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Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

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

#561

Post by menacingly »

I'm generally a supporter, but this is a good step. I can speak from rough personal experience that this type of realization is brutal, and leads to hard work that "attaboys" don't reach because it just leads to you behaving like you should have been doing in the first place, and you know that.

It doesn't have to be either/or, you can be assertive without operating from fear and insecurity (which is usually the place venom like his classics comes from).

You can actually be _more_ assertive when it's not burdened with also protecting your ego.

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

#562

Post by BryantD »

azernik wrote: post #286
jakeinspace wrote: post #257

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…

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…

Much modern management theory recommends against the praise-criticize-praise format, FWIW -- I noticed this while I was taking a required management course at the Mouse. Everyone knows what it is, so you wind up dissipating the value of the praise because it feels like something that you're just saying for the sake of the formula.

This comment is fairly irrelevant to the topic at hand.

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

#563

Post by grzm »

coffeemug wrote: post #554
mattdeboard wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, can I just ask, what do you think people are lying about when they’re being diplomatic about criticism? You said being diplomatic is a “tiny form of a white lie”, so I’m wondering who you think is being deceived, and what you think they are they being deceived about.

When you think a specific thought, feel a specific feeling, but express it in a way that really doesn't feel true to you deep in your core, you're deceiving the other person about who you are. That's how many relationships fall apart. You tell each other tiny white lies, and five years later you've discovered the lies have compounded and the relationship is too poisoned to recover. The same thing happens to cultures…

If the way you truly feel at your core is expressed in a way that has unintended consequences, this "being true to yourself" can get in the way of you being an effective leader, five (or thirty) years later.

There are two pieces here: one is the message you intend to convey, and the other is the manner in which you convey it. The two are not the same. The idea that as long as you speak the truth it doesn't matter how you say it ignores that how (and whether) people will accept what you say depends on the vessel in which the message is carried. The idea that others should just take it because it's the truth is at its heart just naive and inhuman (not to mention inhumane), and ineffective. If being true to your inner self is getting in the way of you being effective, it's ultimately counter-productive to your own ends: it's not actually being true to your self.

Yes, lying (including white lies), is detrimental. So is bottling things up. I completely agree. However, this is not zero-sum, either/or. You can both express how you really feel and convey it in a way that others will receive your message in the manner in it's intended.

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

#564

Post by ilovewhiskey »

sincerely wrote: post #468
komali2 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish people would grow thicker skins and get more emotionally mature, and be able to tolerate harsh words without taking them personally This is the "rock polisher" thesis of life, which I've also called the "bully thesis." I grew up swapping between different parts of America that approached "how to generate a functional adult" differentally. Some places, it was "love and care for your fellow man. Work together…

>In your example - what's the point of thicker skin if people simply don't say mean things to each other? You can never control other people's behavior, only your own. Learning to deal with mean comments is a valuable skill.

> You can never control other people's behavior

This is another way to say

> we believe the world is harsh and unforgiving

You seem to have internalized this perspective completely.

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

#565

Post by busterarm »

danso wrote: post #502
aaron695 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Contributor Covenant The Contributor Covenant is horrific and harks back to the days of the Catholic Church(Or insert religion here) and morality and it's enforcement. It's a power trip that will end badly. Morality should come from within, a learned and practiced behaviour, personally and within communities, not prescribed. Manifesto's are purely implemented to bully people, they allow for the lynching and harm to…

Who has been lynched because of a Contributor Covenant, or other similar open-source code of conduct? edit: You assert that "morality should come from within", though I'm assuming you're OK with projects and teams not reinventing things like PEP8 or language/framework best practices. But then you complain about manifestos "mutating". Isn't mutation a consequence -- many would describe it a desired feature, i.e. itera…

Rod Vagg, at least they tried.

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

#566

Post by komali2 »

sincerely wrote: post #468
komali2 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish people would grow thicker skins and get more emotionally mature, and be able to tolerate harsh words without taking them personally This is the "rock polisher" thesis of life, which I've also called the "bully thesis." I grew up swapping between different parts of America that approached "how to generate a functional adult" differentally. Some places, it was "love and care for your fellow man. Work together…

>In your example - what's the point of thicker skin if people simply don't say mean things to each other? You can never control other people's behavior, only your own. Learning to deal with mean comments is a valuable skill.

My solution to dealing with people of the "rock polisher" mindset is that I politely refuse to participate in any sort of society with them, professional or private. Would this be a valid method for dealing with these sorts of people?

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

#567

Post by danso »

jakeinspace wrote: post #257

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…

> 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.

But why should we assume or believe that the status quo we currently observe is the natural order? Or that it is the optimal one going forward? Many people who are now project leads started in a time when both computing and computers were far less ubiquitous in the world. As the world that software interacts with continues to grow and change (or, to use the cliche, as "software eats the world"), we should expect that how software is made, and who makes it, will change too.

To think of it another way, it's well-known that decades ago, women dominated the nascent computer programming field -- e.g. the first of ENIAC's primary programmers were all women [0], and "software engineering" as a concept was coined by NASA lead engineer Margaret Hamilton. Those who want to believe that systemic and societal bias weren't significant in pushing women out of the field as it became more lucrative, have suggested that women left because programming became much more than...well, whatever it apparently was when it was entrusted to women.

So it shouldn't be beyond belief that contemporary programming and software development may be even better served by engineers and developers who put an emphasis on empathy and inclusiveness.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC#Programmers

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

#568

Post by PinkMilkshake »

idontpost wrote: post #509
hnzix wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was forced to take a unit of postmodernism as part of my studies and came away no wiser as to what postmodernism actually is. There was a bunch of dense, impenetrable academic word games that seemed to be asserting that all truth is culturally relative. I don't find gravity or physics to be culturally relative.

Modernism is Descartes` "I will find a single indisputable axiom and can prove everything knowable from there." His axiom? "Cogito ergo sum." Postmodernism is rooted in the notion that there is no indisputable base axiom from which we can build our understanding of the world. It's unprovable assumptions all the way down. The consequences for this, if you accept it (you don't have to, but you're going to have a hell o…

I think you are giving postmodernism too much credit. It's whole premise is a non problem. Looking back on it's history, it's a politically and religiously motivated ideology to push anti-enlightenment values that coated itself in esoteric language to avoid scrutiny. It's not a well thought out philosophy, because they reject the very thing that would allow that to happen, reason.

Empiricism solved this issue. You will very quickly learn if your assumptions are wrong by testing them in reality. This is what is meant by "feels over reals" and the opposite. Your assumptions, beliefs, or axioms - no matter how fondly held - will be crushed under the infinite weight of reality.

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

#569

Post by wyclif »

tomohawk wrote: post #158
dralley wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is understating it bit. He did mostly focus on technical aspects, but he did also occasionally say things like "whoever wrote this should be retroactively aborted", which is going waaaaaay too far and is going to make someone feel bad, period.

So, what would you do? Would you rather have Linux, or would you rather that noone ever get their feelings hurt by harsh comments? Perhaps he should have been given the boot years ago for saying such things, but would we have Linux today? I really don't think that that is a false choice. You and I did not create Linux - Linus did. You and I did not keep it going despite the massive flock of ducks constantly pecking.…

Would you rather have Linux, or would you rather that noone ever get their feelings hurt by harsh comments?

Sounds like a false dilemma or externalized either/or to me. It's not as if Linux could not have existed had Linus learned 20 years ago to dial down his abrasiveness.

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

#570

Post by ivraatiems »

tomp wrote: post #266
ivraatiems wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, that's a good point. I'm not sure I agree, but something to think about. I think it might be more accurate to say the negative descriptions accurately describe the bad-faith actors, and the positive ones describe the good-faith actors.

Unfortunately the "bad-faith actors" have all the media attention, and at least on the left, also a lot political power (i.e. they can get people fired/banned from Unis) (at least the media and academia seem completely left-dominated; maybe the opposite when it comes to the current US administration, although I don't see the far-right making any big progress, except maybe "the wall" and "Muslim ban"). Basically this…

I'd say in the US, the right has a lot more power-in-fact than the left, but the left may have more of the popular will. The fact that the two aren't aligned is the result of our relatively shitty system, frankly. (And even so, the right is having such an identity crisis right now, it's hard to say it has total power.)

As far as "no true Scotsman" - we can't prevent people from associating with groups, but we can call them out when their ideals don't match those of the group, and we can hold them to account if they behave in ways that contradict the group's values or are a bad-faith application of those values. I think the left is... okay... at doing that, and the right is often pretty bad, but neither is exactly great. We're also bad at doing it proportionally, and at seeing people as sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes agreeing with us, sometimes not. But that's another problem.

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