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."

Comments

Post-singularity enterprises

[mangu]

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.

innovation.

[bobs666]

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.

Re:WTF

[TheRealFixer]

use Open::Innovation;

Just maybe,

[d3m0nCr4t]

in a few centuries it will be regarded as the begining of true democracy! :)

I think we just have it labelled wrong here

[hellfire]

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.

Re:I think we just have it labelled wrong here

[Anonymous Coward]

If what is great about Linux is the idea, then RMS deserves the credit.
But I reject the premise. What is great about Linux is the implementation.

Re:I think we just have it labelled wrong here

[denis-The-menace]

I thought it was RMS, too.

That being the case, Linus' real "other gift" is providing proof to the world that RMS' idea was valid and possible.

Re:I think we just have it labelled wrong here

[WaywardGeek]

RMS since 1984, when he declared the GNU free software operating system effort, has been the GNU/FSF champion. He invented the GPL license, which along with similar licenses that have been developed, are the legal cornerstone enabling software innovators around the world to collaborate on free software efforts. However, with the emacs project, RMS showed a lack of skill in encouraging innovators to go nuts with whatever development they like. Everything had to be approved to get into the official emacs release, and RMS was a single point of failure, constricting the flow of innovation from others while providing most of it himself.

Linus, on the other hand, has the people skills needed to enable innovators to contribute while standing enough out of the way to keep from restricting innovation. That's why he's credited for this model of governance. That's the model we need to figure out how to replicate. Unfortunately, it seems to require a benevolent dictator who is brilliant, has thick skin, and good people skills. If we can figure out how to replicate that kind of success, based on how Linus did it, then we can credit him for the model, but so far it seems that Linus' model requires a very rare kind of benevolent dictator who is brilliant technically, has good people skills, and likes to enable others to innovate as much as they like to contribute themselves.

No good model for sharing the efforts of software innovators exists today. Of all platforms, Android seems to have the most innovation at present, simply because they allow any old coding fool to publish an app with minimal red tape. However, Android more or less forbids sharing between developers. We'll never get where we need to be with the current models.

Um no.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

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!

Re:Um no.

[antifoidulus]

Thats the one thing that always gets me about RMS, for someone who ostensibly espouses freedom, he doesn't handle dissent very well..... "You are free as long as you do what I tell you to do"

Linux vs Git?

[dr_tube]

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?

Re:Linux vs Git?

[doti]

There is nothing special about Linux, apart from being a successful FLOSS operating system.
There were no great genius work from Linus there, he "just" wrote an ordinary OS and made the source public.

Git, in the other hand, is a work of a genius. It's not merely one more version control system.
It made branching, merging and atomic commits so acessible that it changed the way people code.

ps: no idea why you were modded down, it was a completely reasonable question.

Re:Linux vs Git?

[tbird20d]

Oh for crying out loud. Linus is smart, but git started as just an opensource rehash of bitkeeper. Should we credit Larry McVoy with genius?

Re:I love git!!

[Necroman]

I think the better comment is "DCVS is super amazing!!"

Many people forget that there ware 2 other decent implementations of distributed source control out there (Mercurial and Bazaar), both of which function rather closely to Git. Though, from what I've seen, Git is currently the fastest and most efficient when it comes to processing various commands, but they all do everything rather quickly.

Git I would say is popular in the open source world for 2 reasons: Linus uses it and Github. My gripes still stand with it requiring Cygwin on Windows and its weird terminology (which is backwards from many of its predecessors). It's a great tool and I'm happy that its pushing people away from CVS and SVN, but it's not perfect and it's not the only DVCS on the block.

Rock on

[Blakey Rat]

Let's claim he won WWII, too. What the hey. It's not like anybody will actually check.

/ Godwin

Re:Rock on

[0100010001010011]

Lets claim that Hitler was killed by a bad Git Merge.

THAT is a godwin.

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (100%).

Why credit Linus

[kbw]

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.

Re:Why credit Linus

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Linux wanted have his own UNIX-like computor. Buying a VAX to run Berkeley Software Distribution was at that time not afforable for a mere student and you also had to have an AT&T license for them.
The 386 BSD was released after Linux was started; Linux was started in '91 and BSD 386 came out '92.

Also you had the large lawsuit regarding BSD in '92 which slowed the development for BSD versions for 2 years.
Since then BSD systems more or less has been playing catch up with the more capable Linux system.

Had the BSD for 386 been released earlier and has not the big lawsuit stopped the distribution of BSD for 2 years
that Linux would probably not been much more then a hobby project that become abandoned when something
better came along. But instead Linux become the #1 UNIX-like operating system of choice.

Poor argument

[gr8_phk]

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...

CVS

[Per Abrahamsen]

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.

Re:Ummm no

[Samantha Wright]

Exactly my feelings. "Now, Mr. Submitter, is that GNU/Innovation that Mr. Torvalds gave us, or BSD/Innovation?"

SHARE

[wandazulu]

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.

Open Innovation as an emergent property of FLOSS..

[borgheron]

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

Monotone

[jonabbey]

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.

"Open Innovation" - rediscovery

[Zoxed]

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.

people always have to turn it into Linus vs. RMS

[zhub]

Maybe everyone will be happy when we just start calling it GNU/FOSS.