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Wired Interview with Linus Torvalds
Tones125 writes "Wired has a lengthy interview with Linus Torvalds contrasting the tedium of his humble life with his superhero cult status, and also briefly mentioning his take on the SCO mess, Richard Stallman and John "maddog" Hall. My favourite quote: "He jokingly refers to himself as Linux's hood ornament"."
I used to jokingly call my (now ex) girlfriend a hood ornament.
I work as a consultant for several fortune 500 companies, and I think I can shed a little light on the climate of the open source community at the moment. I believe that part of the reason that open source based startups are failing left and right is not an issue of marketing as it's commonly believed but more of an issue of the underlying technology.
I know that that's a strong statement to make, but I have evidence to back it up! At one of the major corps(5000+ employees) that I consult for, we wanted to integrate the shareware version of Linux into our server pool. The allure of not having to pay any restrictive licensing fees was too great to ignore. I reccomended the nstallation of several boxes running the new 2.4.9 kernel, and my hopes were high that it would perform up to snuff with the Windows 2k boxes which were(and still are!) doing an AMAZING job at their respective tasks of serving HTTP requests, DNS, and fileserving.
I consider myself to be very technically inclined having programmed in VB for the last 8 years doing kernel level programming. I don't believe in C programming because contrary to popular belief, VB can go
just as low level as C and the newest VB compiler generates code that's every bit as fast. I took it upon myself to configure the system from scratch and even used an optimised version of gcc 3.1 to increase the execution speed of the binaries. I integrated the 3 machines I had configured into the server pool, and I'd have to say
the results were less than impressive... We all know that linux isn't even close to being ready for the desktop, but I had heard that it was supposed to perform decently as a "server" based operating system. The
3 machines all went into swap immediately, and it was obvious that they weren't going to be able to handle the load in this "enterprise" environment. After running for less than 24 hours, 2 of them had experienced kernel panics caused by Bind and Apache crashing! Granted, Apache is a volunteer based project written by weekend hackers in their spare time while Microsft's IIS has an actual professional full fledged development team devoted to it. Not to mention the fact that
the Linux kernel itself lacks any support for any type of journaled filesystem, memory protection, SMP support, etc, but I thought that since Linux is based on such "old" technology that it would run with some level of stability. After several days of this type of behaviour, we decided to reinstall windows 2k on the boxes to make sure it wasn't a hardware problem that was causing things to go wrong. The machines instantly shaped up and were seamlessly reintegrated into the server
pool with just one Win2K machine doing more work than all 3 of the Linux boxes.
Needless to say, I won't be reccomending Linux/FSF to anymore of my clients. I'm dissappointed that they won't be able to leverege the free cost of Linux to their advantage, but in this case I suppose the old adage stands true that, "you get what you pay for." I would have also liked to have access to the source code of the applications that we're running on our mission critical systems; however, from the looks of it, the Microsoft "shared source" program seems to offer all of the same freedoms as the GPL.
As things stand now, I can understand using Linux in academia to compile simple "Hello World" style programs and learn C programming, but I'm afraid that for anything more than a hobby OS, Windows 98/NT/2K are your only choices.
Oh, great.
With so many Slashdot users not reading the Wired article, now Wired will suffer a massive loss of advertising revenue due to so many people not accessing their site.
Is it just me, or is Linus' attitude towards Linux, Microsoft, etc. one of nonchalance? It just doesn't seem that he cares one way or another as to what happens. Is this the mark of a man of utter confidence? Or, is this someone who is just relaxed to the point of almost being stoned?
Having never met him personally, I'm curious as to what people who have interacted with him in person make of his personality.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Excuse me, but some of us female slashdotters like hearing about how Torvald looks. He's cuter than I imagined he would be.
Can I bum a sig?
This is more true than you know. According to the article, Stallman declined to be interviewed for the article unless the article used "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux" throughout. Which would have effectively made the article about him and not Linus.
Stallman may be smart and may have accomplished great things, but his actions bespeak a petulant toddler more than a great man of vision.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Shouldn't it be SCO/GNU/Linux?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Quite sad really, the way he dismisses Richard Stallman and the GNU project as a failed project predating Linux and now trying to cash in on Linux' good name by renaming it GNU/Linux.
Stallman refused to appear in the article unless the reporter got his terminology straight, which is reported as "Stallman insists Torvalds' work should properly be called GNU/Linux, because early contributors adapted GNU components for Linux - never mind that the Linux core is non-GNU and now approaches 6 million lines of code."
He further reports that "He obstinately rejects the term open source despite its now near universal use, preferring free software, the name he coined."
If the reporter had checked his facts just a little bit, he would have realised that GNU/Linux refers to GNU systems using the Linux kernel. Further, he would learn and that open source was coined to renounce some of the ideas behind free software. The names can never be interchangable.
The article also clearly states that while Linus started hacking on a kernel, he later wrote an entire operating system. It is quite clear that the writer actually believes this, despite being told otherwise by the actual original creator of the operating system most oftenly used with Linux. Why he chose not to check this claim baffles me.
As someone who believes that a correct retelling of history is crucial to progress, I am appalled at this blatant disregard of the truth.
...ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Duh!
Real programmer's marry kung fu.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
The fact that Linus seems to lead an `every-day' sort of "boring" life (his word, not mine) just makes him that much more likeable, imho.
We couldn't have asked for a better hero.
do() || do_not();
The interviewer seems to hold a grudge against Stallman for refusing the interview and completely misstates the GNU/Linux discussion. He actually writes:
But this is bullocks. Linux is just a kernel. Completely unusuable without things like ls and bash for example. And all those components are GNU components. Even the compiler to produce that kernel is GNU. The list goes on. Using Linux for the entire package is just as wrong as using just GNU.
Calling something Linux without acknowledging all the years Stallman has spend writing the tools that make a Unix kernel possible is wrong and hypocritical. And if Stallman didn't defend that, who would?
If I had a sig, I would put it here.
"And although Torvalds released the kernel of his operating system well before GNU produced a reliable one of its own, Stallman insists Torvalds' work should properly be called GNU/Linux, because early contributors adapted GNU components for Linux"
I couldn't image a more incorrect way to describe the GNU/Linux vs. Linux debate. could someone due a little research when writing an article? All the author would ahve to do is read ONE webpage on www.fsf.org to see how biased and wrong this is.
I doubt Linus would agree with that statement. Unles the FSF has recently changed its stance I don't believe they have ever under any circumstances asked that a piece of software written by, or overseen by Linus be called "GNU/Linux".
Although your article about Linus Torvalds did a nice job of giving readers a good idea of the kind of person he is, I wonder why you felt it necessary to devote a paragraph to bashing Richard Stallman, with the only connection to Mr. Torvalds being his non-response to questions regarding Mr. Stallman. Moreover, I was disappointed by the fairly gross inaccuracies in your bashing. As you acknowledge, Richard Stallman is a forefather of the Free Software movement. He leads a philosophical school of thought that many consider to be fanatical, and he is not shy about defending his principles. This you also acknowledge.
What you completely misrepresent, however, is his contribution to the operating system you refer to as "Linux." He, and others working with him (not Mr. Torvalds) developed many essential components still used in most of the free Unix-like operating systems used today, including all variants based on Linux. These components include compilers and assemblers (essential for application development), text editors, various essential utilities, and many, many more applications. These people have, however, failed so far in producing the most essential piece in a working Unix subsitute: a viable replacement for the Unix kernel. This is what Mr. Torvalds did, and that is what Linux is: a kernel.
Thus, the 6 million lines of code in the Linux kernel form only a small part of a complete Linux-based operating system. There are many other components, and a large number of them are GNU software without which the operating system would be useless. For this Mr. Stallman would like you to call the complete operating system a GNU/Linux system. Frankly, I don't think this is too much to ask. Also, please note that no one demands that you call "Torvalds' work" GNU/Linux. They simply ask that you not use the umbrella term "Linux" to refer to everything working with the Linux kernel (the only part which is Mr. Torvald's work).
You write, "Torvalds released the kernel of his operating system well before GNU produced a reliable one of its own," as if there is some kind of competition which GNU software writers lost, and about which they are now whining. In reality, Mr. Torvalds did not write his own operating system; he wrote a kernel that worked with the operating system GNU was already developing, and today we use both together.
Many disagree with Mr. Stallman's ideals, and find him to be a generally unlikable character, and you may be one of them. But to deny his significant contributions to Linux-based operating systems out of ignorance or spite is simply unacceptable journalism.
I put this question to you: have you ever seen a musician who was any good on the street? I've seen a few. Very few, and mostly in Europe or high-traffic areas of New York. Instead of a cup, they had a music case open. Usually it's got quite a bit of currency at the bottom. People will stop what they are doing and applaud at the end of sets. They usually end up moving on to better things at coffee shops or Jazz clubs.
Besides, who needs food when you have code...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Everyone who writes code for the kernel does so to improve the kernel, not satisfy their ego. The ego seekers quickly get bored or disgusted and move on. Slashdot should have a similar system if you ask me.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Chris, I have nothing against Mr. Stallman. I've never met him nor spoke to him, though I watched the documentary "Revolutionary OS" and found him rather engaging. He seems a man of principle, even if I believe he's too much of a purist for his own good, and for the good of the cause.
While I appreciate your taking the time to write so thoughtful a note, I respectfully disagree with your core point. It's an issue I've thought a lot about. The kernel is hardly only a small part of an OS. To me what you and Mr. Stallman are asking--that we in the media call Linux instead GNU/Linux--is akin to suggesting that beef stew would more accurately be called beef, carrot and potato stew. Sure, carrots and potatoes are absolutely essential, but boiled down to its essence its beef.
For the record, I did a lot of research on this point, and didn't non-chalantly decide to use Linux as opposed to GNU/Linux. I made a decision--and halfway through the piece acknowledge that some would prefer GNU/Linux.
By the by, I never said Mr. Torvalds wrote his own operating system, as your letter suggests. Of course it was a world full of programmers who did that.
Thanks for taking the time to write,
Gary Rivlin
Actors, Musicians, Politicians, and the like are just people. The only real difference is that they've done something or been somewhere at the right time to make news. I think that people who go out of their way to remain in the news even when they've done nothing to merit it are the most pathetic types out there. This is why Torvalds is cool. Because he doesn't come across as attempting to live to make headlines, actions of his that actually have ramifications make news.
I'm sorry, but I refuse to recognize that politicians are just people. They are reptiles in humanoid form, perhaps.
This isn't meant to be taken seriously, of course, politicians are just not deserving of much respect in my book.
Peace and love, y'all