- 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.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.
You probably need to learn a bit more about VCS fundamentals if you think Subversion would’ve been fine.
Well, I don’t know what you mean, so possibly? I just briefly used SVN in a small team for about half a year and would never claim to be an expert. It’s alive and kicking though, so regardless what you say I don’t believe it’s a complete clusterfuck and a world without git would be doomed.
Torvalds didn’t create git because he was passionate about version control systems, he created it because the existing solutions were not adequate.
Git is a distributed version control system (DVCS) that facilitated a fundamental shift in how people collaborate on software projects in general. So, comparing it to SVN and downplaying the significance of Git suggests you’ve kind of missed the point.
Edit: with you on the other thing though - fuck Windows.
They got to him
Who is ‘they’?
Either you’re dumb or playing dumb. Either way, bad look.
Crypto is just a waste of resources, similar to AI
I think both have their uses. A true state backed cryptocurrency used interchangeably with physical cash could be quite useful. Crypto as it is now not so much.
AI has a bunch of useful applications in medicine, manufacture, research, monitoring… But where we see it is language models, art remixes, and deep fakes.
Nah it’s literally a waste of physical resources. Crypto currency is a waste of fossil fuels. AI has its functions at least.
Proof of stake uses a load less than proof of work.
Be really good if currencies could go in and out of crypto. Could cut out a lot of middle men.
again, what use does it serve over traditional banking?
even PoS requires a lot of resources in comparison, for a system that literally exists to funnel money to a smaller group of people
Advantages of cash and digital, without the swings of raw crypto. Also leaving the ability to usefully manipulate your country’s currency.
Crypto means easy, open payment systems. No gatekeepers like WorldPay.
like any true Liber-crypto-bro-tarian, your understanding of crypto is only undercut by your understanding of economics
Manipulating currency is a useful tool. If you don’t think so, that makes you more liberian than me.
Like many here, I’m big into open source, and card payment systems are an issue. Crypto is one solution to that. Crypto has advantages, but it falls down as a currency because of blind faith in the invisble hand.
I literally can’t transfer money to Kazakhstan without paying $50 for a wire.
Is this going to be the most replied to post on the Fediverse? 635 in 2 days and still going strong.
Edit: since it’s now at 666 replies, please nobody make any more comments
Is there a way to check?
There’s a few with a thousand on top of all time for Lemmy. It would have to break those before it gets there. But since we’ve got a perfect storm of Linux, crypto, and anti ai discussions going, all we need is @PugJesus@lemmy.world to make a top level comment about how not voting for Biden is voting for Trump to really push it over the top.
I didn’t realize I was so famous.
