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Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

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

#361

Post by yourbandsucks »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #213
another-cuppa wrote: post #193

Oh dear. So they finally got to him. First Guido, now Linus. If some "nice person" would write a better free operating system I'd be all over it. But Linus is one of the people that has made it possible for me to not only run a free operating system, but the best system in the world. The people who criticise and attack Linus are the one who don't understand us. They don't understand what this software means to us.

Good deeds don't justify bad behavior. Ever.

What if I'm running to disarm a bomb and there's a nice old lady standing in my way?

We're all sinners. Let's not make such absolute statements.

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

#362

Post by mmirate »

nige123 wrote: post #282

Linux was named after Linus. Linus admits that he named "git" after himself too. At least he had some self-awareness of his own "git"-ishness. Trump, for example, is too far along the narcissistic spectrum to even feign humility. The software industry is sadly plagued by empathy-free, narcissistic gits. It's sad - Why? Empathy is actually essential for creating good software (and good leadership too) - we write softw…

> we write software for humans not computers.

The "humans" are in every case either ourselves or our customers. Empathy is certainly not needed when communicating with ourselves; and with the exception of the (rare) type of developer who also owns the company, the latter case has the indirections of Sales, TAM, Services, Tech Support and our managers.

Hence, while the quoted statement is true by itself, it does not support the universal need for empathy for software-development.

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

#364

Post by quickthrower2 »

Zhyl wrote: post #28
Leszek wrote: post #4

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

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.…

I've worked with assholes, that think they are god's gift and really they are just hampering the business goals of the company and don't realise it. They were constantly like a petulant 5 year olds during a tantrum, and I don't work with people like that. I quit such jobs. Done that 3 times now, first time took me 6 months, second time 3 months, last time 18 hours. Note - this is not rage quitting - they were a reasoned decision based on the likelihood of being about to resolve the problem through negotiation, and comparing that to opportunity cost. Fuck it life is too short.

Similarly would I contribute to an Free/OS project with such people for free? Hell no.

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

#365

Post by JoshTriplett »

quotemstr wrote: post #339
JoshTriplett wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a common problem , and one heavily abused and weaponized. 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 accomplish a goal, or myriad other areas of policy like those, go right ahead. Those kinds of things are absolutely reasonable subjects for healthy and reasonable debate. (They're rarely on-topic…

The freedom to propose ideas that don't offend anyone is no freedom at all. You're arguing that people can discuss among themselves what doesn't matter much, but only an ideologically correct few get to weigh in on topics that really matter. This is the governing philosophy of the Ayatollahs of Iran, who let lay people debate and hold elections, but who reserve real power for themselves. What you've proposed is no di…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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

#366

Post by moosingin3space »

microcolonel wrote: post #325
JoshTriplett wrote: post #276

Take a look at the chart in https://twitter.com/ErynnBrook/status/1038893975279550465 Many people are so afraid of ending up in the bottom right (just giving in) that they head for the top left (zero-sum competition). This underlies some of the things people fear about codes of conduct; they're afraid that they're being pushed into that bottom right corner, rather than striving for better collaboration. Be direct. Be…

The problem here is that the "Collaborating" sector is the wrong goal for the Linux kernel. Linus Torvalds is uniquely qualified to be concerned about matters concerning the kernel; if his interlocutors "win" too much on their side of the "win/win", every user loses. The public embarrassment of lazy and dishonest actors, especially those who are paid to collaborate, is an effective tool for maintaining order and stan…

> Linus Torvalds is uniquely qualified

Gotta stop you right there. Hero worship should not be considered a good thing in our industry.

The kernel subsystem maintainers, who actually review the code prior to getting it merged, are the ones with the real power and the necessary knowledge, and I'd argue they are more qualified to oversee the project's future than Torvalds.

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

#367

Post by Alex3917 »

DannyBee wrote: post #288
serf wrote: post #142

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 technica…

"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." One thing that is true in all successful organizations over time is that for any given person, no amount of genius will make up for being an asshole. It may take time, etc, but eventually, it ends up a significant net negative for the organization. The s…

> The sooner folks are forced to deal with it, the better off the organization ends up in the long run.

If Linux gets measurably worse after this, then would you support sending Linus to a second therapist to make him more of an asshole again?

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

#368

Post by mmirate »

NegativeK wrote: post #210
HaoZeke wrote: post #167

This is just sad. Linus was a driving force. His comments were often acerbic but always fair.

> His comments were often acerbic but always fair. No. https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495

Uhh, that one is very fair.

Two cross-ring context-switches per byte (!!!), is insanely idiotic at best; any BSCS program worth half its salt will teach you why; and one would certainly hope that a developer of a central/core userspace program would be far more knowledgeable than someone straight out of a BSCS program.

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

#369

Post by crunchlibrarian »

microcolonel wrote: post #325
JoshTriplett wrote: post #276

Take a look at the chart in https://twitter.com/ErynnBrook/status/1038893975279550465 Many people are so afraid of ending up in the bottom right (just giving in) that they head for the top left (zero-sum competition). This underlies some of the things people fear about codes of conduct; they're afraid that they're being pushed into that bottom right corner, rather than striving for better collaboration. Be direct. Be…

The problem here is that the "Collaborating" sector is the wrong goal for the Linux kernel. Linus Torvalds is uniquely qualified to be concerned about matters concerning the kernel; if his interlocutors "win" too much on their side of the "win/win", every user loses. The public embarrassment of lazy and dishonest actors, especially those who are paid to collaborate, is an effective tool for maintaining order and stan…

This mindset is a bit too fascist for the modern workplace. I still see this attitude a lot, so I think it's good to recognize and call it out for what it is.

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

#370

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #346
krn wrote: post #333

> 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…

Please don't attempt to diagnose or psychoanalyze people over the Internet on Hacker News.

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