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DebConf 14: QA with Linus Torvalds

1.4K subscribers • 1 video on Hallway

Recommended by 7 people: 7 on Hacker News.
A classic. People kept recommending it from 2014 to 2021.
Presented by Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux
An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

737K views12 years ago7 recommendations

Systems programming History and culture Linux Operating systems Open source

Linus Torvalds discusses the difficulties of distributing Linux binaries, GPLv2 versus GPLv3, and kernel backwards compatibility during a Q&A at DebConf 14.

DebConf 14: QA with Linus Torvalds You can find rest of the DebConf14 videos/meetings/lectures/etc on: meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2014/debconf…

Why it's here

7 people recommend this, 1 disputes it

What people say. Highly recommended for Linus Torvalds' candid insights into the pain of Linux desktop application distribution and open source licensing.

Moments people linked to

dottrapon Hacker News • 12 years agoRecommends

On “Why osx sucks and you should use ubuntu instead”

And to really drive the problem home, distributing binary packages for Linux is a complete nightmare. Linus Torvalds just laid out a whole bunch of the problems at DebConf14. link to this video Go watch it. But some of the highlights: - .deb vs .rpm misses the whole point. The problem is application writers just want to ship an application binary for "Linux", but it is a nightmare. - Except for the kernel which strives for ABI stability, everything else in the Linux distros constantly break binary compatibility, including the most important library, glibc. - Package maintainers are forced to use shared libraries for everything, even packages that are unstable and not well used which means apps will bre…

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stirayon Hacker News • 6 years agoRecommends

On “How to disable the built-in Windows 10 ads”

Just listen to this. I bet you will recognize the speaker. link to this video It is 100% to the point and nothing has changed in 6 years since (and not only on debian), except that the mess is being solved by docker. Which is crazy. And windows is heading into same direction (when I have seen the manifests the first thing I have said was... omg... .dll.1.4.3) Just additional info, to help you get into my mindset - system level developer for linux AND windows for 25 years. (anyway, I have thrown tomatoes into directions of two largest fanboy camps, guess what will happen? =/ )

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NavinFon Hacker News • 5 years agoRecommends

On “Tiny Container Challenge: Building a 6kB Containerized HTTP Server”

It is best practice and I wish it was common practice, but there's a lot of friction in the way and some people will actively work against you. Static linking glibc is painful because the former maintainer has some strong opinions: link Most distros force you to dynamically link every dependency if you want them to package it. So the default build for most projects is dynamic You've stumbled on a holy war between distros and guys like you, me, and Linus Torvalds1 that want to deploy a binary and just have it work everywhere. 1: link to this video (Highly recommend watching Linus's answer ~6 minutes in)

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belornon Hacker News • 11 years agoRecommends

On “GCC, LLVM, Copyleft, Companies, and Non-Profits (2014)”

Because he doesn't like the anti-tivoization clause for his own code. I suggest watching link to this video as it gives a up-to-date view which all the necessary qualifiers in one single talk. I especially like the (paraphrasing quite a bit) "GPLv3 is a fine license, GPLv3 is a horrible license, and I like to overstate things if you haven't noticed. For my own code I just want changes back. GPLv2 is a license that does this and nothing else, which is why I use it for my own projects.".

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probonopdon Hacker News • 10 years agoRecommends

On “AppImage: Linux apps that run anywhere”

Linus Torvalds addresses some core issues in his "DebConf 14: QA with Linus Torvalds" talk starting around 5:40 link to this video

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adnzzzzZon Hacker News • 8 years agoRecommends

On “Linus Torvalds Rants”

link to this video What he's talking about is on the video above and it's a very reasonable point. I just released a game with Linux support and most of the bug reports I got were from people running the game on different distributions and random libraries not being the version you would expect it to be. This is not to mention that I got way more bug reports from Linux users than Windows users, despite Linux users making up 2%-3% of the playerbase. His point is absolutely valid and not at all a "serious idiocy".

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gpmon Hacker News • 5 years agoRecommends

On “The modern packager’s security nightmare”

…people start implementing them on top of the newer layers. E.g. here is OpenGL on top of Vulkan: link > Your kernel Ok, you didn't say this part, but it's the other big unpinned dependency. And it too goes above and beyond to maintain backwards compatibility. In fact Linus has a good rant on nearly this exact topic that I'd recommend watching: link to this video > Pinning a dependency only _guarantees you rot the same or even faster_ because now it's less likely that you can use an updated version of the dependency that supports more recent hardware. Dependencies are far more likely to rot because they change in incompatible ways than the underlying hardware does, even before considering emulators.…

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soganesson Hacker News • 6 years agoDisputes

On “‘Linusgate’ over 250 Messages Leaked Code of Conduct Linus Torvalds”

Linus shat on the FSF and GPLv3 at a 2014 Q&A. The word bigot was thrown around by LT when characterizing the FSF. During the Q&A he also carted out the same tired "you have to earn respect" rag that volatile people use. He was invited to take part by the Debian folks. link to this video After the event, there were complaints about him. What "leaked" is ~250 private messages from the Debian team members deciding if they should tell LT he is no longer welcome at Debian events. Side A: He was prick, he broke the rules and hoped to skirt responsibility by virtue of his celebrity. We can't give him a pass. Favoritism bad. Side B: We invited him to an fully open Q&A knowing that he would speak his mind. Are…

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michaelmcmillanon Hacker News • 11 years agoMentions

On “Mean People Fail”

I always find these essays interesting, not necessarily because I agree with them, but rather because Paul has a very special way of looking at things. ... being mean makes you stupid. Linus Torvalds is definitely not stupid, but I would not hesitate to call him mean 1. But you can't deny that he's successful and certainly he's not stupid 2. Business and open source seem to both center around the same things: creating something people want 3 and surrounding yourself with other smart people. I would imagine that the latter is hard if you're mean - but not impossible. Take Linus or Steve Jobs, none of whom are very nice. 1 link to this video 2 link 3 link

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jgrowlon Hacker News • 11 years agoMentions

On “First fully sandboxed Linux desktop app”

Seems like Linus agrees with you to an extent. He thinks it is sad to have to statically link libraries and create huge binaries but it is what you currently have to do to ensure things don't break. Be aware of typical Linus swearing: link to this video

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znfion Hacker News • 11 years agoMentions

On “D-Link publishes code-signing private keys by mistake”

Here is Linus discussing GPLv3 and tivoization etc at DebConf 14 in quite some depth link to this video (Basicly he doesn't consider tivoization to be that much of an issue, and doesn't consider it to be something he wanted when he selected the GPLv2)

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ivancaon Hacker News • 10 years agoMentions

On “Tim Sweeney: Microsoft wants to monopolise games development on PC”

Except the alternative, developing binaries for Linux is not a viable option as Linus itself explains very well: link to this video

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thibranon Hacker News • 9 years agoMentions

On “Microsoft gives up on Windows 10 Mobile”

Publishing software – especially close source software – for Linux has always been, and still is, a huge pain. Beside all the nightmarish things you have to do to package something. link to this video

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augustlon Hacker News • 8 years agoMentions

On “Ubuntu 17.10: Return of the Gnome”

I should add that I also want to use the most standardized desktop environment I can find. Which these days seems to be Win10, macOS, Ubuntu, and maybe a KDE based one? My argument is the same as what Linus points out in this rant (5:33): link to this video I want life to be easy for app developers, having to target a gazillion different Linux based platforms kind of sucks.

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topspinon Hacker News • 8 years agoMentions

On “Linus Torvalds on aliasing”

> Has anyone ever publicly explained him that while being a sociopathic nerd he still must comply to some basic rules of conduct like we all do? Yes. Back in 2014 several DebConf attendees publicly confronted Torvalds, quoting some of the outrageous things he's written to/at people and making him explain himself. It makes for some rather cringy moments and there is no evidence it had any meaningful impact on him. You may watch it all here: link to this video

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RaleyFieldon Hacker News • 7 years agoMentions

On “German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis”

How about unstable apis to anything outside the kernel1. Or, more personal, on this laptop I get shorter battery life (I have it plugged in most of the time so it's tolerable), sometimes it doesn't wake up so I have to always shut it down (tolerable) and bluetooth headset doesn't work (I use wired ones, so tolerable again). 1 link to this video

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