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More Marcelo Tosatti
Frank writes: "There's an interview over at developerWorks Linux Zone with Linus's latest lieutenant Marcelo Tosatti. He talks about what it takes to be the maintainer of the Linux kernel, what his plans are for 2.4 and his favorite hack." If you missed it, you may also want to visit the answers Marcelo gave to Slashdot readers.
Hmm... has to be somewhat ironic that the backlash to the apex of capitalism (MS) has created a socialist system (the open source and free software movements) that is being guided by a monarchy, as you've put it.
go figure.
sic transit gloria mundi
which is maybe why no one tries to oppose him/compete with him? I dunno, I think maybe it's just because it's a waste of time making a new kernel, when you can just submit patches to Linus instead. You're forgetting that the Linux kernel is a community effort, and Linus is just the maintainer.
"This leaves other Linux kernels, and there are none"
Doesn't Alan Cox still have his Linux kernel? And isn't there another one by some other guy named Andrea?
Linus is the king, and he's surrounded by a small contingency of advisors who filter what gets through to him.
Yes, but you may want to ask yourself how these people got there... It's because of the quality of their code and commitment to maintaining their stuff. So it's rather a meritocracy than a monarchy and that is perfectly fine with me.
Damn, just look at that guy Marcelo. He's only 18 and he's maintaining the stable Linux kernel tree... I'm in awe.
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Hm, I'm not sure it's fair to present open source (or, more accurately, RMS's free software movement) as being a reaction to MS's complete success in the capitalist system. If you look back, I think you'll see that RMS concieved the copyleft because a number of projects he was working on suddenly went commercial, leaving his out of the loop and separated from the hard work he'd been putting in.
And Linux isn't the only OSS system, just the most successful. But yeah, it is a benevolent dictatorship, and yeah, that is somewhat ironic, but maybe that's the way it ultimately needs to be...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Does it strike anyone else as strange that the Linux kernel is still run by a small monarchy?
Actually the truth of the matter is that most successful projects are run by a small group of people (e.g. one to four) with absolute say and complete CVS access with a smattering of others who submit patches on and on and a number of others who submit bug reports. I've actively monitored Open Source projects of various sizes including Scoop, JDEE, Mono and Xindice where the general case seems to be that core development was done by one to four members of the team who controlled most or all of the project with token contributions coming in from a few more.
In fact the recent Slashdot article on KOffice did nothing but reinforce the notion that I've long since suspected that most Free Software/Open Source projects are primarily the work of a small, autocratic team regardless of the size or scope of the project.
However, I agree with your central point that Linux does still rely heavily on one man. What happens when he stops running the show is an interesting question ...
In a way you could view the fact that first Alan and now Marcelo is maintaining the stable branch as a test to what could happen if Linus were to reitre entirely from Linux. So far it has been working quite well and I think that in the long run capable people will show up who could follow in his footprints.
I don't follow the kernel mailing list closely, but if Linus were to retire right now, I guess someone like Alan could step up to the plate and become the next meritocrat (as opposed to monarch). I believe that the meritocracy that has developed in the open source world is a damn Good Thing (TM). Democracy has failed societies over and over again (most prominently: Germany in the thirties, USA right now. Hell, almost all democratic systems are seriously flawed and have become increasingly unwilling to make decent decisions, because every major step in whatever direction might impact on the next ellection.). I still believe that a free democracy is the best political system that we can apparently think of, but in all succesful ventures (I can think of) there was one person who made the final decision and a system based on meritocracy can serve us best. As opposed to a system were the most unscrupulous or best funded person rises to the top.
I feel so sig.
I thought RMS started Free Software after the issue with the printer driver.
Then you are mistaken as well. RMS uses that as a canonical example of the ills of copywrite and his take on its "antisocial" effect, but he didn't set off to do the whole GNU thing until after '82-83 where he spent time working on LISP systems that competed with Symbolics which he perceived to be the chief parasite at the time most responsible for the "rape" of the MIT AI lab.
Symbolics didn't rip off RMS' work though, which is what the previous post suggests. Infact, the situation was more of the reverse. To quote Symbolics president at the time from Hackers:
"We develop a program or an advancement to our operating system and make it work, and that may take three months, and then under our agreement with MIT, we give that to them. And then [Stallman] compares it with the old ones and looks at that and sees how it works and reimplements it [for the LMI machines]. He calls it reverse engineering. We call it theft of trade secrets. "