The Scalability of Linus

Hugh Pickens writes "Katherine Noyes writes at LinuxInsider that it may be time for Linus Torvalds to share more of the responsibility for Linux that he's been shouldering. 'If Linux wants to keep up with the competition there is much work to do, more than even a man of Linus's skill [can] accomplish,' argues one user. The 'scalability of Linus' is the subject of a post by Jonathan Corbet wondering if there might there be a Linus scalability crunch point coming. 'The Linux kernel development process stands out in a number of ways; one of those is the fact that there is exactly one person who can commit code to the "official" repository,' Corbet writes. A problem with that scenario is the potential for repeats of what Corbet calls 'the famous "Linus burnout" episode of 1998' when everything stopped for a while until Linus rested a bit, came back, and started merging patches again. 'If Linus is to retain his central position in Linux kernel development, the community as a whole needs to ensure that the process scales and does not overwhelm him,' Corbet adds. But many don't agree. 'Don't be fooled that Linus has to scale — he has to work hard, but he is the team captain and doorman. He has thousands doing most of the work for him. He just has to open the door at the appropriate moment,' writes Robert Pogson, adding that Linus 'has had lots of practice and still has fire in his belly.'"

Comments

food

[StripedCow]

...and still has fire in his belly

Perhaps he should eat less Mexican food.

HURD will be finished any day^H^H^Hdecade!

[Anonymous Coward]

That will solve this problem once and for all.

Brain in a Jar Time

[lysdexia]

PREPARE THE ELECTRODES!

development? what linux developmwnt?

[petes_PoV]

We've been on 2.6.X since 2003. Somebody needs to pull the cork out ...

Re:development? what linux developmwnt?

[Lifyre]

Seriously where is 3.0? Everyone knows it is only progress when the first number gets bigger. Like the number of g's for cell phones.

Re:development? what linux developmwnt?

[maxwell demon]

Ah, now I understand why we don't get mobile phone contracts with no strings attached!

Re:Egos don't scale

[somersault]

He also said "and when" to indicate it was inevitable. This admittedly made the "if" part completely stupid.

We always knew this would happen some day

[Bobtree]

Linus is monolithic.

Re:Good thing I read the summary

[Tjebbe]

Perhaps on a related note, I was thinking that while Linus has obviously scaled vertically to his full extent, there is still plenty of room for him to scale horizontally.

Re:Egos don't scale

[GreyWolf3000]

Con? Is that you?

Re:Egos don't scale

[somersault]

I was originally going to write "UK English" but settled on English English as a joke. It's just as correct as "American English".

Fair questions.. let's ask a guy who is Scottish and lives in Scotland, shall we?

Me: Hi, Somersault!
Me: Hello there, you handsome devil!
Me: Yeah, whatever. What do you think of all this "English English" stuff you were saying earlier?
Me: I find it amusing.
Me: Oh, I see!
Me: Yep.
Me: Well, bye!
Me: Bye.

Re:Egos don't scale

[elrous0]

I'm a long-shot kind of guy. So I took "Eaten by a bear in 2021" in the Torvalds death pool. Sure it's unlikely, but the odds make the payout HUGE if it happens.

Re:What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit By A Bus?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, it'll give HURD a chance to catch up!

Re:Egos don't scale

[MichaelSmith]

Commit it to git, surely.