Linus Torvalds, the Son of a Politician, Tries to Stay Out of Politics (or Political Topics)
"I'm just a geek" has its limits in practice
MEP Nils Torvalds, the father of Linus, is active in YouTube, where he uploads his public appearances (sometimes he mentions his son). Almost nobody watches these and months ago he stopped uploading:
Unlike GNU's founder, Linus typically tries not to comment on politics. He has been quite consistent about this for decades (if interviewers bring up the subject he tries to get back on topic).
Linus conveniently ignores how Microsoft uses political strategies to brew controversies around him, destabilise his project, and so on.
Richard Stallman famously said: "Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone."
Linus ought to pay closer attention. Over the past 12 or so years he was repeatedly attacked by the person we're suing [1, 2] until he was forced to see "therapists", which he didn't need at all (Linux Foundation has been infiltrated by Microsoft; this played a role). It's the exact same tactics over and over again.
We don't deal with "pure" politics here, but we recognise that politics cannot be altogether avoided in "the real world".
Two days ago Stallman wrote: "Harris downplays identity politics — instead of asking us to vote for the "first female president", she calls for defending women's rights. In other words, she is concerned with the substance of feminism, not the identity aspect. That is admirable. I don't directly care whether the US president is male, female, both, or neither. Those things are per personal matter, and don't affect the public. I care whether the US president stands for justice, rights of real persons (not fictitious ones), and helping the disadvantaged (which in many societies tends to include women)."
For the record, Linus is definitely not a sexist, contrary to what those trying to defame him allege. █