371–380 of 1001 posts
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
Yeah, reading the comments here, I'm not so hopeful.
This is not about being respectful to others, it's about forcing others to be respectful to you. Unfortunately respect is earned, not given, and anything else extracted under duress just breeds resentment.
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I think there's a delicate way to be both "firm" and "polite" - and that's to not be pretend to be "agreeable", but rather to separate the firmness on technical issues from politeness on personal description. That is, to say "this code is awful" while also a) going out of your way to praise the things co-workers/subordinates do well, and b) when it is appropriate to make general judgments on their performance, make i…
"praise-criticise-praise" We call it the shit sandwich.
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…
Take a look at https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/764325/09702eb949176f55/ for the most recent one of many examples of the kinds of problems that this type of behavior led to in the past. > Popov said that all of that "kills my motivation" to work on Linux.
Take a look at the chart in https://twitter.com/ErynnBrook/status/1038893975279550465 Many people are so afraid of ending up in the bottom right (just giving in) that they head for the top left (zero-sum competition). This underlies some of the things people fear about codes of conduct; they're afraid that they're being pushed into that bottom right corner, rather than striving for better collaboration. Be direct. Be…
The problem here is that the "Collaborating" sector is the wrong goal for the Linux kernel. Linus Torvalds is uniquely qualified to be concerned about matters concerning the kernel; if his interlocutors "win" too much on their side of the "win/win", every user loses. The public embarrassment of lazy and dishonest actors, especially those who are paid to collaborate, is an effective tool for maintaining order and stan…
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> What CoC enforcement eventually becomes is a prohibition on project contributors professing political opinions that the CoC enforcers find reprehensible. To quote a comment I made elsewhere in the thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18001722 ): If you want to argue about the level of taxation, the right size of government, regulations on business, whether public or private is the most efficient way to acc…
See my reply to that other comment. You are essentially acknowledging that you consider certain political opinions (which are, by the way, quite mainstream) to be so reprehensible that you're willing to use 1950s style industry blacklisting to suppress them. This conduct was unacceptable then and it's unacceptable now. Nobody gave CoC enforcers a monopoly on virtue.
> political opinions
Being hateful and hurting others goes beyond "political opinion".
> which are, by the way, quite mainstream
And, after today, just a little bit less.
I hypothesize that this change will make Linux (ie: the quality of the kernel) at least slightly worse in 20 years than it would have been if Linus never changed. Linus has been a great steward of the Kernel. I have never seen any instance where he has trashed on someone for any other reason than Linux . Sometimes he's cringingly brutal, sometimes he offends people. Regardless, he's been immaculately consistent in mo…
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Take a look at https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/764325/09702eb949176f55/ for the most recent one of many examples of the kinds of problems that this type of behavior led to in the past. > Popov said that all of that "kills my motivation" to work on Linux.
Reading this demonstrates perfectly well why "direct" and "brutal" are not at all synonymous. Direct communication wouldn't have required Popov to "extract the technical complaints from them".
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"in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality." One thing that is true in all successful organizations over time is that for any given person, no amount of genius will make up for being an asshole. It may take time, etc, but eventually, it ends up a significant net negative for the organization. The s…
> The sooner folks are forced to deal with it, the better off the organization ends up in the long run. If Linux gets measurably worse after this, then would you support sending Linus to a second therapist to make him more of an asshole again?
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> The sooner folks are forced to deal with it, the better off the organization ends up in the long run. If Linux gets measurably worse after this, then would you support sending Linus to a second therapist to make him more of an asshole again?
Why is your first instinct to think he will get worse?