Oct 15, 2026, 7:10 PM@nina_kali_nina linus must be on some real crack or worse sources of inspirations or reflections
- Oct 15, 2026, 7:10 PM
Replies
Nina Kalininanina_kali_nina@tech.lgbtOct 15, 2026, 7:14 PM@toots I feel there must be some financial incentives in play. But then if you try using LLMs, you might discover that they're built for the maximum engagement, they're really good at convincing people that they can do the job...
- Oct 15, 2026, 7:17 PM
@nina_kali_nina yeah I think Linus' immigration into USA from Finland might have been weighed down by Transmeta or whatever, but I'm definitely not one to judge or suspect or being an amateour detective. Whatever; I actually suspect none of the things I listed has much to do with anything, but yeah the LLM train surely has incentives, beyond my interest really, since I try to ignore all of it.
Gorgeous na Shock!indigoparadox@mastodon.socialOct 15, 2026, 9:02 PM@nina_kali_nina @toots I think it's just desperation. Like the "every bug is a CVE" thing. And dropping support for the 486. Any and every thing they can try while holding onto crazy complex stuff like cgroups and Microsoft/Google stuff that *does* generate dev hours and funding.
It always amazes me that Linux, like, still boots and stuff. Truly a modern tower of Babel.
I use it so I can't say much, but I can totally see how it would drive its creators insane!
pyrex containerPyrexContainer@mastodon.socialOct 15, 2026, 9:28 PM@nina_kali_nina @toots maybe hes gaming the system? Getting filthy rich over what has the power to destroy his project and career if he refuses?
- Oct 15, 2026, 9:31 PM
@PyrexContainer @nina_kali_nina I deeply doubt Linus Thorvalds is gaming the system like this. He's a super-upstanding citizen, his wife and family is beyond critiques, and he's got a ton of humble-gotten money in the banks, Linus won't turn cynically grubbing for some blind reason; I really think the chance of him being like that would be inexistent.
- Nina Kalininanina_kali_nina@tech.lgbtOct 15, 2026, 9:33 PM
@toots @PyrexContainer lately he came across as an asshole in mailing lists. And if not an asshole then just a tired disgruntled engineer who has ran out of care for the community
- Oct 15, 2026, 9:43 PM
@nina_kali_nina @PyrexContainer yeah he's "always" been kind of crude in the lkml or those places but I still think it's a larger threshold to be hopefully not seen. We'll have to hold our popcorns, but he's from Finland, and , well but I really doubt he'll go totally Darth Vader, or your favourite villain, since I don't keep up with the marvel bs, but fingers crossed.
Oct 16, 2026, 1:26 AM@nina_kali_nina @toots @PyrexContainer lately? Linus has been a savage in the mailing lists since time immemorial.
The Orange Themetheorangetheme@en.osm.townOct 15, 2026, 9:42 PM@nina_kali_nina @toots I think it's a lot like nicotine: plenty of people aren't addicted to it until they try it, and then it's really, really hard to stop, because that's what it does. I've seen LLMs compared to gambling, and I believe it's using the exact same neural pathways. People talk about it and behave the same way someone with a gambling problem would. (Not to absolve people of their agency, either. I also believe it's easier to stop using LLMs than it is to stop gambling.)
- Oct 15, 2026, 9:45 PM
@theorangetheme @nina_kali_nina I doubt Linus specifically is addicted to LLMs but I can also not critique his decisions, being that he's got like ages of experience being the BOFH, or inevitable dictator; can't really beat things subjectively down with a shovel, I feel.
- The Orange Themetheorangetheme@en.osm.townOct 15, 2026, 9:59 PM
@toots @nina_kali_nina *grabs a second shovel* I'm spec'd for dual-wielding.
- Oct 15, 2026, 10:00 PM
@theorangetheme @nina_kali_nina the skyrim akimbo never gets old
RealGene ☣️RealGene@hachyderm.ioOct 16, 2026, 1:18 PMI think Linus is dedicated to his craft, but in the last two decades, the complexity of the kernel has gone up exponentially, due to adding capabilities, supporting more advanced processors, and increasing speed/efficiency.
He began by writing a kernel single-handed, for fun. And now his creation is simply beyond his, or any single person's ability to comprehend in its entirety. But now here is a technique that can be queried about any component or concept, and provide a generally reliable explanation or correction, or addition, or expansion, and he believes (and for the most part I would agree) that he is knowledgeable and skilled enough to evaluate the quality of the code produced, a genuine centaur as defined by @pluralistic .
The risk, of course, is that this will greatly expand what Linus believes is under his control to maintain, modify, and improve, with greater and greater reliance on the tools over time.
In finance, the caution has always been "past performance is not indicative of future results", but humans, by their nature, have gone broke for centuries by ignoring that adage.
The result will be elements of the kernel that have not been as carefully scrutinized, or written as comprehendibly (and let's face it, without years of experience, a significant part of Linux isn't comprehendible *now*), or clearly documented (ibid.).
Others will try to emulate Linus' workflow, with varying degrees of success, and the result will be bodies of code that can only be maintained or repaired by using the tools that generated them in the first place, and the level of abstraction will increase beyond that developer's ability to comprehend, ad infinitum.
Right now, I've stopped updating my various machines running Debian, because I have no idea what's going to be introduced, and I'm nervous about moving to NetBSD because of (a) the learning curve, and (b) what functionality I'm going to lose because one or more of the tools I'm using now won't be available…
It's like those factories where there's one dusty old PC running Windows 95 that can't be replaced (or even touched) because it's critical to the operation of a particular machine, and there's no viable alternative.