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Comment by HarryHirsch | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile Linux has been successful beyond description, despite its development being entirely remotely. So - what's going on?

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And both Windows and MacOS (and iOS even) was/is still far more successful than Linux. So the conclusion is that Linux could be far greater had it not been remote-only development?

I jest, but this kind of question seems to be far more shallow rather than thought-provoking. If you have a point, it’s probably better to make it than some random seemingly open ended question

No, I'm genuinely puzzled. Everyone complains about the endless Zoom meetings and the inability of remote workers to get recognition or promotions, yet Linux manages to uphold coding standards and an vision where the project is going, subsystem maintainers are recognized, documentation is generated - all of this over mailing lists. What is the difference?

Windows did many things wrong, but engineering is probably not one of them (there was a test of someone installing an application on win 3.1, after upgrading all the way to windows 10, you can still run it).

For your question, I guess the answer would be along the line of “linux development process can’t scale to more users”. Linux is running on a lot of machines, but the number of human using it is at least a magnitude less than other popular software (I count Fb, google search, gmail into this too). Things like supporting different configurations, newly released hardwares (and 3rd party softwares) are not linux strong point. For example, subsystem maintainers are recognized, but they are not incentivized (and probably can’t afford) to make sure everything works well on hardware they do not own

I would not say either of those are more successful than Linux. Absolutely not. Linux is extremely successful.

Commercially? No. But the value that Linux has given the world is immense.

Right, if you are looking at consumer PC devices, you would be misled to think that Microsoft leads the way, but if you look at things like embedded devices, servers, super computers and smart phones (if Android is considered linux?), then Linux leads the way. Even commercially Linux is pretty strong because it enables very large businesses. AWS makes up the majority of Amazon's profit.

Edit: at link to share of OSes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

I think coding, in particular, is probably the best possible scenario for remote work. Your job is interfacing with a computer, people are just a distraction.

But a business is a lot more than just coders.

  > Your job is interfacing with a computer, people are just a distraction.

The job of a software engineer is building useful products. Products are useful to people. Computers are just a distraction.

I would like to use software written by people who do not think computers are just a distraction. If one thinks that it's a software engineer's job to shovel features, then it can be difficult to make software that has the same features but is more performant and correct, or to make software that has fewer features because some features were only needed to compensate for the incredibly awful performance.

> The job of a software engineer

That's why I specified 'coder'. Software engineering is a spectrum, at the lowest level it's just coding. At the top level it transitions to being all about the people. For the folks who are coding, their life is about taking already defined stories and turning them into reality. If the story isn't super clear, they may interface with the team lead or the PO, but when things are working right they just go heads-down and work. This is pretty close to an ideal candidate for remote work.

Linux isn't a business.

> entirely remote

Without zoom, either.

They communicate almost exclusively over a public listserv.

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