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Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#101

Post by eropple »

notyourday wrote: post #60
matthewmacleod wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s essentially a cliché false dichotomy. Wouldn’t it be even nicer to work with someone who can express how they feel in a constructive and helpful manner?

Do you ever fire people who are nice and really trying?

The low emotional intelligence on display throughout this thread is both disappointing and unsurprising.

I have fired "nice and really trying" people. Because they were decent people, I have also then recommended them to my personal network for positions that are better suited to their skills (and more than once have they gone on to success at a friend's company), because hiring somebody who can't do the job is management's fault.

I also fire people who are toxic assholes. I do not recommend them to my network because I would not inflict them upon people I like. Even if they're competent.

You can, in fact, do both, and hats off to Linus for at least making a goddamned attempt to not be the latter.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#103

Post by krapp »

tomlock wrote: post #52

Does anyone else find it weird how so many people can think Linus is utterly brilliant and thoughtful, can agree with him on almost everything he's done and said up to this point, but fall back on the belief that he's been conspired against and corrupted when he says things like: > "...I may have my reservations about excessive political correctness, but honestly, I absolutely do not want to be seen as being in the s…

Unfortunately, we've come to the point in online discourse where any form of self-restraint or politeness is seen by some as excessive political correctness, and accepting any form of nuance is giving in to SJW propaganda.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#104

Post by notacoward »

IMO the most interesting part - especially relative to the discussions I've seen right here - is near the end.

"But if people at least realise that I'm not part of the disgusting underbelly of the internet that thinks it's OK to show the kind of behaviour you will find if you really have been reading up on the 'discussions' about the code of conduct, then even that will be a really good thing."

Yes indeed, if you look at many of the anti-CoC comments (e.g. in the "killswitch" thread) you get to see a lot of that underbelly. There are people who will oppose any kind of general rule restraining behavior, because that would prevent them from exercising their own more personal and arguably more subtle kind of coercion against those they don't like for whatever reason. The other alternative is for an even bigger bully to keep them in line, but I shouldn't need to explain how "might makes right" is even more problematic. Linus is deliberately stepping away from that bigger-bully role to give the alternative a try, but in the above excerpt he makes it pretty clear that he thinks there's a problem to be addressed. The creeps should consider themselves on notice, whether there's a CoC or not.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#105

Post by Nasrudith »

ritchiea wrote: post #50

The idea of faking it until you make it is exactly what Linus needs. Most of the point of communication is for the other person, especially giving feedback on patches. We all need to vent but we shouldn't vent at the people below us in an organization. Venting is for a counselor, and maybe a close peer? And it's ok if he's frustrated with people, he just shouldn't take it out on them. Maybe he could find someone to g…

Personally I consider fake it until you make it an incredibly dangerous ideal. That is how you get the Great Leap Forward, Banzai Charges, and Theranos. It leads to far too many delusions that become the seeds of downfall.

Better to say in the case of Theranos state that the initial idea is proving non-viable but we have assembled a good talent base in biotech. We technically could liquidate the existing investment but that wouldn't work well for recovering the assets. We can pivot to find tests that do work on fingertip blood other than existing glucose or other areas of research instead would have kept Holmes out of prison and potentially gotten a success out of it. Failure happens and an honest postmortem with a way forward is better than going ponzi.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#106

Post by DC-3 »

zellyn wrote: post #37
DC-3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wrote a very brief email. https://i.redd.it/1lbta0g910n11.png

That email is just so Stallman. You have to enjoy his single-mindedness.

The world could descend into apocalypse and he'd still be typing curt dispatches about terminology from his libreboot thinkpad.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#107

Post by catfish123 »

stemc43 wrote: post #43
matthewmacleod wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s essentially a cliché false dichotomy. Wouldn’t it be even nicer to work with someone who can express how they feel in a constructive and helpful manner?

While everyone was spending their time learning how to be nice - this guy actually sat down and built something useful.

Does it take hours to learn not to write "$people should be retroactively aborted"? Weeks?

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#108

Post by eropple »

simias wrote: post #55
rooam-dev wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes "constructive" requires more effort, which for an engineer could mean "overhead". Especially if communication is text based (email, chat, etc.), it's more difficult to express your emotions. My imho of course.

As far as I can tell Linus's feedback is almost always constructive in that it generally points out precisely why he thinks something should or shouldn't that way. The problem is that he sometimes splices personal attacks and uses an overly aggressive tone which doesn't really help anything. I can somewhat justify using a very corrosive tone if you're not in a place of power and you want to be sure that you're not ig…

You are highlighting the false dichotomy that a lot of folks in this thread--and, if I'm being frank, not for good, decent, or ethical reasons--are piling in on.

You can do something that makes people upset without being an asshole.

It's really that simple.

"No, I won't merge this pull request because of X, Y, and Z." Somebody's probably not going to be happy. But you have not needed to stoop to insulting them. You have not been an asshole. You have done your job, you have kept whatever level of high technical quality you care about. But you have not been an asshole.

It is not hard to do both, and if you are but-forring Linus's decision to maybe be less of an asshole it's probably look-in-the-mirror time.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#109

Post by alfredmuffin »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #71
alfredmuffin wrote: post #49

I question the professional experience of those suggesting that continuing to be an asshole is the preferable situation here ("but at least he's HONEST "). That would simply not fly at my company. It is absolutely possible to be kind when giving honest and constructive feedback and criticism. Empathy is a skill this industry needs to develop.

Are there more Europeans here in HN? Because this hard push for empathy and stuff it just feels... weird to me. Empathy as the ability to see through your own biases and understand others POV is good in every setting. Empathy as a way to not communicate directly is just a waste of time. Most malicious people I've encountered in my career are the types that comes with smiles, corporate language and all that stuff.

> Empathy as a way to not communicate directly is just a waste of time

It is this attitude that drives people, and especially women and minorities, away from tech.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite'

#110

Post by the_spacebyte »

rectang wrote: post #4

It's interesting that Torvalds describes himself as "not a people person", when he's a gifted communicator who has been tremendously successful at managing the community around Linux over many years. His current refinements are making a great thing even better.

I think he means it as in "I'm not one to cater to people's feelings"
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