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Linus on "acting professionally"

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Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#181

Post by i_c_b »

I wish more comments engaged his actual argument. Here, there's a lot of "Torvalds is a jerk and unprofessional" versus "Blunt is good, and screw the PC police talk!" That's not his argument.

Torvalds is saying, "Some people think there SHOULD BE a universal 'professionalism' that 'we' can haggle over in the public sphere and then enforce on bystanders in local contexts" and "Other people think there are just local relationships in groups to be negotiated ad hoc in those local contexts." And he works as though the second statement is more credible.

Saying "we" should be "professional" is actually assuming a bunch of very contestable propositions from the first word. There absolutely ends up being a bullying component when you invent a broad "we", declare other people to be members of it, and then try to enforce norms on that imagined "we".

And I say all this with the caveat that Torvalds is probably too blunt for me. But that doesn't make him wrong.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#182

Post by Ygg2 »

vacri wrote: post #134
Ygg2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it would. Aggressive behavior begets more and more aggressive behavior. E.g. if you punch things to make you feel better when you are in a bad mood, you are more likely to punch people/things when you are in a bad mood (in fact it has an addictive quality).

Repression is also bad. Moderation is key.

I never said repression is bad, but this isn't a singular time he was verbally abusive.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#183

Post by scotty79 »

flumbaps wrote: post #143
stephenr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You really shouldn't call people "fucking stupid" for making mistakes in code. They're clearly not stupid, they're writing complex computer code for a big project. Calling them "fucking stupid" is as much a lie as throwing out empty compliments, and just as counter productive. Smart people don't need to be beaten into shape, just like they don't need to be mollycoddled. If you're being abusive in the workplace, it's…

When you do stupid thing do you carefully watch out to exclaim "I did a fucking stupid thing!" instead of "I am so fucking stupid!"?

Calling someone stupid after he did something stupid is different than calling him that as a main point of his semiannual performance review.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#184

Post by prawks »

d4nt wrote: post #167
jdietrich wrote: post #44

You don't get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional. He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years. However he decides to get that done is his business. Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team. Ther…

In the early days, Linux was not the only open source kernal out there. It's possible that Linus's blunt approach is actually a key factor in Linux's success. Society hasn't yet had long to establish a set of norms for working in distributed teams like this (where the members aren't compelled to do as their told by traditional employment contracts). Maybe he's right and removing the offensiveness would just bog Linux…

I suspect you're on to something here. In the absence of formal contracts, leadership needs to be established in other ways. Linus's method may be a bit vulgar, but more importantly he exudes authority.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#185

Post by kapowaz »

jdietrich wrote: post #44

You don't get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional. He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years. However he decides to get that done is his business. Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team. Ther…

> You don't get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional.

Yeah, he's earned a free pass to be a dick. That's how it works, right?

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#186

Post by scotty79 »

scotty79 wrote: post #168
jonahx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a false dichotomy. it's possible to be succint, harsh, and directly to the point without swearing or being abusive. for example, off the top of my head: "stephen, this code is riddled with basic errors and is completely unacceptable. please fix a, b, and c immediately and know that if you make mistakes like this again, your contributions will no longer be welcome." versus: "stephen, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WIT…

Personally I would much rather receive the second feedback as it does not contain a threat.

@jonax - I know your intention, but I don't think you can do that. Calmly stated threat is alway more real and chiling. You'd be better of with removing threat from both forms.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#187

Post by phryk »

rtpg wrote: post #176
phryk wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much profanity? Well butter my ass and call me fucking skittles! So you want to censor everyone who doesn't buy into your flowery child talk? Fuck that. Cursing is a perfectly fine means of setting emphasis and I sure as shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits am not going to surrender that just so some shithead I don't even care about can jack off to his or her little control fantasies. You don't like that? I…

profanity as a language tool is meant to accentuate things (like an exclamation mark). If you overuse it, it becomes useless. Swearing all the time is not equivalent to talking like an adult, despite what you might think.

I agree. The curse-density in that post is obviously a good deal above my average. :)

People communicate in different ways (and with different "curse-densities") and that is completely fine. What isn't fine is trying to get everyone to conform to a certain way of communication that you personally think is agreeable.

Diversity is to be cherished, not frowned upon. It makes for a more interesting world, and I am not willing to lose that just to make my environment have a few less sharp edges.

I don't need nor am willing to be rolled up in bubble wrap for what somebody calls my "own safety", which then isn't even determined by myself.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#188

Post by pmelendez »

scotty79 wrote: post #132
pmelendez wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years" Yes, Linux has remarkable importance mostly because its installed base (IMHO it doesn't offer any innovation from an OS perspective, other that being stable enough and free) However, that doesn't give Linus a free card to be abusive and rude. Yes, not being polite and being insulting is indeed being unprofessional, there are ways to s…

He gets a free card to be rude and you get a free card to not like him and never do any favours for him and he gets a free card to not care what you think, do or don't do. I am yet to see him abusing anyone. Verbal abuse mentioned is just swearing in aggressive tone of voice. How the word abuse got attached to expressing being pissed off is a mystery to me but I think it involves american lawyers.

>"He gets a free card to be rude and you get a free card to not like him"

No, he doesn't. If your boss or your client would talk to you in that tone you would call it verbal abuse. There is no such thing as a jerk free card, you can always be one but that doesn't mean is excusable.

"I am yet to see him abusing anyone. Verbal abuse mentioned is just swearing in aggressive tone of voice."

This is not the first time that we see this kind of emails from Linus so it is not exactly a new thing. I don't know where are you from that this is considered OK. I am a Venezuelan living in Canada and in both countries this is considered abusive, so it is not only in USA.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#189

Post by theorique »

dotmanish wrote: post #67
smtddr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, basically your position is "If you don't like it, get out". I'm not sure this view is productive in any kind of discussion. Personally, I think the amount of abusive speech & profanity in the tech-field is way too much. I assume(incorrectly?) that it's because it's mostly male and a lot of men like to do that to each other. I personally don't do it to anyone and don't like it being directed at me.

No, it's rather " If you don't like it, fork it. "

Don't you remember donglegate? You can't say fork any more. ;)

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#190

Post by derefr »

Xylakant wrote: post #125
derefr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that Linus imagined that the result of his messages wouldn't be people feeling bad. Feeling bad is the whole point. Negative reinforcement; hitting the puppy with a newspaper so it won't shit on your carpet again. I think the question is, for any kernel developer--do you care enough about Linux that you want to be negatively reinforced when you're being stupid, or do you care more about feeling good all…

See, you need to read up on puppy education. Hitting the puppet with a newspaper will not achieve the desired goal - now the puppy is confused and afraid.[1] Same is true in work environments: You criticise the work, do not insult the person. Otherwise problems will be swept under the rug until they start to rot and can't be hidden any more. [1] You can actually achieve the exact opposite: Peeing is a gesture of subm…

Right--and indeed, what Linus was doing here was criticizing the work ("the work" not being the commit itself--there are plenty of horrible commits submitted to the kernel every day--but rather the process that allowed this commit to end up in a stable merge patchset.)

The puppy-newspaper thing was intended to just be an evocative metaphor--I'm well-aware that hitting actual puppies with actual newspapers doesn't help anything. This is mostly because it's hard to understand, whether as a puppy or a human, exactly what you did that led you to being hit with a newspaper. Harsh words are much clearer than newspapers in giving causal structure.

(Though, if the stimulus-response is direct enough, words aren't exactly necessary; those "invisible fence" shock/noise collars for dogs do work, since the dog is given a much tighter feedback loop. As soon as they leave the defined zone, a pain-signal begins; as soon as they re-enter the zone, it ends. They can do science to figure out what is and is not painful, rather than being presented with a punishment and then having to use abductive logic to derive (that is, to guess at) possible causes. On the other hand, it is very hard to do science about where is or is not safe to defecate, unless you have the runs. ;)

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