Does OpenStack Need a Linus Torvalds?

BButlerNWW writes in with a story that speculates about the need for a marquee name to head OpenStack. "OpenStack has been dubbed by some enthusiasts as the Linux of the cloud — an open source operating system for public or private clouds. But there's one stark difference between the two projects: OpenStack doesn't have a Linus Torvalds, the eccentric, outspoken, never-afraid-to-say-what-he-thinks leader of the Linux world. Torvalds personifies Linux in many ways. OpenStack doesn't have that one central figure right now. The question is: Does OpenStack need it? Some would argue yes. Torvalds, because of the weight he holds in the project, calls the shots about how Linux is run, what goes in, what stays out of the code, and he's not afraid to express his opinions. He provides not only internal guidance for the project, but also an exterior cheerleading role. Others would say OpenStack does not need a Torvalds of its own. The project is meant to be an open source meritocracy, where members are judged based on their code contributions to the project. OpenStack has been fighting an image that the project is just full of corporate interests, which is part of the reason Rackspace ceded official control of the project to the OpenStack Foundation recently."

Comments

Clouds Need To Be Free

[hyades1]

It could be argued that one of the main reasons why Linux has utterly failed as an operating system for average people on average computers is Linus Torvalds. It has certainly been successful in other areas, but as a "just works" freeware replacement for Windows, it's been a bust.

Maybe it would be best if Open Stack stays relatively free of one person's influence, or one clique's interest, for that matter.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be argued that one of the main reasons why Linux has utterly failed as an operating system for average people on average computers is Linus Torvalds. It has certainly been successful in other areas, but as a "just works" freeware replacement for Windows, it's been a bust.

GNU/Linux on the desktop is easier to use than Microsoft Windows and it "just works" 99% of the time for the majority of people currently running Microsoft Windows. On my notebook computer I installed Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS during the early part of the summer (2012) and use it for sending/receiving email, browsing the web, streaming audio and/or video and music, editing documents, managing photographic collections, editing photographs and videos, and a variety of other tasks.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU/Linux on the desktop is easier to use than Microsoft Windows and it "just works" 99% of the time for the majority of people currently running Microsoft Windows.

Ubuntu... So. Many. Tiny. Bugs. So many insignificant little bugs, like I click on the volume icon and when I move my mouse to the slider, it still thinks I'm holding the button down. Like I can't change file associations intuitively. The interface allows it ("always open using this program") but it doesn't work. Every time I reboot, I set Chrome as my default browser. Ruby 1.8 by default while other developers are screaming at me for not having upgraded to 1.9. The GUI changes more often than I change my underwear. One year it's classic Gnome, the next it's Unity, the next Unity's out again. If I open a certain application (haven't exactly figured out which one, I've narrowed it down to 3 now) the Skype notifications don't appear anymore in the bottom-right corner of the screen (instead, the pixels in the rectangle that should contain the notification are "frozen" for a few moments until the notification rectangle disappears).

I don't know about other distributions, but Ubuntu still needs some polishing until it's ready to ship to intermediate users. I'm saying intermediate because beginners won't notice these small bugs and experts will fix them themselves.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[Bob9113]

as a "just works" freeware replacement for Windows, it's been a bust.

It also makes a terrible cheese grater, and the last time I tried to drive it to the store it turned out Linux isn't even tangible, let alone a serviceable automobile.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[knarf]

but as a "just works" freeware replacement for Windows, it's been a bust.

What does Windows have to do with Linux? For that matter, what does Windows have to do with 'just works'? Why do you think Linus' influence over the kernel - and nothing but the kernel - has stopped Linux distributions from 'replacing' Windows for 'average people'?

Hint: it is not Linus which kept Linux distributions from 'replacing' Windows for 'average people'. It is money and corporate politics.

And Linux is not 'freeware'. It is free software. Look up the difference if you want, these things are not the same.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[Anonymous Coward]

So it needs a Richard Stallman.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[TheLink]

Linux is "everywhere". Desktop Linux isn't. Torvalds does Linux. He's not really responsible for Desktop Linux (he grumbles about it every now and then, but it's someone else's job).

If you want to blame someone for the failures of Desktop Linux you should blame whoever is responsible for GNOME, Unity, KDE, etc.

Vista was an opportunity for Desktop Linux to gain marketshare, but the Desktop Linux bunch didn't do anything. Many Slashdotters here claim the developers made things worse (I don't know, I've long given up on Desktop Linux - sometimes to me it seems like the developers are purposely sabotaging Desktop Linux).

Apple managed to get significant share with OS X, so it definitely is possible.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[hairyfeet]

If by "just works" you mean you install it on 1.- A desktop a couple of years old,so you don't have to deal with the mess that is wireless 2.- You idea of "work" only involves a browser, an IDE, and LO, 3.- you don't actually update it EVAR so you don't have to deal with "update foo broke my driver"...then yes it does work.

The problem is you just eliminated a good 85% of the planet with that list. there is a REASON why the ONLY inroads Linux has made is because of Google Android, where they took the kernel away from Torvalds, its because Torvalds and his old guard clic simply will never change the way they do things.

Heck even one of the developers of Red Hat says Torvalds "top down let the devs control everything" approach is WRONG and has made the desktop "suckage" and that if anything Linux should be copying Android in just concentrating on the kernel and let the makers of the hardware deal with the drivers, certainly more open than the way its done now and he does have some really good points to make.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[neokushan]

I second this statement - except I'm not going to hide behind the allure of anonymous coward, I'll use my own god-damned nick and say it - Linux is not "easier to use" than Windows. Sure, it's easy if you already know how to use it but half the reason windows has become so entrenched is because people now know how to use it and frankly, even the likes of Ubuntu (which goes a long way to narrow the gap) don't go far enough to make things easy for the user.

Seriously, it's this simple - if you have to drop down to the command line for anything, you have failed "ease of use". I'm not saying you never have to open the CLI on Windows, just that you have to do it a lot less often than on *nix.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Here's where the GNU-slash "zealots" may actually have a point. You've just committed the common error of confusing the Linux kernel for the operating system that consists of various other pieces, including but not limited to the system software produced by the GNU project. Linus Torvalds has a significant say only on the Linux kernel.

If you want proof, Google no further than Linus's unflattering comments about Gnome 3. Did the Gnome developers rip out Gnome Shell after Linus dubbed Gnome 3 an "unholy mess"? Any "improvements" to the Gnome 3 user XP are due more to the collective howl of the Net than to any Linus rant.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[mckorr]

I think you might have to think this through again with the launch of Windows 8. The new interface means that a lot of people no longer "know how to use it." The desktop paradigm that everyone has been using for decades is still there, but Microsoft seems to be doing their best to hide it. But I must agree with you about the cli. I use it constantly on both Windows and OS X, but then I learned in the days of DOS. Most of my high school CS students have no idea it even exists, much less have any idea how to use it. I get a lot of looks of fascination and horror when they see me use it.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[Bill_the_Engineer]

It could be argued that one of the main reasons why Linux has utterly failed as an operating system for average people on average computers is Linus Torvalds. It has certainly been successful in other areas, but as a "just works" freeware replacement for Windows, it's been a bust.

The goal behind Linux was to have a multi-user, multi-tasking OS that was Unix like. It was not meant to compete directly against or replace Windows. Linux is just a kernel and nothings prevent someone from building an easy to use OS from the kernel at anytime. You had RedHat, Slackware, Mandrake, Debian, and eventually Ubuntu and other distributions designing what they felt would be a good user experience. I don't understand how Linus had any negative influence, nor do I understand the relevance of your statement. Especially when you consider the sheer number of non-computer savvy people unknowingly using the Linux kernel within their smartphones through Android.

If someone held the OpenStack project to the core requirements needed to be useful there would still be nothing preventing a distribution from making a more featured or easier to use version that is built on top of OpenStack.

Re:Clouds Need To Be Free

[PlusFiveTroll]

Irrational posts always seem to get modded up, crazy.

We have to start here... Linux is not an operating system, it is a kernel.
Windows is an operating system, but also an ecosystem that is fully controlled by Microsoft.
Linus wanted a free kernel that wouldn't get taken over by commercial interests and forked to a million pieces like Unix at the time.
Windows entire design history has been to grow for commercial gain, Wiindows is not free, it is licensed at a cost.
Linux was not designed as a desktop operating system, it's not an operating system, and is not sold as one on the level that Torvalds operates at.
Windows is designed as a desktop operating system and is sold as on at that level.
Linux has never had software monopoly on its product (and is designed to prevent that).
Windows is it's own monopoly (just like Apple is their own). It used its power to force OEMs to install Windows on all computers they sold, or they would lose OEM pricing.

Comparing Openstack to Linux to Windows is a irrational. It is a totally different market, Openstack is 'competing' in a market with choice. If you don't like openstack you can roll your own, or whatever. You couldn't do that with windows. So your entire premise is backwards. Windows controlled by Bill Gates and Microsoft dominated the industry. Apple, when led by the iron fist of Steve Jobs dominated in their products.

Linux doesn't actually need Linus Torvalds

[The Evil Atheist]

Linus specifically set up Linux development to not be dependent on him by creating git. People don't technically have to build from his own tree, but people do because they trust their experience with working with him.
You cannot just install a Torvalds into OpenStack. If there is no Torvalds of OpenStack, it's because no one is technically qualified or has the reputation for it.
This kind of reasoning is purely cargo cult management. You would think people have learnt to stop thinking in cargo cult ways by now.

Re:To re-phrase the question...

[Kjella]

Do they need a self-opinionated little twat who writes three lines of code, bundles it with 300,000 lines of someone else's code and then names the whole lot after himself? No.

As formulated it's flamebait but seriously, you can't just pick a guy and nominate him to be the "Linus Torvalds" of your project and pretend it'll be the same. If Linus were to step down today, it doesn't matter who of the lieutenants who'd step up - they'd never have the same kind of authority to be the voice of Linux. It's the difference between being the founder like Jobs or Gates and your run-of-the-mill CEO. Even if your on top of the organization chart, you're not the benevolent dictator for life.

What it needs is some beef

[SuperBanana]

I've looked over OpenStack and it looks great, with one exception: block storage (ie volumes.)

GlusterFS currently isn't recommended for VM storage by the GlusterFS people. They say "maybe" with the next release.

Sheepdog isn't recommended for production (and from what I read, provides abysmal performance - we're talking single-digit MB/sec.)

Lustre requires enormous setup+admin overhead.
DRBD isn't scalable beyond 2 nodes, really, and has serious issues with reliability and keeping in sync.

They've made a huge hullabaloo about Cinder - it's going to do my taxes, slice bread, and surpass Christ - but information as to what the hell it actually is or how it'll do it, beyond marketing-speak, is difficult to find. If you dig around, you find that it's a layer on top of other network block devices.

Far as I can tell, the only free (in either sense) backend they support is Sheepdog, which, as I said before, isn't considered anywhere near production ready.

It also appears that 'Highly available', 'fault-Tolerant', and so on- is coming from the underlying storage, not Cinder itself.

So, where's the beef? You can't have an "open" visualization system if you then require a netapp, IBM, or nexenta backend (sidenote: has anyone SEEN nexenta pricing? Holy christ on a stick!)

Re:To re-phrase the question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww, did someone's widdle kernel patch get rejected...?

They Can Start by Telling me what OpenStack is

[segedunum]

I have no idea. With something like Proxmox I download it, install it and start running KVM and OpenVZ machines. Easy. With OpenStack, I go to their web site and I find nothing but a bunch of marketing crap. Cynical me just looks around there and thinks that some companies have got together to make something look open and look as if there might be some open source code and downloads 'somewhere', but there aren't. This is all to try and protect their expensive 'real' products that they know are probably under threat from a truly open source competitor but they just want to muddy the waters.

I think Joel Spolsky or someone once called it 'fire and motion'.

Re:To re-phrase the question...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Linus made a project to make a UNIX like operating system. He found like minded individuals that wanted to help on USENET. I still look fondly back at the old days of trying to get the build to work. Later own I was able to have CDs mailed to me from people like CheapBytes that made the work so much easier (I don't missed the days of dialup internet). Eventually RedHat came around and I was hooked. Through it all Linus kept the project on course.

It takes a lot of discipline to take an idea from a post on USENET in 1991 to what Linux is today. His discipline and stewardship is worth way more than any code that he contributed to the cause.

Okay I used up my "stick up for Linus" allowance for the year.