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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

#251

Post by _arvin »

tomp wrote: post #238
matwood wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I appreciate the blunt honesty. There is a difference between blunt honesty and being rude. Honesty is pointing out that you're not pulling your weight, or how you did something was incorrect and not up to the teams standards. Rude is calling you names or otherwise insulting you. The insults also often lack any reference to the issue. Telling someone they are an idiot does nothing for that person or the team.

What are some examples of him insulting people (as opposed to their work/code)?

We’ll be here all day. He would associate the code to the person, which goes against the “I am not my code.” that many adhere to. Linus is stepping up and finally owning up to his behavior. We owe him a lot so we gave him a pass before. Now we won’t hopefully need to anymore.

To be fair, he has incredible judgment and we defer to him when it comes to being the road block to merging bad code.

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

#252

Post by alkonaut »

sz4kerto wrote: post #237
alkonaut wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was merely trying to make the point that if one measures the success of a manager by only what is produced and not by how people are managed then one made the same mistake Linus did.

This is quite complicated. Primarily, the measurable bit of a manager's performance is what's produced. If you start measuring people's emotions then that's going to be very hard to quantify. Let's say that your company is trying to revolutionarize transportation by breaking the monopoly of ICE engines and replacing them with electric motors. What's the compromise you can allow yourself if there's a conflict between…

> If hundreds of people get totally burned out working for you but you help millions of children growing up with less pollution, then is that acceptable?

It may be an acceptable tradeoff, but I wouldn’t say it makes someone a ”good manager”.

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

#253

Post by Ygg2 »

parabx wrote: post #244
sz4kerto wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have relevant examples (or even better, some statistics)? How do you measure this and how do you know if they were assholes or not? I guess you don't have a record of SLT meetings of large companies (as you have access to the emails between Linus and the maintainers). Leaders of large companies are _usually_ more aggressive, selfish and less agreeable than average people. This is a well-researched topic (and a…

I'ts not an company per se, but the rust community is fairly big and full of awesome, well mannered and cheerful leaders.

Wat. I been there and it's a fairly small community.

They do have awesome and well mannered leaders but most are connected to Mozilla.

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

#254

Post by DoreenMichele »

tomp wrote: post #238
matwood wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I appreciate the blunt honesty. There is a difference between blunt honesty and being rude. Honesty is pointing out that you're not pulling your weight, or how you did something was incorrect and not up to the teams standards. Rude is calling you names or otherwise insulting you. The insults also often lack any reference to the issue. Telling someone they are an idiot does nothing for that person or the team.

What are some examples of him insulting people (as opposed to their work/code)?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18001144

He doesn't seem to hesitate to get extremely personal.

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

#255

Post by chickenfries »

wyclif wrote: post #57
chickenfries wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men deserve to be treated with respect too. I'm a man, and I would absolutely quit any job where someone talked to me the way LBT did in his emails. I'm sure someone reading this thinks that makes me a snowflake.

Hey, I agree totally. I wasn't suggesting that respect and empathy are only for women, they're for everybody.

Sorry, I guess I read your comment uncharitably at first, but I do know there are people who do think that the workplace where we are free to behave in an agressive, insulting ways is the ideal workplace, in 2018.

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

#256

Post by Ws32ok »

DC-3 wrote: post #187
meowface wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just one example from that manifesto: “We have an ethical responsibility to refuse to work on software that will negatively impact the well-being of other people.”

This a terrible slippery slope. It eliminates any military, security or even anything useful.

A thief’s well-being is meant to be negatively impacted by a security measure. A guidance system in a missile is intended to negatively impact the well-being of the enemy.

I feel negatively impacted by this manifesto. So by definition every signatory is in violation of that manifesto.

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

#257

Post by jakeinspace »

Linus is stubborn, persistent, and unyielding to what he sees as bullshit. These I believe are all very valuable qualities for the head of a massive software project, and may be part of the reason as to why Linux is where it is today.

However, Linus is also a bit of an asshole, turning technical criticism into personal seemingly personal attacks. I believe those 2 sets of qualities are separable, but I would guess it's uncommon to find many people who are capable of being as tough as Linus without in some way alienating those around them, it's a fine line at times.

Anecdotally, one of the most effective engineers I worked with, who asked penetrating questions during code and design reviews, did come off as a bit of an asshole at times. Whether by genetics or through childhood, I'd bet people tend to cluster onto the line separating "agreeable and lax" and "rude but firm" (as a sweeping generality). We often label people who are all smiles while simultaneously extremely strict as passive agressive. Add to that the fact that many technical people are less socially adjusted than average and I can see why we have so many examples of mean but effective project leads.

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

#258

Post by DonbunEf7 »

May I say that the whole message seems forced?

A sort of "shape up or ship out" from the Linux Foundation management.

Especially with the concurrent switch to the new, more community acceptable code of conduct.

Will Linux have a new maintainer in a few weeks?

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

#260

Post by hoosieree »

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?"

This is somewhat ironic considering Linux is written in C, which is the most stubbornly "one thing at a time" language in widespread use today.
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