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

Post by Beltiras » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 10:31 AM UTC

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…

Post by eru » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 10:33 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #149

ageofwant wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 per…

Post by ealexhudson » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 10:37 AM UTC

bigato wrote: post #148

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…

> "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

Post by zaptheimpaler » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 10:39 AM UTC

dschuetz wrote: post #166

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…

Actually that's pretty scary. Are the rest of heavy weight kernel code maintainers too stupid for than then? If it weren't for Linus' hard judgement? Would we then buying badly engineered products without ever questioning?

Post by wingerlang » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 10:41 AM UTC

thriftwy wrote: post #141

DoreenMichele wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.