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Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

lore.kernel.org

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

#201

Post by zeroname »

ufo wrote: post #68
Sharlin wrote: post #29

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?

I feel like Jobs was successful despite being abusive, not because of it.

Why do you feel that way? Because it seems "right"?

Being ruthless, manipulative and dishonest is highly effective, that's how Con Men get to be so successful. It takes a sociopath to pull it off and it doesn't work out well in the long term, but people only live so long anyway.

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

#202

Post by jacobolus »

iherbig wrote: post #194
briandear wrote: post #159

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

It's a bit difficult to explain, but I'll try. In the current political climate, the left and the right have been divided by the public consciousness into the following dichotomy: The left is overly sensitive and looks for things to be offended by. The right is concerned with maturity and personal responsibility and anti-political correctness, where those things are defined primarily in contrast to the left's perceiv…

> The left is overly sensitive and looks for things to be offended by.

This is total nonsense. In the modern political climate everyone is looking for things to be offended by.

(It just happens that the “left” is offended by people getting beat up, sexually harassed, prevented from exercising their basic rights, etc., whereas the “right” is offended by the phrase “happy holidays”, by trans-gender people using one bathroom or another, by football players kneeling to protest police brutality, and so on.)

Or more to the point, media / social media that fixates on why readers should be offended and aggrieved are much more “viral” than other types of messaging. It’s hard to blame individuals for this, as they have been under intense psychological attack by a combination of deliberate propaganda and accidental harmful features of modern media. I say we need much stronger education in media literacy, and better cultural/structural systems for keeping media accountable for basic honesty.

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

#203

Post by codeulike »

tomohawk wrote: post #34
Leszek wrote: post #4

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.

Many things fail when they get pecked to death by ducks.

Haven't heard that idiom before, but its interesting.

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

#204

Post by DoreenMichele »

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.

If you can’t create something without hurting people then don’t create it.

I wish the world were that simple.

If you accomplish anything, someone is going to be jealous or insulted or angry for some reason or another. And if you do nothing, the world goes to hell in a hand basket because no problems are solved.

I'm glad the guy is taking some time off. I have nothing but respect for his conclusion here and how he is handling it.

But the reality is that if accomplish anything whatsoever in the world, someone will come up with some reason to hate on you for it.

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

#205

Post by NegativeK »

Nasrudith wrote: post #16

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…

I flat out don't understand why people keep suggesting that it's a choice between eggshells or vitriolic insults.

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

#206

Post by zeroname »

chris_wot wrote: post #21

I wish he had recognised this six years ago: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 This email alone set the tone for what was acceptable. It was discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5107495

> This email alone set the tone for what was acceptable.

Did it really? Did other contributors adopt his "style"? Linus gets a pass because he's Linus, I'm not so sure about other contributors, who presumably have their own reputation to maintain.

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

#207

Post by skookumchuck »

cowmoo728 wrote: post #75
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.

One of Linus's more colorful rants: "Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE F CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the f ck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?"

I know a fellow who did that. He had never written a program before, read the manual, and wrote the code. He explained it in terms of the manual never said that system calls were slow.

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

#208

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

tomohawk wrote: post #34
Leszek wrote: post #4

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.

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.

He probably would, because he's a fairly prodigious developer working on hard problems. He was already noteworthy long before the modern era of the Internet, simply for getting early Linux working.

Being a jerk didn't create Linux and git. Hard work did.

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

#209

Post by tomp »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #192
Sharlin wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply not accepting poor patches isn't ruthlessness though. It's just doing your job. Ruthlessness is disregarding negative externalities (in this case, people's feelings) in pursuit of a goal. Abuse is just one tool among others. Almost certainly Linus didn't write his rants in order to gain some sort of sadistic pleasure (certainly to relieve his own frustration, however!) but he truly believed it was for the grea…

Almost certainly Linus didn't write his rants in order to gain some sort of sadistic pleasure I don't find that assertion convincing. I guess what would be called abusive by many was merely a "stern talking-to" to Linus. Which is why he needs therapy. It would be great if we would hold ourselves to higher standard of professionalism and stop apologizing for toxic behavior in software engineering. I've never seen anot…

> It would be great if we would hold ourselves to higher standard of professionalism and stop apologizing for toxic behavior in software engineering.

Or we could take an alternative route, and collectively grow a thicker skin and show a bit more emotional maturity, instead of seeking offence in every situation.

But then that's just my opinion. But that's the point, opinions differ.

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