• Cowbee@lemmy.ml
      ·
      6 months 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
        ·
        6 months ago

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

        • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
          ·
          6 months 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
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months 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@lemmy.ml
              ·
              6 months 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.

    • pbpza@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      hexagon
      ·
      6 months ago

      You can fork it, sure Linus is very respected and his decisions are considered very important but you can fork it and change however you want so it's still compatible with Anarchism.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
      ·
      6 months ago

      Free software doesn't have owners. If someone else did a better job of being the "benevolent dictator" of a fork of Linux, everyone would start using that fork. Arguably this is a more free-market system than non-free software.