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> Bob: Anything else you want to comment on, either publicly or otherwise? > Linus: I've never had some "message" that I wanted to spread, so ... It's a pity

> Bob: Anything else you want to comment on, either publicly or otherwise? > Linus: I've never had some "message" that I wanted to spread, so ... It's a pity that a man with such influence has no message that he wants to spread, but I can somehow understand this respond. My personal take of this quote can refer to another quote from his TED interview[1]: > I’m an engineer. I’m perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just staring at the clouds and looking at the stars and saying, “I want to go there,” but I’m looking at the ground and I want to fix the pothole that’s right in front of me before I fall in. While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights, it is just not possible to happen. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/linus_torvalds_the_mind_behind_linux/transcript#t-1020235 https://www.ted.com/talks/linus_torvalds_the_mind_behind_lin...

ToFab123 8y ago
> It's a pity that a man with such influence has no message that he wants to spread Maybe he just like playing with computers?
oraphalous 8y ago
>While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights... Or maybe people who have no particular expertise in political matters should stop opining so much about them? And maybe we should stop politicising all aspects of culture and existence. There is so much more to life.
- alkonaut 8y ago
  There is no feasible way to separate politics from everyday life, and leaving "politics to those who knows about it" isn't really viable. Anyone with a platform whether it is sports, tech, culture should consider what message they are sending. Because there is a message, even from quiet people. "Not politicising" is a political act and statement as well. There is no dodging politics. Saying "I just play football, I leave politics to politicians" or "I'm just an engineer, I leave politics to the experts" aren't doing that. They are simply saying "I'm happy with what everyone else with an audience says". And the other people with audiences aren't experts either for the most part. If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter whether those 1M instagram followers just like to see you do backflips on a bicycle. If have 1M followers you have influence. If you have 10M followers you are a political force. Even if you just ride bikes on instagram. Saying nothing even remotely political is better than completely screwing up ("Lex Notch"), but it's still the easy way out.
  - flukus 8y ago
    > Anyone with a platform whether it is sports, tech, culture should consider what message they are sending. They do, their message is usually related to their field of expertise. A good sportsman will act as an example of how to be a good sport, how to conduct yourself when you lose, how to be a good winner, etc. A good OS maintainer will set an example through code and their leadership will show the team what is and isn't acceptable. > If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter whether those 1M instagram followers just like to see you do backflips on a bicycle. If have 1M followers you have influence. If you have 10M followers you are a political force. Even if you just ride bikes on instagram. If you've got a million followers watching you do backflips on a bike then your audience is not there to hear your political opinions. It's a recipe to lose most of your audience, even the ones that agree aren't there to listen to it. Assuming you're American, half the countries politics are the opposite of yours, most of the worlds politics are the opposite of yours. Do you really want to be hearing those peoples opinions all the time? Many of those opinions will be quite hurtful to many people.
    - alkonaut 8y ago
      > They do, their message is usually related to their field of expertise. A good sportsman will act as an example of how to be a good sport, how to conduct yourself when you lose, how to be a good winner, etc. A good OS maintainer will set an example through code and their leadership will show the team what is and isn't acceptable. It's rarely that easy. Suddenly you'll be forced to either accept a code of conduct, or actively choose not to do so. The decision will be seen as a political one regardless of whether the person making the decision thinks it is. The footballer will need to decide whether or not to take a knee during the national anthem, and by no decision of their own (it wasn't their protest!) they are now forced to take a political stance and probably motivate it. There So in some cases you are lucky and you can "just be an engineer" or "just be an athlete" and the positions you take are harmless and apolitical "I like charities and being a good sport!". But suddenly they will be forced to take positions that are both political and controversial. The audience wasn't there of course to hear Linus Torvalds' views on equality or some footballers stance on politics or racism - but there they are. You can't follow an engineer or a footballer that isn't also a human with opinions you may or may not like. So while it's some times nice to not have to worry about politics in some context - it's always just beneath the surface.
- buzzerbetrayed 8y ago
  Well spoken. I would be perfectly happy never hearing Linus Torvalds opinions on politics.
ekianjo 8y ago
> While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights, it is just not possible to happen. If you are a sensible person, you also know it's not possible to have an opinion about everything out there. Every topic is a rabbit hole if you want to understand everything in and out. Most politicians only touch at the surface of things and never go in details. I can understand why someone like an engineer may be reluctant to talk about politics in that sense.
- mortdeus 8y ago
  Engineers don't care to talk much about politics because typically in the development of tech, you only very rarely (if ever) encounter the kind of complex situation where you must resort to a political debate in order to differentiate between the better of two competing solutions that address the same underlying issue. What I mean is that good ideas in tech tend to be somewhat of a logically sound and mathematical nature. Which means it doesn't matter what you believe about your code, or what you had to go through to write it, or what it would mean to society if we just used your code regardless because you just so happen to belong to some historically oppressed minority group that is under represented in the tech industry as a whole. If your code isn't demonstrated as being technologically superior after measured up against my code, guess what... your code goes in the trash, mine gets merged upstream, and everybody gets to come to the common consensus that as far as all the bits in our cosmos are concerned, every thing can be explained as being binary.
coldtea 8y ago
>While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights, it is just not possible to happen. Why would he have any great insight on "democracy or human rights" compared the average population? Because he wrote successful software?
- mikorym 8y ago
  Silly people want silly rolemodels? /s
- qlk1123 8y ago
  > Why would he have any great insight on "democracy or human rights" compared the average population? Because he wrote successful software? Linux project itself has been showing how people can collaborate so well. Obviously politics is also something that requires people to work with each other. It is hard to say if he, as a maintainer of this project, has insights of human collective behavior in general.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    > Linux project itself has been showing how people can collaborate so well. Yeah, lets just ignore thousands of years of civilization doing that long before some Finnish guy made a software.
    - shawnz 8y ago
      I don't think the parent is suggesting that Linus is the only good example of a leader of a major collaborative initiative. Just that he happens to be one good example.
- bsaul 8y ago
  That is such a true remark. I’ve always been shocked by the unsufferable ego one needs to have to feel authorized to give public statements on complex global issues or life advices.
  - 8y ago
rujuladanh 8y ago
Why would we care about Torvalds' political views at all? Really, who cares? No, he is not a "leader" in any way outside kernel development. Are we going to ask everyone now for their opinions on anything just because they are domain experts on something completely unrelated? What is next? Asking (insert random famous politician) about kernel development?
- reallydude 8y ago
  > It's a pity that a man with such influence has no message that he wants to spread There's some people who think the cult of personality is a bad thing to promote and then there's people who wring their hands and cry about people who aren't using it. You can't win.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
Probably smart; if he makes any political statement, ANY, he'll draw in a lot of drama, media coverage, angry mobs with pitchforks - shit he can't and shouldn't be arsed with.
teekert 8y ago
I did read about him being philosophical before but it could be that "radical Randists" twisted his words [0] I read this after I just read Atlas Shrugged and wondered how my convictions fitted into the objectivists' world view. Whether this was the real Linus or not, I liked his view, as I generally do. And it matches his down-to-earth-ness. BTW: Please don't butcher my karma again for mentioning Ayn ;) [0] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&ei=6IOkXO2aC9GLlwThx57oBw&q=linus+torvalds+ayn+rand&oq=linus+torvalds+ayn+rand&gs_l=psy-ab.3...77164.77164..77303...0.0..0.105.105.0j1......0....1..gws-wiz.HdA78vHuZjY https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&ei=6IOkXO2a...
throwawaylolx 8y ago
>While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights, it is just not possible to happen. And I'm very much happy not everyone uses their influence to turn every speech into a political opinion. If I read a Linus piece, I want to read about Linux, software engineering, git, kernels, operating systems, etc. If he started rambling about democracy and human rights, it would only introduce noise for me.

ToFab123 8y ago

> It's a pity that a man with such influence has no message that he wants to spread Maybe he just like playing with computers?

oraphalous 8y ago

>While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights... Or maybe people who have no particular expertise in political matters should stop opining so much about them? And maybe we should stop politicising all aspects of culture and existence. There is so much more to life.

alkonaut 8y ago
There is no feasible way to separate politics from everyday life, and leaving "politics to those who knows about it" isn't really viable. Anyone with a platform whether it is sports, tech, culture should consider what message they are sending. Because there is a message, even from quiet people. "Not politicising" is a political act and statement as well. There is no dodging politics. Saying "I just play football, I leave politics to politicians" or "I'm just an engineer, I leave politics to the experts" aren't doing that. They are simply saying "I'm happy with what everyone else with an audience says". And the other people with audiences aren't experts either for the most part. If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter whether those 1M instagram followers just like to see you do backflips on a bicycle. If have 1M followers you have influence. If you have 10M followers you are a political force. Even if you just ride bikes on instagram. Saying nothing even remotely political is better than completely screwing up ("Lex Notch"), but it's still the easy way out.
- flukus 8y ago
  > Anyone with a platform whether it is sports, tech, culture should consider what message they are sending. They do, their message is usually related to their field of expertise. A good sportsman will act as an example of how to be a good sport, how to conduct yourself when you lose, how to be a good winner, etc. A good OS maintainer will set an example through code and their leadership will show the team what is and isn't acceptable. > If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter whether those 1M instagram followers just like to see you do backflips on a bicycle. If have 1M followers you have influence. If you have 10M followers you are a political force. Even if you just ride bikes on instagram. If you've got a million followers watching you do backflips on a bike then your audience is not there to hear your political opinions. It's a recipe to lose most of your audience, even the ones that agree aren't there to listen to it. Assuming you're American, half the countries politics are the opposite of yours, most of the worlds politics are the opposite of yours. Do you really want to be hearing those peoples opinions all the time? Many of those opinions will be quite hurtful to many people.
  - alkonaut 8y ago
    > They do, their message is usually related to their field of expertise. A good sportsman will act as an example of how to be a good sport, how to conduct yourself when you lose, how to be a good winner, etc. A good OS maintainer will set an example through code and their leadership will show the team what is and isn't acceptable. It's rarely that easy. Suddenly you'll be forced to either accept a code of conduct, or actively choose not to do so. The decision will be seen as a political one regardless of whether the person making the decision thinks it is. The footballer will need to decide whether or not to take a knee during the national anthem, and by no decision of their own (it wasn't their protest!) they are now forced to take a political stance and probably motivate it. There So in some cases you are lucky and you can "just be an engineer" or "just be an athlete" and the positions you take are harmless and apolitical "I like charities and being a good sport!". But suddenly they will be forced to take positions that are both political and controversial. The audience wasn't there of course to hear Linus Torvalds' views on equality or some footballers stance on politics or racism - but there they are. You can't follow an engineer or a footballer that isn't also a human with opinions you may or may not like. So while it's some times nice to not have to worry about politics in some context - it's always just beneath the surface.
buzzerbetrayed 8y ago
Well spoken. I would be perfectly happy never hearing Linus Torvalds opinions on politics.

ekianjo 8y ago

> While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights, it is just not possible to happen. If you are a sensible person, you also know it's not possible to have an opinion about everything out there. Every topic is a rabbit hole if you want to understand everything in and out. Most politicians only touch at the surface of things and never go in details. I can understand why someone like an engineer may be reluctant to talk about politics in that sense.

mortdeus 8y ago
Engineers don't care to talk much about politics because typically in the development of tech, you only very rarely (if ever) encounter the kind of complex situation where you must resort to a political debate in order to differentiate between the better of two competing solutions that address the same underlying issue. What I mean is that good ideas in tech tend to be somewhat of a logically sound and mathematical nature. Which means it doesn't matter what you believe about your code, or what you had to go through to write it, or what it would mean to society if we just used your code regardless because you just so happen to belong to some historically oppressed minority group that is under represented in the tech industry as a whole. If your code isn't demonstrated as being technologically superior after measured up against my code, guess what... your code goes in the trash, mine gets merged upstream, and everybody gets to come to the common consensus that as far as all the bits in our cosmos are concerned, every thing can be explained as being binary.

coldtea 8y ago

>While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights, it is just not possible to happen. Why would he have any great insight on "democracy or human rights" compared the average population? Because he wrote successful software?

mikorym 8y ago
Silly people want silly rolemodels? /s
qlk1123 8y ago
> Why would he have any great insight on "democracy or human rights" compared the average population? Because he wrote successful software? Linux project itself has been showing how people can collaborate so well. Obviously politics is also something that requires people to work with each other. It is hard to say if he, as a maintainer of this project, has insights of human collective behavior in general.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  > Linux project itself has been showing how people can collaborate so well. Yeah, lets just ignore thousands of years of civilization doing that long before some Finnish guy made a software.
  - shawnz 8y ago
    I don't think the parent is suggesting that Linus is the only good example of a leader of a major collaborative initiative. Just that he happens to be one good example.
bsaul 8y ago
That is such a true remark. I’ve always been shocked by the unsufferable ego one needs to have to feel authorized to give public statements on complex global issues or life advices.
- 8y ago

rujuladanh 8y ago

Why would we care about Torvalds' political views at all? Really, who cares? No, he is not a "leader" in any way outside kernel development. Are we going to ask everyone now for their opinions on anything just because they are domain experts on something completely unrelated? What is next? Asking (insert random famous politician) about kernel development?

reallydude 8y ago
> It's a pity that a man with such influence has no message that he wants to spread There's some people who think the cult of personality is a bad thing to promote and then there's people who wring their hands and cry about people who aren't using it. You can't win.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

Probably smart; if he makes any political statement, ANY, he'll draw in a lot of drama, media coverage, angry mobs with pitchforks - shit he can't and shouldn't be arsed with.

teekert 8y ago

I did read about him being philosophical before but it could be that "radical Randists" twisted his words [0] I read this after I just read Atlas Shrugged and wondered how my convictions fitted into the objectivists' world view. Whether this was the real Linus or not, I liked his view, as I generally do. And it matches his down-to-earth-ness. BTW: Please don't butcher my karma again for mentioning Ayn ;) [0] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&ei=6IOkXO2aC9GLlwThx57oBw&q=linus+torvalds+ayn+rand&oq=linus+torvalds+ayn+rand&gs_l=psy-ab.3...77164.77164..77303...0.0..0.105.105.0j1......0....1..gws-wiz.HdA78vHuZjY https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&ei=6IOkXO2a...

throwawaylolx 8y ago

>While I wish such leader can speak for values like democracy or human rights, it is just not possible to happen. And I'm very much happy not everyone uses their influence to turn every speech into a political opinion. If I read a Linus piece, I want to read about Linux, software engineering, git, kernels, operating systems, etc. If he started rambling about democracy and human rights, it would only introduce noise for me.