Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Torvalds Tells All

Posted by michael on from the road-ahead dept.

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."

2 of 525 comments (clear)

  1. Burn out? by pschmied · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Man, I really got a sense of burn-out in this message.

    I worry about Linus and also Linux. I feel like Linus is trying to disassociate himself from Linux because he has two dynamics at work inside him.

    1. Linus realizes that he really is the leader of a large and idealistic movement, and would like to see the Good Things(tm) keep rolling.

    2. Linus either feels that he is not the man to lead, or he realizes that he cannot be the leader forever.

    His reaction is unfortunate. If he really does want things to keep rolling, he needs to provide for a sustainable method of succession of power.

    Linux is a religion these days. Really. It may not have gods, but it has a fiercly defended ideology that really does border on the metaphysical.

    Human knowledge is libre is not so much a radical notion, but its particular application to technology is very radical--bordering on the spiritual.

    Look at all the major world religions. They have all suffered at some point due to the schisms created by lack of smooth power succession. These problems are inherent to systems where there is one guru.

    I hope I'm not decending into troll territory here, but the FreeBSD core team idea is a very good one. There are no succession problems, and the team seems to deal well with changes in staff despite the smaller numbers of people working on the project.


    -Peter

    --
    . Penguins Surely Ca
  2. Torvalds isn't a philosopher by extrasolar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Plato: Linus, do you agree there is a human nature?

    Torvalds: You know, I could care less. I don't think anything is going to really change if we discover there is indeed a human nature.

    Hobbes: But surely you must account that people do what they do to serve their own ends?

    Torvalds: Again, see my answer to human nature. It just doesn't matter to me.

    [end philosopher round robin]

    The thing is that there is an incredible difference between Torvalds and Stallman. Torvalds told us he isn't a big thinker. Stallman is. Insert Stallman in the above conversation he would definitely give the big thinkers something to argue about.

    The reason there so much more contraversy over Stallman than Torvalds is because Stallman allows us to disagree with him. You can't disagree with Torvalds point of view because he doesn't have one. Stallman's view of human nature is directly involved in what we consider today free software. Just like the US Fathers of Constitution view of democracy is directly involved in what is today the United States.

    I argue that those of you tuned to your computing terminals without thinking of the big picture--the so called pragmatists--that you have no way of arguing against those who do. And I plead you to not argue when you really don't know what you are talking about.