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Linus in PC Week 29

Posted by sengan from the kernel-hackers-get-famous-day dept.
Black Art writes "There is an interview with Linus Torvalds on PC Week's web site. "
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Linus in PC Week More

Linus in PC Week

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  • oops (Score:1)

    by Dave O ( 391 )
    Nice recovery sengan ;)
  • M$ uses Linux defense again [zdnet.com] (near bottom)

    Maritz told Judge Jackson that a flurry of new applications and new vendors supporting Linux meant that relatively unsophisticated consumers would soon be using the operating system. As a result, he said, Microsoft would have to work diligently to keep pace with the market.

    Microsoft produced a half-dozen magazine and newspaper articles to support its contention.

    Methinks M$ was paying for some of the recent Linux news articles.. ZDNet must be raking in the Billy bucks now.. God damn you Microsoft!!&%8%@#

  • I love that quote "microsoft killer" hehe :) Let's go bring them all the way down :p


    # find /dev/brain
    find: cannot open /dev/brain: No such file or directory
  • One thing to remember that this is an interview, as opposed to something written directly by Linus. It's a lot easier to miss giving proper credit when you're talking off the cuff.
  • Linus says that he invented Linux in 1991. Seems to me Linus Torvalds invented nothing. He deserves credit for implementing a POSIX design that was invented by others. By starting his development in Minux, Linus also should give credit to Tannenbaum. Mostly I wish Linus had mentioned Richard Stallman, GNU and the Free Software Foundation. With so many glaring omissions, one might suppose that Linus is hogging too much of the credit for software created by a large community of programmers.
  • All this publicity is going to his head.

  • The truly significant _invention_ is the shared source code cooperative software development methods that were used to develop GNU-Linux, Apache web server, et al.

    I retract the remark about "publicity going to his head." It was in error and completely without basis.

    I even hesitate to blame the editor of the interview for missing the important point of the whole Free/Open Software movement. What is important and historic about Linux has more to do with the way that it was developed that the contributions on and single individual.

    And BTW, Bill Gates did not invent BASIC.

    Cheers.
  • Linus is too Cool...
  • I think "cool" is a very good word to describe Linus, as far as I've seen. I've watched some RealVideos of him, and he's always very calm and, well, confidence inspiring.

    Notably lacking are the typical programmer/geek "um, ah" interjections. Linus takes time to phrase a response, making sure he says exactly what he wants to say. I can see strong correlations between his delivery and portions of the Linux Advocacy HOWTO.

    This is something I think a lot of "Slashdot Longhairs" would do well to emulate. I see a lot of too-quick, off-the-cuff responses, to be kind. I think recent media attention shows that the free software community is in the spotlight now, and we must shine if we are to prevail.
  • My only complaint is the part about "you could have copywrited it and made a fortune." It shows that they still don't understand opensource / free software. If Linus had gone that route Linux would never have happened. The freedom is the cause and the advantage. Too bad Linus didn't answer that a little different. Linus, by the way, is cool. I've seen him speak a few times and he seems like an excelent opensource advocate. Instead of getting religious about it he just explains why OSS/FS is better (practially, not morally).
  • So, when do I upgrade?
    2.2.3 ?
  • I enjoyed in particular that the burden must be off of Linus as 2.2 has "shipped" and "is out the door".

    My Computer. My way. Linux.
    --
    Howard Roark, Architect

  • Right. I'm sure you would have done it
    if only Linus hadn't started first.

    He should also give credit to:

    Thompson
    Shockley et al (the transistor)
    Turing
    Einstein
    Babbage
    Babbage's Mother
    etc. etc.

    Everything we do is building on the
    work of others. It goes without saying.
    Letting your jealousy get the best of you?
  • I have a suspicion(sp?) that the interview was heavily edited. I've seen other interviews with Linus where he said that he had linux where he wanted it within the first year, which wasn't all that far. Much of the rest of where Linux is is due to other people. He pointed out that virtual memory was someone else's doing. Things like that. Linus is pretty humble, generally speaking.

    If I recall with regard to Tannenbaum, he was really railing Linus for requiring a 386 for Linux, Tannenbaum was advocating a 286. Going with the 386 gave linux a major advantage in terms of stability, etc. I don't know to what extent Linux was modeled after minix, but for making the differences, only so much would be due to Tannenbaum anyhow(IIRC).

    As far as GNU stuff, RMS is one hell of a guy. He has done the world a lot of good. I'm sure that Linus has great respect and thanks for RMS, but he doesn't have to mention it all the time. He was talking about Linux, and Linus tends to make a big separation between Linux the operating environment with libraries, programs, etc. and Linux the kernel. He generally seems to refer to Linux as the kernel only, which FSF helped greatly, but wasn't directly responsible for, AFAIK.

    Later down, Linus said, "It started out as a personal belief that, yes, open source was needed. Then, when it got large enough, I encouraged people to license their own development, their own parts. Now there are multiple owners sharing all these licenses.

    I did it partly because I didn't want to have the paperwork to deal with that. In another way, I tied everybody's hands behind their backs. Nobody can fundamentally change it now because they'd have to coordinate everybody who owns these pieces."

    He certainly wasn't claiming to have written the whole thing himself, nor did he claim to have written a single line of user-land code.

    Of course, as I said earlier, this interview was probably singificantly edited, so he may well have given explicit credit to people, and that was edited out.

    Lastly, Linus' first language is not english. He may or may not be aware of the distinction between "invent" and "design a particular implementation and then implement it". There are plenty of native english speakers who wouldn't really draw a distinction between the two. Invent isn't exactly a highly technical term. Not the way corrupt^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hinnovate is. :-)

    In conclusion, considering the above and how much Linus has done for the world, you might go easier on him.
  • What and where is the People's Republic of Cambridge?
  • I've never heard of any technical person (or hell, even a famous athlete) that handles inteviews as well as Linus.
  • Three cheers for Linus, and everyone involved with Linux, GNU, FSF, etc... not to mention some of the people here who are using something OTHER than a Micro$oft or Macinto$h operating system.

    I would have to agree... I think that the article in question here was editted heavily to make room for all the stupid banners on ZDNet (PCWeek). It would be nice to get the entire interview and post it somewhere, oh, like here? :-)

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