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Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

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Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#141

Post by thriftwy »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #131
mrmondo wrote: post #8

I think we should count ourselves lucky we have someone so good at spotting bullsh*t like this - and isn’t afraid to call it out as they sees it. Intel & friends have absolutely disgusted me lately, it could be all to easy to settle for less based on their standards, but let’s not let them set the standard - they’ve shown they can’t be trusted with quality and when they fail - they can’t be trusted to be transparent…

From what I gather, some of this is cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things. That directness is generally associated with multicultural environments where subtler context-dependent communication simply does not work. Some of the quotes I am seeing here from him are things I think are unnecessarily harsh, but most are not. Discussions about something he has said or written seem…

I'm not sure. Finns (and swedes) are considered introverted, with shoegazing issues. That kind of directness looks like a personality trait (acquired maybe) and not default.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#142

Post by kijin »

sclangdon wrote: post #95
gambiting wrote: post #35

Am I the only person who finds this extremely difficult to read? The top says "David wrote" and then it looks like he's replying to a message from Linus Torvalds. So any quoted text is by Linus, right? But then....the letter is signed by Linus? So who wrote it? I know this is some ancient technology but Jesus, the user interface is horrendous.

Linus Torvalds originaly said: "All of this is pure garbage. Is Intel really planning on making this shit architectural? Has anybody talked to them and told them they are f*cking insane? Please, any Intel engineers here - talk to your managers." David Woodhouse replied with: If the alternative was a two-decade product recall and giving everyone free CPUs, I'm not sure it was entirely insane." The rest is written by L…

Even if one were confused as to who said what, the combination of "shit" and "f*cking insane" should have cleared it right up.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#143

Post by ealexhudson »

sundvor wrote: post #134
ealexhudson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to call out bullshit doesn't mean having to curse it out. All Linus needs to do is say something like "I don't understand why this is here, and I'm not merging it until I do", rather than "They do literally insane things. They do things that do not make sense". The latter is not a technical argument, and it doesn't provide accuracy or clarity about next steps. "So somebody isn't telling the truth here. Som…

Sometimes in a sea of noise it's good to have someone highly qualified shouting to make people sit up and really pay attention. Like now, because it is critically needed.

Really? It's a 10 patch series. Patches 4 & 5 have attracted high-quality low-curse technical discussion of Linus' initial response to patch 9 appears to be missing from the mailing list, so it's not even clear to me he intended it to be made public.

Where is the sea of noise you think justifies this?

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#144

Post by Fnoord »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #131
mrmondo wrote: post #8

I think we should count ourselves lucky we have someone so good at spotting bullsh*t like this - and isn’t afraid to call it out as they sees it. Intel & friends have absolutely disgusted me lately, it could be all to easy to settle for less based on their standards, but let’s not let them set the standard - they’ve shown they can’t be trusted with quality and when they fail - they can’t be trusted to be transparent…

From what I gather, some of this is cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things. That directness is generally associated with multicultural environments where subtler context-dependent communication simply does not work. Some of the quotes I am seeing here from him are things I think are unnecessarily harsh, but most are not. Discussions about something he has said or written seem…

> From what I gather, some of this cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things.

I've heard this blunt(/direct/honest) argument quite often (and the same about my country, The Netherlands), but I've also seen Americans in IT who can be very blunt. I attribute it not to country_of_origin, but to the [autism] spectrum.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#145

Post by nippples »

watwut wrote: post #42
teekert wrote: post #28

Why doesn't Intel just go to Linus and ask politely: "Ok, we f-ed up, here is a million dollars (or whatever, 10x his normal salary or something) can you please work with us tightly for some time? Thank you." I would really respect Intel if they would.

Why should they ask politely? It is not like the Linux mailing list would be polite environment. Nothing against impolite environment, people make case for it daily here and I don't care. But it combined with the standard expectation that when someone else talks to them he should be always polite is getting funny in that context.

There's more ways to be impolite than saying nasty words.

Linus had been treating all this situation very fairly so far, but I guess Intel just had to repeatedly try pushing very bad fixes to a problem they created themselves.

Imagine you go to a restaurant, and the waiter just repeatedly brings you the wrong order, repeatedly.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#146

Post by mkohlmyr »

mpweiher wrote: post #62
integricho wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel transformed from a technology company to a management company. That somewhat explains their highly unreasonable behavior.

The part of the lifecycle where the clueless have taken over: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

That is an excellent bit of writing. Thanks for the link!

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#147

Post by [deleted] »

ealexhudson wrote: post #108
smcleod wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not the only one, he may be brash at times but god damn we need him and maybe we need his brash anti-bullshit meter too.

Being able to call out bullshit doesn't mean having to curse it out. All Linus needs to do is say something like "I don't understand why this is here, and I'm not merging it until I do", rather than "They do literally insane things. They do things that do not make sense". The latter is not a technical argument, and it doesn't provide accuracy or clarity about next steps. "So somebody isn't telling the truth here. Som…

[deleted]

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#148

Post by bigato »

ealexhudson wrote: post #108
smcleod wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not the only one, he may be brash at times but god damn we need him and maybe we need his brash anti-bullshit meter too.

Being able to call out bullshit doesn't mean having to curse it out. All Linus needs to do is say something like "I don't understand why this is here, and I'm not merging it until I do", rather than "They do literally insane things. They do things that do not make sense". The latter is not a technical argument, and it doesn't provide accuracy or clarity about next steps. "So somebody isn't telling the truth here. Som…

> "I don't understand why this is here, and I'm not merging it until I do"

This is not clear enough and could be interpreted as incompetence on the part of the speaker

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#149

Post by icelancer »

ageofwant wrote: post #125
mpweiher wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and so happy he doesn't follow the kinds of BS rules set out here: https://medium.com/@sandya.sankarram/unlearning-toxic-behavi...

Linus Torvalds stands guard over the the most import bit of human infrastructure ever in the history of the world. I mean that literally. There is no one thing that is so universally important. If I were Lord God of the cosmos, I'd give Linus Torvalds my magic and go farm Yabbies and sleep like a retired God at night, knowing that the world will be even better in the morning. Sorry, but being "nice" is totally inappr…

We all get X +/- N points to assign to various traits and skills. Linus maxed the intelligence and technical ability sliders and somewhat ignored the charisma and tact ones.

I agree with you, and though I haven't evaluated your first statement, the fact that I have to think about whether or not you are right at all is good enough.

We don't have to like Linus' communication... methods. I often don't. But no one is perfect, and I'm willing to cut Torvalds some slack for being a dick for past - and future - accomplishments. People think that greatness doesn't excuse demeanor... but it does when the greatness is that far along the SD curve.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#150

Post by icelancer »

bashcoder wrote: post #30

The most striking thing here is that Linus has apparently dismissed incompetence as a rational explanation. Yes, he is often brash, but usually he is accusing someone of sheer stupidity. He does not do that here. Linus alleges that we are being lied to - that we don’t know the full story, nor Intel’s motives. Furthermore, we are left to wonder if Microsoft is also being fed “bullshit” patches, and if they may be less…

Linus calls people stupid when they are usually being stupid, at least in his eyes. He doesn't wantonly accuse people of stupidity for no reason. It's just that when he perceives stupid activity... well, he generally goes off. It's his main trigger.
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