Process Play

One of the things that fascinates me about the Linux kernel development process is that before Linus Torvalds, no one really understood how to run an open source project. There were plenty of GNU tools released under the GNU General Public License, but the people leading those projects were isolated and generally unwelcoming. When Linux suddenly exploded with contributions from all over the world and a speed of development never seen before, it took quite a while for people to piece together what Linus was doing to achieve that.

As a result, even though nowadays the social dynamics of open source projects are much better understood and pretty much anyone can run a big project themselves, I'm personally still always interested in even the small details of how Linus goes about leading this project. Twenty-five years ago or so, before Linus used any form of revision control, he'd periodically produce a single patch, representing everyone's contribution since the previous release. No one thought much of that until he started using revision control, and they could see in the project history the sheer quantity of work Linus had been putting into curating all those contributions. Everyone knew he had been doing a lot of work, but people had a hard time believing that it was truly that much. They were knocked flat.

In fact, a lot of Linus's development policies have to do with maximizing the speed of his own work. As the final gatekeeper for any patches to the kernel, even a tiny change in his efficiency can cause a big swing in the number of patches that get into each new release. That's one reason why he originally wrote the Git revision control system – there were tons of other revision control systems available at the time, but with the controversial exception of the closed source BitKeeper, none of them could match his own speed using email along with the old-time Unix diff and patch tools. By creating Git, Linus changed all that. With Git, he not only matched his own efficiency needs, but he opened the door for the renaissance of high-speed collaborative work that you see in the world today.

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