Linus 'Liability' Torvalds

Bruce Perens (pictured right) gave a press conference at this years Linux World Expo in Boston. Bruce, as usual, provided a lot of thought-provoking commentary on the state of open source landscape and some of the folks who inhabit it. He had this interesting comment to make of Linus with regards to GPL 3:

Linus Torvalds has publicly spoken of problem[s] with the DRM provisions, in my opinion jumping the gun, since there were ample opportunities for the text to be handled on the four existing discussion committees. But Linus doesn't like politics and policy, and thus he sort of tried to short-circuit the process through the press without first discussing the problem with any of the committees. That wasn't productive. Since Linus doesn't like to work on this, I wish that instead of trying to throw thunderbolts he'd let someone else on his team who has the right aptitude handle it.

In other words Linus isn't a team player with regards to hammering out GPL 3. Bruce would rather Linus go back to writing code and let someone else "on his team" who can be a better behaved and more diplomatic speaker for the group.

If you get the chance read the entire speech. It's definitely worth your time.