Linus' Lessons On Software Dev Management

Esther Schindler writes "In this interview with Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Linus Torvalds shares hard-won wisdom about managing software development projects, including encouraging community involvement, the importance of programming tools, and ensuring the project stays on track. For instance, regarding getting people to contribute to your project, he says, 'If you start off with some "kumba-ya feeling" where you think people from all the world are going to come together to make a better world by working together on your project, you probably won't be going very far.'"

Comments

Re:Kumba ya?

[miffo.swe]

Stallman is more in touch with reality than most people. Imagine where BSD could have been now without the constant rape and pillaging of it? The reason it flunked is purely because of the license and that nobody ever gives anything back to the BSD community.

Had Linux been based on the BSD license it would never have taken off like it did.

Fighting Evil

[PPH]

If you start off with some "kumba-ya feeling" where you think people from all the world are going to come together to make a better world by working together on your project, you probably won't be going very far.

A common enemy is always a better motivator than soft fuzzy stuff. The Soviets got us to the moon, bitter divorcees are better in bed than single women, and vi wouldn't be half as good if it wasn't for emacs.

Thanks, Mr. Gates.

When you use Linux, you help the Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of weeks ago there was a story about a MS exec joining the Obama administration. Also Bill Gates gives most of his contributions to Democrats. Al Gore sits on Apple's board. When you use Linux, you cut into proprietary software's profits, leaving less money to contribute to Democrats, which helps Republicans.

So in short, Torvalds was always a Republican.

A stable device driver API would help the users

[Anonymous Coward]

Breaking the user experience in order to ‘fix’ something is a totally broken concept; you cannot do it. If you break the user experience, you may feel that you have ‘fixed’ something in the code, but if you fixed it by breaking the user, you just violated that second point; you thought the code was more important than the user. Which is not true.”

Hmm. So this doesn't count everytime the Kernel APIs change and a bunch of device drivers get broken? IMHO it's the users that get hurt by the lack of stable kernel APIs since the original developers are the only people that have the skills, source and tools to make the fix - if they are still interested.

Re:The GPL and Linux rock!

[WorBlux]

Making social change by actually building alternatives that are more useful and meet the needs on consumers better than existing alternatives. Yes, that's just so evil. Not really, if fact its really the only moral way to create a social change. But actually I think you overestimate the scope of the conspiracy. OSS is a scheme to allow all software developers to own the means of production, and be able to compete and operate without worrying all the anti-competitive and anti-value crap that copyright protection brings with it.

Re:Kumba ya?

[timeOday]

I think RMS is just expressing his priorities, not being out of touch with reality. Here are three groups to consider:

1) Money-oriented: Larry Ellison, Bill Gates
2) Technology-oriented: Linus Torvalds, James Gosling
3) Socially-oriented: Richard Stallman, and... not many others in this arena

If you judge people in one group by the values of the other, they seem deficient. Torvalds failed to capitalize on his success. Ellison is a bastard. Stallman's head is in the clouds. But they are at or near the top of their own games.