How is the direction to be taken for kernel development decided? Is Linus something like the CEO of the Linux Foundation?
Linux Foundation has a research division who do research on several things.
There are also other factors too that decide the direction, but usually there is lots of discussion and testing first. When Rust came out Linux tried and said it is not ready yet because he found several drawbacks, I speculate he did the same, some practical tests, then more research, discussions and now he adopts new standards.
Linux is a statement that we can own technology.
That’s only true if there’s an organized effort for that from users and developers, and still that would be true only for ownership of software limited to the Linux operating system. As for technology in general, it’s almost totally under the control of the capitalists and large shareholders.
I just thought about all the Linux distros out there that protect your privacy in certain ways, out of the reaches from Big Tech control. If we can own this, we can own a lot of other things too. Open hardware moves like RISCV and open projects like the Open Book and Koreader show that it is possible to actually own these means. Open source shows, at least to me, for the first time, that it is possible to own these things without going through capitalism. We got also the social medias, the fediverse and a lot of protocols. We are not into the early stage of this - it got some maturity to it.
I don’t see the capitalist control in my life anymore, and this is thanks to these things. Of course there are capitalist rules out there - but I must say, for myself, that I see an actual fighting chance.
Why not just jump to C++ while they’re at it? Sure a freestanding implementation lacks most of the advanced features but it would still be quite a bit more pleasant experience.
Im not sure whether this is irony… But in case it Is not, you should definitely search for the comments Torvalds had on C++ for the kernel… Because they are very good (although of course a bit rant-y).
Modern C is basically an oxymoron at this point.
