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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.'"
When did torvalds turn into a republican? Richard Stallman started with a "kumba ya vision" of free software and has largely succeeded, even if some specific projects such as Hurd failed.
It's really great, this whole Linux and GNU thing! Even if Linus isn't about kumba-ya, (Although he is, and one day he will rip his disguise off and laugh like a super-villain to reveal a t-shirt with the hammer and sickle. Mark my words, he's a closet commie, right in our midst.) ...whoa that was a long winded parenthesis. What I was going to say, was that the ingenious thing about this whole FOSS thing is that it is a building block of future anarcho-socialist utopia and at the same time the greedy capitalists can not help but contributing, since it is in their shorter term self interest. But the day will come when the people will truly be masters of the world, each and every one and computing will be a significant part of how we will do it.
Sincerelly,
Future person.
~
~
(Or did I dream it?)
Breaking the user experience in order to ‘fix’ something is a totally broken concept; you cannot do it.
But if the architecture of a piece of code (a small portion of the product, let's say) is broken, then you might not be able to sustain continued feature development. Refactoring will be *almost* (wiggle room) essential, and that *may well* (more wiggle room) break compatibility in some corner cases.
You're sure he's not part Indian?
I say we all start the a software project based on the kumba-ya feeling and come together from all over the world by working together on it. WHO'S WITH ME!?!
Anyone?
*crickets*
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
I thought that was what open source was all about, kumba-ya. Why else would anybody want to contribute to an open source project and get nothing in return except for some warm fuzzy feelings.
Of course, people like Linus are counter-open source, they get paid to produce largely closed code (yeah, try and change Linux kernel code, see how far you get putting that back into the community with Linus around).
“The first thing is thinking that you can throw things out there and ask people to help,” when it comes to open-source software development, he says. “That's not how it works. You make it public, and then you assume that you'll have to do all the work, and ask people to come up with suggestions of what you should do, not what they should do. Maybe they'll start helping eventually, but you should start off with the assumption that you're going to be the one maintaining it and ready to do all the work.”
That is probably the most true statement I have ever read with regards to crowd-sourcing. You have to be willing to do it all yourself with input from others.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
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.
I spit water onto my screen when I read those last three words. Linus may be a great programmer, but the Linux kernel development community most certainly formed in spite of his attitude toward his own community, not because of it. Patches that make it across his desk are either accepted or rejected, with nary a hint of explanation or rationale either way. He regularly calls people (and their patches, or even their methods) "stupid." Any tool that he doesn't use or didn't design is classified as pointless, or brain-dead, regardless of whether it fits someone else's needs just fine.
You don't have to very far to see this in action: http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1109.2/author.html
...seriously, we get it that you don't like CVS.
Advice: on VPS providers
I don't think tools are all that fundamentally important.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "the unimportance of tools".
Have you read my blog lately?
I got that in an eventual reply a couple of months after offering to help revive one of the abandoned gnu tools. By then I'd got something from opensolaris to do a better job anyway.
I saw that as another symptom of gnu/hurd's failure but not all open source projects are like that.
I'm surprised he did an interview at all. Who does he think he is? God?
The world's most popular open-source software program isn't "the Linux operating system" but most likely "cat".
Calling an OS a mere program and attributing it to one person shows you really don't know a lot about the stuff you're writing about.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
What is the latest project on sourceforge? Have you guys checked it out? The project starter may still have some kumba-ya feeling, so let's share the feeling together among us!
Democracy is for the people; you only vote once per season and we'll do the rest of the work for you don't have to.
It's called an analogy and was an attempt to make you understand something in one line with an extreme example that is never going to fit exactly - and you should have the reading skills to identify it as that but it appears you wish to pretend to be dumb and use faux misunderstanding as a method to argue. I'd never even seen an episode of House when I read the post from Con Kolivas. I could have used Michael Crichton instead to convey the idea, but of course that's not a perfect fit either and is never meant to be.
The entire problem IMHO was lack of understanding and an expectation of getting respect despite that.
It is undeniable that at the time he didn't have the experience in some important areas as that of an average recent computer science graduate and I wish you would not pretend otherwise in order to make some sort of stink about it and pretend it was a big issue instead of a trivial one.
Once again "newbie" was used as shorthand for somebody new to a field and we are all that at some point so that was not meant to be insulting either.
That's why Linus made the "eat your own dog food" comment in the first place! Without that and his ruffled feelings for being treated as if he was new to the area (which he was) there is really nothing to the issue at all! You are making the mistake of pretending that you are Con Kolivas and taking things personally and possibly assuming that Con has portions of your background in CS that he does not. He is a different person and earned his confidence from his undeniable ability in a different field but it doesn't carry over.
In other words one that actually works!