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Linus Explains What Surprises Him After 25 Years Of Linux (linux.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the Linus-on-Linux dept.

Linus Torvalds appeared in a new "fireside chat" with VMware Head of Open Source Dirk Hohndel. An anonymous reader writes: Linus explained what still surprises him about Linux development. "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... Our processes have not only worked for 25 years, we still have a very strong maintainer group... And as these maintainers get older and fatter, we have new people coming in."

Linus also says he's surprised by the widespread popularity of Git. "I expected it to be limited mostly to the kernel -- as it's tailored to what we do... In certain circles, Git is more well known than Linux." And he also shares advice if you want to get started as an open source developer. "I'm not sure my example is the right thing for people to follow. There are a ton of open source projects and, if you are a beginning programmer, find something you're interested in that you can follow for more than just a few weeks... If you can be part of a community and set up patches, it's not just about the coding, but about the social aspect of open source. You make connections and improve yourself as a programmer."
Linus also says that "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."

23 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Great guy by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Did more for computing than Gates, Ellison and Jobs combined.

    1. Re:Great guy by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, Gates set computing back a decade. Good programmer, but he should have stayed in school. I know some people will ask, "Why stay in school? He made plenty of money." He should have stayed in school for the betterment of humanity.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Great guy by AndroSyn · · Score: 4, Informative

      So instead we got the 640k barrier, config.sys, interrupt conflicts, extended/expanded memory, 8.3 filenames, segmented memory...

      640K barrier is IBMs fault for putting the BIOS at the top of the first 1MB instead of the bottom. Interrupt conflicts, I think you can blame this on IBM too. 8.3 filenames came from CP/M.

      EMS/XMS and memory segmentation are FAR more the fault of Intel given these are CPU architecture related.

      So...that leaves config.sys(which isn't that terrible really).

       

    3. Re:Great guy by wideBlueSkies · · Score: 2

      >>He made plenty of money." He should have stayed in school for the betterment of humanity.

      With all that money he made, he is indeed working towards the betterment of humanity.

      --
      Huh?
    4. Re:Great guy by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      At the time, IBM felt aware of being a 'slow' bureaucratic company, so they started a small project on the side which became the IBM PC. The person in charge had the opposite of NIH, and contracted out every part. He was widely reviled for many years as having 'ruined' IBM.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:Great guy by vtcodger · · Score: 2

      No reflection on Linus Torvalds who I greatly admire, but BTL who created Unix and GNU who cloned the Unix core utilities as open source software surely deserve a large share of the credit.for modern Linux.

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    6. Re: Great guy by KGIII · · Score: 2

      Maybe a wee bit of credit from the guy who wrote Minix. I'm too lazy to go find his name, I forgot it.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    7. Re: Great guy by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Without Microsoft, we may not actually have had the computer revolution that we had.

      No, we would have. And it demonstrably would have been better at many points in the history.
      If Microsoft hadn't used unfair practices (and they had to pay because of it), DrDos would have replaced Microsoft.
      If they hadn't used 'sharp' business practices, OS2/Warp would have replaced Windows. It was a much better OS.
      If they hadn't used their Monopolistic practices to keep alternative OSes off, then maybe Linux might not have won anyway, but it would have had a better chance. For comparison, we can see that Android turned out alright.

      In the 80s, everyone and their dog was writing an OS. There would have definitely been another one if Microsoft hadn't done it.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    8. Re:Great guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Time to let it rest, Tannenbaum. Time to let it rest.

    9. Re: Great guy by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      Without Microsoft, we may not actually have had the computer revolution that we had. Windows ran on anything

      Microsoft wasn't the only chicken in the race. IBM were originally intending to buy CP/M from Digital Research.

      That's not to say the Gary Kildall couldn't have been as much of an asshat as Gates, or even worse ...

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    10. Re:Great guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Interrupt conflicts you get to blame on Intel.

      I think you can also blame the 1MB boundary for the BIOS on Intel as well.

      What you CAN blame on IBM was selecting the 8086 CPU instead of the Motorola 68000.

    11. Re:Great guy by Subm · · Score: 2

      > Did more for computing than Gates, Ellison and Jobs combined.

      But less than Stallman, on whose foundation he built.

    12. Re:Great guy by Lisias · · Score: 2

      So instead we got the 640k barrier, config.sys, interrupt conflicts, extended/expanded memory, 8.3 filenames, segmented memory...

      640K barrier is IBMs fault for putting the BIOS at the top of the first 1MB instead of the bottom. Interrupt conflicts, I think you can blame this on IBM too. 8.3 filenames came from CP/M.

      EMS/XMS and memory segmentation are FAR more the fault of Intel given these are CPU architecture related.

      So...that leaves config.sys(which isn't that terrible really).

      The BIOS going on top is also Digital Research's fault. CP/M used extensively the CPU's "soft IRQ" as handlers to the S.O., and so the hooks MUST stay on RAM in order to be reprogrammed as the S.O. is loaded (or relocated) and new device drivers are put to use. If you look on the 8080/Z80 home computers of the 80's that choose to put ROM in at the start of the address space (what on the long run would avoid the 640K barrier), you will also see that EVERY SINGLE ONE had died in a way or another due serious difficulties to expand the firmware - you can add devices galore to the expansion bus, but without a solid and easy way to expand the firmware, you are doomed.

      --
      Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
    13. Re:Great guy by jmccue · · Score: 2

      Wish I had mod points for you.

      Yes, but I think what Linus enforced early on was also key:

      1. Ensuring Linux ran on low spec hardware (at least in the 90's), that helped people like me to move to it. Probably due to the fact Linus (and me) had very little $ back then. IIRC the BSDs you needed much more memory (by 90s standards).
      2. His rule "Do not break user space". That made upgrading much easier

    14. Re:Great guy by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      No, I've seen Bill Gates' code. It was good code.

      He's a smart guy, he aced the SAT, and that kind of thinking skill is exactly what was needed in the late 70s and early 80s, when programming was more of a puzzle, where you try to fit as much functionality as possible onto the 2048 bytes of RAM on your computer.

      OF course, going into the late 90s, code readability and organization became more important, and that style of programming (which got adopted everywhere in Microsoft) fell flat on its face. From that perspective, the code looks awful.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. Somebody getting soft and mushy in his old age by JoeyRox · · Score: 2

    Good to see the nicer, less-abusive side of Linus.

    1. Re: Somebody getting soft and mushy in his old age by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2

      That is about the reporting, not the man. I never see a house fire, assault, etc. ... unless I turn on the news. Then there are fires and murders everywhere all the time, and no decent people or safe places to be found anywhere.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  3. What should really surprise Linus is... by Nutria · · Score: 3, Insightful

    a week without dupes on /.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  4. Thankful by VikingNation · · Score: 2

    I am thankful for the contributions of Linus and so many in the open source movement.

  5. Re:Dupe Comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Amazon affiliated link spam. Please mod down.

  6. Re:Dupe Comment by willoughby · · Score: 4, Informative

    Better to get the early history of Linux right from the source. The book "Just for Fun" is the story told by Linus himself.

  7. A better more by Xinerama · · Score: 2

    When I saw 'less' being updated two days ago on Mint I was quite amused.

  8. sounds like a junior high school comment by peter303 · · Score: 2

    An adult would respect the contributions of all parts of the industry: hardware, software, businessmen, designers...