This Is Not a Drill, GNU/Linux is Really Going 'Mainstream' on Laptops (and Desktops)
This past week I saw news about the world's largest OEM preloading GNU/Linux on some highly-sold models, I read about "GeForce NOW native Linux support", and Valve amended/revised its statistics to show GNU/Linux at nearly 4% among gamers who use Valve's DRM. It would be misguided to ridicule people who say things like "Linux will exceed 5% this year" or something about "year of Linux" (on "the desktop"). Last night I saw Microsoft sites openly expressing concerns about Microsoft having lost the edge in gaming; Vista 11 just fails to attract gamers and the numbers show this. Soaring RAM prices benefit GNU/Linux; Microsoft sites openly acknowledge this. They talk about it this week.
It is important to explain to people software freedom. It's a practical thing, not a 'religion' (despite the satires from Richard Stallman, who is proudly atheist). Without it, "Linux" will be just another brand. There's nothing wrong with "Windows gamers" coming to "Linux" (welcome!), but let's try to teach them to true benefits of the platform. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) raised about $1.5 million this winter and it'll talk about these issues. Almost 20 years ago Dr. Stallman asserted that if you want freedom, don't follow Linus Torvalds. As of hours or days ago (reports and incident, respectively), Torvalds once again proves Stallman was right [1], even contradicting himself in the process [2]. This is what happens when Microsoft pays the salary of Torvalds and starts an "AI" boosting scheme at the Linux Foundation. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Linus Torvalds: Stop making an issue out of AI slop in kernel docs – you're not changing anybody's mind [Ed: Torvalds' paymaster promotes this Ponzi scheme [1, 2]]
Today, it is hard to escape LLM bots and the endless slop they emit, but the Linux kernel might be largely safe … for now.
Linus Torvalds has spoken up on the contentious topic of LLM-assisted software development. Despite his previous guardedly positive stance, for now, he seems to have come out strongly against it in the context he cares about the most – developing code for the Linux kernel. But he also doesn't want the documentation to become a political battlefield over this point.
He was responding to a message from Oracle-affiliated kernel developer Lorenzo Stokes, which seems to us to be guardedly anti-LLM: "Thinking LLMs are 'just another tool' is to say effectively that the kernel is immune from this. Which seems to me a silly position."
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[Video] Linus Torvalds on 'Hilarious' AI Hype: "I Hate the Hype" and "I Don't Want to be Part of the Hype", "You Need to Be a Bit Cynical About This Whole Hype Cycle"