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I absolutely love articles like this that humanize the creation of such a megalithic thing. It was just someone who was curious enough to tinker for a while on

I absolutely love articles like this that humanize the creation of such a megalithic thing. It was just someone who was curious enough to tinker for a while on a project who was hanging out with friends. I love it. I think it would be hard to overstate the impact of Linux and free software. I do climate science research and its pretty obvious that every single paper that contains an important finding was built on FOSS. Latex, Linux, python, all the gnu tools, and so much more. Imagine being a researcher who needed to write any of that, or pay for all of that, in order to work. It's incredible. Thanks to everyone who codes, builds, or contributes to such projects. Also, it's laughable how little that is recognized in the science community.

asciii 3y ago
> It was just someone who was curious enough to tinker for a while on a project who was hanging out with friends. The modern world is underpinned by such discoveries--very accidental or curious types that go on to change the world and impact a lot of people. To quote a Steve Job's line: "I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well-being" [0] [0]: https://putsomethingback.stevejobsarchive.com/ https://putsomethingback.stevejobsarchive.com/
- earthscienceman 3y ago
  Absolutely. But also, as a species, we're such a fan of these narratives that lionize people like Steve jobs. A brief article written by a friend about a project from their college years is much more humanizing than anything I've read about Steve Jobs. Sure, there's the "garage beginnings" part of the story but even that is very much lionized as "grind and hustle". I think the way the myth of Steve Jobs and his impact on the world is a great example to juxtapose against Linus\Linux in so many ways. Linux runs nearly everything and was given away for free and the broader public is totally unaware. Steve Jobs sells hardware and constantly played up the lion narrative as a push to make money and be important. Im more interested in the former than the lot. Inflammatory comment? Maybe. But I think we need to shift the values that we collectively encourage and this article is fantastic.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    Steve Jobs was one of the greatest marketers in recent history, and from that perspective he really was "totally dependent on them for [his] life and well-being". Others did the work going from zero to one, he did the work of going from one to a hundred.
    - oblio 3y ago
      The first ones put in an infinity units of effort and received maybe N units of recognition for it. Jobs put in 100 units of effort and received N billion units of recognition for it.
      - earthscienceman 3y ago
        While I do agree with you on the effort assessment, or certainly the "trailblazing" factor... (to me, writing a kernel and operating system that could be used by the entire world before there existed a notion of what that kernel and operating system might look do that is infinitely more impressive than being a salesman) .. I do think it's a red herring. To me it's not so much about effort than it is impact. If every person to ever write code was trying to sell a product, progress would have halted as it started. It's both the effort, the philosophy, and the philanthropy of it. Which is also what has made it thankless-ish.
      - gordian-mind 3y ago
        Popular recognition is usually balanced out by resentment and envy.
        oblio 3y ago
        For Jobs? No way, that ratio is 100:1. The worst part is that he was a horrible human being. Much worse than Wozniak and probably even slightly worse than Gates.
      - wwweston 3y ago
        Jobs figured out how to collect and amplify the efforts of talented people into a industrial organization with products that have had a world-changing impact. I don't know how much of that is his talents and efforts and how much of that is luck of being with teams that succeeded at a time when industries he chose were rising. I wouldn't discount either the possibility that he was distinctly good and industrious... or that dozens/hundreds/thousands of people of equal distinctiveness didn't make it for arbitrary reasons. And anybody who isn't sure the rewards are equitably distributed is probably correct. But I do recognize that functioning in such a way that you can effectively collect and amplify the efforts of talented people is a non-trivial feat.
a_wild_dandan 3y ago
It's also endearing that the Linux kernel was rooted in "A"/"B" testing. :)
quijoteuniv 3y ago
This & open source give me hope in humankind. Almost drop a tear reading the article.
- ForRealsies 3y ago
  [dead]
lb1lf 3y ago
>> One day, Linus accidentally attempted to use his hard drive to dial the university, resulting in his master boot sector starting with "ATDT" and the university modem-pool phone number. After recovering from this, he implemented file permissions in his kernel. Now this nugget made my day. I love Finnish deadpan humor.
- nicholasjarnold 3y ago
  dropped by to comment the exact same thing. good ole' /dev/*. make sure you're sending bytes to the correct one!
- freedomben 3y ago
  Everything is a file! :-D
- rcarmo 3y ago
  Yes, but the "I recommend this installation method" bit is slightly better :)
- dekhn 3y ago
  I've actually seen a rare case where a rebooting machine with messed up DMA tables managed to deliver incoming network packets to the hard drive, corrupting it. It took a bunch of really smart people a long time to figure that out.
- deckard1 3y ago
  Reminds me of how I nuked my first Linux drive. I was using the cthugha[1] music visualizer app. You had to pass in a CD-ROM device as well as a DSP device (long before ALSA existed). Instead of the DSP I probably passed in my hard drive. Whoops. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha_(software)
  - ofalkaed 3y ago
    I miss OSS and /dev/dsp, being able to write to the audio output like it was a file was great fun. I spent many hours back in the day just using bash scripting to make sound, I never got things good enough to make any worthwhile music but I did enjoy myself. Never accidentally specified /dev/hda instead of dsp but I did once do rm -r /usr instead of ./usr, switched to always using absolute paths for such things after that.
dwattttt 3y ago
While I agree with everything said and celebrate the availability of open source tooling for just about anything, there's an indictment in here that the possibility of researchers paying for tools they need to work is relegated to the realms of imagination.
- brimstedt 3y ago
  I think I get your sentiment, but what I think is the funny part is that when you PAY for apple HW/SW you are not allowed to use it as tools, instead it's locked down. I gave up on iOS devices a few years ago when they forbid things like 'wifi scanner' on iOS. A tool I used regularly to install and measure the quality of WiFi network/coverage.
rawoke083600 3y ago
I just love the success Linus had with managing this gigantic project while not using means of SCRUM or any of the other fancy words and systems! Sure he might not always be the friendliest but I just can not imagine Linux being successful today if it followed any of today's modern software-dev-methodologies like scrum. I just love my linux-workhorse-daily-driver :) Thanks Linus and everyone else who had a hand in my awesome Linux desktop.

asciii 3y ago

> It was just someone who was curious enough to tinker for a while on a project who was hanging out with friends. The modern world is underpinned by such discoveries--very accidental or curious types that go on to change the world and impact a lot of people. To quote a Steve Job's line: "I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well-being" [0] [0]: https://putsomethingback.stevejobsarchive.com/ https://putsomethingback.stevejobsarchive.com/

earthscienceman 3y ago
Absolutely. But also, as a species, we're such a fan of these narratives that lionize people like Steve jobs. A brief article written by a friend about a project from their college years is much more humanizing than anything I've read about Steve Jobs. Sure, there's the "garage beginnings" part of the story but even that is very much lionized as "grind and hustle". I think the way the myth of Steve Jobs and his impact on the world is a great example to juxtapose against Linus\Linux in so many ways. Linux runs nearly everything and was given away for free and the broader public is totally unaware. Steve Jobs sells hardware and constantly played up the lion narrative as a push to make money and be important. Im more interested in the former than the lot. Inflammatory comment? Maybe. But I think we need to shift the values that we collectively encourage and this article is fantastic.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Steve Jobs was one of the greatest marketers in recent history, and from that perspective he really was "totally dependent on them for [his] life and well-being". Others did the work going from zero to one, he did the work of going from one to a hundred.
  - oblio 3y ago
    The first ones put in an infinity units of effort and received maybe N units of recognition for it. Jobs put in 100 units of effort and received N billion units of recognition for it.
    - earthscienceman 3y ago
      While I do agree with you on the effort assessment, or certainly the "trailblazing" factor... (to me, writing a kernel and operating system that could be used by the entire world before there existed a notion of what that kernel and operating system might look do that is infinitely more impressive than being a salesman) .. I do think it's a red herring. To me it's not so much about effort than it is impact. If every person to ever write code was trying to sell a product, progress would have halted as it started. It's both the effort, the philosophy, and the philanthropy of it. Which is also what has made it thankless-ish.
    - gordian-mind 3y ago
      Popular recognition is usually balanced out by resentment and envy.
      - oblio 3y ago
        For Jobs? No way, that ratio is 100:1. The worst part is that he was a horrible human being. Much worse than Wozniak and probably even slightly worse than Gates.
    - wwweston 3y ago
      Jobs figured out how to collect and amplify the efforts of talented people into a industrial organization with products that have had a world-changing impact. I don't know how much of that is his talents and efforts and how much of that is luck of being with teams that succeeded at a time when industries he chose were rising. I wouldn't discount either the possibility that he was distinctly good and industrious... or that dozens/hundreds/thousands of people of equal distinctiveness didn't make it for arbitrary reasons. And anybody who isn't sure the rewards are equitably distributed is probably correct. But I do recognize that functioning in such a way that you can effectively collect and amplify the efforts of talented people is a non-trivial feat.

a_wild_dandan 3y ago

It's also endearing that the Linux kernel was rooted in "A"/"B" testing. :)

quijoteuniv 3y ago

This & open source give me hope in humankind. Almost drop a tear reading the article.

ForRealsies 3y ago
[dead]

lb1lf 3y ago

>> One day, Linus accidentally attempted to use his hard drive to dial the university, resulting in his master boot sector starting with "ATDT" and the university modem-pool phone number. After recovering from this, he implemented file permissions in his kernel. Now this nugget made my day. I love Finnish deadpan humor.

nicholasjarnold 3y ago
dropped by to comment the exact same thing. good ole' /dev/*. make sure you're sending bytes to the correct one!
freedomben 3y ago
Everything is a file! :-D
rcarmo 3y ago
Yes, but the "I recommend this installation method" bit is slightly better :)
dekhn 3y ago
I've actually seen a rare case where a rebooting machine with messed up DMA tables managed to deliver incoming network packets to the hard drive, corrupting it. It took a bunch of really smart people a long time to figure that out.
deckard1 3y ago
Reminds me of how I nuked my first Linux drive. I was using the cthugha[1] music visualizer app. You had to pass in a CD-ROM device as well as a DSP device (long before ALSA existed). Instead of the DSP I probably passed in my hard drive. Whoops. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthugha_(software)
- ofalkaed 3y ago
  I miss OSS and /dev/dsp, being able to write to the audio output like it was a file was great fun. I spent many hours back in the day just using bash scripting to make sound, I never got things good enough to make any worthwhile music but I did enjoy myself. Never accidentally specified /dev/hda instead of dsp but I did once do rm -r /usr instead of ./usr, switched to always using absolute paths for such things after that.

dwattttt 3y ago

While I agree with everything said and celebrate the availability of open source tooling for just about anything, there's an indictment in here that the possibility of researchers paying for tools they need to work is relegated to the realms of imagination.

brimstedt 3y ago
I think I get your sentiment, but what I think is the funny part is that when you PAY for apple HW/SW you are not allowed to use it as tools, instead it's locked down. I gave up on iOS devices a few years ago when they forbid things like 'wifi scanner' on iOS. A tool I used regularly to install and measure the quality of WiFi network/coverage.

rawoke083600 3y ago

I just love the success Linus had with managing this gigantic project while not using means of SCRUM or any of the other fancy words and systems! Sure he might not always be the friendliest but I just can not imagine Linux being successful today if it followed any of today's modern software-dev-methodologies like scrum. I just love my linux-workhorse-daily-driver :) Thanks Linus and everyone else who had a hand in my awesome Linux desktop.