7 ms·

Linus is amazing. Is anyone else a bit unnerved that the entire tech world seems to hinge on the good instincts of this one guy? I hope there is another benevol

Linus is amazing. Is anyone else a bit unnerved that the entire tech world seems to hinge on the good instincts of this one guy? I hope there is another benevolent dictator to take over once he's gone.

zozbot123 8y ago
> I hope there is another benevolent dictator to take over once he's gone. We'll still have Theo.
- unixhero 8y ago
  And Larry Wall
  - snaky 8y ago
    And Illumos.
  - mkl 8y ago
    Larry Wall is in charge of Perl, and has not even worked on the Linux kernel. He could not do Linus's job.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - rurban 8y ago
      He is not even in charge of Perl anymore.
    - unixhero 8y ago
      Thanks. He is however, _A_ benevolent dictator
      - mkl 8y ago
        That's beside the point. >> I hope there is another benevolent dictator to take over once [Linux is] gone.
- Hendrikto 8y ago
  He probably won‘t take over Linux though. The consensus is that GregKH will. He even handled the 4.19 release recently while Linus took a break.
  - ansible 8y ago
    I would not be worried in the slightest if GregKH had to take over. Not that I'd want Linus to leave, just sayin'. There's a few other good candidates among the lieutenants as well.
    - gaius 8y ago
      That Theodore Tso seems like a sharp guy. Hopefully he can put the controversy (whatever it was) behind him.
      - sandov 8y ago
        It's not his job to put the controversy behind him, the controversy was created by someone else. He only stated his opinion.
        gaius 8y ago
        I haven't really followed the details. But if there is someone stirring up trouble, then that's what the new CoC is there to address.
        stingraycharles 8y ago
        This comment/thread made me curious, and I’m sharing this here in case others are as well. Apparently it was this Tweet that started the controversy, which is actually related to the CoC itself as well: https://twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1042769399596437504?s=21 https://twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1042769399596437504?s...
        8y ago
- anticensor 8y ago
  And Alan Cox.
vectorEQ 8y ago
let' not go too far. linux is still a hobby operating system grown into some bloated piece of crap even it's inventor is depressed about ;)... but yeah... i if people are still afraid of bsd then you are somewhat right...
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Hundreds of companies and professional software projects are dependent on Linux. I’m not sure I could call it a “hobby project”, no matter what its origins were.
  - m4r35n357 8y ago
    and millions of phones.
    - Iolaum 8y ago
      I think we 've reached the threshold of billions of phones by now.
  - throwaway2048 8y ago
    Hundreds? safer to say hundreds of thousands at this point.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Be fair, the kernel is actually alright, it's just everything on top of it that is depressing.
  - hedora 8y ago
    You’ve obviously never tried to write performant I/O logic. To see what I mean, try using epoll to manage a set of network connections. They apparently didn’t consider the case where you have more than one CPU and also want to handle more than one network connection. Also, if you do get it to work without crashing on stale fd’s, you’ll find it bottlenecks on a spin lock. If you want to save some time and jump to the current state of the art, use DPDK or some other user space network driver + IP stack to completely bypass the kernel. :-(
ip26 8y ago
Hopefully by now the community has mostly internalized those instincts. Grooming can be very effective.
throw-far-away 8y ago
It's important for sensible organizations to have a succession plan and alternates for all leadership positions.
ufo 8y ago
Linus took a break during the previous release cycle and much of his work was taken up by Greg Kroah-Hartman. At this point the kernel development process is very extablished and hierarchical and seems to be in a good place for the long term.

zozbot123 8y ago

> I hope there is another benevolent dictator to take over once he's gone. We'll still have Theo.

unixhero 8y ago
And Larry Wall
- snaky 8y ago
  And Illumos.
- mkl 8y ago
  Larry Wall is in charge of Perl, and has not even worked on the Linux kernel. He could not do Linus's job.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - rurban 8y ago
    He is not even in charge of Perl anymore.
  - unixhero 8y ago
    Thanks. He is however, _A_ benevolent dictator
    - mkl 8y ago
      That's beside the point. >> I hope there is another benevolent dictator to take over once [Linux is] gone.
Hendrikto 8y ago
He probably won‘t take over Linux though. The consensus is that GregKH will. He even handled the 4.19 release recently while Linus took a break.
- ansible 8y ago
  I would not be worried in the slightest if GregKH had to take over. Not that I'd want Linus to leave, just sayin'. There's a few other good candidates among the lieutenants as well.
  - gaius 8y ago
    That Theodore Tso seems like a sharp guy. Hopefully he can put the controversy (whatever it was) behind him.
    - sandov 8y ago
      It's not his job to put the controversy behind him, the controversy was created by someone else. He only stated his opinion.
      - gaius 8y ago
        I haven't really followed the details. But if there is someone stirring up trouble, then that's what the new CoC is there to address.
        stingraycharles 8y ago
        This comment/thread made me curious, and I’m sharing this here in case others are as well. Apparently it was this Tweet that started the controversy, which is actually related to the CoC itself as well: https://twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1042769399596437504?s=21 https://twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1042769399596437504?s...
        8y ago
anticensor 8y ago
And Alan Cox.

vectorEQ 8y ago

let' not go too far. linux is still a hobby operating system grown into some bloated piece of crap even it's inventor is depressed about ;)... but yeah... i if people are still afraid of bsd then you are somewhat right...

saagarjha 8y ago
Hundreds of companies and professional software projects are dependent on Linux. I’m not sure I could call it a “hobby project”, no matter what its origins were.
- m4r35n357 8y ago
  and millions of phones.
  - Iolaum 8y ago
    I think we 've reached the threshold of billions of phones by now.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Hundreds? safer to say hundreds of thousands at this point.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Be fair, the kernel is actually alright, it's just everything on top of it that is depressing.
- hedora 8y ago
  You’ve obviously never tried to write performant I/O logic. To see what I mean, try using epoll to manage a set of network connections. They apparently didn’t consider the case where you have more than one CPU and also want to handle more than one network connection. Also, if you do get it to work without crashing on stale fd’s, you’ll find it bottlenecks on a spin lock. If you want to save some time and jump to the current state of the art, use DPDK or some other user space network driver + IP stack to completely bypass the kernel. :-(

ip26 8y ago

Hopefully by now the community has mostly internalized those instincts. Grooming can be very effective.

throw-far-away 8y ago

It's important for sensible organizations to have a succession plan and alternates for all leadership positions.

ufo 8y ago

Linus took a break during the previous release cycle and much of his work was taken up by Greg Kroah-Hartman. At this point the kernel development process is very extablished and hierarchical and seems to be in a good place for the long term.