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Interview With Linus
Hairy1 writes " Cisco has an interview with Linus which discusses among other things his thoughts - or rather lack of thoughts - about Windows.
When asked about Microsoft he said - "Well, I don't know. I'm actually not a big Microsoft basher... They're very good at marketing. They're very good at trying to see What do we have to do to sell this? The bad part about it is that it does have a huge market share. And that means that it can be lazy, sort of. They don't have much competition on the desktop, which means that they have very little incentive to really fix some of the problems it does have.""
I just realized how true this is - My girlfriends mother was visiting this weekend, she has no computer, and indeed has never actually used a computer. She was wondering if Mandrake was Windows XP since she HAD heard of that..
air and light and time and space
I'm really glad to see that Linus didn't have too many ill words for MS. I think we could probably all stand to learn from his restraint. I think the whole Linux community would benefit very much if we gave up this Linux vs. the world attitude, no matter how romantic it may be, and just focus on our own community and what we can do to make Linux better. Reading throughout that interview I really got a feeling that Linus truly does appreciate the true hacker spirit in that he does his work "Just for Fun", like it used to be back in the 60's when the MIT boys would hack up the PDP-10 late at night.
I posted to
Do you really think CISCO.com is going to be /.'ed enough to need a mirror?
I thought this was going to be a different interview... :-(. Something where they don't ask Linus a bunch of questions that he A)doesn't really care about and B)doesn't really know. In fact after I was done reading it, I could of swore I saw the same interview on pbs over the summer, roughly june or so. Typical linus interview:
:Could you if you want to?
:What about microsoft, how much do you really really hate them?
:Are you sure you don't want bill gates head on a stick?
:No. So about Microsoft and money...
:You own linux?
:No
:No
:Huh...??? I couldn't care less
:Ok, this is stupid... don't you want to ask me about the decision about andre vs rick's VM system... or potential changes for 2.5?
So when are people going to get it through their minds that he doesn't care... i've never met the man, never spoken to him... but from all the interviews i've heard and read thats the conclusion that i've come to. Linux cares about tinkering... creating... and programming. Basically the technology. He doesn't care about business... *sigh*. I would love to hear an interview on technology with him... that would be incredible. I remember in that pbs show, the interviewer actually asked him how he got started programming... and you could see him get excited and start talking about an old video game he wrote way back in the day. Aww... I wouldn't have him any other way.
ps - I think the interviewers need to read up on some of linus's quotes, my personal fav being
"I'm a bastard and proud of it"... closely followed by:
"If you didn't read my last post, go back and do it and make sure to read the line about me being a bastard twice".
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Whenever I've met someone of major technical merit in the Linux comunity (AC, Raph Levine, George and Marceij from Eazel, Taj from KDE) they've always been clear headed and non religious about their choice of OS. They don't really like Windows, but they're not `against it' per se and they don't have a problem with Windows users - they just prefer Linux for their own use. Gearing reaports that Linus and Ted Tso have similar attitutes doesn't surprise me.
Unfortunately its the few who do turn a technical argument into a religious one that give the rest of us a bad name and get the attention from the media. I still believe the majority of Linux users choose it because its the best tool for the job, not because Windows is evil and wrong and completely technically inferior (becuase it isn't).
However, that doesn't make much of a story for the media, and doesn't give the trolls something to talk about. Hence the nasty reputation of the ranting Linux zealot. This sucks.
In this case you are right, but earlier he has been slightly more bitchy. Like this one, where Linus respons to Mundie which cracked me up:
"I'd rather listen to Newton than to Mundie. He may have been dead for almost three hundred years, but despite that he stinks up the room less."
Although it was a funny quote, IMO Linus went too far with it. I'm sure all the Linux geeks giggled, but it's just not very professional, and if we want Linux to have a clean image (I do), than we gotta have a clean fight - not a cat fight.
-Kraft
Live and let live
It's Cisco, the load balanceing king. Nobody had better see any slashdot effect on this story or we're all doomed.
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Well, we could all hope that the next interviewer will read slashdot, before asking the questions.
:)
Therefore we could collect a few questions for Linus.
Like:
What about Andrea vs Rick's VM system?
What important changes are already planned for 2.5?
Could you think of a situation/decision where other issues (like ego) went to be more important than the technical issues?
What do you do with your time besides working at Transmeta and hacking on Linux?
Then again, it would even be nicer if Slashdot could collect 10 questions for the next Slashdot interview
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
Curious parallel, at a time when we're entering a major war that's essentially a religious argument. There is no OS but Windows and Gates is its prophet. There is no freedom but American and Bush is its prophet. There is no god but Allah and bin Laden is his prophet.
Maybe, on a certain level, these all are religious wars. We are somehow in cultures that want one answer to be a total answer: one god, one OS, one brand of freedom, one superpower. Okay, we don't all want that. Some of us are happier in a world with many gods, many OSes, many freedoms, diverse powers. But that's why bin Laden, Gates, Falwell see us as decadent and evil.
So if there's a deeper psycho-social vortex that sucks so many members of our cultures in mono-moniacle delusions, whether of the defeated fascist kind, the waning communist kind, or the ascendant worship at the temples of Microsoft and Disney ... well, don't we have to somehow ease the effects of that deeper vortex if we're to get on with our personal choices of OSs and goddesses and musics and causes to die for, and not be sucked into the looming battles of the competing vortexes, each of which believes not just in its immortality, but that, "There can be only one!"
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
1. Are you sick of giving interviews? ...or do both at the same time?
...about Bill Gates?
...about commercializing Linux?
:)
2. Are you sick of being asked the same questions?
3. Would you rather code, or drink a beer?
4.
5. Do you code better while half-drunk?
6. Do you code better when fully drunk?
7. Would you drive a stake through my heart if
I asked you about microsoft?
8.
9.
10. Do you regret linux's popularity in regards to
the fact that you've been forced into the
position of "geek god"
11. Does RMS get on your nerves as much as he does mine?
12. If you're ever in tennessee, would you consider hanging out with me?
13. What are the odds of the windows API's ever getting kernal support for running windows apps natively?
e-mail: mccann@telalink.net
Linus - if you're out there, answer these questions: Inquiring minds want to know!
The man has no opinion about anything. What a wimp!
How does he decide what's for dinner???
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK