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Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

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Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#181

Post by cthalupa »

kevinwang wrote: post #92
watwut wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is patch from Amazon, not from hardware vendor.

Where did you see that the patch is from Amazon?

David Woodhouse works for Amazon. He previously worked for Intel.

It is a series of patches from engineers at both Intel and Amazon. Linus was replying to an in progress discussion where people that are working on the patches are discussing things.

There's some disagreement between the people working on the patch series (which is what Linus jumped into), but Linus also seems to be misunderstanding some fundamental things about the nature of the patches to begin with. (Reading the rest of the thread is more informative, but less entertaining, than just the bit with Linus yelling about things)

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#182

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

matt4077 wrote: post #128

I get that Linus is adored for "rejecting political correctness" or "speaking truth to power", but this email just shows how little such rants can achieve: he makes almost no argument, relying on his authority instead. i'm actually not quite sure what he's trying to achieve... There's no chance that a patch will make it into the kernel against his objections, so he doesn't really need to convince anybody. If he's try…

Are we reading the same thing? He states very clearly the specific technical issues and behaviour from Intel that he perceives to be "FUCKING BULLSHIT".

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#183

Post by Fnoord »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #174
Fnoord wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I gather, some of this cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things. I've heard this blunt(/direct/honest) argument quite often (and the same about my country, The Netherlands), but I've also seen Americans in IT who can be very blunt. I attribute it not to country_of_origin, but to the [autism] spectrum.

I am not autistic. I have spent a lot of time around the American military and I tend to be direct. Anytime someone suggests that my directness means I must be autistic, they are a) making a faux polite personal attack that calls me a social retard and b) looking for an excuse to ignore and dismiss the substance of my points. I don't consider it to be a good faith form of engagement.

Nobody called you autistic or a social retard. It is a spectrum as well, some people with autism are far more socially retarded than others. If you want though, you can call me autistic. I take no offence at that, not in the last place because I have a ASD diagnosis.

What I said, is that I find autism another [plausible] explanation. Because being honest/direct/blunt is a trait people with ASD suffer from (since they have less of the social awareness which puts the brake on the sharp edges). I find it more plausible than country_of_origin (TBH I find that a -perhaps harmless- form of discrimination/racism), but certainly I did neither imply nor argue that it is the only, sole explanation!

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#184

Post by cthalupa »

nolok wrote: post #105
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bullshit part is that Intel is trying to push this as a 'solution'. Linux is incredibly important, so if Linus does not approve of this 'solution', it'll be very difficult for Intel to go through with it (of course, they could also be brash and still do it).

See my second message (next to yours), it's not just that, yes he thinks and clearly says that thissolution is terrible but that's not why he calls them out to be basically liars; this one is because they put useless filler garbage code all around to hide what's happening in their patches. I think we're lucky to have someone as clear, outspoken and refusing such crap in charge of the kernel.

Part of the problem is Linus doesn't actually understand the different portions of what Intel is doing, and is mixing up IBPB and IBRS. They do different things, and he's thinking they're all part of the same thing.

This could be a sign that these things are poorly written and need to be refactored into something more obvious, or it could be that they're so fundamentally complex that it's going to be difficult to grasp without context.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#185

Post by acover »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #172
nolok wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hence why Android phones are often trapped on old versions of Android when launched or shortly thereafter The reason why most android phones don't get upgrades (or only one) to newer android versions has absolutely nothing to do with qualcomm lack of care regarding their cpu's security.

It has been quoted by Google developers on why Nexus 5 fell off the support track so early, around the same time Nexus 4 did: it took a herculean effort to get the binary drivers to even remotely work right on Android 6 due to being unable to drag in newer kernels. This is partially why Treble is being worked on, to just completely disconnect the actual Linux-based HAL from "the OS", thus trying to negate a lot of th…

How am I running Oreo on my Nexus 5 with lineage os?

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#186

Post by andreasley »

shakna wrote: post #115
beebmam wrote: post #77

Really abusive language. There are ways to communicate his objections to the patches with extremely strong language WITHOUT resorting to abusive language. I wouldn't tolerate anyone treating me like this. There are unseen consequences to a wild tongue.

I think you're hitting a cultural barrier. In my country, if someone brought me something terrible, in a professional environment, I would tell them it's bullshit, and go try again. And that would be fine and dandy, and expected. (I'd expect the same treatment of myself. And it has happened.) I get the feeling, that in the US, you can't criticise. You have to use some political language to say you like it, whilst mea…

Question is, is it constructive? Does ranting really yield better results than just stating the facts (both short term for fixing the problem and long term for working together)?

It might work for Linus on the LKML, but it certainly doesn't for everyone and in all circumstances.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#187

Post by jwilk »

dang wrote: post #75
chrisper wrote: post #29

Whoever changed the title managed to make it less clear. With "Linus" in the title it was clear that it was Linux.

I did that. We've observed over the years that celebrity names in titles tend to make for poorer discussion. HN is better when the focus is on content rather than personalities. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... Edit: ok, you guys have convinced me that this is a special case and we've put Linus back in the title above.

Then you should have posted the comment that you did.

Also, cherry picking a quote and putting it in submission title is against HN guidelines.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#188

Post by ptman »

thriftwy wrote: post #141
DoreenMichele wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I gather, some of this is cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things. That directness is generally associated with multicultural environments where subtler context-dependent communication simply does not work. Some of the quotes I am seeing here from him are things I think are unnecessarily harsh, but most are not. Discussions about something he has said or written seem…

I'm not sure. Finns (and swedes) are considered introverted, with shoegazing issues. That kind of directness looks like a personality trait (acquired maybe) and not default.

The apple does not fall far from the tree.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#189

Post by [deleted] »

eps wrote: post #119
ewi_ wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to believe that one of the reasons Linus has that kind of reaction is because of the scope and impact his decisions and this kind of patches can have on people all around the world. This is a very specific situation, in which the advices in Sandya's article may not apply. However, I fail to see how Sandya's observations are BS. A code review is a place to improve code and oneself, and there's a pretty large…

In many cases it's not a patch that is a problem, it's the submitter and their approach/mindlessness/laziness/ethics that led to the patch being of an unacceptable quality. If you are trying to fix a watch and someone comes and suggest to hit it with a hammer, there's really not much place for being "respectful" with an answer.

[deleted]

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#190

Post by sillysaurus3 »

dschuetz wrote: post #166
mrmondo wrote: post #8

I think we should count ourselves lucky we have someone so good at spotting bullsh*t like this - and isn’t afraid to call it out as they sees it. Intel & friends have absolutely disgusted me lately, it could be all to easy to settle for less based on their standards, but let’s not let them set the standard - they’ve shown they can’t be trusted with quality and when they fail - they can’t be trusted to be transparent…

Actually that's pretty scary. Are the rest of heavy weight kernel code maintainers too stupid for than then? If it weren't for Linus' hard judgement? Would we then buying badly engineered products without ever questioning?

Linus, like Jobs, is a bully.

He lives under the sword. The moment he stops being right, everyone will swiftly turn against them.

What separates them is that they're almost never wrong. Not when they pull out "this is garbage" card.

This is a difficult ability to learn. You need to stay quiet most of the time, then be a complete asshole when it's important.

I really hate that aspect of our industry. But that's just hating on humanity. Apes listen to apes that shout, but only when everyone else is listening too. Otherwise you're just a dick with no influence.

The key is to hate that Linus is a bully while also respecting him when he's right.

It's super frustrating because I feel like any of us could have written that, and no one would care. Literally no one would listen. But Linus says it, so it bubbles to the top of HN and now we're counting our blessings for how lucky we are.

Try to remember this next time someone says something that sounds crazy. Your instinct should be to suppress your skepticism and think whether it has merit. It might piss you off, but is it true? That's the important bit.

And not just for design, but for everything.

(I'm sure whoever came up with the current design isn't too happy about Linus calling it garbage, but they'll just have to deal with it.)

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