[andrewflnr]

> Kinda off-topic, but, isn't Linus basically a Microsoft here? Does it matter if Linux's forkable and open-source, if nobody ever forks it to do what the community wants instead of what Linus wants?

Not really. With OSS, what matters is whether the community wants it badly enough. Forking a software project is fundamentally hard, and the payoff has to be big enough. With Microsoft, it doesn't matter how big the community's payoff is. If Microsoft doesn't benefit enough, it ain't happening.

I think the threat of forking is one of those really serious threats that still matters even if no one ever really comes close to doing it. It comes up more often in geopolitics, where military capability still matters even if no one wants to get anywhere close to a war.