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Linus' Other Gift to the World
Glyn Moody writes "Linus is widely recognised for initiating two major developments: Linux and Git (it's an interesting discussion which of the two in the long term will be regarded as more important). But there's a third, which people tend to overlook: he also pioneered the key ideas behind what later came to be called open innovation. As more and more companies open up to embrace customer-generated ideas, and the idea spreads to other areas like open government, perhaps it's time to add open innovation to the list of Linus' achievements."
Git is super amazing!!
Because Linus simply did not do that.
FFS, just post a 'missed connections' in craigslist if you love the guy that deeply, don't waste space here on it.
I think in the long run people will have forgotten both Linux and git, but the open enterprise system will go on.
In the future when we will have abundant robotic power, corporations will have to be managed differently. People with managing ability today are people who are good at manipulating people, with automated systems managers must be people who are good at manipulating machines, i.e. programmers.
The catch is that programmers aren't very good at manipulating people, and that include their peers. In a typical enterprise today a lot of effort is put into negotiating between the different departments and divisions. I cannot imagine a company managed by programmers doing that.
The Linux management system will work when managers no longer have people beneath them.
I thought innovation was what the Big Corporations did after the patent's ran out.
Take the case of the X-Y-Box (the first mouse) it was patented in the 60's. and low and behold on the 80's we got GUI's with mice. makes one think. Is this kind innovation setting us back 20 or 30 years.
They're always stealing Linus's ideas before he gets to them.
use Open::Innovation;
Nothing against Linus, but I think it's a little silly to take a normal idea, apply "do it online", and then call it a new idea.
Collaboration has been around long before Linus. Perhaps Linus is one of the first to collaborate online... ok, that's great. Comparing this "accomplishment" along side Linux and Git is a little silly. Linux and Git are genuine accomplishments which Linus should be very proud of.
in a few centuries it will be regarded as the begining of true democracy! :)
Linus' major achievement was popularizing and demonstrating open source and the projects it could accomplish, and Linux and Git were merely demonstrations of that. Glyn merely has caught up to us who have realized sometimes great inventors great invent things, but in software great inventors truly only invent great ideas. That is what Linus has done here. Stop thinking of Linux as a thing and start thinking of it as an idea, part of a greater idea which he has touted for a very very long time.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Linus Torvalds has done well with Linux and now Git, but I don't really seeing him deserving the title of pioneer of "open innovation". At least not in the way the author is using the word "pioneer". Linux being the most popular open source project makes the project itself the catalyst for this so called "open innovation". There is a difference between taking advantage of open source methodologies and creating methodologies. The author has seems to lost the grasp of that difference in his zeal for idol worship.
I think RMS deserves the title of the creator (or pioneer) of "open innovation", and that says a lot since I don't always agree with his philosophy. RMS is the one that really stuck his neck out and preached the gospel. Even today he is either loved or hated by the software community.
Then there are all the advocates that came and went during the lifespan of Linux. They wrote manuscripts, sold the idea to their employer, or invested their own money in open source development. During all this time Linus focused on his vision of the kernel, and having a take it or leave it attitude towards advocacy. His main concern was making a quality kernel and rightly so.
If we used the word pioneer correctly then we would consider Linus one of many pioneers in this open source crusade. There are a lot of them with the scars from all the arrows in their backs. Sorry for the slight negative tone, but the idol worship in that article irritated me this early in the morning. More coffee!
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Can someone explain, or point to a discussion, of how it is argued that Git could be more important in the long term than Linux? Isn't Git small fish compared to Linux?
Agreed. That is much more classy.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Let's claim he won WWII, too. What the hey. It's not like anybody will actually check.
/ Godwin
Comment of the year
I remember when DDJ published the BSD i386 source, that was pre-Linux. It's said that Linus wanted a better Minix, but before that were the Berkeley Software Distribution and the GNU Toolset.
It's not at all clear why Linus is singled out for credit.
So he argues that Linus "invented" some development model that is somehow different than Stallman had in GNU. He even quotes from the original GNU announcement where RMS ask for code contributions. Yes, GNU was managed in a top-down way, where Linux *could* be claimed as bottom-up with Linus having the last word. That's the only distinction he seems to make. Openness and public participation were present in both, but because FSF was hiring people and paying them to do work doesn't mean they didn't have the same model. When you're a completely public project, you can reject contributions and turn them into wasted effort. When you're paying people to do work, you tell them what those decisions are going to be from the start so you don't waste money. I give Linus a lot of credit. Who wouldn't want to have his practical achievement under their belt? I give Stallman even more credit. Who wouldn't want to have his philosophical AND practical achievements under their belt? OK, that's a loaded question around here...
No, it's also generally used to indicate the start of a list.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I actually think CVS did more for "open innovation". Together with Sun sponsoring the various SunSites.
CVS was the first (at least widely used) free server based version control system, and it made it very easy for anyone with a server to setup a free software project. The SunSites were probably the most common hosting platform until SourceForge. Before CVS you either gave collaborators login access so they could work locally on your machine (GNU did that), or relied on sending patches, which Linus did for years. CVS made it so much more convenient. Especially with anonymous CVS which essentially allowed anyone to create their own "fork" that still tracked mainline. A very poor mans github.
CVS was buggy in design and replaced by SVN, and the DVCS's provided another leap ahead in collaboration, so CVS got a bad reputation. But for its time, it was a revolution at least as important as git.
Charlie Brown's best friend?
I believed his gift to the World was The Great Pumpkin! (more than 50 years before the Flying Spaghetti Monster)
Well, now we have the Holy Open Spirit and the Son so who's the daddy?
This is all just my personal opinion.
Considering it's IBM's 100th birthday, it should be pointed out that a lot of the concepts TFA talks about were being done by groups like SHARE long before Linus was even born.
That all he did was start writing another OS and then continuing to support Linux with the help of thousands of other programmers.
Some of the techniques he used might have been innovative, but the broader innovative ideas had already been put into place by RMS and Tanenbaum.
Without Minix and without GNU compilers that had already been written to jump start the writing of the Linux kernel it would have been really difficult to write the first Linux kernel. Without the GPL Linux would have never been successful, it would have just been another failing bsd unix without the GPL.
`Linus Torvalds has done well with Linux and now Git, but I don't really seeing him deserving the title of pioneer of "open innovation". At least not in the way the author is using the word "pioneer"'
That might be true but first one would have to redefine the meaning of 'pioneer', 'creating', 'taking advantage of', "open innovation" and "open source methodologies"
"I'm doing a (free) operating system .. and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-) link
Depends. If we assume "later" is a time-traveling host and Open Innovation is the open port, it's ok. :: would imply that OI is IPv6-compatible.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Is this a new : trend to add colons in the middle of a sentence?
In fact, colons should only be added in the middle of a sentence.
All Linus did was write a kernel and all of the things that the article credits him with inventing, were already part of the free software landscape prior to his posting to the minix group.
How do I know? BECAUSE I WAS THERE. I remember the posting on the minix group and I remember the first versions of Linux being passed around University of Maryland when I was going there. This so called "Open Innovation" is an emergent property of Free Software. So, please, get your facts straight, and stop your hero worship.
GC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
While I prefer git, it's worth remembering that just a couple of years ago, svn was the young rebel upstart (hence the name "subversion") -- most commercial shops were using cvs until recently. It's a hard sell to get IT departments to shift again ("why, just a few years ago you nerds made us switch to svn when cvs was working just fine. Now you want to shift again?")
While git did that, mercurial which was developed at the exact same time does exactly the same thing. Both learned from the experience made in managing the Linux kernel with Bitkeeper where most of the ideas concerning distributed version control originated, of course. The time was ripe.
Linus imitated Monotone more than he imitated BitKeeper. BitKeeper is a DVCS, alright, but it is based on an SCCS (!) underpinning. Git is based on a content-addressable hash model, which Monotone introduced into the version control space way back when.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I think if you take a longer historical perspective then "Open Innovation" is what humans have normally have engaged in. It is only quite recently that patents and copyright etc. came on the scene to create "closed" environments.
Imagine what would have happened if someone had patented fire, metallurgy, selective breeding (plants and animals) or copyrighted the musical scales !. Instead ideas travelled around openly, anyone could experiment, copy ideas etc.
There is nothing unique about Linux or GIT, nor Linus fanboys ... they are just that,
You're talking utter piffle. Linux and git certainly do have unique features, just as pretty much all other operating systems and VCS systems have unique features. For instance, Linux is the most scalable OS available. It was (for a time) the only OS to support x86-64, too. And the first mainstream OS with userspace filesystems. Git is, or was when it was written, the fastest DVCS out there which seems useful for large projects. Not a feature I need, but that doesn't mean it isn't unique.
they are just that, fanboys blinded by idol worship and unable to see clearly enough to realize both the things mentioned aren't unique.
Where as you appear to be an anti-fanboy blinded by irrational hatred and rage directed towards those fanboys. That isn't any better.
Linux and Git are both just OSS copies of existing DCVS systems with nothing truely innovating about them.
I must say that Linux is the uniquest VCS in existence. I know of no other DVCS systems with filssystem laters, sockets, networking stacks, framebueffers, sound drivers, ...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
All Linus did was write a kernel and all of the things that the article credits him with inventing, were already part of the free software landscape prior to his posting to the minix group.
How do I know? BECAUSE I WAS THERE. I remember the posting on the minix group and I remember the first versions of Linux being passed around University of Maryland when I was going there. This so called "Open Innovation" is an emergent property of Free Software. So, please, get your facts straight, and stop your hero worship.
It's emergent same way as democracy is emergent in human society. It's bound to happen, yet it's not automatic, and often it takes blood, sweat and tears to make it happen. Anybody who can pull it off and become "hero" needs luck of course, but luck alone will not make it happen. Minix didn't take over the world, it was left in the dust of history while Linux made history.
I think he should be named man of the 20th century. How one man would go against the grain, write his own OS to thumb his nose at "The Man", and just look at how much he's contributed to the world without even trying or expecting anything in return. He's like Gandhi of the digital era.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Maybe everyone will be happy when we just start calling it GNU/FOSS.
...a singular plural...
Wat?
Glyn's usage is correct, no matter what the Chicago manual says.