I’ve felt I should walk away since I heard his views on GPLv2 vs GPLv3… and his infamous lack of compassion when communicating with others.
I’m interested using GNU Hurd as an alternative to Linux, eventually.
What about his lack of compassion?
"Torvalds is known for vocally disagreeing with other developers on the Linux kernel mailing list. Calling himself a “really unpleasant person”, he explained, “I’d like to be a nice person and curse less and encourage people to grow rather than telling them they are idiots. I’m sorry—I tried, it’s just not in me.” - Wikipedia
Ah something we all can relate to honestly
I realize that some people really dislike AI, but this is an area where I’m willing to absolutely put my foot down as the top-level maintainer. Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it. Or just walk away. AI is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it’s clearly a useful one.
I think broadly speaking what he says is reasonable. If you don’t want to use AI, then don’t, but I think it can be used somewhat responsibly.
I have all sorts of issues with AI tooling:
- the centralization of power
- the load it adds on maintainers because of the amount of slop bad developers (and non-devs) produce with it
- the environmental impacts of using larger models
- the data centers causing health risks
- the impact on the PC industry
- the degeneration of skills and knowledge.
That said, it’s a tool, and can be used to amplify good work too.
