• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Linus’ power doesn’t come from Ownership, but respect. Anyone can fork it and do what they want, but because Linus is respected, everyone else follows suit.

    Anarchism would function in a similar manner, it wouldn’t be a bunch of opinionated people doing whatever they want, but people generally listening to experts who don’t actually hold systemic power.

    • Atemu@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Problem is that the average person cannot discern between an actual expert and a charlatan.

      • psud@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Skilled programmers can see that Linus is an expert. It works in tech. It probably works in any professional environment - anywhere where skilled people are picking someone highly skilled.

        For the average person, we have clearly seen average people suck at picking expert leaders, though it works fine in small groups

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        And yet Linux works fine. Not everyone needs to be a dev, devs can tell the difference between an expert and a charlatan.

        • Atemu@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I meant that as a reply to the second paragraph which generalised anarchism; including the non-Linux world.
          I also disagree that this isn’t an issue in the broader Linux community however. See for example the loud minority with an irrational hate against quite obviously good software projects like systemd who got those ideas from charlatans or “experts”.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I know, I used Linux as an example. Just like not everyone needs to be a weatherman to trust weatherman that can recognize experts among themselves, so too can engineers recognize experts among themselves, and so forth.

    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I would disagree and say it’s more akin to a philosopher king hence less anarchy and more monarchy. It’s all good until the king dies and let’s see who succeeds them.

      It will be most telling when Linus dies.