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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."

11 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. see & hear the interview by Alain+Williams · · Score: 4, Informative

    Visit:

    http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_clickon li ne.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=3

    realplayer is needed to see this.

  2. Quote ... by uq1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "No-one has ever called me a cool dude. I'm somewhere between geek and normal," he said.

    Linus, You're a cool dude.

  3. Few thoughts. by cioxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  4. In other news... by echophase · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  5. Tux by BorgDrone · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is it just me or did Tux gain weight ?

  6. Much longer video interview by seldolivaw · · Score: 5, Informative

    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 :-)

  7. Re:Can you imagine RMS giving the interview? by Sunnan · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't have to imagine anything.
    Here is a BBC interview with RMS.

    I thought it was great, but then again, I like RMS.

  8. Yeah, I know a few people who would by Em+Emalb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "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.
  9. quote for /. zealots by targo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:Show Some Respect! by TheKey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Come on, RMS. Posting as AC again?

    --
    My Journal - 1,337 fans and countin
  11. OT: Re:Can you imagine RMS giving the interview? by Chops · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.