Torvalds is a cool guy! There's no denying that. But he kind of did what anybody could've done, invented a free clone of Unix. He only really changed things with Git. People give Torvalds a bit too much credit for Linux.

RE: https://lab.nyanide.com/objects/1f35b74b-46ee-4833-9361-f9ae87821a66

@nyanide Torvald's greatest creation was git, linux is his second best piece of software.

@nyanide feel free to write your own Linux. just don't call it TempleOS, that one's taken

Plan9 would have been a better direction youre right but without leadership, every project fails. Linus's strength wasnt so much being an excellent programmer, but being excellent at leading in the form of managing collaboration.

@nyanide Still, doing all of that while also doing regular uploads to his tech channel is something worth admiring.

Agreed. It's just another kernel.

@nyanide No, I can't agree with that. Torvalds has led the project for decades and it's only because of his autistic code standards that he enforces with fury that the codebase hasn't fallen apart.

@nyanide @tyler >it's impressive how he's led the project
I've never looked into it but I wonder how mismanaged the Hurd kernel has been given that it might only be fully developed by the time we've already conquered the stars.

@Takom The leadership skills are admirable yes but people just give him too much credit for the invention of the kernel itself, it's got all of these features from Unix that people keep mistaking as originating from Linux. People refuse to name Unix when they talk about "Linux CLI utilities" that actually originated in Unix. Torvalds did not invent the Holy Grail.

@Takom This is an incredibly personal grudge if you couldn't tell by the way. Obviously there's no real reason to care about something like this but I care anyway.

Let's scrap innovating and say "changed things" instead.

If Linux never existed the world would be on a different Unix-like or on an actual Unix derivative.

@nyanide Is this Andrew Tannenbaum's alt account?

Anyways, engineering works by iterating on existing concepts, and that applies to software too. Both GNU coreutils and the Linux kernel are heavily based on Unix principles, because why wouldn't they be? Why reinvent the wheel if it works so damn well?

Also how many university students do you know that can write not only a functioning, but excellent kernel from scratch? It's still pretty damn impressive but yes, most of my admiration for him comes from how well he has done maintaining the Linux project for decades.

@Takom >Also how many university students do you know that can write not only a functioning, but excellent kernel from scratch?

None obviously, but remember those BSD lawsuits? Part of why Linux took off was being at the right place at the right time. An entirely free Unix-like that's not BSD or Minix, which is fairly appealing to the populous. Other figures in the Unix community could've done this first but it seems they were more interested in license money or waiting out the lawsuits.

@Takom Oh yeah I nearly completely forgot about Hurd. People were already trying but they, they were a bit slow...

@nyanide Absolutely, but there were a lot of people involved in the GNU project and they couldn't come up with a functional kernel through their group effort. Hell, Hurd is still complete ass more than 30 years later. I refuse the notion that "anyone" could write something rivaling Linux from scratch.

The creators of Unix had a team of experts and the budget of a telecom giant. Torvalds was a single student in a dorm room, and open sourced it for the good of the community. That's what makes him so respected, alongside his maintainership.

> Part of why Linux took off was being at the right place at the right time.

This could be said for literally anything. Things that aren't needed fall into obscurity

Unfortunate for the creators of Unix that AT&T decided to nuke their OS' chance to succeed going forwards, but they are still legends in their own right within the community. And I'm glad Linux came out on top.

@nyanide
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

So, he didn't do 100% of the work, but Linux is still the single best option we have, and it's also free, so as far as I care, he can get all the praise in the world.

If you think you can do better then the best, I truly wish you were correct.

@Takom With all this being said I'd just like people to acknowledge Unix did something. Torvalds did his fair share of work yes but he didn't invent the hundreds of tools that had already been written originally for Unix. It still mildly irks me when people call something like grep a "Linux tool" sure it's technically true now with all of the coreutils distributions on Linux originally being developed with Linux in mind, but obviously grep and most of the coreutils were first invented inside Bell Labs.

Nobody cares enough to acknowledge Unix or Bell Labs in any form, however. Except for a select amount of people who admired the Unix environment and were interested in the history of the development of such a neat little workspace.

@LukeAlmighty I'm really not trying to imply that I of all people could've done better. I'm a retarded monkey who can read code to get a basic understanding of how something works. I'm just upset at some of the excess credit Linux gets for stuff like the coreutils.

@nyanide People call it a "linux tool" because that's what it is now.

> I'd just like people to acknowledge Unix did something

All of my Linux textbooks used the term "Unix-like operating system". Unix is practically history now, but is the knowledge of it really that rare? It's hard for me to believe.

@Takom Among the general populous from what I have seen in Chicago yes.

@Takom It's not their fault obviously. I should really stop caring about such a thing but it still fucking irks me. End of file

@nyanide
Don't worry, I can't even read code.

@nyanide @LukeAlmighty >I'm just upset at some of the excess credit Linux gets for stuff like the coreutils
Very close to saying GNU+Linux