All right. And if I cp a jpg file, I’m a photographer. cp is my creative tool.

He really thinks the tools you use do not shape and limit your results and yourself. I’d take a book carefully crafted in LaTeX anytime over slop pasted from Copilot into Word. What he’s not even seeing is that AI is, above all, a source of input. No other tool, not the best LaTeX editor, takes care of my writing. AI is totally different. It is the author of Linus’ code, it is his ghostwriter. He did not write it. He should not claim authorship. If he’s not the author, he can’t legally release it as Free software under a GNU license.

Because he’s not some guy on the internet saying his opinion, he is maintaining the most relevant Free Software kernel. So if he goes nuts, there is great potential for great disaster. I don’t think there are Linux distributions that use forks of the Linux kernel. (What notable forks are there anyway?) At the moment, they all depend on the original Linux kernel. There is currently no alternative. It would take a lot of disruption and a tremendous effort to establish and switch to a fork of the Linux kernel that is free of Linus’ influence. Today, I’d say jokingly I will switch to FreeDOS. But if this sloppification goes on, I guess I will have to.

For example you’re supposed to make multiple passkeys for your devices How do I do this? Can you link to a guide?

Also im Not sure where they are forced? The big transition is underway. Switch to passkeys or you are out.

How much has he dumbed down his capabilities already? When will he replace himself by an LLM?

Passkeys mean a spread of enshittification to ever more areas of life. Specifically, they

• force me to use an extra OS on an extra device and keep it around just to use a site with passkeys.
• add insecurity and inconvenience. I neither can backup the passkeys nor use them on another device. (That’s not implemented on Windows.) This user experience is laughable in 2026. The passkeys are forever locked on the device where I created them. I am forever chained to exactly one device. If it breaks down, my life ends because our lives depend on digital technology.
• take away control from me and force me to trust third parties. I have to trust the hardware, the OS, the proprietary software, which makes me feel very uncomfortable as someone used to use Free software. Security by obscurity was always a bad idea.
• deny me anonymity and control over my accounts. I can have only one account per domain.
• are a black box with no user interface. With passwords I know exactly what account name and password I enter at which site. With passkeys I get asked for a PIN. That is all. There is no indication what exactly I authorize. This is a lot like clicking links in emails and giving your banking details to everyone who asks.

The recommendation “do not use them” is cute. They are forced on people. I can’t choose.

Sad that Linux will get its first usable database app (Access) as closed source from Microsoft. But, so be it. I’m happy that soon I won’t have to run Windows for this in a virtual machine.