Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#111

Post by beatgammit » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 3:21 PM UTC

gnulinux wrote: post #107

stareatgoats wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming by 'communism' you mean Marxist philosophy. The most accurate description would however probably be that morals like this don't exist in a metaphysical sense, but are tied to each stage in social development (hunter/gatherers, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and communism) [0]. Under socialism (the next stage from ours) workers would be rewarded according to contribution (meritocracy) whereas t…

There is no "stages" in Marxism. That's a Stalinist bullshit that doesn't make any sense in the theoretical framework of Marx&Engels. The natural force that makes capitalism possible is commodity production because: as long as there are commodities this implies a division of labor where a labor produces something for the sole reason trade and thus implies social class; and as long as there is commodity production you…

And that's not what the OP said. Marx said there are stages to "society", which are (from the link):

- Primitive communism - tribes sharing everything - slavery - e.g. ancient Egypt - feudalism - kinds, fiefs, serfs - capitalism - current state - socialism - dictatorship of the proletariat - communism - stateless, classless society

Marx combines the last two into one "communist" stage, but distinguishes them as phases.

Traditional Marxism uses words differently than we do today. Yes, it predicts a revolution, though we'd term that a "socialist" revolution, not a communist one, because even Marx believed there needed to be a phase to transition to a stateless, classless society because society is affected by the previous stage.

Now, I completely disagree with Marx's assessment of things, but that's irrelevant.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#112

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

navane wrote: post #98

joshuamorton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was just because the CoC was updated at the same time that Linus left. There would have been CoC controversy if Linus had never left.

You might have hit the nail on the head here. The belgian king once resigned for a single day so the parliament could pass a law on abortion. Could Linus have pulled of a similiar stunt? https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable...

I find it unlikely. It came up on the lkml that Linus requested changes to the CoC, and Greg was just the person who ended up managing the changes.

If you mean that Linus didn't want the flak for the changes, then that seems like weak leadership on his part, and since iiuc Greg is likely to take over kernel management when Linus ever retires, passing the controversial work to his eventual replacement is bad tactics as well, since it'll undermine Greg's authority in some people's eyes if he takes over.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#113

Post by beatgammit » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #53

alerighi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She is not communist, communism is all about meritocracy, I don't read anywhere in the books of Marx all this gender and equality bullshit. Communism says that no matter who you are you are evaluated for the work you do, having policies that explicitally favorites womans is not communism, is discrimination against mens

I'm assuming by 'communism' you mean Marxist philosophy. The most accurate description would however probably be that morals like this don't exist in a metaphysical sense, but are tied to each stage in social development (hunter/gatherers, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and communism) [0]. Under socialism (the next stage from ours) workers would be rewarded according to contribution (meritocracy) whereas t…

I don't think we're "moving toward a communist phase", as that requires a complete change in motivation.

I believe that people are selfish. Helping other people feels good (you're exerting power over someone my helping them), thus the wealthy are content to do so once their quest for riches has been fulfilled. Instead of the public owning the means of production (socialism), I think the wealthy will retain control, but give freely (or insanely cheaply) of the _fruits_ of production. The average person doesn't want control, they just want the fruits, and they're content to let the wealthy play their political games if they get what they want.

Instead of seeing a complete reversal of capitalism into socialism, I think it's _far_ more reasonable to expect something like UBI where everyone receives according to their need, but they still don't have control of the means of production, and society certainly won't be classless (there will always be the wealthy/powerful, but perhaps no "poor", esp with automation taking must labor jobs).

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#114

Post by BurnGpuBurn » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

AnnoyingSwede wrote: post #104

BurnGpuBurn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to see how many nice open source projects have been pressured into adopting this.

Like SQLite? Well played if you ask me.. https://www.sqlite.org/codeofconduct.html

Thanks for pointing me to that, I wasn't aware. Very well played indeed. I think I'll proactively start including this in my own projects.

However what I meant was the projects on this list: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/adopters

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#115

Post by rs23296008n1 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

rs23296008n1 wrote: post #31

pulse7 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can change their habits only to a certain extent...

sudo change behaviour -f linus20.json

Wow. Someone says someone can't change behaviour and I reply with sudo and it gets downvoted?! Wow. Lesson learnt. I need to find a geekier crowd who know what sudo is.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#116

Post by gnulinux » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

beatgammit wrote: post #111

gnulinux wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "stages" in Marxism. That's a Stalinist bullshit that doesn't make any sense in the theoretical framework of Marx&Engels. The natural force that makes capitalism possible is commodity production because: as long as there are commodities this implies a division of labor where a labor produces something for the sole reason trade and thus implies social class; and as long as there is commodity production you…

And that's not what the OP said. Marx said there are stages to "society", which are (from the link): - Primitive communism - tribes sharing everything - slavery - e.g. ancient Egypt - feudalism - kinds, fiefs, serfs - capitalism - current state - socialism - dictatorship of the proletariat - communism - stateless, classless society Marx combines the last two into one "communist" stage, but distinguishes them as phase…

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" is not a phase, the same way the dictatorship of bourgeoisie was/is not a phase. (also sidenote Marx used the word "dictatorship" a vastly different way than we use it today).

> because even Marx believed there needed to be a phase to transition

This is [[citation needed]] (if you're thinking of low phase communism, high phase communism (C. of Gotha Program), this is vastly misunderstood, so I could explain this in details but this is not a good argument is all I can say now). As I said, this doesn't make sense inside the framework of Marxism, since it only makes sense to classify societies based on material grounds, not idealistic grounds. So, the fundamental thesis of Marx is that society exists completely independent of politics, power hierarchies, ideas etc... You can disagree with this, but you cannot argue about Marx with semi-understanding of his thesis. The only time we can talk about a societal stage is when the economic structure changes, and these changes are well-defined, well-understood inside the framework of Marxism. As I keep repeating myself, Marxism claims there are fundamental "forces of nature" that make capitalism possible inside society (just like photons make light possible). While this force of nature is still alive, it doesn't make sense to say this society is not capitalistic. DotP is one possible way socialism can be achieved, it's not a stage as Marx intentionally does not explain the economic structure of such a society (it would be idealistic and inherently anti-Marxist).

In my experience in the internet most people argue about Marxism from his idealist "supporters" like Stalin or Mao, but such ideas rarely have much relation to both tradition Marxism (Marxian) or modern academic Marxism (world systems etc).

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#117

Post by rs23296008n1 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

newnewpdro wrote: post #26

AnnoyingSwede wrote: post #20

Funny that their code of conduct contains all the standard equal rights no matter what XYZ, while this was never Linus problem. He never lashed out on people because of gender, race or sexual preference. It should simply have said "Don't be an elitistic assh*le aginst people just doing their best."

Obviously the COC isn't written just to control Linus' behavior.

No. It's designed to be used to wedge, curtail and essentially interfere with the projects to which it is attached.

It's scope will expand to fill the space available to it. Simple as that. Quotas, funding limitations and project oversight requirements on projects will arrive in increasing numbers as time goes on.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#118

Post by alexeiz » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #19

lolive wrote: post #5

I am now waiting for a post from Linus entitled: "Behaviour therapists are just bullshitters" ;)

Welcome Linus 1.0.1-000 (first minor revision). Linus debugged his own communication routines after users complained.

> Linus debugged his own communication routines after users complained.

And found nothing wrong with them.

Personally, I'm perfectly fine with Linus as he was.

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#119

Post by rs23296008n1 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

mcbits wrote: post #73

roenxi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a long and fun argument with someone the last time the kernel came up on this exact subject. A very interesting observation is that in the extreme "meritocracy" 100% implies that people with merit should be excused for their bad behavior in public spaces based on the value of their technical contributions. Any political system comes with trade-offs. Meritocracies fundamentally excuse bad behavior, democracies f…

> Meritocracies fundamentally excuse bad behavior This may often (?) be true in practice if you remove "fundamentally", but not always and it doesn't have to be. In an environment where people work together to produce an outcome, the ability to interact positively and productively with others is a valuable behavioral merit. It keeps one talented asshole from chasing away all the other talent. You can have a meritocra…

I'd go further than just remove "fundamentally" from that statement. I'd say the entire statement is false.

Getting rid of meritocracy is "Everyone gets an A+". Teams will quickly get in trouble if everyone got A+ for "works well with the team" but some should've gotten a D- or an F.

Meritocracies don't have to excuse bad behaviour if they simply penalise it. Perhaps those stuck in bad situations and complaining about meritocracies are really just suffering from the ill-effects of cronyism, favouritism or some other "ism".

Re: Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

#120

Post by chongli » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

aninhumer wrote: post #94

chongli wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And such dynamics should be acknowledged and opposed wherever they exist. Power itself can't be opposed. By definition, opposition doesn't exist without power. Abuse can be opposed and to some extent mitigated but it's not at all a static game. When you build walls humans go around them, climb over them, dig under them, or break through them. There is no wall that one person can build that another cannot overcome.

I said power dynamics (i.e. power imbalances) should be opposed, not the abstract concept of power itself.

Power itself is an imbalance. It implies the non-universal capability to do something. When we say "the president of the club has x, y, and z powers" we're not talking about the things everyone else in the club is able to do.

So to be opposed to "power dynamics" is to be opposed to non-universal capability, an extremely radical position which I am not sure you hold.

Could you expand on your definition to clarify your position?