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BBC Interviews Linus Torvalds
chrisseaton writes "The BBC has an interview with Linus Torvalds. It's a little thin, but good to see something like this in a decent mainstream news source."
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How about...
You are now under my penguin control
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Visit:
n li ne.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=3
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_clicko
realplayer is needed to see this.
"No-one has ever called me a cool dude. I'm somewhere between geek and normal," he said.
Linus, You're a cool dude.
...how this is vaugly interesting at all? the article really lacks content. it is as if they could have interviewd Paul Alan and went off on a tangent about golf w/ some random quotes about Altair BASIC. Except Paul Alan interests me more for some sick, twisted reason
I felt that the article was not only about LINUX "growing up" but also that its founder has other things that are important. Nothing unusual but I think it makes nontechies feel more comfortable with Linus. Its nothing crazy or cultish. He even puts himself down a bit at the end.
The next time RMS rants about why he's not getting the attention that he should this link needs to be forwarded to him to show how it should be done.
BBC is the only mainstream outlet with the balls to cover linux in positive manner. CNN did feature few articles, but they never saw the light of day. It was dumbed down on few occasions and made sound like it was an indie/experimental OS. I hope that trend changes really quick, although I have my doubts that MSNBC will ever cover Linux developments in detail. Biased source.. you know the deal.
And from unrelated rants department, if I ever had the option to hang out with either Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, I'd choose Gates.
I wish he was the prophet of linux community. He fits the nerd profile so well. It's heartbreaking that one of us is trying to destroy his kind of people.
In a perfect world, Bill Gates would fight Linus from the other side of the OS spectrum. Imagine how world would have been different if Gates didn't choose the dark side.
We can dream, can't we?
but Linux is not an Operating System. It's a kernel.
Linux by itself doesn't do much.
That's odd. I read the whole thing and didn't see one mention of Knuth.
Linus Torvalds, the man behind the creation of Linux, which is used by millions of computers around the globe, has went to use the bathroom, possibly to take a leak. Full coverage can be seen on Slashdot (http://www.slashdot.org) Another article with no fluff.
Is it just me or did Tux gain weight ?
"Mr Torvalds enjoys the notoriety he has achieved as the man that challenged the Microsoft empire with his open source alternative operating system."
Stallman will certainly enjoy this oneThis article is just excerpts from a much more substantial video interview on BBC world. Ironically, the video interview is only available in Windows media, and the page doesn't display properly in Mozilla :-)
Ok, caught the interview on BBCWorld yesterday.
Linus, come back a.s.a.p. - as if your Leno habit wasn't disturbing enough, you then started sounding like an American and now look like an American. This is not good. You need a steady diet of hernesoppa, kirnupiimä and ruisleipä (some salmiakki for afters, of course) urgently.
Instead it is more likely that Microsoft will become like IBM - "still huge but not the dominant force anymore", he said.
Interesting pararalel. This sentence could be interpreted more than one way but its interesting how by implication he seems to dismiss the importance of IBM's support, something that is given way too much weight and considering the reliability of Corporate alliances, one day could very well backfire. Overall, a pretty dull interview, I could almost hear him yawning.why doesn't he use his popularity to raise some public money to fund projects? The Gov's will invite him and listen carefully.
Whose desktop?
On my desktop, it runs like a charm and I love it.
I didn't like Windows on my desktop, could that mean that Windows isn't perfectly suited either.
It's all a matter of definition. And don't start a "majority of users" speech before the "majority of users" have tried Linux.
"He would not, however, want to become personally involved in the dispute with Microsoft.
"I've tried to stay out of the Microsoft debate. If you start doing things because you hate others and want to screw them over the end result is bad," he said."
This just makes good business sense on his part. Never, ever, has he said he wanted to overthrow Microsoft. Why would he? Why bring the wrath of several billion dollars to bear on yourself?
Let the software speak for itself. Besides, he has enough people arguing for him he can move on to more important things.
Sent from your iPad.
If you start doing things because you hate others and want to screw them over the end result is bad.
There are many people here who are trying to be holier than the pope and prove in all ways that they are the true believeres and revolutionaries. And so they try to demonstrate their loyalty to "the cause" on every occasion by lamenting how this or that organization will bring the apocalypse and BillG is the antichrist. Hope this will calm them a bit.
When men used to be men
Yeah yeah, I think it's great that "Linux" just got some mainstream press exposure, but the more I see Linus Torvalds speak the more I despise him.
How is it that he rarely if ever mentions GNU's contribution to "Linux". Sorry folks but you need to all recognize that Linux is a kernel and not an operating system.
Also, let's all be real and admit that Linux would not be where it is today without the countless amazing free tools that GNU has provided.
Linus has the responsibility to say something about GNU, especially in a high profile interview such as this. I don't care if the interviewer is ignorant and doesn't know to ask anything about GNU.
Linus should be man enough to pay his respects where they are due. Now, thanks to this interview, the truth has been thwarted once more and GNU's vision of FREE (NOT as in beer) software is steadily going out the window.
Boy this makes me really look forward to the GNU kernel Hurd. I think Linux is about to go onto the long list of things I am boycotting out of principle.
"In a way it is fun. I'm pleased to be a poster boy. It gives me some self-importance." Linus, please give us a break. Let me go out back and cry for your under-appreciated ego.
Don't super-programmers aspire to anything greater than the shrine of the blasted machine?!
There's not really a way to say this without making people groan... moderators, do your worst:
The reason RMS carps endlessly about the GNU project deserving credit it, quite simply, that the FSF did most of the work that resulted in "Linux." Linus originally set out to write a Unix clone from scratch (a small hobbyist one, not "big and professional like gnu"), but for a variety of reasons the project scaled back to writing a kernel and a handful of userland kernel-glue (insmod, iptables, etc.), and "Linux" distributions are based on GNU userlands -- the C library, compiler toolchain, shell, basic Unix utilities, and desktop (if Gnome) are all GNU things. They make a fairly coherent whole, provide basic system services such as fopen() and ls, and define the user's interface with the computer (bash or Gnome) -- XFree86 and Linux (the kernel) are as essential as GNU is, but they're smaller and they do less to directly define the operation of the system.
The GNU/Linux beef is one thing (language is inaccurate; koala bears aren't really bears), but calling Linus "the inventor of the Linux operating system" is about like crediting NT to the team that wrote KERNEL32.DLL. RMS spent more than a decade of his life setting up an organization which still puts out voluminous Free code, and crippled himself with RSI writing code to give away, and I see high-modded posts here that treat him with more contempt than I've ever seen aimed at Jack Valenti or Fritz Hollings.
You've heard this all before, of course, and you're probably sick of it by now -- it's only the slow and plodding truth, and it has no punchline. Worst of all, it takes itself seriously, just like RMS. I really can't think of a short or funny way, though, to explain how wrong it is to shit on the guy who had the idea for the GPL, who argued with the world for years until the idea of open source software started to take hold, who at the time Linux was started had written a lot of the existing Free code personally, and who is directly responsible for the userland most of you supposedly use -- that's not RMS trying to grab credit for someone else's work, that's simply the way it happened, the truth.
Not funny, and not sexy like "Finnish teenager writes OS in basement; world stunned." But true.
I think Linus is getting fat.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
MSNBC has done some surprisingly UNbiased articles about Linux. They have done some excellent articles on:
- Lycoris Linux
- AbiWord
- and the Zaurus handheld
to name but three. Gary Krakow did all three articles and nobody's muzzled him yet.I also remember that "The Site" show on MSNBC was very scrupulous in trying to make sure MacOS and Linux got as much time as possible. The fact that Leo Laporte and Soledad O'Brien were both Mac heads probably helped. If you recall, when "The Site" was pulled (it was getting far less ratings than the wall-to-wall Princess Di coverage) it spawned ZDTV, later to be known as TechTV.
Alas, Soledad, where have you gone?
About Gates as geek deity: the Flynn character in "Tron" was kind of modeled after him. It would be cool if in "Tron 2.0" Flynn goes from being a downtrodden geek to being an evil monopolist who revives the MCP to dominate the brave new world of Cyberspace. It would work.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
The market is the market, and it responds to all the messages that are put out there. My point is not that RMS doesn't deserve the credit, a lot of credit. It's just that his personality works against him, and this is one of the ways that this happens. He's doing great work, and his initiative has taken off to the point that it has a life of its own. Arguing about who deserves what part of the credit is unseamly, whether or not you are stealing someone else's thunder. If credit is really that important to RMS, and is suspect it isn't, then he should take the feedback and adjust to it. Since he probably doesn't actually care that much about this kind of recognition, he should just bask in the glory of his accomplishments and keep being who he is. The mainstream will always be reluctant to fully accept an RMS type, but it doesn't matter because his fans know how it really is.
a company wants program X to preform a task. they preform a cost analysis and it would cost M dollars to purchase this program from commercial company Y. There is a Free, F, (in the gnu sense) program that would do alot of what they want, but not all. It would cost N dollars to add that functionality. if N M then company X can hire a programmer or use exsisting staff to pay someone to add those features.
if company X wishes to distribute those changes they have to provide the source code. if they just want to use it internally, they dont have to distribute their changes.
right now there is a HUGE codebase of Free software to build on. if it's cheaper to build on Free software than it is to purchase commerical software, then free software can be developed and programmers can still make money.
-- john
He never said that it will happen because of Linux. Dream on coward.
I think you're right, RMS really doesn't care about fame or recognition...he definitely does not seem the type to worry about stuff like that.
I seem to remember reading that the real reason RMS is so pedantic on the "GNU/Linux" thing is that he's afraid that Linux might slip away from the high ideals of Free Software to the amoral pragmatism of Open Source. This would be a real tragedy, if it occurred. However, I don't know how likely it is. I really can't imagine a non-GPL fork of the kernel.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
I can imagine it, I just can't see it going anywhere. If you are interested in commercializing a UNIX flavor, BSD is the OS of choice because it is an Open != Free license. Darwin as sold as NeXT and now OSX is an obvious example.
More likely is that some mergers between the HURD and Linux will occur, which will solidify the Linux kernel in the GPL camp. The point is that only if all of the copyright holders agree can the licensing be shifted. But, the Linux kernel has never been released except under GPL, so maybe it isn't even possible. In the beginning when there was only a handful of participants, maybe the kernel itself could have been released under another copyright (in addition to GPL), and maybe Linus could attempt to do this himself even. But why would he? This kind of action would rightly be seen as divisive, and would destroy the community's trust.
In other words, even if it was possible, it would not impact much because no one would be interested. If a Linux/Hurd merger occurs, it is no longer possible because at least the Hurd part would have to be removed first.
A seperate topic, but I think a merger is the most likely outcome because I'm sure there are good an worthy modules in both kernels, and the community is after the best.
No, calling Linus "the inventor of the Linux operating system" is like calling Bill Gates "the inventor of MS Windows." Linus probably contributed more code to his project than Bill did to his, but their most important contributions were similar in nature.
In both situations, it is less important who wrote the code than who was the central motivating factor in the creation of the phenomenon. Bill Gates did it through shrewd (amoral?) business practices; Linus did it by motivating people to contribute. However he did it, Linus was the binding glue that has propelled Linux to where it currently is.
As you said, most of the codebase is there. You imply that the kernel is almost a trivial aspect of the OS... so where is the Gnu OS that exists outside of Linux? Hurd is pretty old... why isn't anybody running it? Why is Linux more popular than BSD? Why is it more popular than any other well designed OS?
Linus motivates people; he's a cult of personality that encourages cooperation and construction. RMS's cult of personality is of a different, more evangelical sort, which hasn't, and doesn't, encourage people to join in. This is probably because RMS's motivations are morally dogmatic, where as Linus's are practical/hedonistic. You can be a communist and like Linux, but you don't have to.
So, I believe it is entirely reasonable (if not fair) to credit Linus with the creation of Linux. Even if he hadn't written a single line of code, and yet had otherwise done for Linux what he has, he'd still be able to claim that title. This all by the basic fact that without Linus, there would have been no Linux as we know it, no matter how much code Gnu churned out.
RMS is reaping the results of his own decisions. If he was concerned with public perception of the free software movement, he should have made more pragmatic decisions that would have yielded more favorable publicity, but he didn't.
He could have given his project a catchy and descriptive name that people would naturally associate with a movement about freedom. Instead he chose an obscure name like GNU that no one knows how to pronounce (or really wants to once they do).
He could have worked on writing a simple yet fully functional monolithic kernel, which would have been a quick way to finish the off a basic GNU system. Instead he chose a design so apparently complicated that it still is not usable even though they had a one-year head start on Linux!
He could have adopted Linux as part of the GNU system (after all, it's always been GPL even if FSF don't own the copyright). He could have pursued making Debian an official GNU distribution which would have given him the authority to call it a GNU system. However the FSF stopped funding Debian after November 1995.
He could have found some graceful way to seek credit for his contribution to Linux distributions. Instead he came up with the abomination known as "GNU/Linux" (pronounced guh-noo slash linux -- you're supposed to pronounce the slash!) He continually wonders why no one (except the Debian people) is interested in
perpetuating this offense against what little dignity is left in American English.
And now he's upset that he gets no credit, no recognition, no acknowledgement of his ideals in the mainstream media. Well he probably should be upset, but only at himself for his lack of pragmatism.
If he does not like Torvald's kernal, then he can write a GNU one. What's the holdup? BSD?
He *does* like the Linux kernel, I think...that's why he's trying to keep it Free. And GNU *is* working on their own kernel: the HURD. It's been in development a long time. I do not know what the holdup is, but I can't imagine it has anything to do with BSD, which is a completely independent, non-GNU project.
RMS is a troll: not because he is wrong, but because he is annoying. (Hey, I can relate WRT OO bashing).
Whether he's annoying or not, I don't think you can really call him a troll. A troll is someone who says divisive or combative statements that they don't really believe, just to induce a flamewar.
Say what you want about RMS, but I don't think anyone would agree that he doesn't Really Believe what he says.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
cheap white sport socks and no shoes during an interview.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
"In both situations, it is less important who wrote the code than who was the central motivating factor in the creation of the phenomenon."
Please, don't bullshit. There are a lot of motivating factors for writing free software, from ESR's cathedral and the bazaar to the freeing of mozilla to just the simple fact on how much Windows sucked at the time. Giving Linus undue credit in this regard is merely dishonest.
".... This is probably because RMS's motivations are morally dogmatic, where as Linus's are practical/hedonistic. You can be a communist and like Linux, but you don't have to."
First, look up dogmatic and see if that is really what you mean.
Second, read this from here:
Read the rest of the study itself here. What they found is that most people who write free software do it for the "dogmatic" reasons Linus seems to despise so much. Certainly, its not an overwhelming majority--but the point stands: without RMS, free software would not be anywhere near as important or complete, nor have as many developers, as it has today.
Not that even a majority of these people agree with RMS in every way. But, for a movement to sustain itself, there needs to be something more than a "cult of personality". There needs to be something real to work towards--a lofty goal.
I suppose I should stop here. The study really should speak for itself. But there is no doubt in my mind, no matter how unpopular it may seem, credit is certainly due.
Yes, we're all very surprised.
Someone mod up the parent. While the hyperlink is mangled, the hand-typed URL indeed works with RealPlayer and displays a modest but watchable 34Kbps stream.
c li ck_online/03oct.rm)
(pnm://rm.bbc.net.uk/news/olmedia/cta/progs/02/
The Linus-at-home interview starts 5 minutes into the program (and ends at around 18 mins) but even before that there's a cute BBC-style preview of Linux.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
No bullshit. There is a conspicuous absence of a popular non-Linux Gnu distribution. This is the only proof I need to show that Linus, not RMS, was the motivating force behind Linux. Furthermore, I believe that even had Gnu never existed, Linux would still have come into being, and would have gained as much popularity as it now has. This is, obviously, pure conjecture on my part, but I think it is an opinion formed from a reasonable extrapolation of the history of Linux.
Yup. It means exactly what I think it means.
Linus tends to keep high politics (as opposed to interpersonal politics) out of what he does. RMS does just the opposite; from the GPL to his public statements, everything is shaded in politics, ethics, and dogma. This makes Linus easier to work with, because he isn't preaching at you. Again, you can agree with something, and still not want to have it shoved down your throat. I support PBS, but I treat their fundraisers just like any other telemarketter if I receive unsolicited calls.
As far as crediting contributors, I agree. The question is: at what point is a contribution considered significant enough to warrent high-level credit? Should we start calling it "Kerningham/Richie/Gnu/Linux"? K&R have made much more of a contribution to Linux than either Gnu or Linus. Maybe Gentoo should be called "Python/Gentoo", because so much of what defines Gentoo is Portage, which is a Python app.
This message was not run through a spell checker, including my own brain.
It's not that RMS "doesn't like" Linux, it's that he and the FSF deserve credit for writing pretty much all of the OS people call "Linux" (except the kernel and XFree86.)
It may well be that GNU's style (overblown, bloated with features, overdesigned) may be the 100% wrong way to build a kernel; we'll see.
"No bullshit. There is a conspicuous absence of a popular non-Linux Gnu distribution. This is the only proof I need to show that Linus, not RMS, was the motivating force behind Linux."
Bullshit. There is a conspicuous absence of popular non-GNU Linux distributions too. There isn't a point either way. That doesn't saying anything about motivating factors, either.
As far as "dogma," it just means a set of beliefs, any set of beliefs. Unless you want to consider GNU a religion, then you're just being childish.
"As far as crediting contributors, I agree. The question is: at what point is a contribution considered significant enough to warrent high-level credit?"
This is as much bullshit too. What you are really arguing is for no name whatsoever. You're saying there is no one worthy enough to get to decide the name. Thats bullshit, we need to name the system something.
Somehow you think that the kernel is significant enough to warrant be the name of the operating system as a whole, while the GNU system isn't. The FSF take the opposite stance: that GNU is a primary contribution to the system and that Linux and all the other applications and services are secondary contributions.
There are a lot of valid reasons why this makes sense. I think it'd be a waste of time to go into these here, but if you want I'll go through them.
But I think the larger point is why people don't like GNU. It has nothing to do with logic really, its about how people feel. Some people just really don't like RMS--for both legitemate and illegitemate reasons. Some people are *really* fond of Linus as the posterboy, and believe that he should get the credit for "inventing the operating system" [sic]. In that respect, its simply a popularity contest. But the most important reason, I think, is that they don't understand what RMS is shooting for. Linus does, but has rejected it. Perens groks it, and is trying to get the media to pick up on it. Raymond gets it, but I think he sees it as a challenge to his ego. But all three of these hackers are way ahead of you.
The Free Software Philosophy is Stallman's, its all his. Not everyone agrees with it but a lot of very talented hackers have picked up on parts of it--but don't take it to the extreme that Stallman does. This is just as well, since taking any philosophy to an extreme is pretty crazy. But saying the philosophy itself isn't important is a severe understatement.
But if you don't understand it, what people who believe in it do may seem mystical to you. Heck, to Bill Gates opening source code seems mystiscal. So you'll find yourself galloping around calling GNU a religion doctrine. But please, put it in context. If the philosophy is wrong, criticize it. Its funny, after almost two decades of bashing GNU I haven't seen any real critisms on the GNU philosophy itself. All I see is people trumpetting ignorance around.
Really, y'all can do better than that.