Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

> 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 accomplish a goal, or myriad other areas of policy like those, go right ahead.

You list a bunch of self-approved topics that you believe are okay to talk about. How about arguing for stricter immigration laws, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, skepticism on transgender orthodoxy, skepticism about the existence of a female wage gap, anti affirmative action, anti gun control, climate change skepticism etc. Are those not okay?

These are common political opinions that are routinely twisted into "questioning other's right to exist", or denial of basic human rights/decency, or sexist/racist, while they are usually no such thing. Even partial disagreement and skepticism is often elevated to that level. This is the real abuse and weaponization here. I think you'd need to look long and hard to find anyone in open source projects seriously advocating for some group to be wiped off the face of the earth.

Yet these topics are likely to make some uncomfortable, or depending on the person, even unwelcome. So are they verboten? Remember this CoC explicitly states it applies both inside and outside project spaces. Ask Brendan Eich how that turned out.

The problem, put simply, is that very often people will take someone's political opinion, even nuanced disagreement, as a personal attack, regardless of the actual interpersonal relationship. This is why either "political opinion" needs to be protected, or the whole thing scrapped. IMO preferably the latter, then we can once again realize that everybody has opinions that others might consider outrageously wrong and stupid, but can still work together/be friends as long as people are not actively dicks to each other.

I could certainly have phrased my comment more clearly.

My point was not necessarily that that was what they were saying, but rather, that that is a likely outcome of that approach.

I've added an edit to my original comment clarifying this.

It depends on how you define arsehole I guess. When it comes to how well an organisation works I've found there are only two things that matter. The first is how good the people there are at their jobs. (If most people are competent, there has been some pretty ruthless pruning going on which is not pleasant when it happens.)

The second is what people are working for - which is to say themselves or the firm. My definition of an "arsehole" is someone who fights to get themselves up the corporate ladder, treating the exercise as a zero sum game. So if they see someone above them occupying a desirable spot, they will back stab, white ant them in an effort to dislodge them from the spot so they can take it.

All this has very little to do with their demeanour. Some people are good at communicating. Some are bloody hopeless. It's nice to deal with people that area really good at handling others of course, but you can't be an expert at everything and if someone is really good at a particular thing it's often because they have a passion for it, focusing a great deal of their time on it. If that area happens to be technical that means they have spent effort on it rather than most other on learning how to interact with others.

Sadly, people who devote most of their efforts at shaking the corporate tree do others fall off it are usually very good at interacting with others. Being effective at manipulating others sort of requires it. The worse of them, psychopaths, are well known for their superficial charm.

Time cures most things and in the end smart people learn the easiest path through life despite their obsession with other things. When it comes to interacting with others, that means learning to use words that engender cooperation rather than conflict. It appears Linus has reached this point. That he did is testament to just how good he is. Most of us can learn these things by watching our superiors over time. (If these people are good at their job, they will both be very good a getting people to work together and instilling it others.) Linus didn't have a corporate ethos he could learn from. He's had to invent it himself.

So we end up at the curious juncture were some introvert who spends all their time playing with things rather than people is likely to be a good asset to the organisation and if given time (decades) will learn how to interact well with others to. A psychopath on the other hand who is focused on human interactions and is really good at it, but if the firm is to survive should be excised at the earliest opportunity.

> We’ve all been there, looking at some effedup code and cursing the goon who dared check it in.

Until you realize it was you who checked it in. If you write enough code, you will eventually not write the best code for some situation. It could be because you were tired or you simply didn't understand that part of the code well enough. Instead of attacking someone with insults, it's better to understand why the code got written and work to not have similar mistakes made in the future. Remember, everyone here is on the same team trying to make the best piece of software possible. Berating teammates (which is really what is happening here) does not make them better teammates or make the team as a whole better.

Yeah, just like regular employees are better qualified to run a company than the CEO.

No one is more qualified than Linus to run this project and he's done a damn good job so far. Has he made mistakes? Sure. He's human.