The Scalability of Linus 239
Hugh Pickens writes "Katherine Noyes writes at LinuxInsider that it may be time for Linus Torvalds to share more of the responsibility for Linux that he's been shouldering. 'If Linux wants to keep up with the competition there is much work to do, more than even a man of Linus's skill [can] accomplish,' argues one user. The 'scalability of Linus' is the subject of a post by Jonathan Corbet wondering if there might there be a Linus scalability crunch point coming. 'The Linux kernel development process stands out in a number of ways; one of those is the fact that there is exactly one person who can commit code to the "official" repository,' Corbet writes. A problem with that scenario is the potential for repeats of what Corbet calls 'the famous "Linus burnout" episode of 1998' when everything stopped for a while until Linus rested a bit, came back, and started merging patches again. 'If Linus is to retain his central position in Linux kernel development, the community as a whole needs to ensure that the process scales and does not overwhelm him,' Corbet adds. But many don't agree. 'Don't be fooled that Linus has to scale — he has to work hard, but he is the team captain and doorman. He has thousands doing most of the work for him. He just has to open the door at the appropriate moment,' writes Robert Pogson, adding that Linus 'has had lots of practice and still has fire in his belly.'"
What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit By A Bus? (Score:5, Informative)
"What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit By A Bus?" - An Empirical Study
by Leonard Richardson
Published on segfault.org 02/23/2000
http://www.crummy.com/writing/segfault.org/Bus.html [crummy.com]
It even coined the "Bus factor" phrase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor [wikipedia.org]
Re:Linus needs an inner circle (Score:5, Informative)
It's called Andrew Morton
Re:and what (Score:3, Informative)
And due to the GPL license that's no problem at all: you can own your own tree as soon as you want and be as zelous or as liberal as you want with it.
No, you can't. The GPL places limits on both liberalness and zealotry.
The license prohibits liberalness, because you are only allowed to share source code under strict conditions. It prohibits zealotry, because it ensures that others are free to fork a project and not bow to your vision of a project.
Linuxinsider (Score:5, Informative)
Anything from Linuxinsider I would take with a healty dose of skepticism - it's better known for their anti linux shills.
Re:Egos don't scale (Score:5, Informative)
> Linux is his baby and he's a jealous parent.
I'll take your assertions with a (big) pinch of salt: remember Linus *created* a distributed version management tool (git) when he couldn't use anymore BitKeeper..
And the nice thing about DVCS is that anybody can have his own tree..
So yes, Linus is the ultimate authority about what goes in his own tree, but this is quite normal..
Re:whiner (Score:5, Informative)
Do you even know who Jonathan Corbet is? Among other things, he created LWN.net, has been a Linux kernel contributor for longer than that, and has written books on Linux kernel development (for example, the O'Reilly "Linux Device Drivers" book).
He's been on the inside for a long time. This is an opinion you should at least respect, even if in the end you disagree.
Re:and what (Score:2, Informative)
The license prohibits liberalness, because you are only allowed to share source code under strict conditions.
What in the hell are you talking about? The GPL restricts your ability to share binary-only versions of your tree. It explicitly requires you to *always* share your source code when you are making a public release. There are no limitations at all.
Re:Egos don't scale (Score:5, Informative)
<cough>schedulers</cough>
Re:What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit By A Bus? (Score:1, Informative)
Andrew Morton.
Re:Linuxinsider (Score:1, Informative)
I suggest you read up on the "linux insider" and their writings on the great fiaSCO. Slam-dunk victory for SCO they claimed, last time I heard anything from them.
Uninformed submission. (Score:4, Informative)
Linus is at the top now because he does a very good job and people trust him. The actual development is done by thousands of developers (around 3000 contributors / release currently), number increasing. It sales just fine.
The way he is accomplishing this, is by using a network of trust (he talk about it in his talk about git [youtube.com]).
This is very scalable, as he is not actually checking out every peace of code, he just merges them.
What would happen if he would suddenly go crazy or hit by a bus? The answer is simple: one of the core maintainers, like for instance Andrew Morton would take over the position. General development would continue as it is now, as Linus talked often about how and why he runs things the way he does, and many people agree with him there.
Re:Egos don't scale (Score:3, Informative)
He may not be perfect, but he is by far the best "leader" (whether project or corporate) that I've *ever* seen. He may be insulting, but he does it to everyone to scare off the timid and to make people reconsider their ideas. He is extremely technically competent and humble, two traits which are invaluable in a technical manager. Something you may want to read: Linux Kernel Management Style [kernel.org].
As for taking ideas and giving them to "favored" developers: 1) at least he admits when he is wrong and 2) why do you think those developers are favored? Ideas are a dime a dozen; implementing them well (and in a way that fits in with the Linux kernel) is the hard part.