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Linux Software

Alan Cox on How Linux Can Survive Without Linus 25

Posted by Zonk from the that'd-just-be-'ux' dept.
zigam writes "In another great episode of LUGRadio, kernel hacker Alan Cox talks about the kernel development process, DRM, and how Linux can survive without Linus. The usual disclaimer about British gits swearing and ranting about open source applies."
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Alan Cox on How Linux Can Survive Without Linus More

Alan Cox on How Linux Can Survive Without Linus

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  • Cursing (Score:5, Funny)

    by darkov ( 261309 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @10:54AM (#12100319)
    British gits swearing and ranting about open source applies

    "You pint fisted wank stain!"

    That's gold...

  • Hmmm (Score:3, Funny)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:24AM (#12100718)
    Not listened to Lugradio before.

    Too much nervous laughter for my tastes.
    • Hey, it worked for Beavis and Butthead! :)
    • I recently was going through old CDROM disks here and came up with the MP3 recordings of 'Geeks In Space' parts 1 through four. That's 'Slashdot Radio' for those who don't remember it. Rob Malda and crew doing a Voice-based audio program.

      Umm....

  • A transcript... a transcript... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:29AM (#12100784)
    my keyboard for a transcript....

    well at least the download's fast from the mirror I've chosen... :)

  • One man software (Score:4, Insightful)

    by paulatz ( 744216 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:33AM (#12100851)
    Many open source project are one-man project, so they could be heavily damage by the departure of eveane a single persone.

    You remeber what happened whith Slackware when Patrick Volkerding was really sick? What would have happened if he had abandoned the maintainance of his distribution?

    I think that the history of open source is far too short to answer these questions, but, sooner or later, all the pioneers of open source will retire.

    I hope they will realize when the time will come to gradually drop their responsibilities and their influence. I also think that Richard Stallman is a good example, he has already started to retire from active development and even his leadership is becoming less practical and (even) more ideological.

    • Re:One man software (Score:5, Informative)

      by real gumby ( 11516 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @01:40PM (#12102335)
      Indeed, RMS ceded control, but remember that control of GCC essentially had to be yanked away [goof.com] and placed into a steering committee [gnu.org]

      No matter who you are, these transitions are never easy. Linus has set Linux up better than most projects, but still there is by design one central kernel (a very good design by the way, so far, for now, and for quite a while to come).
    • How about "Openix" for the sake of OpenSource. I am in huge favor of changing the name while he's alive and kicking.

    • Any open source project will survive based on how useful it is. It has nothing to do with who is maintaining it now. If people *need* this project alive, they will find a way to keep it so. Remember, this is OPEN source, which means that the source can be picked up by anyone. Even if this doesn't happen for a while, it will happen. While the history is shortlived in terms of giving you a reference example of something similar, it remains a vital clue. Hints of these trends are everywhere. Just think of XFr

  • Without Linus? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31, 2005 @11:35AM (#12100876)
    "Alan Cox talks about the kernel development process, DRM, and how Linux can survive without Linus"

    Why, does he have something sinister planned?
    • Alan Cox might not have something sinister planned
      for Linus, but you can believe that one or two
      aphabet soup government agencies (and at least
      one mega-corporation (cough*MSFTcough*)) might
      have such contingency plans.

      No single corporation, that draws in over $30B
      USD per year, has more to fear from the F/OSS
      movement than MSFT. And as one of the bigger
      IT players in the USA's GNP (and with potential
      stranglehold on the fortune & future of many
      foreign governments & corporations), America's
      current regime
  • ...the matter is what form will it take? Will it get dispersed like foamy effervescence on a freshly poured glass of Coca-Cola in the organic morass that Open Source is becoming, which could end up being called Open Sore if it goes south? Or will it become like Debian where we can come up with more distros than AOL has CDs to push but still not change the fact that the core is the same-old same-old?

    I don't let this worry me. If it is worth surviving, those who use it will cause it to by demand because so
  • The usual disclaimer about British gits swearing and ranting about open source applies.

    You need to bear in mind that now that our coal and steel industries are near non-existent, manufacturing exports are shafted by the high value of the pound and Britain is governed by a group of people for whom mediocrity is a desirable state, swearing and ranting is one of the few sports we British gits can compete in at a world class level.

    That and our top class cynicism skills are the few things we have to comf

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