Slashdot Mirror
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."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
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.
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 ?
This 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 :-)
"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
Come on, RMS. Posting as AC again?
My Journal - 1,337 fans and countin
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.
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
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.
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.
"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.
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.