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Linus Torvalds on NPR tonight 176

Posted by CmdrTaco
amortis writes "Heard on the radio that none other than Linus himself will be featured tonight on NPR's show "Fresh Air," which supposedly airs at 7pm EST. You can listen online at the NPR web site, and might be able to find more info at the Fresh Air page (I couldn't)."
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Linus Torvalds on NPR tonight More

Linus Torvalds on NPR tonight

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  • No *wonder* Linus is respected so! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hadn't heard him before, viva voce.
    Without going into lots of detail, I respect people who are emotionally mature, and, so to speak, have good control over the "animalistic" parts of their egos. Linus is a better-balanced person than I ever hope to be. He's also very fortunate.
    Guess it's appropriate to say he's a real mensch! Thoroughly decent guy.

    Terry asks excellent questions; the show is a good intro. to Linus and Linux.

    Linus is apparently on a book tour; has a new book out (forgot the title). Expect more interviews, and probably some on NPR, as well.

    Enby in Waltham

  • Anyone know how to deal with Real audio these days without having to buy RealPlayer Gold 8? Where's the free client download for Real- is it not available any more?

    It's been so long since I cared about RealAudio, I didn't realize they've gone completely commercial now ... kinda sucks.
  • It's spelled Linux but it's pronounced "guh-new lin-nucks".
  • She does great radio and is a credit to the medium. Which can be said about NPR in general.

    I would bet that even if Terry Gross had never heard of linux before, she sat down with the book and read it and made notes on the things she wanted to ask about. And her style of doing interviews tends to bring people out and feal good about being interviewed.

    I'll have to listen to it later.
  • You would never know that from listening to her (except once in a while it gets mentioned on air). You always feal that she is in a living room chatting with her guests. Even if she is in Phily and the guest is who knows where.

    Oh and they have all of their archive online so you can listen to a show she did 10 years ago if it intrests you.

  • Terry Gross always makes it a point to know about the things she is going to ask and comes out with a very interesting show.

    Air times will vary by where you live and when your NPR station airs it. But you should be able to get it tomorow from the NPR web site.
  • I listened to it this morning, and I felt that she did a very good job. Its not only important that she understand the idea of "Open source software" its important that those of us listening do too. Ok I know what it is but many people who are listening might not know. So she gave Linus a chance to explain some of the ideas.
  • The show doesn't come on until 7:30 in the Penn State area, so I still have time to buy a tape.

    It appears as though the Fresh Air people have either been receiving hoardes of nerd e-mail asking "Where's the Linus Torvalds info" on their site, or amortis is just really oblivious to the prominently featured story [npr.org].. Probably the former, but I don't really know amortis. ;)

    Btw, WHYY studios are in Philadelphia. What's the Linux goings on in Philly that I don't know about?

  • Not necessarily. I know my old company set the firewall up to actually filter the content of the streams. That is, with the HTTP connection it would look at the incoming mimetype and filter based on that. We had huge problems with a bunch of people listening to streaming radio all day that consumed all the company's bandwidth preventing others from doing useful work. After patiently asking the offenders to stop, and they didn't, the content filter was activated. I could read web pages and download software, but not listen to streamed content.
  • Doesn't it seem backwards to anyone that Linux fans in general want a mp3 version? MP3 is pretty much entirely *not* free. I'm afraid that it might be an indication that linux folks are really "free beer" folks as opposed to "free speech". Granted, its the most free of the widely deployed alternatives, but its not the solution. Go Ogg!
  • One other weird thing, Linus's prononciation is generally quite good, but he says "project" like prowwject which gets really annoying

    That's the British/Canadian pronunciation of "project" -- as an American living in Canada I found it weird at first too.
  • "Charlie didn't seem to have a clue..."

    Never seemed to have stopped him before. Besides, he only uses guests as an excuse to talk about his own opinion on the subject at hand.

  • I suspect that Charlie Rose's politics are basically pro-Charlie Rose.
  • Also who-let pack-aard
  • Maybe they should have Linus on "car talk". They could have a computer segment where people call in with questions about "Wy won't my computer start?" "Why does it make that funny noise?" and the ever popular "What is that funny smell and black smoke coming from?"
  • You're correct, of course. However, at least with MP3 you don't have to download the proprietary spyware that is RealPlayer.
  • Why do you refuse to use RealPlayer?

    Personally, I refuse to install it because it's spyware. They install all kinds of advertisement and data gathering crap. Plus, it's proprietary. Oh, and you rarely can ever just download the audio. Considering that: 1) it often skips for me; and 2) if I want to listen again I have to waste more bandwidth, I prefer just downloading the damn thing. Hey, maybe that's just me, though.

  • That's strange. It always seemed to *me* that CR was very good at not involving his own opinions.
  • What you've said is dead on. However, I'm hopeful that an injection of NeXT badassery into Apple will change things somewhat. I *do* wish they'd kept the old NeXTSTEP GUI, though. It was so slick. Aqua is like watching really bad cartoons.
  • I guess I've seen what you're talking about but never really chalked that up to trying to "push" the people he was interviewing. I assumed that he's trying to keep the pace somewhat. I hate interviewers that just drag on and on without getting anywhere.

    What strikes me is that I can never figure out what "side" he's on. Is he a leftist? Could he be conservative or moderate? It's so easy to tell with some people but I can't figure out which way his wind blows. I don't know, maybe that's bad, but I think it's kind of refreshing.

  • Freebsd 4.2
    2 instances of 'shit'
    0 instances of 'piss
    5 instances of 'fuck
    0 instances of 'cunt'
    0 instances of 'tits'
    0 instances of 'dick'
    0 instances of 'cunt'

    openbsd 2.9 (sparc only)
    2 instances of 'shit'
    0 instances of 'piss
    5 instances of 'fuck
    0 instances of 'cunt'
    0 instances of 'tits'
    0 instances of 'dick'
    0 instances of 'cunt'

    Draw your own conclusions.

  • Wrong (Score:1)

    by mattc ( 12417 )
    NPR is 50% paid for by the government. The other 50% come from corporate and individual donations.

    And anyone who listened to NPR during the presidential campaign could hear that they were in no way avoiding political interests. I think a more appropriate name for the network during this time would be "Al Gore For President Public Radio." Not that I like Bush, in fact, I hate him, but the one-sideness was ridiculous.

  • I dunno - if repressed angst does it for you, you can hardly beat Ira Glass. He's so laid back he's almost comatose, yet at the same time oddly intense. There's an almost physical urge to jump down the radio and yank the next sentence fragment out of him. That may be the big attraction of This American Life - it's not the stories, it's how they're told.

    My personal favorite, however, is Fiona Richie (host of The Thistle and Shamrock, an Irish music show). There's nothing like an accent on a woman you've never seen to make her sound incredibly desirable. I may even name my first-born daughter Fiona in her honor.

    Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!

  • [Tom]: ...and remember, don't hack like my brother.

    [Ray]: Don't hack like my brother!

    (hilarity ensues)

    Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!

  • In listening to the interview, it occurred to me that RMS and ESR have probably done this sort of combined interview enough times that they probably know the other guy's answers by heart at this point. For their next combined interview, they should switch and argue the other's position :)

    Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!

  • Easy enough to do. Just tell Winamp to save it to a .wav, then MP3 it. It'll take just as long as it would to stream to save, though.

    It's not like you can't get realplayer clients for Linux, though. Sure, they're not the very latest, but they still play.
    --

  • The "free" version of Realplayer 8 is still available, and they do have a Linux client. Real has simply made their pages so difficult to navigate that you really have to search hard to find the link to the "free" (as in beer) player:

    http://huxley.real.com/real/player/player.html?s rc =010524realhome_1,010524rpchoice_h1&dc=656463

  • Real Audio file already available (Score:4)

    by FPhlyer ( 14433 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @11:42AM (#177201) Homepage
    It's right on the page for today's show Taco! With a link to the real audio file. http://freshair.npr.org/dayFA.cfm?todayDate=curren t

  • clarification... (Score:3)

    by sterno ( 16320 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @11:42AM (#177202) Homepage
    Fresh air airs at different times on each station. Here in Chicago it's at 2:00 pm (which means I just missed most of it). so, check your local NPR station to find out for certain when it is

    ---

  • I listened to the broadcast earlier and thought something was strange. Then it hit me. Linus' accent has thinned out a bit. Or is it just my imagination?

  • I guess we just wait until someone "frees" the audio (e.g. converts it to .ogg or .mp3) and makes it available (hint, hint).

  • The show has already played in half the market. Now we have to deal with real audio crap to hear it. I'll just be waiting for someone who can convert it to .ogg or .mp3 to make it available.

    Next time, /. needs to check the national schedule for radio shows and get the word out before the first market plays.

  • No, you are not the only person. However I do need a Linux solution, and I'm not interested in f#####g around with real player in Linux anymore. OTOH, I don't have that much I would need to convert.

    For now, anyone who can make a conversion and put it online solves the immediate problem.

  • Fine. OGG it is. When will you have the conversion ready?

  • Linux is not broke. RealPlayer is. It spews meaningless messages then segfaults. Maybe RP might work on vanilla Redhat, but I don't run that. The programmers of RP don't know the meaning of "portability".

  • Thanks. Too bad things were a bit slow, and the info from the FreshAir web site was a bit misleading (e.g. giving the impression that it was live at 7PM EST and any other shows were tape delay). Maybe /. would have gotten it out faster if they knew it was an all-day same-day thing.

  • Shoutcast stream (Score:3)

    by Levine ( 22596 ) <levine@ g o a t s e . cx> on Monday June 04, 2001 @01:37PM (#177210) Homepage
    My local NPR station seems to pretty technologically adept, as they have a shoutcast stream availiable here [152.2.63.108]. The program will air at 7PM EDT, which is in roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes from time of posting.

    http://152.2.63.108:8000/listen.pls for the goatsex weary.

    Cheers,
    levine
  • Last year I contacted the producers of "Sommar", a swedish radio program that airs every summer. The concept is that the host gets one hour with their own script and the music of their own choice, to talk about whatever they want. My suggestion was that they should invite Linus to do this show once. Unfortunately, when they presented this years hosts, he was not among them.
  • Like National Public Radio, Open source software is supported by those who benefit from it directly, and it manages to avoid political and commercial interests. At the same time, many other non-contributors can benefit from it.

    How could such an obvious parallel get missed?

    I really enjoyed the interview.

  • Re:Fresh air is a very good show (Score:3)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @01:08PM (#177213) Homepage Journal
    I agree, she is quite simply the best. Here's a great salon feature about her: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/06/cov_22fea ture2.html [salon.com]

    The one time I heard one of her interviews go down in flames was when she interviewed Nancy Reagan, and asked about the astrologers in the White House, and loads of political questions. Reagan was unprepared, and, for once, Gross was unprepared for her being unprepared.
  • /* 2,191 lines of complete and utter shit coming up... */
  • You can listen here [npr.org] ( http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/fa/20010604.fa.01.ram ).
  • I wouldn't go that far - NPR has been pretty aggressive in lobbying against microbroadcasting, and other independent media. Fearing that microbroadcast operators might threaten its monopoly on community-oriented broadcasting, it lobbied the FCC and Congress to keep low-power operations illegal, narrowing the pool of voices you hear on air.

    No. NPR is lobbying to ensure that these microstations are kept at least three steps distant from existing stations. So if there's a 91.5 in a market, there shouldn't be a 91.1, 91.3, 91.7 or 91.9, leaving 92.1 and 90.9 as the next available steps on either side.

    This does reduce the number of slots available for microbroadcasting my a significant percentage, but there would still be dozens of slots available even in the busiest markets.

  • Listen to this show, and hear how to pronounce Linux, by the man himself :-)

    the AC

  • Actually... (Score:3)

    by RallyDriver ( 49641 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @09:53PM (#177218) Homepage
    ..the free (as in beer) RealPlayer 8 for Linux installs very cleanly, comes with an rpm file, etc. etc. Very nicely done.

  • 44 derivatives of 'fuck'
    Ultimately, aren't we all?
  • Be patient...

    esdmon | sox -t raw -w -c2 -s -r 44100 - -t wav - | gogo stdin linux.mp3 -m m -b 64

    8^D

    - - - - -

  • Re:Where's the .ogg or .mp3 version?? (Score:3)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @08:05PM (#177221) Homepage
    http://www.flyingbuttmonkeys.com/linux.mp3 [flyingbuttmonkeys.com]

    Enjoy!

    - - - - -

  • Re:Where's the .ogg or .mp3 version?? (Score:3)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @08:21PM (#177222) Homepage
    http://www.flyingbuttmonkeys.com/linux.ogg [flyingbuttmonkeys.com]

    enjoy!

    - - - - -
  • I just listened to it and I always thought his name was lin-us and not Line-us a la Charlie Brown. Yet, she repeatedly calls him Line-us and he never corrects her. She does pronounce "Linux" correctly however.

    What the heck?
  • Thank you so much for the mp3 version.
  • same problem as above and I tried that as well. no go. all streaming stuff seems to be blocked by the corp. firewall at my location as well.

    bastards.
  • As Mithrandir pointed out, this is exactly what my company is doing.
  • Maybe they should have Linus on "car talk". They could have a computer segment where people call in with questions about "Wy won't my computer start?" "Why does it make that funny noise?" and the ever popular "What is that funny smell and black smoke coming from?"


    "Hi, this is Kathi in Eugene, Oregon."

    "K-A-T-H-Y, right?"

    "No, I."

    "Okay, what's your question?"

    "I have a Dell PII/333 and it makes a funny noise when it boots."

    "Let me guess...it's beige."

    "Um, yes..."

    k.
    --
    "In spite of everything, I still believe that people
    are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
  • Most of the swearing (and for that matter, occurances of things like brand names) is done in comments, not string literals. A recursive grep on the source tree would be better.
  • Actually, I was very suprised to find a few months back that Terry Gross interviews very few people face to face. While it sounds like they're across the table from each other, usually her interview subject is in a radio studio somehwere else in the world, while Ms. Gross is (presumably) at WHYY studios.

    Here's the interview where she talks about that (and other things):

    http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20000901.me.06.ram [npr.org]

  • I refuse to use RealPlayer, as probably others do too.
  • It took less then a minute to download too! Nice con !

    Mod the parent up for helping out the community !

  • Nit: (Score:1)

    by hilker ( 69291 )
    You probably meant to say that the show starts at 7PM EDT. The US is on Daylight Saving time now, not Standard time.
  • Could you upload the file to some other location? Your server doesn't seem up to the /. effect...
  • ...is a wonderful interviewer. She really seems to understand enough about the relevant issues to ask intelligent questions, and she has a knack for making her guests comfortable enough to reveal themselves. The show's format helps, too; plenty of time for each interview (20 or 30 minutes), and no morons calling in.

    Should be a really worthwhile listen; probably one of the best interviews Linus will do on his book tour.

    --

  • Or, if you're trying to listen tomorrow: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/fa/20010604.fa.ram [npr.org].

    Sorry for the blatant karma whoring.

  • It's 1:07 here in Washington State, and the interview is on right now...
  • . It wasn't bad, but it was pretty light.

    It's a bit disingenuous to call that program "light." Notice from the webpage that "Fresh Air" is more generally oriented towards new trends in arts and literature. This is about as un-technical an audience as NPR ever targets. One might expect them to mention the political implications of open source and nothing else.

    While there was a lot of this, the host also gave Linus the chance to explain what an operating system was, and he even went on to differentiate between the Linux kernel and a more complete operating system. If one had been taking notes, one could have basically had an introductory class in OS design. So why don't we acknowledge the audience to whom this program is trying to speak, and applaud "Fresh Air" for even trying to tackle some of the technical jargon.

    ---

  • I've got it tuned in on my radio right now and it doesn't seem to be slashdotted.... you *do* know what a radio is, don't you? And the bandwidth seems to be adequate, too.

    What the heck. Dust it off, tune in and let's see if we can slashdot the radio station!
  • I'm sick and tired of needing a proprietary player to listen to people talk about free software.

    When are we going to see the first big adopter of Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com]?

    And yes, I know RMS' talks are in .ogg format. I'm hoping to see .ogg adoption by websites that non-geeks use, so that Vorbis can get on its way to mainstream acceptance...
    --

  • Hot teenage mirror [diamondbullet.com] action!

    Please help to reduce the stress on my server...

  • shit.... OK, here's a mirror [diamondbullet.com]

    Ignore the previous one... :P

  • Todd Mundt too! (Score:5)

    by passion ( 84900 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @12:00PM (#177243)

    He seems to be quite the celeb at the moment, as he just talked on Todd Mundt's show almost 2 weeks ago [toddshow.org], I grabbed my own copy of the recording [fluidthoughts.com]

    I also found it interesting how the second half of the show talked about cussing in the workplace, so I did a quick grep on the 2.4.3 source code, and found these results:

    • 112 instances of 'shit'
    • 4 mentions of 'piss'
    • 44 derivatives of 'fuck'
    • 0 instances of 'cunt'
    • 1 mention of 'tits'
    • 2 references to 'dick'
    • 7 occurences of 'ass'
  • One other weird thing, Linus's prononciation is generally quite good, but he says "project" like prowwject which gets really annoying.
    I will be making and ogg of the interview and posting a followup to this message for those who don't want to install proprietary realplayer.
  • I just got through listening, and it is very nice basic introduction to Linux. Lots of the basics of what Open Source is. Linus talks about WHY WE DO IT. Try this for the Real Player feed [npr.org]
  • FWIW, I submitted the news last night around 10pm or so...
  • He probably just gave up - happens to me, too. People tend to call me "Dschen", and if they don't get it after I correct them once or twice, I don't bother. I doubt Linus gives a crap.

  • Schedule in Los Angeles (Score:3)

    by Zaphod B ( 94313 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @12:43PM (#177248) Journal

    For all you Linus junkies out there in La La Land... you can hear it at 3:00pm PDT (that's one hour and fifteen minutes from now) on KCRW 89.9 Santa Monica [kcrw.com]

    .
    Zaphod B
  • She didn't even think that Linux was copyrighted

    As an interviewer it is often helpful to put forth popular assertions so that the interviewee can correct them. This is a technique, and I'm sure it was planned.

  • On Talk of the Nation, Science Friday, April 17, 1988 there was an interview [npr.org] with Richard Stallman (RMS) and Eric Raymond (ESR). You might find the contrast between Linus and RMS interesting.

    Oh yes, this interview doesn't start till 1/2 way through the audio file, it starts about 27:30...

  • Re:Fresh air is a very good show (Score:3)

    by ClarkEvans ( 102211 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @01:31PM (#177252) Homepage
    She did a very good job this time as well. Linus came off like a very thoughtful, grounded person. His discussion of the GPL was a bit muttled, in particular I thought he wasn't clear enough as to what the exact terms of the GPL are... namely that the source code must be made freely available. I also found it interesting that Linus (once again) failed to mention RMS, no suprise here. Linus's characterization of the primary difference between Windows and Linux was very good... he clearly made the point that it is all about freedom of choice and that those using Microsoft's software don't have this choice. Further, his discussion about IBM was very clear. Nice interview.
  • .it appears that the interviewer seemed very clueless about the "open source movement" so to speak. It seemed to me that she didn't grasp some of the concepts, particularly that Torvalds did this for the love of programming and nothing more. She even asked Torvalds if he was some how regretful that he didn't try to "sell" his OS rather than giving it away.

    I would say that the reason for this is that the average listener has no idea what the "open source movement" is. People here on Slashdot are not your average listener. The average person who listens to NPR is someone who is usually fairly well educated, and quite often they are not the most technical people in the world (a good amount of my friends fall directly into this category). Thus, that person has no idea what is going on in the software world, and therefore has no idea what the whole idea of open source vs. closed source is.

    In this way, the interviewer has delved into the issue rather well and touched on the open source side of the argument, giving the people who are listening a much better idea of what is going on. The idea of programming purely in the open source matter (and not specifically for profit) is something that is foreign to most people out there. They have no idea that there is a culture that loves to program for the sake of coding, they are generally ignorant of that. They understand artists doing things for the sake of art, but they usually don't consider it to be art.

    I think that in this way, this is the only thing that the interviewer missed (and Linus didn't specifically say). She concentrated on the differences between the open source movement and the closed source movement (basically, the difference between those who are out there specifically for profit, and those who are out there specifically for the elegant and superior design). This is pretty much the first step, as most peole don't understand it in this area. They understand the idea of the artist not selling out, but nobody has any idea of what people are talking about when they refer to a coder selling out.

    One thing I will note as well, is that it was hard to get across the point of the GPL (which is actually not the easiest concept to explain), and she actually hit Linus hard on this topic quite a bit, trying to get this point across. It probably would have been better for her to get someone like RMS or ESR to talk about Open Source or GPL (in their respective roles).

    I think that one of the other things that she did very well was that she really delved into the idea of programming for the joy of programming. She may not have gotten the whole point of it all, but she really got close. She realized quickly that Linus was most responsive to questions that dealt with his joy of programming, and so she kept going in that direction. For this I have to salute her ability as an interviewer.

  • Go to Real's website [real.com] and click on Realplayer at the top. Then scroll down somkewhat and click on the link that says "Realplayer 8 Basic -- is our free player". That's where to get the free player (they also seem to have a *NIX version). Good luck!

  • Don't look now... (Score:4)

    by crashnbur ( 127738 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @11:47AM (#177260)
    ...because the Fresh Air and NPR web sites seem to be taking the slashdot effect negatively. Or maybe the pages just render very slowly.

    The real audio stream [npr.org] of today's show with Torvalds buffered and played fine. Interesting so far... though I'm only a couple of minutes into it.

  • According to the Salon Story:
    But because the FM dial is so crowded already, insisting on third channel protection would eliminate 75 percent of all possible locations for new LPFM outlets. That means that, whereas the FCC had hoped to license hundereds of stations, it would only be able to license about 70 nationwide.
    70 stations is hardly "dozens of slots available in the busiest of markets." Its more like stations in rural areas and small cities.

  • Re:Air time varies (Score:3)

    by ennuiner ( 144711 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @12:23PM (#177269) Homepage
    It is 'open source news' in a way, after all)
    I wouldn't go that far - NPR has been pretty aggressive in lobbying against microbroadcasting, and other independent media. [salon.com] Fearing that microbroadcast operators might threaten its monopoly on community-oriented broadcasting, it lobbied the FCC and Congress to keep low-power operations illegal, narrowing the pool of voices you hear on air.
    In a recent article in Seattle's The Stranger [thestranger.com], NPR host Ira Glass criticized NPR for being risk-averse and uninnovative, noting there are few young or minority voices in NPR programs. [thestranger.com]
    I used to be a big NPR supporter, until they began to strong arm the government to exclude other community broadcasters.

  • New quote (Score:3)

    by Lord Ender ( 156273 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @04:09PM (#177273) Homepage
    At about 23 minutes into the interview Torvalds says,

    "I always thought I was a great programmer even when I wasn't."

    I thank that is a great quote, and it describes perfectly how many people on this forum? :)

  • If you need to find your area's NPR station that carries Fresh Air, you can go to this link [npr.org]. And if you have already missed it (the show has already aired today in most areas) then you can visit the archive [npr.org] to listen to a copy. Enjoy!
  • Yeah, I like NPR a lot, but their webmonkeys all seem to be beginners.

    For you linear types: ELibrary [elibrary.com] has transcripts of all the NPR shows that get transcribed. Paid access site, but cheaper and faster than ordering a transcript from the network.

    __

  • I'm listening to it now and as usual Terry has done her homework. She gives Linus plenty of time to explain copyright, the GPL, and the issue of selling GPLed software and he does a good job and it seems like she gets it in the end. This is *very* worth listening to.
  • Sure, its still there. They just make it difficault for you to find it. *hint* [real.com]
    until (succeed) try { again(); }

  • 'open source news'?? (Score:3)

    by wytcld ( 179112 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @12:46PM (#177290) Homepage
    Considering that former FCC chairman Kennard says that NPR's opposition before Congress was what killed his initiative to legalize micro-broadcasting, should we be urging contributions to NPR stations? True, NPR is a bit to the left, and sometimes entertaining; true, many of the micro-broadcasters would have been evangelical churches on the far right. Still the principle seems all wrong: NPR has helped prevent the emergence of real, local, community-based radio. What with Pacifica Radio [thenation.com] in flames, that means no voices more radical than NPR's pleasant liberals will be heard in most of the country.

  • I'm impressed... (Score:3)

    by cvd6262 ( 180823 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @04:01PM (#177292)
    ...with the interviewer's ability to roll with the punches.

    She starts out saying "Lye-Nus" and "Lie-Nox", and assumes that no one can sell Linux. By the end, she's picked up on how Linus says his own name and the OS', and understands a little better that Open Source is about giving people the same rights you have.

    If you can't listen to the whole thing, listen to her intro, then to the conclusion.

  • Unfortunately though.... (Score:3)

    by erotus ( 209727 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @05:25PM (#177304)
    ...it appears that the interviewer seemed very clueless about the "open source movement" so to speak. It seemed to me that she didn't grasp some of the concepts, particularly that Torvalds did this for the love of programming and nothing more. She even asked Torvalds if he was some how regretful that he didn't try to "sell" his OS rather than giving it away. Her pronunciation of "Linux" as "Linox" was quite disconcerting as well.

    She also didn't grasp, at least at first, that you can sell free software. Overall, I liked the interview, but I wish the interviewer had done her homework or did she not know where to look for such information. She could have taken the discussion more in depth if she knew more. I do feel that it is good exposure for Linux nonetheless. At the end, it appeared that she was starting to understand the concept of free software. This may mean that the Linux community could do some more PR work in this area.

    I brought up that last point because many people, even IT people don't really seem to grasp or understand the concepts behind free software, open source, and that the value of Linux can't be measured by a price tag on a shrink wrapped box. Microsoft won't go away any time soon and neither will Linux much to Microsofts dismay. Linux is free and far too useful to just throw by the wayside. There are many online docs and how-to's, but we can't insure that people will learn linux effectively. On the other hand, we can work to educate people to understand the processes, ideals, and workings behind the movement. This is perhaps just as important as any how-to document because the community is ultimately what drives Linux and understanding that community is part of the overall learning process.

  • Re:Todd Mundt too! (Score:4)

    by wmulvihillDxR ( 212915 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @12:12PM (#177306) Homepage Journal
    How much of those 'shit' instances can be attributed to "Matsushita" CD-ROMs?

  • Air time varies (Score:5)

    by tomdarch ( 225937 ) on Monday June 04, 2001 @11:46AM (#177311)
    I just heard it on WBEZ (public radio in Chicago). It started at 2:00pm Central time. It wasn't bad, but it was pretty light. Terry (sp?) Gross is one of the best interviewers I know of, but the technical nature of LINUX really got in the way of an in-depth discussion. He (Linus) did have some interesting personal comments on what it was like to ride the rise and fall of an IPO. Check the website of your local public radio station (you are a contributor aren't you? It is 'open source news' in a way, after all)
  • No, it wasn't planned. It was Torvald's graceful answering which kept the flow running on this one; she made several mistakes. She did not catch his cryptic reference to FUD--completely ignored it because she was preparing to read her next question, which lots of journalists do. The best journalists know their material so well that they ask questions in such a manner that does not reveal they are ignorant of their material. Don't be so sure that it was planned. As an interviewer, I would never use this technique without clarifying that I _did_ know what I was talking about, like: "Some people think that x is true, and some people think that y is. What is your understanding of x and y?"

    In a similar manner, she thought that GPL kept people from making money off of software, but Torvald's answer made the distinction clear: the software can be sold, but its source must be made available.

  • I went to listen (by copying link location and heading over the realplayer because my web browser does not work properly) but then realized that alsa's on the blink ever since debian upgraded to 0.9, so I couldn't actually hear my fearless leader on his own operating system (yeah, I know...). Does anyone else see the humor in this?

    I chuckled and went to log in and share this, but realized I forgot my password, had it emailed to me, but then realized again that I had left mutt in a state of half-compilation (lack of libssl-dev) and so had to compile my damn mail program before being able to post. Yeah, thanks a lot Linus ;)

    flames to /dev/null...

  • All those who worship at the alter of Bill Gates ought to listen to this interview. Linus is a breath of fresh-air in the software world. Bill Gates has nothing on Linus. Linus is a much better example of how a human being should act then Gates. Somehow, even with all his charity, I still think of Bill Gates as a rich spoiled brat. I don't think Linus will ever be that way.
  • Terry Gross is an idiot. I have heard her at times and it seems as if she is just reading off of a script. Some of her questions seem so out of context to what her subject is talking about (as she moves from interview question #13 to question #14).

    I have heard her in fact ask questions of people right after they just finished talking about something.

    Subject: ...which reminds me of my childhood spending summers playing with my bother.

    Terry: Interesting. So, tell me, did you have any siblings?

    I have heard some people get pissed at her for not seeming to pay attention to the interview. (And some pretty prominent figures that one would have thought that she would have taken greater care/interest about.)

    That being said, she does usually get really good people on the show, so I listen anyway and grumble when she starts acting like an idiot.

    I heard part of the Linus interview earlier today and found him interesting. (Never heard him other than through phospher.)

    ______

  • The firewall at work doesn't allow streaming media, and I'll still be here when Fresh Aire comes on. Unless [cough] I develop [yack] a bad case of [gag] 24 hour Ebola. Hey, boss [hurl], can I go home?

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