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Profile of Linus Torvalds

bloomberg.com

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Re: Profile of Linus Torvalds

#21

Post by bobajeff »

donuteaters wrote: post #11
pschastain wrote: post #7

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

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 sto…

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?

Re: Profile of Linus Torvalds

#22

Post by hoopd »

> 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?

Re: Profile of Linus Torvalds

#23

Post by dman »

malkia wrote: post #4

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!

Re: Profile of Linus Torvalds

#24

Post by ksk »

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.

Re: Profile of Linus Torvalds

#27

Post by dagw »

shmerl wrote: post #16
dctoedt wrote: post #2

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...

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.

Re: Profile of Linus Torvalds

#28

Post by mwfunk »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #19
pschastain wrote: post #7

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

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. :)

Re: Profile of Linus Torvalds

#29

Post by dang »

thiagowfx wrote: post #26

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.

Re: Profile of Linus Torvalds

#30

Post by Trufa »

ksk wrote: post #24

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.

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