Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#141

Post by pron » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #121

JoshTriplett wrote: post #106

The other huge news here, both for Linux and for numerous other communities trying to make similar changes: The most recent commit, right before the release, deletes Linux's "Code of Conflict" and replaces it with a real Code of Conduct, the Contributor Covenant. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-condu... Quoting the commit message:…

> It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people well. Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered "heated", "hateful" and "treating well" or not.

This is why a governing body codifies their interpretation of the matter into rules that everyone who wants to be part of the community has to abide by.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#142

Post by serf » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

I'm probably going to be alone in saying so, but I always enjoyed Linus and his attitude.

(to me) it made him appear honest and dedicated to (his own) goals, and I always felt like that was respectable. (mostly) whenever he was proven technically wrong about how to do something he would concede to the technically better solution, and if he didn't do so he gave reasons for his conclusion.

in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#143

Post by msbarnett » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

torstenvl wrote: post #91

ufo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Jobs was successful despite being abusive, not because of it.

I'd be interested to know your thoughts in more detail, because I have a different perspective and have a hard time trying to see things from your point of view. From my perspective, people react to social condemnation of their actions. When someone does something incompetent, and they are gently corrected, that sends a certain message. When someone does something incompetent and they are lambasted , that sends the m…

There’s all kinds of problems with your perspective, most notably that it presumes the existence of an objective arbiter of “competence”. In reality, in the past Linus has lambasted people for patches that Linus misunderstood, which had no beneficial impact whatsoever and instead led to a least one case in which a highly competent contributor vocally said he was walking away from kernel development over Linus’ immature horseshit.

It’s also important to recognize that essentially nobody chooses to be incompetent, so upping the “punishment” for incompetence does nothing to incentivize some other choice; rather what you perceive as incompetence is usually the result of either someone not knowing or understanding something you understand, or YOU not knowing or understanding something THEY understand. In the former case, lambasting someone will do nothing to improve their knowledge and help them be a better contributor; in the latter, lambasting someone over your own ignorance merely demonstrates to others what an ass you are.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#144

Post by tptacek » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #121

JoshTriplett wrote: post #106

The other huge news here, both for Linux and for numerous other communities trying to make similar changes: The most recent commit, right before the release, deletes Linux's "Code of Conflict" and replaces it with a real Code of Conduct, the Contributor Covenant. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-condu... Quoting the commit message:…

> It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people well. Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered "heated", "hateful" and "treating well" or not.

Apparently that just didn't occur to Chris Mason, Olof Johansson, Dan Williams, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Steven Rostedt, and Linus Torvalds.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#145

Post by saagarjha » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #116

cowmoo728 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of Linus's more colorful rants: "Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE F CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the f ck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?"

Entertaining though in fairness. Often he’s saying what we’re thinking. That doesn’t make it right though and it’s ultimately self-defeating.

While I think reading in data one byte at a time is a stupid, I wouldn’t quite say that what he said is what I was thinking.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#146

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #67

Sharlin wrote: post #29

A certain sort of ruthlessness and lack of empathy, accompanied by having an extraordinarily driven personality, certainly seems to often make things happen (see also: Steve Jobs). The ages-old question is – is it worth it? Do ends justify the means?

I don't know if it is worth it, but history is filled with people who treated others around them badly but achieved outsized success that much of humans can only dream of - including art (Picasso was terrible to others), military (Genghis Khan was ruthless to his own army), business etc.

[deleted]

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#147

Post by meowface » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #121

JoshTriplett wrote: post #106

The other huge news here, both for Linux and for numerous other communities trying to make similar changes: The most recent commit, right before the release, deletes Linux's "Code of Conflict" and replaces it with a real Code of Conduct, the Contributor Covenant. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-condu... Quoting the commit message:…

> It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people well. Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered "heated", "hateful" and "treating well" or not.

I don't think the language of the Contributor Covenant [1] contains anything really objectionable by anyone, even people who wouldn't consider themselves left-leaning. "Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks" is arguably the only ambiguous part. That said, I am a bit skeptical of the CC creators' motives and goals.

[1] https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-con...

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#148

Post by DoreenMichele » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #141

wolfgke wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people well. Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered "heated", "hateful" and "treating well" or not.

This is why a governing body codifies their interpretation of the matter into rules that everyone who wants to be part of the community has to abide by.

It's a nice theory, but the reality is that those rules tend to get enforced differently for different people, so it fails to entirely stamp out problem behavior.

Shit runs downhill. Whomever is at the top is the DNA for how things actually work.

To me, the good news is Torvalds is taking some time to figure himself out. That is likely to make a major difference.

Few people bother to really deal with the man in the mirror in earnest.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#149

Post by tom_ » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #121

JoshTriplett wrote: post #106

The other huge news here, both for Linux and for numerous other communities trying to make similar changes: The most recent commit, right before the release, deletes Linux's "Code of Conflict" and replaces it with a real Code of Conduct, the Contributor Covenant. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-condu... Quoting the commit message:…

> It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people well. Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered "heated", "hateful" and "treating well" or not.

This is the really interesting part of introducing a code of conduct to me: that it flushes a particular type of person out of the woodwork. They are forced to reveal themselves. Forced. It's like you're playing one of those hidden role games, and suddenly you do something that means people have to reveal their concealed cards. It's almost magical.

Re: Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

#150

Post by chc » Sun, Sep 16, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #99

Zhyl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Tech people the world over need to remember the person. I don't even mean in a slightly soppy 'everyone is a real person with real feelings' way. I mean that in a practical sense you really hit productivity if you're rude. Simple exchanges or corrections become arguments because one party was acerbic or inflammatory which caused the second party to be defensive. The discussion gets derailed, the point gets lost.…

..and if productivity was better from disrespecting people, then that would be the way to go? Well...That seems to be the actual case. Our current system seems to not to respect people, or the planet (or other animals besides humans.) It seems to respect money, 'productivity', 'efficiency' and 'growth'.

This is a non sequitur unless you have a hidden assumption along the lines of "We currently have the best of all possible systems."