rate Linux will be ruling the roost in a few years. Will that actually happen? Who knows. I personally can't wait to see the 2000 numbers. Also keep in mind that these numbers are actual shipments. While it probably acurately reflects the number of new NT installations, there are almost certainly several Linux installs per shipment.

  • I mean, shit, it's only a kernel with an OS built around it, it's not as if we're discussing the Middle East or something.

    No, we're discussing something far more important to the people involved: for those who had thought they had made a safe decision sometime in the last 5 - 10 years to devote their careers to using and learning about Microsoft software, the astonishing rise in popularity of Linux can be incredibly threatening. I don't recall much from the Advocacy HOWTO myself (although I did read it once upon a time), but if it doesn't already, it should probably include some information on the psychology of people who feel that their entire way of life may be threatened. The ZDNet Talkback should be proof enough that this is what some people are feeling.

    The problem with Linux, from the point of view of an unreconstructed Windows devotee, is not just that it's a competing software system, but that it represents so many unfamiliar ideas: open source software, lack of strong central control by one big Corporation You Can Trust (TM), and just in general a mode of existence that is like antimatter to Windows' matter, or vice versa. Again, the ZDNet talkback provides ample evidence of the misapprehensions that so many people labor under, most of which arise from having absolutely no understanding of the basic concepts which make Linux useful and successful.

    Until Linux either utterly destroys Windows, or settles into a stable market share so that it's no longer perceived as such a threat, this will continue to be one of the most religious of all software wars.

  • I agree with you. But resistance to change is fundamental; people fight new things because they don't want to change. This characteristic is probably fairly closely correlated with ability to change. Change involves learning new things - many people effectively stop learning once they're no longer forced to, as they are to some extent at school.

    There are also valid reasons for resistance to change: change has a cost, you have to spend time learning, making mistakes, rearranging the neurons in your brain. It doesn't make sense to do this without good reason. As you say, this often isn't as big of an issue for the real geeks, who enjoy learning. But we all make decisions on what we are or aren't going to learn about and become familiar with: OSes, languages, applications, etc.

    So how are worthwhile changes communicated to other people? Hype. To overcome the barriers we have against change, the change must be presented as the greatest thing since sliced bread. It should preferably not just involve new features, but represent a fundamentally different paradigm that's going to solve problems that we never knew existed. Arguably, Linux and other open source systems fit this description, so is worthy of at least some of the hype surrounding it. However, any group of people trying to promote their pet project uses similar hype, so people have developed defenses against it. The first reaction to hype, except amongst the exceedingly gullible, is usually to assume it's exaggerated.

    So in addition to the people afraid of change, you get those who, while perfectly capable of changing, honestly aren't convinced there's a reason to learn this new thing. They discount the hype. But in doing this, they necessarily become very partisan - they have to defend the system they already know, against the newcomer, underscoring "their" system's good points, minimizing the bad, and doing the reverse for the competitor. This creates a mindset which can be very difficult to change.

    The solution? Penguins! Millions of penguins! We'll dispatch them to all corners of the globe, and have them peck at the MCSEs until they give in! Submit, worthless MCSE! Submit, or I will peck you as if you were a herring!

    (Sorry, I got tired of trying to construct a serious argument...)

  • I do not believe its possible it compile and run kde without X and qt-full version. You are probably lying thru your teeth or you had the regualr QT libs installed.

    See:

    In short: No, not all of KDE is available framebuffer only. Large portions are being ported, and Konqueror (which is what you want) already has been (those links point to the announcements). fbKDE, I believe is what the project is called (and I think I'm wrong, nut if you're *really* interested, check in the CVS).

    --
    Evan

  • I downloaded it, put the lpp patch in (you know, that "pretty booting" thing that was posted a few days ago), compiled it and installed it on my RH7 box. I am VERY impressed! I have been using linux for a long time, but typically stay away from development kernel, so this is my first exposure to 2.4.0. It's top notch stuff.

    Now I wish I actually had USB peripherals to test with... I typically have stayed away from buying them because of linux...
  • Yup.

    RMS is a revolutionary. And quite the ass. I've never seen someone quite as picky about semantics as he is (have you ever seen the exchange between the CrystalSpace developers and him? They never got to the point because he was too busy pointing out that he could only talk about free software...). Communication with him seems to be practially impossible.

    Plus, he sucks at singing [jwz.org]. :)


    What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?
  • The OS is good for the investor. The investors are going to just have to invest in something other than the software package itself. Investing in a product that can be obtained in an unrestricted model for free is a silly concept to begin with. However, the secondary commercial linux interests could and very likely will make a very worthwhile investment, such as support, administration, and custom programming. Support for the operating system itself will boost the secondary investments.

    -Restil
  • No offense, but the question "Why should anybody use Linux" is legit.
    It all depends on context. If this was yet another introduction to Linux article, then that is almost required territory to cover. And there have been a number of good articles that do just that.

    This is not one of them.

    Linus uses his own brand of humor to take the interviewer to task for following a formulaic press release format. "With questions like that, how are you ever going to write an interesting article?", he laments. He's right. This has already been done. But nevertheless, Linus does give in a bit eventually but skips many of the details. "Where it matters is obviously the technology, and there's a lot of updates. Somebody has made a list of what changed since 2.2.x, but as I haven't used a 2.2.x kernel in a long time, I forget myself."

    So why is Linus being so standoffish? There's another telling quote. "I didn't make a press release. I made something quotable instead, and I'll leave the real press releases to the companies and other interested parties. Maybe we'll even see a journalist that makes a story that isn't based on a press-release, but on his or her own digging and ruminations." Linus has already chosen to avoid the press release - and he stands his ground here. Furthermore, he throws down the gauntlet and challenges writers to write an article that isn't just a press release re-hash.

    A tech trade article. Based on actual research. Wouldn't that be something?

  • really? Cool. I havn't looked at it.
  • it's a shame that the minimum download to actually see this marvel is one gig! Surely there is a "base" that they can distribute without including every RPM ever written.
  • My girlfriend knew about the new release before I did...good think I've got her hooked on debian.
  • Um, no offence, but the criteria for the vapourware awards are quite simple:

    1) Was the product eagerly anticipated during the past year
    2) did it fail to appear during that year.

    2.4 kernel meets them. Admittedly the original article could have said that a release seemed immmanent at the end of 2000, but it is *not* "talking out of your ass"
  • Actually, the exact quote was:

    People want to start doing wild and crazy things immediately, when the reality is that for a few months we just need to take it calm and make sure that everything is in its place. I don't even want to plan 2.5.x or 3.0 at this point yet.

    I understand this to mean that he doesn't yet intend to plan about the specifics about the next release. He prefers to let things settle down a bit, rather than rushing towards the next target immediately. Don't worry, there will be a next release, it will just take a while before that 2.5 branch will be started.

  • I just thought I would add that if the kernel ever did fork in a major, major way, there isn't a problem. If somebody did make a big change to a subsystem that lead to a much better Linux, applying it to the main branch is a cut-and-paste away. And thanks to the GPL, it's all legal.

    Besides (and correct me if I'm wrong), wouldn't things like ucLinux be considered forks? Or to a lesser extent, the bad RAM or ReiserFS patches?
  • The second best option would be to start manufacturing and selling his own action-figure lineup.

    Never mind Linus, his wife is probably in MUCH better shape (and already has the skills necessary to kick butt :)

  • The Linux enthusiast Web site Slashdot.org
    for years no one believed my claims that slashdot was part of the linux conspiracy, but now ZDNet [zdnet.com], the most reliable IT news service on earth have confirmed my suspicions!
  • As a fellow finn, the answer is clear. Thats how most of us are. Selfmocking yet friendly and so cudly and loveable! ;)
    --
  • Here's some things I'd like to see :

    Bluetooth support.
    More security patches (maybe a new menu to specify your own security policy, and have that configure your firewall etc?)
    Built-in pacman game.
    Recode of some old unit.
    Tool for selecting modules from online repository.
    Moving support for really old stuff into module-only land. See prev proposal.

    And a lot of things I haven't thought of yet.. Anyone got more ideas?
  • I never would have expected this, but I actually feel somewhat depressed over the release of 2.4! That's right, depressed! (of course, it might also have something to do with the fact that I'm on some pretty wicked pain killers due to my recent oral surgery :)

    Anyway, like I was saying... there's just something not right. After waiting all this time, climbing over and through dozens and dozens of 'unstable' releases, dealing with uncounted issues to fix- and now *poof* it's done. There are no unstable releases left. It's just *there*. Sure, there are the -ac builds already, but those are even stable. None of the changes seem to affect me. I'm almost to the point now where I want to break something just so I have something to do!

    Am I nuts? Someone just tell me I'm nuts, and I'll go away.
  • You know, I was THIS () close to saying that. :)

    -"The Gimp Girl"
  • http://www.thebench.org/index.php3?strip=4691

    Thanks for the idea for my first the bench [thebench.org] :)

  • K, then that is a pretty drastic modification of the commonly understood concept of 'vapourware', and seems a tad sensationalistic to me (is that even a word?)

    I always thought of vapor as a whiff of smoke or something barely tangible. As applied to a software product announcement, I think of a statement that makes it sound as if the software already exists or is pretty much certain to be delivered within a set timeframe.

    NT5 was vapor. 2.4 that had had lots of publicly realeased test versions was certainly not vapor by any reasonable measure.

    Listing two criteria (eager anticipation, failure to appear before 12/31/2000) for calling something varourware as justification (by wired) for writing a fact-free, bullshit article reeks of incompetent, headline-grabbing journalism. "Talking out your ass" does not seem overly harsh to describe this, IMO.

    Or maybe it is vapourware and I just dreamed that I've been running a 2.4 kernel on one of my test boxes for a good part of the year.
  • Well, you can generally assume that the next few releases will be working on whatever is marked (DEVELOPMENT) in the kernel.
    That being:

    More USB devices
    More multimedia devices
    Firewire
    DevFS
    RiserFS (soon to be incorporated into the kernel)
    HFS(+)
    NTFS stuff
    etc.

    --
  • I can comment on this. My livelihood was dedicated to a particular operating system, and I was one of the UK's top troubleshooters. Unfortunatly the manufacturer got bought into by Microsoft, and the product was slowly strangled until the customer base dropped off dramtically. I'm sure that serious filesystem corruption bugs were introduced and deliberatly not fixed for months.

    Whilst all this was going on, my then employer was reluctant to invest serious money in either quality training or equipment - even as late as the end of 1998 test equipment was still 486 machines with 16MB of RAM. I was a resource too good to lose, yet I wasn't given the opportunity to learn new skills except in my own time outside work, which I dedicated to Linux, of course. When the inevitable collapse of our supplier occurred, I had no recognised other skills to fall back on.

    Unfortunatly Linux take up in the UK is still pretty slim, except in the ISP market. The PHBs are driven too much by the power of marketing, and not by the substance of the product. (The same is also affecting our political system). I've decided to get out of IT altogether, and have some other positions in the pipeline.

  • For those of you too lazy to wade through all the Talkback comments, your friend electricmonk has kindly sorted through all of the crap to bring you the absolute best, most relevant (Linux flame) post out there. Enjoy :)

    Name: Tom Seiler

    Email: tommmmmm79@hotmail.com

    Location: Santa Cruz, CA

    Occupation: webmaster

    Linus, instead of wasting your time trying to improve your toy operating system why don't you write some applications?

    Your operating system is basically worthless without programs to run. Of course I realize if there actually were programs to run on Linux then it might crash.

    It is not the operating system that is the point of computing, it is the programs. Too bad the Linux fools don't realize that.

    Wow, that's a troll that would put the first-posters here on Slashdot to shame :)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I think I need a wishlist of things I want out of the kernel.
    --
  • Well, you could always create your own compiler, then step through it by hand to compile the compiler source into machine code. Or, these days, you could just download a new compiler off the internet.

    Nevertheless, the advantage of open source in terms of "source code cleanliness" (i.e. no gotchas or backdoors) is that you don't have to put your trust in one individual or corporation. Nobody knows the MS Windows source code except MS, but everybody can look at the linux source code, and it only takes one whistleblower saying "look at this, this is NOT right!" to bring everybody's attention to a problem.

  • It doesn't really matter what he says about this... 2.4 going final is one of the biggest things that can happen for the community, and I'm just happy to download and compile! Thanks Linus, for an excellent alternative to Winblows.
  • and it does have a problem supporting some hardware.
    While I'm no Linux Zealot, I have been using it since about 1994. But I also use a multitude of other UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, depending on the situation at hand. All of the Free *nixes and even the commercial ones have issues with supporting all hardware. The problem is not with the OS itself, but the fact that the hardware manufactures themselves will not release the specifications for said devices, and therefore, supporting them is damn-near impossible without massive amounts of reverse-engineering. Other pieces of hardware remain unsupported because demand for drivers and whatnot does not warrant the amount of effort needed to write the code for them. For example, if a piece of hardware was designed specifically to be marketed for use in OS/2 (to avoid a Linux/MS flamewar) machines in some proprietary fashion, and there is almost zero demand to make it work under Linux, why expend the effort to make it do so? I'm not even going to get into the whole software modem issue, but even that has made a fair amount of headway in the Linux world.

    Don't blame the OS for it's lack of hardware support. Blame hardware manufacturers that don't release the device specifications. I remember Linux when it had about as much hardware support at QNX had last year. It's gotten a lot better, because people have written drivers based in the harware specs, or have taken the time to reverse-engineer closed-spec devices with a high enough demand for support. I'm not arguing against your entire point (and in fact, I agree with most of what you said), I'm just pointing out a common fallacy in judgement that plagues the Free OS world in general.

  • Can you say "Mindcraft" and sun (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:37PM (#525758)
    If it wasn't for mindcraft/microsoft 2.4 would not be as great and scalable as it is now. I heard 2.4 is as smooth as butter even on single processor machines. I just downloaded it and plan to install it soon to find out.

    The only reason its smooth as butter is the previous version sucked when it came to i/o and disk buffering. Mindcraft and Microsoft pointed the fault and pissed off alot of Linus's followers and even Linus himself was in denial.

    He decided to rewrite 2.4 and put a bold and brand new i/o, disk buffering, and networking code that originally were all orignally not planned.

    The result is that we have a very fast high end unix that can theoritically scale to 16 processors! The previous version had trouble with only 4 and also with more then 1 nic card. All mission critical serers have several nic cards and mindcraft/microsoft showed that 2.2 was only engineered with the dekstop in mind. This critism showed Linus that his pc o/s needed major server enchancments.

    Well I look forward to the next mindcraft test which they promised to redo. :-)

    Linus is also more aware of Solaris and AIX as he wants linux to compete agasin't them. He has plenty of critism today form outside the Linux community and from private firms who benchmark Linux.

  • It's about time! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:15PM (#525759)
    If you look at Linus's response, he's actually inviting journalists to do research, not just hit up famous people for quotes and pass that off as stories.

  • False assumptions (Score:3)

    by dangermouse ( 2242 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @11:39PM (#525760) Homepage
    First, you assume that Linus' work and decisions are not subjected to criticism. Read the kernel mailing list (or at least Kernel Traffic [linuxcare.com]), and you'll see that people are constantly butting heads with Linus, to everyone's benefit.


    Second, you assume that Linux is "supposed to be a democracy". Since when? It started as Linus' project, and the way things tend to work in an open development community, whoever starts the project generally retains the lead and the power to rule by fiat if necessary. If you don't like it, fork.


    Which brings us to your (not sequentially) third assumption, which is that such a system will inevitably lead to major forks. This is not the case, especially when the project lead is as respected (and with good reason) as Linus, or when the project is as identified with its leader as Linux is with Linus. It would *not* be a healthy decision for a Linux distributor to fork the kernel, and everyone knows it, and nobody really wants to anyway.

  • I'd Rather See... (Score:3)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:13PM (#525761)
    I'd rather see Wired interview him, after having called 2.4 'vaporware' only a week ago. But of course, you'll never see a follow-up from them. It's easier to just trash something and never revisit your statement to admit you were talking out of your ass (like so many technical columnists do).
    ---
    seumas.com

  • next stable version will be 3.0? (Score:3)

    by Saint Nobody ( 21391 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:16PM (#525762) Homepage Journal

    it almost sounds from that last comment he made ("I don't even want to plan 2.5.x or 3.0 at this point yet.") that he intends to make the next stable release be 3.0 instead of 2.6.

  • Here's your response (Score:3)

    by mwa ( 26272 ) on Sunday January 07, 2001 @06:14AM (#525763)
    • Dear PHB,

    • Regarding your concern about the "lack of future plans" for the linux kernel, you should understand you have 2 options. First, you can bring in proprietary vendors, ask them what their future plans are, pick the one that most closely matches where you want our company to go, commit to it and pray fervently that the vendor does what they say they will. Or, you can support open source participation by your employees, perhaps even hire a few more, and encourage, even direct, them to get involved and submit code that allows linux to support your own future plans. The first option is politically safe, since you transfer all blame for the risk to the vendor, but technically risky since their plans may not be realized the way we need. The second option is politically risky, since it requires you to take responsibility for the technical future of our company, but technically safe because we have the code and can make it do exactly what we need. Moreover, if others outside our company agree with our assesment of the future, they will provide free labor to help us achieve our goals.

      Also understand that right now, most of our competition is likely to be taking the first option. If we choose the second option before any of our competitors do, our voice; e.g. our code; will be submitted before theirs increasing the likelihood of our guiding the technology towards our goals. Participating in open source development will transform our information organization from an off-the-shelf support organization to a driving force behind achieving our corporate objectives.

      Your devoted and loyal subject^W employee.

    Now if they buy this, you're also going to have to make sure they understand that "guiding the code" as they need it does NOT mean putting tripe in for a new whistly-bell they like, but providing real technical leadership for general purpose improvements, but that's another battle.

  • Re:No plans for the future.. (Score:3)

    by extrasolar ( 28341 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @11:09PM (#525764) Homepage Journal
    What else does the PHB want in Linux?

    This is a trajedy of wording. Ever other operating system is considered the whole system---Mac, Windows, also Sun, HP, and all them other Unix systems I've only read about---they all consider the operating system the hardware access, drivers, graphical user interface, all the way up to your basic utilities and applications.

    Yet part of us in the free software world insist on calling the operating system "Linux". So when we get a new version of Linux, what do we have? Improvements in Bash? themes in KDE? better installation?

    No, we just get a better kernal (kernel...kernal...I don know).

    So just let that PHB know that, actually there are lots of plans for the next operating system (look at the new versions of GNOME, KDE, Apache, Red Hat, Debian, etc., and their "The Road Ahead" announcements). Its just that they have little to do with Linux. Or they have everything to do with Linux. I guess it depends what you mean by "Linux"...

    So don't blame the PHB. Blame whoever came up with this absurd naming scheme in the first place.

  • If you get a chance... (Score:3)

    by Platinum Dragon ( 34829 ) on Sunday January 07, 2001 @01:13AM (#525765) Journal
    ...check out the "talkback." It degenerated into a MS vs. Linux flamewar even faster than usual for a ZDNet talkback. And, as someone pointed out to me on LinuxToday, these posts are supposedly moderated; the worst trolls could have been excised.

    I found the anti-Linux/Linus shots even more vicious than usual, in between shots from people who haven't read the Advocacy HOWTO (guilty). I swear, there are about five reasonable, well thought-out posts, total. It's just unbelievable; you'd think these people's lives were threatened by Linux or something. I mean, shit, it's only a kernel with an OS built around it, it's not as if we're discussing the Middle East or something.

    Also if you get the chance, take a look at 2.4.0; I've been running it since the night it appeared (probably one of the first people to get and compile it), and it's been smooth sailing. 'Course, now that a wider audience is poking at it, more bugs and problems will be smoked out, but the last few tests and the prerelease seemed pretty darn stable. Worth a look if you're up for resetting your precious uptime:)

  • Re:People look up to Linus too much, I think (Score:3)

    by jregel ( 39009 ) on Sunday January 07, 2001 @08:23AM (#525766) Homepage
    Throwing away the opportunity to moderate...

    Yes, people do look up to Linus - but IMHO he's a better "role model" than some movie or sports personality. He's managed to co-ordinate an industry-changing project. Linus isn't perfect, he admits that himself, and some people do get a bit excited sometimes, but that's hardly his fault. I'm not aware of him having any problems accepting valid criticism.

    Also, Linux isn't a democracy - it's a meritocracy. The people who are listened to and respected are those who have earned it - they've made a contribution to the project.

    If Linux development was a democracy (as we typically understand the word), we'd have a situation where there are a lot of vocal people, with very little work being done. I'm not a kernel developer, and my knowledge pales into insignificance compared with some of those who work on the kernel. However, I am a keen Linux advocate and Unix user. How would people like me making suggestions such as "I think the kernel should be rewritten to be a microkernel, in an object oriented lanuage like Java"? I can spout buzzwords as well as the next person, but it doesn't mean my voice should carry equal weight to someone like Linus or Alan who really understand what they're talking about.

    I say maintain the meritocracy. Big companies such as Red Hat, and organisations like Debian and LUGs help steer the development of Linux by coding, not discussing things in a committee. Better that way, no?

  • Linus about Linux 2.4 (Score:3)

    by dcs ( 42578 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @11:42PM (#525767)
    What Linux had to say about the 2.4 release?

    Face it, "Home and Garden" is probably more interesting.

    -- Linus Torvalds

  • Framebuffer (Score:3)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Saturday January 06, 2001 @11:47PM (#525768) Homepage Journal
    Well I had this really funny idea. Let's go download Qt-Embedded and see if KDE will compile (it does!).. so I download the 14 meg and start the compile. 20 minutes later I bother to read through the requirements. Pretty basic.. all I need is a linux kernel with a framebuffer. oh crap. I have a look at my kernel (2.2.18.. or something) and the framebuffer support is lame. VESA or matrox.. hello. So just at a laugh, I go and grab the 2.4.0 release and what do I find? YES! There are framebuffer drivers for my NVIDIA Riva TNT2! You know it. So I forget all about Qt-Embedded, do a make config; make bzlilo; make modules; make modules_install and reboot. It hangs. I try a couple more recompiles with various options turned on and off. Finally I slap myself in the head and say "Duh! This is my Celeron box, not my PIII" and quickly change the processor option. It works, everything works. Then I spend a few minutes fixing up all my scripts. Modules arn't in the same place anymore (2.4.0 has sperate directories for kernel and pcmcia modules which modprobe just doesn't know what to do with.. shouldn't make modules_install set this up?) and that kerneld starting up can just piss off, I'm using kmod! So finally I boot up in my new framebuffer console and have a play with fbset. Turns out Qt-Embedded is just beautiful. It can run in any old framebuffer mode and starts up in under a second (I tried to time it, too fast). Just for a laugh I did a boot init=/usr/src/qt-2.2.4/examples/launcher/start_dem o to see how fast a "qt embedded desktop" would boot. Ok, enough rambling.. linux 2.4.0 rox!

  • Re:Framebuffer - OT (Score:3)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Sunday January 07, 2001 @08:16AM (#525769) Homepage Journal
    actually I did try to run it. It just compiled and then I got busy with 2.4.0. From what I've read here I'd say I wasn't too successful and it probably wouldn't run without X. However I would like to see it and the qt-em demo is very encouraging. I've read a lot of stuff (in relation to gtk+) about "replacing X" and apparently most people just can't see why you would want to. I can think of a number of reasons, but my biggest complaint is setup. Getting X to work is a bitch. Framebuffer in the kernel is the way to go and with video card companies starting to offer drivers it is definitely the way to go. I think it's plausible to write graphical versions of the linux startup scripts. So the first thing init does (or your replace init) is start the GUI, then the rest of the scripts run in graphical format (ie, they display icons and status bars instead of printing text). Qt-Embedded will run from a read only filesystem so you can even do your fsck in graphics mode. Perhaps you can even launch some applications while that's going on (but you can't save your work until the filesystem is remounted read/write). You could then go about making the entire distribution GUI bound. So you can change your tcp/ip settings with a "network manager" and point and click to mount filesystems. This is what people are talking about when they say "Linux isn't ready for the desktop." Not a lack of applications, but a lack of respect for the GUI based users. If you have to start up a command line (or subject the user to a text mode) then you've failed.

  • Seriously version-number happy (Score:3)

    by devphil ( 51341 ) on Sunday January 07, 2001 @01:50AM (#525770) Homepage
    no plans for the future versions of the kernel, 2.5, 3.0,

    I was surprised and a bit worried when I read Linus saying that about 3.0. Why is it that nearly every software product in the last half-decade has a version sequence like this:

    x.0
    x.1
    x.2
    x.3
    (x+1).0
    (x+1).1
    (x+1).5
    (x+2).0
    (x+3).0
    (x+4).0

    Folks, I remember running the 1.x kernel series. The 2.x introduced some major changes, and we were thrilled to get it. But I haven't heard what new things could require (or deserve) a jump to 3.x.

    I'm just seriously looking forward to 2.4.1. :-)

  • If you want that feature, whey not do it yourself? (Score:3)

    by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @11:08PM (#525771)
    Linus should have his own action-figure line

    I have to take the role of the Slashdot troll [usually moderated up, but still a vapid and stupid response] and say if you want this particular feature, you'll have to do it yourself [andgor.com] .

    You'll need a series of Linus mug shots to subm,it to have the figure made, but thee should be easily acquired from any recent version of Wired, Linux Magazine, etc.

  • Re:You forgot RMS. (Score:3)

    by _outcat_ ( 111636 ) on Sunday January 07, 2001 @12:05AM (#525772) Homepage Journal
    You're right about this guy, RMS.

    Some of my close friends on a linux IRC channel (check my user info) suggested that I send this link [chienworks.com] via email to folks like Alan Cox & his wife Telsa Gwynne; ESR; and RMS and the like. (For those who are wondering, it's some of my best GIMP artwork--feel free to check the link and give me feedback! :)

    Mr. Cox actually replied and said it was neat, in, like, three words. I actually had some degree of correspondence with Telsa (she's AWESOME. She liked it.)

    RMS had a problem with it, though. Sheez. He was displeased because, in the picture [chienworks.com], a grinning GNU is a "reindeer" for a "Santa Tux". He probably didn't much like the idea of the GNU project tugging Linux along like a dumb pack animal--it could be construed. "Use of the term 'Linux Distro' for referring to the GNU/Linux system suggests you have never heard the real history...Usual confusion," he wrote.

    The GNU isn't a PACK animal. (You need to see the picture [chienworks.com] in order to figure out what I'm talking about.) He's aiding and abetting the penguin, and they're both HAPPY. They're helping EACH OTHER. I thought it was cute. Geez.

    I thought of creating a muscle-bound, hugely impressive, and more or less completely spiteful Santa GNU with important Open Source free software for all the world, but my channel made me think better of it. They told me I couldn't talk down Mr. Stallman.

    Oh well. This is offtopic. :)

    Yes. Let Mr. Torvalds joke about himself. I think it shows he's a perfectly healthy normal geek who likes what he does. Leave him alone.

    "The Gimp Girl"

  • More like drive quickly into some serious ass. When Hawking was visiting Caltech, he had a reputation for running students down with his cart. The thing is pretty fast.

  • Re:You forgot RMS. (Score:3)

    by Ig0r ( 154739 ) on Sunday January 07, 2001 @05:26AM (#525774)
    Well, here's a good quote from George Bernard Shaw that applies well to RMS:

    Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world.
    Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves.
    All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

    I guess what that means is that because RMS is so hardcore pure GNU philosoply, he makes you think and question what it is that YOU believe in. That's a good thing.
    Sometimes he does seem to act like a whiny brat. Oh well, though.

    --

  • Re:These questions are awful! (Score:3)

    by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:38PM (#525775)
    No offense, but the question "Why should anybody use Linux" is legit. This isn't meant to be flamebait, however, some members of the linux community give the impression that the only reason people should use linux is because Linux Torvalds is an all knowing, all caring benevolent god, and Bill Gates is evil incarnate. If you want to advocate linux, stick to discussing linux's benefits, such as its stability, and openess of code/standards. Be willing to compromise, for some people, windows is going to be the better choice of opperating system, and some people will want to stick with apple, or BeOS. Admit that linux does have its faults, its not the most user-friendly operating system, and it does have a problem supporting some hardware. Alienating vast segments of the population by being rude and condescending will not convince more people to use linux. Saying that you should use linux because "windows sucks, linux rules" is not really a valid argument, no matter what you may think.

    Oh well, just my $.02

  • backdoors (Score:3)

    by gags bunny ( 263639 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:28PM (#525776)
    I love this

    you can rest safe in the knowledge that there are no backdoors.

    OK You can rest prety safe. I use it and I don't have any fears of this-- but isnt this a bit microsoftish to just pass it off as saying yea its safe. You know its safe, I know its safe, every single person on /. knows its safe but until our moms know its safe, then they're just trusting a beer guzzling programmer. I think this is where we need to use the code we're given to show our moms and dads how to read it so they to can know its safe.

  • The big problem with that is that, while he is due kudos and respect for what he has done, people are far too much in thrall of him to properly criticise his work. All work needs criticism, even his!

    Another thing is that if people want to do something different and he stands in the way, then there is more likely to be a split. I mean, I don't see other major commercial projects with one single man at the helm, do you? It should be a committee of interested parties, all the main organisations that use Linux, who decide what happens to it. Big companies like Red Hat and Debian would have a place, along with representatives from the LUGS.

    I suppose what I am trying to say, in my stupid way, is that I thought Linux was supposed to be a democracy? These moves would make sense, and I think they are pretty much inevitable. Don't you agree? ;-)

  • Only one story...? (Score:4)

    by Howie ( 4244 ) <.howie. .at. .thingy.com.> on Sunday January 07, 2001 @08:50AM (#525778) Homepage Journal
    Check out original story on the release as well -- many people seem to have missed it, and keep submitting it.

    It must be because Slashdot has only posted this story once - everyone knows real stories are duplicated at least once, if not more.

  • Re:You forgot RMS. (Score:4)

    by scrytch ( 9198 ) <chuck@myrealbox.com> on Sunday January 07, 2001 @08:55AM (#525779)
    > The GNU isn't a PACK animal

    'course not, it's a HURD animal :)

    --

  • These questions are awful! (Score:4)

    by Whelkman ( 58482 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:16PM (#525780)
    Why should anybody use Linux?
    Why don't you just quit?
    Why don't you get back to work?

    That's basically it. No wonder he hates the press.

  • Re:Linus should have his own action-figure line (Score:4)

    by Whelkman ( 58482 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:30PM (#525781)

    Kids could learn important spacial and social skills

    hahahaha, learning social skills from a coder, that's funny.

    Personally, I think we should have 1-900-LINUSEX where you can have phone sex with a real Linus impersonator!

    Mmmm, I'm thinking of something that's 2.4, but it's not my kernel.

    Ohhhh, let me unroll your tarball, big boy.

    The possibilities (and cash flow) would be endless...

  • Hmm... maybe you should check first (Score:4)

    by bwoodring ( 101515 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:23PM (#525782)

    Wired already *has* run a follow-up article about the 2.4 kernel. Which makes you look like an imbecile.

    Wired Article [wired.com]

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:41PM (#525783)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • That bastard! (Score:5)

    by Shoeboy ( 16224 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:28PM (#525784) Homepage
    Damn Linus and his self mocking humor to hell. Doesn't he realize that mocking major figures in the geek community is a job for trolls [slashdot.org]?
    Why does he have to be so damned friendly and likable? Why god, why?
    Why can't he be a self important blowhard like ESR, Bruce Perens or (best of all) Theo De Raadt?
    Doesn't he realize that he's making it impossible to mock him?
    I can't believe the nerve of that fucker.
    --Shoeboy

  • Linus has an amazing personality. (Score:5)

    by Gendou ( 234091 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @11:06PM (#525785) Homepage
    It's incredible how humble and easy-going Linus is. How many of us would be able to maintain Linus' attitude while receiving deep admiration and respect of perhaps hundreds of thousands of people? The man doesn't shrug his shoulders, straighten his collar, and fix his tie when the reporters come along. He smacks them around, and doesn't worry about his image. Tells it how it is - especially when it comes to his project. It's true... 2.4.x doesn't revolutionize the industry like the media junkies want him to say. He keeps his feet on the ground, reminding us that while it's a big improvement, it's just a step.

    *shrug* Call me weird, but I'm just impressed overall. Linus Torvalds is a genuine human being and his qualities haven't diminished.

  • You're right (Score:5)

    by Chuck Flynn ( 265247 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:37PM (#525786)
    Ken Thompson wrote an important article about this, back in 1984 (wow, that brings back memories), titled Reflections on Trusting Trust [acm.org] where he discussed his famous compiler-trojan which propagated itself even when the user had full access to the source code. The way it worked is the compiler had some code in it that recognized when it was compiling the compiler's own source. When it did, it inserted a bit of code which compiled the source not as a clean compiler but as another copy of the trojan. The user could read the sourcecode all he wanted, but he couldn't get around having to trust the compiler. The thrust of Thompson's article was that you have to put some trust in someone or something along the line.

    The moral of the story is that unless you built your own processor, built your own hardware, built your own compiler from scratch, and read the source code and understood it completely, you're open to attack. Open-source itself is no magic bullet, and it's time the zealots figured that out.

  • Linus should have his own action-figure line (Score:5)

    by Chuck Flynn ( 265247 ) on Saturday January 06, 2001 @10:22PM (#525787)
    I'm serious. Linus is being slowed down by having to work only part-time on Linux, devoting all those hours to Transmeta doing the heavy lifting for the internal translation work in the Crusoe. He needs to be free from monetary constraints in order to realize his true potential, the way Stallman has.

    The options are to start up a trust fund, which would never work and wouldn't be consistent with Linus's libertarian politics. The second best option would be to start manufacturing and selling his own action-figure lineup. For the boys, there'd be Combat Linus with his dashing Finnish looks and two front-loading high-caliber automatic gcc's under each arm. For the girls, there'd be Dream Date Linus in a tuxedo with his pet penguin, Tux, on a leash. Kids could learn important spacial and social skills while also learning about the open-source and free-software movements. And geeks love toys, so adults would buy them too.

    But most importantly, the proceeds would go to support Linus full-time. Think how much faster 2.4.0 could've come out if Linus could've devoted 14 hours per day to it. Just think about it.

Slashdot Top Deals

Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. -- Paul Licker

Close