Linux Creator Linus Torvalds To Anti-AI Devs: Go Fork Yourself

The strength of open-source software is that it's open, which is to say that anyone can contribute to it. Sometimes, this also means that your project can attract persons with conflicting worldviews. No open-source project is bigger than Linux itself, and recently the Linux Kernel project has been grappling with calls from certain contributors who feel that Linux should take an assertive anti-AI stance. Top-level maintainer and Linux creator Linux Torvalds has "put his foot down" on the issue, and his stance is clear: Linux is about the technology, not ideology.

Replying to a post where prominent Googler Roman Guschin remarks on the AI use recommendations of the Software Freedom Conservancy by calling them "anti-LLM in general", Torvalds spoke up to agree, saying that "Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it." This is the same ethos Linus has always applied; he's spent decades saying "show me the code" regardless of the controversy of the moment.


Indeed, Torvalds' post isn't exactly pro-AI. He's certainly not demanding anyone to use it, nor even really advocating for its use, and he acknowledges that it has been problematic for Linux and free software in the past. His stance is made clear when he says "We're not forcing anybody to use it, but I will very loudly ignore people who try to argue against other people from using it." The physics of "very loudly ignoring" someone aside, the point is that anti-AI sentiment, especially that driven by ideology, is not welcome in the Linux Kernel project.

It's important to understand some of the context here. There's a relatively small but very noisy contingent of programmers who are also highly active politically, and the vast majority of this group are anti-AI ideologues. Linus has consistently resisted attempts to make kernel governance revolve around anything other than technical merit, and so he is understandably not keen to have this extremely American culture war imported into the very core of Linux. It's not really about AI in the first place; it's about ideology, tribalism, and political leverage, all advanced under the guise of "social justice."


Again, AI isn't perfect; it has caused real problems for open-source projects. However, it's also a legitimately powerful tool, and besides, human programmers submit plenty of crummy code and problematic patch requests without the help of AI. Torvalds acknowledges this by saying "anybody who points to the problems at AI had better be looking in the mirror and pointing at themselves at the same time. Because it's not like natural intelligence is always all that great either."

Ultimately the message is against holy wars and pro-technology. Concluding his message, Torvalds specifically says "This is *NOT* some kind of 'social warrior' project, never has been, and never will be. In the kernel community we do open source because it results in better technology, not because of religious reasons. And so we make decisions primarily based on technical merit." It's a clear response to ideologues who would seek to subvert the purity of the Linux Kernel project, and from my point of view, it's heartening to see in a world where most organizations seem all too eager to bend the knee to exactly this sort of advocacy.

_{Top image by World Economic Forum / CC BY-SA 2.0}