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Linus Moves To OSDL, Will Work On Kernel Full-Time
worldwideweber writes "With the announcement of the release of the 2.5.72 version of the Linux kernel came the news that Linus Torvalds will be leaving Transmeta for OSDL to work on the linux kernel full-time. The email calls this a leave of absence for about one year." Update: 06/17 17:19 GMT by T : As many readers have pointed out, the length of Linus' leave is not actually specified in this email.
My god.
You actually *paid* for the privelidge of being the idiot who FPs an article?
You really need to get out more (says the person who's been visiting every five minutes to see this story come out of the future).
From: Linus Torvalds
/how/ freely Transmeta has let me do Linux work. My email address will
;) press-release about this tomorrow morning, but I just
To: Kernel Mailing List
Subject: Linux v2.5.72 and a move to OSDL
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 21:35:09 -0700 (PDT)
Ok, I waited too long for 2.5.71, so here's a more timely 2.5.72
release.
It's extra timely largely because the hash list poisoning found some
problems in the RPC code, making NFS break. Trond found and fixed the
breakage, so 2.5.72 should work fine in an NFS environment too. Let's
see if the list poisoning shows any other dodgy list users. Knock wood.
Also, Arnaldo has cleaned up a lot of the networking code to use the
generic hash lists, instead of the old ad-hoc net-specific list walking
code. That code has been tested pretty well, but please holler if you
see something.
Changelog for other details appended.
The other big news - well, for me personally, anyway - is that I've
decided to take a leave-of-absense after 6+ years at Transmeta to
actually work full-time on the kernel.
Transmeta has always been very good at letting me spend even an
inordinate amount of time on Linux, but as a result I've been feeling a
little guilty at just how little "real work" I got done lately. To fix
that, I'll instead be working at OSDL, finally actually doing Linux as
my main job.
[ I do not expect a huge amount of change as a result, testament to just
change to "torvalds@osdl.org" effective July 1st, but everybody is
trying to make the transfer as smooth as possible, so we'll make sure
that there will be sufficient address overlap etc to not cause any
problems ]
OSDL and Transmeta will have a joint official (read: "boring". You
should have seen the bio - that didn't make it - that I suggested for
myself for it
wanted to say thanks to Transmeta. It has been a special place to work
for, and hello to OSDL that I hope will be the same.
Snif. I'm actually all teary-eyed.
Linus
- tom -
Has he got his clearance certificate from SCO?
Have the Chinese agreed to 'release' him from Transmeta?
(this last one hurts a bit)...
while extolling the Linux kernel, we used to say:
Hey, MS spends $5bn in R&D for a lousy OS. A single chappie named Linus maintains the entire Linux kernel in his spare time! Can't say that any more...
Anyways, all the best!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Trying not to be overly cynical here is a bit difficult. When Transmeta needed publicity they hired Linus which gave them un-rivaled, and often uncritical, coverage in the US which certainly will have helped in fund-raising. The initial visions and hype have not lived up to their expectations, and especially in the low power end of the market where ARM processors continue to dominate.
Now that Transmeta are trying to move into a more corporate sphere there is less demand for a posterboy like Linus.
Its great that Linus is dedicated to the Linux kernel full time, but how much of this is leaving through dedication (for a year) and how much is a result of disappointment at Transmeta not living up to its hype.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
...as he is just about to hand over maintenance of 2.5/2.6 to Andrew Morton. So maybe he actually hopes to do some hacking again, instead of just integrating other peoples' work. Cool!
OSDN, The parent of Slashdot, has filed a lawsuit against Linus today for cut-and-pasting the first three letters of OSDN.
CmdrTaco was quoted and saying "Linus and this Shift-Insert stuff is getting WAY out of control".
Linus was unavailable to paste in a reply.
1. Work on open source projects .com startup; startup tanks
2. No profit
3. Get jealous; go to
4. No profit
5. Return to open source projects
6. No profit
His itinerary includes a brief stop-over in Utah, during which time he will hunt down Darl McBride and maul his body beyond recognition. His court defense will be temporary sanity and David Boies will merrily defend him to acquittal.
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
There's a leak in the Linus kernel, someone please post a patch.
Linus Torvalds has very recently stated that spam filtering -- right in the kernel -- is now a slated feature for Linux 2.6.
My journal has hot
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Kudos to Transmeta for hiring Linus in the first place ( even if they did transport him to the USA in reach of overlitigious bastards such as The SCO Group ) and supporting his work on Linux for so many years.
There's something about these two changes I find amusing. I admit I have no idea what they mean, which is probably why:
Daniel Ritz:
o [PCMCIA] fix yenta unload oops
David S. Miller:
o [TCP]: Use proper time_*() comparisons on jiffies
OSDL is dedicated to enabling Linux and Linux-based applications for data center and carrier-class deployment. We provide the crucial hardware for testing and development at this level, giving open source developers around the world the resources needed to bring Linux further into telecommunications and the enterprise. We are an independently governed, non-profit organization supported by 21 industry leaders.
Sounds cool
That letter is awesome. It's great to have a real, honest, genuine human-being to rally behind.
This is the greatest things about open-source: the people. People who are willing to donate so much time and effort to the benefit of everyone on earth as opposed to people who want to screw over the world so they can make themselves rich.
We're much better off than those cheering on phony, cut-throat business men who run and jump around a stage like monkies to the tune of Gloria Estefan.
Why bother.
Too true, especially when you look down at the bottom of his email:
Trond Myklebust:
o Fix rpc dentry list usage
o Copy comments from System V file system routines to make it more "unix like."
I submitted this a few hours ago (always a bridesmaid, *snif*), along with two links not in the story above. One was to the NY Times story about it. The other was to this story which just came out at Wired . . .a brief interview with Linus about his efforts to stand apart from political issues surrounding Open Source, which refers to the
discussion here on Slashdot
about his opinions on incorporating DRM into the Linux kernel (among other things).
From the nytimes article, about OSDL:
The organization was created with an investment of $20 million from I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Computer Associates, NEC and Fujitsu.
What no SCO?
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Nice troll. I'll answer anyway.
1) Who knows? XFree86 draws my windows just fine. 3d is plenty fast using Nvidia drivers. 90% of desktops users won't care what's going on "under the hood".
2) See 1. Prolly does need a clean up, but I'd say the same about Windows registry. LFS gives good reasons for locations, and there's also good reasons to retain Unix-ness.
3) Bollocks. Development is astronomically fast.
4) Usability is being addressed by both KDE and Gnome. Again, how much maintaining does the average user actually do? As far as software management goes, if RedCarpet or Up2Date is too hard, I honestly don't know how much easier it would need to be.
Finally the SCO suit is showing some effect! Linux's leader is abdicating and fleeing the scene. Exactly as the nazis left Germany and took up hiding in South America.
I guess that this means we can all get back to conducting serious business based on SCO Unix - the bread and butter of many a development company.
(In 20 years time we'll probably see Torvalds daughter marrying the Swedish king!)
While we are posting stories about people changing jobs...
Just last week I started a new job after a long and tedious four and a half year tenure at my former job. In this new job I'll finally get to work on things other than fighting fires. I'm very excited. Just thought everyone would like to know.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
So let's see, we could :
1) Scrap KDE and Gnome, put *all* the code into XFree itself, that way everyone is stuck with whatever "paradigms" you think up
2) Stick every single configuration file into one GIANT configuration file, which would be so big and monsterous that it would require a binary format, along with a special program to edit it and a bunch of API calls to modify it
3) Make 7-10 different versions of the OS, all built on essentially the same thing, but each requiring their own set of patches and updates
4) Launch a huge marketing campaign to brainwash people into thinking your product delivers a great "experience"
Well then you'd just have Windows.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
...posted on Slashdot, you ARE the alpha geek.
That is all.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
What is a kernel? And who is this Linus guy? WINDOWS XP Rocks!
How many of us can honestly say that we're doing what we love to do? And not just "working at an appropriately geek/tech job" either. I mean, this guy started a project as a hobby, people found value in it, and now he gets a salary to maintain it as he sees fit. When you look at history, even people like Michaelangelo who got to do what they liked doing, and got paid to do it, still had to work on someone else's project. "Michaelangelo, paint this ceiling, something in a biblical motif." Even top athletes get told who to play and when. Not many people have, or have ever had, as sweet a deal as Linus. I have several projects, as well as other non-geeky hobbies, that I scarcely have time for. I wish I could get paid to work on them. Heck, I'd settle for simply having more time for them without pay.
Constitutionally Correct
> There's not a single chance for SCO to sue them.
Not having a good case hasn't stopped them before...