“The Linux kernel project is growing up. New contributors, job delegation, and a source code control system have changed the way the kernel gets hacked. The guy at the center of it all — Linus Torvalds — has changed, too. Gone are his days as poster boy for Open Source. He doesn’t do Comdex keynotes anymore; he’s not on the covers of business magazines; and he rarely gives interviews. No, these days, Linus is all about what he does best: hacking the kernel and keeping a sure and steady hand on the rudder of everyone’s favorite project.” Read the interview at Linux-Mag.com.
Linus Torvalds: The Benevolent, Brilliant Keeper of the Kernel
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Loved that last part about MicroSoft being a small, up-and-coming company. True, as far as the Linux market! I wouldn’t say up-and-coming, though
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I’d like to know more about #d in Linux. I’ve poked around some, and the most exciting things I’ve found are that Blender development seems to be in some degree of limbo, and that OpenGL, while still fairly solid, is gonna get a needed booster in development. Or something like that. Anyone know more? If 3D were more prevelant in Linux, games would probably follow. And where there’s games, there’s users…
Nice interview!
This is an old interview – the feature freeze “is” on Halloween? Dec 2002?
I think OSNews should do an interview with him. Not just about the future of Linux (though, that would be a big part of it) but also Torvalds as what he is – a man and a coder. Would love to know more about him.
Perhaps he is a little shy to publicity these days.
Regardless I enjoyed meeting him at LCA2003. Actually I didn’t know who I was talking to. I was having a conversation with this long haired guy and some other conf attedees about
China and if they were going to adhere to the GPL.
After he went back to the Octagon theatre for a QnA session I said “Who was that???”
the response was something along of lines of “Dude??!?!…”
It really shows how arrogant Torvalds is, Linux is a niche OS and will never be anything greater.
“steady hand on the rudder of everyone’s favorite project”
He works on the OpenBeOS project?
-G
Um… Looking at the photos it seems to me he is having a good life in S. Valley. 😀
I, for one, am excited about the threading improvements. Now that I’ve got a decent desktop around, I might just have to try out one of these development kernels to see what’s going on. Of course, the neat things that can be done with threads will have to wait for the apps to be modified…..
I do find it odd, though, reading these interviews with Linus. He seems to be so reserved when he’s doing these kinds of things, measured statements and the like. He doesn’t do that on lkml.
…..by one of his implications, I’m on drugs for the software I like to play around with…..
This was the most in depth interview of Linus that I’ve read anytime. Most interviews are usually one page, and consist of, how is linux going to get on the desktop. I found it very interesting getting his opinion on several of the kernel issues. A great read!
It’s a good article, but it’s from December 2002 … (I thought it sounded fishy when they were talking about “when’s the feature freeze?”) – nice to re-read though
This interview is dated back in December 2002. Is this the Linus interviews redux version?
Linus should have a look at AmigaOS size and requirements to see what’s an OS… so as XFree -disaster- developpers…
He is very anti-Intel and I dont think that he did anything relolutionary. Building on the work on RMS , tompson and tenenboum and making yet another *nix is not something to adore him for.
And plus, He looks like a penguin:
http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-12/img2/linus_03.jpg
I think that’s the first time I’ve heard someone talk about Linus Torvalds masturbating.
“hand on the rudder” indeed.
… and I’ll say it again. Do we now know what Linus does with his spare time?
“Hand on the rudder”, indeed.
I personally like Torvalds, but from everyone I talk to it sounds like he’s a bit of a control freak.
You should all read his book “Just For Fun”. It’s a pseudo-autobiography of his life and details the process of how the kernel came to be. It’s quite the good read for technical and non-technical minds alike.
He is very anti-Intel and I dont think that he did anything relolutionary.
How can he be anti-Intel when he’s spent the last ten years developing an Intel OS (ports notwithstanding, since he never foresaw any ports of his OS).
He isn’t anti-Intel. He’s just looking more towards the desktop. He did start doing Linux so he could use a Unix-like system on his 386… Wow… Linux is analogous to Wayne’s World going national. Anyone ever think about that?
“I personally like Torvalds, but from everyone I talk to it sounds like he’s a bit of a control freak.”
Isn’t that exactly what is needed in someone who is in charge of a kernel development project?
TORVALDS: I think the main problem with Itanium is that I don’t care about the server market that much. To me Itanium is a complete dead end because Intel doesn’t even seem to be pushing it into the markets I care about.
Not that I don’t agree with him, but damn that’s just a little arrogant…
Biased writing. My favourite project is FreeBSD.
Well of course he’s anti-Intel! He works for Transmeta, and Intel is muscling them out of the business! You would be too, methinks…
Not that I don’t agree with him, but damn that’s just a little arrogant…
Not really. We know he’s only one man with his opinion and he makes sure we know it. He’s not a God or someone who has to act differently because his position of authority. I don’t think he’s arrogant, he’s simply not interested in Itanium 2 for some very good reasons. I think someone who was arrogant would hide their true feelings and tell us what we want to hear. They’d act like their kernel is better than all the competition, etc. He seems to be rather humble and consistent with his work to improve his small piece of Linux. To me, this is truely a beautiful thing.
> …from everyone I talk to it sounds like he’s a bit
> of a control freak.
1) The control freak deluxe is Mr. Stallman, not Torvals.
2) Without keeping control, the Linux kernel wouldn’t be anywhere as stable, refined, and fit for production use as it is. Did you ever experience the chaos that reigns once a software project is “free for everyone”? :-O
are you worried that torvalds might be anti-microsoft, anti-walmart and anti-mcdonalds too?
you really need to diversify your stock portfolio, so you don’t post silly little comments.
have a good day lemming.
Bascule:
“‘TORVALDS: I think the main problem with Itanium is that I don’t care about the server market that much. To me Itanium is a complete dead end because Intel doesn’t even seem to be pushing it into the markets I care about.’
Not that I don’t agree with him, but damn that’s just a little arrogant…”
It’s arrogant if he’s saying that Itanium will be a dead end and a failure for Intel because it is targeted at markets he is not interested in, but that doesn’t seem to be how he worded it. After all he says the main problem with Itanium is that he doesn’t care about the server market, I doubt he would claim that the server market is not an important one to the industry as a whole though.
The way I read that comment was that for Linus HIMSELD to get too caught up in Itanium would be a dead end FOR HIM because he wouldn’t be able to transfer that knowledge and work to the areas that HE PERSONALY cares about,
Nothing arrogant about that, it’s simply saying “I don’t think that path will take me where I want to go, so it’s probably not worth me going down it”… a decision we all have to make pretty often in our lives.
Why? Because the whole x86 serie is a CRAP! Sick in the typewriter illness as it was based on. It’s a huge HACK and nowthing else… :} I can understand his point. :} And only those ppl know this who ever programmed to x86 and tried to code some other processors too and they have a comparisation base.
Funny, the platform he is against has little in common with x86, and the platform he supports is an extension of x86… Rather funny, heh?
I don’t get what you mean. What do you think, which platform does he support?
But he loves IA32. I even read a comment from Linus where he said that all of IA32’s old cruft is “the charm that makes it work as well as it does” and he has said that IA64 “throws away all of the best things about IA32.”
Still, I think that posted comment about him working at Transmeta affecting his tastes is dead on. After all, IA32 is what he has been working in for the last x years now.
Maybe he took the job at Transmeta because he liked the IA32 and not the other way around.
Same difference whether Torvalds chose Transmeta before or after being an IA32 advocate regarding his position on IA64.