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I wonder if Linus Torvalds--without the name recognition--would be able to release Linux today? His first posts about it were met with some complaints about "GN

I wonder if Linus Torvalds--without the name recognition--would be able to release Linux today? His first posts about it were met with some complaints about "GNU Herd will be here any day", but despite being super primitive, he somehow still got enough people on board to become a self-sustaining project. Hell, I wonder if anyone other than Google, Apple, or Microsoft could successfully release a brand new operating system today. Everything seems to be about consolidation to a single norm of "like Linux". Where did the diversity of tech go?

z3t4 7y ago
I remember in the 90's you could publish anything and people would try it out because boredom I guess. Now there is so much to choose from. But I think its still possible if you find a good channel. Literally an IRC channel or niche forum where you will find your first users. Before starting a project, ask yourself who will be the first users and where do I find them.
- moron4hire 7y ago
  My first user is always myself. I write code to make my work easier. It grows over time and then I start thinking others might also find it helps them with similar work.
  - z3t4 7y ago
    Also allow yourself a budget and to search for an existing solution. If you are gonna spend 100 hours on something, a couple of thousand dollars is not that much if you can just buy an already existing solution. For example, I wanted a feature in my text/code editor, and the only product that had that feature cost 1000/month, I thought that was too much so I spent several hundred hours creating my own editor ... And of course no one is interested in my editor besides myself. That's a lot of opportunity cost, time that I could have spent doing something else.
    - rabidrat 7y ago
      Of course the fear is that you spend a few thousand dollars on a potential solution, use it for a few months only to discover that it does only about 60% of what you really need and/or it's painful/difficult to use. So now you're either stuck with a substandard solution, or you are going to do the work yourself anyway, and are out the few thousand dollars besides.
    - atq2119 7y ago
      It's ironic that so many people here are complaining about their solo projects not gaining traction, but nobody seems to want to pitch into somebody else's project and make it their own. Please don't take it personally, I simply noted a pattern and the fact that I'm writing this on your comment in particular is just random chance. In your example, why would you start yet another editor? There are hundreds, possibly thousands, already out there. Instead of writing your own, you could have taken the one that's popular and closest to what you want, and started to change it to fit your needs (or written a plugin, if the editor allowed for it). One of my own favourite experiences with open source development was when I basically revived an existing project by starting to make contributions to it, which then pulled the original creator back in and ultimately others as well.
      - z3t4 7y ago
        In my case I couldn't actually find any project I could contribute to, until after I had the editor I wanted. But similar projects kept popping up, some backed my big corp. I thought about abandoning my own editor and implement the features I needed in any of the similar projects, but I didn't like the architecture and they where made in languages that I didn't like. My editor also was ahead. Although it did not take long until the other projects surpassed my editor in capabilities. I have also later found many projects like mine that are now abandoned. It's very ironic indeed. I kept working on it hoping that I could pivot and find market fit to make some money off it, but it seems dead impossible. And at the same time similar projects are backed by investors.
        atq2119 7y ago

z3t4 7y ago

I remember in the 90's you could publish anything and people would try it out because boredom I guess. Now there is so much to choose from. But I think its still possible if you find a good channel. Literally an IRC channel or niche forum where you will find your first users. Before starting a project, ask yourself who will be the first users and where do I find them.

moron4hire 7y ago
My first user is always myself. I write code to make my work easier. It grows over time and then I start thinking others might also find it helps them with similar work.
- z3t4 7y ago
  Also allow yourself a budget and to search for an existing solution. If you are gonna spend 100 hours on something, a couple of thousand dollars is not that much if you can just buy an already existing solution. For example, I wanted a feature in my text/code editor, and the only product that had that feature cost 1000/month, I thought that was too much so I spent several hundred hours creating my own editor ... And of course no one is interested in my editor besides myself. That's a lot of opportunity cost, time that I could have spent doing something else.
  - rabidrat 7y ago
    Of course the fear is that you spend a few thousand dollars on a potential solution, use it for a few months only to discover that it does only about 60% of what you really need and/or it's painful/difficult to use. So now you're either stuck with a substandard solution, or you are going to do the work yourself anyway, and are out the few thousand dollars besides.
  - atq2119 7y ago
    It's ironic that so many people here are complaining about their solo projects not gaining traction, but nobody seems to want to pitch into somebody else's project and make it their own. Please don't take it personally, I simply noted a pattern and the fact that I'm writing this on your comment in particular is just random chance. In your example, why would you start yet another editor? There are hundreds, possibly thousands, already out there. Instead of writing your own, you could have taken the one that's popular and closest to what you want, and started to change it to fit your needs (or written a plugin, if the editor allowed for it). One of my own favourite experiences with open source development was when I basically revived an existing project by starting to make contributions to it, which then pulled the original creator back in and ultimately others as well.
    - z3t4 7y ago
      In my case I couldn't actually find any project I could contribute to, until after I had the editor I wanted. But similar projects kept popping up, some backed my big corp. I thought about abandoning my own editor and implement the features I needed in any of the similar projects, but I didn't like the architecture and they where made in languages that I didn't like. My editor also was ahead. Although it did not take long until the other projects surpassed my editor in capabilities. I have also later found many projects like mine that are now abandoned. It's very ironic indeed. I kept working on it hoping that I could pivot and find market fit to make some money off it, but it seems dead impossible. And at the same time similar projects are backed by investors.
      - atq2119 7y ago