Linus Torvalds has said that cryptocurrencies are simply "a great vehicle for scams"
  • Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, does not believe in cryptocurrencies, calling them a vehicle for scams and a Ponzi scheme.
  • Torvalds was once rumored to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but he clarified it was a joke and denied owning a Bitcoin fortune.
  • Torvalds also dismissed the idea of technological singularity as a bedtime story for children, saying continuous exponential growth does not make sense.
  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
    7·
    6 months ago

    It’s interesting to see Torvalds emerge as a kind of based tech hero. I’m thinking here also of his rant not long ago on social.kernel.org (a kernel devs microblog instance) that was essentially a pretty good anti-anti-leftism tirade in true Torvalds fashion.

    EDIT:

    Torvalds’s anti-anti-left post (I was curious to read it again):

    I think you might want to make sure you don’t follow me.

    Because your “woke communist propaganda” comment makes me think you’re a moron of the first order.

    I strongly suspect I am one of those “woke communists” you worry about. But you probably couldn’t actually explain what either of those words actually mean, could you?

    I’m a card-carrying atheist, I think a woman’s right to choose is very important, I think that “well regulated militia” means that guns should be carefully licensed and not just randomly given to any moron with a pulse, and I couldn’t care less if you decided to dress up in the “wrong” clothes or decided you’d rather live your life without feeling tied to whatever plumbing you were born with.

    And dammit, if that all makes me “woke”, then I think anybody who uses that word as a pejorative is a f*cking disgrace to the human race. So please just unfollow me right now.

    • Ledivin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      6 months ago

      It’s interesting to see Torvalds emerge as a kind of based tech hero.

      It’s just that almost everyone else that could do it ended up being fucking ghouls of people.

      Torvalds can be… brusque, sure. But he doesn’t support child labor, he doesn’t cheat on his wife, and he isn’t some crazy cult leader waging a war against workers’ rights.

      • jj4211@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        Another interesting thing to consider.

        To be clear, he is rich. But he’s not crazy crazy rich, like nowhere near billionaire status.

        With that in mind, his kernel is a key component of RedHat’s, SuSE’s and Canonical whole business, with at least two of those being multi billion dollar businesses.

        His kernel is a key component of Android phones, which represent over 50 billion a year in hardware spend, and a bunch of software money on top of that.

        His kernel is foundational to most hosting/cloud services with just mind blowing billions of revenue quarterly.

        It’s used in almost every embedded device on the planet, networking gear, set top boxes, thermostats, televisions, just nearly everything.

        People with a fraction of that sort of relevance are billionaires several times over. A number of billionaires owe much of their success to him. Yet he is not among their numbers.

        Now there’s more to things than just a kernel to be sure, but across the hundreds of billions of dollars made while running Linux, there was probably plenty of room for him to carve out a few billion for himself were he that sort of person, but he cares about the work more than gaming the dollars. I have a great deal of respect for that.

        Means that while he may not always be right, but I at least believe his assessments are sincere and not trying to drive some grift or cover some insecurity about being left behind.

        • yogurtwrong@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          Well, I think Linus Torvalds is one of the rare rich people who actually “deserves” being rich.

          I think the main motive behind leftism should be stopping 8 people from owning the 50% of the world’s wealth, not to distribute Linus Torvalds’ 50 million dollars which a well deserved amount of wealth for someone who created the OS which runs the modern world.

          Besides, what Linus owns is not even a droplet compared to billionaires like Bezos, Musk or Bill Gates

          • jj4211@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            I think it’s a shining example of the ‘right’ sort of rich. Despite a significance that overwhelmingly exceeds usual billionaire level, he’s not nearly so ‘rich’ and yet he has enough to just not worry about money, but he has earned it.

        • sudo@programming.devEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          git is a way more important contribution to the world that the linux kernel IMO. Its basically the assembly line of almost all modern software production. And Linus actually wrote most of the initial code for it. With Linux he organized the project but was almost immediately not a major contributor. He developed git in the process of maintaining the linux repo.

          • RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            I disagree. Git is great but we’d have done fine with Subversion or whatever. Could you imagine the whole internet running on Windows Server though? The thought alone makes my skin crawl.

          • iopq@lemmy.worldEnglish
            01·
            6 months ago

            git is why we can’t have nice things

            There’s many better VCS, but everyone just goes on GitHub and uses git.

            I dread ever having to touch it. The CLI is unintuitive, the snapshot system is confusing, and may God have mercy on your soul if you mix merging and rebasing

    • bulwark@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      I wonder what direction the Linux kernel will go once he’s gone. Obviously it will continue to go on and Torvalds should get a statue somewhere if he doesn’t already have one.

      • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        I don’t follow thinigs closely at all, but I’m under the impression he’s already starting to kinda take his hands off of the wheel? If so, maybe that picture is emerging now, at least behind the scenes.

        • Rustmilian@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 months ago

          Linus hasn’t written kernel code in years at this point, however he still is the final gate keeper of what gets merged and an active code reviewer, he manages the entire direction of the project.

          As of what will happen when Linus passes, that’s already been decided. The position of projects leader will go to his most trusted project co-maintainer, which we have a good idea of who that is.

            • Rustmilian@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              6 months ago

              There are a few candidates, the most prominent are probably :

              • Greg Kroah-Hartman: Played a pivotal role in stabilizing the memory management subsystem and enhancing block I/O performance, both critical areas for system stability and performance.
              • Sage Sharp (formally Sarah Sharp) : Instrumental in the development and maintenance of the networking subsystem and the ARM architecture code, ensuring compatibility and efficient networking for various ARM-based devices.
              • Git Junio Hamano: Maintainer of Git, the version control system that underpins Linux development. His leadership in maintaining Git ensures smooth collaboration and efficient code management for the vast kernel developer community.

              Greg Kroah-Hartman is speculated to be the most likely candidate, but it also depends on a few factors. Like, if Linus dies suddenly vs dying slowly or just stepping down, there’d be a big difference in selection process.

              Ofc, things may change in the future and there’s many other talented developers who can be considered. Nothing is set in stone.