• soratoyuki@piefed.zip
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    4 hours ago

    Genuine question. I’m not a developer, I didn’t study computer science, and I’m a pretty basic Fedora user. But why does everyone harp on Linus Torvald’s opinions like they’re handed down from heaven? Windows still dominates the market, but no one cares what Bill Gates says. I love A Song of Ice and Fire but I wouldn’t take writing tips from George R. R. Martin. Richard Stallman’s opinions on GNU/Linux are memed endlessly. Linus is literally just a dude.

    • Executive Chimp@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 hours ago

      Bill Gates doesn’t work on Windows anymore and hasn’t got years.

      George R R Martin doesn’t publish books anymore and hasn’t for years.

      Richard Stallman is…a weird little guy.

      Whether you like it or not Linus is still the Linux guy.

    • Dingaling@lemmy.ml
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      4 hours ago

      Windows still dominates the market,

      What market?

      Desktops? Sure.

      Servers? Definitely not.

      Supercomputers? Like, none of them.

      • redbrick@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        You should add laptops to the top of your list…cause that’s what dominates on productivity…and that’s nearly ALL windows! What I think truly dominates is an offshoot of *nix…Android and IOS. Don’t you just find it funny when you walk in a mall and see a jacked up Kiosk with a windows 10 taskbar sideways? …Press any key to reboot!

    • mushroommunk@lemmy.today
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      4 hours ago

      As someone who did study computer science and has worked in embedded processor space (so one of the people who’s written assembly by hand he’s talking about).

      I’ve never understood it either. People take his word as law blindly and it’s never made sense to me. Yes he has skill, but so do hundreds of others. Yes he’s opinionated, that’s certainly not a reason to hero worship him.

      For ten+ years people have been pointing out he’s basically a single point of failure for Linux and begging for a succession plan and he’s been too stuck up his own ass to accept that he isn’t the only one who cares about all this.

      This has lead to some extreme cult following behind him for some reason.

      • alottafagina@lemmy.ml
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        1 hour ago

        As someone who did study computer science and has worked in embedded processor space

        Using an argument from authority to denounce someone in authority and their arguments? Cool. Might’ve worked if I hadn’t seen you mention recently that we shouldn’t use AI ‘because Trump and his cronies do’.

        • mushroommunk@lemmy.today
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          3 hours ago

          As far as I know no. The plan is for the the top maintainers to gather and choose a successor. Though if you have more up to date information I’d love to see it. I could be behind the times on that.

      • Naich@piefed.world
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        2 hours ago

        I’ve translated assembler by hand and punched the hex codes into an EPROM programmer’s keyboard. This would appear to make me qualified to say that he’s not always right and, in most cases, fuck AI.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      4 hours ago

      Linux is his.

      He gets to make the rules. We get to decide whether to bail.

      I don’t understand confusion or entitlement over this.

    • uszo165@futurology.today
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      3 hours ago

      Because he’s not some guy on the internet saying his opinion, he is maintaining the most relevant Free Software kernel. So if he goes nuts, there is great potential for great disaster. I don’t think there are Linux distributions that use forks of the Linux kernel. (What notable forks are there anyway?) At the moment, they all depend on the original Linux kernel. There is currently no alternative. It would take a lot of disruption and a tremendous effort to establish and switch to a fork of the Linux kernel that is free of Linus’ influence. Today, I’d say jokingly I will switch to FreeDOS. But if this sloppification goes on, I guess I will have to.

    • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Because people’s love of cults of personality is endless.

      Add on top of that the “AI” cult that saw this as an amazing recruitment opportunity, and you get a nice combo.

      That’s basically the computer science equivalent of having a famous actor advertise a sect.

      • Maya S. Trojan@piefed.blahaj.zone
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        4 hours ago

        The difference is that Linus does not actively seem to be part of the cult itself rather than using it as the effective tool that it is for someone who already has his type of skill set. He can actually understand and double check inputs and outputs because he already built a foundation of great skill.

        Most of the AI techbro community just wants an excuse to stop paying people anything for their labor and get eternal digital slaves to replace them. They aren’t wanting to use it as a tool to help them unravel complexity, they are just using it as a smash and grab for power and control. Linus… isn’t that, and maybe it’s not great that he’s embracing it now, during the height of controversy. I kind of wish he had waited for the crash an mania to die down a little and then show it as a useful tool for people who already have skills.

        LLMs are useless for a lot of shit but they are pretty damn useful for code. I think some of his recent work finding bugs in old code is evidence of that.

        https://nitter.miningtcup.me/twtayaan/status/2109668665951941101

        • Live Your Lives@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          I don’t follow him at all, but I’d guess he’s making a statement about it now precisely because of the mania and people constantly asking him about it.

    • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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      3 hours ago

      I’m not a developer, I didn’t study computer science

      It’s okay, none of the most hardline anti-AI folks on here are, but they certainly like to pretend they know the tools and the industry.

      • mushroommunk@lemmy.today
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        2 hours ago

        Most? Where’s the data? This hard-line anti-LLM guy has a degree in computer science and has developed neural network systems for a previous company. Many on here that I’ve talked to about it fall under similar category.

          • mushroommunk@lemmy.today
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            1 hour ago

            Proving yet again AI bros have lost the ability to think. “many I’ve talked to” <- that literally is the data. I’m the data. It doesn’t matter what the number is.

            As opposed to your comment

            none of the most hardline anti-AI folks on here are

            Literally me existing already disproves your comment.