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Linus says Linux is fun
tknockers writes
"News.com has a story about how Linus describes
Linux as being "fun". He even goes on to say that in 150
years our lives will only be motivated by fear of
boredom. "
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The question many you have to ask is: Are there tasks which exist which are wholly worth doing, and neccessary for society to function, yet no one finds them interesting or fun?
How about proper documentation and user interface coding for Linux apps? (half serious) Certainly no robot is going to do that. Better examples are perhaps things like taking out the garbage, policing high schools, and having sex with your wife.
I get a little antsy when I read about the wonders of this wonderful star-trek like society where everyone does what's fun, no one hates their job, and boredom is the only enemy.
You know, everything ceases to be fun and interesting after awhile. What happens then? You just abandon your task and leave everyone who depended on you wanting? Where's responsibility?
Let's say you found the ZNOME project, an extension to GNOME. It's the hottest thing, and you are one of the hottest coders, the lead maintainer, and pretty much responsible for the success of the project and its management.
Then, you decide you are bored of it, and quit all of a sudden? Sure, other people can take your place, but you still do damage in your wake. If Linus, Miguel, Rasterman, etc all totally abandoned their projects to get more interesting research jobs, would none of you feel let down or complain?
There comes a point in every project, like after 80% of it is done, and that last 20% of polish seems to be like the last mile in a marathon. It's boring sometimes, it hurts, you wish you could do something else.
Are we heading to a society where no on can be depended on to finish a task because it might become boring, irritating, or uninteresting?
Perhaps this is the WHOLE ESSENCE OF Open Source.
I get a flash of energy, I feel like coding up the 513th CD Player applet, this time using GTK and XML for some strange reason. I get it 70% done to where it's workable, but then I get bored and release it without documentation or any usability and hope someone else is interested enough to finish the work for me?
It seems like the MTV Attention Deficit Order society to me.
Linus doesn't explicitly state that we'll all have so much free time in the future that we'll be bored. And that's a good thing too because it's not true. If we look back at the labor saving devices invented in the last 200 years, it boggles the mind. Yet today we still mostly work for a living. Many people work longer hours than ever as companies shed as many employees as the possibly can. The fact is that labor saving devices don't exist in a vacuum. They are part of the fabric of our society. Computerization both changes society and is moulded by society.
I highly recommend the essay Speeding Towards Meaninglessness: Why Labor Saving Devices Don't Save Time. It's part of Steve Talbott's NETFUTURE site, which I've recommended on this forum before. Steve is a pseudo-luddite and an enviro-weenie who worships primitive cultures, but he and his contributors do have a lot to add to our understanding of the affect of technology on human existencs.
There was quite a bit more to the panel than you gather from the news.com article. Linus spent much of his time providing examples for "Linus's Law" which said that the only three things that motivate people are 1. Survival (food, shelter, etc...), 2. Social Needs (communication, relationships, sex), and 3. Entertainment. He then pointed out how many things move from a survival stage, to social, and then eventually entertainment, as do societies (e.g. the romans). He said something like "First you worry about surviving, then about your social communications with others, and then you end up partying all night." But he wasn't the only interesting one on the panel - there were a few others including Prof. Castells who talked about the need for worrying about the application for technology both in schools and in society at large, instead of just dumping it there and expecting the best to come out of it. He gave an example of how a good technology such as email introduced in the wrong way to a society can be turned in the wrong direction easily. He also stressed that schools shouldn't just be wired, but provide a system for using the internet that they're connected to. Overall an interesting talk, but its focus was more on society than on technology, and my feeling was that there were a lot of folks there just for Linus's talk.