Linus Torvalds on Networks of Trust

This is in no way verbatim [and words in brackets aren't even close]. This is a tangent some 10 minutes into Linus Torvalds' talk on Git:

I only need to trust 5, 10, 15 people

I know they're outstanding.

When Andrew sends me patches -- he doesn't actually use Git, some kind of defect -- [I know they are high quality patches, and can trust his decisions, even if I don't always agree]

And my 5 to 15 people have some other people they trust.

They may have determined, hey, that guy's smarter than I am

You can't lose pulling from [someone smarter than you]. Even if the code is junk, you can point to him and say hey, I pulled from him. He knows what he's doing.

For I think historical reasons Linux Kernal has a single point. I've always tried to kind of encourage people to have more trees. My point gets more attention than it probably should.

We don't know 100 people. But we do know five or ten friends.

OK, we're geeks, so we have two.

That's how humans work, that's how we're wired, to trust family and close friends.

Network of trust.

This resonates so strongly with what Greg Coppola is creating with Omni-News (soon to be a Drupal module) and really the whole concept of how a mass movement for radical betterment of our society would have to operate, that I'm glimpsing radical nerd heaven.