Profile of Linus Torvalds | Hacker News Reader

Profile of Linus Torvalds

bloomberg.com

100 pointsrscnt69 comments

"Torvalds released the Linux operating system from his college dorm room in Finland in 1991."

Apparently the reporter assumed that everyone who goes to college, lives in a dorm room. But in this case that was not true.

"It's weird that a person who can come off as a real grouch has managed to be such a supremely effective dictator."

It's weird that a writer at the level of Bloomberg would be so weirdly dogmatic about this. To the best of my knowledge there is nothing weird about capable people being attracted to a leader who is good at identifying actual problems and is grouchily intolerant of those actual problems attracting capable people. Nor anything weird about such a leader motivating the people who are attracted; nor anything weird about such a leader getting high performance out of the organization. Supposed examples are not exactly scarce in business, military, scientific, sports, and entertainment off the top of my head, and as far as I know they're mostly true, not misleading legends. In most cases I only know second-hand, and I could be mistaken or misled. But the most straightforward interpretation of the evidence seems to be that successful doesn't-suffer-fools-lightly leadership is a pretty common pattern in sharp results-oriented endeavours.

In contrast, it would make much more sense if a sentence like that in a profile ended with "...has managed to be such a supremely effective automobile salesman;" as far as I know retail sales is not full of examples of grouchy doesn't-suffer-fools-lightly successes. But managing sharply goal-oriented organizations? Who would think that's inconsistent with what's reported about Linus here?

Even the prima donna antipattern of being a loose cannon who is flakily grouchy can be somewhat consistent with success --- people will put up with irritating inefficient prima donna stuff if there are enough compensating advantages. But I don't think the article establishes that's what's going on, and as far as I know it's uncommon for knowledgeable people to think that's going on. Success always breeds some level of resentment, and some fraction of people will jump to unusual conclusions, and many thousands of knowledgeable people know of Linus, so I assume there are some knowledgeable people out there who believe that he's an unreasonable prima donna. But I can't think of any individual to nominate as particularly likely to believe this.

Trivia: In the video he pronounces the first syllable of his first name as lie; Wikepedia has an audio file [1] in which someone pronounces it as lee. Perhaps he uses the former to conform to expectations of American English speakers who are used to Linus Pauling and the Linus character in the Peanuts comic strip.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Sv-Linus...

"I'm Lee-nus Torvalds and I pronounce 'Lee-nux' as 'Lee-nux.'"

http://dl.nux.ro/audio/linus-says-linux.oga

His voice has gotten deeper and his accent has gotten better in all these years since :)

During the early days of Linux's emergence, it was pronounced"Lie-nux", "Lin-ux," and "Lee-nux" by various groups of users. Finally, Lin-ux became the standard pronunciation b/c Torvalds explained that in Finnish his name was pronounced Lin-us, not Lie-nus.

Given that he's spent most of his life in the US, he may have subsequently decided to "americanize" the pronunciation.

In Revolution OS (made around 2000), he explained that he pronounces it differently depending on what language he's speaking. He gave examples in English, Swedish, and Finnish.

Yeah, that was strange.

I don't know. I also started to pronounce my name "wrong" when I was living in England to conform with how everybody else was pronouncing. I even have friends who just straight up used completely different names when living in English speaking countries to avoid the whole problem with no one pronouncing their names right.

I can relate to that latter point - My wife is Finnish and her name is often changed from Kirsi to Kirsty, to ease the pronunciation for people here in the UK.

My name is Kasper Grubbe. But in the UK I go by the unfortunate name of Kasper Grub.

My main criticism of the linux ecosystem is this:

The many eyes theory is broken due to complexity and amount of code, and hence the primary way to the future is in reduction of both (loc and complexity thereof). At over 10 million loc these days, linux has become unweildy for even the most experienced kernel hacker to really understand. This is why I think microkernels like Minix 3 have a bright future as their development progresses. (Minix 3 has <15k loc)

Here's the problem: At what rate do microkernels like Minix 3 progress? Compared to Linux, they progress glacially.

And, when Minix 3 has as much functionality as Linux does, how many loc will it have? I grant you that you might have some efficiency from the (assumedly) better architecture, but how much? Would Minix 3 have 5M loc? Would it be really understandable at that point? (Perhaps more than Linux, because of more modularity. Still, you're essentially comparing a robust product to a nowhere-near-production-ready proof-of-concept. It's very much not apples-to-apples.)

I completely agree, but one thing to keep in mind is that Minix 3 just relatively recently got it's BSD license, and I think that was it's main limiting factor in the past. As for how it progresses, I can't predict the future, but I think something similar to it could easily get a good boost if it was embraced/pushed in the sector it's best at, eg embedded devices and iot. I work along-side scada systems and am constantly appalled at the state of security on systems.

There are some programmers on the planet that I just don't know how to they do the things they do: Linus Torvalds, Mike Pall (luajit), Edi Weitz (Common Lisp) and several others, but these were the ones I always remmember from my limited exposure to the unlimited world of operating systems, languages, environments and virtual machinery...

Dont forget Fabrice Bellard!

We could add Lorenz Meier (PX4 autopilot for drones) and Terry Davis (TempleOS).

I feel like I read this story every 6 months.

"Linux was once 10,000 lines of code and required part-time tending. It’s now 19 million lines of code, and changing it involves a complex hierarchy."

Just wondered: 19 MLOC all driver code included, right?

Grabbed 4.0.5 from kernel.org and counted 19314709 lines.

Dude is 45 years old and we are already planning for his death. In other industries he would just be hitting his stride. In this one we are getting fitted for diapers.

Is the tech industry really the only one that asks the "what happens if you [the founder] gets hit by a bus tomorrow?" question.

Perhaps just of the ones where [the founder] has their feet still firmly on the ground.

We care about Linus dying because he is Linux. The BDFL model makes a project more dependent on one person than it really should be.

As an aside, how does Linus come across as a grouch? Like any other normal human being that expresses a range of emotions, he might have exhibited an imperfect control on his temper/tone. People are way too judgemental / thin skinned these days.

I am a very thick skinned person, I like people joking about me and like to joke about others, but let's get not confused about Linus, he's quite a character, I personally really like him (as far as I know him, basically his internet persona), but I can perfectly understand how it doesn't fit with a lot of people.

I find the following phrase hilarious:

>> I find people who think open-source is anti-capitalism to be kind of naive and slightly stupid.

Now, even if I find it particularly funny, I'm not sure if that's the best face for open source, maybe someone less confrontative and more politically correct would be better suited, but he is who he is, and his contribution to open source, well, need no explanation.

Even so, I wonder if Linux and open source in general would benefit from having a more friendly / approachable face and have Linus in the technical side of things.

It's not something that's easy to change though because it wasn't a decision, it's something that just is.

Well, I think that instead people should be more accepting towards others' personal imperfections. Political correctness should be avoided at all costs because it's by definition a kind of dishonest manipulation.

I don't think it's "political correctness" to prefer not to be verbally abused. Linus has admitted that he doesn't care about people:

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-wh...

>I don't think it's "political correctness" to prefer not to be verbally abused.

Okay? And? Nobody said that. I was replying to someone thinking we should have a more 'politically correct' open source face.

Please try and understand what is being said before replying.

I did "try and understand" before reply, but sometimes it is difficult to discern exact meaning. You said we should accept others imperfections, so I'm assuming you meant Linus' imperfections. That is what I was replying to. I don't think it's acceptable that people should be verbally abused, and we shouldn't "accept" it as you say.

As an aside, how does Linus come across as a grouch?

"Reporters" drive clicks by pretending to be outraged. Therefore they have to build up a set of standards and narratives which will make readers find Linus' behavior unacceptable, and dismiss Linus' explanations as just being a grouch. Once readers buy into the narrative, they see the world through that lens.

Side note: multiply this by all the news sites that use snark and moral outrage. That's how you get thin skin and judgmental in society. It's just like how the bigger news organizations exploit and reenforce a sense of fear in their viewers.

I don't like working with people who are unpleasant to work with.

Of course, if you are really good, he isn't unpleasant to you.

I'm not that good, so I suppose the fact that I wouldn't want to work with Linus would be a success story from his point of view.

>I don't like working with people who are unpleasant to work with.

How do you know he is unpleasant to work with?

Because Linux development is done over a public mailing list.

Sorry, I tried to make sense of what you said, but couldn't.

> Linus Torvalds is the creator and sole arbiter of the Linux operating system

Well, yeah, but the first rule of journalism is to know your audience and I'd bet if you asked the readers of Bloomberg to name a few operating systems they'd say "Windows, OSX, Android, Lin..Lin...Linux." How many would list things like Darwin or kFreeBSD?

I have the same model keyboard as in the video! Just thought I would share.

Which model is it?

Misleading title. I'd say click bait. It talks about Linus and Linux but not about the "future without him" part.

Ok, we changed the title to something generic. Suggestions for a better title are welcome, as always.

I'd go so far as to say this is too generic, but what do I know? In any case I thought the original title was better.

It is too generic, but I can't think of anything better. The original isn't accurate. Suggestions are welcome.

Actually, it does talk about the future without him, though that is perhaps not the primary focus of the article.

I stopped reading when the author referred to Linux as an operating system.

While it's only a Kernel, common, if sloppy, usage for the last 20 years has been to refer to any distro as Linux.

And, well, the Kernel is really the only common things between the various distros these days.

Wow, Richard Stallman's posting here. What an honor.

Is this sarcasm, or is Stallman really posting here? What is his username?

I don't think Stallman himself would like to waste his time on HN :p

Pretty hard to use HN through wget.

you can use lynx: http://lynx.isc.org/

You could, but he chooses not to.

I saw an article recently in which he said he'd started using a text based browser. At this rate he'll be using Iceweasel by around 2030...

"I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser..."

https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

The joke is that rms is really upset about people calling Linux an operating system and thinks Linux distros should be called GNU/Linux, a position he hasn't gotten a lot of people to support him on.

I don't understand the downvotes. Is there something wrong with asking questions?

Once upon a time, before RMS re-defined the term for his benefit, the phrase "Operating System" meant what we now call the kernel. You can see the legacy of this in Computer Science departments around the country where they teach an "Operating Systems" course which covers implementing schedulers, file systems, device drivers, etc... Maybe if the GNU folks could have made a usable kernel, they wouldn't have had to stoop to the petty tactic of trying to take credit for the Linux "Operating System" with all that GNU/Linux nonsense.

However, clearly the RMS propaganda machine has worked, and now the phrase has a new meaning to the new generation... So feel free to not read anything that might contradict with your point of view.

To be fair to RMS, commercial entities selling "Operating Systems" have usually used the label, even before RMS and the Free Software movement were widely noticed by outsiders, to refer to not only the kernel, but the whole package of software and tools sold as a package with it.

Who knows. I see ads all the time for the "Xfinity Entertainment Operating System" which as far as I can tell is just television service.

Ritchie's ghost tells you to get off his digital lawn

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie

What about Unix, CP/M, DOS..? None of those are kernels yet they were said to be operating systems and before GNU was announced.

My question is has Linus ever considered Linux to be the operating system rather than just the name of the kernel?

Depends... if the conversation is a short coming in any part of Linux that isn't the kernel, then Linux means the kernel. If it's something positive, then Linux is the kernel, boot code, userland, and anything else that can be fit under the umbrella.

Actually, all of those have something strongly resembling a kernel, and DOS in particular makes a nice distinction between the basic services (BIOS) and whatever userland you choose to install on top of it. I think you're making my point - "Operating System" used to mean the "kernel" before RMS wanted to ride on Linux's coat tails and Microsoft wanted to bundle their browser anti-competitively - both of which are distasteful.

This narrative is incorrect.

As evidence, take the POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) standard, which included portions of the user-space C library in the POSIX.1 (Core Services) published in 1988. While the name "POSIX" was suggested by RMS, the notion that it might have been part of an agenda to claim credit for Linux violates causality (the very first version of Linux was released in 1991).

POSIX.2 is "Shell And Utilities", and was published in 1992.

Clearly, the notion that the operating system extended beyond the kernel was not a fringe one.

Yeah, whenever people use a term with a very slightly different take on the subtleties of its technical meaning from me, I dismiss whatever else they have to say.

I do too! It makes me feel better than other people when I latch on to meaningless (in context) technical details and then publicly pretend that that invalidates not just some of the other content, but ALL of it! That way I don't actually have to read or think anything, and as a bonus I can humblebrag about knowing the "true" definition of an engineering term that I just learned myself in my undergrad OS class last year, and I can go show off my awesomeness by posting about it on HN! This a really good approach to life in general, it scales to all sorts of interpersonal and professional situations. :)

It's more than a subtlety, imo. A distro is an OS, and linux is the kernel. An OS implies direct user interaction; the kernel runs the hardware in the background. Seriously, take a moment to explain the technical shit in a way that someone unfamiliar with it will understand - 'linux is like an engine, and distros are like the different vehicles that use it under the hood. Anyone can use it, and even change it, but Linus has final say on the design of the official engine.' Was that so hard? Even grandma can wrap her head around that.

I prefer to speak of GNU/Torvalds.

The most annoying part of this article is that the reporter refers to the Linux Kernel as the Linux Operating System.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com