It seems to me like Linus Torvalds's continued successful development of the Linux kernel pretty much inherently proves this whole article wrong. And it's a slanderous travesty that this article flirts with acting like he's some sort of reactionary or racist. He's not. He's just a salty old bastard.

It's absurd to bring privilege into the argument too. Writing code is a privilege. If you have the free time and inclination to write FOSS code, for no compensation, then you are already privileged.

And the shit about defending Google? Please! It's fucking Google. Corporations are not your friends. Why do I care about their fee fees?

Honestly? Everything written in the article is comfortable liberal "sure we can be radical but let's be nice about it" bullshit.

They explained the "Harry Potter Isn't Real!" chant incorrectly. It's based off of the (untrue but unfortunately amusing and effective) right-wing meme that the only books people on the left have ever read are those from the Harry Potter series, which they gleaned from so many people on the left making Harry Potter references (comparing Trump to Voldemort in particular) lately. The meme is basically "If the left is supposedly so intelligent and highly educated, then why do they only ever make references to easily digested YA novels like Harry Potter instead of more advanced literature?"

Over time, it's morphed into "the left is so full of delusional TV addicts (based upon people on the left making references to TV shows like The West Wing, The Sopranos, etc.) who have never read anything more challenging than Harry Potter that they are incapable of interpreting reality other than through the lens of trashy pop culture." It's meant to denigrate our intelligence, or perhaps to accuse us of hypocrisy by comparing the media they perceive us to consume to the media they think we promote ourselves as consuming (based off of the stereotype of people on the left being arrogant about our taste in literature, films, etc.). Or basically, "Those snobs aren't even smart!"

Just thought I'd clarify. I'll admit, the meme is kind of cutting to me as a big fan of Harry Potter.