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In-Depth Upside Interview With Linus Torvalds
Anonymous Coward writes "I've heard that Linus will grace the cover of the next Upside. Their site posted the interview today. It's one of those huge, future-speak filled, all-encompassing pieces. Pretty good stuff." This may be the *longest* Linus interview ever posted online. But there's enough new information in it (besides the sushi comment; I didn't make that up) that it's probably worth reading.
Ooooww, what do you think his company does? My guess is that it's something banal like a modified version of Instant Messengering program or a "Network Computer." C'mon Linus, tell us what it is.
Rarargh!!!!
What's with all the [brackets]? Why not let the man speak [for himself]? I could see adding a [clarification] a couple [times] in the article, but every [freakin] answer? Is Linus [that] uninteligible in [english]?
In the bio section, it says Torvalds "wrote Linux, a half-million line operating system..." I'm sure he did far more than anyone else, but did he personally write, say, 100,000 lines of code? And does the kernel source itself have 500,000 lines? (just wondering - he's still my hero)
Of course he meant all those softies who don't write their own device drivers.
Does anybody know who the Swede was that conviced Linus to start on Transmeta?
What really saddens me is all the incompetent people joining the computer science departments at universities because it makes a lot of money. I'm in computer science for the love of it, not for the money, and most people think I'm crazy when I tell them that. The majority of the people that I see in the department are there to get high paying, low maintenence cs jobs, and complain about learning something "useless" like regular languages and finite automata.
Call it eliteism, call it overgeneralization, call it what you will- but there are too many stupid moneygrubbers in the US.
"Games aren't supposed to be realistic. If real life was fun, I wouldn't have to play games."
"...there are too many stupid moneygrubbers in the US."
True - but only half marks. There are too many stupid moneygrubbers _everywhere_. I have never seen a social group in which many individuals, given the opportunity, didn't exhibit shocking amounts of grubbiness. My personal experience is with "traditional" East Asian cultures and also with well-educated Europeans. I believe "grubbiness" is actually a universal human trait.
The US, as one of the more open, individualistic societies, simply makes it easier for outsiders to see this universal grubbiness.
--
"One treats others with courtesy and respect not because they are a gentleman or gentlewoman, but because you are" -- paraphrased from Garth Henrichs
Perhaps it is just me, but I think characterizing Tove merely once as a Finnish kindergarten teacher (and not even mentioning her at all in Linus' biography) without even noting she was 6-time Finnish Karate champion a bit disappointing. I mean, it sounds like Linus married some wallflower or something.
What's sad is all the comments bashing people who do things for money, but not bashing people who do things for vanity (reputation - wow, please worship me because of my code).
Or how about "respecting education?" Like Linus's comment about how in Finland, academics is respected.
My girlfriend is Chinese, and I can tell you that people from cultures that "respect academics" put WAY WAY too much emphasis on educational credentials. It's like if you didn't go to a good school, you are untouchable,
unemployable even.
So, students spend alot of effort just trying to get credentials so they can be respected by society, taking classes and majors they aren't even interested in, cramming for bogus entrance
exams, spending 10 hours a day in school.
I don't see this as any better than the situation with respect to money which is people doing things not because they have an interest or love the subject, but because they want ATTENTION and RESPECT from SOCIETY/COMMUNITY.
So get off your ass off your high-european-horse and stop preaching.
IMHO, the best thing a society can have is social mobility. That means if you come from a bad family, had a poor upbringing, a poor education, dropped out, took drugs, look like a grungy loser, you still have a chance in the end to
achieve what you want.
Any society that places too much emphasis on family status or academic credentials restricts mobility because you may not be able to control these things. (like if your dad is an alcoholic and spent all the family's college money)
Finally, Let's not kid ourselves here. Linus is not Mother Theresa and Bill Gates is not Satan. Greed is good and continues to be a good motivator in our society. It influences people to do work which has the side effect of benefiting others.
Whether this is giving away code to get reputation and stroke your ego, or selling code to get money, the end result is a net gain for society over pure altruism, if such a thing exists.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with money, it is just a tool of exchange. Anything taken too far can be bad, like ego/vanity, academic credentials/family societal status, or even
trying too hard to please your parents/significant other for love.
The moment you realize this, you will group up from a teenager with a "cause" against the "establishment" into an adult who sees that the world is not black and white, but shades of many colors.
They would have done an IPO if they did.
Gee MR. ADULT you sure are smart! Thanks for helping all us kids out. We where just born yesterday!
Greed is BAD. The more of it there is the worse you are. Your not greedy by trying to feed and cloth your family. You are if you need to own a Jaguar! Greed is a sin ASS. If you need motivation to do something with your life then you are a weak minded idiot.
Anything taken too far can be bad
Except for Bill Gates and his money right. What about that 500 Billion dollars? Is that taking things too far? But of course Bill wants more. Is there anything that Bill Gates could do to be considered evil? You don't seem to think that good old Bill is evil after everyone in this industry calling him a "monopolist"! What worse thing could you say about someone. (You are not really successfully just a monopolist)
Mr. Linus actually have a VERY BIG EGO... He should stop talking and [re-]start coding. Looking at 2.2.10 I get the decisive impression that these 2.2 kernels are very STUPID, since they cause corruption of filesystems, have problems with mundane things (as parport) and ohter beasts. I wonder why those fine guys from debian, or redhat, or suse, or whatever linux distribution dont start doing their distros based on the freebsd (or .*bsd if you prefer) kernel, that is *a lot* better than linux. It's better to leave a stupid design and big egos out of this business before it's too late.
So what you're saying is, all the students who
cram for exams to get into Toyko university,
and then party their way through college because
this credential guarantees them a job, are
somehow better than everyone else? What about
the brilliant student who fell 1 point
behind and had to settle for a 3-tier university?
You know what I see? I see jealous Europeans on their high-horses out-gunned by cowboy Americans who dropped out of school to follow their dreams and scored big time.
You know why your so-called filter is bogus? Because the vast majority of people graduating with degrees simply crammed their way through school and forget everything after. Same
goes for certifications.
You know, the European colonial empires disappeared a long time ago, yet culturally, Europeans still view themselves as better than everyone else.
Dumbass. First of all, what the hell is a sin? Is that like, some kind of deed that has be ruled bad by a mythological book? Second of all, when someone has the need to OWN SOMETHING, it creates a demand which other people try to fulfill by building it. Likewise, the person who wants to own it has to *CREATE* the wealth to purchase it. If no one ever desired to have more than anyone else, or only what they need for existence, civilization would have never advanced and no surplus would ever be created. You know, a lot of people just have a pure flat out desire to own a beowulf cluster, or a 1ghz computer. So the market will try to satisfy these desires, and the people who want them will work towards owning them. Greed? I think so. Bad for society? I think not. You are either a Christian or a Marxist, and in either case, you're a moron.
Dumbass. First of all, what the hell is a sin? Is that like, some kind of deed that has be ruled bad by a mythological book?
Second of all, when someone has the need to OWN SOMETHING, it creates a demand which other people try to fulfill by building it. Likewise, the person who wants to own it has to *CREATE* the wealth to purchase it.
If no one ever desired to have more than anyone else, or only what they need for existence, civilization would have never advanced and no surplus would ever be created.
You know, a lot of people just have a pure flat out desire to own a beowulf cluster, or a 1ghz computer. So the market will try to satisfy these desires, and the people who want them will work towards owning them.
Greed? I think so. Bad for society? I think not.
You are either a Christian or a Marxist, and in either case, you're a moron.
Ha! Most European films suck, except for the top hits that get exported. (French films especially suck)
The European movie industry is being crushed by America because Europeans like watching the Matrix too, and are equally bored by pretentous slow melodramatic sleepers.
I feel sorry for European artists and programmers because they can't get money to do anything unless it comes from a government grant. And
then they turn to protectionism to try to prop up their failing cultural identity. The EU is basically dead.
-the stupid american punk
He wasn't comparing Linux to Win98. He was comparing the stability of Linux applications to Windows applications.
Torvalds seems a [common man] at heart ... he prefers Hollywood entertainment to highbrow European art films.
It breaks many rules of decorum.
But thats a very small segment of European movies. And contrary to Linus, while I don't see many of them myself, I think that's good, because it ensures that there's always alternatives.
It's the same rationale behind most of the public broadcasters in Europe: Many of them have rules to ensure that they serve as broad a spectrum of the population as possible. Commercial interests will take care of the broad mediocrity, while the public broadcasters have no problem doing programs targetted to various small segments.
Ha!
Do you know how many Hollywood movies are *remakes* of french movies? In all of these movies, they sucked up the script up to the
last comma, then re-shot it with americans actors.
It's true. I saw both versions of :
Three men and a baby -> Trois hommes et un couffin
True Lies -> La Totale
(some movie with Richard Gere coming back from war
to his wife, and being somebody else, I forgot the title) -> Le retour de Martin Guerre
and so on...
Hollywood is good at special effects. Ideas?
Imagination? Ahem...
Writing only from personal experience, i didn't see a lot of incompetent moneygrubbers taking CS. And those who were weren't that great at it still generally tried hard, they just weren't really academic types or hacker types (interesting that you can succeed -- i.e. get good grades -- in CS at university EITHER taking it as a serious academic subject OR if you're a hacker).
I went to a decent university with maybe 13,000 undergrads and i think there were about 50 CS majors a year. hardly at the saturation point. i knew most of them and i couldn't honestly say that any of them fit your description. maybe in canada it's different ;) also maybe it's different now (i graduated in april 98)... maybe a lot of the current first-years fit your description, i dunno.
I completely lucked into CS (in retrospect). I'm sure I make more $ and enjoy my job more (i'm a web developer) than if i took almost any major. i took CS, math and psych in first year and soon realized math was too hard and psych was too vague (although the class was at least 80% female...). programming just caught my imagination and seemed to fit my skills.
Who's the moron that has to post multiple times? Stop calling people names and show a little respect. Maybe you'll get some in return.
Greed = progress is a very simplistic arguement. Even if today the driving force behind the economy is materiality, it does not mean that in a few centuries other factors may not replace it. Maybe the gift economy in software is a precursor of things to come.
Open your mind, you'll be amazed at what you can see.
It is odd how money is many times a factor, even if the factor is whether or not money is a factor. As an American I detest that the American dream is about money. To me, the American Dream is rising up and lifting yourself to new heights. It is possible it means money, but I beleive their are other ways as well.
One thing I have noted often enough is that to many people who are aware of technology, revolutions are a good thing. I completely disagree. Revolution means drastic change. Change is good. Drastic is not. In any revolution in history, much was destroyed to bring about the revolution. The same implies with computers. If a new technology is revolutionary, it must change drasticly. That means incompatability and everything needs to be rebuilt. This is bad. And as often the new Amiga people say "revolutionary" I say it will fail because of it. Unless it isn't a real revolution.
And Microsoft. To far too many people, Microsoft means money. They used to mean success but they don't seem as successful anymore. So now they mean money, and to too many people, money means greed. After you see through many wicked associations like this, you begin to see it is largely unwarranted. Microsoft offers conveniance and their motivation is money. Their monopoly on operating systems is bad, but again their motivations are money. And when a company is as big as Microsoft, it can't help tramping some people. So don't ask for the end of Microsoft. Ask to make them smaller. They have some nice technologies and too many people fail to recognize this.
After you look at yourself enough, you find out where your prejudices lay. The rules are the same as anywhere else: give it the benefit of the doubt, look at it in the eyes of another, and what would you did if you were them. And then life doesn't seem as evil anymore.
(I guess you might be wondering what this has to do with the interview. Well, all three of my topics were mentioned in the interview. And I can imagine many people commenting in this thread without thinking objectably. It is difficult, especially on slashdot, I know.)
Kevin Holmes
"extrasolar"
klh@sedona.net
Having been both an interviewer and an interviewee in the past --
Often, answers to questions will wander off into all sorts of tangents before coming back to the point. Reading a wandering comment is no fun. Thus the need to edit a comment into something short and concise that grabs the reader's attention while being faithful to the general point.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Interesting. Every time I use Word97 under Windows 98, I end up getting a "This program has committed an illegal operation" and end up having to reboot.
I've been an Applix Office user since 1996 (when it was first introduced), and have never had it crash.
Netscape crashes, but it crashes just as hard under Windows. That's why I erased it off my Win98 machine at home, and is why I'll erase it off my Linux/FreeBSD machine at home as soon as KDE 2.0 introduces Java and Javascript into the KDE browser (it's coming!). The KDE browser already kicks rear. It's not going to take much before I can kiss Netscape goodbye!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I [always] enjoy seeing [well written] articles on technologies and [operating systems] that I [use]. Linus is certainly [inspirational] in that he can [work full time] and [maintain Linux]. I [hope that] he [will continue to devote] himself [to Linux]. Incidentally my new [e-business] [Paraphrase.com] is applying for [patents] on the [extensive] use of [[]] in [electronic documents].
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
---
"Hasta la victoria siempre!" El Comandante
I think they were talking about kernel 0.0.1, or whatever the first release was.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Yeah, I particularly wonder what Linux said that was paraphrased as "[nontechnical computer users]"...
Or perhaps we should play it like Madlibs, figuring out what would be the funniest words to put inside the brackets.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
"And while a young Gates labeled fellow programmers "thieves" for copying his mediocre code, the generous Torvalds freely shared his epiphany with the world. Which man and movement wins may decide technology's future."
Kinda sums up the whole sheebang.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
First of all, Linus didn't write all of the half a million lines that they say are in the kernel (and it's surely much more than a million by now at the rate drivers are added? I haven't done a count in a while) Secondly, comparing only the number of lines in the Linux kernel to all of Windows is stupid. To make a more meaningful comparison, you have to count glibc2 and all the other libraries, as well the X server, and probably a few of the important daemons! It's not like Windows NT is millions of lines lines of just kernel code!!!
That Ted Lewis cheesehead made the same mistake in that ``Open Source Acid Test'' embarassement, when he claimed that Linux's million lines of code do not approach the more than ten million in a real UNIX, and that Linux will have to get that big before it can compete.
There was some good information about this in the critique that Andy Bakun wrote in response to The Open Source Acid Test article. He measured 2.2.0pl8 at 1,598,764 lines. A far cry from the half million that this article claims.
There was some good information about this in the critique that Andy Bakun wrote in response to The Open Source Acid Test article. He measured 2.2.0pl8 at 1,598,764 lines. A far cry from the half million that this article claims.
Hey, maybe Linus is just trying to not appear as a snob. I'm not saying that he would say that he likes Hollywood entertainment better just because he doesn't want to offend, but it could be that the interviewer is reading too much into whatever he might have said. I'm thinking that Linus could have said that he likes some Hollywood movies, and the interviewer spun that into ``prefers Hollywood movies to highbrow European art films''. In reality, the man probably enjoys a bit of both and probably takes each film on its own merit rather than judging it by where it came from.
:)
I mean what's he going to say? That Hollywood movies are shallow, mindless trash compared to European art movies? Coming from a recent comer from the Old World it would be seen as blatant euro-snobbery, even though everyone knows that it's true.
It was something like:
... (helsinki??) for the year Linus did his - maybe it's still there.
"Design of a portable Operating System."
Ie: linux.
It was on a page of the title list of graduate papers at the Uni of
I Wonder what grade he got, be interesting to know.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Whenever I have to interview someone, the conversation is rarely as clear as one would like to see on a printed page.
Sentences get broken up with mumbles, hand gestures or references to multiple 'it's 'them's and 'thingumajig's which make perfect sense to both parties but would be meaningless out of context.
Therefore, it is often necessary to alter the quotes either by the insertion of the correct pronouns, etc. or by the use of square-bracketed references.
I doubt if the interviewer changed the sense of anything Linus had to say - if he did then would be trivial for Linus to spot it & issue a correcting statement given that the interview is online.
-- Stu
Nah, let's make it a Ludlum,
"The Penguin Dominance"
or a Dale Brown,
"Flight of the Penguin"
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Hmm...methinks even though he be Finnish, he may be a disciple of those two most excellent brethren, Bill & Ted. They all have famous quotes:
Jesus O' Nazereth: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto your" [Um, but what if I'm really into S&M??]
Bill S. Preston, Esq: "Be Excellent To Each Other."
I believe his thesis was actually the 1.0 kernel.
:-)
I'd give him an "A"
(anyone know for sure?)
Wow, its good to see Linus being displayed in such a way that shows how much more a better person he is than Gates.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
I thought it was a good interview (more actual content than any other I've seen, I think), but I was a little perturbed at all the [editorial] modifications. Not to say that they didn't do a good job, but seeing [all of] those insertions/changes just makes me wonder what he *really* said. ;-)
Not that I think there is any deception, just that I want to KNOW what slang Linus used.
All in all, kudos to Upside, though.
Ethan
That's bullshit. Linux is not much better than NT.
It is better the way every Unix is better than NT.
That's a server side.
But if talk about workstation ( or should I say desktop) side then things are radicaly different.
Come on, have you ever used desktop apps on Linux ?
They crash, crash hard , much more often than anything on Windows.
"his drive to break monopoly software pricing is reflected in his other tastes. For example, ... he prefers Hollywood entertainment to highbrow European art films."
Hollywood would have to be THE Monopoly of the film industry!! Hollywood is driven by capitalism and a love of money, rather than any love of story telling or making films. In comparison European films run on budgets far lower, because they realise that millions of dollars of special FX + Overpaid American actors don't necessarily make a good film.
Cough. I think we can see a little bias in this author here.
It is not at all surprising that Jonathan Littman is behind such a clueful article. He seems to be a really first rate journalist/author.
I personally liked the picture on the first page.
--
Lab test show that use of micro$oft causes deadly cancer in lab animals.
They're next in line to offer an eIPO! Didn't you all get the letter?
"I have a cunning plan..."
That's pretty cool.
I can see his next book-The Penguin Hour:The story behind the OS (now a made for tv movie!)
-Lisa
I hate [interviews] where the [subject's words] are getting [paraphrased] left and right by the [interviewer].
My favorite bit...
If Microsoft can change and compete on quality, I've won.
Does anyone happen to know what Linus wrote his Master's Degree thesis on? (Or would he be the guy to email about that?)
I'm curious because he's the closest thing to a hero that computer science students have. Most of the other big names in the computer industry are either managers, advocates, crackers, or profs -- there's no reason why any of those shoes must be filled by a talented programmer. Linus is a nice guy, a good (if not exceptional) programmer, and still young enough to be trusted. :) He's a far better role model than any sports star, why do journalists never think of him as such?
I'm not saying he's a rolemodel because of Linux's technical aspects, but of how he's changing the way people use computers. Some obscure researcher with papers that have titles that can't be understood by 1st-years is not a good rolemodel.
To recap, Linus is a good rolemodel because:
- Linux is an accessible, useful, and philosophically interesting achievement.
- Linus has chosen the public good over money.
- Linus is in the limelight enough that aspiring programmers don't have to rely on technical journals to hear about him.
The only other person I can think of that comes close to fulfilling those three criteria is Tim Berners-Lee.how does bying cheap books and watching mainstream hollywood movies help break monopolies?
exactly the opposite is true:
cheap books and hollywood make it hard to create and sell high-quality products that only have a small audience. why do you think microsoft gives away IE? and once you pushed everybody else out of business then you can raise prices and enjoy your monopoly
note: i do not want to criticize linus' choice of books and movies, but the interpretation of it.
Gnu is Not Unix / Linux Is Not UniX
You know, there are already a couple of comments like this one.
:)
Regardless, I have to say that Linus just seems like one cool guy.
In every interview that I've read, his opinions seem well-balanced. He appears just plain nice, in the best sense of the word. I also liked his comments about "behave towards others as you'd like them to behave to you". He's right, it doesn't have to be a Christian thing (I couldn't call myself one), it just makes sense (IMHO).
OK, enough hero worship.
What a nice guy!
Should he be made a saint or something?
Grunt. Oink, oink.
"[nontechnical computer users]"...
maybe he called em Lusers *grin*
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Probably too much herring.
:-)
Actually, I think it comes from being married -- in my highly-nonscientific study of married geeks (myself included), I've found that every one has packed on the pounds since settling down. Though being a dad also burns them off -- it's hard to swat a toddler away from a keyboard!
I saw Linus in a finnish TV interview from -95 and he was at least 20kg (sorry, don't know what it is in lbs :-/) smaller :) Looked like a real geek then... But I guess those Guinnes' have made a difference. Btw. he spoke his mother tongue, Swedish, then.
1783115 lines of C (.c and .h files), and 76885 lines of assembly (.s and .S files). Adds up nicely :)
Sorry if I forgot any extensions, I didn't check the whole tree.
I have always felt (from his posts to linux-kernel, etc) that he spoke English very well. Better than most of the people here in the midwestern US, as a matter of fact. ;-) I wondered about their motivation myself.
Not to be redundant, of course, but I thought he spoke english well (I've never heard him in person, of course). And it is often that non-native english speakers, once trained in the "full" depth and breadth of english, speak it better than native speakers, who often relax the language into their dialects, and distort it with their regional accents, etc.
Insert mind here.
Upside: You think Linux may challenge on the desktop in three or four years.
Torvalds: In three or four years, I hope Linux will be there as an alternative for [nontechnical computer users].
Hmmm... Lots of paraphrasing was done in this article!!! /:)
Wah!
On earth one Kilogram weights approximately 2.25lbs
"Gravity must be scholastic occult quality or the effect of a miracle."
(NOTE: Shameless drooling fandom follows):
Gotta say it's fabu to see yet another flattering press piece on Da Man. Wish they would say more about his wife n kids though.
Also, I mean, really...he looks 10 lbs. heavier every time I see him in print!
Otherwise though it is a wonderful, wonderful interview. Shows the man's intellect and soul and all that.
AC,
Thanks for you post. Although I completely disagree with you, I liked it. Just because it discovers the difference and gives a chance to find its roots for better understanding in the future.
It's wonderful to see how different people, reading the same text, tend to emphasize different things.
In general, ordinary Europeans, Asians and even many of us, former Soviets, believe in reputation. Money won't buy you the name. One can be enormously rich but noone will say that he is a nice, kind and respectable person.
Many people still believe that having just alot of money is a start- not the end. Why do they think so? Because they know that money is an extremely powerful tool. The one having extra funds stops surviving and begins bringing his dreams to reality. This person becomes a creator and changes the world we live in. What are his dreams, are they light, nice and kind? Or they are weird, cruel and mean?
This is where upbringing acts as a regulator of vertical mobility. Ignorant, wild person doesn't deserve to posess the power of money. Ability to achieve a classical higher education (I mean Education, not just a set of technical facts) is a filter that makes moving up harder. On the other hand, there should be nothing that stops us from falling down. Nothing except our knowledge and reputation.
People acquire knowledge while they are studying. Knowledge as understanding of things. This helps them later to gain their reputation and make their money to serve themselves and the community.
If this is not achieved, money flows to people with dirty hands and minds, like in many places here. We are tired of their power.....
KuroiNeko
What about
the brilliant student who fell 1 point
behind and had to settle for a 3-tier university?
Brilliant stdent won't miss a point. Otherwise he's not that brilliant.
You know what I see? I see jealous Europeans on their high-horses out-gunned by cowboy
Americans who dropped out of school to follow their dreams and scored big time.
I see no cowboys around here. Should I pick a microscope?
Europeans still view themselves as better than everyone else.
Well, not being a cowboy, I'd stop this thread. You are listening only to yourself. I never said Europeans are better, I said we are different.
Your screams are neither informative, nor they make any sense to me. You make me yawn.
Buh-bye, Mr Cowboy. When you grow up, we'll meet again. Probably....
PS And yes, before you take your gun out, would you please, get your visor up? Being AC ain't any good if you intend to flame the whole continent just because you missed a point on exams.
KuroiNeko