reading 11: linus and linux

In the early days of Linux, Linus Torvalds was not really preparing to create an operating system of world renown. He was trying to address the problems of his current operating system (Minix). And since he was unable to get his hands on POSIX quickly, he initially wrote his own system calls based on manuals for Sun Microsystems’ version of Unix. I feel as though this primary stage was the most difficult stage of Linux’s development. Linus was stationed inside his room for months, leaving only to address his basic human needs and to attend the weekly Spektrum meeting. Once Linus actually had a working operating system, people started jumping onto the project and doing a lot of the work for him. I’m not trying to say that this stage was easy, but Linus basically was able to take a step back and allow other developers to take some of the load off his back.

It’s easy to view Linus as a “god” and to place him on a pedestal. And it’s clear that some people literally do this, such as the person who asked Linus to give the eulogy at his father’s funeral. But I think he just found something that he was interested in and shot for the stars. In my opinion, he doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb or anything. He wasn’t even the type of person to lose sleep and work overtime to solve his problems. It was nice to read the following quote in Just For Fun:

“A lot of people believe in working long days and doing double, triple, or even quadruple shifts. I’m not one of them. Neither Transmeta nor Linux has ever gotten in the way of a good night’s sleep … You may lose a few hours of your productive daytime if you sleep, oh, say, ten hours a day, but those few hours when you are awake you’re alert, and your brain functions on all six cylinders. Or four, or whatever.” (King of the BALL, III)

As someone who needs a good 7-8 hours of sleep per night, I was a bit relieved to discover that Linus is the same way. He isn’t just some workaholic who codes instead of sleeping. In all honesty, I don’t think Linus is the smartest or most disciplined person in the world. In fact, I’m quite positive that he is not. He just found his passion.

Linus is counter-cultural in many ways, and it was nice that he was able to articulate his differences clearly. I thought that his comments on Steve Jobs and Richard Stallman said as much about each of these men as they did about Linus himself. Here are some highlights:

“We had basic differences in how we viewed the world. Steve was Steve, exactly as the press portrays him. He was interested in his own goals, and especially the marketing side. I was interested in the technical side, and not very interested in either his goals or his arguments.” (KotB, IV)

“The thing I find hugely irritating about Richard is not that he believes that Linux—because its kernel relied on applications from the gnu software project—should more rightly be called “gnu/Linux.” It is not that he openly resents me for being a poster boy for open source even though he was sharing code while I was still sleeping in a laundry basket. No, the reason I find him so pesty is that he continually complains about other people not using the GPL.” (KofB, X)

Linus believes deeply in personal freedom. What bothers him about Steve Jobs and Richard Stallman is that they want and even expect Linus to agree with them. Steve expected Linus to agree with him that Mac OS was the best operating system there was, and he wanted Linus to leave his open source stuff behind to join him at Apple. Richard wanted Linus to force the GPL onto other people in an almost proselytical way. But, in his own words, Linus “wanted to decide for [himself]. [He’s] very much against unnecessary rules imposed by society. [He’s] a big believer that you should be able to do whatever you want in the privacy of your own home as long as you don’t hurt anybody else” (KotB, X).

On the other hand, “Richard Stallman wants to make everything open source. To him, it’s a political struggle, and he wants to use the GPL as a way to drive open source. He sees no other alternative” (KotB, X). While Richard Stallman’s view of success has to do with the GPL and making open source movement take over the world, Linus doesn’t even include open source in his definition of success. Linus views success in terms of freedom and results. He doesn’t believe in imposing his beliefs or values on other people. He doesn’t believe that success is defined by the way things happen. He defines success in terms of the nature of something—what it is and what makes it good. For example, Linus could explain to you why thinks that an operating system like Mach is not “successful” by solely discussing its characteristics and features. He can explain why he prefers the monolithic kernel of Linux to any microkernel-based operating system. In the end, Linus embraces open source because it made his project successful in a way that he never imagined. Open source to Linus was merely a byproduct of his quest to create something useful. He writes, “The truth is, I didn’t open source Linux for such lofty reasons. I wanted feedback” (KotB, X).

When I really think about it, I realize that Linus cared so much about his project that he was willing to take whatever steps were necessary to end up with the best final product. And he believed that making it open source was that step. And now, many years later, Linus can pinpoint what makes open source different:

“One of the least understood pieces of the open source puzzle is how so many good programmers would deign to work for absolutely no money. A word about motivation is in order. In a society where survival is more or less assured, money is not the greatest of motivators. It’s been well established that folks do their best work when they are driven by a passion. When they are having fun. This is as true for playwrights and sculptors and entrepreneurs as it is for software engineers. The open source model gives people the opportunity to live their passion. To have fun. And to work with the world’s best programmers, not the few who happen to be employed by their company. Open source developers strive to earn the esteem of their peers. That’s got to be highly motivating.” (Why Open Source Makes Sense)

There might never be another open-source success story as big as Linux, but there doesn’t need to be. But if someone out there thinks that they need more feeback on a project they’re super passionate about, open source could be the answer.