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

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

#721

Post by reitanqild » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:26 AM UTC

supernovae wrote: post #686

JohnBooty wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly he has done far, far, far more good than bad. I don't think anybody feels otherwise. I would say he's something of a hero to me! He has certainly rallied many to his cause. As much good as he has done, could he do some things better? Linus certainly feels so. Interesting that so many here seem doubt Linus' own assertion.

Have you ever worked with brilliant assholes? It sucks the life out of you - and it really sucks when they get idolized and rewarded heavily. It creates a vicious cycle of absurdity - the one where people appease the anger to try and achieve some good not realizing how much the bad influences the culture of the movement/organization/group. No one is perfect, but the community for far to long treated an imperfect man…

> Have you ever worked with brilliant assholes? It sucks the life out of you - and it really sucks when they get idolized and rewarded heavily.

I have. The problem was not so much the things he wrote in public but what he said (that couldn't be documented) or probably told the bosses (which also could not be documented.)

He was a (mostly) well mannered and soft spoken guy esp. compared to the image of Linus, but he made me quit my then dream job and I'm pretty sure I'd preferred working with Linus.

Also in school I had another one: well behaving, soft spoken (mostly) but who turned out didn't care about others except as a way to get what he wanted.

I'm really happy to not work a place where I get yelled at either but at least Linus seems fair so I think I'd prefer him.

It's also interesting to see him admitting it might be a problem in his own way: wanting to ralk to someone, joking about tooling, asking for ideas.

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

#722

Post by achow » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:29 AM UTC

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…

Let me take a guess being part of this kind of enviornment and also sometime being cause for this (i.e., I was on the on both side of table). Most likely this originates from the belief that things are being done for "greater good", and usually "collateral emotional damage" is rationalized away (consiously or subconciously) as acceptable in the cause for a holy mission.

Anyhow Linus shows great self awareness and I'm walking away thinking that it maybe very painful but I would be a net gainer if I work along with him.

Excerpt from the mail:

I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of person and that probably doesn't come as a big surprise to anybody. Least of all me. The fact that I then misread people and don't realize (for years) how badly I've judged a situation and contributed to an unprofessional environment is not good.

This week people in our community confronted me about my lifetime of not understanding emotions. My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me. I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry.

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

#723

Post by lovich » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:29 AM UTC

nomel wrote: post #650

jjeaff wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone really rallied to the cause by Linus himself? I think the product is the only real draw. With the exception of a select few that simply want to work with someone as high profile and legendary as Linus.

Personally, and maybe I’m in the minority when thinking this, but I can’t stand working with polite people. They not only slow down the progress of a project by often causing unneeded busywork, from simply not halting bad ideas, they often slow my learning progress down by not telling me I’m wrong. If you see something stupid, call it out. If I’m doing something stupid or say something wrong, call me out! There’s obv…

I don't know that I agree with your idea of polite

To me, at least, polite in a code review is, "This commit is bad because of [X]"

Brilliant assholes are the the second best to work with because they give the information polite coworkers do concatenated with ", and that's because you are a completely incompetent engineer and should rethink your career" or something similar.

The kind of polite you are referring to would be one of two people.

Option A:The sociopaths trying to control their image in an organization so they can gain more money/power

Option B:Actually incompetent people trying to protect their job because the brilliant asshole who is the leader would rather fire anyone who annoyed them instead of mentoring them

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

#724

Post by moosingin3space » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:31 AM UTC

rusk wrote: post #720

moosingin3space wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Often he's saying what we're thinking This line of thinking is a fantastic way to create a non-inclusive group.

So what? Isn’t that what kernel development is all about? The careful detailed stuff goes in kernel space so that if you want to make a mess of things in your application you can do so without bringing down the whole system. It’s not like that to hurt your feelings or make you feel “excluded”. It’s for the greater good.

> careful detailed stuff

> if you want to make a mess of things in your application you can do so without bringing down the whole system

You don't need an exclusive community to make that work. We as an industry have tools: fuzzers, testing frameworks, better programming languages and type systems, and proof assistants, all of which will do a better, more consistent job of ensuring quality than project leads being assholes.

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

#725

Post by danso » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:33 AM UTC

supernovae wrote: post #686

JohnBooty wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly he has done far, far, far more good than bad. I don't think anybody feels otherwise. I would say he's something of a hero to me! He has certainly rallied many to his cause. As much good as he has done, could he do some things better? Linus certainly feels so. Interesting that so many here seem doubt Linus' own assertion.

Have you ever worked with brilliant assholes? It sucks the life out of you - and it really sucks when they get idolized and rewarded heavily. It creates a vicious cycle of absurdity - the one where people appease the anger to try and achieve some good not realizing how much the bad influences the culture of the movement/organization/group. No one is perfect, but the community for far to long treated an imperfect man…

> I think it's terrible we accept this idea that it takes an asshole to make a community

Or, even if you want to think that sometimes it requires someone to be an asshole, that's still different than thinking that this should always be the case in that same community.

I didn't use or even know about Linux when Torvalds first created it, so I won't presume to say he was an asshole back then or that he shouldn't have been one. But I'm assuming the set of contributors back then was much smaller than what it is now. And that Torvalds largely appreciates and maybe even depends on this bigger community -- if he's accepting their pull requests.

Why should we believe that him changing his views on personal and management behavior is some kind of surrender on his part, rather than a rational assessment that this will materially benefit the software and its community?

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

#726

Post by DKnoll » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:36 AM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #400

endtime wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wouldn't Steve Jobs be a counterexample to this? And possibly Bill Gates?

No, actually (at least, IMHO). Jobs organization failed more than once due to him? Remember that Apple (etc) have been troubled at many times through their history with him at the helm :) Gates also eventually left in part because he was doing more harm than good (and has tried to turn himself into a more reasonable person it seems). Compare that to the organization that MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole?…

Suggesting the largest philanthropic donor in history (Bill Gates at 27 billion USD) is an asshole ('MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole') seems like an oversimplification.

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

#727

Post by InclinedPlane » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:40 AM UTC

johnny22 wrote: post #680

How many of the folks commenting on this issue have actually contributed substantially to various FOSS projects. I keep believing I might have wrong in thinking that most of the commenters have never done so, but so many folks seem to to tip their hand.

What is this? "Jessup's defense" (from a few good men) or somesuch? What sort of bad behavior is allowed by FOSS project contributions? Can it be used to get out of parking tickets?

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

#728

Post by Annatar » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:43 AM UTC

This is bad. One of the things that kept all these people in check was fear that Linus will yell at them if they're sloppy or lazy and deliver crap quality. If he mellows his tone, the already low architectural and system engineering quality will drop to dismal levels.

His apology has nothing to do with professionalism, which in this case is system and kernel engineering; resist all attempts at behavioral correction any time someone tries to pass it off as unprofessional, because it is that someone trying to subjugate you with their values and morals. And that's just so inherently wrong: nobody should be attempting to subjugate anybody. We must stop such people from trying to pass their judgment on others as "being uncivil" or "unprofessional"; it's not right, and has nothing to do with how well one writes code or designs hardware: the level of quality is the level of professionalism. As the old adage says: "if you can't take the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen!"

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

#729

Post by marmot777 » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:47 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #553

hyperpallium wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who are able to accomplish their goals by rallying others to their cause. Like Linus.

Certainly he has done far, far, far more good than bad. I don't think anybody feels otherwise. I would say he's something of a hero to me! He has certainly rallied many to his cause. As much good as he has done, could he do some things better? Linus certainly feels so. Interesting that so many here seem doubt Linus' own assertion.

Most great people have a flaw that hinders them or even brings them down. That same flaw is also part of the trait that drove them to greatness. Linus's flaw fits that model and he's self aware enough to grok it and try to mitigate the problem. That said, if you removed 100% of the asshole from Linus you'd have removed the drive that made him a hero. I hope he finds the balance. Regardless, he'll always be one of my heroes.

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

#730

Post by marmot777 » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:49 AM UTC

nomel wrote: post #650

jjeaff wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone really rallied to the cause by Linus himself? I think the product is the only real draw. With the exception of a select few that simply want to work with someone as high profile and legendary as Linus.

Personally, and maybe I’m in the minority when thinking this, but I can’t stand working with polite people. They not only slow down the progress of a project by often causing unneeded busywork, from simply not halting bad ideas, they often slow my learning progress down by not telling me I’m wrong. If you see something stupid, call it out. If I’m doing something stupid or say something wrong, call me out! There’s obv…

> I can’t stand working with polite people.

LOL. I think you mean you can't stand working with people who don't get right to the point. I'm guessing anyone reading HK agrees.