Linus Torvalds muses about maintainer gray hairs and the next 'King of Linux'

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-muses-about-maintainer-gray-hairs-and-the-next-king-of-linux/

by CrankyBear • 2 years ago

138 95 2 years ago

ddtaylor• 2 years ago

He has a red stapler on his desk I think

hypeatei• 2 years ago

Good to see that he's still optimistic about Rust in the kernel. There was a small crowd when the drama was happening suggesting that Rust devs should just go write their own Linux-compatible kernel somewhere else which I found... insane. It's better to iterate and improve existing systems IMO.

coldpie5• 2 years ago

There was a small crowd when the drama was happening suggesting that Rust devs should just go write their own Linux-compatible kernel somewhere else which I found... insane.

One of the most important skills I found in open source development is separating technical arguments from religious arguments, and choosing to simply ignore the latter. You can spend all your time having the religious debates and feeling very productive while actually getting absolutely nothing done. Learning to recognize the distinction and, crucially, not engage at all when someone is coming at you with a religious argument is incredibly valuable for anyone who is or wants to be in a leadership-ish role in that kind of environment. You've got better things to do with your time than explain to someone why building a whole separate kernel is a stupid idea.

mont_tag4• 2 years ago

"Not engaging at all" allows the engaging group to completely take over and expunge their opposition. The Python Software Foundation is an example. They have multiple former directors banned or resigning. They've defunded African Pycons that won't embrace certain ideologies. PSF employees and work group members are being purged of anyone not fully on board with the new ruling party. The discussion forums are censored and long-term contributors are afraid to post.

In general, in democratic organizations it is a failing strategy to not engage in arguments or to boycott elections. It is a recipe for an imbalance that is almost impossible to correct later.

So, I respectfully disagree with your suggestion to not engage at all.

ptsneves• 2 years ago

I disagree, to an extent as you created a dichotomy between tech and religious arguments. The truth is there is a spectrum, where a compiler error is a purely technical discussion. On the other hand of the spectrum are loosely related to tech like, "I need to see more from you before we tackle bigger changes".

Open source is definitely very political and if you are not political you will find you will produce lots of technical output that will never be merged. There is also lots of etiquette that can go to using mailing list and patchset formatting to knowing who to ask to review. When you talk about design changes you better have credibility, as your design might not even be evaluated if you do not have a track record. I really disagree with your comment and in my experience with lots of OSS different projects i contributed to, i can tell you politics is equal or more important than raw technical competence the bigger the project is.

tmtvl• 2 years ago

It's way better to iterate and improve existing systems. But you need to do so in the context of those projects: in Linux when a maintainer wants to make a change to a system they are maintaining, they have to provide patches for other systems which are affected by the change. So if Rust lands in any section of the kernel, then the maintainers of related systems will either have to:

A: never make any changes to the system they are maintaining, or

B: learn Rust.

Neither of those options seem reasonable, so it's a difficult problem. So if the contingent of people who want to see Rust in the kernel is large enough it may be better for them to fork the kernel, as it's unlikely that advocacy will have enough of an effect.

xelamonster2• 2 years ago

It doesn't seem reasonable to expect a developer to learn a new programming language? Staying on top of constantly changing tools is part of the job.

bluGill• 2 years ago

There is no reason anyone smart enough to work in the kernel could not learn Rust, C++, zig, Java, Scheme, or whatever language you can dream of. However the above list is far longer than anyone has time to learn and so the kernel should limit the languages allowed just so that the list of what you need to know is reasonable. (I haven't looked at linux code in 20 years, but back then you needed to know C, sh, and make - you probably forgot that make is a language but it is/was critical) It is reasonable to say that all kernel programmers need to know rust from this day on. It would not be reasonable to say any language is allowed. It would be reasonable in 30 years to discover there is almost no C left and so rewrite the rest and ban C (I won't bet money on that happening but it is reasonable)

newpavlov• 2 years ago

You forgot about the third option: specify "stable" and properly documented API boundaries in relevant subsystems. Developers of Rust drivers would have to rely only on those APIs, in turn, if subsystem maintainers want to change those APIs, they would have to synchronize it with Rust developers.

The problem is that some subsystem maintainers do not want to even properly document existing APIs (sic!) and want to reserve the right to willy-nilly hack some changes into "their" subsystems without discussing it with other stakeholders.

skyfaller• 2 years ago

While I'm not sure I agree with the arguments, I don't think the arguments for starting over from scratch are insane: https://drewdevault.com/2024/08/30/2024-08-30-Rust-in-Linux-...

The core argument is that attempts to convert the Linux kernel to Rust are burning out the people putting in that work. The choice might not be between Rust in Linux or a new kernel, but between burned out devs failing to put Rust in Linux or a new Linux-compatible kernel written from scratch in Rust.

baq2• 2 years ago

There is no such thing as a Linux-compatible kernel. There's only Linux. Linux is not even compatible with itself, it's only compatible with its major version number.

The argument may have been 'go pound sand', that's what it means.

TeeMassive6• 2 years ago

I think this will happen sooner than we think. Lots of not-old people with a lot of talents out there and who doesn't like "get off my lawn" culture of the Kernel.

They key aspect will be importing was has gone wrong in the Rust and kernel community cultures.

cpach3• 2 years ago

I believe this is the video that the article summarizes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM_8UOPFpqE

cabidaher3• 2 years ago

Wasn't this posted here a few days ago?

lowdownbutter• 2 years ago

Welcome to HN.

cpach3• 2 years ago

AFAICT there where (at least) two recent events where Torvalds had a chat with Hohndel.

I) KubeCon and Open Source Summit China (Hong Kong, 2024-08-23)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41355731 – posted to HN on 2024-08-26, 123 comments.

II) Open Source Summit Europe (Vienna, 2024-09-16)

I.e. this post. This talk was also referred in an article from The Register, and that was posted on HN about 23 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41593275 (11 comments)

It also looks like the current post (i.e. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41559404) was originally submitted four days ago, and then reached the front page today via HN’s second-chance pool[0].

(This talk from Open Source Summit Europe has been submitted a bunch of times, but some of the submissions yielded very few comments.)

[0] See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 for more info about the second-chance pool.

cabidaher3• 2 years ago

Thank you for your reply. I had suspected it was the second chance pool but I had never seen that mechanism in action so I thought it'd get re-posted, not that it would appear as if it had just been posted. I had read it when it first appeared.

ChrisMarshallNY2• 2 years ago

I never would have thought that he would be the voice of reason, in any language other than C (ANSI C -not C++). He may just be one of the best C programmers around, and has always been a ferocious advocate for it.

Rust is not my language, but it really seems to be a legitimate addition to the system programming toolbox, and that seems to be his PoV.

I liked the interview. I haven't always been a fan of his pithy approach to interpersonal relationships, but I have always had tremendous respect for his technical acumen. This has given me a bit more personal respect for him.

BearOso• 2 years ago

Rust's main problem is that libc is effectively the system API on POSIX. There's a major barrier to interacting with other libraries, particularly safely. There's also a ton of C++ libraries, like Qt, which aren't easy to do FFI bindings for.

The kernel has its own set of API primitives because it can't use user space libraries. That means the ecosystem is tiny, and rust can bring its unique advantage when experimenting with secondary languages in the kernel.

jll29• 2 years ago

Rust's main problem is that libc is effectively the system API on POSIX.

True, that is what makes things harder for Rust in practice.

But interestingly, theoretically speaking it's more C's problem rather than Rust's - a legacy effect originating from the UNIX-C co-evolution. Good design would command a stricter separation of concerns/sub-systems (some LISP machine people will disagree, and I say it because there are a ton of them on HN, of course).

RandomThoughts32• 2 years ago

I don’t think he is particularly pithy to be honest. You have to realise that he conducts all of his day to day activities in public.

I have seen program managers do far worse than his most famous rants in meetings while working for Fortune 500 companies.

appendix-rock• 2 years ago

That behaviour sucks and is not acceptable. Sorry that you have had shitty coworkers in corporate America. That’s not what the world is.

pydry• 2 years ago

I thought he got way too much stick for that. Most of the rants all seemed to be at senior people who should have known better trying to break ironclad, well established rules that exist for a very good reason (e.g. "we don't break userspace mauro").

Look at the rants without understanding the context (which, frankly, most people don't - kernel development is pretty arcane) and the rants look worse than they really were.

breck4• 2 years ago

This.

I love the way Linus rants in public.

When I was 24, I got a rant in private from PG, and it was pretty shocking at the time:

"You guys just set a new all-time record in losing by being based in SF and skipping events at YC. I doubt it will ever be surpassed. Peter Thiel was speaking today. When he described the kind of companies he liked to invest in, he was describing Jobpic. So after his speech I jumped up and excitedly told him about you. He was very intrigued by the idea. I went off to find you to introduce you, and you're not here.

At least now I'll have a really good story when I tell each new batch that they'll miss out if they live in the city.

--pg"

3 notes:

1. He was right, my cofounder should have been there (I couldnt be there).

2. The hyperbole made it memorable. My friends still tease me about this "playing hard to get with Peter Thiel? Ballsy"

3. The only sad thing is people are afraid to be like this in public, and put on a more politically correct face in public. Linus has had the guts to be the same person in public and private. Something worth emulating.

jzb• 2 years ago

This is something I keep trying to point out to people. That doesn't mean that Linus is any kind of role model in this way - but people point to open-source interactions as especially "toxic" while ignoring (or being ignorant of) the fact that things are often _far worse_ behind closed doors. The differences being that 1) they're behind closed doors and therefore rarely seen, and 2) calling out a rude interactions in open-source projects is unlikely to get you fired or on the wrong exec's shitlist.

surajrmal2• 2 years ago

Just because you've seen worse doesn't excuse it. Everyone who behaves this way should find ways to deal with their emotions in a healthy way that doesn't negatively affect others.

latexr• 2 years ago

his pithy approach to interpersonal relationships

He deliberately worked on improving.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/linus-torvalds-apolo...

krmboya• 2 years ago

pithy approach to interpersonal relationships

These things are highly contextual and highly subjective. Culture is very different around the world.

There are highly manipulative and malevolent individuals who know how to behave the right way when it comes to political correctness but lack objective directness that actually improves the situation long term

darby_nine• 2 years ago

This is absolutely true. It's also difficult to judge how much otherwise obnoxious developers take advantage of "niceness" from outside the zoo looking in. These situations were almost necessarily interpreted out of context without catching up on years of mailing list culture.

ChrisMarshallNY2• 2 years ago

I worked for a Japanese company that employed some of the top engineers and scientists in the world.

The Japanese don't really like yelling and screaming, but I have watched managers reduce subordinates to tears, with a few firm words (literally).

Also, some of these top-shelf engineers could be "pithy." They didn't suffer fools, and had the attitude that if you were working directly with them, it was assumed that you were at a level that would not interfere with their work (like having to constantly stop and explain stuff).

Their end-product was really good, but it took a very strident culture to get there.

I assume that the Linux Kernel is just such a product. I can certainly understand the stress on making sure that anything that goes in there, needs to be absolutely top-notch. Not just in code Quality, but also in the mindset of the people submitting it.

I will also say that, if we want top be top performers, ourselves, we need to be willing to be in situations, where we could be yelled at, told our work is shite, etc.

It would be nice, if we were gentler than those than go before us, but this type of thing tends to self-regulate. If a top performer is so toxic that no one can work with them, they can get shown the door. That was not always the case, but I think it is increasingly so, these days.

But that doesn't mean that top performers are required to coddle; maybe just not outright abuse.

On a somewhat related note, I've been enjoying watching Slow Horses, and the Jackson Lamb character brings back memories.

bschmidt1• 2 years ago

The next Linux King will be happily merging pull requests until one day his keyboard will begin to speak to him...

"Arthas..."

vcdimension• 2 years ago

Someone should train an LLM on all the kernel documentation, code, mailing lists, etc.

JohnMakin2• 2 years ago

I want to posit a new "law" like "Godwin's Law," which would roughly state "Any sufficiently advanced discussion about operating systems will devolve into a C vs Rust debate."

norir• 2 years ago

My posit is that in 20 years, rust is as dead as scala and c is only used in legacy systems that cannot be viably updated economically.

rpcope1• 2 years ago

Is Scala actually dead?

keybored• 2 years ago

Did you mean evolve?

RobotToaster• 2 years ago

My prediction: after Linus dies linux will be like Yugoslavia after Tito.

JohnMakin2• 2 years ago

Hopefully with much less bloodshed, but yea, when benevolent dictators die, there are rarely people who step up to replace them who are also benevolent.

rollcat4• 2 years ago

Easy, we wake up one of Theo de Raadt's clones to take over.

throwoutway• 2 years ago

I got to say, I've never actually thought what the Linux world would be like after Linus dies. I am imagining an empty void

cozzyd• 2 years ago

Doesn't he have kids?

knowitnone• 2 years ago

best way to compromise the world is to become a linux maintainer. May take a couple of years but if you are state-sponsored, you (with the help of your team) can contribute so many great patches you'll become respected within a year, take control of a subsystem in a few.

Linus Torvalds muses about maintainer gray hairs and the next 'King of Linux'

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