Messages in this thread |  | | From | Marty Fouts <> | Subject | RE: Availability of kdb | Date | Sun, 17 Sep 2000 22:16:58 -0700 |
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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:torvalds@transmeta.com] 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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