Re: Linus Geek of the Week

["Derek Martin-9" <user=7@nabble.blu.org>]

 On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 03:47:15PM -0400, [hidden email] wrote: 
> I have mixed feelings about Linus. When all is said and done, the first 
> version of Linux wasn't so hot. 

The first version of very few things in this world were hot...  The 
more interesting detail, in my opinion, is how fast Linux became 
BETTER than commercial offerings of the same vintage (e.g. Microsoft 
ones). 

> Also, where some people see that he has been a great administrator 
> and guide for Linux, one could just point out there are a lot of 
> people who could have done the same thing 

...except they didn't.  The thing that made Linus different was that 
he actually did the work.  The thing that makes it not "random chance" 
was that it was his own decision to get off his duff and actually 
write the code, and organize others to do the same. 

You mentioned Minix...  Could it have been Tannenbaum instead?  Maybe, 
but his restrictive license prevented it, BY DESIGN.  Could it have 
been BSD?  Absolutely.  But it wasn't...  Even after they resolved 
their encumbrance issues, for whatever reason, developing BSD was 
less popular than Linux development, despite having a more mature 
project. 

I don't worship Linus as some do, and I agree that luck played a role 
in his success (it *always* does), but I think his accomplishment is 
not small, by any means. :) 

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 
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