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Torvalds Tells All
Eugenia writes: "Linus Torvalds gives an interesting interview to OSNews.com, talking about everything people are wondering about his personal opinions on several matters: on the GNU/Linux naming, the GUIs currently offered for Linux, the kernel 2.6, his plans for hot-plugged devices & drivers, Microsoft, FreeBSD and the future in general."
Linus Torvalds: I personally really like our filesystem layer, and in general the "core" code is in pretty good shape
.. the filesystem layer with no support for stackable vnodes (or vnodes at all) or userspace filesystems, that requires you to edit The Giant Union From Hell and recompile, and uses void* casts all over the place? That filesystem layer?
*cough*
I could also go on about the "core" code of the VM layer, but AA may finally have whipped that into shape...
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
And I thought that worked only for the Bible, Koran and other religious texts.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Um, RMS may stand for Redmond MicroSoft.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
If this is the goal of the Linux community, than a few things have to change, unfortunately :-(
.Net and the rest of the technologies Microsoft is preparing to roll out in the years to come? Can these releases have an impact on Linux and if yes, in what way?
One of the biggest problems I associate with Linux and the community, as an outsider, is the cultural elitism. It does not matter how long you have used Linux, or how profficient you are at it, just the fact that you do, or don't.
Another problem, IMO, is that market "needs" are still being driven by what others are producing, and Linux being in the never ending cycle of "catching up." I am not talking about quality, Linus and co. usually nail it on the head when they do release something giving the "functionality" that is available elsewhere. But it always, from my experiences, is after somebody else has done it. It was due to this that I switched away from Linux to another product. Simple things, like printing my resume, or having updated video drivers for Q3A were a pain to do on my own, whereas with Windows it is "easier." Not usually as reliable, but if it breaks, I _might_ know why, or at least fix it on my own, through trial and error. For a newbie like me, Linux is not intuitive enough for me to really configure. Of course, this could have been a RedHat problem, yet I really am not qualified to know.
Linus' views are a little discouraging for someone who wants choices, without sacrificing usability:
"What do you think of the FreeBSD 5 kernel and WindowsXP's new features from a clearly technical point of view?
Linus Torvalds: I don't actually follow other operating systems much. I don't compete - I just worry about making Linux better than itself, not others. And quite frankly, I don't see anythign very interesting on a technical level in either.
What is your opinion on Hailstorm,
Linus Torvalds: See my answer about not caring what the competition does, but doing my own thing as well as I can.. "
Linux was in a good position to compete in the last year or so, but didn't. I can't help thinking that this was due to philosophies that are ingrained from Linus all the way through to most of the users of Linux.
"How do you see the future of Linux for the next 5 or 10 years from an engineering but also a marketing eye?
Linus Torvalds: I don't use a marketing eye, I simply don't care. There are others who do, I'll let them worry about it."
Hopefully those that worry will get it done, and people will have more than one or two viable options in the near future, and I can go back to using Linux, with confidence this time.
I'm all for getting away from the device manager for most every day things AS LONG AS we can still get TO it. If I plug in a device and want to re-config the driver or use something other than the "vendor default" driver (e.g. my own) I want to still be able to do that. That's the beauty of LINUX.
If "plug 'n play" in LINUX ever ends up keeping me away from having the freedom to setup the devices and drivers the way I want them, then I'm deadset against it. I don't want to have to hack kernel code to make devices use the drivers I prefer.
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
Oh, fuck you bloody, and that goes twice more for anyone who moderated your post up.
Linus just said he doesn't give a flying fuck about competing with anything, only about making improvements. You quoted that very response and then proceed to go on quoting Sun Tzu and saying Linus should read that.
What the fuck is wrong with you? Can't you even READ WHAT YOU QUOTE ?
Linus is not at war. Linus is not competing. Linus is trying to make a kernel that improves upon itself over time, Q., E. and fucking D. End of story, and you and everyone else who's never contributed anything beyond hot air to open source, but who want to reframe everything as a battle against MS, can kiss my wet and bloody goatse.cx.
While the BSD people seem to have this massive inferiority complex and make a lot of noise about how great BSD is and how shitty Linux is, most Linux people, save the trolls on Slashdot, really do not give a shit. They are mostly agnostic. They don't feel the need to say that Linux is superior. It works for them, it gives them something to tinker with and the atmosphere around the Linux crowd is generally more relaxed -- thus fostering creativity.
I work at a company where we use a bunch of OSes. Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, NetBSD, OpenBSD you name it. Usually the OS for solving a given task is chosen depending on what the people who develop, deploy and run the service are more comfortable with. Sometimes it comes down to particular things that one OS does better than the rest.
For instance we use a lot of Linux machines for development work. Why? Because there are more tools available under Linux. Commercial software vendors create things that just aren't available under, say, FreeBSD. Sure you can run them in Linux emulation, but why would you if there os no reason to do it?
Other than being a good BSD zealot and not soil your soul with the unclean and ungodly Linux.
We deploy a lot of solutions that were developed under Linux on FreeBSD machines. Large scale stuff. A lot larger than anything you are likely to see during your entire carreer in UNIX. Using FreeBSD during deployment is a cost issue for us. If you save a few million dollars using FreeBSD for deploying a solution because some aspect of the OS would require more hardware if you ran Linux, then you do that. I can't remember any of the Linux users in the company bemoan this fact.
Likewise, if you can cut development time in half because you have better tools under Linux it would be stupid to use FreeBSD; just because it is the Right OS.
This sounds pretty obvious, right? Apparently it isn't. The last year I've seen two individuals apply for jobs here who wanted a clause in their contract that they wanted to ONLY deal with one OS. (I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which OS they preferred exclusively). Given that the BSD crowd is more prone to childish zealotry it didn't really surprise me.
It told me something important though: you really do not want zealots working for you, whether they are one denomination or another. If you can reduce the number of obvious shitheads in your company that is a good thing.
I think the best thing that could happen to the BSD world would be if someone well respected within the communities would step up and tell people to quit being such whiners. It is embarassing to see grown people who are supposedly intelligent act in a way that makes them look like ignorant bigots. That's not to say that Linux doesn't have the same problem; sure it has, but to a lesser degree. Most chest-thumping Linux users are just that "users". Clueless losers akin to the Amiga losers who claimed the OS of the Amiga was the best OS in the world -- but couldn't really tell you what made it so much better except the usual drivel that set it out from MS-DOS 3.2.
I've met Linus once. A few years ago we had dinner and an evening of talking about this and that. What strikes me about Linus is that this guy is probably the best leader you can get for any software project. He is focused and rational.
He is focused on what he wants to accomplish in a forseeable future and isn't easily led astray by fads or hype (unlike most people).
He is rational in the sense that he doesn't give in to emotional pressure but bases his decisions on what he thinks is right. This is important. I have managed open source projects and one of the things that I find very hard is rejecting bad ideas, bad code and bad people when the intentions are good. It is really hard to do. (Tridge [of Samba] said the same thing in an interview not too long ago). This is one of the things Linus does well. His level-headedness and his apparent lack of passion (apparent being the key word) when he reaches a decision is really something that other people could learn a lot from.
Now instead of flaming me: if you are a "guilty as charged BSD chest-thumper", ease up a little. If you are basically a loser who never wrote any significant piece of software or even tried to contribute with some actuall skills that you have: grow a brain or at least try to put some work into maturing your intellect and keeping your passion restrained long enough to stop bullshit seeping out of your face.
Thank you for reading.