I'm not laboring under the mistaken impression that there is any capital-T
truth in operating system design, nor that there is a capital-R right way to
do things. Nor do I make the mistake of trying to cover up bad ideas about
social-engineering with poorly thought out examples about carpentry, and
then stomp my feet demanding that people who point out the failings of those
metaphors should stop having "silly" ideas and compete with me in some
imaginary game of "goodness." I don't do drinking games, pissing matches,
or popularity contests, and I'm not impressed by them either.
I'm on this mailing list because the company that I currently work for has
decided to use Linux in its products. I'm trying to figure out how to make
commercial products that will survive in the market place while also finding
a way to give back to the open source community. I'm going to stay here for
as long as it is in my judgement in my company's interest for me to follow
Linux development, and my belief that I can utilize my company's interest in
Linux to give back to the free software community.
I'm not particularly interested in convincing you. You are inexperienced,
headstrong, and laboring under many of the misapprehensions that come with
celebrity, as well as being intelligent and observant. Experience will teach
you or leave you by the wayside, and that's your karma to cope with.
I won't bother to offer my critique of the Linux kernel just now, because
I'm fairly sure you aren't interested.
I will from time to time, if my experience happens to intersect with an
active discussion, raise some observations that seem appropriate. You are
welcome to take from twenty five years of deep experience in the computer
industry what ever lessons you may or to ignore them completely, as is
anyone else.
As far as "where I'll be in 10 years," the answer is probably, as it has
been for the last 10 years, "where I was 10 years ago", which is trying to
cope with the latest wunderkind and figure out how to make money off the
process, produce software that I'm not too embarrassed to admit having been
involved with, and occasionally contribute to the free software community -
all while having fun and utterly failing to take myself or any of this
seriously.
Your opinions are worth to me exactly the quality of argument you can raise
to back them - the opinion equivalent of 'show me the code'. Frankly, you
don't argue your case at all effectively, and I'm totally unimpressed by an
approach that amounts to "if you don't like the way we play on my sandlot,
go find your own".
There is no correlation between the level of tool use and the quality of
product produced. Having tools allows you to do things that not having tools
prohibits you from doing, but the bell shaped curve for quality has
maintained pretty much over the course of human tool list. If you think
that that is a "silly" idea, feel free to rebut it, but don't think that
calling an idea by a demeaning name and demanding that I go off and roll an
operating system is anything more than throwing a tantrum.
Here's another piece of free advice, worth less than you paid for it: in 25
years, only the computer history trivia geeks are going to remember you,
just as only a very small handful of us now remember who wrote OS/360. Work
hard on having fun, the rest will sort itself out.
Marty (as silly as ever)
-----Original Message-----
From: Linus Torvalds [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2000 5:49 PM
To: Marty Fouts
Cc: Oliver Xymoron; Tigran Aivazian; Daniel Phillips; Kernel Mailing List
Subject: RE: Availability of kdb
On Sun, 17 Sep 2000, Marty Fouts wrote:
>
> Craftsmanship is in the way you approach what you do, not in the tools you
> use to do it. And, frankly, if you wish to artificially limit your use of
> tools, all you are doing is hobbling yourself.
You know what?
Start your own kernel (or split one off from Linux - that's what the GPL
is all about), and we'll see where you are in ten years. If kernel
debuggers are so much better, then you'll be quite well off, and you can
prove your silly opinions by _showing_ them right.
In the meantime, I've shown what my opinions are worth. Take a look, any
day. Available at your nearest ftp-site.
Talk is cheap. If you want to convince me, do the WORK.
Linus
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