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# Linus Torvalds with a banger
- URL: https://saadiq.xyz/newsletter/linus-torvalds-with-a-banger/
- Published: 2026-10-16T15:14:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-16T15:14:05.000Z
- Description: The creator of Linux and Git has no patience for rules about which tools you're allowed to use. His email speaks for itself. Plus a few thoughts on why new tools feel like a threat once the rituals have quietly replaced the goal.
- Author: Saadiq Rodgers-King
- Tags: AI Adoption, AI

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux and Git and much more, [posted this](https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=whTs09%5FozN+e09GU68N1wPP56MUzDjrg9rnKxQUa0A%5F4Q@mail.gmail.com/?ref=saadiq.xyz) to the Linux kernel mailing list this week.

![Linus Torvalds' email to the Linux kernel mailing list, with three lines highlighted](https://saadiq.xyz/newsletter/content/images/2026/10/2026-10-16-linus-torvalds-with-a-banger-email.png)

We're moving through a time of transition and rapid change, and people have a lot of feelings about it. That's natural, and some of those feelings are quite justified. Others less so.

A lot of this comes back to first principles, which [I wrote about yesterday](https://saadiq.xyz/newsletter/software-is-content-now/). Keep your eye on the goal and a new tool is easy to judge. It either helps you get there or it doesn't. Once the rituals have quietly become the goal, a new tool looks like a threat.

I've made versions of this argument [about writing](https://saadiq.xyz/newsletter/ai-assisted-content-evolution--not-devaluation/) and [about my slides](https://saadiq.xyz/newsletter/nobody-asks-how-you-made-it-when-its-good/). Linus said it better, and with more capital letters.