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A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

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Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#21

Post by davidkuhta »

UncleMeat wrote: post #20
davidkuhta wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, The author in summary states: > It [the rewrite] has 43% as many words, but loses none of the meaning. It's still forceful and unambiguous. Yet, I found the rewrite to be feeble and ambivalent. > If you were in the "I'm afraid that being nicer would hurt Linux" group, do you think that this email is worse? Yes. I wanted to add one additional question. Are there environments where ad hominem and disrespect are…

People have done science to answer your last question. In general the answer is no.

Do you have any references? I'd be interested to read them.

Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#22

Post by tomatotomato37 »

lucideer wrote: post #6

If Linus had written the reworded email the author is proposing here, this author wouldn't be writing this blog post, and we wouldn't be clicking it on HN and reading the contents of Linus' points. As to the actual detail of the author's proposed rewordings: > I'm not talking about the changes themselves - I can live with them. But the _rationale_ is pure and utter garbage, and dangerously so. becomes > These changes…

I agree. The revised email is respectful and courteous, but it is also woefully forgetful. While you shouldn't do it all the time, there are times when you just really need to drive a point home

Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#23

Post by ivraatiems »

lucideer wrote: post #6

If Linus had written the reworded email the author is proposing here, this author wouldn't be writing this blog post, and we wouldn't be clicking it on HN and reading the contents of Linus' points. As to the actual detail of the author's proposed rewordings: > I'm not talking about the changes themselves - I can live with them. But the _rationale_ is pure and utter garbage, and dangerously so. becomes > These changes…

> I'm sorry, but while the argument that Linus makes excessive use of ad hominem and is disrespectul is a valid one, and he could/should temper that, this example is a failure to demonstrate how it would improve things. The final email draft in the blog post is milquetoast; I would forget it within minutes if I were on that list.

You'd really forget an email from the head of the project (the "CEO," to use another user's example on here) telling you you've messed up, just because the language was neutral?

I'm not sure I understand that. I don't think most people need yelling and raving in order to know something is important or understand what needs to get done.

Even so, I'm sure better versions exist. Do you have an idea of a polite-but-forceful rewrite of this email that'd be more effective?

Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#24

Post by ivraatiems »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #22
lucideer wrote: post #6

If Linus had written the reworded email the author is proposing here, this author wouldn't be writing this blog post, and we wouldn't be clicking it on HN and reading the contents of Linus' points. As to the actual detail of the author's proposed rewordings: > I'm not talking about the changes themselves - I can live with them. But the _rationale_ is pure and utter garbage, and dangerously so. becomes > These changes…

I agree. The revised email is respectful and courteous, but it is also woefully forgetful. While you shouldn't do it all the time, there are times when you just really need to drive a point home

Why do you have to insult people on a personal level to drive points home?

Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#25

Post by geergar »

busterarm wrote: post #16

This "Linus is a jerk" meme is old and tired. The moral-superiority bullies are jerks too. Same as people who use their position to push their politics. Maybe we should all just be adults and focus on the work.

Read the article. The rewritten email was focused on the work. But Linus's email was mostly focused on humiliating a contributor.

So it is Linus who is not being an adult.

Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#27

Post by geergar »

sillywindows wrote: post #2

This must be a cultural thing. There are plenty of people who happily interact like this daily. It is a personality. People talk and act in different ways, they are different people, I think it is reasonable for them to continue acting like themselves. I don't find the way Linus writes offensive in the slightest. To me it is mildly amusing while making a point. I don't want to have all communications in a forced poli…

>This must be a cultural thing.

Yes. Parts of the FOSS community have a culture that apologizes for jerky behavior.

>There are plenty of people who happily interact like this daily.

There are plenty of jerks, yes.

> I think it is reasonable for them to continue acting like themselves.

Being part of a team means accommodating your team members. We can argue what is a reasonable accommodation or what is not. But it's not too much to ask for Linus to stop typing in all caps, or accusing his team members of being morons.

> I don't find the way Linus writes offensive in the slightest. To me it is mildly amusing while making a point.

It's possible to be amusing and make a point without singling out a contributor for humiliation. Obviously, we have to be free to criticize other's work. But as the article shows, most of Linus's message isn't constructive criticism. It can be re-written to mean the same thing, yet preserve the dignity of the person he's criticizing.

We need people to contribute to open source projects. Being a jerk to others scares contributors away.

Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#28

Post by tomatotomato37 »

ivraatiems wrote: post #24
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The revised email is respectful and courteous, but it is also woefully forgetful. While you shouldn't do it all the time, there are times when you just really need to drive a point home

Why do you have to insult people on a personal level to drive points home?

You don't, and I do agree the personal callout was pretty fresh, especially on a public mailing list. It doesn't dismiss the point though that you have to write everything like a HoA letter complaining about the color of your mailbox

Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#29

Post by GW150914 »

lucideer wrote: post #6

If Linus had written the reworded email the author is proposing here, this author wouldn't be writing this blog post, and we wouldn't be clicking it on HN and reading the contents of Linus' points. As to the actual detail of the author's proposed rewordings: > I'm not talking about the changes themselves - I can live with them. But the _rationale_ is pure and utter garbage, and dangerously so. becomes > These changes…

It occurs to me that these rants of Linus’ would get him banned on this site. It also occurs to me that it only works because people give him a wide bearth, because otherwise it’s just people “screaming” at each other, the very thing that the rules of this site seek to avoid. The notion that emphasis, memorability, and clarity can only be achieved by acting like a child having a tantrum runs contrary to the platform on which this discussion is being had.

I don’t know if that matters, but it strikes me as odd that people who seem to appreciate how this site works think that Linus is some exception because of just how mission critical he is. I also think it likely reflects the lack of soft skills some here have that they can’t imagine a better way being as or more effective, despite the living example of HN itself.

Re: A Case Study in Not Being a Jerk in Open Source

#30

Post by saidajigumi »

hitekker wrote: post #7

Linus seems like a jerk if you see him as an entitled engineer maintaining a popular OSS library. But if you instead see him as a CEO, responsible for every single part of the Linux kernel, running on one billion machines, his behavior becomes natural. Even warranted, since, often-times the people at the recieving end of his wrath are not making some whoops-daisy technical mistake; they are trying to exert power and…

Your sense of how leadership works is really screwed up. Nothing in TFA suggests being "weak". Quite the opposite, per the author's intent, and I agree: "It's still forceful and unambiguous." The most scathing responses I've ever written in my professional career contained zero profanity, zero ad-hominem attacks, or other attempts at verbal abuse. But they still had unambiguous and devastating impact. If your only concept of strength of leadership amounts to "be maximum asshole", then you have a really horrific concept of leadership.

Instead, I'll offer this. In my experience, great leadership is the skill of getting a group of people to take action on a cause without having/using authority over them. Instead, you seem to think leadership is about taking authority over people by being a jerk to them.

No one's saying that Linus shouldn't be a strong advocate for the kernel. This is entirely about his refusal to acknowledge or improve lousy communication skills that obfuscate his generally excellent technical arguments, and needlessly push away contributors who have actual self respect.

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