VANCOUVER. Many people in the world consider Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, to be a visionary. Linus Torvalds himself does not.
In a session at LinuxCon with kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman, Torvalds detailed his view of what he does and what is wrong and right in the kernel world.
“I’m not really a visionary guy,” Torvalds said. “My vision extends to pragmatic issues for the next kernel release.”
He added that sometimes his vision is two or three kernel releases ahead if he’s aware of new hardware coming. Currently new Linux kernels come out every three months.
Torvalds also noted that he’s not typically concerned with user issues such as the Linux desktop. He said that when it comes to user issues, most of the things people need to worry about are not in the kernel. He stressed that the kernel is the underlying infrastructure that is the enabler for everything on top.