so very interesting to me has been exactly the fact that it hasn't
been the same, and that new issues have continuously kept coming
up. And they haven't been just technological issues, but issues
involving how the whole meaning of Linux changes in the face of
success. Life would be boring otherwise.
So instead of using the word "spoiled," I'd prefer to just say
that commercial success has made both Linux and me "different."
I'd hesitate to say "grown up"-1 think, for me, having three kids
made far more of a difference that way-but simply different. Bet
ter, in many ways, but also less pure. Linux used to be
just
for tech
nical people, and a safe haven for geeks. A bastion of purity, where
technology mattered and little else.
These days that is not true anymore. Linux still has the
strong technical background, but having millions of users makes
everybody very aware of the fact that you have to be a lot more
careful about what you do. Backward compatibility is suddenly a
factor-and some day, twenty years from now, somebody will come
along, say that enough is enough, and start his own operating sys
tem called "Fredix."* Without all the historical baggage. And
that's exactly as it should be.
But what makes me inordinately proud is that even when
"Fredix" comes along, things won't be the same anymore. If noth
ing else, what Linux has done is to make people aware of a new way
of doing things, of how open source actually enables people to
build on the work done by others. Open source has been around for
a long time, but what Linux did was to move it into the general
consciousness. So when Fredix comes along, it won't have to start
from scratch.
And thus, the world has become a slightly better place.
*Or "Diannix," as the case may be. In another twenty years, hopefully com
puter science will have progressed past the current male-dominated scene it
is now . . . .
2 3 8
J u s t fo r F u n
Nearly a year after we started working on this book, Linus and I paid
a Friday night visit to the car racing/batting cage place where we had
competed with each other months earlier. This time, Linus clobbered me at
both activities: He drove faster and made better hits. Later, over Turkish
food, I blamed my lousy performance on a particularly frustrating day at
work.
He looked up and said: "Well, you've got to hang in there for three
more months. "
"Why?"
"Isn't that when you vest your first chunk of stock options?"
The reason I bring this up is because the night of our previous
competition at the car racing/batting cage place, Linus confessed that
because of his poor memory, he regularly had to ask Tove to remind him
of his phone numbers. Suddenly he now remembers somebody else's vesting
schedule, and he can rattle off where we were when I first mentioned it
to him. A year ago he seemed to delight in the role of an absent-minded
professor, fuzzy about the details of anything less significant than Super
String Theory or the memory capacity of his earliest computers. Now he is
incredibly tuned in.
Back in January we sat in my old hot tub and I joked about the
Marin Historical Commission bugging me to donate it to their museum.
In August he casually says, "Hey, when are you going to donate that hot
tub?" He doesn't have to consult an electronic device to remember the dates
when Avuton will be visiting. He is plugged into the personal details of
friends and co-workers in a way he didn't seem to be a year earlier. In
2 3 9
fact, he even knows what's going on with
my
friends and co-workers. And
for a fellow whose first words to me on the subject were, "Actually, I don't
remember much of my childhood, " he suddenly seems to have conjured up
the memories: "Did I tell you how embarrassed I was when my mother
wanted me to ask my grandfather to give me the extra
1 00
FM I needed
to buy my first watch?"
The clarity thing was just one way Linus seemed to have changed
over the course of an important year in his life. There were little things. In
November, we took the family road trip to Los Angeles that provided the
backdrop for the "Meaning of Life" preface, partly because the Torvaldses
were invited to stay at the Brentwood home of the Finnish Consulate
General. Before the trip, Linus was glazed-eyed as he scanned the wine
counter of a Santa Clara Safeway. "Help me pick out wine as a gift, "
he said. "I know nothing about wine. " Ten months later he knows which
of two similar cabernets we should choose from the Bodega Bay Lodge
minibar, to drink while watching an in-room action movie. I catch him
swirling his wine before drinking.
And then there's the exercise thing. On my first visit to Linus's
home, he seemed to have a typical geek-like cavalier approach to his body
and physical well-being, the "my-body's-just-there-to-carry-around-my
brilliant-mind" philosophy. Linus even seemed to take pride in the fact
that he never exercised. Tove obviously felt differently. Her karate trophies
lined a full bookcase, and her aerobics videos rested on the television set.
And it seemed to be a point of contention. "Maybe in five years some doctor
will tell me I'
II
have to lose weight or something, " Linus said at the time.
I like to exercise and figured it should be a main component of our
outings. I wanted to introduce him to surfing, but it made sense to start
out with boogie-boarding. We drove over to Half Moon Bay one afternoon
in early May, rented wet suits and boards, and Linus protested heavily at
the thought of wading into the chilly waters of the Pacific, even in a wet
suit. But within minutes something amazing happened: He delighted in
riding the waves. "This is great, " he enthused like a five-year old at one
point, slapping me a high five. Of course, about fifteen minutes later he
developed a nasty leg cramp-from being so out of shape, he reasoned
and had to stop. (When the cramp hit, he just sat there in the white
2 4 0
j u s t fo r F u n
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