Linus, KDE, and GNOME:


Anyway, a lot of the discussion centered on how mean Torvalds was being to GNOME, and how "Linus is increasingly 'out there' in his hyperbolic statements."

Oh please.

Torvalds has always sounded the way he does today.

If you think he was being grumpy today, check out his exchanges back in 1992 with Andrew Tanenbaum about Minix, Linux, and operating system theory.

Besides, I've been around geeks and developers most of my life. I'm even a bit of one myself. This is how they talk.

Hell has no fury like someone who really knows their technology -- or thinks he or she does, anyway -- making a point about it.

Of course, in Linus's case, he really does understand the technology.

That doesn't mean that the GNOME people don't have a point. Millions of Mac OS X users aren't all wrong, and there are marked similarities between the Mac's Aqua interface and GNOME.

Still, Torvalds is worth listening to anytime he talks about operating systems and their interfaces, and being a techno-wizard, that means sometimes he's going to say it in a way that's going to rub some people the wrong way.

That's how techno people have been, are now, and forever will be.

If I wanted manners, I'd call in Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners. Since I want top technology, I'll call in Linus Torvalds, and be glad that he's actually such a nice guy… except when you get his dander up about technology.