this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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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.

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Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

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[–] [email protected] 183 points 1 year ago (24 children)

Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement. Open source ecosystem primarily run by volunteers has produces some of the most interesting and innovative technologies that we've seen. The reality is that people make interesting things because they're curious and they enjoy making stuff. Pretty much nobody makes anything interesting with profit being the primary motive.

[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Also without open source the capitalist tech sector would collapse

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (2 children)

capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement

I don't know who is arguing this because it's incredibly stupid. The greatest scientific minds of history, the mathematicians, the physicists, the inventors, were not capitalists, they're people with passion for their work.

If we move to a society that guarantees basic human needs and good education, we're only going to have more scientists and engineers that progress technology even faster.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And while we are at it... novelists, poets, painters, musicians, philosophers, ...

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[–] [email protected] 114 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Context for those who are baffled (I was)

https://news.itsfoss.com/linus-torvalds-woke-communists/

No Linus hasn't grabbed a red rag and isn't off to foment revolution

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I liked the take by the utterly clueless Polish guy in the comment. I think his complete lack of understanding of any context is quite typical of online political conversation, especially when semantics come into play.

Also Linus did call for "Total world domination" (I have the tshirt).

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (14 children)

The Linux to trans anarchocommunist catgirl pipeline is very real. The moment you move to Arch it's already over.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (19 children)

rant:

I have been using Linux since 2006, a lefty and against the super-rich and big corporations since I remember (to the point of avoiding their products like the plague), also never having understood or accepted gender roles and other stupid traditional concepts, yet never turned into a communist 🤷

It baffles me that so many people think that respecting gender equality, understanding the evil in big corporations and avoiding them, valuing community and being tolerant (except for intolerance) and against discrimination somehow equals communism... I say this because I've been called a communist by many people who know me, while I have always rejected it explicitly!

/rant

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Linus Torvalds is a "full-blown woke communist"? Citation needed.

I have been a FOSS enthusiast since my preteen or early teenage years (mid-to-late 2000s), yet I am not in any sense a communist.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"full-blown woke communist" is US-speak for "Scandinavian socialist"

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

The term you want is social democrat, which isn't socialism but hey, it tries to like, stop people starving to death on the street, if only because it looks ugly.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

unfortunately I think this is just him saying he's a "woke communist" if being a woke communist is atheism, women's rights, and gun control. I don't think he's a marxist of any stripe it seems. However, I am willing to be corrected here. I've only seen this post regarding to him.

But Linux is programming-communism

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

His dad was a straight up member of the Finnish Communist Party. He's still alive, and is even a member of the European Parliament, but seems more liberal/centrist these days.

Linus himself seems to be pretty mum on politics.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I too just turned into a Marxist after finding out about Linux and software freedom in 2020 lol

I think there might be more than a handful of us. Welcome, comrade.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago
[–] icepuncher69 39 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Fine, but dont defend tyranical regimes. They are bad no mather who they say they read. They could could claim to be following the teachings of fucking Mr Roggers but if they have concentration camps then thats not utopic or very humanitarian in my opinion, specially if ther is some mad dictator in power with everything no matter how manny extra steps are in between.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

ITT: people who have no idea what communism is

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago

fidel-salute-big welcome comrade!

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

...I just didn't want windows advertising to me.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

https://moneyinc.com/linus-torvalds-net-worth/

How Linus Torvalds Achieved a Net Worth of $150 Million

Red Hat and VA Linux went public, and since they acknowledged it would not have been possible without the programmer, Torvalds received shares reportedly worth $20 million. Before it went public, Red Hat had allegedly paid Torvalds $1 million in stock, which the programmer claims was the only big payout he received.

He revealed that the rest of the stock Transmeta and another Linux startup awarded him were not worth much by the time he could sell them. However, in the case of his Red Hat stock, it must have been worth his while because, in 2012, Red Hat became the first $1 billion open-source company when it reached the billion-dollar mark in annual revenue.

Whether he exercised his stock options is unclear, but the money he makes from the gains could be the reason why his net worth has continued to soar.

Well, that's one definition of being communist, I suppose. Myself, I think that it's fairly safe to say that Torvalds is okay with private ownership of industry.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (24 children)

Yeah, I love the FOSS philosophy and I would be a communist if I didn't know that in my country and in every other country where communism is/was, it became a dictatorship doing reallly horrible things. I simply don't have the trust in people to believe communism is possible without violation of human rights. It's sad.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel called out.

I'm not quite there yet but im definitly at the second to last block

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (19 children)

Fuck communist statist, foss is pure anarchism.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (3 children)

My ~~brother in Christ~~ Comrade in the revolution, Communism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society. Whatever self-proclaimed "Statist Communists" thare are, are no-more Communist than the National "Socialists" who sent our kind to the death camps.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

Part of how I got here involves reading an assload of textfiles from the '90s and growing disillusioned with the fruits of that optimistic '90s techno-libertarianism

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Literally same, even the years match up lol

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

Shit this is too accurate

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (13 children)

What? These things are not related to each other by a good margin. In fact, since the FOSS is completely orderless, it goes against communism; which requires some sort of order just to be able to function. But either way, the parallel is not there or questionable at best, not to mention irrelevant.

Can we NOT drag useless politics into FOSS?

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