this comment shows how the word of mouth actually distorted the argument

its not the linux philosophy but one sentence of the unix philosophy (linux is not unix)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy

Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new “features”

besides being over 40 years old at this point

fun fact the linux kernel would actually not really fit this since it is an monolithic kernel