341–350 of 1001 posts
Way to go Linus... this is a great lesson for all of us! It's easy to get caught-up in the heat of the moment and say and do things that we regret. We've all done it. It's part of being human. The key is to realize it, apologize and do better.
More importantly, many thanks and congratulations to the folks who finally changed his mind.
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The Contributor Covenant says nothing of the sort. It is entirely reasonable for developers to believe that the statements in the Covenant are a baseline for professionalism and, at the same time to disagree amongst themselves about whether they should contribute to military projects (or whether they buy into a "post-meritocracy" philosophy).
I was referring to https://postmeritocracy.org/ As per the comment to which I was replying.
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The contributor covenant is fairly in-objectionable. Yes, the list of 'privileges' is a bit of a checklist for left-wing soapboxes, but it's not necessarily a bad thing to explicitly list traits commonly targeted by bullies and harassers. The problem many people have with it, as you imply, is that it's the thin end of a doorstop, at the thick end of which is the Post-Meritocracy Manifesto: https://postmeritocracy.org…
People may divide neatly into factions, but ideas don't. The notion that an un-objectionable code of conduct is somehow allied with a far-reaching political philosophy is reductive and unhelpful. What you're saying is that you'd be comfortable with Linus adopting a code of conduct that made exactly the same statements, so long as the word order was changed to keep it from literally being the Contributor Covenant.
Linus has been a great steward of the Kernel. I have never seen any instance where he has trashed on someone for any other reason than Linux. Sometimes he's cringingly brutal, sometimes he offends people. Regardless, he's been immaculately consistent in motive during the time I've been paying attention. That two decades of casual observation has elevated him to the status of philosopher king of the Kingdom of Linux in my mind.
When Linus publicly shames a person or company, he's emitting antibodies to the cybernetic organism that is "linux".
Some folks abuse politeness to press ulterior, self serving motives. It's a lot easier for viruses like that to thrive in scenarios where there's no social cost for rolling the dice.
For a contrived example, imagine there's a person that gets paid every time he convinces a project to change to a specific color of blue. Is this easier to accomplish in project with very strict codes of conduct, or with an asshole BFDL and a hierarchy?
Virus: "I've done research () that suggests that #006699 provides a superior user experience than what's currently being used. This is a PR to affect that change."
Maintainer: "Uhh, I don't think so."
Virus: "But why not? Here's another whitepaper that shows that it's literally the best UX change you could make. #006699 is inclusive and egalitarian and your current colors are racist."
The virus can press their intent as long as their persistence holds out. Any transparent, clinical mitigation to this will be gamed. However, if the BFDL is an asshole, the Virus thinks twice about social brute-forcing. If you're publicly berated when you cross the BFDL's threshold, you lose social standing. The mere threat of it hamstrings privately pressing your objective at those in the middle of the pyramid!
In addition, when done with _some_ discretion, your lieutenants will learn the implicit contour of your policies and priorities. This provides MUCH greater defense against subterfuge and unity of action than explicit Codes of Conduct.
Over the long haul though it doesn't really matter. Philosopher Kings are rare and they die. It does exasperate me to see how slow we are to develop a consciousness for that category of social attack.
When we finally do, it'll be a subtle compromise between authority and egalitarianism. It'll usher in a golden age with a seemingly endless frontier of optimism. Then, in less than a generation people will lose the plot, take it too far and we'll rot from the other direction.
TLDR; I wish Linus the best.
If the person I considered least capable of not being an asshole has developed self-awareness and has shown a genuine desire to change, then we have so much hope as a wider community.
It is definitely possible to retain the unyeilding attitude that Linus is famous for without being an asshole, and... I really hope he can pull this off.
I'm genuinely a bit emotional: this was wonderful to read.
(VM fixes are welcome, too!)
> I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately. At the risk of being downvoted, I think that Linus, just like Steve Jobs, might have been dealing with a mild Asperger's syndrome[1], which he has very little control over: "People with Asperger syndrome often have difficulty 'reading' other people - recognising or understanding others’ feelings and…
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Adopting a code of conduct for Linux is a worrisome move. Any code of conduct that purports to police what contributors do outside the context of the project is a totalitarian infringement on individual autonomy, especially since enforcers of codes of conduct tend to take an expansive view of their remit. What CoC enforcement eventually becomes is a prohibition on project contributors professing political opinions th…
> What CoC enforcement eventually becomes is a prohibition on project contributors professing political opinions that the CoC enforcers find reprehensible. To quote a comment I made elsewhere in the thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18001722 ): If you want to argue about the level of taxation, the right size of government, regulations on business, whether public or private is the most efficient way to acc…
This conduct was unacceptable then and it's unacceptable now. Nobody gave CoC enforcers a monopoly on virtue.
Maybe this will finally end the myth that "you can be rude and insulting as long as you're right" that people seem to attribute to Linus's outbursts
The truth is you can have both but if you put such a high importance on being right, all the time, then you’ll drive most people away.