and if a display driver can’t be written in 1 line that doesn’t make the thousands of lines unmaintainable slop
some things just require more code
i’d argue if the linux kernel were billions of LOC, then that’s just what’s necessary
and necessity is probably relative at that point; many of your LOC are likely technically unnecessary abstractions to help with human understanding
LOC doesn’t inherently make things unmaintainable slop, as long as you have strong abstractions (which Linux certainly does)
one could argue that most Linux distros have billions to trillions of LOC and their abstraction is packages, which are kinda a level of abstraction higher than libraries, which are just a level of abstraction higher than a folder of util functions
things being “not my code” doesn’t mean it’s not part of your system
if it’s a partnership with microsoft, imo it’s an awful idea… to me it reads as:
everyone knows linux is secure AF… way more secure than windows in many contexts, so it sets you up in the “wait this is BS” mindset
the logical next step that you make, imo, is that the argument that closed source is more secure than open source in other contexts should be viewed with similar scepticism: office/libreoffice, onedrive/nextcloud, etc
(which is true: closed source software is often far more insecure than open source software)
and i’m saying who’s to say what’s necessary with the linux kernel? it’s a one of a kind project: the largest software undertaking by humanity, ever
there probably are 100x more LOC than technically necessary… heck there are… how many LOC in the linux kernel? millions? there’s n-1 more LOC than necessary because it’s C and can be a one-liner (hell even python can be a one liner if you turn it into something resembling brainfuck more than python)
what are you comparing 2x, 10x, 100x to? bsd? windows? neither are particularly good comparisons because linux is so much more capable (in many respects) than either, and solves different problems of scale that either too
linux has no point of comparison for a simple LOC metric… the only thing we can judge is the output itself: its efficient to run, velocity of new features is great, bug count is low for a project of its size, and tech debt gets paid down
again, i think given those factors it wouldn’t matter if linux were 100x the LOC that it actually is: it is the benchmark that other things are measured against
LOC has always been, and will remain a terrible metric for anything except number of newline characters in a source repo