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Maybe this will finally end the myth that "you can be rude and insulting as long as you're right" that people seem to attribute to Linus's outbursts
He could, and still can. Literally nothing's stopping him other than a personal decision to subjectively improve his behavior. You can absolutely be rude and insulting as long as you're right.
Maybe this will finally end the myth that "you can be rude and insulting as long as you're right" that people seem to attribute to Linus's outbursts
EDIT: That having been said, my personal opinion is that Linus could stand to tone it down a bit. He often goes beyond "unrelentingly firm on quality" and into "personal attack", the line between them can be subtle but hopefully he'll figure it out without becoming a pushover.
A certain sort of ruthlessness and lack of empathy, accompanied by having an extraordinarily driven personality, certainly seems to often make things happen (see also: Steve Jobs). The ages-old question is – is it worth it? Do ends justify the means?
That's not to say that there's no room for being firm—and OSS politics could drive the pope to violence at times—but LT's behavior has crossed the line many times over. I very much look forward to a more approachable kernel leadership approach.
A slowgoing development for him, still I sympathize and wish him the best while wondering ironically if personal issues aside what works best. It brings to mind fundamental organizational and management. Is it better to have a "rude" organization? Calling bullshit early and often instead of polite everything is fine stacks of lies since it would be impolite to point out having O(N!) code just can't work for anything…
The thing is, being insulting is largely counterproductive. Even where the best response from the person being insulted is that they shrug it off, it still modifies the relationship and attitudes towards the insulter.
Maybe this will finally end the myth that "you can be rude and insulting as long as you're right" that people seem to attribute to Linus's outbursts
I have to wonder if Linux would even be remembered other than as a footnote at this time without his forceful personality being in the mix. Many things fail when they get pecked to death by ducks. His forceful personality carried the day on many occasions.
What would Steve Jobs have been known for if not for his turtleneck? /s
A certain sort of ruthlessness and lack of empathy, accompanied by having an extraordinarily driven personality, certainly seems to often make things happen (see also: Steve Jobs). The ages-old question is – is it worth it? Do ends justify the means?
People have been able to build successful organizations without being abrasive dickheads to their colleagues and subordinates all the time. I think it's a false dichotomy.
Leaders of large companies are _usually_ more aggressive, selfish and less agreeable than average people. This is a well-researched topic (and also makes sense intuitively -- leading a Fortune 500 company comes with so unique perks that there's an immense fight for those roles).
As someone familiar with LBT's mailing list rhetoric since the early days, I'm guessing a big part of what's happening here is that LBT hasn't changed the way he communicates but the rest of the world has moved on. And let's face it, the engineering and programming world has gotten a lot more politically correct—I think the main factor driving this is the increasing presence of women in technology. What I mean is tha…
That simply isn't the world we work in anymore. Everything has been done and if it's being done again it's because the subtle mistakes and approximations of the past aren't good enough. Linus' complaints about the scheduler are the best example of what I'm talking about. A scheduler is a super hard problem now and there's a lot of complexity to wrestle with that simply didn't exist in 2001.
Anyway, the kernel is still open and discussion is still happening so I don't think we're in some kind of crisis. Good for Linus to take time off - maybe this will be an opportunity to develop processes that can create a more dynamic open source environment, one less reliant on a few individuals.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to wonder if Linux would even be remembered other than as a footnote at this time without his forceful personality being in the mix. Many things fail when they get pecked to death by ducks. His forceful personality carried the day on many occasions.
You can be forceful without being an asshole about it.
As someone familiar with LBT's mailing list rhetoric since the early days, I'm guessing a big part of what's happening here is that LBT hasn't changed the way he communicates but the rest of the world has moved on. And let's face it, the engineering and programming world has gotten a lot more politically correct—I think the main factor driving this is the increasing presence of women in technology. What I mean is tha…
Men and women express aggression in different ways. While they can both be toxic, female aggression is more acceptable at this time. Linus was forceful at times, but his focus was on the work, not on trying to make people feel bad. Be critical all you want, but his achievement is amazing.
It may have started this way when he began one of his emails, but even he admits the attacks often went from “let me critique your contribution” to “here’s why your contribution sucks and beyond that here’s why I think you suck as a contributor”.