Linux Magazine: The Great Dictator

“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…”

Complete
Story