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Linus on "acting professionally"

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Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#251

Post by Dylan16807 »

djm_ wrote: post #215
Dylan16807 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make a ridiculous decision and go all the way to implementation without thinking it through, you objectively should feel extremely dumb about it. That means the feedback loops in your brain are working correctly. I feel sorry for anyone who has a systemic inability to learn impulse control.

>you objectively should feel extremely dumb about it. Precisely, but that is the for the person themselves to feel and not to be told. If you get off on telling people they are lesser beings than you then there is something intrinsically wrong with your impulse control; it's called learning, and the day the world makes that a shameful thing is the day we all return to the middle ages. N.B, this was specifically relat…

'thinking' was clear hyperbole. Treat it more like 'seriously planning the idea' than 'the idea existed in their mind whatsoever'.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#253

Post by joshguthrie »

pmelendez wrote: post #188
scotty79 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

Linus is not your boss. Nobody is forcing you to contribute to the kernel. If you want to, he's the "benevolent dictator". If you don't agree, "fork it and go your own way" as someone else said.

It may look like masochism, but people who work with a "benevolent dictator" know what they are in for. We don't need to be "protected" and if you don't like it, just don't come, the same way I'm not going to play with soccer players because I don't play soccer.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#254

Post by doctorfoo »

claudius wrote: post #237
doctorfoo wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News: Where IQ and intelligence trumps being pleasant. So many tech types are assholes.

You'd not take intelligence over ‘being pleasant’? I tend to enjoy the company of an intelligent asshole more than that of a ‘pleasant’ idiot any day.

There is a happy medium :) But in general, I'd always choose (true, sincerely meant) pleasantness and kindness over intelligence. Though, if a kernel developer is required, then maybe intelligence is the more useful, giving rise to this current situation...

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#255

Post by bad_user »

columbo wrote: post #200

This is another great example of why you can't take successful people and distil them down to their base components and say "ah, this is what made him great!" I believe being a loud-abrasive-dictator works for Linus because he is famous for being a loud-abrasive-dictator. That's not important. What is important is the reader. Let's be clear on a few things #1 - Linus doesn't run a business. He's the kernel admin, he'…

I do not think managing an open-source project is so different than running a company.

> Linus doesn't run a business. He's the kernel admin

He's also the original author. And he still is an awesome developer and the Linux kernel is not his only accomplishment. Git is another one. Linus is one of those people that can change the face of our industry over night and he has done so at least twice.

Not only that, but if you read his trail of angry emails, one thing is for sure - he's also one of those people in the open-source community that care deeply about users. Many of his rants are about changes in the kernel that break the userland. This is not so different than a business owner caring for his customers.

> I want to get his opinion on managing code not managing people. He doesn't deal with payroll, 401ks, employee vacations or benefits, he doesn't care about retention, he cares about code

That's an odd statement to make. A business owner cares about revenue, not payrolls, 401ks, employee's vacations or benefits - those are just things that a business owner must do to secure the company's revenue.

Also, you're wrong, because Linus's job and greatest skill is in managing people. If it were about "the code", Linux the kernel would have taken a back seat to 386BSD.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#256

Post by paganel »

newbie12 wrote: post #106
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…

In my experience, the closer you are to action the more swearing (sales, press, front-line dev) and the polite stuff is more for the office bureaucrats who aren't critical to the success of the organization. There's something refreshingly blunt and urgent about the 2nd case. (Edit: My experience includes Fortune 100 in consumer tech and finance)

> There's something refreshingly blunt and urgent about the 2nd case.

In this scenario Stephen has been hired to write code/produce something, I'll go all-Marxist on this and say he was hired to produce plus-value. He was not hired to be sworn at, no matter how good or bad his code/work might be, and this is why swearing directly at people is unprofessional.

As an aside, I'm surprised at the people who say that swearing to other people's face is "manly" (or something of the sorts). In the part of the world that I live if you swear someone directly in the face you'd better be prepared for a physical fight or worse.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#257

Post by mcv »

inopinatus wrote: post #140
dotmanish wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For several years I did maintain a private kernel fork for my then-employer. I was not interested in contributing any of our work (mostly netfilter related) back to the core precisely because I have better things to do with my emotional energy than engage with the aggressively toxic personalities of LKML. That's one of the joys of open source, of course, doing your own thing. In contrast I had a much better experienc…

Exactly. Friendly communities attract more people. Linus gets away with it because there's tons of people who want to work on his projects, and he can afford to alienate some talent. Others don't have that luxury.

I've heard of plenty of people who prefer one language over another because of the nicer community. Eventually that should mean that projects with friendly communities are more successful.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#258

Post by GoofballJones »

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…

Actually, I do get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional...and so do you and everyone else. It's called "opinion".

Also, while I admire what he's done, let's lay off the hyperbole for a bit. "..one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years"? Really? That's laying it on a bit thick there. But hey, you're entitled to your opinion too.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#259

Post by jonahx »

vacri wrote: post #124
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…

That's a false representation of how Torvalds behaves, since pretty much every time one of this "oo, he swore!" threads pops up, he also explains why he has problems. And it's never been half in all caps.

Actually, not really:

http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=135628421403144&w=2

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#260

Post by metaphorm »

columbo wrote: post #200

This is another great example of why you can't take successful people and distil them down to their base components and say "ah, this is what made him great!" I believe being a loud-abrasive-dictator works for Linus because he is famous for being a loud-abrasive-dictator. That's not important. What is important is the reader. Let's be clear on a few things #1 - Linus doesn't run a business. He's the kernel admin, he'…

are you seriously meaning to imply that Linus Torvalds is not responsible for managing people on a massive scale? who do you think writes that code anyway?
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