Linus Torvalds was recently interviewed by OSNews. These are his answers to some of the questions:
What do you think of the FreeBSD 5 kernel and WindowsXP's new features from a clearly technical point of view?
Linus Torvalds: I don't actually follow other operating systems much. I don't compete - I just worry about making Linux better than itself, not others. And quite frankly, I don't see anythign very interesting on a technical level in either.
What is your opinion on Hailstorm, .Net and the rest of the technologies Microsoft is preparing to roll out in the years to come? Can these releases have an impact on Linux and if yes, in what way?
Linus Torvalds: See my answer about not caring what the competition does, but doing my own thing as well as I can..
What is your opinion on RMS insisting calling Linux as GNU/Linux?
Linus Torvalds: I don't mind what rms calls the system. I don't think his arguments for the naming are very valid, but hey, at the same time I really couldn't care less.
How do you see the future of Linux for the next 5 or 10 years from an engineering but also a marketing eye?
Linus Torvalds: I don't use a marketing eye, I simply don't care. There are others who do, I'll let them worry about it.
From a technical standpoint, I believe the kernel will be "more of the
same", and that all the _really_ interesting stuff will be going on in user space. That's not to say that there aren't problems to keep us occupied in the kernel too, I just don't think they make for all that interesting reading ;)
My thoughts:
How often have we, as developers, built our tools based on what the competition does? How often have we measured our systems against our competitors and not as the tool itself? Linus' philosophy is basically, don't bother about what the others are doing, just make your own stuff better today than what it was yesterday. Most of us started out with that philosophy (at least I did), but somewhere down the line the marketroids got to us. Maybe it was done in school and college, maybe it was done at home. It's the whole concept of getting measuring success by money earned that tends to screw up developers. This, is possibly just one of the things that seperates hackers from the rest.