I really hope stepping down as CEO leads to Linus surrounding himself with people he trusts to call him out when he’s missing something.

He strikes me as the kind of person who is susceptible to a few certain mental traps you kinda don’t want to see in a leader of a large influential organization:

1. Taking an “ends justifies the means” mindset (e.g. stepping on the “growth” gas pedal and accepting sloppiness because it will get better later with Labs)
2. Letting “objective facts” justify big subjective decisions w/o much consideration (e.g. thinking the Billet Labs video didn’t need to be re-shot because the “objectively” product rec conclusion wouldn’t have been different)
3. Substituting actual solutions to problems w/ commitments to solving them (e.g. implementing “Accuracy KPIs” instead of slowing the pace of video releases)

None of these constitute outright malice, IMO, but boy can they lead to a problematic working environment.

I’m sure there will be quite the flame war as a result of this, which I think is a bummer. Linus strikes me as someone who’s acting in good faith, but has an unshakable habit of making rushed decisions without considering the full scope of their impact, and is (or has been) lacking the appropriate feedback structure to help him learn to either a) make more thoughtful decisions, or b) fully delegating those decisions to folks who are better equipped to make them.

Here’s hoping this leads to positive change.

This.

I think of buses as the caterpillar to a tram’s butterfly.

You can start with a comprehensive bus network, and as a particular route stabilizes and the bus starts struggling to meet throughput needs, that is an indicator that a tram may be worthwhile.

Starting w/ a tram line is a pretty big financial bet that it will be useful/needed, as once you build it, you’re locked-in to that specific route.

This kind of gatekeeping and elitism is bad for Lemmy and for FOSS.

It makes this community a less welcoming place and leaves new folks with a bad first impression. Much better to be welcoming and let people learn/see the benefits of FOSS at their own pace.

Most of the comments here are talking about the x% of time Linux gets messed up it can be really intimidating for new users and getting the right help can be a challenge, or simply more time than it’s worth.

I think this is true, but I think there’s another thing that irks people:

Software Compatibility

The general public primarily interacts with their computers through established applications that commonly aren’t available on Linux w/o intimidating work around (if at all).

A noob who switches to Linux isn’t going to know the limitations up front, and the second they decide they want to learn Adobe Premier for work, they’re kinda fucked. They’ll either spend hours/days of online research trying to figure out if it’s even possible, or they’ll ask for help only to have someone tell them they’re wrong for trying and to use some FOSS alternative because Adobe is an evil megacorp.

It’s a recipe for frustration.