I always assumed software engineers were naturally curious people who couldn't wait to try the latest technology. Lately, I'm realizing that's not always true.
I recently asked a developer friend whether she'd tried Claude Code or Codex, even for a few minutes over a weekend.
"Nope," she said proudly. This is a highly educated, experienced software engineer who works on big long-term projects.
Some techies, it turns out, are just as resistant to change as everyone else.
It's not just her. This is happening inside one of the most important software projects on earth.
Linux is the operating system that powers much of the internet, from cloud computing to smartphones and countless business systems.
It's also a huge open-source project, built by thousands of volunteers. Some of these developers want limits on using AI to write and review code.
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, shut that down hard recently. AI, he argued, is simply another tool, which has gotten very good at writing and checking code and finding software bugs.
If folks don't want to use AI, they can go fork themselves, Torvalds quipped. (I'm here for the open-source dad jokes. A fork is when someone copies an existing piece of software and starts developing it separately as their own version).
"This is NOT some kind of 'social warrior' project, never has been, and never will be," Torvalds wrote on a Linux mailing list. "We make decisions primarily based on technical merit. Not fear of new tools."
A year ago, it was unclear whether AI would be this useful, but that's no longer in question, he said.
Torvalds admitted that AI can be "painful" to use sometimes, partly because it keeps finding bugs in software code written by humans, which can be embarrassing for software engineers.
"But the solution is not to put your head in the sand and sing 'La La
La, I can't hear you' at the top of your voice like some people seem
to do," he wrote.
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Alistair Barr is the author of Business Insider's Tech Memo newsletter. Sign up here. Before that, he was BI's Global Tech Editor and the Big Tech team leader at Bloomberg, following a reporting career at The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reuters, and MarketWatch. Alistair won a Gerald Loeb Award in 2007 for coverage of short selling and was a finalist in 2013 for scoops on the Facebook IPO. More recently, he won a 2024 San Francisco Press Club award for commentary. Got a tip? Reach out using the secure messaging app Signal (+1 415-341-4927) or via email on [email protected].ExpertiseAlistair oversees all things Big Tech, along with startups and venture capital. He writes analysis and columns about topics including generative AI, large language models, cloud computing, semiconductors, online search, e-commerce, EVs, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.Popular StoriesArtificial Intelligence:It's getting harder to make big leaps at the frontier of AIOpenAI's AI-adjusted earnings numbers have echoes of Groupon and WeWorkDeath by LLM: Stack Overflow's decline, and its plan to survive, shows the future of free online data in an AI worldCloud computing:Amazon dominated the first cloud era. The AI boom has kicked off Cloud 2.0, and the company doesn't have a head start this time.In cloud, there's AI (which is hot) and everything else (which is not)Chips:Why Intel is still so important: Real countries have fabsApple's made-in-the-USA chips signal a turnaround for the US's big semiconductor betEVs and Tesla:Tesla's AI supercomputer has a Silicon Valley town rushing to meet surging electricity demandTesla's Cybertruck is outselling almost every other EV in the USOnline Search:Google is losing its status as a verbA simple way to fix search: Bright pink ads
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