Post #4103459

2026-07-18 12:07 UTC

In a nutshell he says that Linux is a technology project, where technology comes first. If LLMs help to improve the technology then it’s fair game. If not, then of course not. He also says something about Linux not being a place for ‘social warriors’, which is kind of ironic, given that Linux is basically a big ‘fuck you’ against corporations and closed source, i.e., a scoial statement. Given how much beef he famously had with Nvidia, this is somewhat unexpected. But I interpret it as coming from a place of seeing LLMs really just as a new tool and nothing more. In an interview a couple of years back, Linus also said pretty much that. He grew up with basic tools, had to create new software tools to make him more productive and improve the quality of his work. He saw LLMs just as another tool that can aid in development. I suppose this hasn’t changed. Given, that most people usually don’t program in assembler anymore, but use high level programming languages like C++, which simplifies the process of coding enormously, or even scripting languages like Python, which present another level of abstraction and simplification, LLMs do appear somewhat like a next step in this evolution. Issue is, you have deterministic and formal guarantees in programming languages, whereas LLMs do not. This is by far not the only issue of course, as others in this thread have also noted. I wonder whether he uses LLMs in his daily work. Might change his perspective a bit.

Replies (2)

@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2026-07-18 21:48

He also says something about Linux not being a place for ‘social warriors’, which is kind of ironic, given that Linux is basically a big ‘fuck you’ against corporations and closed source, i.e., a scoial statement. That’s what you want it to be. But Linus wants it to be a technology project not what you think it should be. Given how much beef he famously had with Nvidia, this is somewhat unexpected. Maybe because Nvidia did things that made it difficult to implement technology. I wonder whether he uses LLMs in his daily work. He does. He’s used it to make an interface for a side project. It seems you’re approaching everything from a paradigm of pro or anti capitalism and think of everyone as either an ally or an adversary. You’re the “social warrior” he’s talking about. You’re unable to focus on just the technology, everything has to be put into various political boxes. It’s really exhausting for people focused on technology to deal with this way of thinking. And it’s not productive in terms of actually implementing technology. Linus can say “go ahead and fork it” because he knows the social warriors wouldn’t be able to actually do this. They would sit around endlessly debating which hardware and network configuration passes their political purity tests and wouldn’t be able to host a fork let alone do any work on anything. To be able to implement any kind of technology you have to be able focus on the tech only and shut out everything else.

Open ##4103458
@megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-07-18 21:11

The thing is that they rigorously review their code internally with In the project. It needs to be reviewed and cleaned up before it gets submitted. Someone who keeps posting junk is gonna get chewed out and ignored. So, the biggest issue with LLM code is kind of irrelevant. If someone useses it responsibly and finds a way to make it an effective tool, they’re not worried about it. Banning its use is kind of pointless since the worst outcomes are already banned.

Open ##4196190