Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

lkml.iu.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 702 posts

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

#361

Post by azinman2 »

EamonnMR wrote: post #302
crdoconnor wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is dead on. I think at Microsoft that guy was Dave Cutler. Most of the really well designed stuff seems to have him at the helm - NT4.0, bits of XP, Win2k, Windows Server 2003 and then Azure. I have a suspicion that Satya's rise to CEOdom via Azure's success could be attributed to him too.

If you're a Cutler fan you may enjoy Showstopper[1], an account of the creation of NT. 1: https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Mic...

Thanks for the rec, looks interesting.

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

#362

Post by shepardrtc »

yeukhon wrote: post #208
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 do agree his language and tone can be very painful to read. Imagine getting called a moron in front of the whole world, when you could have private conversation first with a smaller group. When I read his reply, I could feel the pain. I imagined I would reply back to him and say "well fuck you too." When I finished reading the email, regardless of who is more right or more wrong, I can understand and feel his frust…

> Imagine getting called a moron in front of the whole world

If he was right about what I did, I would make damn sure that I didn't do it again.

I believe he's being obnoxious because the people submitting these patches are trying to quietly pull some bullshit.

If you're trying to affect countless people and companies across the world with questionable actions, I don't care how bad you feel.

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

#363

Post by xbmcuser »

awakeasleep wrote: post #313
josteink wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have the case of SJWs and Internet lynch mob’s being a real life threats to your project, your personal privacy and potentially your employment if you don’t show yourself to be “tolerant” enough in your communication. Calling genuine shit out as such can literally land you in a shitstorm if the person receiving message is of wrong color or sexualual orientation, etc, and decides to make that the point of the…

Wow I didn’t think of that but what if a woman wrote the code in that patch? Linus would be making her feel unwelcome.

Why are you assuming it wasn't a female coder

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

#364

Post by cmyr »

pdpi wrote: post #343
crdoconnor wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus "being an asshole" is what drew attention to this issue. His caustic nature is marketing of a sort. It's clearly putting additional pressure on Intel. How you feel about that depends on how you feel about them furiously trying to sweep everything under the carpet and hoping nobody notices. Personally I think his humiliation of Intel here is putting necessary pressure on them. If he couched his terms and tried t…

See it from this angle: if Linus wasn't known for flipping his lid all the time, him flipping out _this_ time would be even more impactful. Overuse makes it progressively less remarkable. I wasn't even saying that his tone on this particular instance was excessive. I was responding to the general accusation that "PC culture will silence him". There's exactly one sentence I have issues with here ("the whole hardware i…

Adding another perspective: as someone who follows kernel news very casually, it's pretty near impossible for me to determine which instances of "Linus curses something/someone out" are related to actual Serious Things Deserving My Attention. There's a bit of boy-who-cried-wolf to the whole thing.

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

#365

Post by IntelMiner »

c3534l wrote: post #241
mrmondo wrote: post #195

I wish people in this thread would stop turning the discussion into a straw-man argument about Linus’s language and focus their attention to the technical and security problems at hand. Some people are easily offended, some people easily offend, some people are direct, some people are indirect - get over it. What matters here is the quality of the code / workarounds that are being presented, by whom and what alternat…

> I wish people in this thread would stop turning the discussion into a straw-man argument about Linus’s language and focus their attention to the technical and security problems at hand. There wasn't much of a technical and security discussion in what was posted. Linus spent his time writing about his feelings and how hurt they were that someone did something he didn't like. Very little of substance or merit was com…

As great as it is to sit in your chair and make snide remarks about him. The Linux Kernel seems to have a proven track record of success under that role

That is to say, it is the largest collaborative software project in human history

No amount of Linus being a "petulant child" can disprove the results of his style

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

#366

Post by katastic »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #126
joelthelion wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FOSS is so important FOSS is nice, but it's not a silver bullet. In this case I think Linus is largely to thank. Things will be a lot harder if he decides to retire.

A silver bullet is having one smart guy at the top who doesn't care how much pressure you exert on getting something into the codebase, or how much man-hours were spent (sunk cost fallacy). I think in a lot of "corporate" projects (not-open source) there's much less of that and the software is designed by commission, with the lead developer(s) quickly no longer having much of an influence on the code itself, being dr…

Which is funny because that's the opposite of what progressives are telling us. That meritocracy is meaningless (and bigoted) and it's more important to have diversity than a leader.

Likewise, there are countless articles about how Linus Torvalds is a "jerk" because he doesn't temper his words and ends up offending people with thin skins.

I don't care about anyone's ideology. I'll I care about is results. And Linus has proven his yields results.

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

#368

Post by watwat1 »

bassman9000 wrote: post #191
Roritharr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only spot, but also invests the energy in calling it out and explaining it. Many business failures i've witnessed happened ultimately because nobody had the energy to cut down the bullshit forest that constantly regrows around a company.

We should treasure it while it lasts, before PC culture silences him. And before downvoting, recall how many threads regarding Linus abusive behavior (sic) we've had.

Cant upvote this enough!

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

#369

Post by iagovar »

pdpi wrote: post #343
crdoconnor wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus "being an asshole" is what drew attention to this issue. His caustic nature is marketing of a sort. It's clearly putting additional pressure on Intel. How you feel about that depends on how you feel about them furiously trying to sweep everything under the carpet and hoping nobody notices. Personally I think his humiliation of Intel here is putting necessary pressure on them. If he couched his terms and tried t…

See it from this angle: if Linus wasn't known for flipping his lid all the time, him flipping out _this_ time would be even more impactful. Overuse makes it progressively less remarkable. I wasn't even saying that his tone on this particular instance was excessive. I was responding to the general accusation that "PC culture will silence him". There's exactly one sentence I have issues with here ("the whole hardware i…

And here you have it, in the front page of HN

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

#370

Post by workthrowaway27 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #316
PrimHelios wrote: post #312

I always appreciate Linus' rants. In addition to being somewhat humorous, I usually learn a thing or two from them. It amazes me that people focus on how much of a jerk he's being instead of actually looking at the contents of his emails and learning something.

Really? The internet is full of ranting commenters. They all have content of a sort. His don't deserve any more attention just because he's the subject of a hero-worship cult. Its actually possible to find thoughtful commentary on most any subject, without suffering jerks.

People only post his rants. Most of his replies are pretty benign.
Post reply on HN