The Linux kernel project is growing up. New contributors, job delegation, and a source code control system have changed the way the kernel gets hacked. The guy at the center of it all — Linus Torvalds — has changed, too. Gone are his days as poster boy for Open Source. He doesn’t do Comdex keynotes anymore; he’s not on the covers of business magazines; and he rarely gives interviews. No, these days, Linus is all about what he does best: hacking the kernel and keeping a sure and steady hand on the rudder of everyone’s favorite project.
LINUX MAGAZINE: Tell us about how your job has evolved in the last few years.
LINUS TORVALDS: One of the things that I wanted to do with Bitkeeper [the source code control system Linus recently adopted] was to see how easy it is to have other people in charge of their own areas. So far, [it’s] worked really well with some people. Before, I had to merge patches, and I always did it, but it was still work for me. These days, with those people I know I can work with, it takes a second every week. It’s not a big deal anymore. I get an email that says, “Please pull.” I pull it. It’s done. And that’s very convenient.
It works very well within certain subsystems. USB is a perfect example of this. Greg [Kroah-Hartman] just handles…
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