- 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.
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.
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.
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.
gitis 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.Can’t two things both be important in different ways? Why must we always relativise?
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
Mercurial or darcs?
Pijul, actually
darcs_rs
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
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.
Yea. It’s almost like caring about your craft and being motivated chiefly to just make good things and fix things … aren’t terrible character traits?!?
He just seems frustrated. And I respect that. I’m a nerd who’s often frustrated as well.
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.
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.
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.
For the uninformed, who is that?
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.
Thanks for the details. With things heading more and more towards arm architecture I’m surprised Sarah Sharp isn’t the leading candidate. But this is all new to me so what do I know lol
It’s not like they couldn’t be chosen, they have some serious stake in it. Consider their achievements and read the following :
Here are some key qualities a potential successor should possess :
- Deep understanding of the Linux kernel: Intimate knowledge of the kernel’s codebase, architecture, and development process is essential.
- Proven leadership skills: The ability to effectively guide a large team of developers with diverse technical backgrounds and priorities.
- Strong communication and collaboration: Excellent communication skills to bridge the gap between developers, and foster a collaborative development environment.
- Technical merit and reputation: A well-established reputation within the Linux community for technical contributions and code quality.
- Vision for the future: A clear vision for the future direction of the kernel, ensuring it remains relevant and innovative.
I’d say they meet most if not all of them. All of the potential candidate’s are amazingly talented and determined individuals.
He did rule that Rust can be included in the kernel code a bit ago, but IIRC that’s the last big thing he did with Linux as of late.
They should do something like GNU from discworld in the code.
Yeah, I would say he has stayed in line with Finnish politics based on how I know of them
For a rant, that made complete sense. It missed all of the unhinged outcries, alternative facts and illogical reasoning we’ve come to expect of modern day rants.
deleted by creator
Holy shit, the crypto bros are really triggered by this, out in full force in the comments. If the only argument you can bring for crypto is that you make/made money on it, that sounds a lot like a Ponzi scheme
I mean not to mention the ridiculous amount of electricity it uses, and heat generated. but hey it’s low priority even though every year lately is the hottest in record.
Fully agree. I think there exist both good and scammy-bubble types of blockchain and crypto. Crypto can be a scam, memecoin rugpull, ponzi scheme, …etc, but it can also be the peer-2-peer decentrilized self-custody borderless international currency of people away from governments manipulation, inflation, banks and middlemen, which is something that has its own advantages and negatives as we’ve seen it with criminals, tax evation and money laundering, but also used by people fleeing war zones after their banking come down and escaping trumbling government fiats. However, it also needs regulations and the protections of world governments to work but also claims to want governments and regulations off.
To clarify my position honestly, I think blockchain programming is here to stay but today 99% of it including BTC could be the scammy bubble type and does not represent or have most of the therotical advantages of the bitcoin’s original white paper which I listed above.
I agree. Every crypto except XMR seems to be only seen as an investment to make more money.
The modern tech industry needs the old Linus to pay it a visit. Too many grifts
I for one would love for Linus, probably Woz, and a third party yet to be decided(this would be Aaron Schwartz in a better world) to be given free reign to gut the whole industry and rebuild it into something isn’t wholly based on ad revenue and grift
Edit: a bunch of good suggestions of people I need to read about for position three. If anyone can think of a digital equivalent to Marshall McLuhan I think we desperately needs input of that sort
Maybe Cory Doctorow?
I definitely considered just saying him outright but I don’t know quite enough about him outside of a few articles I’ve read to be certain I wanted to be so bold
I feel like he’s definitely the person to sit in Schwartz’s seat.
Be so bold.
Old Linus with Woz and Schwartz is a dream.
I understand why Linus wanted to clean up his act with people he works with. That is a good and admirable thing to do. I wish he would have kept his smoke for companies though.
Richard stallman is the only answer.
I really hate everything he says, but so far on a lot enough timescale he has been fucking right about everything
Ballmer, for comedy relief
John Gilmore is around
Stallman.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Stallman, is in fact, GNU/Stallman, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Stallman. Stallman is not a man unto himself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
I lack the creativity, but someone please come up with a recursive acronym for Stallman.
Asked ChatGPT
Stallman Tenaciously Advocates Liberation, Leading Movements Against Non-freedom
All you need to do is make the
Sstand for “Stallman”, and you’ll get a stack overflow before ever reaching the other letters (so you don’t need to think of a value for them).STALLMAN: Stallman The Almighty, Living Legend… Man… Anon… Null…
The only possible correct answer
No matter what crazy shit he says, give it a few years and he will be right . And I really hate that
Crypto means cryptography, stop using it to talk about cryptocurrency.
good luck, I’m sure this comment will change how everyone talks from now on.
Is it not clear which definition of Crypto he’s using?
Linus coming out against cryptography seems so unrealistically silly to me that it’s not even worth considering.
Cryptocurrency is a currency based on cryptographic keys.
That’s like asking people to say kilograms instead of kilos
Ok based upon one dude’s opinion I’ll purposely create a communication problem between me and anyone who ever tries to discuss this stuff with me.
Or I could just toss this opinion in the garbage…
Decisions decisions
Never heard it commonly used as a short form for “cryptography”. But did hear it commonly used for “Cryptocurrency”. Why not let the morons have it? Do you have a scam running that relies on “Crypto” being short for “Cryptography”? Using “cool” brevs is the mark of the amateur anyway, if someone said “crypto” to me when he meant cryptography, I’d forever judge them as a silly person.
You are aware that the “crypto” part of cryptocurrency is short for cryptographic, right?
No I’m not
Ah ok, sorry
Wait… whose the moron here? Lol
Crypto means hidden, stop using it to talk about cryptography.
Crypto currencies doesn’t mean “hidden currency”, it means currency based on cryptography.
They meant that choosing one possible definition and saying it’s what the word means is stupid. Words mean pretty much what everyone agrees they mean. Look at all the words that have basically flipped definitions since their inception. Just because the modern derivative of a word means something literally everyone understands but is slightly different than what it used to mean doesn’t mean the oldest answer is the correct one. Unwad your jock.
If after 16 years you still have to be asked if you believe in crypto, then chances are that it is a scam.
Good point, I always wondered if there is a way the technology will evolve and somehow find a niche that’s unexpected. But you’re right, 16 years is a long time to be meandering.
It’s such a first-world thing to not understand all the good that crypto has done. There are countless lives that have been financially saved by having a safe place to hold wealth while their countries’ fiat collapsed. It’s just a short matter of time until many first world folks understand this as well.
There was promise for people in Argentina livig under extreme inflation but I never heard it go anywhere.
Look closer, it’s saving lives down there.
I’m from Argentina, if you can pass me some articles I’d love to read them. It’s something I’ve been interested in
Traditionally clever Argentinians have used USD to escape the collapsing currency, but over the last couple of years, there has been a massive shift to doing this with Bitcoin and some stablecoins. Personally, I would just go for Bitcoin, but I do understand that there is less variance with stablecoins, so they may be a bit more practical for some people. Here is an article that goes into this.
On the other hand, scams rarely last 16 years.
No clue how long scams usually last, but famous ones easily last multiple decades, though funny how unclear if is when the scam started:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff_investment_scandal?wprov=sfla1
Federal investigators believe the fraud in the investment management division and advisory division may have begun in the 1970s. However, Madoff himself stated his fraudulent activities began in the 1990s. Madoff’s fraudulent activities are believed to have accelerated after the 2001 change from fractional share trades to decimals on the NYSE, which cut significantly into his legitimate profits as a market-maker.
Alerted by his sons, federal authorities arrested Madoff on December 11, 2008.
Madoff was hidden. Bitcoin is out in the open.
I think “bubble” could be a better description. Bitcoins bubble pops regularly every 4 years.
Yeah I don’t believe in smartphones, I just have one. I don’t believe in crypto, I acknowledge it’s pointless.
Its just a big money laundering scheme
And/or a fucking casino
Oh yeah? Then explain this!! /s
👏.
👏.
👏.
He is just like me. I don’t mess with the chucky cheese token money.
What you don’t want to buy my Disney dollers? How about if I throw in some monopoly money?
You know what’s hilarious? Disney dollars were more regulated than most cryptocurrencies.
It’s as if this headline were written to stir discussion on lemmy.
I mean, at this point it’s like saying you don’t believe in Homeopathy
Except for the thousands of cryptobros who will flock to these kinds of threads defending their scam, as this very thread is an example of.
Crypto is just a waste of resources, similar to AI
Ai has function. Unlike crypto
You projecting about you
POS does not consume resources.
This goes to show how low-effort the criticism campaigns are.
However… all cryptos have their health tied to bitcoin which is a large energy consumer. So the point is actually still very true (due to some other reason).And the state
Thank goodness. Such a useless technology.
Scratch that… it’s not useless, because it’s great for scams and fraud. It’s actively harmful.
Based
Lets see, cryptocurrencies involve tech bros, fin bros and lots of money. I am not surprised it is on its way to become the most disgusting money making scheme in the world.
Who the fuck tell their kids bedtime stories about the idea of technological singularity??
I fell asleep to that by myself.
Getting digital cable in my bedroom as a kid was both a blessing and a curse, and I listened to Michio Kaku a lot. Didn’t understand half of it, but hey, it was cool.
Keep in mind, this was when I was a kid and thought all adults were good people and didn’t understand that Kaku and Tyson were dickheads or that Discovery Science was junk food borderline scifi.
