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Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

This severely underestimates the complexity of the Linux kernel.

We're not talking about modern Linux though. Modern Linux isn't "coordinated by a (admittably singlularly competent) sole finnish guy in a bathrobe from home,", there's now a team of people involved. Sure there is a hierarchy with someone taking the lead but isn't that true for most operations? Even the Mozilla foundation has a Chair (Mitchell Baker) and Executive Director (Mark Surman).

Linux hasn't been a single person operation since the 90s.

The "guy in a bathrobe" is still the lead and has the final say. Is he compensated anywhere near what Mozilla's CEO is?

In fact is the total comp of all the people significantly involved in Linux kernel development anywhere near the total comp of Mozilla's C-suite? I doubt it.

You're now making a tangential argument about whether people are being paid their worth and frankly that's never been the case.

Most of us developers, devops and sysadmins are paid an obscene wage compared to many critical services like nursing. Is it fair? Probably not. But that doesn't have any baring on the complexity of Linux vs Firefox.

Prices are determined by supply and demand, so there is no merit in claiming a person writing software has an obscene earnings compared to a nurse. Not to mention that you can get into all kinds of nonsense like “the team of software developers made something that saved millions of man hours enabling nurses to help many more patients”. But that is neither here nor there.

However, you can compare the people in the same business, such as those writing software for operating systems and web browsers and compare the cost and productivity in both.

> Is he compensated anywhere near what Mozilla's CEO is?

Torvalds is at $2M and Baker is at $2.5M.

Baker's salary as CEO is not public yet, as she's only been CEO for a little over a year.

No, >$3M in 2019: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2019/mozilla-2019-fo...

OP mentioned “reasonably coordinated by” and, to my understanding, never implied Linux was a single-person operation.

The Linux kernel today isnt what a single guy in a bathrobe wrote. Tim Berners-Lee was a single guy with a coffee cup and wrote WorldWideWeb/Nexus.

These comparions are caveman level arguments.

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