All I can think of is when Linus said told Nvidia "F... you!" and flipped the bird.
This isn't just an isolated incident either, but I'm no shining example of acting professionally.
Linus on "acting professionally"
21–30 of 505 posts
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#22Linus is dead wrong here. When he says acting professionally means "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords", he's attacking a straw man: none of that behaviour is professional, and to say that professional behaviour must degenerate to that behaviour is a stretch at best. Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a…
You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality.
The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism".
People are emotional, reactionary creatures with very different needs.
These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it. As was shown on a recent post - Linus reverted to swearing in his native tongue because English wasn't sufficiently rude enough for him, and those who let the fuckup slip through all admitted their fault and identified that they would take steps to ensure it didn't happen again.
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#23>> Because I can pretty much guarantee that I'll continue cursing. To me, the discussion would be about how to work together despite these kinds of cultural differences
So if I get this right, we just need a Linus communication adapter that can translate messages so they are compatible with either side.
Does that mean when someone talks to Linus it should add swear words to be compatible with him? :)
I see his point, but it comes at a cost. People may start trying to work around him for fear of backlash rather than working with him. Or worse, just not try at all. We can only trust his technique has a greater net benefit.
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#24I like Linus - he has character, style and he fights to stay himself no matter how often people want him to change. Some quotes I liked: So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other. I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiv…
I also work in a big office environment in a large company and I tend to agree with Linus. We get all this professional outsorcing and offshoring and use tech that was new in the flower power generation. It's all done very professionally and it results in mind-bogging stupidity. Every single day.
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#25Ugh, mailing lists. I wonder why so smart people as Linus doesn't invent something thats slightly more comfortable to use. Maybe they just like to be left alone, without interference from mortals.
What's uncomfortable about email?
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#26Linus is dead wrong here. When he says acting professionally means "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords", he's attacking a straw man: none of that behaviour is professional, and to say that professional behaviour must degenerate to that behaviour is a stretch at best. Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a…
You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality. The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism". People are emotional, reactionary creatures with very different needs. These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it. As was shown on a recent post…
Just a note. Once I worked at a tele provider and I accidentally messed up some contract and we lost $6000 - that was in a very professional working environment. I was called into the office of the manager and was told (not in a specifically pleasant way) how stupid my actions were. This taught me an important lesson about caring for details.
In open source, the office is the mailing list. Life is tough. Say sorry and make sure it doesn't happen again. Move on - and outside the US, I think swearing is pretty common if you do something stupid - working environment or not. I don't think this means that we all have to adhere to US standards.
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, some answers are harsh, some are nicer, but as long as they get the job done, I don’t see a reason why one would want to complain about a ‘harsh’ answer – the world is not wrapped in friendly gift wrap and if you do something stupid, people are absolutely allowed to call you out on it without the unnecessary boilerplate in particular Angloamericans are so fond of using. Short is good, harsh is not a problem, if…
> if you do something stupid, people are absolutely allowed to call you out on it The problem with cultural differences is that the effect of this might be not the intended one: the person you shouted at will consider you rude and as someone to avoid instead of reflecting on their actions and trying harder the next time. So it's not really smart to act like this, even if you feel it's "natural". You need to be someon…
> The problem with cultural differences is that the effect of this might be not the intended one
‘Be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send’ has two clauses for a reason, namely that trying to gauge the effect of what one says on every possible group will fail. Sure, someone you tell ‘no, this is utter crap, go back and fix it’ might find that rude and will never talk to you again, but on the other hand, someone might understand ‘this could be improved here and there and maybe you could change that’ as ‘oh, that’s fine apart from some trivialities’.
> You need to be someone important to be able to afford it and Linus (still) is.
I wouldn’t say you need to be someone important, you just have to be in a position where you don’t have to care about possibly maybe hurting the delicate feelings of the other person.
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#28>> Because I can pretty much guarantee that I'll continue cursing. To me, the discussion would be about how to work together despite these kinds of cultural differences So if I get this right, we just need a Linus communication adapter that can translate messages so they are compatible with either side. Does that mean when someone talks to Linus it should add swear words to be compatible with him? :) I see his point,…
Reminds me of the discussion of the difference between Ask and Guess cultures (http://lesswrong.com/lw/375/ask_and_guess/).
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree mostly, but I'm still wondering what kind of natural urges he is suppressing that he has to curse like that.
Huh? The whole point is that he is not suppressing the urges. When he feels frustrated, he might add a "fuck" or "shit" to convey that feeling. You, on the other hand, did not agree to something, felt mad or frustrated, and instead of conveying that frustration you snidely suggested that that he must be suppressing some "natural urges". Violent? Homosexual? From whose subconscious did those arise from? Not Linuses? (…
> The whole point is that he is not suppressing the urges.
Freud would disagree and so do I.
> you snidely suggested that that he must be suppressing some "natural urges"
Same thing Linus did in the last paragraph. :-/
> your reply to be a perfect example of what Linus is trying to avoid ("fake politeness[...]"
That makes no sense. I am just trying to analyze and understand his behavior. There's no emotion involved at all.
Re: Linus on "acting professionally"
#30In a long term relationship, I don't like subtlety and politeness. It just leads to emotional amplification on the receiver side - the receiver just learns to "turn up the volume" on anything said to try find the true signal. (Was that praise just a bit faint this time, hiding some kind of displeasure with my work? What was that slight smile about?)
Some of the most offensive put-downs come as faint praise from people who are just so convinced that they're always reasonable to the nth degree. I'd rather someone come out flailing so I can defend myself and my work, with both of us being wrong (and open about it) from time to time so it's not something unusual or noteworthy.