this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026
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I love how just...normal...Linus is. Like...humble. Content.
Like, hey, I revolutionized the world with a pet project. Nbd.
When I was a kid I worshipped Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. I'm glad I realized later that Linus and Woz are the real heroes.
Never meet your heroes. Have you ever seen the way he rages at people on the mailing list? Don't get me wrong, he's made some incredible technical contributions that I'm thankful for, but I have to push back against claims that he is a well-adjusted dude.
He's had to adjust quite a bit I'd say he's thoroughly and well adjusted.
Yeah, Linus today is nothing like Linus in the 90s/00s
You also have to remember that he made an OS as a hobby project and suddenly everyone wanted to mess with it. It was the Wild West of decentralized project management in those days, I donβt condone any of that unprofessional behavior but Iβm also not in the least bit fucking surprised that he had very personal rage-out moments as unsolicited criticism poured in from around the world, constructive and well intentioned or not. Thatβs a lot of unexpected pressure.
He got better, which implies to me that he wants to be a good person; and thatβs all we can really ask of anyone.
True that. Andrew Tanenbaum dissing on Linux in the early days just because it didn't conform to his ideals of a microkernel is sufficiently uncomfortable to read, imo. It's not like Linus kept anyone from making their own open source kernel.
To be fair, they insisted that they were on good speaking terms. Seen from that one occasion where some article claimed that Linux was copied from MINIX and Tanenbaum dissed the article, defending Torvalds.
Bruh if everything I said to people was recorded and searchable, I'd seem like an unhinged egomaniac with anger issues too, but people can change, and get more mellow.
People need to understand we are all humans and stop idolizing-idealizing people, aren't you all bored of celebrities/famous people abusing their status?
Seriously, we need more people who shun fame and celebrity. Like Rick Moranis did.
not really anymore for quite a while.
he will absolutely tell someone that should know better, if they are doing a bad job, but the times of random shitstorms is over for quite a while now
Counterpoint: Linus was all out in the open.
I wouldn't want to see what Bill Gates is like behind closed doors...especially as a kid.
No one is saying hes on the level of gates or jobs or whatever.
But that doesn't make him an angel either. It makes him human.
He famously took a year off because he wanted to work on how toxic he was.
The comment was never meet your hero's. Hes a good guy, but if you have had to work with him, you may be leas inclined to agree whole heartily.
@wholookshere but @JasonDJ never claimed that Linus is perfect. On the contrary, he admires how normal and human and unfiltered Linus is. So in terms of toxicity profile, we don't need to actually meet him to know what to expect. So your gotcha is kinda irrelevant. We know he's not a saint, and isn't trying to be. Which paradoxically makes the guy more righteous than all tech billionaires combined.
Is that not normal for IT professionals?
Lol for real. Have you ever met a user?
From my experience as a new end user with basic questions and issues, it's pretty normal for a decent chunk of other linux users in general. I've met more angry Linux people when asking for help than I ever have for any other OS or software.
It's a small minority I'm sure, but they're extremely vocal individuals.
Where was this, reddit or something?
The linux users here seem pretty chill. There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating jokes about linux users being pretentious, but I don't really see much of anyone being actually obnoxious in any of the techy comms here
Another example being the developer of GrapheneOS. Unhinged, but works in our favor. Just don't follow them on social media.
Richard Stallman is another example of someone you wouldnβt describe as hinged, but you are glad exists.
Have you read the rants, he is often spot on.
If it's any consolation I also worshipped Carmack and Zoid Kirsch (credited then by deadname)....
What's wrong with Carmack? I'm genuinely curious.
I think his joining Meta to work on VR was... an interesting decision.
But then he quit.
It's not like he joined in the early startup days. Carmack knew (or could have known) full well what a shit company Meta is.
True but he probably thought he had big enough of a name to lead his own department as he pleased
Nothing...I was hoping to have some childhood heroes I can still keep.
Not sure if this is meant to be a fat joke, but it's worth the extra month wait for HL2E3 if it is.
That is a painfully AI written article, do you have a better source?
Gates was a jerk. Jobs was a jerk that actually did make some positive impact on the world. Linus was a jerk who's mellowed to a pretty normal state. Woz is a fucking tech Angel/God who just generally wants good things for people.
edit: I guess to be fair, Windows did harbor us for a long time when nothing else was ready, Jobs pushed competition and some semblance of privacy. and Linus' code is just about everthing that exists now mostly for free.
I like Ken Thompson. He wanted to play a game on a computer that didn't have an OS that supported it so he wrote Unix.
The real nerds know
My local Microcenter has posters of notable computer pioneers up high in the back where you can see them from anywhere in the store. Each poster has the person's name as well as a description of something they're most known for. Bill Gates is there as well as Ken Thompson, Robert Kahn, Robert Metcalfe, Grace Hopper, Richard Stallman, etc. I always thought that was a nice touch. Even though it's like the nerdiest of all stores, I suspect 90% of customers are probably Windows normies and just need a computer for work or to play games and wouldn't recognize any of them with the exception of Gates. Even I don't recognize some of the names, like Kahn (co-invented TCP/IP) and Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet).
Either we have the same local Microcenter or a bunch of them do this. I thought the posters were kinda neat too.
Which one?
I was actually going to comment on that as well but I didn't remember the exact history of git.
His newsgroup post announcing Linux is legendary, though.
Or are you referring to his guitar pedals?
You shouldn't worship anyone.
you should worship everyone! /s
Yeah, Same here honestly