Linus Torvalds and the Apple dis
UPDATED Tue Feb 12 13:59:54 EST 2008
I read some reporting on Linus’ comments on how the Mac is in some ways worse than windows. The soundbyte for the article was that the filesystem was “complete and utter crap”. A few things - first he didn’t call Apple crap, he called its file system crap (I have no real idea if that’s true or not, although I kinda suspect it is). Also, he doesn’t say Apple is worse than Windows, just in some ways - like the filesystem. Seems reasonable to me.
But then he goes on and is quoted with some crazy sounding things. I’m hoping that there’s context around these that is missing… but let’s take a look at some things he was quoted as saying:
He poured scorn on the modern trend to treat a new version or update of an operating system as a cause for major celebration and marketing.
“An operating system should be completely invisible,” he said. “To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment … to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware.”
What? These are consumer products that provide significant improvements to the everyday usability of people’s computers. They provide new functionality and a new look for the desktop. Of course these should be marketed and of course people should be excited about this. Just like when Linux releases a new major version, IT people look and see what the new treats are. Or when KDE drops a new major release. It’s just a matter of who gets excited. I’d like to see the next rev of the Linux kernel come out with no fanfare. Just released onto ftp servers. Uh. right.
Also because Apple and Microsoft’s OS have their desktop manager integrated, it obviously can not be invisible. Unless Linus suggests that the desktop should never change and simply stagnate. It is a different story for Linux because it is so modularized, the kernel is one piece, the desktop managers, the various tools are all completely separate so there’s rarely any time where all things are given major updates at once. But each component in and of themselves is worthy of note when they are upgraded.
As for his own operating system, Linus said the most exciting developments were Linux’s improving green credentials, and a push into mobile devices such as the One Laptop per Child project and Asus’s new ultra-cheap Eee PC.
…
“That’s the primary area that open source (software like Linux) is useful. Software is really expensive to produce and takes years. If you’re a hardware company you can’t really afford that, you either have to be controlled from the outside or take a pre-existing software stack that you can make changes to.”
Um. What? The primary area that open source is useful is in ultra-cheap PC’s? Um. What?? While that may be an interesting area with the quickest growth potential for linux, that statement is obviously kookoo. I can only presume that there was context stripped from the statement in the original article.
Linus also praised Google for its contribution to the development of open source software, after a shaky start in which it had been a “black hole” for talented programmers.
More crazy talk. Google had a shaky start because it was hiring talented programmers? Linus expected that Google should have been “Hm… we’ve hired too many talented programmers! We need to stop offering these developers so much money so that they don’t come to work for us and can keep working on these open source projects!” Really? That was Google’s shaky start? Google’s nefarious plan to attack open source by hiring the cream of the crop? Not because they wanted, y’know, good programmers, but just to piss off open source. Sigh.
I like Linus a lot. For Linux he could walk up and punch me in the stomach every day and it’d be worth it. But it seems to me that these quotes are a lot of wacko talking. Have I misread some of this stuff?
UPDATE: Found a link to the interview in question. It was right there, I just missed it… anyway. Some context was removed.
In his “there shouldn’t be hype around the OS”, what he means is that there shouldn’t be consumer hype around a kernel release. But, it’s a stupid thing to say in the case of Windows or OSX since it is never a kernel release - it always comes with new end user facing functionality. It’s just the way it is - honestly it’s a stupid thing to have said.
The Google bit was actually the journalist putting his own made up context into it, Linus was simply pointing out a fact that initially developers who went to Google weren’t heard from again - he wasn’t blaming Google, just pointing it out. Totally reasonable.
But he really does say that the prime area of open source software’s usefulness is for vendors churning out basic hardware. This one sounds so crazy to me, that I think that I might actually be wrong, honestly. You know one of those 90% of the software in the world is in-house software type deals. Is this the same sort of thing?
All in all, much more reasonable than I initially thought.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am
these Linus comments if they are true… makes hime sound like he is a nut case. too bad as linux was and is a good OS.
February 12th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, Vanni. I guess not everyone can have the charisma of Steve Jobs, and I’d trade good tech savvy for marketing every day of the week… but still… I looked a little for a full transcript to see if there was extra context, but couldn’t find one. Anyone have a link?
February 12th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Huh - just found the link to the interview - posted an update above. :)
February 12th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
“An operating system should be completely invisible…”
Linus should be invisible to the user.
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
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