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Linus Holds Forth On the Future of Linux
colinmc151 writes "As part of Geekcruises' Linux Lunacy cruise to Alaska, Linus Torvalds was interviewed and answered questions about where he sees the future of Linux with a particular eye towards developers. Great stuff."
How come nobody ever asks Linus what he thinks about Mac OS X ?
The open source developers will be amongst the last to see their (volunteer) jobs exported to India and China!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Clearly most people who use Linux on the desktop tend to be pretty technical, right now. The nice thing is that is changing. It's changing mainly inside companies that just decided, "Hey, our secretaries are actually better off using Linux, because we don't want them playing solitaire.
So much for all those ideals of freedom.
A very interesting read. However, I was surprised to find no comments at all concerning OSX, wrt the future of linux on the desktop. I mean, if anything in the last two years has obviated the need for linux on the desktop, this is it.
It sounds like getting onto the desktop is important to him. He talks about the problems affecting kernel space - poor support from latop hardware mfrs being a big one... but really the kernel is NOT what's holding up the success of linux on the desktop. We need easier setup and a useable interface.
An interesting read, but as ever i never seem to get an understanding of how Linux is going to convert the other 99% to microsoft.
Torvalds might be saviour to the linux community, but thats where it stops. Frankly, The OS either needs some drastic marketting plans or a couple of well placed PR people if it ever wants to make some headway. Bill Gates & Microsoft didn't get rich of the quality of their programming.
I thought no one used Forth anymore. Now Linus tells us it is the future of Linux?
Seriously though, is it just me, or is the title phrased in a peculiar manner?
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
He pretty much dodged that question. He made a vague reference to locking down pcs and how linux is much better at it ? Sorry but you can do that on windows as well.
Folks have said this before but it bears repeat, oss shouldnt be trying to clone windows, it should be trying to innovate something new...but hey what do i know
Someone should tell desperate, single women about this.
There might be an explosion as the matter of women and anti-matter of geeks annihilate each other. What a way to go out with a bang, though!
Besides, Linus could use some groupies. It'll make Gates jealous at the very least.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Is that where a huge luxury liner sails through beautiful waters and near exotic locations and not a single person is on deck because they'd a) be away from their computer and b) have to stand in the sun?
Hi all,
/usr/bin/perl
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about where Linux development should
head now that 2.6 is out. Specifically, I've been thinking about how we
ought to make some cultural changes as well as technical changes. Now I'm
not *entirely* sure what directions we should head in as we move towards
3.0, but I'd like to point out a few areas that need to be addressed as well
as propose some possible solutions. Nothing is set in stone yet, but these
are definitely issues we need to work on.
First off, I don't like a lot of the elitism that does on among Linux
hackers. Just because you can tell what the following script does without
executing it, doesn't mean that you're some kind of god.
#!
@k = unpack "a"x5,'x_,d@';@o = unpack "a"x19,'Q8>tUxLm\@`Y%N@cIq]';
while ($i19){print chr((ord($o[$i])-ord($k[$i++%5])+91)%91+32);}
Learning to hack Un*x is an impressive accomplishment, but it's closer kin
to solving a Rubik's cube than scaling Everest. If you think using Un*x
makes you some kind of super genius who should be feared by mere mortals and
end users, either get over it or start using *BSD. *BSD users (and
developers) are all complete jackasses, so you'll fit right in.
Secondly, I'd like to address the issue of cleanliness. Quite frankly, the
standards of personal hygiene practiced by many members of this community
are simply unacceptable. As you all know, I am a fairly clean cut,
well-kempt person (I know, I have a bit of a gut, but compared to Maddog,
Nick Petreley or ESR, I'm a modern Adonis.), and in the Linux community that
is something of an anomaly. Virtually all users of Linux (and all other
forms of Un*x) are unkempt, longhaired, beast-bearded dirty GNU hippies, and
I am sick and tired of having to deal with them.
The person I have the greatest problem with is that (in)famous communist
RMS. Now, RMS may have been responsible for GNU, the GPL, GCC and many
other contributions to the computing community, but his stance, as well as
stench, displayed in his essays and actions, nauseates me. I mean, with
that filth-ridden beard of his, where does he have room to demand that
people refer to Linux as GNU / Linux? When he is as clean-shaven as I, he
may claim that right, but until then, he should go back to playing his
little flute and dropping acid like there's no tomorrow. Honestly, if he
doesn't shut his mouth and go back to reading Marx, I'm going to shut it for
him. I am sorry to sound so harsh, but a little hygiene every once in a
while is a Good Thing(TM). Makes me wish I'd gone with a closed source
license back in the day.
Next in line of dirty scuzz-balls I have to deal with, and probably the
worst thorn in my side, is Alan Cox, the primary coder of my kernel's TCP/IP
stack (ha, what a joke!) and all around dirty GNU hippy. Alan views
toothpaste the same way a vampire views garlic. The man's wife (who I spent
a few years with at the University of Helsinki) often calls me crying in the
middle of the night to complain of the rank, unbearable stench the man
exudes after sex. On several occasions at trade shows, exhibitions and beer
bashes, I have nearly fainted from the torrent of rotten odor that pours
from every inch of his toxic person. Along with the typical GNU hygiene
(mis)habits he practices, he also bitches and whines about... well,
everything. He lies a lot too; evidence for this can be seen in the fact he
almost always wears cheap black sunglasses when talking to people he knows
are better than him (such as myself).
And then we come to ESR. I won't reiterate the sewer-dweller like cleansing
habits he practices as well, but I would like to focus on his general
lifestyle. I like to refer to ESR as AGB or "Arrogant Gas Baron." The man'
s flatulence is legendary. I honestly believe that given a meal of refried
Apparently people think it's allright when you have a bias for superior technology, or for example, a bias that the earth is round rather than flat. But when it comes to a bias in favor of free (as in freedom, not beer) then all of a sudden it becomes so taboo - not even Linus wants to have that bias. I think that is such a shame, hasn't history shown that it's a worthy and rational bias by now?
Just my opinion.
The future of Linux in the short term is to take the marketshare which OSX/Apple currently has, in the long term I can see Linux running on PS3, I can see Linux running on a networked media center, in school computer labs, and on laptops. I think Linux needs to take the Desktop.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
I would be happy to say anything bad about software patents if I could just ... formulate a sentence that makes sense.
;-)
Linus Torvalds
There you go. Don't tell anyone you got it from me
"Folks have said this before but it bears repeat, oss shouldnt be trying to clone windows, it should be trying to innovate something new...but hey what do i know"
Yeah! It's called MacOS X. Now don't stand in the way of the stampede.
"psychology is so important. It made a huge difference to call it [the newest Linux kernel] 2.60 Test 1. Because we started getting a lot of bug reports from people who would never touch 2.5.79 with a ten-foot pole. Even though it was the same code. Especially on the desktop that's the only way to test it. Because desktops are just so varied that you literally have to get it tested by the user base."
I suddenly understand why 2.6 has been in the works all this time, it's brilliant. I'd think analysis like this would lend developers into more and more X.X changes instead of X.X.X.XX.X... going that deep into releases just isn't practical, especially when you're needing people to help out.
I went into science a long time ago thinking it'd be so great because it wouldn't involve people's silly perceptions and personal idiosynchrocies but I've come to find the opposite, and I've come to find that it's not always bad to have technical people be "human" after all. If that makes any sense.
In other news, I still don't know how to correctly pronounce Linux.
spacefem.com
I normally don't care about spelling errors, but my god, there had to be over 50 different ones in that article. I know the spelling nazis on /. will have a field day with this one. Amazing how educated people, be they programmers or journalists, can't spell.
But an excellent article none the less.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Reminds me of that guys keynote speech, Linus might think there will be a focus on developers, but will he stand there sweaty on a stage and repeat it like 37 times.
Funny part is it seemed to me watching the vid as part of a red-vs-blue skit that he was trying ot start a chant or some clapping neither of which materilized, near the ned sounded like he was crying.
Jesus saves, everyone else takes full damage from the fireball.
Sub Captain: "Captain to ops." .50 cal on deck....'
Ops: "Ops here."
Captain: "I need a solution. Target bearing 323. Speed 16 knots. Distance: 5600 meters"
Ops: "Aye Aye. Solution ready."
Captain: "Tropedo room."
TR: "Aye."
Captain: "Ready and load tubes 1,3,5."
TR: "Aye. Tubes loaded and ready."
Captain: "Fire 1,3,5. Call run times!"
Fire Control: "Fish away."
Sonar: "Explosions, sir!"
Captain: "Excellent."
Sonar: "Sir, something disturbing."
Captain: "What?"
Sonar: "Strange screams of anguish."
Captain: "Huh? Don't let your emotions rule you son."
Sonar: "No sir. Just things like: 'I can't swim.' 'Where's my inhaler?' 'What? No backups?' 'Save the Anime DVDs!' 'There ain't no women and children here, save Linus first!' 'Leave RMS behind. He's old and bitter. Tis a better fate.' 'You have been, and always will be, my friend.'
Captain: 'Surface!'
Number One: 'Will we take on survivors?'
Captain: 'Prepare the
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
"Q: (Something about pushing stuff down into the kernel.)
Linus: Nobody wants to. There are actually a few things that people are trying to do in user space, and they should be doing more in kernel space."
I'm sure that he wasn't thinking of this specifically, but it's something that I find troubling with 2.6. As long as Linux remains a monolithic kernel, removing something like devfs from the kernel and replacing it with a userspace implementation like udev is madness, idiotic and just a really bad idea.
Is there any project which has as its goal providing tha coherent network-distributed (or fibre-channel distributed) filesystem that Linus intelligently realizes is a critical need?
> Q: I work for a company with three letters. Name one without.
The Law of Falling Bodies
I will be very surprised if them SCO jackasses don't jump on this quote as Linus admitting his guilt. They've misconstrued and misappropriated less usable quotes by RMS, Perens ad others.
Two things:
1-How many OSS developers are Indian or Chinese?
2-How is an OSS developer going to be "exported" from his country?
BTW Taco! Fix your site. Mozilla 1.4 posting is broken. IE and Konq work fine.
The reason why apple was able to build a user friendly Unix for the desktop is because most of the work was already done for them when they bought NeXT and decided to base OS X on NeXT. That is not to say they couldn't have done it otherwise, but it certinly gave them a jump start.
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
Linus: I don't care. I used to be a lot more worried about it. A long time ago I used to be worried about companies having their own (garbled) about doing this stuff.
Are we sure that Linus wasn't saying gollum?
Whoops!
I mean... er... uhh... Cursed Yellow Face!! It burnses us! We hateses it! Yessss preciouss... We hateses it!!
I mean.. how often do coders actually go outside? Huh?
do() || do_not();
Delivering a reliable, eye candy, popular desktop OS.
You can hardly call that the goal of linux. If you like such a os, well yeah, go ahead and buy MacOS. But to me MacOS is fucking bloated and expensive. I want an os to be configurable, stable and resource friendly. Linux has it's own goals and ideals and definately isn't a substitute for MacOS. It would be really stupid just to copy an existing OS.
- Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
One of the questions in the interview is:
Q: (Something about somebody rendering an image in space using Linux on an IBM laptop.)?
I believe this is the image: Reach for the stars
Apple's acquisition of NeXT wasn't as much of buying a whole new company, but a reunification of a split company.
Of course. The best way to outcompete those who work for next to nothing is to work for nothing.
What's another word for Thesaurus?
-Steve Wright
For thousands of years there were many many people who believed that you shouldn't have to pay for things that you want. The fact that such people continue to exist, must necessarily constitute a historical proof that such beliefs are indeed worthy and rational. (Note that free as in "speech" is usually accompanied by free as in "beer", blurring the distinction by the simple observation that neither product makes any money for its developer. Look at RedHat, for example, which makes no money at all from its software, but nevertheless is able to keep itself from bankrupcy by holding hands of those few who are not able to install it themselves.)
A lot of people want to polish it for 2.6 [dollars] And the thing is, we don't want it polished. We want it solid as a rock. And it is okay to be scruffy-looking like a rock too. But it has to be solid.
Linus Torvalds, talking about his penis.
I think one of the big issues that is holding back Linux for desktop users is the fact the OS still does not completely support automatic configuration of hardware, especially hot-docked devices through the USB and IEEE-1394 ports. This is something that Windows has done pretty well, especially with Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Home/Professional.
I'm hoping that Linux will incorporate the Open Source equivalent of the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) which has been used since Windows 98.
Great stuff
I'm not part of the open-source dev community other than it being a personal hobby, so I consider myself just a user. Still, anything pro-Linux is good news to me too. I'm loving my Linux box more and more since I set it up "just because I was curious". There are a few caveats I have, some things that I wish were more Windows-like, but nothing to get your panties in a twist about. Basically, the system has run flawlessly since I set it up, with the exception of that damn Seti@Home software nearly burning up my processor. Windows would have locked up or crashed several times since then. The only problem I have had is with Evolution crashing on exit, but only once in a blue moon, and even then nothing is corrupt.
I'm always pissed off when I have to upgrade or migrate to a newer version of windows, something always gets lost or has to be left behind. Linux is damn near perfect though; I've got total wood for it.
Spread the RC luvin'
Linux will never get Apple's marketshare. OS X is a Rolls Royce of a desktop operating system, bought buy people with as much money as sense. The first thing I hear the average Linux/Windows user say about OS X is 'it seems quite expensive'. Linux's target market should be the people who don't/won't/can't pay for Windows.
I've since lost the link, but a friend of mine (At CU in Boulder, CO) is putting together the main software package used on a small satellite. If I remember correctly, he's using at least some linux stuff on it... Something like that anyway. If indeed it is running Linux, once it lanuches it should set some sort of record for the highest use of Linux.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
I think the biggest single thing that has happened on the (garbled) have been a lot of good library frameworks. Qt in particular I think made a huge difference.
OpenOffice is still, in my opinion, a complete disaster. And part of the reason is that it's not using any of these frameworks that were signed for different applications. It built its own framework. I am told people are trying to fix it.
Qt guys should focus on porting openoffice using the QT framework. Openoffice is great, but a QT port would be totally awesome. Even linus thiks so
Apple's marketshare is gradually declining towards sub 1% levels anyway. The last thing anyone in a competitive position would do is worry about stealing Apple's measly business.
I find Linus' comment about visual basic very interesting. We're dealing with the issue of how to make it easy for people to put together the same kind of bespoke application with tools like kjsembed. This lets you write applications using Javascript - you have access to things like KDE's DB support, XMLGUI facilities and UIs created with Qt Designer. Maybe after a couple more release cycles that could become a 'killer app' for linux.
For an embedded system, you may be right -- a microkernel may be more flexible and secure. But the communication overhead between modules may make it less efficient for small devices, which may be why Linux is doing well in the embedded devices market as well.
Let's face it, an embedded device is pretty much defined by the fact that the OS shouldn't need to be changed by the user outside of ROM upgrades, so the theory that the microkernel may be more flexible is a moot point beyond production of a particular unit. As the Linux kernel size can be greatly reduced by compiling only with the needed features, size isn't much of an issue either.
Personally, I can see legitimate arguments on both sides of the micro/macro kernel debate, but ultimately I think Linus is right. Making and keeping the design as simple as possible (and no simpler) is the best design. That, and the potential communications overhead with a poorly designed microkernel are the winning arguements for me. Your mileage may vary.
Nice post, classic spelling mistake. I'll let you go this time. Just don't do it again.
Yours,
Agent Smith
Department for spelling and grammar
The Internet Police
Woah, can you imagine how the OpenOffice developers must feel after reading that?
If I was working on some huge Linux project and Linus said it was a disaster, I'd feel pretty bad. I probably wouldn't stop building it or anything, but it'd be a downer.
"DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!"
"....YES!"
(obligatory extra text to evade the lameness filter. Yes, there are lots of caps there. I was quoting Ballmer. Stupid filter...)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
...and I'm your man.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
Linux should not have a goal market share. It doesn't make sense for Linux (you can argue all you want). Linux should focus on being the best technological solution. It's as simple as that.
It should read #ifdefs surely?
What is this, 423 geek men vie for the attention of eight geek ladies in a romantic setting?
Uhm... to an average user, it may be. For me (being myself an average Linux user) Red Hat 8 & co. are bloated and expensive: yes, my time (just like for most of IT professionals) is more expensive than what it costs to purchase Mac OS X 10.3.
That of course by taking into account the time I need to spend every time I have to figure out how to do something sysadmin-like in Linux - time which I don't need to waste if I develop on Mac OS X (which for a lot of SW development, is quite similar to Linux). And my PBG4 is less expensive than my colleagues' Dells, at similar specs
If I need to make it less-bloated, well, I can do that with Mac OS X just as well as (I hope) you can do with Linux.
I want an os to be configurable, stable and resource friendly.
OK, so do I - again, that's why I prefer to use Mac OS X. I don't mind Linux, if I have a sysadmin when I get stuck.
Linux has it's own goals and ideals and definately isn't a substitute for MacOS. It would be really stupid just to copy an existing OS.
IMHO, Linux's user interface (be it KDE or Gnome) tries to be a substitute for Windows. Which in itself is not such a great GUI to begin with.
It's hard to export something you don't have.
with a particular eye towards developers
Steve Ballmer thinks so too
;)
Regarding previous post, which form is correct
Der Uebergeek (suggested by me)
Das Uebergeek (suggested by the previous poster)
I would go for Der because geeks are mostly male, but as a non-native German speaker I may be completely wrong. Fifteen years ago I did postdoctoral physics research in Germany for almost two years (I was a Humboldt Stipendiat). Back then I used to speak German but in the meantine I forgot everything.
In short, when can Linux be officially considered "*nix"?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
How much have you used KDE or GNOME? I've used KDE for years (after being a Windows user since 3.1) and I can say that they are not at all similar. Superficially, maybe, but it doesn't work the same.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Actually, OS X is more like a Jag XK8. Sexy on the outside, but obsolete technology under the hood.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Then you should just use NetBSD and GNUstep ....
:-P
Oh and do't bother ever using an "office suite" cause you're old and don't need one
What's with the Penguin?
Q: One question you have (on the slide) is "What's with the penguin?"
Linus: I just have that because a lot of people ask me about it. I actually don't have a good answer. It just is, right?
There are a lot of reasons for the penguin. I was bitten by a penguin. And it's a true story. It's funny, because there are a lot of Web sites about the penguin. There's like The History of Tux, and things like that. And some of these Web sites have some of my explanation. And they almost universally say, "It's a great story, but it's not true." That I was bitten by a penguin.
It's true! I was bitten by a penguin! I mean, really! Take it from me! I'm wounded. Okay, so he wasn't six foot tall.
(Laughter.)
Q: Is it true he was radioactive? Is it true you killed it afterwards?
(Laughter.)
Linus: Okay, some fo the rumors aren't true.
I've talked to some people who are in advertising, and they love the penguin. They think it's the greatest logo ever. And it's funny thinking back. Because we made it for, I think, the 2.0 release. Like, in '95 or something? And a lot of people hated it because it wasn't serious enough. But it's great. The advertising people really like the fact that you can do things with it. "That's the stroke of genius! The guy who came up with the penguin is a marketing genius!" (Sarcastically) Yeah.
(Laughter.)
So, whatever.
I would warn severly against the thought that HP is actually supporting Linux in some way. This is the same company that made a full committment to JUST WINDOWS and JUST ITANIUM for its whole future. HP is a WINDOWS ONLY shop... check the record. All of this talk about Linux, though there have been some skunkworks Linux projects on the inside, is really just an HP marketing opp... do not believe ANYTHING that HP says until they actully DELIVER!! HP is a large VERY PRO MICROSOFT company... let's see the goods before listening to their oh so lovely words.
If Microsoft asks HP to stop all Linux development tomorrow, trust me... HP will stop ALL OF IT. They are 0wn3d. Their record speaks for itself.
My personal experience with HP/Compaq HW, even on the server side, is that it is somewhat problematic. If they can't get the servers to work right, do you really think they are seriously working on getting the laptop to work right?
I'm from Missourri on this one... SHOW ME HP... prove me wrong! I really, really want to be wrong.
If indeed it is running Linux, once it lanuches it should set some sort of record for the highest use of Linux.
Merely being in Orbit won't be enough for the record, Debian has already flown on the Shuttle back in 1997. In fact, it's done so twice.
Q: Do you ever think about quantum computing?
"Linus: I think that's a load of bull. I see all these news reports that say "Hey, we had a chemistry set that computed pi to seven digits!" That's basically what they're doing. They're not doing computing. They're doing pattern matching with DNA. And that's fine. That's what you want to do if what you are matching is DNA, right? But if you actually want to do computation you obviouisly don't want to do this biological solution of stuff and just hoping that the answer will come, right? So I'll believe it when I see it. Until then I'll take transistors. And they'll get smaller. And they'll start getting quantum effects, and that's fine. "
If you pay attention to what Linus says and writes, you can see that he has strong opinions and they are backed with lots of knowledge, experience and reason. Linus is a great example of how to not get distracted by secondary issues. When he has an opinion, it's worth listening to as it's not based on:
1. Religion
2. What everybody else does
3. Money
IIRC, Linus thinks that microkernels are slow. You have to use some ugly hacks to solve the speed issue and other problems.
I think you've missed the point of Geekcruises going to remote places, and in particular to Alaska.
It's not so much to give geeks nicer surroundings (beauty is in the eye of the beholder anyway), but to make them inaccessible to the thousand and one annoying non-tech people and events that interrupt their daily lives with irrelevancies, and to bring like-minded tech people together.
A simple definition of a geek (I'm one) is a person who enjoys technology above all else, and who prefers the company of like-minded others. A geek cruise is hard to beat for that!
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Got a short description of GEOM-Gate for us?
If a product is to be sold to an external customer, the certificate of originality is definately produced by the developer(s) who worked on that product.
Blar.
>Look at iTunes. You can burn your music, or you can put it on your iPod. I have an Archos mp3 player. I can't put music I buy from iTunes on it even though I've purchased the music.
Just as I can't put WMA files on my MP3 player. So what's your point?
>I'm by no means putting down Apple's use of DRM, after all, they have to make money somehow, but it's important to realize that they are just another corporation, and in parallel, they are just out to make money.
The problem here is that you seem to be one of those "everything should be free" people.
Apple doesn't even MAKE music, they had to sign contracts with the RIAA labels and whatnot. You really think the RIAA would allow unprotected MP3 files? Get real.
Apple, in fact, got the best legal solution available right now, and AAC is way ahead of WMA and MP3 for quality. And their iPod, while costly, is rated the best portable music player by the vast majority of people and reviews. You get what you pay for. Stop upgrading to the latest and greatest heatsink from AMD, Intel, nVidia or ATI and you could be able to afford a iPod in a few months.
>With open source you don't have to rely on a central source for fixes, you can fix it yourself, you can modify the appliations to suit your needs and whatnot. MacOS X may look nice, but it's no develper's heaven. That's what linux is for.
And who the HELL goes around looking at source code? Who is actually able to figure out the problem and fix it? Linux may be open-source, but it's not for the average, NORMAL user. Not if you think that's Linux advantage. 99.999999% of the potential users won't really care about this.
I want to use my PC like I use my car. When I go to work in the morning I don't think about how the car works. And if it breaks down, I never asked to be a mechanic, I simply go to the garage. I *need* my car just as I *need* my computer.
That doesn't mean I should know how they work with all the little technical details.
This is why Mac OS X is the best alternative to Microsoft instead of Linux. You (as in most linux users/coders) think everybody should be a programmer.
Windows: extremely insecure piece of shit, very easy to use, has tons of programs available and games.
Mac OS X: very secure, extremely easy to use, has lots of bundled useful programs (iLife suite) and a few games (the big titles are available).
Linux: extremely secure, relatively easy to use if you got computer experience, got lots of useful programs available if you can figure out how to actually install the damn things, and has pratically no games (I know about NeverWinter Nights, and that's about it).
Woah, can you imagine how the OpenOffice developers must feel after reading that?
... Microsoft zealotry and Macintosh enthusiasm to the contrary notwithstanding.
If I was working on some huge Linux project and Linus said it was a disaster, I'd feel pretty bad.
Open Office may be a "disaster" from the elegence and interoperative perspective, just as Netscape was a "disaster."
And just like netscape (for all of those years before Mozilla and Konqueror were mature enough to be usable as serious browsers), Open Office is critical to GNU/Linux's usability on the desktop today.
Without Netscape for all those years, as clunky as it was, Linux users would have been forced to use Windows boxes to surf the net and take part in the user-side of the world wide web. Without Open Office Linux users would be forced to use Windows boxes for any number of purposes (mostly having to do with interoperability with Microsoft Excel and Word formats), and while other tools exist to some degree to address this (as Konqueror and Mozilla did prior to their becoming mature applications), none are as useful or as accessible as Open Office is.
The Open Office developers should be proud. They have an office suite that runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and other platforms, one that reads and writes commonly used file formats (e.g M$ crap and PDF) as well as its own excellent, open format. Open Office, for all of its faults, makes Linux a viable, serious desktop platform
Indeed, Open Office could be the single most important application to facilitating enterprise and individual migration away from Microsoft to Linux or FreeBSD on the desktop, or for supporting heterogeneous desktops in the enterprise that a dependency on Microsoft Office (or Appleworks) would preclude.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Since most people seem distracted by "why didn't he mention Mac OS X", I'd just like to be the first one to say that the transcript of this interview really sucks.
Linus has some interesting things to say but the number of typos and half-completed sentences make it hard to know how much more he actually said.
Is there another transcription somewhere?
Other then the rendering mentioned before....
Does anyone know about any linux in space projects?
Other then of course the one Linus menitoned "I know it's been on the Shuttle, but that's just low Earth orbit. And I'm wondering if it's been on anything more interesting."
I for one am def just as curious.
"The obvious should not be patentable."?
gewg_
The "I don't want to learn" excuse is not a valid excuse. Try again.
Jeez - when you get a new toy, you have to learn how to play with the new toy. Even Legos work this way!
What's obselete? I don't understand your point here.