Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.” • Hacker News Board

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

#581

Post by mdekkers » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:16 AM UTC

p0rkbelly wrote: post #542

cromwellian wrote: post #516

A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things. The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons. It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize other…

Not just Google. This is standard in any major tech company. His behavior and abhorrent and there is no excuse. Tech should embrace mentoring, learning, constructive criticism, and learning from failures. Yes, this is hopefully a once in a lifetime situation -- but our values need to transcend that. This is not the first time that Linus has swept decency under the carpet. Linus would be such an HR issue at most compa…

His behavior and abhorrent and there is no excuse.

Does he owe you anything? Are you co-workers? Are you in his employ? It´s FOSS. If you don´t like it, walk away. The Linux kernel is his creation, his baby, and he runs the show. You don´t like his behavior? You don´t like his attitude? Fork the code, make your own mailinglist, get a bunch of people to submit patches, and knock yourself out.

I get that he is a "public figure in tech" and all that, but he owes you nothing - I failed to read the memo where he declared to act as a figurehead for proper behavior, or where he agreed to be an example or anything like that.

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

#582

Post by vlovich123 » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:18 AM UTC

nnq wrote: post #575

cromwellian wrote: post #516

A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things. The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons. It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize other…

Why is the top comment on this about engineering culture?! Linus is valuable precisely because he occasionally d-slaps people around, waking them up, even when what he says may be factually wrong, and reminding them the at the core the tech must be sane, f people and their feelings! Yeah, it's good to have a 1 in 1000 brilliant people being aholes because it keeps the culture balanced. We need a dose of rascality, an…

For the most part he actually does a good job staying away from personal attacks. The problem is that his approach isn't going to yield great results. For there's 2 problematic parts to this e-mail.

The first is the personal attack when he calls Intel engineers morons. That 1 little unnecessary addon is uncalled for because it's quite reasonable that there's a lot of politics going on at Intel that's interfering with the engineering work. Could be that the next chip they're taping out can't be fixed properly without delaying & impacting revenue in a way that execs won't allow. Could be that there's legal reasons whereby Intel's "fix" is desirable from a management perspective to continue their denial of a problem with their chips to win or reduce the costs of the class actions. Or it could be any number of a hundred other reasons that the public isn't privy to.

The second, & this is pure speculation on my part that this didn't happen, is that he should have followed this in an offline discussion with the engineer. This public shaming doesn't do any good & just entrenches the frontline representatives of Intel to be antagonistic with Linus rather than to be his allies. I feel like if Linus wanted to be truly effective here in impacting Intel's direction (especially given their constant need to minimize the scale & scope of this problem) he could have followed up with the engineer off-list & gone "your explanation doesn't make any sense. can you clue me in on what's the motivation behind this approach?". It saves the engineer public embarrassment, it gets him an ally within Intel & it lets him have strategic information on what is motivating Intel engineers (consider - did his finger to nVidia in any way improve relations between Linux & nVidia?). Now if he did that & the answer still wasn't OK then he's free to use his bully pulpit as he wishes, but I suspect it was just instinctive & a build up of his frustration with Intel's handling of this whole matter.

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

#583

Post by Jaxan » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:21 AM UTC

donatj wrote: post #580

cromwellian wrote: post #516

A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things. The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons. It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize other…

See, I feel the opposite. I dream of working on something where the criticism is so honest. Where I don’t have to read between the lines to understand how big of a deal a person considers an issue. Pussyfooting to lessen the blow benefits no one in the long run. I often end up running my code reviews by other people first to make sure they’re gentle enough because I know people are overly sensitive/attached to their…

Why not both? I think OP means that we should be nice and honest.

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

#584

Post by donatj » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:25 AM UTC

quotheth wrote: post #555

amazingman wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the context in which Linus exists professionally is perennially misunderstood. IMO he basically has to be this way, or else the kernel would have been effectively stolen by [insert powerful tech company] at various crucial moments throughout its history. I see his particular position in technology as being truly unique, and that it essentially just requires somewhat exaggerated rhetoric and even superficially…

Can you show me an example where a leader of an OSS project had reasonable discussions with other developers (read: n steps below calling them morons who write garbage code), and as a result their project was "stolen" by a powerful tech company?

Firefox + Mr. Robot for a very recent example. Someone at some level should have exclaimed angrily that pushing people an extension without their consent that fiddled with content was a “garbage idea for garbage people”.

Instead they lost face and now I and many other privacy concerned users can never trust Firefox ever again.

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

#585

Post by donatj » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:26 AM UTC

Jaxan wrote: post #583

donatj wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I feel the opposite. I dream of working on something where the criticism is so honest. Where I don’t have to read between the lines to understand how big of a deal a person considers an issue. Pussyfooting to lessen the blow benefits no one in the long run. I often end up running my code reviews by other people first to make sure they’re gentle enough because I know people are overly sensitive/attached to their…

Why not both? I think OP means that we should be nice and honest.

I posit there is no nice way to reflect when something is actual garbage. When it should go into the trash bin instead of being merged, even with modifications.

It’s never going to be nice to hear.

In lessening the blow you lose the message. You lose the true meaning. You lie.

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

#586

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:34 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #494

Fnoord wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both my sons and their father likely all qualify for an ASD label, though none of them has been officially diagnosed. > I know a lot about the topic of autism and related issues. Me too. I have a diagnosis based on DSM-5, and with ICD numbers (for insurance related reasons I guess). My cousin had an Asperger diagnosis based on DSM-4 when that was still relevant. My partner likely has autism as well (though its diff…

Your initial assertion: I attribute it not to country_of_origin, but to the [autism] spectrum. And you now say: As a general note we shouldn't diagnose other people, but that wasn't the intent of my original post at all. I merely noted its a trait people with autism commonly have. Those two things don't add up. Maybe think about that. There is a lot of other failed communication happening here that I don't really thi…

> Those two things don't add up. Maybe think about that.

I didn't diagnose him, just like others didn't diagnose everyone from Finland with bluntness or whatever.

Also, I already suspected you were going on about that one which is very hilarious given the fact that I am the one the two of us who has the ASD diagnosis and you suspect some of your family members have it. Your family members, as it stands, don't have an autism diagnosis.

Furthermore, you're the one who set the standard of the discussion by starting with this flamebait: "From what I gather, some of this is cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things." which is flat out discrimination/racism. The only good thing about it, is that its possibly not harmful. But that doesn't make it not discrimination/racism. I can give countless examples here, but I'll refrain.

There's this saying about pot meets kettle, perhaps consider it before you reply to a post next time.

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

#587

Post by enriquto » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:42 AM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #582

nnq wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the top comment on this about engineering culture?! Linus is valuable precisely because he occasionally d-slaps people around, waking them up, even when what he says may be factually wrong, and reminding them the at the core the tech must be sane, f people and their feelings! Yeah, it's good to have a 1 in 1000 brilliant people being aholes because it keeps the culture balanced. We need a dose of rascality, an…

For the most part he actually does a good job staying away from personal attacks. The problem is that his approach isn't going to yield great results. For there's 2 problematic parts to this e-mail. The first is the personal attack when he calls Intel engineers morons. That 1 little unnecessary addon is uncalled for because it's quite reasonable that there's a lot of politics going on at Intel that's interfering with…

The first is the personal attack when he calls Intel engineers morons. That 1 little unnecessary addon is uncalled for because it's quite reasonable that there's a lot of politics going on (...) can't be fixed properly without delaying & impacting revenue in a way that execs won't allow.

If that is really the case, then calling the engineers morons is actually very much called for!

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

#588

Post by russdpale » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:44 AM UTC

Atheros wrote: post #577

candiodari wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure I'll get downvoted though for calling Linus a baby, because somehow insulting Linus for his flaws is never ok but when Linus does it it's so cool! I'm pretty sure people aren't up in arms about Linus being a baby, but about your refusal to call out people on "subpar performance". Replace "subpar performance" with whatever you feel is an acceptable name for executing wrongly on very bad ideas. And I feel li…

If your organization repeatedly rewards failure then maybe you should start thinking about switching teams or companies.

Welcome to corporate America.

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

#589

Post by russdpale » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:46 AM UTC

donatj wrote: post #585

Jaxan wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? I think OP means that we should be nice and honest.

I posit there is no nice way to reflect when something is actual garbage. When it should go into the trash bin instead of being merged, even with modifications. It’s never going to be nice to hear. In lessening the blow you lose the message. You lose the true meaning. You lie.

Or it just means someone lacks a proper grasp of the English language! I find a thesaurus is handy.

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

#590

Post by mathw » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:46 AM UTC

nnq wrote: post #575

cromwellian wrote: post #516

A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things. The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons. It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize other…

Why is the top comment on this about engineering culture?! Linus is valuable precisely because he occasionally d-slaps people around, waking them up, even when what he says may be factually wrong, and reminding them the at the core the tech must be sane, f people and their feelings! Yeah, it's good to have a 1 in 1000 brilliant people being aholes because it keeps the culture balanced. We need a dose of rascality, an…

Because, as the comment says, he is wrong.

He may be technically correct in his assessment of the quality of the patches (I lack the necessary knowledge to even begin to assess it), but he does not go about explaining this in a sensible manner. He has never fostered a collaborative, inclusive atmosphere around the kernel.

If anybody at my workplace talked to a collaborator in that way they'd be in a chat with their manager minutes later, and if they persisted they'd be in a chat with HR.

For all that has been accomplished with the Linux kernel - and these achievements are huge and numerous and extremely impressive - I do wonder how much better things might have been if Linus was capable of criticising something without calling anybody a moron, swearing or throwing things.

What was in that email that needed that kind of language and tone? What could not have been said with a simple "I will not accept these patches" followed by a calm and dispassionate assessment of his issues with them? There's such an assessment in there somewhere, he's clearly thought it through, but one has to wade through the vitriol in order to get there. This is inefficient as well as hostile to contributors.

And these are people the community depends on for support, so we can run Linux on their products.