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CNN Sits Down With Linus Torvalds
just_another_sean writes "Calling him 'reclusive' and the 'leader of the Open Source Revolution' CNN has an interview with Linus Torvalds. From the article: "I actually only work with a few handfuls so I tend to directly interact with maybe 10 - 20 people and they in turn interact with other people. So depending on how you count, if you count just the core people, 20 -50 people. If you count everybody who's involved; five thousand people -- and you can really put the number anywhere in between... Almost, pretty much all, real work is done over e-mail so it doesn't matter where people are."
He is just working on Linux kernel, there are thousands of other open source projects. I wouldn't call him OSS leader :)
Pixel image editor - http://www.kanzelsberger.com
That's kinda odd that it would take them so long to interview Linus. How long after Microsoft made it's day did they interview Bill? or Steve? It is definately due, and kudos to Linus!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Seeking or preferring seclusion or isolation.
Does this describe Linus?
The maddening crowd seems to be too intellectually limited to understand that their need for heroes, saints and sinners is about as interesting as reading a popularization of a first year anthropology text book.
Not to mention the hours lost mugging for CNN that could have been spent productively.
just my loose change
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Seems like he would be a perfect candidate
I think what they meant by reclusive is that he prefers to stay out of the limelight and doesn't do any attention whoring like many famous people tend to do. Unfortunately for CNN the word recluse usually has some negative connotations with it, so it makes it seem like they are taking a demeaning stance (which perhaps the writer is, if he's a pro-Microsoft zealot)
For example I long ago decided I will never go to meetings again because I think face to face meetings are the biggest waste of time you can ever have.
Amen to that.
Just as the word 'zealot' has negative connotations. As if the people on /. weren't Anti-Microsoft zealots...
LT: Absolutely. There was a bit of bragging, there was also a bit of, hey, I still, the way I do my work is I sit these days downstairs in my basement alone. And it's nice to just talk to people and a lot of it was probably just social, just saying, hey this is a way to interact with other geeks who are probably also socially inadequate in many ways.
Pretty good insight - it's a way for geeks to socialize other than Star Trek conventions!
(Ducks)
On science and software development:
LT: We shouldn't give credit to Linux per se. There were open source projects and free software before Linux was there. Linux in many ways is one of the more visible and one of the bigger technical projects in this area and it changed how people looked at it because Linux took both the practical and ideological approach. At the same time I don't think this whole "openness" notion is new. In fact I often compare open source to science. To where science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples' ideas and making it into what science is today, and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn't do. So openness is not something new, it is something that actually has worked for a long time.
Great comparison between open software and science, both of which a lot of people don't get.
On the uselessness of meetings:
KLS: So the face to face thing is a little bit overrated?
LT: I think so. For example I long ago decided I will never go to meetings again because I think face to face meetings are the biggest waste of time you can ever have. I think most people who work at offices must share my opinion on meetings. Nothing ever gets done. When things get done, you usually have someone come into your office to talk about it. But a lot of the time the real work gets done by people sitting, especially in programming, alone in front of their computers doing what they do best.
Dilbert freed from the pointy-haired boss type - Pretty cool. Interesting interview, I may and try and watch it rather than read it.
What Stallman calls GNU/Linux is what *some* Linux distributions distribute.
On the embedded side, there are more and more distro which are using replacements for the GNU tookchain and glibc like busybox and uClibc, thus avoiding many of the GNU tools you typically see in a Linux distro.
Stallman's generalization is mostly true, but not always true...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
reclusive (adj): Not having a publicist lobbying to get onto CNN.
It seemed that CNN were trying to ask very pointed questions, trying to make Linus out to be some warrior against Microsoft. I like this part:
KLS: Another reason, because it's an alternative to Microsoft?
LT: Well that is, I think, played up more than it necessarily needs to be. Because there is a very vocal side to this which is the whole anti Microsoft thing. I think it makes a better story than is necessarily true in real life.
For a techie guy who doesn't have reams of PR guys behind him and telling him what he should say, he handled the press pretty well.
I thought CNN were supposed to be respectable, like the US version of the BBC or something? It seemed like they were just looking for some big scoop with regards to people being Anti-Microsoft rather than trying to have an interesting interview with a major contributor to an alternative OS.
Call me when the text editor can handle new lines consistently.
The headline: Reclusive Linux founder opens up
The first Torvalds quote in the article: "Well today what I do mostly is actually communication."
And working directly with 10-20 people counts as being part of a farily large team. If you spent an average of an hour a week discussing issues with those individuals, then that amounts to half your work time.
Note that headlines and articles are usually written by different people, and often different viewpoints and motivations are evident.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you are even remotely aware of baseball history, then you'll understand this analogy perfectly:
Linus is Babe Ruth to Stallman's Ty Cobb.
Nuts. Saying you took the initiative in doing something does not mean that you accomplished it single handedly, or even that you cause it to happen. It means that you got off your butt and started working towards a goal before others joined in, and that is obviously true in this case.
RMS, for example, clearly took the initiative in creating the free software movement, even though Linux got done long before the Hurd.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. If a statement like Gore's, that can be misread to imply something that is (harmlessly) false sets your blood boiling, I'll bet you are fuming mad when you hear politicians say more outrageous stuff, like: