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Linux Software

On-line Chat with Linus Torvalds 38

Posted by CmdrTaco from the chat-with-the-big-guy dept.
Scott Johnson writes "This Wednesday at 2pm, EDT, ABC News will be having an online chat with Linus Torvalds. This should be very interesting compared to some of their previous guests... :-) "
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On-line Chat with Linus Torvalds More

On-line Chat with Linus Torvalds

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  • Re:GPL (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One wonders if Linus' choice to offer Linux under the GPL was deliberately designed to prevent use of the innovations in the Linux code base by any but the GPL-side of the free software community.

    To some extent - yes. The idea is free for all to use. But we generally don't want to write lots of code for no pay and then see someone else incorporate it in a proprietary package and sell it. Those who use GPL stuff for improving their own code had better give something back, i.e. the code they put the GPL stuff into.

    Companies like Redhat sell GPL'ed software, but it isn't proprietary. Anybody can sell Redhat cd's if they want to. I can compete with them if I so wish.
  • Linus deserves to be driving a 99 Pontiac TRANS am. ... Black. ...With Ram Air. ...Oh Yeah.
    ----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
  • Of all people, why is Linus doing one of those extremely annoying Java webchats? I can forgive this offense for computer-illiterate musicians who cannot figure out what IRC is, but I'm sure Linus knows how to work an IRC client.
  • So what's wrong with IRC then? More than 1/2 of IRC users use Windows.
  • Posted by Mike@ABC:

    Um, well....to be honest, I don't know if we want Linus to get hard-core on SMP support. ABCNEWS.com isn't a techie news site -- it's a news site for the broadest range of people possible. So while we'll certainly ask about kernel development and future features, I doubt we'll really ask him about specific lines of code.

    But we'll certainly try to have the best chat with Linus anyone's ever done...!

    Thanks for the confidence, though. Linus is certainly not a Power Ranger. He's a code hacker, and a darn good one. We'll treat him as such.
  • Posted by Mike@ABC:

    OK, guys. I've read your complaints, comments, hopes and dreams for this chat, and I'm prepped to answer a few of your questions and hopefully ease your minds a bit, since I'll be the guy moderating the chat.

    1) I will NOT post questions like "what kind of car do you drive?" or "do you like cheese?" I might throw in one personal-type question, but I'll make it as relevant and interesting as possible.

    2) On the other hand, I won't post questions like "why did you hack the kernel this way when you could've done it this way?" followed by a stream of code incomprehensible to 99 percent of our readers. We're ABCNEWS.com, not a developers' forum. We want the chat to apply to as many people as possible, while remaining informative and on-topic.

    3) We'll handle as many questions as Linus can answer. Our chat with Bob Young was indeed slower than I would've liked. Unfortunately, while Bob is a very nice guy and a savvy businessman, he doesn't type very fast.

    Those are all the promises I can make, folks. We do, however, want this to be a solid, informative chat for not only you guys, but for the general public. The masses are starting to get clued in -- I had a doorman at the San Jose Hyatt ask me about Linux a few months ago -- and this is a chance for them to hear it from Linus himself.

    So stop on by tomorrow and check it out. Or come back later that day -- we'll post a transcript. Thanks, folks.

  • From his MSNBC talk, Linus stated that IRC was difficult though his company firewall. which is why he did the MSNBC chat over the phone and somebody typed for him. People have to understand that the news areas are going to goto the lowest possible level. The speaker may know IRC, but many of the people going to the site may not :)

  • Re:?'s (Score:1)

    by suprax ( 2463 )
    Ahh, I see. Figured it was something small like that. Now it's time to go figure out why I got a 0 for my comment. hrm.
  • noooo!
    here goes the old Linux vs GNU/Linux flamewar again...
  • Can anyone explain why some articles have ?'s instead of 's?


    If I understand correctly, this is because Microsoft's browser and web page design software disagree with the rest of the world over how to encode backquotes. The result is that these show up as question marks on other browsers.


    That, or else what everyone else sees as backquotes show up as question marks on Microsoft browsers. It's been a long time since I read the article that discussed this, so I'm hazy on the details.

  • Ask the above to most people these days and they now understand that it's what makes the computer work which is better than 5 years ago. Ask them "what's a kernel" and you'll get a blank stare. I'm assuming they need to dumb it down as to not scare people away. I agree that nit-picking shouldn't be initiated in the form of a GNU/Linux argument.

    AC
  • Maybe the problem is that it was pushed before it was really good enough to let an idiot use it. You don't take a beginner skier on the big hills right away. You put them on the bunny hill, and have them slowly build up to the big hills. With Windows you are stuck on the bunny hill.

    The basic lack of understanding about computers comes from the iMac. Those commericals with Jeff Goldblum say you use your computer just for e-mail and the net. And basically that is was most people do. You can use an Amiga to do that, if you wanted to. People don't care. I am starting to care. I want to delete Windows so badly.

    Ebay went out for a few hours, and the world goes to hell for some people. Okay, Windows crashes stuff randomly and with more annoyances on average. This is the first time I've heard that Ebay had problems. Have you heard anyone ever say that about Windows?
  • I sat in on their interview/chat w/ Rob Young of RedHat last week...what a waste of time.... 9 questions in a 1 hour period.... and you have to keep hitting reload, etc.
    You can see the interview at http://chat.abcnews.go.com/chat/chat.dll?room=abc_ bobyoung

  • Hope (Score:3)

    by HoppingCow ( 17552 ) on Monday May 03, 1999 @03:26PM (#1905934)
    Linux is almost ready for the prime time.


    However, I find the basic lack of understanding among pop culture icons a bit alarming. Just as Linux bigots have "unix goggles" and can not comprehend the utility of a Windowz box; all to often the people on the street I talk to have little comprehension of any issue that does not involve their email.


    Lately, I find most of the attention paid to Linux is on the novel side. As in, "Gee! A new flashy, shiny toy! Let's run a couple pieces, cuz everyone else is."


    Not to downplay the fact that a pretty cool Uber Geek will be taking part of ABC's online forum, but I hope that it is approached with a sense of seriousness and professionalism...


    Not reduced to ... "but, can it handle my Outlook Express?"

  • They call Linus the creator of the "Linux OS" when clearly he is only the creator of the kernel. People are going to get this idea that one single college student sat down and wrote the (original version) of the entire OS. What about GNU, XFree86, BSD, etc.?

  • Re:?'s (Score:1)

    by ywwg ( 20925 )
    Microsoft decided to impliment some "unused" characters in the iso-XXXX text standard. So while everyone else uses ', they use a different asc-ii-esque code. Because no one except microsoft knows what these other codes mean, they put in a question mark.

    There's a perl script called "demoroniser" that cleans up microsoft?s (joke!) bad html.
  • He drivers a 1997 Pontiac Grand Am ;)

    Why does people care about stuff like that?
    How about "What do you think will be the future of Linux?" ("World Dominition, Fast.", but I mean less globaly), etc...

    Just my two bytes 00100111 00110001
  • As an educator I can say that yes, we do indeed want them to get interested in actually learning to use their computers.

    How long will we hold to this idea that the "Linux Community" is geek stuff? After all, people, my BA is in English, and I use Linux every day (and as someone above me stated, I want to delete Windows so badly I can't stand it). One need not be a programmer (I'm not) or a dedicated geek (again, I'm not) to appreciate what is gained by using a reliable, consistent, robust operating system (not to mention all those cool windowmaker themes I've got).

    Nevertheless, if we want more cool commercial products for Linux, if we want support for more hardware (and the cooperation from manufacturers necessary to get it), if we want more commercial software for Linux (i.e. games), it is the people in the Compaq commercials, those grandparents, and kids, and swtthang99@hotmail.com's that we have to win over. If we don't have them, the people in the corporate sector, people who care (and rightly so!) about making money, won't come on board.

    Which brings me to where I started: education. With a Windows machine you _are_ stuck on the bunny hill. With Linux, you currently have to start on the intermediate hill (which is better than when I started using it a couple of years ago). The bunny hill is coming, though (GNOME, Lothar), and unlike Windows, the coming of the bunny hill doesn't mean that the other hills are closed. Linux can (and soon will) allow Joe Idiot to start computing in an environment that allows him to learn how his computer actually works, to affect how it works, to get into the guts of it--or not. Meet Joe Geek.

    You Can't Do That With Windows.

    Linus knows this.

    I'll be looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

    DoktorMel
  • 2pm EDT? Come on, I wont be able to make that. They could've scheduled a easier time where more people could be present. Some of us will be at work, or in my situation school.
  • Hey, leave the iMac out of this, what did it ever do to you???? After all, it fills in the blanks for that very very large segment of the population that Windows also tries to fill--- all those people out there who not only don't know about computers, but don't want to know. (yeah, it's scary, huh?)

    Problem is that Linux, no matter how easy it becomes to use (take a look at Caldera 2.2) or how mainstream it tries to be, is still somewhat dauntiung. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with this, but to the technophobe it can be intimidating to suddenly let go of your entire operating system for one that was put together by hobbyists. And what if something goes wrong? Fact is that most people don't know and don't want to know about their computers. After a little while, a time that seems to be getting closer everyday, the people who DON'T think that it's fun to stay up all night playing with their computers will start buying machines with Linux preinstalled. But will they go out of their way? Not a chance.

    More importantly, do we want them to? Probably not.

  • Re:GPL (Score:1)

    by Desco ( 46185 )
    So instead of asking him about his favorite sexual position, how about asking him relevant questions such as this?

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