'I'm not a programmer' anymore: Linus Torvalds on the only two tools he uses now

Business 'I'm not a programmer' anymore: Linus Torvalds on the only two tools he uses now Written -Nichols, Senior Contributing EditorSenior Contributing Editor July 8, 2026 at p. m. PT The Washington Post / Contributor via Getty ImagesFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Linus has no interest in supporting obsolete hardware or software. While Rust is important, it's no panacea for bad programming logic. Linux developers have adopted AI tools for maintenance work.  MUMBAI -- At Open Source Summit India 2026, Linux creator Linus Torvalds and his friend Dirk Hohndel discussed the current state of Linux and where it's headed. Linux 7.1: Slow and steady, not splashy The conversation opened with Hohndel asking about what Torvalds thought about the Linux 7.1 release. Merge windows, fixes, and personality bugs Torvalds described his work pattern during kernel merge windows: "Over two weeks, I do roughly 200 merges. Personality is not always as easy to fix." Torvalds admits he's caused some of those problems himself, although he's worked on that. 'I'm not a programmer, I'm a development lead' Here's another thing that's changed: Torvalds no longer sees himself as a programmer. "Let's be entirely honest. I hardly read code at all anymore. I'm not a programmer, I'm a development lead." He still writes small patches, but they're more guidance than authority: "I still write code in the sense that I send people patches… but then I make it very clear that, hey, this is a suggestion. This is untested… I expect the maintainers of the code to be the ones who then send me the fix back. So I very seldom commit my own code anymore." Also: Linus Torvalds on the AI claim that makes him angry, and what security researchers should never do What matters most to him is understanding intent: "When I do a pull request, I want to understand the bigger picture. It's one of the reasons I ask for pull requests with very good explanations: I will read them. For example, support for networking standards such as ISDN and ATM is being discontinued. However, if you still use older tech -- there's doubtless someone still running Linux on a 386 somewhere -- you can still do so with older kernels.  Git, C, Rust, and 'hack and slash' As to how he does his work, Torvalds said simply: "Git and email are the two really only tools I use. I use Google as a way to look things up." He added, "I'm unusual; most of the other maintainers end up using many more tools, and I think a lot of them are starting to use AI tools for patch checking," while he "works at a higher level.