Slashdot Mirror
Linus Torvalds Says Linux Can Move On Without Him
pacopico writes: In a typically blunt interview, Linus Torvalds has said for the first time that if he were to die, Linux could safely continue on its own. Bloomberg has the report, which includes a video with Torvalds at his home office. Torvalds insists that people like Greg Kroah-Hartman have taken over huge parts of the day-to-day work maintaining Linux and that they've built up enough trust to be respected. This all comes as Torvalds has been irking more and more people with his aggressive attitude. The line between "blunt" and "aggressive" is one that you probably get to skirt a lot, when you (in the words of the Bloomberg reporter) "may be the most influential individual economic force of the past 20 years."
You mean the butthurt from the poetterix crew for getting flak for their own poor attitude, crap code, and generally poor disposition?
I think we need Linus a bit more to keep a lid on these... less than stellarly performing artifacts sticking in the community's craw.
Who else is qualified? I wouldn't trust 99% of software people to make decisions. Linux is good and successful because of Linus. Full stop. He is worth 10,000 Slowaris or AIX engineers.
Huh? The GPL makes explicit use of both capitalism and copyright law.
You get to be a leader by getting people to follow you. Bluster and bullying works for some, others actually pull it off by being nice (not the same as trying to please everyone!). Others still lead quietly by example. And what works for some will put off others. Of course, it helps to be right often; if you are, you don't have to give people shit to make them follow, but they'll still follow if you do. That is what Jobs and Torvalds had/have going for them.
The one disadvantage about quiet leadership is that you will much less talked and written about. Or maybe that's an advantage...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This all comes as Torvalds has been irking more and more people with his aggressive attitude.
Who?
Honest to god, I'm asking: Which people?
Are these 'people' software engineers contributing to the kernel? Are these 'people' being directly addressed and directly insulted by Linus? Are these 'people' attempting to submit subpar code to the kernel?
Or are these who are more interested in 'safe spaces' in open source communities? Are these 'people' acting outraged because of their perception of what other people think about Linus says?
I am disturbed by this brewing character assassination campaign targeted at Linus because he says things that might possibly hurt a person's feelings. Shame on the submitter (pacopico) for throwing around an accusation as if it's fact.
We've been down this road for, what, 20 years? We know by now that if Linus says something mean, it's because a person has done or said something incompetent. The 'fix' is not for Linus to change his tone; the fix is for the recipient of the insult to not be incompetent.
Yes but only if they get rid of Poettering and his crew first.
“The best leaders are those their people hardly know exist.
The next best is a leader who is loved and praised.
Next comes the one who is feared.
The worst one is the leader that is despised
The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly.
When they have accomplished their task,
the people say, “Amazing!
We did it, all by ourselves!”
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Linus' attitude is not 'aggressive.' It's completely unprofessional and undignified. The community will be better off without him.
... For all he is... including his bluntness which bruises the precious egos of the special snowflakes. Sometimes you need to be able to call someone a moron. There are too many of them to waste any more time on them than that.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I wonder: would the same people that advocated the "calling females 'bossy' = sexist" view use consistent logic and assert that calling males "aggressive" is code for "I'm basically unable to defend my own position, am losing the argument, and therefore must apply guile and ad hominem attacks to stand my ground?" Be honest, now.
Is how someone interprets your criticism of their work defined by how much face they stand to lose if they're wrong, regardless of whether the criticism is grounded in facts and experience?
> You don't get to be a leader, by being a nice guy in the commitee.
Sure you do. It's just *harder* to do it that way. That's why most leaders are pricks.
Because it's hard to be nice AND lead.
But it's easy to lead and be a prick.
I have never read anything where Linus is acting inappropriately. Sure he likes to rant, but when he is wrong, he will admit it.
He is even kind to clueless newbies who try to lecture him on the "evils" of goto on LKML.
His best rants are condemning breaking user space and hurting usability. But for every post that makes the news, there are at least 1000 that don't, because Linus isn't some rabid douche.
The kernel gets has so many contributors from around the world that he has to draw the line in a very explicit manner else people like Kay Sievers will keep submitting broken patches.
If anything he is usually pretty restrained, compared to project managers of big companies. The only difference is that development of the Linux kernel is in full public view.
You haven't answered his first question - is the article accurate or not?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Yeah, my band director in high school was pretty much a dick sometimes and had a reputation for being difficult to deal with.
We also won all but one of the 10 or so contests that we entered in my first year in marching band, getting 2nd place in the one where we didn't get 1st place. That included winning the state championship in our class.
These two facts are not unrelated.
Part of the reason that Linux exists and is so successful is Linus' personality and work ethic. I don't think he's out to make new friends in the programming world, but he is very successful at what he's actually doing.
Do you have ESP?
Ridiculous.
Remove any of the people on your list (except maybe Elon Musk, and that remains to be seen), and things would've just been business as usual with a different person in the seat.
Linus has made an incalculable change to the landscape. We are in a different world because of him.
Disclaimer: I am not a Linux zealot. Windows at home, Mac at work, iPhone in my pocket. But credit where it's due, for fuck's sake.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
You always know what he thinks.
Put the cards on the table, figure out which ones are good. Lather, rinse, repeat.
A smart man wants to know when he is wrong.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "