Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off • Hacker News Board

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

#571

Post by hatchback176 » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

kadendogthing wrote: post #454

Ws32ok wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> It eliminates any military, security or even anything useful. Haha, I love the implicit signaling you're doing. I mean not only is it just not true but your qualifications for "useful" and "not useful" are really stupid.

Are guidance systems on missiles OK or not?

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

#572

Post by da_chicken » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

hatmatrix wrote: post #522

noobermin wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it has to be 1D. What I think reality is can be plotted in 2D: abrasive | | effective------+-------ineffective | | kind You're claiming is (and the common trope is) the actual distribution is in fact a straight line with a -1 slope (y=-x). I think there's a general possibility that the distribution is focused around the y=-x here, but there are outliers (imagine the line blurred out) with some wings esc…

If you populate these quadrants most points might lie in QII and QIV (along the -1 diagonal) with few in QI and QIII (though maybe we all know many QI's in our lives...).

I think that's obersavtion bias. We tend to remember people who are either abrasive or ineffective. The former because their behavior stands out and the latter because they tend to get in our way. People who are effective and kind tend to be forgettable because we get exactly what we want without any conflict. It just magically appears to work.

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

#573

Post by hueving » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:14 AM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #356

microcolonel wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> if his interlocutors "win" too much on their side of the "win/win", every user loses. You seem to be trying to find a way to turn this back into "win/lose". Try another interpretation. For instance, a patch might call attention to a problem, but it takes the wrong approach to solve it. Could we find a better solution to the problem? Nobody is suggesting giving bad code or bad ideas a pass. Are you under the impress…

A large chunk of frequent contributors are paid by companies to heave features/drivers at the kernel with no regard to doing it the right way. To them it's about landing code ASAP.

Linus is already working in the win/win quadrant by default by merging these things all in the name of making the kernel better.

Occasionally a frequent contributor who has gained trust will start to merge trash in the name of meeting deadlines. This is usually when linus loses his shit at the people responsible.

This has nothing to do with a silly quadrant of being competitive/neutral/anything towards the collaboration itself. Linus is still looking for a win/win, but he's requiring people to fix their shit.

That quadrant is irrelevant about Linus's behavior because he's always collaborating. What you need is a quadrant describing how feedback is delivered to subordinates.

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

#574

Post by hyperpallium » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

> get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately

> like the time ... I needed to write a little tool called "git". I need ... to fix some issues in my tooling and workflow.

Hopefully we'll get another world-wide revolution out of this.

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

#575

Post by hueving » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #402

Alex3917 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it will, but if people are claiming it will get better then that should be treated as a falsifiable belief rather than as a truthclaim.

Sure, but every study i've ever read currently backs it. If you are aware of any that say "very smart assholes make organizations better in the long run" or even "very smart assholes don't meaningfully hurt them in the long run", i'd actually love to see it! (I hold the position i do precisely because it's backed by research, not just my own random thoughts and experiences)

What research? This seems pretty much impossible to scientifically measure since there are no two organizations that are the same, let alone two organizations that have leaders identical in everything but their attitude.

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

#576

Post by hawkice » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #442

DannyBee wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but every study i've ever read currently backs it. If you are aware of any that say "very smart assholes make organizations better in the long run" or even "very smart assholes don't meaningfully hurt them in the long run", i'd actually love to see it! (I hold the position i do precisely because it's backed by research, not just my own random thoughts and experiences)

Organizations are different than products though. The organization could easily function better, but the product could be worse. As someone once said, "If the person who made your computer wasn't an asshole, it probably wouldn't even turn on."

This takes on a particularly hilarious tone now that lots of people assemble their own computers.

Obviously, that quote is utter hogwash, but it might be worth saying explicitly, at least for HN culture: cooperation is essential, and would you cooperate with an asshole?

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

#577

Post by hueving » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #288

serf wrote: post #142

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…

"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…

>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.

That's why Linux usage and contributions have collapsed over the last 30 years.

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

#578

Post by danso » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #565

danso wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the one example you can think of is apparently one in which that there was a failed attempt to lynch someone, then maybe it's possible it is an outlier (ignoring for now the debate on how much the CoC itself led to the Node.js conflict).

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

#579

Post by wpietri » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

blihp wrote: post #395

tptacek wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not just stubborn, persistent, and unyielding: he's performatively so. In his most notorious attacks, he's clearly playing to an audience. That could be the problem. He clearly can separate the blunt stubbornness ("we do not break userland, period") from the performative rudeness ("SHUT THE FUCK UP MAURO"). (I mean, to be clear: what the fuck do I know? I've never been in the position Linus is in.)

I've always assumed that when he really goes after someone it was him blowing off steam to maintain his own mental health rather than trying to put on a show. He's been managing a pile of complexity for over two decades that would have crushed most of us long ago. If it has been even moderately for show then sure, he should work on dialing it back (just a bit... i.e. short of getting personal).

There are a lot of ways to blow off steam. If the way one picks is performative public abuse, then it's not just about relaxation. One can maintain one's own mental health without damaging that of others.

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

#580

Post by CookieMon » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 2:26 AM UTC

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…

> Who has been lynched because of a Contributor Covenant, or other similar open-source code of conduct?

The scope of the Contributor Covenant was widened in an attempt to l̶y̶n̶c̶h̶ harass and ban Elia Schito for an opinion he had expressed on his personal twitter[1].

Because Elia's twitter conversation wasn't connected with the project (beyond the project being listed in his bio), a new clause needed to be added to the Contributor Covenant in order to get him. To get it in, the new clause was presented to the Opal project as a pull request labelled "Update Contributor Covenant to include ethnicity"[2].

The Opal project noticed the extra change and guessed its real intent (that intent - needing it to go after Elia - was confirmed later by people arguing for the change[3]), so Opal edited that clause before accepting the change, but everybody else using a Contributor Covenant now has it, including Linux. (The Linux one has customized enforcement/judgement guidelines, so in its case the presence of the "Elia clause" might be less easily weaponizable by the twitter mobs it was written for)

The attack on Elia was instigated by the creator of the Contributor Covenant[4], who was unrelated to the Opal project but tagged in via twitter - it turned out this kind of drama was the Covenant's purpose.

After watching that I no longer see codes of conduct as community measures written in good faith. It hasn't just been the Contributor Covenant one that's bad faith either, however, projects that adopt them are changing and rewording them in good faith, so they can get better - it's just not the CoC intent.

Opal eventually got rid of their Contributor Covenant.

Links because of how unbelievable this stuff is:

[1] https://twitter.com/elia/status/611319469982527488 [2] https://github.com/opal/opal/pull/948/commits/817321e27eccff... [3] https://github.com/opal/opal/pull/948#issuecomment-113486020 [4] https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941