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

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

#921

Post by aurailious » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #736

DannyBee wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but every study i've ever read currently backs it. If you are aware of any that say "very smart assholes make organizations better in the long run" or even "very smart assholes don't meaningfully hurt them in the long run", i'd actually love to see it! (I hold the position i do precisely because it's backed by research, not just my own random thoughts and experiences)

Strong-personality-assholes have been making successful things for a very long time now (Linus, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, come to mind). It's probably not that being an asshole is good. It's that if you are a genius/visionary and nice, your genius gets diluted by the people around you. Let's build a genius/asshole map: 1. Genius, non-asshole: You start a genius-level thing, it is brilliant and awesome. As it progres…

Do you have a larger set than just famous assholes? Its entirely possible they represent the exception and not the rule. In fact since they themselves then to be extraordinary I would believe that they are influential in spite of being an asshole instead of because of it.

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

#922

Post by LukeShu » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #732

achiang wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "we do not break userland, period" That quote is more accurately read as, "we change things all the time, including user-visible features, and very occasionally, even in breaking ways -- but only because it's impossible to know every single consumer of every single quirk in behavior, and as soon as we learn that one of our changes did in fact break userspace, then we'll change it back". It's how the kernel communit…

No offense but this seems like blinding fanaticism for a man who is, admitedly right 99.99999% of the other time, not perfect. In this case however you are arguing that when he said, "we don't break userland, period" he instead meant the opposite? There was no asterix on his statement saying to read the fine print.

What he said was (AFAICT, the exact "we don't break userland, period" wording only appears in this HN thread. Let's go with the rant that I believe the GP was referencing):

The "first rule of kernel maintenance":

    If a change results in user programs breaking, it's a bug in the
    kernel. We never EVER blame the user programs.

Then later, to drive home the point:

    WE DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE!

So, sure, "there was no asterix on his statement saying to read the fine print"--he did better than an asterisk and fine print, he made it part of the main content.

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

#923

Post by nojvek » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

> I took some time off to write a little tool called “git”

I wonder how many awesome things we’d have if brilliant engineers just took a bit of a time off to build something that fixes an annoying pain point.

I look forward to what he builds in his time off :)

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

#924

Post by wolf550e » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #732

achiang wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "we do not break userland, period" That quote is more accurately read as, "we change things all the time, including user-visible features, and very occasionally, even in breaking ways -- but only because it's impossible to know every single consumer of every single quirk in behavior, and as soon as we learn that one of our changes did in fact break userspace, then we'll change it back". It's how the kernel communit…

No offense but this seems like blinding fanaticism for a man who is, admitedly right 99.99999% of the other time, not perfect. In this case however you are arguing that when he said, "we don't break userland, period" he instead meant the opposite? There was no asterix on his statement saying to read the fine print.

By "userland" Linus meant actual users of the Linux kernel, not all possible theoretical users of the Linux kernel. For example, if there is a program that just uses quirks of implementation to fingerprint the kernel version, it will get broken all the time and will need updating every kernel release, but as long as people's actual servers, phones, desktops and IoT devices keep working without changes, that's not a breaking change.

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

#925

Post by aurailious » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #318

Newton was an asshole too. The whole "apple fell on his head" story came about because he was so mean to people. I won't say that most geniuses are inempathetic, but many are. Einstein wasn't, some say Gauss was. Beethoven was. Linus is. And we'll accept Linus's attitude for being an aversion to bullshit, just the quality that we need in a kernel maintainer. I'm glad to see that Linus finally realizes that he has a p…

> just the quality that we need in a kernel maintainer.

I disagree this is the case. "This is how it's been done" is a terrible excuse for anything. This attempt at protection of the status quo is wrong because almost without exception the status quo is sub optimal.

> because I doubt that he could steer his ship without it

There is no reason to believe this.

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

#926

Post by nojvek » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

Walkman wrote: post #718

endtime wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Steve Jobs might have been an even bigger asshole.

The fact that he disowned his own daughter is a whole new level of asshole. I can’t even imagine how she must have felt.

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

#927

Post by pron » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #905

wolfgke wrote: post #846

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, but it's a start and a symbolic gesture. In Germany, they say: "'Gut' ist das Gegenteil von 'gut gemeint'" ("'Good' is the opposite of 'well-intentioned'"; I am aware that the pun does not translate well into English).

In English: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

I don't care about Torvalds's intentions one way or another, or whether or not he's had a true change of heart. I'm a social justice warrior, not a social virtue warrior, and I am not yet celebrating results that may or may not come one day. I just ask one question: When a man who symbolizes a certain behavior that has led to unjust outcomes professes he was wrong, is that something that, at this point in time, is in the service of a greater or lesser justice? As I didn't see any wink in his statement suggesting that he's doing it only because he's been made to, I think that until it is shown that this is just a PR stunt to whitewash and preserve the status quo, it is an action that serves justice even if it is only symbolic in itself.

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

#928

Post by NuckFackerHews » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

Why are people demanding Linus Torvalds be the epitome of a straw man political stoic when the people who forced the CoC change on his project over a grueling Microsoft-backed culture war of attrition are the literal opposite of that personality type?

Grass-is-greener armchair psychologists seem to think they could effortlessly manage the codebase that powers the heart of billion machines (from cellphones to supercomputers) without it taking any emotional or psychological toll whatsoever.

You deserve a future where Microsoft runs everything.

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

#929

Post by NuckFackerHews » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

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…

Why are people demanding Linus Torvalds be the epitome of a straw man political stoic when the people who forced the CoC change on his project over a grueling Microsoft-backed culture war of attrition are the literal opposite of that personality type?

Grass-is-greener armchair psychologists seem to think they could effortlessly manage the codebase that powers the heart of billion machines (from cellphones to supercomputers) without it taking any emotional or psychological toll whatsoever.

You deserve a future where Microsoft runs everything.

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

#930

Post by DoreenMichele » Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 5:45 PM UTC

InternetOfStuff wrote: post #849

DoreenMichele wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are doing something no one else has done before, it can be very challenging to figure out which pieces of what you do are essential secret sauce and which could stand to be improved. I changed my HN handle from Mz to this one after more than 8 years and only after hitting the leaderboard. I appear to be the only woman to have ever spent time on the leaderboard. It genuinely took me that long to conclude that…

> When you are doing something no one else has done before Leading people? Fair enough, he ceated something remarkable, but at the end of the day people have been leading others for literally millennia. So I'm not willing to cut him slack on that account. (Having said that, I'm deeply impressed by the step he took in that email, and did it publicly)

What he is doing is fundamentally unlike being a CEO of a traditional corporation, being the founder of a standard charity or similar. Because it is an open source project, a great deal of what he says is available for public consumption.

When most CEOs have a cow, a few people witness it and then they sanitize the message before releasing a PR statement of what the CEO would like to see happen. When Linus has a cow, it can end up on the front page of Hacker News with everyone talking trash about him.

As far as I know, he actually handles that piece of it remarkably well. Most people would not cope too well with such a situation. I have never heard of him then going on a screed about "assholes on Hacker News" or whatever. Instead, what I have seen is "polite" and "well behaved" people nastily referring to it as "the peanut gallery," which is incredibly insulting and dismissive. I have yet to personally see Linus do such a thing.

Given how much people here like to talk trash about him, I infer this suggests it is something he doesn't do.