Things Linus Torvalds said at LinuxCon 2013 | Hacker News Reader

Things Linus Torvalds said at LinuxCon 2013

extremeta.com

67 pointsTsiolkovsky37 comments

Here's a video http://youtu.be/84Sx0E13gAo

Thanks. I can't read.

Just in response to #1, he's been doing A LOT of merging: https://github.com/torvalds

And that is just those on Github.

Reading this, I found myself wondering what the other panelists had to say. I understand Linus attracts the clicks (he got mine), but surely they said some interesting things too.

Since it was a bit slow for me, cached version:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_RNpf-T...

Thanks, its 500ing atm.

After edit: “We need more conferences in the Caribbean,” said Linux. “That said I have been diving enough because two days ago I was on a boat and it turned out that I knew the boat captain because he used to be on a boat in Hawaii. When you start recognizing boat captains from around the world you know there is something really, really right.”

I bet writing Linux and Linus two dozen times makes things like this happen constantly.

Better than the original since the page breaks the back button.

Will the newer versions of linux, git and co be written in the C programming language, 20-30 years from now?

Linux? Almost beyond any doubt at all.

Git? The official tools probably will be, but that doesn't really matter one way or the other. "Git" is more a data model and a frame of mind than it is a piece of software, and you can already choose to use jGit to work on that data model, within that frame of mind.

I've never investigated it, and a google search turns up questionable results, but would Linux be compatible with kernel modules compiled to .so's that have C ABIs? IE, C++ with extern "C". D and Rust have a similar export scheme available I think.

I'd get a lot more involved in the kernel proper if I wasn't stuck in 1999 =\ (I think the kernel allows C99). I use classes and templates too much in C++ to go back.

While you can extern C, Linux will never move to C++: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/5791...

As someone who contributed a bit to a kernel in D, it's... interesting. Rust could be used to write a kernel as well, but I'd recommend anyone to wait for 1.0 before doing so...

Good to know if I ever need to implement a brand new device driver. Otherwise I'm stuck in C anyway since everything is written in C.

Principally, that is the reason even though I'd love to fix the internal breakage of the linux desktop (pulseaudio issues, gstreamer, mesa, wayland, etc) all of them are written in C and I drank Bjarnes kool-aid and can't go for an entire source file in C without desperately wanting a C++ feature of some kind. The abstractions are just such huge productivity gains writing everything imperatively drives me nuts (at that, a lot of my code is imperative, but only when it is right for the job - if I have a great description of a collection of data and functionality, classes are correct; if I need to treat functions as data and avoid state functional is correct; etc - trying to lock myself into one methodology after writing in all 3 makes me feel heavily restricted, it is one of the reasons I love python).

> We need more conferences in the Caribbean

If I ever go back to living in the Caribbean, I'd be willing to organize some.

Interesting! The US government asked for a backdoor? Who'd of thought?

It was a joke.

Or was it?

What makes you think that?

He presented it in a joking way, but it would be hard for me to believe that he or the larger kernel community hasn't been approached. Backdoors through cooperation would be the least effort and surest way to get in and stay in. Backdoors by stealth would risk discovery and removal.

*have thought

I'm pretty sure the construct <conditional modal verb> 'of' <past participle> is now accepted as grammatically correct, if not in "main" English (if such a thing exists), then at least in a majority of American dialects.

It's a double contraction, the word “of” doesn't appear at all: who'd've (who would -> who'd, would have -> would've, who'd + would've -> who'd've)

While you seem to admit that "main" English does not exist, you make the mistake of assuming that there is a "main" "accepted". Accepted by whom? The hordes on youtube or twitter certainly don't mind. And no, it is not part of an American dialect. An English litt. major could get reprimanded for using such spelling in their reports, even in America. It is a part of uneducated dialects all over the world.

Do you have a recognized dictionary agreeing with you that you can cite?

If not, you are wrong, simple as that. Using "of" instead of "have" in 2013 is a spelling mistake, period.

Dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive. It is possible for something to be correct, and dictionaries to have simply not caught up (or for it to be correct within a subculture the dictionaries do not cover). I agree with you that the former is not the case for "of" in place of "'ve", nor the latter in any subculture I am familiar with although that could certainly be my own lack of exposure. Regardless, it is worth knowing that many people will see it as an error and likely judge you for it.

this site looks horrible on mobile phone.

I was curious what kind of hoops they had to go through to get the woman on stage. Obviously there was a concerted effort to get a woman on stage for a dog-n-pony show. Or maybe she is a major player in the Linux kernel development scene, but I absolutely know there was talk behind the scenes to get her up there.

And before the P.C. gestapo gets on my case. I think it's great that women are involved in software engineering. I'm more interested in the P.C. dynamics to promote it.

Did he not talk about his choice of foul language and need (or lack of need) for discipline, esp. in mailing lists?

I'm thankful that he's only Icelandic and not Balkan. Slavic culture commonly incorporates swearing in just about every aspect of life in casual, entertainment, and business settings. We would never hear the end of it from the web tabloids/bloggers of the world.

I only know of him what I read on the Internet, but Wikipedia says he is Finnish. Your original point stands though.

I think you meant "Icelandic" to mean the 'cultural region' (like Balkan). In English you could use "Nordic" instead, and possibly also "Scandinavian" (although "Scandinavian" technically excludes Finland, depending on who you ask).

Do people really think that swear words in and of themselves are the problem?

My understanding wasn't that he used profanity, but he effectively flamed people. Swearing is just another tool in the toolkit as far as chewing someone out is concerned, modulo the ones with obvious gender connotations.

"Flaming" is subjective in my opinion, while profanity isn't. The last curfuffle to me was really just someone overreacting to typical impersonal male culture, then a bunch of men overreacting for the fact a woman tried to disrupt said culture. From there it really just escalated into further melodrama, completely idiotic.

Linux is not a company, they don't have to care about public image. I say they should let their curse machine on.

This starts to get old. This guy manages a 17 million line low level open source project with more than 1000 contributors each cycle and best thing people can do is bicker about his inappropriate language use on some occasions (which get way more publicity than the usual workflow discussions).

I really wish we'd have a more progressive tone here than a tabloid.

I suspect it is a popular topic because of all the things that Linus is involved with, his use of profanity requires the least amount of technical knowledge or credentials to talk about. If you want to talk about something Linus does, talking about swearing is the lowest hanging fruit by miles.

Of course, the mere existence of a more esoteric topic of conversation shouldn't preclude discussion of whatever social problems exist on the LKML. Just because social problems are, in theory, easier to understand doesn't mean they are easier to solve in practice.

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