Interesting observation, similar manner of work as Linus Torvalds. These guys implement existing ideas well, consistent and open, but are not inventors.
That's his point. I do not agree with it at all, though.
Linus himself phrased it as git being about applying his filesystems knowledge to source management. You can't take that statement at its face value.
Many of Bellard's projects boil down to applied tcc but just being able to understand tcc in the first place is out of the reach of most people who call themselves "programmers". And then applying it to a novel field solving problems people didn't even know they had.
That's exactly what "inventing" is.
Carmack didn't invent logarithms. But without people like him who innovated building on someone else's innovation, and on many people's common knowledge, we'd be still running away from lions in the Savannah.