

Interview: Linus Torvalds – I don't read code any more - hiperlink
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Linus-Torvalds-I-don-t-read-code-any-more-1748462.html

======
wisty
Deceptive title.

tl;dr:

Linus doesn't read kernel patches anymore, because subsytem maintainers do and
just send him a summary. He's been working with them for about 10 years, so he
trusts them. Most of his work on the kernel is sorting out arguments, and
making sure things go to the right person.

~~~
andrewljohnson
Deceptive is not the right word. How about attention-grabbing, or excellent,
to describe the headline instead?

First of all, it's a direct quote from the article. Second, I think some
people (like you) object to any attention-grabbing headline, for no reason at
all. It was a good article, and that was a good quote to use to get people to
click and read.

I can't even imagine how terrible Hacker News would be if all the titles were
like what one of the people who responded to your comment said:

"How I learned to delegate and realise people were part of the asernal of
tools available at my command prompt"

This is a drab, dull, and terrible headline.

~~~
manaskarekar
> Second, I think some people (like you) object to any attention-grabbing
> headline, for no reason at all. It was a good article, and that was a good
> quote to use to get people to click and read.

I think that's unfair. If an attention grabbing headline is deceptive but
leads to a good article, it's still deceptive.

~~~
andrewljohnson
But it's not deceptive, it's what Linus said, and I think it gets at a good
key idea in the interview - that Linus has transitioned from being primarily a
code reviewer to primarily a manager of people. The part about moving to being
a manager of people is just not included in the headline - you learn that by
clicking the intriguing title.

~~~
jlgreco
That quote, on it's own, has a very different meaning to readers if it is not
accompanied by the rest of the article.

That is why it is deceptive.

Now, of course you could say that you should read the article and then you
would not be left with the wrong impression... but I think few people read the
articles of _every_ headline that they see. Nor should they be expected to,
our time is all valuable, we can't all do HN 24/7. Certainly you should always
read the article before commenting, but as it stands this headline is
deceptive to people who plan on doing neither.

Nor is it reasonable to expect people to not take away impressions from
headlines that they don't plan on investigating further. Even if you decided
to do that, it would be near impossible to prevent yourself from making
unconscious associations.

Headlines should be short, more or less informative, but never deceptive.
_"Massive PHP bug ...that I almost let through code-review"_ and _"Massive PHP
bug"_ could both be headlines to the same article, but one is deceptive.
Unfortunately, it is also the one that is likely to get more hits... Readers
who do not particularly find PHP of interest will skip reading either, but the
second headline will _also_ (unjustly) form/strengthen a negative association
they have with PHP.

~~~
dpark
> _That quote, on it's own, has a very different meaning to readers if it is
> not accompanied by the rest of the article._

No, it doesn't. I read the title, then I read the entire article, and at the
end, I was left with the understanding that Linus Torvalds no longer reads the
code for kernel patches, which was exactly what I expected from the title.

The only people who might possibly be confused by the title are people who try
to be hyper-literal and pedantic, but those are the same people who would see
a quote that says "I don't read" and assume it means the person quoted is
illiterate. That kind of thing is a reader-specific problem, and not a problem
with the quote.

~~~
jlgreco
All that I can tell you concretely is that when I read the headline, this is
more or less what went through my head:

> _"!?! ...something seems off, I better check the comments for quick
> clarification"_

I then went to the comments, found _(as the top comment)_ a clear
clarification, and upvoted it.

Now, that initial _"!?!"_ , roughly described as a combination of apprehension
and alarm, was not the product of hyper-literalism. Rather it was the product
of the headline text and several fuzzy associations I have formed over the
years, conscious and otherwise. A quick sampling of some of the prominent
conscious associations, translated to english, could be _"HN loves when Linus
says crazy things"_ , _"Linus doesn't write code, he manages and merges."_ ,
and _"News means something has changed"_.

Had I been less interested in the topic of _"Linus says things"_ , I would
have left it at that and moved onto another article.

I think I would describe the notion _"It cannot be deceptive because it is a
quote and true"_ as the real hyper-literalism. Truth and deception are not
mutually exclusive by any means.

~~~
dpark
I didn't say a quote cannot be deceptive. I don't see this one as even
remotely deceptive, though. If you know who Linus is, you know he owns the
Linux kernel. A quote about him not reading code would therefore be taken to
refer to the kernel code. In that context, the quote is accurate. Linus by his
own admission is not reading the kernel code any more.

~~~
jlgreco
I find the quote to be _both_ accurate and _(in the context of it being a
headline on HN)_ deceptive.

~~~
dpark
What exactly about the quote do you consider deceptive "in the context of it
being a headline on HN"?

~~~
jlgreco
It gave me the impression that Linus's role in the project has changed
dramatically, or that he was suggesting something somewhat outlandish.

~~~
dpark
So it gave you an accurate impression. Linus's role _has_ changed
dramatically.

As for you thinking he's suggesting something outlandish, I don't see him
suggesting anything. The quote is a statement about something he does.

~~~
jlgreco
> Linus's role has changed dramatically.

Not really... Not from what I already perceived it.

> I don't see him suggesting anything

Um, I am not suggesting that he is?

What are you trying to get at here? Do you think I am lying when I say I felt
deceived? I don't doubt you when you say you didn't feel deceived.. both are
legitimate experiences.

~~~
dpark
> _Not really... Not from what I already perceived it._

What did/do you perceive his role to be? He manages and _he doesn't read code_
, exactly what the headline says.

> _Um, I am not suggesting that he is?_

Then I have no idea what you mean when you said " _or that he was suggesting
something somewhat outlandish_ ".

> _What are you trying to get at here? Do you think I am lying when I say I
> felt deceived? I don't doubt you when you say you didn't feel deceived..
> both are legitimate experiences._

I'm just trying to understand what you felt deceived about. If you felt
deceived, then you felt deceived, and I'm not disputing that. I just don't
understand why you felt deceived.

------
zanny
I want to pull out a quote I really like:

> Now people are taking adding a USB device for granted, but realistically
> that did not use to be the case. That whole being able to hotplug devices,
> we've had all these fundamental infrastructure changes that we've had to
> keep up with.

Did anyone else notice this? In the last ~5 years, half a decade, we went from
every major OS crashing on hot swaps or usb plugins or not recognizing devices
or other crippling issues on hot swapping almost any hardware, to being able
to swap out everything including memory and CPUs without major kernel panics
on most mature platforms.

That is _really_ amazing tech, and in this era of touch phones and web apps,
we are still having huge leaps at the lowest levels of usability.

~~~
ghshephard
Well, except for the fact that my MacBook Air and MacBook Pro crash (Kernel
Fault, hard freeze, requires power cycle) on numerous USB devices - both FTDI
VCP serial drivers, as well as whatever is driving the Keyspan Triplite
Console box.

This has been true on pretty much every release of OS X Lion 10.7. Every two-
three months I drop in a new driver from the FTDI site, and upgrade to a new
patch of Lion - but both devices continue to sporadically black-screen me.

Every time I pull out a USB cable/Plug it it it's like I'm rolling dice.

The FTDI drivers on Windows XP are pretty mature (I've never had a crash on
that platform), and I think they're built into recent releases of the Linux
kernel - and I've heard no complaints there (or experienced them myself)- so,
perhaps this is actually proving your point somewhat.

We still have a ways to go before we experience 5 9s reliability on USB Hot
Plug though...

~~~
wrl
For what it's worth, we run into these FTDI panics with Monome devices all the
time. I've called FTDI personally to discuss this with them (iirc it was about
a year ago, and I'd been sending them panic reports for a solid 8 months
before that) and they just don't seem to care.

No problems on Windows, and yes, the ftdi_sio module has been a part of the
Linux source tree for quite some time (even OpenBSD has an FTDI driver).

------
dkroy
Very very clever title, this is an example of context giving a different
meaning. He still reads code, just not from his trusted network of kernel
developers since he has worked with them so long, and it has already gone
through a few layers of people. He also doesn't want to shoot down all of
their hard work.

------
utefan001
"When I was twenty I liked doing device drivers. If I never have to do a
single device driver in my life again, I will be happy. Some kind of headaches
I can do without." Linus Torvalds

------
wyclif
Oh, how I wish h-online would get that spreading an interview like this over
four pages, just so they can grab more page impressions for the ads, isn't
cool.

~~~
curiousdannii
Print view: [http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Linus-
Torval...](http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Interview-Linus-Torvalds-I-
don-t-read-code-any-more-1748462.html?view=print)

------
reedlaw
If Linus doesn't read code (I know that's an exaggeration--he has trusted
subordinates who do) and there are ~1000 people contributing code changes, I'm
curious about who actually ensures that no one sneaks in a backdoor to the
kernel. I mean if somehow something bad like that got passed on through the
hierarchy all the way past Linus, would Distros just pass it on to users, or
are there some other safeguards in place?

~~~
bryanlarsen
Every commit in the linux kernel contains at least one signed-off-by
indicating just who has signed off on the patch, so your question of "who" can
be answered fairly easily.

------
shadyabhi
On a different node, I am disappointed that kernel developers haven't been
able to solve this bug <https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48721>
since last 2 months. I am an avid linux fan but this drives me crazy.

~~~
Tmmrn
Do you boot with some power saving parameters like i915.rc6=7? If so, remove
ALL of them and try again.

Is that the HM65 chipset in that notebook? I have a Ivy Bridge CPU on the HM77
chipset and I had initially some problems with the scaling not working
correctly but after a few reboots cpupower has worked without ever having a
problem anymore...

~~~
shadyabhi
<http://sprunge.us/TEPU> is my hardware and this bug is produced only on
random reboots/resumes. Earlier, I had i915.rc6=7 in my kernel parameter, but
I have removed it now. I rebooted and no issues but as I said, this issue
happens on random reboots/suspend-resumes so I can never be sure.

~~~
Tmmrn
I have googled a bit about these or similar issues and there are some other
maybe or maybe not related bugs in the kernel bugzilla. One was about the GPU
randomly not entering the low power states and there a developer commented how
many of those power saving parameters are disabled for a good reason and that
you shouldn't even report bugs when you have nondefault settings.

There are still a lot of weird bugs for example i915.rc6=1 would produce the
problem with the GPU not even entering the (lower) power states that the
default settings would.

------
16s
"Google has worked more on the kernel side, they've done their own
filesystems."

What custom filesystem is he referring to? Does anyone know?

~~~
cdawzrd
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_File_System>

~~~
16s
GFS is user space, not kernel space.

------
fotoflo
super interesting. thanks.

------
bravoyankee
If I was Linus I'd be miffed about the title and the prominence of the quote.
It's badly taken out of context and it's a betrayal of trust.

I felt kind of ripped off too when I got to that part. Again, it betrays the
trust of Linus, who gave his time to do the interview, and the reader, who
gave of their time to read it.

------
Intermediate
I don't read interviews with Linus Torvalds anymore. He's a harsh and selfish
person and seems like his number one hobby is not software development, but
swearing at people.

~~~
ghshephard
"He's a harsh and selfish person"

Harsh, perhaps (a function of his brutal honesty). But, I don't think you
would find more than 1 out of 10 people who would agree with you that he's
selfish. He did license the linux kernel via the GPL, and, he's dedicated
pretty much his entire software to writing software that you can freely copy,
modify, and distribute.

~~~
dnc
Here is what Linus Torvalds said on the topic in the other interview: "In many
ways, I actually think the real idea of open source is for it to allow
everybody to be "selfish", not about trying to get everybody to contribute to
some common good. In other words, I do not see open source as some big goody-
goody "let's all sing kumbaya around the campfire and make the world a better
place". No, open source only really works if everybody is contributing for
their own selfish reasons." Link to the whole interview:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18419231> .

~~~
ghshephard
Notice that he uses the word, "Selfish" in quotes to make it clear that he's
not using the word in the way we commonly define it.

There's a very large difference between Linus's definition of "Selfish" (Which
is basically people scratching their own itch, serving their own need) - and
societies definition of selfish, "MW Def: concerned excessively or exclusively
with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or
well-being without regard for others"

To some degree, all human behavior is "selfish" - we're all driven to do those
things that bring us pleasure. The question is, in doing so, do we do so
_exclusively_ , and _without regard_ for others. Traditionally, when we use
"selfish" in the pejorative, that's the differentiator in how we use the word
and Linus does.

The genius of the GPL, of course, is that it aligns ones own self interest
with those of a greater community. You can use the software as much as you
want, just as long as you contribute back your changes to others. An enforced
quid-pro-quo, if you will.

I absolutely understand the argument that Linus is making, and I agree with
him - that, long term, people need to be driven by the need to satisfy some
personal need, not some greater community good. But suggesting that
contributing software to the GPL is _selfish_ is using language in the same
way that suggesting affirmative action is _racist_. This is only true if we
stretch the definitions of the words _selfish_ and _racist_.

~~~
nathan_long
I think I agree with you, but just to debate a bit: couldn't you contribute to
open source for _entirely_ selfish reasons?

For example:

\- There is no existing project that completely meets my needs. This one
almost does. I can patch it, but maintaining a separate fork would be a lot of
trouble. Therefore, the easiest thing to get what I want is to contribute a
patch to the main project.

\- I want to prove to the world that I'm a good developer so that I can
achieve my career goals. I can't easily show off my closed-source code.
Therefore, the easiest way to get what I want is to release good open source
code.

\- I like having lots of open source software available for free, and I want
to keep that paradigm functioning, therefore I view contributing as an
investment with a good payoff for me. (This one is a bit more of a stretch.)

I think you _can_ contribute to open source for truly selfish reasons, and
that can work out well for everyone. It's similar to how you can run a
business purely for profit, and as a necessary means to that end, provide a
good product for a good price.

However, in practice, I personally contribute to open source partly for
selfish reasons and partly out of altruistic ones.

~~~
ghshephard
It's possible, but I find those that are truly, "selfish" (and I don't mean
this in a bad way) - such as companies that don't want to share the work
they've done, but want to take advantage of the work of others, tend to go
with a BSD licensed project where possible. That way they can build their
appliance on to of the BSD stack, without sharing any of the technology
they've built.

