Summary of Linus Torvalds schools Lennart Poettering on the importance of users

00:00:00 - 00:10:00

Linus Torvalds emphasizes the importance of users in software development, both in terms of keeping programs compatible with older versions and in terms of open source development. He also offers an example of a change that was made to the Linux kernel that broke compatibility, and how users can tell if a program is broken by looking for a compatibility flag.

• 00:00:00 Linus Torvalds discusses the importance of userspace compatibility in the Linux kernel, and how breaking that compatibility can be a major failure. Torvalds offers an example of a backwards-incompatible change that was made to make an improvement, and how users can tell if a program is broken by looking for a compatibility flag. He emphasizes the importance of keeping programs usable by users, and notes that compatibility is one of the most important aspects of software development.
• 00:05:00 Linus Torvalds discusses the importance of ensuring that changes to the user interface do not break existing functionality. He recalls a time when a system call that had been deprecated for years was suddenly removed from the kernel, causing problems for a project he was working on. He encourages users to use old versions of Linux binaries in order to keep their systems working the same way as they did in the past. Torvalds also points out that systemd and other recent changes have broken some older applications.
• 00:10:00 Linus Torvalds discusses the importance of users in software development, and how open source makes it easier to fix mistakes and maintain user functionality. He also mentions how sometimes open source developers have to break things on purpose to make things more difficult for bad users.