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Linus Torvalds Says Linux Still Surprises and Motivates Him (linux.com)

Linus Torvalds: What I find interesting is code that I thought was stable continually gets improved. There are things we haven't touched for many years, then someone comes along and improves them or makes bug reports in something I thought no one used. We have new hardware, new features that are developed, but after 25 years, we still have old, very basic things that people care about and still improve. I really like what I'm doing. I like waking up and having a job that is technically interesting and challenging without being too stressful so I can do it for long stretches; something where I feel I am making a real difference and doing something meaningful not just for me. I occasionally have taken breaks from my job. The 2-3 weeks I worked on Git to get that started for example. But every time I take a longer break, I get bored. When I go diving for a week, I look forward to getting back. I never had the feeling that I need to take a longer break.

78 comments

  1. Meanwhile by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Funny

    In other news, Larry Ellison says that money still surprises and motivates him.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re: Meanwhile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Larry Ellison also remains a deeply technical guy despite the "business" part.

    2. Re:Meanwhile by unixisc · · Score: 1

      He can do that w/ dronny planes instead of cars, where there ain't too many dronny plane owners like there are cars. So his loans for cars programs would actually work pretty well here

    3. Re:Meanwhile by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I need some motivation now.

  2. My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Every Monday morning, I wake up with a sinking heart as I realize I'm about to endure another week of getting beaten up by management to try to squeeze more productivity out of me. Every time I meet a quota, they raise the quota. Outwardly, they ask for ideas and feedback, but if you ever provide any you are immediately labeled as 'negative' and 'combative' and threatened to be fired. You are made to feel inferior and getting any time off takes an act of god... the whole time you wonder if you will still have a job when you return or whether someone in India will have taken over your duties. I make about what I've made for the past 4 years and they keep raising the cost of our health insurance. I'm happy for Linus but he really doesn't need to rub it in our faces. That shows a complete lack of character and class.

    1. Re:My job is horrible. by gfxguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I feel your pain. I love my work, but my job leaves something to be desired. Crap raises for the last ten years don't make up for increases in health insurance and cost of living, so I'm worse off financially now than I was. To add insult to injury, now I'm at the top of my pay grade so I do not even get raises (just lump sum payment of what my raise would be, which does little to help). We just had a "culture survey," and if it wasn't run by an independent third party, I would not have said most of what I said. Even if they figure out it was me and fire me, it would probably be the kick in the pants I need to move on.

      As far as Linus goes, I don't begrudge him loving his work. I do wonder, though, off topic, "When I go diving for a week, I look forward to getting back." Most people feel that way after a week away from their routine. Is it just me, or is diving something you spend a day doing, and then do something else? The best vacations I've had, the ones I didn't want to end, we were doing something different every day, not just sitting on a beach for a week. I suppose I could go hiking for a week, or river rafting, but then the experience is vastly different every day (to me, anyway).

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    2. Re:My job is horrible. by fabriciom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hey, I've been there. My advice is look for something else. But first get some time off because you will carry all your baggage from your current job.

    3. Re:My job is horrible. by war4peace · · Score: 1

      I could say the same about your entry. Made me depressed.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    4. Re:My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey look over here, someone's unhappy with their job! Halt all your happiness people, this guy's got beef!

    5. Re:My job is horrible. by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Diving is similar to hiking in that respect, you can easily do it for a week or longer and not be bored. Even if you dive the same site twice, the experience is still going to be different. Most people I know who take a week off for diving try and squeeze as many dives in as possible. As for looking forward to going back home, I usually feel that fater a week away, but after 2 weeks I've settled into a new routine and I'll prefer to stick around even longer.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    6. Re:My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh, maybe you need to step up your game. What do YOU provide? Are you leaving above your means? What's with this self-pitying?

    7. Re:My job is horrible. by cerberusss · · Score: 3, Informative

      Crap raises for the last ten years don't make up for increases in health insurance and cost of living, so I'm worse off financially now than I was

      I find it hard to sympathize with this. Assuming you're in the tech industry like me, the salaries are amazing compared to the rest of the country.

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    8. Re:My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      some may feel like hes rubbing it in our faces, others (including me) see it as motivational!

      It really is all about your personal perspective as to how you take it and thus is easy enough for you to change it.

      Also Linus doesn't care about your judgment of his character or class, just read a couple of his emails.

      seriously, if you feel the way you do, you need to be looking for a new job, yes 90% of jobs are as you've described but why stay if you hate it so much? I may not have found my perfect job but i'm going to keep looking because giving up gets you no where but the unemployment line.

    9. Re:My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut the fuck up, computah weenie, and don't forget to empty the wastebasket on your way out. When should it be? 2359? Har har. Here, get off your seat so I can take a dump on it. Aaaah, that feels better. Now you can have your seat back. Har har.

    10. Re:My job is horrible. by BlytheBowman · · Score: 1

      Wow, this reads exactly like a classic abusive domestic abuse situation (even if the 'beatings' are not literal), just replace "HR" with "husband" or "wife" "Every morning, I wake up with a sinking heart as I realize I'm about to endure another day of getting pressured and threatened by my husband to try to squeeze more house work out of me. Every time I do everything he asks, he piles on more chores for me to do. Outwardly, he asks for ideas and feedback, but if I ever provide any, he immediately labels me as 'negative' and 'combative' and threatens to divorce me and find someone else. I am made to feel inferior and getting any time to relax takes an act of god... the whole time I wonder if my husband is now cheating on me and if a new woman will take my place........"

    11. Re:My job is horrible. by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      That's fine, since I'm not asking for your sympathy, just pointing out some facts. I love my work, but I'm pretty down about my job. I was only pointing out how someone can hate their job but love their work.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    12. Re:My job is horrible. by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Salaries in Silicon Valley are amazing, except that the cost of living in Silicon Valley is ridiculous. Right now, I'm living in a dump in a declining area of town, but with only half of my pay in someplace more miserable to live would leave me being rich. Here, the home owner market is priced to two-income families, in the home town the housing market is oriented to one stay at home parent.

    13. Re:My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What "declining area of town" in Silicon Valley??

    14. Re:My job is horrible. by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      You obviously don't know how to present your ideas in a positive and supportive manner.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    15. Re:My job is horrible. by freax · · Score: 1

      Disclamer, I'm a PADI Rescue Diver (1409EW7988). Diving can be exhausting on the mind and body. The sport underwater itself isn't very harsh on the muscles and doesn't require fitness unless you do something wrong or you are into and trained for that kind of dives. But everything surrounding the dive can be. For example lifting equipment into and out of the boat, helping other (less experienced divers) with their equipment, putting the equipment on and off, getting out of the water and back into the boat. Current can also drag you away hard and that might mean that you have to push your legs harder to navigate right. But you can choose not to dive if the current is too hard (it can also be dangerous to dive with too much current).

      Mentally, depending on the site, the difficulty of the site (ie. was visibility low and navigation hard), the amount of stuff you experience (colors, colors, colors all over the place, fish, animal life, etc) and back on the boat talking about the experience and listening to other people's experiences, it can also be "a lot" to digest. This doesn't make it any less fun. But too much fun can also be mentally hard, after a week.

      But of course, it all depends on how hard you squeeze your vacation. As you mention, you can squeeze three or four dives or five in a day. One or two in the morning. One or two in the afternoon. And a night dive. I can assure you you'll sleep well if you did five dives in a day. Repeat that an entire week, and you'll be exhausted.

    16. Re:My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I feel your pain. Your first paragraph could have been written by me a year ago. Then the company shut down our plant permanently and laid off a lot of good friends and hard workers.

      Try to remember, it can always be worse. Even when it's worse, it can be worse. Just count your blessings and try to do whatever you can to improve either your situation or your outlook.

      May God bless you and all those whose jobs are threatened by technology and labor cost arbitrage.

    17. Re:My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The guy's in a legitimately bad situation, shows some of the grotesqueness of our industry, and you have to poke fun of it because of what exactly? Seriously, just learn to keep your dumb mouth shut.

    18. Re:My job is horrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut the fuck up, computah weenie, and don't forget to empty the wastebasket on your way out. When should it be? 2359? Har har. Here, get off your seat so I can take a dump on it. Aaaah, that feels better. Now you can have your seat back. Har har.

      This might be the stupidest thing I've read all year. I've read some pretty stupid things.

  3. Re:Republican ignorance surprises and motivates me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The election is over Hill-dawg. Let it go.

  4. Re:Republican ignorance surprises and motivates me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you familiar with the concept of self-fornication?

    http://www.washingtontimes.com...

  5. Re:Republican ignorance surprises and motivates me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who is Seth Rich?

  6. Thank you Linus! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To Linus and any/all contribuitors: if you're reading this, a heartfelt thank you from someone using Linux each and every day on hundreds of systems.

    -- HPC sysadmin

    1. Re: Thank you Linus! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hey Linus, can you take 3 more weeks off and unfuck systemd already?

  7. His Lifes' Work by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Linux is Linus Torvalds' lifes' work.
    How many of you can say you have anything that is your lifes' work, and not just a job? Seems like an eviable thing to me, to have a "lifes' work".

    1. Re:His Lifes' Work by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      How many of you can say you have anything that is your lifes' work, and not just a job?

      Sure... but I think serial killers and global-recession-causing-bankers fit that description too. ;)

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:His Lifes' Work by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Lots of people feel their 'job' or whatever they primarily do is their life's work.

      For some, posting trolls on Slashdot is probably their life's work.

    3. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Linux is Linus Torvalds' lifes' work.

      How many of you can say you have anything that is your lifes' work, and not just a job? Seems like an eviable thing to me, to have a "lifes' work".

      I sincerely hope that no-one else says that. It would be much better if they said "life's work" instead.

    4. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many parents say their kids are their life's work.

    5. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux is Linus ' life work and that of thousands of others.

    6. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some of them may be Buddhists, you insensitive clod.

    7. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So it is his "life IS work"? There is only one fate that awaits a failed grammar nazi: KILL YOURSELF.

    8. Re: His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So it is his "life IS work"?

      No. Do try to keep up at school.

      "Life's work" == "work of his life". And "lifes' work" == "work of his lifes".

    9. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many people have to somehow squeeze their life's work around their job. I sure know I do. My self-appointed quest is to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity (yeah I know, low chance of success, high chance of being laughed at) but thanks to work and life commitments (kids... love em, but they eat spare time for breakfast) I struggle to get in more than a few hours a week.

    10. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      psst, a dad here: don't tell anyone, but that's a lie some parents tell themselves to justify their decision to spawn. The more strident the announcement, the more insecure the parent is about their choices. Why did you think some parents get so uptight when someone, particularly a female someone, dares to suggest that having kids might not be the be-all and end-all of their existence, or even something they (gasp) regret?

    11. Re: His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Smother them all in their sleep.
      Then you can abscond and live the child free life of your dreams.
      Must have felt good being handed that Father's Day card and holding the bile in while your kids watched for your reaction.

    12. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An apostrophe is that little punctuation mark at or near the end of a word that makes a noun possessive or helps to form a contraction. If Linus turns out to be a cat, OP's grammar is correct. Anyway, please nobody die today.

    13. Re:His Lifes' Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So it is his "life IS work"? There is only one fate that awaits a failed grammar nazi: KILL YOURSELF.

      Singular possessive dumb fuck. You can tell because as you noted "life is work" doesn't make any sense. So clearly it means the work that belongs to his life.

  8. "Improvement" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    There are things we haven't touched for many years, then someone comes along and improves them

    The NSA is just glad to help you out, Linus. Just don't stare too long at our code.

  9. Linux: the monolithic kernel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Wants to be motivated? Turn Linux into a microkernel.

    1. Re:Linux: the monolithic kernel. by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Or create an automatic AI powered device driver generator for every hardware peripheral that a Linux device comes into contact w/. So that the main sore point of Linux is mitigated

    2. Re:Linux: the monolithic kernel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thing is, if you wrote the monolith and have been immersed in it most of your life you probably won't see the problem. I've written code bases like that, and it took time away (a year) to come back with fresh eyes and see what a tortuous knot of complexity it had become.

    3. Re:Linux: the monolithic kernel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .. and why would I want a system that's 10x slower than the existing one? Some of us actually use significant fractions of available cycles on our machines.

    4. Re:Linux: the monolithic kernel. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...whooosh...

      You kinda missed a (significant) historical joke there.

  10. He must be using by macxcool · · Score: 1

    KDE

    1. Re:He must be using by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correction: He must be using !#$&&%^$*()! KDE, not !#$&&%^$*()! GNOME

    2. Re:He must be using by Entropius · · Score: 2

      !#$&&%^$*()! looks like a vi command, not KDE or GNOME.

    3. Re:He must be using by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or a drunken regexp

  11. Re:Republican ignorance surprises and motivates me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FYI: Loretta Lynch is under investigation now interfering with the FBI. Other dem ops are getting letters from Senate Judiciary too.

    Have a nice weekend.

  12. changed everything for many... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    learned to think stuff through, many laughs, never ends, thanks.. also to mr. stallman... sing along .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0 ..high drama

  13. GFL by jf_moreira · · Score: 1

    Good for Linus. Still a boring job, but at least it's way better than trying to "make the world better" through Facebook.

  14. This doesn't surprise me... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 0, Troll

    If you interested in the early history of Linux, read "Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution" by Glyn Moody. This is a great read and one of my favorite Linux book.

    1. Re: This doesn't surprise me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Careful, more affiliate spam from Creimer.

      Here is the link without his affiliate ID and tracking info:

      link

    2. Re:This doesn't surprise me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Oh, your affiliate ID is on there... are you trying to make money off me?

      You should be BANNED for this. Mods, ban him!

    3. Re:This doesn't surprise me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      are you trying to make money off me?

      This is the Internet. EVERYONE is making money off of you.

    4. Re: This doesn't surprise me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, the guy's gotta eat. And eat. And eat....

  15. Without exaggeration is he the best coder alive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    He goes through constant iterations where he codes something that works well, only to have someone come along and through luck or ingenuity, optimize or improve it and give it back to him. He can learn where weaknesses are in him that he never even knew he had, and improve them. He could very well be the single best coder in the world because he has, for 20 years, constantly been taught new things by those around him participating. Likewise he no doubt deserves a lot of credit for continuing to give back consistently.

  16. Surprise! by OrangeTide · · Score: 0

    People are still goofing around with monolithic kernels that are simulacrums of a nearly 50 year platform. And Unix itself was a dumbed down rewrite of earlier operating systems that were perhaps more advanced than even Linux is today. For example, Multics took real steps to eliminate the distinction between primary and secondary memory, and used segments and handles to deal with files as ranges of addressable memory.

    We made some huge strides in computing, but we locked ourselves into software that was technically inferior but cheaper and more readily applied to hardware during its time. We never went on to improve our basic system architecture even though the hardware has gotten thousands of times more capable and cheaper.

    Unix, Linux, Android, OSX/iOS, Windows, VMS, and others have us all locked into a computing time capsule. This stuff works just well enough to get the job done, but we ignore anything that might lead to huge leaps forward. No operating system revolution for us.

    Unix is older than me, and it's going to out live me, and that's rather sad.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re: Surprise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lolwhut is a testulacrums?

    2. Re:Surprise! by nyet · · Score: 1

      Feel free to write your own kernel. Linus did. Why can't you?

      Other than you'd have to find a problem that a microkernel actually solves.

    3. Re: Surprise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As the years have gone by, we have placed much of that complexity in software services that run atop the OS or across a network or even directly implemented by ourselves within our application.

      Consider data storage: who stores complex data in something other than a database management system, relation or otherwise?

      The truth is that it was a dumb idea to try to put all that functionality directly in the OS. Too monolithic. Can't be evolved. Too complicated for one company to get it right, since development can't be split up across companies.

    4. Re:Surprise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So...what exactly do you have in mind? Sounds like you have an idea that nobody else has had before.

    5. Re:Surprise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Other than you'd have to find a problem that a microkernel actually solves.

      You mean like a shitty driver crashing your whole system?

    6. Re:Surprise! by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      I've written two and one that is still in commercial use, but they are closed source. So I'm not crazy famous.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    7. Re:Surprise! by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      That's my point exactly. The ideas have been around for decades, but we don't use them. And not because they are technically flawed, but because we don't like to change things around. We've been delaying a paradigm shift for about 50 years now, with the excuse that it's too expensive to change the way things are done.

      Even something as old and obsolete as Multics covers some of what I've said, and it is famous for nearly catching on.

      For microkernels, there are never generations like L4 that offer process isolation without the huge performance costs that traditional microkernels demand. So I'd recommend you throw out your 1990's textbooks on microkernels because they are full of bad analysis of the technology.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  17. Cat got your tongue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No one single foul word on this statement. Does really Linus wrote this?

  18. Re:Republican ignorance surprises and motivates me by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    As opposed to Hillary, whose sellouts (a.k.a. speeches) are well documented. Foreign governments, Goldman Sachs, no problem!

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  19. Are you me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm in the same position. I fix software bugs for a living. I enjoy that very much: the puzzles, the hunt, whatever. But what I don't like is everything around it. The constant harassment from management, the "there's no money for raises" every flipping year, while mgt gets bonus after raise after payscale upgrade.

    There aren't many jobs in my area, and the job that I've got is reasonably secure (not likely to be outsourced) so I'm very hesitant to quit and try my luck elsewhere. I need money to survive after all. So, it's back to the grind, every weekday is a chore. Until I'm doing my actual work, then I forget the misery for a few hours.

    Is this life? Is this how it's supposed to be? Because I'd like to file a complaint somewhere.