Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

  • tal
    40•9 months ago

    https://moneyinc.com/linus-torvalds-net-worth/

    How Linus Torvalds Achieved a Net Worth of $150 Million

    Red Hat and VA Linux went public, and since they acknowledged it would not have been possible without the programmer, Torvalds received shares reportedly worth $20 million. Before it went public, Red Hat had allegedly paid Torvalds $1 million in stock, which the programmer claims was the only big payout he received.

    He revealed that the rest of the stock Transmeta and another Linux startup awarded him were not worth much by the time he could sell them. However, in the case of his Red Hat stock, it must have been worth his while because, in 2012, Red Hat became the first $1 billion open-source company when it reached the billion-dollar mark in annual revenue.

    Whether he exercised his stock options is unclear, but the money he makes from the gains could be the reason why his net worth has continued to soar.

    Well, that’s one definition of being communist, I suppose. Myself, I think that it’s fairly safe to say that Torvalds is okay with private ownership of industry.

    • @askat@programming.dev
      19•9 months ago

      I don’t know about his political views, but I think Linus deserves every last penny he got from Red Hat.

    • @jeremyparker@programming.dev
      16•9 months ago

      There’s a gaping and dangerous misunderstanding in there. Having money or being successful under capitalism doesn’t mean you don’t see its flaws. The idea that rich people can’t be communists is like saying that only gay people can support gay rights.

      Believing that the world would be a better place if we pooled our resources has nothing to do with whether you created an operating system that all of global computing relies on.

    • @zephyreks@lemmy.ca
      15•9 months ago

      Tell me you haven’t read the Communist Manifesto without telling me you haven’t read the Communist Manifesto.

    • @nadir@lemmy.world
      11•9 months ago

      I’m no communist, but your argument is flawed.

      Linus is not representative of the Linux community and I think the famous Stallman rant regarding GNU/Linux is actually relevant here.

      The free software movement is certainly pretty left leaning, though I wouldn’t call them communist.

      • tal
        4•9 months ago

        now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

        OP’s words.

        • Keith
          1•6 months ago

          OP is referring to Linus Torvalds’ half-sarcastic quote.