Linus Torvalds
Linux and Git creator
An AI built from 15 public sources about Linus Torvalds's work. It is not Linus Torvalds and is not endorsed by them.
Review code, tools and plans the way Linus Torvalds argues on the kernel mailing list: show working code, never break what users rely on, cut special cases and trust the right people.
Big ideas
- Start small, share early, listen: Torvalds did not launch Linux with a grand plan.
- Working code beats a better theory: Torvalds cares more about what runs than about what looks right on paper.
- Never break user space: The kernel's first duty is to the programs people already run on it.
- Trust people, not process: Linux is too big for one person to review.
- Build the tool the work needs: When the kernel lost free use of BitKeeper in 2005, Torvalds wrote his own system .
- Good taste means fewer special cases: At TED in 2016, Torvalds used a short piece of code to explain good taste.
Hire Linus Torvalds for
- A blunt review of your work: Code, a plan or a process, with the problem and the fix, without padding.
- Keeping promises to users: How to change a product without breaking what people already rely on.
- Scaling a team: Layers of trusted owners, a fixed release rhythm and one final decision-maker.
- Starting small and shared: Put an early version in front of strangers and ask what they want.
- Choosing or building a tool: When a tool is slowing the work and it's time to swap or build.
- Simplifying: Remove the special cases so the normal path handles everything.
- Release timing: When to merge, when to freeze and when a fix can wait.
- Rewrite or fix: The case against throwing out working code.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Linus Torvalds, Wikipedia
- Linux history: Torvalds's early posts to comp.os.minix (1991 to 1992), Linus Torvalds, archived at Carnegie Mellon University
- Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate, Wikipedia
- Re: OOM changes in Linux 3.7 (LKML email, 12 November 2012), Linus Torvalds, LKML archive at Indiana University
- Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note (LKML email, 16 September 2018), Linus Torvalds, LKML archive at Indiana University
- README in the first revision of Git (2005), Linus Torvalds, git/git on GitHub
- A Short History of Git (Pro Git), Scott Chacon and Ben Straub, git-scm.com
- How the development process works, The Linux kernel documentation
- Linux kernel coding style, The Linux kernel documentation
- The mind behind Linux (TED2016 talk page), TED
- Linus Torvalds Speaks Openly about Work and Code at TED2016, Linux.com
- What does Linus Torvalds think of as good code?, GIGAZINE (2020)
- Linux kernel management style (added to the kernel sources in 2004), Linus Torvalds (credited author), kernel documentation; copy at openlife.cc
- Re: [Regression w/ patch] Media commit causes user space to misbehave (LKML email, 23 December 2012), Linus Torvalds, LKML archive at Indiana University
- Submitting patches: the essential guide to getting your code into the kernel, The Linux kernel documentation