971–980 of 1001 posts
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It is, it's just a different phrasing. I think you're reading more into "brutal" than blazespin intended. You might be more correct in your interpretation, but I'm pretty sure they just meant "blunt", not "vicious".
Then here's some bluntness: People who don't mean "brutal" shouldn't use the word "brutal".
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I totally agree with this. I actually quit my job at Red Hat because of the culture of non-criticism. I kept getting in trouble for pushing back against stupid decisions, even though I never insulted a single person. For example: When the design team added 10MB of web fonts to the app, I said something like, "Users don't care whether the font is Open Sans or Arial. They care whether things load quickly and don't re-f…
CoreOS was acquired several months ago. You feel you were able to accurately understand the culture of a corporation attempting to bring in CoreOS to the fold that quickly? And you are confused why co-workers would be less than pleased with public condemnation about a corporate project from someone who joined as an acquisition barely any time ago? If you truly can't put yourself in other's shoes and understand why th…
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>Have certainly experienced much more direct communication styles, e.g. in Holland, than are the norm in say UK. I would say UK are quite far on the opposite spectrum. And Cultural differences in coomunication are vastly amplify on the Internet.
My boss says I am very direct though not as a bad thing. After I eviscerated a vendor in a meeting. My partner is Hungarian and she's about as direct about things as me which I find incredibly refreshing. Nothing festers and the air is cleared straight away. Not really sure where the UK falls on the direct/indirect spectrum, I know I am on the more direct side for the UK though.
It used to be "That is not quite what I have in mind" which translate to "What the bloody hell is that".
Maybe this will finally end the myth that "you can be rude and insulting as long as you're right" that people seem to attribute to Linus's outbursts
As my partner once put it, “you can be right or you can have friends.” The truth is you can have both but if you put such a high importance on being right, all the time , then you’ll drive most people away.
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> When you are doing something no one else has done before Leading people? Fair enough, he ceated something remarkable, but at the end of the day people have been leading others for literally millennia. So I'm not willing to cut him slack on that account. (Having said that, I'm deeply impressed by the step he took in that email, and did it publicly)
What he is doing is fundamentally unlike being a CEO of a traditional corporation, being the founder of a standard charity or similar. Because it is an open source project, a great deal of what he says is available for public consumption. When most CEOs have a cow, a few people witness it and then they sanitize the message before releasing a PR statement of what the CEO would like to see happen. When Linus has a cow,…
It wouldn't be in my personality (I think) to lash out at people publicly like that, precisely because it's a public channel. It is in his personality, however, and I think it's fair to observe the negative aspects of this behaviour, and call him out on it.
And I particularly dislike the "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" apologist crowd (which you are not part of, I know). Not sure if I'm blowing this out of proportion, but to my ears it sounds not very different from "if you don't want to be sexually assaulted, you shouldn't have dressed like that".
Having said all that: I'm actually really impressed by Linus' email. Proud of him, even. Like all of us he has his vices, but he has become aware of them and tries to improve. What more can you ask.
To me, this has pretty much taken all of the negativity out of future blowups he might (will, probably) have: because he's now on record for not intending to be this way, I personally could overlook any personal attacks and filter them as unintentional, reacting only to the factual content.
Let me just discuss the argument about being this way in public vs. in private. IMO even traditional CEOs shouldn't be that way, whether it becomes public or not. For one thing because it's "not nice" (which they might not care about), but for another because it might foster a climate that is detrimental to the company.
A good example might be VW, whose exhaust cheating fiasco seems to have come about in part because engineers didn't dare push back against impossible demands from top management.
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> It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people well. Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered "heated", "hateful" and "treating well" or not.
Attacking ideas is fine. Attacking people is not. There are fine gradations that are open for interpretation.
Lots of SJWs attack people.
I would never work for this asshole. I have not granted any one the privilege of being disrespectful to me. No, no one has my permission to be unprofessional and/or disrespectful towards me, no matter the cost. Everything else is fair game. To be clear, I have had a fair amount of criticism on my work by all kinds of people (and most of them I deeply respect and consider my mentors).
You calling Linux here "asshole"... does it tell more about Linus or about you?
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…
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.)
Think back to the arguments between Torvalds and Tannenbaum. Linus earned his place through a combination of technical prowess and forceful personality.
Consider that Linus can now afford to transition to the role of the wise elder. That role traditionally adopts a more considered and politic view when resolving conflict.
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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…
Trying to impose your principles in others breeds resentment and conflict. This is human psychology.