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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

#671

Post by djsumdog »

hyperpallium wrote: post #574

> 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.

I dunno. I think git's success is less around Torvald's developing it and more about companies like Github finding ways to capitalize on it.

They kinda made a Freshmeat/freecode that included the code repository, without being as shitty as Source Forge.

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

#672

Post by BeetleB »

lucio wrote: post #384
DoreenMichele wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18001144 He doesn't seem to hesitate to get extremely personal.

The more exaggerated the cursing, the more problematic is the subject according to Linus. Linus' over the top cursing is a means to transmit his evaluation of how problematic some code is. It's never personal. Show me an instance where his cursing is not related to kernel code.

>Show me an instance where his cursing is not related to kernel code.

I think I and many others are reading your statement as:

"Hey, as long as the person wrote horrible code, it's OK to call the coder anything we want".

The whole discussion isn't about how he behaves outside the kernel development. It's about how he behaves within that context.

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

#673

Post by village-idiot »

geezerjay wrote: post #179
trjordan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." - Linus Torvalds A rude leader drives people away from the organization. It is directly counterproductive.

> It is directly counterproductive. Linux is by far the most successful floss project in the history of mankind. God knows there are plenty of floss OS projects out there, most of which have far nicer leaders but a small fraction of the success. Either you're overplaying the effect on productivity or the relevance of being nice.

There's another way to view it: some projects are so important that they can tolerate a large level of rudeness and not fail.

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

#674

Post by jlawson »

TomVDB wrote: post #441
serf wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this thought experiment, which one of us is correct (technically)? If he's correct: I'd be upset at being wrong about something, but hopefully i'd have willpower to sober up to the fact that I may in fact be wrong once in awhile. If I'm correct: I'd be upset because a person I respect is technically wrong about something, and then decided to rant about it. Choice C: What if the question is non-technical? Answer :…

There are plenty of people who can deal with a rational explanation about why they are wrong, but who are not able to deal with being bullied. As I wrote in a different comment in this thread: I would never consider contributing to the kernel because of the chance (minute as it may be) of getting the Linus-of-old treatment.

Use of the word "bully" here is concept creep.

Bullying is a sustained pattern of targeted verbal or physical aggression.

A person insulting your work is not "bullying" unless they're doing it in a targeted, continuous way in order to get at you personally. It's just "insulting".

More on why you should not be using concept creep: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/concept...

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

#675

Post by johnny22 »

ponyfleisch wrote: post #593
JohnBooty wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public embarrassment of lazy and dishonest actors, especially those who are paid to collaborate, is an effective tool for maintaining order and standards on behalf of the quality of the product, and provided nobody gets hurt permanently at the end of the day, it is easily justified. Can you explain why you feel rants and insults are necessary to maintain high technical standards? Literally nobody is asking Linus…

I suppose the theory is that fear of embarrassment makes people put in extra effort before submitting anything. This would reduce the time spent politely rejecting submissions. Intuitively, in my opinion this sounds plausible.

Intuitively? have you ever contributed code to a FOSS project?

My experience is that I try to write the best code I can to be accepted, because I care about quality.

The embarassment (my feels) is gonna be because my code wasn't up to snuff.

I choose not to contribute to projects in which the feedback might be based on feels (vitriol) rather than reals (the code quality)

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

#676

Post by johnny22 »

pell wrote: post #630
ponyfleisch wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the theory is that fear of embarrassment makes people put in extra effort before submitting anything. This would reduce the time spent politely rejecting submissions. Intuitively, in my opinion this sounds plausible.

I think fear also hinders innovation as it hinders thought and disruption at times. I am sure, to a certain degree, it's good to be fearful and understand the stakes but I doubt this has to be something maintained through verbal attacks, public humiliation and other forms of _abuse_. I like Linus Torvalds. It's hard not to have a soft spot for him when his counterparts always were Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (for the l…

Is that the "At least he's our asshole". That kinda makes sense to me.

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

#677

Post by neonate »

tomcam wrote: post #535
ceautery wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Einstein's letters to Mileva make me feel that maybe empathy wasn't his strong suit, either.

That is correct. He was a colossal asshole to her. He only played an empathetic scientist/statesman on TV.

Those letters long predate TV. People are complicated. Lumping a person together into a scalar judgment is too simple.

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

#678

Post by [deleted] »

sjwright wrote: post #585
jXCw1N0jtH3 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we seriously putting Linus in the same category as Newton

No, because that would be an insult to Linus. Newton had a bunch of clever insights but he was also convinced that the christian bible was an elaborate cryptic code which could be deciphered to predict the future. Total nut job.

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