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Podcast: LF interviews Linus Torvalds
The Linux Foundation has announced
the launch of a series of podcasts with "open source visionaries"; the
first such visionary is Linus Torvalds. The first half of the interview is
available
now (in MP3 or Ogg format); a
transcript has also been posted. "I try to avoid using the word
community because it's misleading in so many ways. It's misleading in the
sense there is no one community; it's everybody tends to have their own
issues that they care about and they may - may or may not have anything to
do with another person who's ostensibly in the same community."
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Nothing new here Posted Jan 8, 2008 18:49 UTC (Tue) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] Unless I missed something, there was nothing particularly new or interesting in this interview, at least for anyone that has followed Linux development over the last few years.This is not a criticism of Linus or the LF; it's just that he's been interviewed so many times before about every topic mentioned in this article. However, it means the article may be of limited interest to LWN regulars.
Proprietary drivers...let's see, still bad. Posted Jan 8, 2008 19:08 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] At least he got in the main point that LF member companies need to hear, which is "out-of-tree drivers are bad." Hope the next step is to point them at The Linux Driver Project, which looks like a good fit for companies that don't have the people to write their own drivers or to clean up their hardware docs to a releaseable-without-NDA state.
'Community' Posted Jan 8, 2008 22:35 UTC (Tue) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] Linus makes a good point. In general the more someone uses the word 'community' the more of an idiot they are.
'Community' Posted Jan 9, 2008 0:46 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Oh phooey. Notice how Jim can't even finish the interview without saying "community" over and over again. Even he didn't buy it. What Linus can't deal with is that in a real community, people do have different opinions and goals. Linus thinks that for them to be called a community they have to march in unison. But a real community has criminals and saints, and everything in between.Linus real problem is that he's never bought into the ethos of the thing he subverted. And he tries to pave over them as best he can. Bruce
'Community' Posted Jan 9, 2008 6:12 UTC (Wed) by bvdm (guest, #42755) [Link] Okay, run that by me again.. Linus has successfully steered one of the largest software project ever for a period of 16 years, dealing with hundreds of over-intelligent, opinionated and frequently arrogant geeks against the background of dozens technical and corporate agendas and you are saying he cannot deal with different opinions and goals? Wow.. Regardless of whatever definition of "community" you are working with, that is some statement. Linus's "real problem" is his reputation of success and independentness enables him to speak honestly in the public arena and not be drowned out by all the resulting indignation. His willingness to do so is praiseworthy and speaks of a strong personal ethos, regardless of the merit of his arguments. I can safely state that your assessment of Linus falls wide off the mark of most informed observers. Subversion??
'Community' Posted Jan 10, 2008 23:41 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Linus really doesn't like politics. It goes back to some personal stuff of his that's better left alone here. And this has been a persistent problem. And sure, he's been a great lead engineer on very significant technical project. But when technologists insist on confining themselves to the technology, the folks with the money and power get their way about everything else. So, I continue to feel that Linus both abdicates an important responsibility, and stands in the way of others who would solve the problem.Bruce
'Community' Posted Jan 10, 2008 18:58 UTC (Thu) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] Bruce, You might want to pay particular attention to the part of the interview where Linus states that actions should and do speak louder than words. Historically, I'm not sure you are really in a position to criticize.
'Community' Posted Jan 10, 2008 19:50 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] "Actions speak louder than words" is a bit of a slur if you're directing it at me, since I've contributed important software that is used everywhere, and continue to do so. But I feel that my contributions to policy are even more important and will remain important long after my software. Linus doesn't like people to work on policy rather than engineering. Fine, but then leave it to someone else! But he both doesn't like policy and won't get out of the way.Bruce
'Community' Posted Jan 10, 2008 23:09 UTC (Thu) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] Sorry if it sounds like a slur. But for all the progress that has been made, there is still far to go; Whole areas of software for which FOSS has no answer. We have a deficit of people willing to do the work, but a large surplus of people willing to tell those who *do* the work how to do it, how to license it, what to say about it, how to feel about it philosophically, and why they are wrong to think the way they do about their own work. And too many self-proclaimed community leaders, too. When I am out trying to make FOSS do the most for my clients, I absolutely never find myself thinking: "Oh, gee, this FOSS solution would work *so* much better if only we had more people setting policy!" No. Instead I find myself wondering why the company I work for has to sell proprietary business accounting software running on Linux because there is not a single FOSS accounting package out there that is even in the same *universe*, let alone the ballpark, of the caliber that anything more than a mom and pop business needs. As far as I'm concerned, those who create the software get to decide how to license it and how they should think about what they are doing. We need more of them, and fewer armchair "activists". I salute the doers! And just hope that they don't get too distracted from their work by the "talkers". Busybox has done more for FOSS than all the policy work that's ever been done put together. But the Linux kernel has done a hell of a lot more good than busybox.
'Community' Posted Jan 10, 2008 23:19 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Without the policy and evangelical work of Stallman, myself, and others, you wouldn't be asking why Open Source doesn't provide the accounting software you want. You'd just be running 100% proprietary code from boot block to application.Your company sells proprietary accounting software on Linux because nobody writes accounting software for love. It's even more true with TurboTax, which is a pretty good example of where proprietary software makes sense. Not written by people who love writing it, not written by programmers at all but by tax accountants, high liability load, bad consequences for errors, must be timely. Had you already been reading my policy work, you would have known that.
'Community' Posted Jan 19, 2008 6:24 UTC (Sat) by jra@samba.org (guest, #35394) [Link] > Without the policy and evangelical work of Stallman, myself, and others, > you wouldn't be asking why Open Source doesn't provide the accounting > software you want. You'd just be running 100% proprietary code from boot > block to application. I have to agree with Bruce here. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes that most people are not aware of in order for most FLOSS programmers to stay in happy ignorance of the forces that would subvert and crush them. Bruce to my certain knowledge has done a lot of it, and continues to do so. I get dragged into this from time to time and keep having to run back to programming to keep from screaming. It really sucks :-). Programming is a lot easier and more fun. The policy stuff is *hard*. It's dealing with people and corporations and the corrupting influences of money and power. People who can do this well are really rare. Most of them use those skills for their own gain (politicians :-). People who use those skills to benefit FLOSS code are even rarer. I'm glad Bruce is on our side :-). Jeremy Allison, Samba Team.
Podcast: LF interviews Linus Torvalds Posted Jan 8, 2008 23:52 UTC (Tue) by mikachu (guest, #5333) [Link] hm, listening to the stream and reading the transcript i think i would recommend listening to the stream. the transcript is a bit buggy (maybe someone will fix it soon), like in one place it has "framework" instead of "flame war".
Podcast: LF interviews Linus Torvalds Posted Jan 12, 2008 17:11 UTC (Sat) by mp (subscriber, #5615) [Link] > the transcript is a bit buggy (maybe someone will fix it soon), > like in one place it has "framework" instead of "flame war". We need the former more than the latter. So I'd say it's not a bug, it's a feature.
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