Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#181

Post by zeroname » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:59 PM UTC

dx87 wrote: post #109

wolfgke wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People can be ruthless without being abusive. Everybody has a different conviction about what is abusive and what is not.

Very true. I remember when one of the kernel maintainers announced why she was going to stop contributing, one of the reasons listed was "Linus has advocated physical abuse of kernel maintainers." Looking at the email that was given as evidence though, Linus told one of the maintainers something like "You're over 6 feet tall, if the contributors won't give you their patches in time to be merged, say you'll smash them…

Saying that "Linus has advocated physical abuse" based on that statement is completely disingenuous. It's an absurd interpretation. It was obviously humor and it wasn't insulting either.

There are several cases where Linus went way over the top with insults, but throwing him under the bus because of that statement is ridiculous.

That's the whole problem with these CoCs, if people get to apply the most uncharitable interpretation of any statement, we can't have anything but extremely formalized conversation, lest we run the risk of getting kicked out because someone who doesn't like us misrepresented our words.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#182

Post by squarefoot » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

I wish him best luck, he needs some. This guy is doing a tremendous work and, yes, sometimes he's a certified ass, but we need people like him. If we had a couple more clones of him, say one in the audio subsystem and the other benevolently dictating development in the GUI field, Linux on the desktop for everyone would become reality in no more than six months.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#183

Post by killjoywashere » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

d33 wrote: post #8

> I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately. Wow. Torvalds going to a therapy. I seriously couldn't be more impressed about him, because he always seemed too much of a narcissist to me. I understand how difficult it might be to decide to admit that you have a problem at this stage. And for doing that, he has my deep respect. Which kind of brin…

Guido's letter for reference: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-Jul...

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#184

Post by Nasrudith » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #78

Nasrudith wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really a myth though? Being surly and right can be workable indefinitely. As opposed to success via being polite and flattering while being wrong. Fundamentally they would be a parasite. Not a dichotomous extreme though in that it is better not to be rude unless it is called for. And rudeness can be very called for in response to evil.

“Indefinitely” presumes you can be right one hundred percent of the time. I’m not, and I don’t believe it’s even possible. How one handles human failure is important, just as it is with handling bad input in code.

Depends on if right and wrong are defined via instance or percentage. A doctor who operates based upon germ theory may get a few diagnosises wrong or too late but he is fundamentally operating on "right".

A quack no matter what redeeming factors they may have is in the "wrong" even if his potions help via placebo effect or sheer accident like treating unrecognized dehydration simply by being water based.

Indefinitely was defined in the sense of viablility in flows. An actual business who provides a real product for sufficient margins can sustain itself indefinitely. Others may do better or circumstances may conspire against it but there is nothing stopping its success. It is a matter of ratios of course - right but rude may succeed with a sufficient base but if he alienates too many they are still doomed.

One which is fundamentally based on something wrong like say Theranos would collapse inevitably. Even if the entire world bought in. No matter how much they tried to work on fingertip blood testing they would find it inaccurate because the composition isn't the same as veinous blood. If they never lied about their viability it would merely be a noncriminal failure that ends when investors pull the plug or they run out of money. Unless they shifted to something viable successfully of course in which case they are no longer wrong.

Ironically noninvasive scanning of blood would have more potential for research success - while a very hard problem there is at least the data hidden within to be decoded. Alt-Theranos that shifted to it may still go bankrupt before they get a viable product from the tech not being ready but they would be on the right track and success before others were ready would pay off. Doctors loved noninvasive blood pressure measurement and would love a second by second view of blood chemistry.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#185

Post by meowface » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #159

Can you explain what “left-leaning” has to do with it?

There was a comment saying it opens the floodgates to Social Justice Warriors. It being politically left-wing seems to be a prominent public perception of it.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#186

Post by mcny » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #153

saagarjha wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think reading in data one byte at a time is a stupid, I wouldn’t quite say that what he said is what I was thinking.

No but you know what I mean. We’ve all been there, looking at some effedup code and cursing the goon who dared check it in. Usually just end up sighing and getting on with it. I suppose Linuses appeal in this regard is similar to Simon Cowell or Anne Robinson off the weakest link. Sometimes you just like to see stupid called out.

I am also a stupid programmer. However, the difference is that I try not to submit pull requests if I have no idea what I am doing. However, from what I am reading, these are not naive programmers who don't know what they're doing. From what I understand, most of the people that Linus rants about are employees of corporate sponsors of the Linux Foundation.

This is entirely my conjecture and I have no way of proving it but I suspect Linus taking a break is Intel flexing its muscles on the Linux Foundation.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#187

Post by DC-3 » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #147

wolfgke wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people well. Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered "heated", "hateful" and "treating well" or not.

I don't think the language of the Contributor Covenant [1] contains anything really objectionable by anyone, even people who wouldn't consider themselves left-leaning. "Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks" is arguably the only ambiguous part. That said, I am a bit skeptical of the CC creators' motives and goals. [1] https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-con...

The contributor covenant is fairly in-objectionable. Yes, the list of 'privileges' is a bit of a checklist for left-wing soapboxes, but it's not necessarily a bad thing to explicitly list traits commonly targeted by bullies and harassers.

The problem many people have with it, as you imply, is that it's the thin end of a doorstop, at the thick end of which is the Post-Meritocracy Manifesto:

https://postmeritocracy.org/

Written by the same author and often championed by the same people as the Contributor Covenant, it espouses some rather more radical ideas which, while carefully stated to sound superficially agreeable, are not ones I would consider beneficial to the open source community.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#188

Post by grzm » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

coffeemug wrote: post #176

serf wrote: post #142

I'm probably going to be alone in saying so, but I always enjoyed Linus and his attitude. (to me) it made him appear honest and dedicated to (his own) goals, and I always felt like that was respectable. (mostly) whenever he was proven technically wrong about how to do something he would concede to the technically better solution, and if he didn't do so he gave reasons for his conclusion. in other words : his technica…

Same. Linus always called a spade a spade, and I always respected that. In a culture where the Overton window has shrunk considerably and people habitually hide their thoughts, I think this kind of attitude is more important, not less. People give up ability to say certain things in the name of inclusion, and then lose ability to think those things in the first place. I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day, and…

> ”I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day“

This is a false dichotomy. There’s no need to be an asshole to not be a pushover.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#189

Post by jondubois » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

It's interesting because I know a couple of authors of big open source projects who have anger issues and who also profess to have little empathy for others.

I struggle to understand how it's possible for someone who works for free for the benefit of others to also lack empathy; isn't that a contradiction?

That said, I did experience extreme career-damaging betrayal from an open source author who had a similar attitude as described in the article. Some people are just living paradoxes.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#190

Post by sz4kerto » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #164

sz4kerto wrote: post #71

We should also keep in mind that the fact that he's trying to change his behavior does not mean that it has been counterproductive overall for Linux over the last three decades. It might not be optimal now for leading kernel development, or it might not be optimal for him as a person. However, this introspection really does not mean that Linux would have been more successful if he'd been nicer in the past. Maybe yes,…

I don’t like the whole “to make an omelette you have to break some eggs” excuse. If you can’t create something without hurting people then don’t create it. Yes everyone calling out LT being an asshat has been right, from day 1.

Sorry, I wasn't defending Linus at all, and I would not behave as he did. I was just saying that him changing his behavior doesn't prove anything about successful management techniques. Of course I'm not pro assholes :)