Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off

lore.kernel.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 1001 posts

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

#391

Post by lucio »

herpderperator wrote: post #122

While I am glad this happened, I am surprised. I truly would not have expected Linus to ever write something like this. I am curious how this can happen so suddenly. Have people not tried to convince him that he can be critical without being insulting many times before? What was different this time?

He's tired. He's older. He mentioned several times how he's been developing this for decades. Maybe he is making a balance, maybe he thinks that the Kernel does not really need him so badly now, and he can take a time out.

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

#392

Post by forapurpose »

onurcel wrote: post #93
_wldu wrote: post #43

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.

when the heat of "the moment" lasts 20 years, the least we can say is it's about time.

'The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.'

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

#393

Post by dang »

djrobstep wrote: post #336
blazespin wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key, I find, is to be extremely direct and brutal in one on ones. Don't hold back, but be very supportive and positive when more than two people present. I try to explain this to be people I work with, but I don't think everyone appreciates it. Horrible people, in my opinion, are those that do the opposite.

Psycho alert

If you continue to post uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to HN, we're going to have to ban you. We've already asked you several times not to do that. Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix it going forward?

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

#394

Post by lucio »

mewaj wrote: post #372

And to prove how important it is to be respectful, empathetic and tolerant, the originator of the new Code of Conduct is gloating on Twitter and mocking those who disagree with this move. This is not about being respectful to others, it's about forcing others to be respectful to you. Unfortunately respect is earned, not given, and anything else extracted under duress just breeds resentment.

link?

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

#395

Post by blihp »

tptacek wrote: post #314
jakeinspace wrote: post #257

Linus is stubborn, persistent, and unyielding to what he sees as bullshit. These I believe are all very valuable qualities for the head of a massive software project, and may be part of the reason as to why Linux is where it is today. However, Linus is also a bit of an asshole, turning technical criticism into personal seemingly personal attacks. I believe those 2 sets of qualities are separable, but I would guess it…

He's not just stubborn, persistent, and unyielding: he's performatively so. In his most notorious attacks, he's clearly playing to an audience. That could be the problem. He clearly can separate the blunt stubbornness ("we do not break userland, period") from the performative rudeness ("SHUT THE FUCK UP MAURO"). (I mean, to be clear: what the fuck do I know? I've never been in the position Linus is in.)

I've always assumed that when he really goes after someone it was him blowing off steam to maintain his own mental health rather than trying to put on a show. He's been managing a pile of complexity for over two decades that would have crushed most of us long ago. If it has been even moderately for show then sure, he should work on dialing it back (just a bit... i.e. short of getting personal).

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

#396

Post by dang »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #306
arkades wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you did just spin it into its worst interpretation. I read the grandparent post as meaning, "Be brutal when the least ego / public stature is at risk, but never cut people down in front of their peers."

That assumes the only problem with being brutal is making people look bad in front of their peers. That's far from the only problem with being brutal.

arkades is right, and there's a site guideline that specifically addresses this: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. It's easily plausible that one of blazespin's concerns is not to humiliate people in front of their peers.

This is a problem with this sort of discussion generally: a lot of the people arguing for others not to treat each other badly, treat others very badly indeed whilst arguing it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#397

Post by ci5er »

TomVDB wrote: post #383
ci5er wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be odd-man out here, but I really didn't see any part of his mind that needed to be changed. What did you disagree with?

I disagree strongly with his personal 'no BS' attacks. For some people, it's a huge deterrent to make contributions. I've participated in a number of open source projects. I like to think that I've made useful suggestions and contributions, in addition to making dumb ones. When I make a dumb suggestion, I expect to corrected in a respectful way. There have been cases where a project maintainer answered in an aggressi…

That makes sense.

I also hate personal confrontation. In the past, I have even had my own sub-ordinates (I hate that word - but they were the engineers that reported to me) confront me, leaving me, from time-to-time to go home and vomit and not sleep. So - yes - I understand.

I've never looked at a rebuke from Linus in the same way. I don't know why. I guess I'll go think about that...

EDIT: After (very) short reflection, I think (for me) the difference is whether it is a close personal person rebuking me, vs. some sort of distant character....

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

#398

Post by MrLeap »

moosingin3space wrote: post #377
MrLeap wrote: post #344

I hypothesize that this change will make Linux (ie: the quality of the kernel) at least slightly worse in 20 years than it would have been if Linus never changed. 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 mo…

Where exactly is this conspiracy to make the kernel worse through ulterior motives coming from? Literally every large company relies on the kernel working well today, so "corporations" or "shills" aren't rational origin stories.

I wouldn't call this a conspiracy, unless I start selling T-shirts. My hypothesis wasn't even that people are trying to make linux worse. Just that it will be.

Intel pushed a half-baked mitigation for meltdown that Linus was real mean about recently. Linus made a remark that stuck out to me.. Something about calling into question the motives of Intel that would even push it. (Conspiracy time) it smelled to me like management pushing for a PR clot before their fix was ready.

Working well for your interests doesn't necessarily mean working well for everyone's. Linus's motives are transparent and for the Kernel.

Linux ran by a commission representing large companies would definitely behave differently...

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

#399

Post by mnemotronic »

... a long-winded way to get to the somewhat painful personal admission that hey, I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely

been a long time coming.

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

#400

Post by DannyBee »

endtime wrote: post #389
DannyBee wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> 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. Wouldn't Steve Jobs be a counterexample to this? And possibly Bill Gates?

No, actually (at least, IMHO). Jobs organization failed more than once due to him?

Remember that Apple (etc) have been troubled at many times through their history with him at the helm :)

Gates also eventually left in part because he was doing more harm than good (and has tried to turn himself into a more reasonable person it seems).

Compare that to the organization that MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole?

I'm certainly not going to claim you can't make a successful company or organization by being a brilliant asshole. I'm only claiming it eventually catches up with you, and over time, ends up a net negative for the organization.

Post reply on HN