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Linus Makes Business Week's Best Managers List

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the meow-meow-meow dept.

andhar writes "Linus Torvalds has made Business Week Magazine's 2004 list of Best Managers, where he finds himself in the company of luminaries such as Hector Ruiz (AMD), John Henry (Boston Red Sox) and Steven Spielberg (Dreamworks SKG). The article lauds the influence of Linux on the server market and drops the names of such heavyweights as IBM, Dell, HP and Intel as Linux supporters. Linus is quoted, calling all you kernel coders a herd of cats."

4 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. It gets even better by Gzip+Christ · · Score: 2, Informative

    Linus' picture actually made the cover of the magazine (along with 4 others)! Click on the "photo essays" graphic at the top of the article and then look at the magazine cover on the right hand side. The second person from the right looks like Linus to me. Awesome. I wonder who the other people are on the cover - I can't quite make them out.

  2. Re:Steve Jobs? by Anonymous+Meoward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, Jobs made the "repeat performers" section of the article, along with Meg Whitman of eBay.

    --
    --- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
  3. Out of context by l3pYr · · Score: 4, Informative
    From the abstract
    Linus is quoted, calling all you kernel coders a herd of cats.

    From the article
    Torvalds has quipped that his job is a lot like "herding cats."

    "Herding cats" is meant to be an oxymoron. Cats operate in small, tight-knit prides and not large herds; they are strong-willed and typically follow their own program. Linus was just trying to convey the difficulty of managing a large group of programmers who all have their own, unique reasons for doing what they do. As is demonstrated time and time again here at /., most nerds have trouble seeing the other side of an argument (read: we always think we're right). This brings about the cat metaphor.

    For those who don't RTFA, this might be taken out of context as an insult to kernel contributors. Just wanted to clear that up.

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    RTFA and cite your sources or prepare to get pwnd
  4. How so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Linus controls the source tree. They kind of have to go with what he says. If someone raises a stink, because most development is through the Internet, he can just block their e-mail if he wants to. It's not really the same as a real management situation.