The Linux Kernel: Evolving into Sustainability.
by Stuart Yeates on 7 January 2006
Introduction
What did Linus Torvalds do?
- Running code
- Open standards
- Managed expectations
- New ideas, new input and new people
- Other things
Prelude
What is the golden rule of open source?
Prelude
What is the golden rule of open source?
Don’t fork
Prelude
What was the first public act Torvalds did?
Prelude
What was the first public act Torvalds did?
Fork
MINIX
- MINIX was (and is!) a MInimal unIX
- Pedagogically focused
- Very widely used in teaching computer science
- Entire operating system source published in book form
MINIX Tensions
- Many students did third and fourth year projects on MINIX
- Scheduler particularly popular
- Frozen state of MINIX meant even successful projects couldn’t get incorporated
Forking
- Relieved pressure on Tanenbaum
- Give aspiring operating systems hackers community
- Tanenbaum and Torvalds have technical disagreements
- Tanenbaum and Torvalds have not ``fallen out’’
Running code
- ``things seem to work’’
- Perhaps the important aspect of participatory open source
Open Standards
- ``I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40)’’
- POSIX and Standard C
Managed Expectations
- ``(just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu)’’
- ``This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months’’
- ``it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have’’
Open to New Ideas, New Input and New People
- ``I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)’’
- ``it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have ‘’
Other things
- Need
- Luck
- Hard work
- Skill