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Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#21

Post by aiNohY6g »

> Torvalds said he subscribes to the view that successful projects are 99 per cent perspiration, and one per cent innovation

Certainly true. IMHO, innovation is about orientation, while perspiration is about walking. They live in different timescales: GTD takes time while innovation is a spark. However, both are equally important: it would be useless to go forward in a wrong direction, it would be useless to identify a meaningful direction without going forward, and it would be of course useless to walk backward.

An acceptable - and subjective ! - balance is hard to find, these days.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#22

Post by theprotocol »

erdojo wrote: post #16
whsheet wrote: post #6

I like the header and experimented with current trends: - Talk of AI is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. - Talk of Machine Learning is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. - Talk of VR is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. - Talk of Smart Contracts is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. - Talk of IoT is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. Not sure if I entirely agree with him but there's s…

These trends are either evolutionary or entirely predictable. Several so predictable that they first made their debut in movies long before most of us were born. I think this is what he means. Working on any of these ideas doesn't make you an innovator. You might do something in a slightly better or more novel way, but we aren't inventing crap. And if you don't execute on your slightly better path, you'll still be be…

The adage "we stand on the shoulders of giants" comes to mind. Some of the louder people in our industry could stand to remember this.

In truth, there are no giants (or maybe very few). Even the giants of the adage are actually made up of innumerable little people supporting each other.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#24

Post by amelius »

whsheet wrote: post #6

I like the header and experimented with current trends: - Talk of AI is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. - Talk of Machine Learning is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. - Talk of VR is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. - Talk of Smart Contracts is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. - Talk of IoT is bullshit. Shut up and get the work done. Not sure if I entirely agree with him but there's s…

The actual innovations are worth talking about.

But the bullshit starts when people use the technology and claim they are making tech innovations.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#25

Post by bbcbasic »

anjc wrote: post #7

Someone who should be a multi billionaire says to ignore marketing and sales and just work. Edit: I'm not saying that he WANTS to be a multi billionaire, but the fact is that he has attained disproportionately less value than he's created. By rights he should be one of the wealthiest people in tech. He might have 150m but that's peanuts given what he's done. The wealth of the guy who made Instagram dwarfs that. The g…

Funny because if he did a Bill Gates his creation would be so much less special.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#26

Post by circlefavshape »

wingerlang wrote: post #19
VeejayRampay wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You somehow make it unclear whether or not Linus not being a multi-billionaire is a good or a bad thing. Are you saying that because he didn't try to monetize his code as much as he could have, it somehow makes his opinion less valuable? The man created Linux AND git, it doesn't matter whether or not he's got billions. He's got something more important than that, a legacy.

> He's got something more important than that, a legacy. Why is that important?

Linus Torvalds' work has been useful to me, and to you, and to many other people. That's surely more important than whether or not he is rich

Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#27

Post by richmarr »

altitudinous wrote: post #10

Upvote 1000x - I'm sick of hearing people who've done nothing and "thought leaders" ranting on. I'm pleased I put my head down, did work and did something that worked for me that I can encourage others with and give evidence. I wish those who have done nothing would go away - and stop filling my inbox, and targeted advertising spots, and meetups with their crap. I wish I could help others see over the shouting and po…

Many people work in marketing in some way or other, and that work fulfils an important function. I'm not particularly thrilled about it either, but we don't currently operate in a perfect information market and human bandwidth needs to be used to propogate ideas.

Rage on it if you like, but you're yelling against the wind. My recommendation would be to save your blood pressure.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#28

Post by VeejayRampay »

wingerlang wrote: post #19
VeejayRampay wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You somehow make it unclear whether or not Linus not being a multi-billionaire is a good or a bad thing. Are you saying that because he didn't try to monetize his code as much as he could have, it somehow makes his opinion less valuable? The man created Linux AND git, it doesn't matter whether or not he's got billions. He's got something more important than that, a legacy.

> He's got something more important than that, a legacy. Why is that important?

In my opinion, a legacy like that of Linus means that he's produced a piece of software that has positively impacted the lives of people.

It's important because he's actually delivered on the famous SV con-artist promise of "making the world a better place".

Not directly, as in curing diseases or revolutionizing energy production or consumption, but in ways that help people in developing countries access information due to falling costs of computers (Linux) and phones (Linux through Android) and people in business can thrive because of the diversity it brings to the table (versus the Microsoft quasi-monopoly we had before).

That's what I put under the umbrella term "legacy", something that has, in a way and ever so slightly, changed the world for the better.

Then again, we might say "it's just software", but in a software-centric world, I reckon it does matter.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#29

Post by anjc »

circlefavshape wrote: post #26
wingerlang wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's got something more important than that, a legacy. Why is that important?

Linus Torvalds' work has been useful to me, and to you, and to many other people. That's surely more important than whether or not he is rich

?! Surely that completely depends on whether or not he'd like compensation for your convenience.

Re: Linus Torvalds: Successful projects are 99% perspiration and 1% innovation

#30

Post by jacquesm »

anjc wrote: post #7

Someone who should be a multi billionaire says to ignore marketing and sales and just work. Edit: I'm not saying that he WANTS to be a multi billionaire, but the fact is that he has attained disproportionately less value than he's created. By rights he should be one of the wealthiest people in tech. He might have 150m but that's peanuts given what he's done. The wealth of the guy who made Instagram dwarfs that. The g…

> but the fact is that he has attained far less value than he's created.

This goes for an extremely large portion of humanity, probably > 99.99%.

Very few people manage to extract all of the value they created (and sometimes more), and most of those people are not the nicest ones.

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