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Linus Torvalds: Talk of Tech Innovation is Bullshit. Shut Up and Get the Work Done (theregister.co.uk)
Linus Torvalds believes the technology industry's celebration of innovation is smug, self-congratulatory, and self-serving. From a report on The Register: The term of art he used was more blunt: "The innovation the industry talks about so much is bullshit," he said. "Anybody can innovate. Don't do this big 'think different'... screw that. It's meaningless. Ninety-nine per cent of it is get the work done." In a deferential interview at the Open Source Leadership Summit in California on Wednesday, conducted by Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, Torvalds discussed how he has managed the development of the Linux kernel and his attitude toward work. "All that hype is not where the real work is," said Torvalds. "The real work is in the details." Torvalds said he subscribes to the view that successful projects are 99 per cent perspiration, and one per cent innovation.
Someone honest.
One reason we can't say this is because we're reading Slashdot instead of working.
Linus perspires when he codes? Ewwww
No matter what the talking heads say about STEM and giving equal opportunity to all. It take real skill, dedication and talent to be a real innovator. Luck comes later.
Get with the times - you have to be disruptive now.
And we cant just say "fuck it and fuck your bullshit, I'm heads down working"
Actually, you can. In some places just like that. In others possibly "I'm busy, when do you need this by". If you are in a place where you are working hard, and which values your contribution, the message survives the diction. In other places, which talk a lot about technology but really just need glorified MBAs who know how computers work, you probably can't get away with this. Quit.
I think his message is exactly right, and so many companies get lost in the bullshit they are unable to get the job done. Often of course because they have moved into the Wall St. phase of "let the losers of the pyramid game get their money back, if possible".
Any asshole can have an idea, most of technology (or most anything else for that matter) is the hard work. This is also what makes us so hostile towards patents that don't have products behind them.
Torvalds said he subscribes to the view that successful projects are 99 per cent perspiration, and one per cent innovation. 'The real work is in the details'
As is often the case, Linus presents his rather myopic view thinking that it applies to all of IT. There's no doubt that there is an awful amount of bullshit going around in IT on the subject of innovation. It may also be true that many successful projects only have a 1% innovation component in them, but those are probably not very innovative projects. Such projects actually tend not not spend a lot of time on details, certainly not at first, because that's not where you succeed or fail; you need to understand which details are important and focus only on those. If you think innovation is just another project that needs getting done, then you don't understand what innovation is. For starters, a good innovator knows which ideas to pursue, what to turn into a POC or a project, how to evaluate those projects on an ongoing basis, and when to quit. And if you, as an innovator, never quit and bring all your projects to conclusion and launch, then you are most likely not casting your nets wide enough.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
To be perfectly blunt, much of the work that constitutes modern computing was done in the 1950s and 1960s. Parallel computing, virtualization, all these things were either developed on paper or implemented in some form long before many of us were born. It's often why I find software patents so absurd, because they pretend that somehow someone thirty or forty years ago didn't develop something like it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Linux os not full of innovation.
It's full of great work, executed properly.
I was not a believer. I hated the fact that he was pushing such an outdated design for a kernel.
Yet he proved that great execution of an existing idea is much more valuable and has a much greater impact (worldwide, long lasting impact) than a beautiful, innovative design.
To summarize, I think you are saying Linux is not innovative because it is like Unix, which was already around.
Here's the thing. Technical comparisons aside, Linux did something that none of the Unixes could do.
Linux was open source. That caused a huge development kick start which would be the envy of the private fiefdoms of proprietary closed Unix.
Linux then became cross platform. That causes Linux to run anywhere that the C compiler could run. Again, the envy of closed platforms.
Those two things combined make Linux suddenly attractive to anyone needing to build a software system on a non-PC platform. Or even on a PC platform where OS licensing is an issue. Applications like: smart phones. GPS navigators. TV set top DVRs. Streaming internet TV boxes. Digital cameras. Smart TVs. In car entertainment systems. Digital signage and billboard display applications. Chromecast type sticks. Amazon Echo type devices. And the list just goes on and on and on.
So, is Linux innovative? I believe so. And where all those proprietary Unixes? In the proprietary tarpit. Even Microsoft is realizing that it can't avoid operating with open source and Linux. BTW, Wine now runs on Windows Subsystem for Linux.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
To be perfectly blunt, much of the work that constitutes modern computing was done in the 1950s and 1960s.
Just because someone did some work decades ago and had the nugget of an idea doesn't mean anything. The work still needed to be done to actually bring the idea to reality. There are few things more annoying than someone who thinks the idea is everything and that the implementation is just trivial details.
Parallel computing, virtualization, all these things were either developed on paper or implemented in some form long before many of us were born.
And yet none of them were available to me for the majority of my life. Why is that? It's because nobody had gotten around to the hard work of turning into something actually useful.
It's often why I find software patents so absurd, because they pretend that somehow someone thirty or forty years ago didn't develop something like it.
Software patents are absurd because they patent a mathematical formula. They also are absurd because the software industry moves WAY too fast for a 20+ year monopoly to be a sensible reward. Finally they are absurd because they do not cover the implementation of an idea but the idea itself and thus all possible permutations of said idea. That's not what patents are supposed to be for.
I wandered into some echo-box on Twitter where a bunch of old farts were being roused into a rabble by some liberal journalist talking about how we need basic / universal income now because soon the robots will take away our jobs and life will be pristine, prosperous, and without war.
I called the journalist out on talking a lot of shit, in response to which he just talked more shit. To quote: "the machines will pay us". I had to point out a few things:
1. Technology is a tool, not a participant.
2. If your big solution involves convincing everyone it will work before it exists, using odd language, it probably won't work.
3. If your method of convincing others your idea is sound is to ask them how it's supposed to work in lieu of rebuttle against criticism, it probably isn't sound.
But then his slew of fogies piped up. "What does not make sense is the current system. Real value supports life. Principle of doing no harm= Equality." "lol, it is simple math, do it yourself." And, "citizens income. We will have to get used to more leisure, half jobs, no war just war movies".
No real substance, just pie in the sky rhetoric.
If I hadn't been blocked by the journalist I would go back there and paste this article. Torvalds is right, talking a bunch of shit doesn't get anything done in engineering, or anything else that is and/or that verges on technical including government.
(Unless, of course, you're a liberal arts major.)
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I was not a believer. I hated the fact that he was pushing such an outdated design for a kernel.
Old does not imply outdated.
We still drive cars with steering wheels, because it's a bloody good design.
What many young whippersnappers tend to forget is that when something has survived for decades, there are likely good reasons for it. Unless you understand those reasons, resist the temptation to change things, and instead launch an alternative and let competing products fight based on merit and not edicts.
Minix was a better design. .
I don't know whether to moderate this -1 flamebait or +1 funny. Let's just go with "+0, Ok?"
Innovation, invention and discovery are certainly important and can allow us to more easily or efficiently address needs, but when we are talking about "innovation" or innovative people most of the time what we are really talking about is creative problem solving using already existing methods, knowledge and technology.
It is easy to look at IT and see how real innovations have contributed to a transformation of many aspects of society over the last half century and then fall into the cult of innovation as a sort of belief in perpetual innovation as a means for the betterment of society. But both a longer view and more critical view of our day to day society should confirm the importance of understanding that you already have many of the technological tools and methods needed to address today's needs. And a good application of those already known technological tools and methods should be the priority of problem solving rather than innovation merely for the sake of innovation.
Surely there is always a need for innovation, especially in medicine where virus are constantly evolving to maximize their contagion and our existing tools need to be adapted to new challenges. But in other technology areas the problem domain does not change as remarkably over time. And already developed technology is well suited for most day to day challenges.
Sure you can probably cite a thousand different examples where today's technology is inadequate to a problem or need, but I think the point is that it is no less noble or worthy to address the tens of thousands of those other problems and human needs that can be worked on without the need for any fundamental innovation.
How about +1i
This is also why so many "tech" companies want to hire young kids straight out of school - they are too naive to see through the marketing nonsense, so they buy into it.
As far as I am concerned, the whole dot-com insanity was the worst thing to happen for tech ... ever. It gave rise to the hype-over-fact culture that we are now saddled with, and the kids who grew up through it don't know enough history to see through the smoke screen. So now we have people more concerned with buzz words than substance, more concerned with what is "new" than what works and somehow convinced that "innovation" is achieved in weeks or months instead of years or decades (mostly because they know so little that they are not aware of what has been done before and how almost all of the innovative/disruptive technology is just rehashing stuff that has been around for decades.
You know, when you read about Edison growing up as a kid, it's clear he had some issues. Maybe he was Asperger's? That would explain his willingness to stubbornly sit there trying material after material to find a suitable filament to make a working light bulb.
Steve Jobs is also often described as "a jerk and an ass", yet it's clear he had some great ideas and was able to not only build a computer company that went head-to-head against Microsoft, but brought it back from the dead when he took it back over again for the second time.
A lot of people running companies are perceived as jerks. Some of that is probably warranted, but maybe it's ALSO because they focus so much on making the company a success? Most "rank and file" employees only care about the paycheck, or doing the little piece of the whole puzzle they're hired to do. If something bad for the company but good for them happens, they're probably pleased about it. The business owner who created it as his "baby" from the ground up? Not so much.
Torvalds is right, IMO, embracing Edison's quote. The people who pretend it's not so are just the ones at the top who can take all the credit for that 99% perspiration of others they hired to implement an idea.
The problem is not innovation itself, but more what we're defining as innovation.
When a person can act like a complete fucking idiot on YouTube and amass a billion look-at-this-dumbass clicks resulting in a six-figure salary, I'd say that says a lot about what is "innovative" today. Don't even get me started on reality TV.
The scary part is watching Wall Street get high as a kite off the innovation fumes as they drool over shit like Snapchat, who loses hundreds of millions every year and arrogantly brags how they may never become profitable, defying all common sense with a multi-billion dollar IPO valuation.
Not that we have any.bomb evidence of what happens when bullshit infects innovation...
No doubt, the earlier we expose kids to real programming (as opposed to the drag-and-drop programming equivalent of the old Radio Shack "hundred-in-one electronics projects" kits that Code.org keeps touting as some sort of mythical progress), the higher quality programmers we'll eventually turn out; but that doesn't mean you'll see a substantial increase in the number of people who can, and can stand to, code.
Early exposure might mean a few more people realize they have what it takes to code, but programming is hard, despite all the rose-scented farts Google, Microsoft et al keep encouraging us to sniff. The vast majority or people have neither the aptitude nor the patience to ever master the relevant skills.
Most of us who got out of school during dot-com, figured it out, quickly, in 2001.
What survived however is the dot-com corporate culture of hype over substance, there were still a lot of winners there for the suite types, and the lesson they learned was somethings you can make more with a flop than with a hit. (Queue the theme song to The Producer)
I watched the development of micro computers in the 1970's. Try re-reading BYTE (and other) magazines of the era. The technology was shockingly primitive. No standardization. The first standardization was around hardware, the 8080 and the S-100 bus. Still no significant software standardization because every system had some cobbled together custom keyboard / display or printer setup. Find a used keyboard from a liquidator, figure out it's circuit board layout, write your own custom interface software, etc. It wasn't until 1977 that the holy trinity arrived (TRS-80, Apple II and Commodore Pet). The first standard off-the-shelf computers. This was where you started to see some commercial software take hold. Just watch the ads in the magazines.
Now to the point.
I am ignoring Unix until a time when it was practical for most people to actually run it. The early 1990's when Linus created Linux was the perfect time. And at that time all of the Unixes were walled off proprietary prison camps and ran on workstations that at that time cost a couple tens of thousands of dollars. Linux ran on a common PC. By the mid to late 90's some people were noticing that you could run Linux on a souped up PC for ten grand and replace a thirty grand Unix box.
If Linux hadn't come along, Unix would be something in obscurity.
Here we are today where you can get Linux on a Raspberry Pi for $35 with 1 GB of ram, gigabytes of SD card storage, 4 core processor, etc. And proprietary unix is relatively obscure.
That makes Linux sure seem innovative to me. It obviously did something VERY right. So much that now Microsoft can no longer ignore it.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Well, everybody can run a company; just start one up and off you go.
What, you want the high salary that goes with being a CEO? Best build that company up fast then.
Me, I work as hard as a blue-chip CEO but with a very different and somewhat less lucrative skillset. I don't work as hard as a small company owner and that's a very deliberate choice.
Being a manager is laborious too. I mean, shit, you have to talk to people. Yuck.
Beautiful designs are generally bad. They get taken to the extreme; and you get shit like xml.
XML was pretty awesome ... as a markup language for books and other natural language documents. It was a wonderful tamed version of SGML. Then some crazy people started using it blindly as a object serialization language.
The odd thing is, you can write terse XML for object serialization (just slightly more verbose than CSV!) but no one did. Instead you got the most verbose approach to serialization imaginable.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The early 1990's when Linus created Linux was the perfect time. And at that time all of the Unixes were walled off proprietary prison camps and ran on workstations that at that time cost a couple tens of thousands of dollars. Linux ran on a common PC.
I was running 386BSD on x86 PCs in 1992-93. While all UNIX wasn't proprietary at that point, this was a time of great changes in that realm. ATT UNIX was in the process of getting re-written as BSD. There was also much legal wrangling going on around the re-write, slowing down the process. According to Linus, "If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened."
file:
386BSD initial release: March 12, 1992 Linux initial release: September 17, 1991 Unless you're suggesting Linux wasn't bootable for about half a year after it was released, your claim is false.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
XML was conceived and pitched from the getgo as a Swiss Army knife-type tool that could be a near-universal application-level network protocol and file format substrate. They were wrong.
Perhaps, but that doesn't change the fact it's good for natural language mark-up. IIRC, all the examples in the standard are of that sort of thing, e.g. using custom-defined &entities; for copyright date. And I recall an interview with one of the creators, who was taken aback at the prevalence of XML for object serialization.
So, "pitched", sure lots of people were pitching XML for all sorts of things. But "conceived"? I'm not sure of that. We'd need to ask Tim Bray, Jean Paoli, and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
. And at that time all of the Unixes were walled off proprietary prison camps and ran on workstations that at that time cost a couple tens of thousands of dollars. Linux ran on a common PC.
Microsoft had a version of Unix (Xenix) in the 80s that could run on x86 boxes.