And yet with all that ... I likely still won't understand what exactly the product or thing is or does.
Meanwhile I understand Linus's email well enough.
Meanwhile I understand Linus's email well enough.
It is impressive how much Linus had working at that point though. Getting bash and gcc working and a multithreaded FS is no mean feat, and is enough for other people to actually make useful contributions without excessive pain.
If a project is not (yet) there, it's either Github, because markdown readmes somehow force the crux of the matter out of people… or it's goodbye.
Particularly when you consider that he had to do it all on bare metal.
More than half of the emails I get from technology companies fail to start with a reminder of what their product or service does. I see this much, much less frequently with consumer products — better marketing.
I fully appreciate shorthand/jargon are ways to communicate complex ideas swiftly. Yet, taking time to provide some form of entry point for the uninitiated shows a disciplined approach that often translates to other areas of the project.