this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
438 points (83.5% liked)

Linux

48008 readers
875 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Problem is that the average person cannot discern between an actual expert and a charlatan.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Skilled programmers can see that Linus is an expert. It works in tech. It probably works in any professional environment - anywhere where skilled people are picking someone highly skilled.

For the average person, we have clearly seen average people suck at picking expert leaders, though it works fine in small groups

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And yet Linux works fine. Not everyone needs to be a dev, devs can tell the difference between an expert and a charlatan.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I meant that as a reply to the second paragraph which generalised anarchism; including the non-Linux world.
I also disagree that this isn't an issue in the broader Linux community however. See for example the loud minority with an irrational hate against quite obviously good software projects like systemd who got those ideas from charlatans or "experts".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

I know, I used Linux as an example. Just like not everyone needs to be a weatherman to trust weatherman that can recognize experts among themselves, so too can engineers recognize experts among themselves, and so forth.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Yep. This is why the voice of the people should generally speaking be ignored. This is also why 90% of people should be ignored when deciding economic policies.