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Tue Mar 9 08:42:39 PST 1999

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Linus on Linux: Inventor Torvalds discusses the OS phenomenon

PC Week 3/5/99

Linux 2.2 has arrived and it's a "big stone off my back," says
creator Linus Torvalds. For IT, the open-source operating system in
the last year has moved from a curiosity to a serious technology to
evaluate for deployment -- a fact that pleases its inventor.

Torvalds now works on a "top secret" project at a company called
Transmeta Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif. Clever cloak-and-dagger
marketing has everyone interested in Transmeta, which is partially
funded by Paul Allen. Transmeta's windows are blacked out, its Web
site contains one sentence ("This Web page is not here yet"), and
speculation is rampant about just what Torvalds is up to. Most of
the talk focuses on next-generation hardware and software, likely
multiprocessor-based, that could take on the dominant Windows and
Unix platforms.

Torvalds wouldn't comment about that, but he did take time out to
speak with PC Week Senior Writer Scott Berinato about the Linux
phenomenon shortly after Linux 2.2 shipped.

PC Week: Can you rest now that Linux 2.2 is out the door? 

Torvalds: Well, everyone is aware there will be minor bugs. When you
make a new stable release, there are more testers and more
situations come up that you couldn't have planned for. So we'll spend
some time dealing with this, but yeah, sure it's a big stone, a big
weight off my back.

PC Week: Are you pleased with the way Linux has emerged in the past
year? 

Torvalds: I've always been pleased with the development. Obviously
the last year has been very pleasing in the sense that places that
didn't use Linux for political, internal reasons now are using it.
That's nice because when you're a technical guy like me, you hate to
have non-technical issues in your way. In many places a year ago,
they wouldn't have considered Linux. And now they are looking at it
in a different light, and that's all quite independent of the
technical enhancements.

PC Week: Are the commercial vendors like Red Hat Software Inc. and
Caldera Systems Inc. good for Linux's growth? 

Torvalds: The commercial vendors are good, yes. They all use the
standard kernel, so technically there's not much to worry about. And
they tend to position the systems around Linux differently to target
different markets. I couldn't do that even if I wanted to, and I
don't want to.

PC Week: Give us the short history of Linux's development. 

Torvalds: Basically, I invented it eight years ago, almost exactly
eight years ago. It started small, not even an operating system. It
was just a personal project. I just was doing something fun with my
new machine. It kind of evolved through luck and happenstance into
an OS, simply because there was very much a void where there wasn't
much choice for someone like me. I couldn't afford some of the
commercial OSes and I didn't want to run DOS or Windows -- I don't
even know, did Windows really exist then?

About seven years ago I made the first very, very raw version of
Linux available and some people wanted to look at it and play with
it.

PC Week: All OSes will co-exist, but much has been made of the
"Linux threat" to Microsoft Corp. Are you comfortable with that? 

Torvalds: I'm comfortable with the "Microsoft killer" idea. It's
kind of fun to see how people position it, because that wasn't the
reason and still isn't the reason I developed Linux. I think
Microsoft has been doing a really bad job on their OS, and obviously
it's an interesting dynamic to people.

PC Week: How have they done a bad job with Windows? 

Torvalds: Well, they've handled it well from a marketing standpoint.
But from a technical standpoint, they have not done so well. Still,
they are extremely successful. I just think there are a lot of
people who want an alternative.

PC Week: You could have copyrighted Linux and made a fortune. Why
did you make it an open source code operating system, and will that
model work in the future as Linux acceptance grows? 

Torvalds: It started out as a personal belief that, yes, open source
was needed. Then, when it got large enough, I encouraged people to
license their own development, their own parts. Now there are
multiple owners sharing all these licenses.

I did it partly because I didn't want to have the paperwork to deal
with that. In another way, I tied everybody's hands behind their
backs. Nobody can fundamentally change it now because they'd have to
coordinate everybody who owns these pieces.

That makes people trust Linux more. Take Red Hat. They're not afraid
of my competing with them, because they know I can't, but I wouldn't
want to. The whole open-source model has worked out extremely well.
It would be stupid to try and change it.

PC Week: What's next in Linux development? 

Torvalds: Right now we have a lot of developers with four-processor
machines, some eight. With those, Linux already works fine, but if
you want to scale to a larger number, to tens or even hundreds of
processors, which has been discussed, there will be a need to change
things there.

There's a lot of stuff that people always want. Linux 2.0 to Linux
2.2 should not be a big deal. The 2.2 kernel is faster, especially on
machines with more memory. It's more aggressive with caching, but
frankly I don't think you should have to upgrade every year. If people
are happy with 2.2, there's not that much reason to look too far
forward.

PC Week: Which is more important or more of a challenge to you:
having Linux accepted on the desktop or the server? 

Torvalds: Desktop acceptance will be harder and more interesting.
Server acceptance is not as big a challenge. Both are important, but
I think you've seen server issues are often easier to look at and to
address quickly.

PC Week: With Linux 2.2 out, what are your next goals? 

Torvalds: My main goal has always been to be in the position that I'm
not ashamed of what I've done or am doing, and that I'm doing the
best I can.

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