Will we all be fucked or is there a Linus 2?

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Linus is getting old and its time to pick his replacement.

    And its you! Congratulations! I hope your ready

  • Trd@lemmy.wtf
    2·
    1 year ago

    Think we all can agree that the only sensible choise would to convert to Tempel OS…

  • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
    2·
    1 year ago

    The git based AI he was secretly programming will take over and anyone who can’t use git submodules without looking up the commands will die.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    When he dies, I expect his family will be sad for a while and bury him.

    If he retires, his family will be pretty happy for him.

    Other people will keep doing Linux stuff.

  • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    A number of candidates will create their own forks and there will be a long Game of Thrones style war between different factions. After couple of weeks each distro will choose the fork they will make the default one and people will split into warring factions. After that we will enter a nuclear winter style period lasting couple of years during which 90% of post on Lemmy will be just shitposting the rival forks. After a decade or two of backstabbing, dirty politics and other drama new dictator will be selected and all will be back to normal.

  • chunkyhairball@lemmy.ml
    1·
    1 year ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor is a thing that any GOOD project or IT department considers. How many of your staff can you afford to lose if they all happen to be travelling in the same bus, on their way to eat at the same place for lunch when an asteroid inevitably punches through said bus and/or diner.

    ‘Hit by an asteroid’ is a little unrealistic. Sentenced to prison for 15 to Life has happened in the Open Source community at least once before. The project I linked to had a Bus Factor of about one. It’s now ‘old code using outdated APIs’ and is considered obsolete.

    I’ve personally seen legal and criminal issues for a single individual cripple IT departments before, meaning their bus factor was also way too low. I’ve been on trips that have been rudely interrupted by screaming executives when I came down out of the mountains into cell range because I was the only bus factor left on certain systems. Natural disaster, such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are very serious existential threats to even the largest of organizations.

    Since Linux seems to be a good project, I can’t imagine that the discussion hasn’t been had, in public or in private. Millions of individuals and dozens upon dozens of big corporations depend on Linux, Open source and otherwise. If the bus comes for core maintainers or project leaders we have at least SOME backup.

      • chunkyhairball@lemmy.ml
        0·
        1 year ago

        “I’ll Become the Strongest Adventurer in the Other World with My Maximum Level Open Source Operating System Development Skills.”

          • chunkyhairball@lemmy.ml
            1·
            1 year ago

            “Brave Hero from Finland, you’ve been struck by a bus and are going to reincarnate into–”

            “No I wasn’t. That bus CHASED ME DOWN two alleys, over a fire hydrant, into, and out of a Starbucks. It did NOT hit me. You just summoned me here.”

            “Err… anyway, this world needs a hero to–”

            “Write hardware drivers? A kernel module? Some inline assembly?”

            "Err… the demon lord… er… "

            “DID YOU EVEN MAIL THE LIST? Hah… Okay. Does this world have logic gates of any kind? I need to get this knocked out as soon as possible. I’ve got the entirety of the bcachefs patchset to review before 6.7 is in release.”

    • WFH@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      I’ve been on trips that have been rudely interrupted by screaming executives when I came down out of the mountains into cell range because I was the only bus factor left on certain systems.

      Wow, incredible management skills, genius move to treat your one critical employee like a piece of shit.

  • vhalragnarok@linux.communityEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    There will not be a Linus 2, but rather there will be a peaceful transfer of “power”.

    Linus is not the Benevolent Dictator For Life of the Linux Kernel.

    Linus has already stepped away from developing the Kernel. He did this after an incident to work on his professionalism & mannerisms towards people. Kernel development did not stop. Linus does not approve and merge every patch into the Kernel.

    Rather it is more likely that the Lead Maintainer/Developer changes to Greg Kroah-Hartmon, and the project does not skip a beat.

    Rest assured with something as important as the Linux Kernel: development will keep going.

  • mtchristo@lemm.ee
    0·
    1 year ago

    For a moment I thought this post was about the LTT host. And was like they could replace him with any of his doppelgangers in the group and no one will notice.