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Torvalds: I Made Community-Building Mistakes With Linux
electronic convict writes In a Q&A at LinuxCon Europe, Linux creator Linus Torvalds — no stranger to strong language and blunt opinions — acknowledged a "metric sh*#load" of interpersonal mistakes that unnecessarily antagonized others within the Linux community. In response to Intel's Dirk Hohndel, who asked him which decision he regretted most over the past 23 years, Torvalds replied: "From a technical standpoint, no single decision has ever been that important... The problems tend to be around alienating users or developers and I'm pretty good at that. I use strong language. But again there's not a single instance I'd like to fix. There's a metric sh*#load of those." It's probably not a coincidence that Torvalds said this just a few weeks after critics like Lennart Poettering started drawing attention to the abusive nature of some commentary within the open-source community. Poettering explicitly called out Torvalds for some of his most intemperate remarks and described open source as "quite a sick place to be in." Still, Torvalds doesn't sound like he's about to start making an apology tour. "One of the reasons we have this culture of strong language, that admittedly many people find off-putting, is that when it comes to technical people with strong opinions and with a strong drive to do something technically superior, you end up having these opinions show up as sometimes pretty strong language," he said. "On the Internet, nobody can hear you being subtle."
was not so nice, either. As the newly occupied lands matured, so did language and behavior. This frontier is no different.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
That's going in my quotes file.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
On the Internet nobody can hear your frosty piss!
NSA makes you say sh*#load of things.
Linus does not claim victimhood and speaks with humility. Can you think of how this sets him apart from another noted developer?
The title was supposed to have a greater-than sign.
Also doesn't charge ahead with full-bore stupid against half the user and developer base's advice.
I wouldn't go as far as using the word "humility" but I get your point.
At the end of the day, he created and manages the largest open source project ever. More than 20 years on, it is still going strong. I am not about to find faults with his management style. People have been free to fork it and run with it. Nobody has done that. Perhaps a little bit of screaming every now and then is needed for this job.
He gave us Linux and he gave us git. Maybe we should stop nitpicking and say thank you for once.
"One of the reasons we have this culture of strong language, that admittedly many people find off-putting, is that when it comes to technical people with strong opinions and with a strong drive to do something technically superior, you end up having these opinions show up as sometimes pretty strong language," he said. "On the Internet, nobody can hear you being subtle."
Excuses, excuses. One can easily be heard and still be professional if he wants to. Linux alone is so cool and influential that the leader of the project will certainly get noticed even without peppering everything with insults and cursing.
So does linux!
Upgrade to BSD
...but isn't the reason Linus tends to be blunt due to an experience early in Linux's existence?
Someone came in with a big, grand idea and asked if this is something Linux needed.
Linus replied with something meant to be taken as a polite NAK.
Guy didn't get the subtle hint, and proceeded to go off and spend x months developing feature.
Came back with patches and had the whole thing rejected.
Guy left saying he was so depressed he may commit suicide.
Since then, Linus has been up-front and directly.
Can't remember who, what, where or when
Anyone?
No One Can Hear You Being Subtle? ok....please post the actual "strong" words he used. and no ni33er, or C**t, or AssHat.
Is it that the language used is too harsh, or that today's society is just too much censored and purged from any form of negativity ? Creating thin-skinned irresponsible generations.
It's pretty much impossible in a tech company to have an opinion, not have to excuse oneself about having this opinion, and have a long and brilliant career in the company. Sometimes, this translate into worthless technical discussion where nobody is giving any counter argument. Those followers are generally also those getting promoted, but also the most incompetent. I might represent an utter minority, but I'm only giving negative feedback. What I'm being asked is to provide a technical analysis, not to be friend with my boss. It would seem that people are unable to be honest with one another.
I fully understand Linus' comment, it is sad to have to antagonize people and community, but on the other side, if you comply to every whim, you're not aiming for excellence, and stay mediocre. Compromise is the worst. While it is sad to see people unable to differentiate between a technical and personal attack, and the other way, some person making personal attack from technical point, we might just have to live with it.
All in all, I prefer to have enemies, and be true to my principle, rather than only have friends and keep compromising on my value.
Send a patch proving him wrong. I'm pretty sure he will recognize his mistake, something that you probably won't do in the same situation.
Ironically, Poettering's rant only served to highlight the issues and interpersonal problems he was rather than Linus or anyone else.
To manage a complex project well, generally you have to be a little bit of a dick at times. Too soft, and people walk all over you or ignore you. Too jerky, and nobody wants to work for you or feel unmotivated to please you. The best managers for such projects know when turn up the heat a bit, yet not in an arbitrary and moody way, otherwise the heat loses meaning in a calling-wolf way.
Table-ized A.I.
What's up with all the sudden, unsolicited advice? Obviously, the best leadership approach here is to built a throne out of the skulls of your enemies. Duh.
Satya Nadella learned Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communication and is teaching it to his executives. Maybe Linus should do something similar.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2014/05/07/nadellas-bid-to-fix-microsoft-what-ballmer-didnt-dare/
Maybe some abuse is designed to scare people off. Like C++ coders and XML twats.
C'm on man! That's a smart sentence. I don't mean smart, but really smart. Sokrates is an old greek tard in comparison. That's going into my quotes file.
FTFY. You know, on the internet...
Poettering explicitly called out Torvalds for some of his most intemperate remarks and described open source as "quite a sick place to be in."
If only Linus used harsher language he might have prevented the Poettering of Free Software.
Would Apple be where it is if Jobs wasn't an asshole?
Do you think Linux would still be a success if Linus wasn't there to keep dumbasses from accumulating more political clout than technical competence and steering it toward ruin?
I bet we'd all be using Hurd now, we'd have a colony on Mars, and there'd be peace in the Middle East. Nothing promotes innovation faster than living in a hugbox that respects all opinions!
I hope it's not just me, I don't really have a problem with the strong language or pointed critique. Linus only really employs it for smart people who should know better, and will actually engage in conversation, and he's typically constructive. And funny.
The asshats are the people like Pottering, GNOME, and certain figures editing the HTML spec who don't give a damn about users, authors, and/or developers. The people who can't possibly imagine any use-case outside themselves or their company.
They're the maintainers in Open Source who close your bug reports without any questions because they can't imagine how your use case could possibly be relevant to them. Come on guys, at least ask a question if you don't understand the bug report/feature request.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I am not sure Linux was ever going to succeed from a standpoint of being a universally accepted desktop OS. I always considered Linux to be the Lego's of operating systems. You take the blocks and make it your own. Torvalds obsession with perfection and vision made himself the problem rather then the solution. Many started to ignore him simply out of their dislike for him. Fortunately it has not stopped Linux from becoming very popular in servers, specific task operating systems, and even some consumer success. The problem is Linux being open source and has become many things to many people. I do not think Torvalds inputs matter much anymore. Linux has become so much more then Torvalds.
without a pretentious load of bullshit packaged in.
What, they are selling them without Windows 8.x now?
We all know the word is shitload. We all know Linus is swearing, and he didn't bleep himself. This is an adult website, not a child website. So can we please have an honest depiction of what's actually said rather than some silly characters replacing the full spelling of the word like this is a cartoon? FCC rules don't apply to slashdot, that's radio and TV.
I'll never understand this weird deception people have that if you miss-spell fuck as f*ck, shit as sh-T, cocksucker as c*cksu**er, piss as p*ss, motherfucker as motherf*cker, cunt as c*nt, and tits as t*ts, you're someone "not swearing". Uhh.. yeah. (My regards to the late George Carlin)
AccountKiller
Do you pay any attention to what is going on around you? Poettering wasn't calling out Linus he was calling out critics of shittyd ... that is systemd
Reminds me of the original Alien tagline: In space, no one can hear you scream.
I was looking to improve some I/O performance by using aligned buffers and O_DIRECT and ran across this tirade from Torvalds:
https://lkml.org/lkml/2002/5/1...
"The thing that has always disturbed me about O_DIRECT is that the whole
interface is just stupid, and was probably designed by a deranged monkey
on some serious mind-controlling substances"
I can't code, but I can submit bug reports containing useful and valid information that is useful in fixing bugs. But in doing so, I've occasionally encountered a few asshats. I just move on to other projects that appreciate the feedback. Let those people wallow in their own inflated sense of self-importance.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
"... he gave us git."
Git uses poor naming, is poorly documented, and is, in my opinion, an example of the worst of the lack of social sophistication in programmers.
Functionally Git is advanced, but the Git interface is a mess created by someone who thinks, "You should just know what I mean. I don't have to be careful about communicating."
Effectively, Git is abusive. It drags every user through a steep learning curve. Git is an example of Linus Torvalds at his worst, in my opinion: Great ideas, sometimes a poor communicator.
A program is not finished until the user interface and documentation make using the program as easy as possible. If Torvalds fixed the difficulties that make Git hard to learn, as he did that he would have a chance to become more aware of his problems with communication. Facing that ugliness would take courage, but resolving the problems would make his entire life easier.
Yes, Torvalds deserves a lot of praise. If we care about him, and we should, we must help him become more socially capable. For example, he could recognize when his anger is caused by not getting enough caring in childhood, and not think that events in the present caused his anger, when events in the present only made him aware of his anger.
I'm writing a book about how people use their brains. I'm not saying I have a perfect understanding, but I have spent decades studying the issues. If you don't like my explanations, it is not sufficient to drop the subject or just complain; it is necessary to make your own theories about the problems.
Perhaps somebody should beat the cunt around the head with a dead Penguin, for half an hour or so. Perhaps it is his European background they use fuck a lot in writing "you lazy fuck you stupid fucker". If you look at the source code in Linux you see lots and lots and lots of fucks and dyslexic gobbledygook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You can offend in human language, and you can offend in computer language. What does Poettering want, a nanny?
Really? Where do you think a lot of fools went? It especially applies to gold rush situations all over the planet that century and not just the "wild west".
That's going in my quotes file.
What?
For example, he could recognize when his anger is caused by not getting enough caring in childhood, and not think that events in the present caused his anger, when events in the present only made him aware of his anger.
Is this a Poe or what?
If you don't like my explanations, it is not sufficient to drop the subject or just complain; it is necessary to make your own theories about the problems.
Well, no. If someone proposed we fix civil rights issues by giving everyone a free elephant, you don't have to propose your own theory to point out it's dumb.
Fully agree.
And yet we use it, because it's that effective If you can make a better git than git, I'm sure we'll all eventually move to it. But right now your armchair-quarterbacking.
You strike me as the kind of person that also considers all men latent rapists.
So what I think you're saying is that Linus should have iterated on git privately, indefinitely, until it meets your standard of done-ness?
I dunno, he hasn't gotten divorced yet, he's living a stable life, enjoys what he does, and is making a very positive contribution to society. Exactly what about him do you think is so in need of fixing that we should attend to that rather than, for example, find more time reading to our own kids?
Please warn us when you know its ISBN.
No it's not. In no way have you demonstrated that we have a moral or practical obligation to consider your statements. In fact, the only reason I'm writing about them at all is because I felt you needed an intervention, not Linux.
Git started out as a quick hack to respond to criticism of linux using BitKeeper. He fixed that "bug." Torvald's goal in creating git was to get off BitKeeper, not to develop an SCM as his main project.
Since this is open-source, and you think the documentation is poor, why don't you fix it?
Or you could fork it and make something simpler to use.
For example, he could recognize when his anger is caused by not getting enough caring in childhood, and not think that events in the present caused his anger, when events in the present only made him aware of his anger.
Now you're talking like a useless git. Do you have ANY proof that he didn't get enough caring in childhood, or do you just go around slandering people's parents routinely? You might want to read this. Sounds like a pretty enriched environment to grow up in.
I'm writing a book about how people use their brains.
$DIETY help us.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Is he going to own up to those cookies he stole from someone else's buffet plate when he was five?
Linus has routinely p!$$ed off his free help and discouraged many perspective people from helping him in the process... The Linux Kernel project has suffered as a result
There's no way to prove or disprove that kernel development to date has suffered as a result. If you want, you can certainly test your thesis by forking the kernel and inviting people to contribute to project with a "nicer, politer, more human-centric development process." If your theories are correct, you should be able to advance at a faster pace than mainline.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Since this is open-source, and you think the documentation is poor, why don't you fix it?
Good job falling back on the old "Well why don't you just fix it yourself then, smarty man" argument. Congratulations, you are an example of the hostile community we're talking about.
Linus has routinely p!$$ed off his free help and discouraged many perspective people from helping him in the process... The Linux Kernel project has suffered as a result
There's no way to prove or disprove that kernel development to date has suffered as a result. If you want, you can certainly test your thesis by forking the kernel and inviting people to contribute to project with a "nicer, politer, more human-centric development process." If your theories are correct, you should be able to advance at a faster pace than mainline.
That assumes that I'm as good as Linus technically and all other things are equal. Neither of these assumptions are likely true. He already has the name recondition, I would have none. He has the technical experience with the kernel, mine is limited. So your test isn't exactly apples to apples.
But I think it's clear, there has been a lot of people who simply didn't want the drama of working with him and I'm betting that over the decades some of these people could have been valuable to the project. Seems obvious to me, but you are free to be wrong about it..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
> Since this is open-source, and you think the documentation is poor, why don't you fix it?
You don't need to be a baker to know the bread is stale.
Did you figure that out all by yourself?
I'm sure that you're right, but perhaps you're ignoring one fact. Projects has an optimum number of contributors. Getting more than the optimum number is an actual hindrance to success. What that optimum number is varies with the project and with the management system. Sometimes the important thing is do get reasonable decisions made quickly. Sometimes it's important to smooth over people's feelings.
Linux has done well enough that I suspect that Linus has made nearly optimal choices given the available resources including his available time and energy, but also including the organizational structure, the management tools (both code and personnel), etc. I do feel that he might do a bit better if he had to make a few fewer personal decisions, but then some people would feel snubbed. I know that frequently things have gone back and forth several times before Linus acted in such a way as to close off debate (temporarily).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You conveniently leave out the first part of my comment - that git started out as a quick hack to move linux source control off Bitkeeper, which is proprietary., when people complained It achieved that goal. But that doesn't mean that Linus is now obligated to do the docs - it's a poor use of his time, and as such, simply not a rational option.
The intersection of good coders and good technical writers is not 1:1. That's reality, and no amount of whinging is going to change that. It's why for-profit companies have separate job functions for coding and documenting. So why should we expect the open-source world to apply a less efficient approach?
And really, if it's such a problem for you, why don't you fix it? Or if you don't have the skills, find ways to encourage others to? Even Stallman says there's nothing wrong in paying someone to fix something in open source.
After all, if you're complaining about how hard it is to use, it's because you're either using it, or tried to use it and gave up ... or you're just repeating something someone else said. If the latter, honestly, you have zero skin in the game. If the former, you might want to look here.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
As a software developer, frankly I'd rather deal with Linus or someone like him than most of the management I've had to deal with at my jobs. At least with Linus you know exactly where he stands and exactly where you stand with him, and why. When he calls something "stupid", he's usually very clear about his reasons for thinking it's stupid. I can deal with that. I can argue my position with him because I know what his position and his reasoning is. And he won't take my arguing with him personally, or even particularly badly as long as I can trot out facts and hard numbers to back up my positions and counter his. Better that than management that won't tell you what they want, won't say what they mean and try to deny their own decisions in the face of copies of their own e-mails and memos.
Here is the video of the whole thing.
Horseshit. Most projects I've been in that have adopted git did so because it was the best tool we could find. There was no inertia with which those projects had to contend.
It's the mildest response I could find at the time to the poster's statement.
That assumes that I'm as good as Linus technically and all other things are equal. Neither of these assumptions are likely true. He already has the name recondition, I would have none. He has the technical experience with the kernel, mine is limited. So your test isn't exactly apples to apples.
So what you're saying is "I don't think he's doing it the right way but I can't do better." How does that add ANYTHING helpful to the debate?
I'm betting that over the decades some of these people could have been valuable to the project. Seems obvious to me, but you are free to be wrong about it..
You say "you're betting that over the decades ..." - you're not betting anything. By your own admission, you have zero skin in the game. You have admitted that you have neither the inclination nor the ability to do better, but you'll sit there and continue to throw rocks. Talk is cheaper than ever, I guess ...
You have zero proof for your claim that kernel development has suffered. You were offered a way to prove it in a constructive fashion, but now admit you don't have the qualifications to. So how do you think that you have the qualifications to make your claim that kernel development has suffered?
It doesn't make sense, any more than management coming in and adding yet another stupid requirement that is actually contrary to the client's needs, "because we know better", with no metrics to back it up, or even a request from end users. And then people wonder why developers are sometimes rude or insensitive.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Feel free not to use it, but you have no right to try to remove/truncate it from people enjoying it. Start your OS, feel free to use it, I'm sticking with Linux. See you in 20 years...
Git uses poor naming, is poorly documented, and is, in my opinion, an example of the worst of the lack of social sophistication in programmers.
Luckily your opinion is something I wouldn't even use to wipe my arse with.
A program is not finished until the user interface and documentation make using the program as easy as possible
An open source program is not finished until it somewhat runs, it's source is published, and people find it useful. Don't like it? don't use it or write something better, if you can't, just go cry into a corner.
Since this is open-source, and you think the documentation is poor, why don't you fix it?
You don't need to be a baker to know the bread is stale.
No, but if you don't like stale bread and you don't want to shop elsewhere, you can either bake your own or continue to eat the stale bread.
Can't bake? Well, you can always learn, or sponsor someone else to bake for you. Same as open source, and how large portions of the competitive economy work. If you're not satisfied with a product, switch suppliers.
1. If you're not satisfied with a product, switch suppliers.
2. No alternative suppliers? Congratulations, you've discovered a market niche you can exploit.
3. PROFIT!
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Torvalds created git to get out from under the proprietart BitKeeper, and he created Linux to get out from under Tanenbaum's Minix, same story.
Since this is open-source, and you think the documentation is poor, why don't you fix it?
Good job falling back on the old "Well why don't you just fix it yourself then, smarty man" argument. Congratulations, you are an example of the hostile community we're talking about.
While you were busy attacking the parent for 'attacking' you (notice the double standard?), you conveniently failed to answer his simple question.
... think about it.
Peace, or Not?
you Linus proof the child. I imagine if a devloper ran into someone not just easily frustrated but also malicious. Why, in this ficticious and plain impossible world where everyone's polite, people would have no coping skills to deal with such negativity.
On the Internet, nobody can hear you being sarcastic.
lucm, indeed.
Would someone get rid of the caps lock key.
Honestly, it's good that the general public doesn't know much about his behavior on the developer forums. Nobody would want to do business with this guy.
I'm sure he does a lot of business with the general public.
> Most projects I've been in that have adopted git did so because it was the best tool we could find.
In no way does that contradict my point.
> It's the mildest response I could find at the time to the poster's statement.
Your inability to recognize extremism does not make you any less of an extremist.
A program is not finished until the user interface and documentation make using the program as easy as possible.
No, a program is finished when it does the task it was supposed to do and does it successfully.
There are huge numbers of specialized engineering tools that change a difficult/time-consuming task into more manageable one.
Git and version control software in general are such programs.
Kernel is also "a program" that manages hardware, processes and so on.
Get some older relatives to tell you some stories of when they were growing up without sanitising them and you'll learn how wrong you are. You've likely missed the boat for 1914, but I managed to talk to some relatives about it a few decades ago. What you read about days gone past has been cleaned up and is not an accurate indication of how people spoke, and we are furthur hampered by talkies corresponding with the rise of a moral crusade aimed at Hollywood which gives very distorted view of the 1930s etc from film and recordings.
Told him to be nicer to women.
So we got this statement.
Not that he cares. He's a black man in a white man's body.
Likes bitches with shelf.
There was a medical doctor who was collecting kernel patches that had quite a quite a following for a while, including some articles about him here on Slashdot. He didn't even run linux on his work machine and when he started his alternative patch collection it's likely that he had less technical experience with the kernel than yourself. Despite how that ended up (an argument over a scheduler) he was providing a bleeding edge alternative kernel for desktop machines for a while. The only problem there was that he did not understand his limits and take advice from others on one topic when he was perfectly happy to take advice from others on other topics.
Some poor fuckers are behind proxies that blacklist sites once key words are detected. That's why online newsletters do that and why some posters here do that. It's about fooling machines and not human beings.
No, people don't use if unless they have to. I'd rather gouge out my eyes and use Source Safe.
I'm at a complete loss to understand your point.
You think that there may exist one or more people who could have been valuable to a project. So? Can you even name one and why would you assume that the alternate universe where the hypothetical did contribute also did not have a current valuable contributor?
You think that a specific person could have done a better job of something that you admit that you can't do. So? You have no right to change other people, and don't seem to be confident that you could replace the person at the task or find another replacement.
If people took the trouble to learn a little bit of basic punctuation, this phrase would be wrong. It's easy to be subtle using the written word, look at the thousands and thousands of published books by professional writers.
Only if you insist on using pointless shorthand and writing like a hyperactive 10-year-old is lack of subtlety a problem.
If I'm going to pay someone to program, then it doesn't matter whether the source is open to me or not, does it.
Well in effect you can pay anybody to fix it because the source is available to everybody but with closed source the only people you can pay to fix it are those who wrote it (or a select few who have source access). However, from a practical standpoint nobody is contracting random developers to make changes to their software except large corporations, to an individual end user in a practical sense you are right: the fact that it's open source probably doesn't matter to them.
Try reading the examples and come back when you find some to show he's "routinely" insulting the person instead of what the person has done - I don't misunderstand, you are misrepresenting. People a century ago were not somehow more stupid than us and more likely to misunderstand and take personal affront for something indirect (such as your patronising putdown of myself based on something that does not appear to be true).
I prefer people who swear and yell at me to people who sit there doing nothing while bad things are happening. Or people who sit there and hate you silently and scheme behind your back. Or people who do the wrong thing just to avoid conflict and it ends up tanking the project. Or people who always quietly do what they are told instead of saying "this is wrong, this idea is stupid, we need to do things differently".
There are much worse things than swearing and being offensive, especially if soneone deserves it.
Getting results is what's critical. Being nice is a nice to have, but ultimately less important. In other words I'll take competent assholes who get things done over impotent nice guys. And competent assholes tend to stop acting like assholes when you earn their respect.
On the other hand, I would be reluctant to work with an asshole who's being an asshole without a good reason just because he likes hurting people. That is wrong. But this is now what we are talking about here- I never heard Linus being like that.
--Coder
I don't like Linus, but apparently enough people can put up with him to keep the kernel going. As long as he delivers, I really don't care what he says or does.
Thanks, can someone please mod parent up? I'm out of mod points.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The man you were talking about is Con Kolivas.
Never having been involved in Linux development, but following it since the early days, I always had the feeling that without Linus' strong leadership - including sometimes strong language - Linux would've been derailed and forgotten years ago. He is right in many aspects, including the need for a strong hand in some cases in the FOSS world, especially when you're developing something as important as the Linux kernel. Such an important piece of tech/sw can't be rapidly and consistently improved with constant debates about directions. Of course, Linus' leadership might not be the best possible, but I think a lot of us is willing to accept his sometimes strong language and style given the results he produced over the years. The end doesn't always justify the means, but in this case I think it does.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Thanks I'd forgotten his name.
If Con could do it for so long then why can't "Bobbied" give it a try if he actually wants to instead of being an armchair expert as to why he's be so much better than Linus with a software project.
It is interesting that trying to discuss lack of social ability caused a demonstration of exactly the lack of social ability Torvalds mentioned about himself.
Fascinating
Write failed: Broken pipe
Well we all are. And all women are latent emotional rapists. What's your point?
fuck shit ass bitch cunt dick asshole
The problem is not writing subtlety. It is other hearing/read it properly. In communication, when the goal is communication. Blunt is often the only way to be clear and understood. Your not going for the latest writing award you know.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Even if Linus has a foul mouth on occaisons....
we can't expect him to be the perfect god of software development.
It's called Mercurial
Not even sure what that's supposed to mean?
I've been using Linux for a VERY long time (like AMD K5 PR100 long), and have done kernel development at a few jobs over the years, and have a few minor edits in the repository. I've always appreciated Linus' forthrightness. He's had some strong differences with equally competent developers over the years, but in both the LKML and private correspondence, those comments and disagreements have been upfront and honest. When one of my edits was sent back for rework, the comments were not only honest, but constructive, and exposure to Linus' and his senior collaborators' comments have made me a better developer.
I know it sounds a bit "fanboy", but Linus isn't the only project "owner" out there I really respect, he's just the subject of this thread.
Torvalds is mixing the internet with open source. It should be "With open source, nobody can hear you being subtle." Simply because when anybody can participate, anybody will. And some participants can drag a good project down, one way or another. With open source, you don't have much power over the participants. There is no approval process, like with job application process. So strong language is one of the very few means of control. This is a serious stumbling block for open source. Its a too big leap to blame the internet alone.
This is just more of the same old story Linus has been spinning time and again when this topic comes up. He doesn't regret a single instance and then he makes the "that's just how it is" excuse. Then lots of people will flock to how "outrageous" his strong language is and lots of other people will swear they would ten times rather have Linus cussing them out than having to see another tie ever again.
This is getting very boring...
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
Effectively, Git is abusive. It drags every user through a steep learning curve.
You strike me as the kind of person that also considers all men latent rapists.
Wow, you're really an asshole. Because someone had an argument you didn't like, you conflated them with someone else you didn't like, in a way that let you work rape into the conversation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You conveniently leave out the first part of my comment - that git started out as a quick hack to move linux source control off Bitkeeper, which is proprietary., when people complained It achieved that goal. But that doesn't mean that Linus is now obligated to do the docs - it's a poor use of his time, and as such, simply not a rational option.
It started out as a quick hack, which is why it sucks and it isn't possible to trivially fix it. It was done wrong from go.
Not being able to resume a fetch is shit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Subtlety is often just a chicken shit way of having plausible deniability - the person being subtle can never be accused of having said anything definitive.
Not everyone who is good at writing code is good at writing documentation, and vice versa.
If we care about him, and we should, we must help him become more socially capable. For example, he could recognize when his anger is caused by not getting enough caring in childhood,
Who the FLYING FUCK are you to determine that? What gives you the right to judge the way someone else goes about their interactions? To decide that they are in need of you help?
This sort of bullshit moral superior armslength personal judgement makes me So Fucking Angry. You don't know him. You are not his therapist. You have no right to tell someone you do not know how they are in need of your help.
I dunno, he hasn't gotten divorced yet, he's living a stable life, enjoys what he does, and is making a very positive contribution to society. Exactly what about him do you think is so in need of fixing that we should attend to that rather than, for example, find more time reading to our own kids?
Yeah, but have you seen her? She's a fat, disgusting pig with a lunchlady face. With his temper, obsessions, and physical shortcomings, he can certainly be expected to be unhappy about the hand he was dealt, knowning that he couldn't do much better.
On the Internet, nobody can hear you being subtle
So what if some technically superior thing Torvalds wants to do requires being subtle? Doesn't that ever happen, or will he trade the technical superiority for being heard?
Hard to get a black belt in karate and also be a national champion in that particular sport if you where a "fat fuck".
It's usually as much the reader's fault for assuming bad faith all the time. It's hard to be subtle or reasonable when the other person assumes everything you say is hostile and takes it in the worst possible light.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
On Slashdot too... hello? Hello?? Is there anyone theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere???
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Er, if you ignore things like lack of a stable driver API then sure. Lots of users would have loved one of those.
But Linus encounters fewer problems like that because he has little in the way of vision for what desktop Linux should be. His job is to make a UNIX kernel along the same lines they were being designed 30 years ago. He is largely judged by how tightly he replicates a long-dusty commercial design. Desktop Linux on the other hand has no such luxuries because old commercial UNIX was never a force on the desktop. There, it has to both forge ahead its own path, and also look to competitors like MacOS X for good ideas.
And guess what? The genesis of SystemD bears a strong resemblance to launchd, the MacOS X init system. But because that's not something you would have found in Solaris or AIX, the UNIX "community" throws a fit.
Since the vast majority of people aren't programmers, the source doesn't matter. Sure a few guys upset that their printer didn't work on their mainframe might, but to the rest of us... !
The point of having the source is so that others can learn from it to become programmers, if they so choose. It isn't a requirement, but having the source code is a benefit.
In your response, you are showing exactly the kind of behavior that Linus Torvalds is criticizing in himself.
It often happens that people in the U.S. consider new information as an attack, or a possible attack, and feel that they need to defend themselves. What I said is not an attack, it is ideas about how to fix a problem Linus Torvalds says he has.
I don't find that cultural element in Brazil, for example. In Brazil, people are likely to consider anything that is said as just what it is, something someone else has said. They are not likely to feel attacked, especially when the statement was about someone else.
By being open about his shortcoming, Linus Torvalds gains 2 advantages: 1) People feel more friendly toward others who don't try to hide their problems, and 2) Linus gains the attention of those who might like to be helpful toward him. Someone may contribute ideas he finds helpful.
People gain advantages from being open and honest.
His conclusions were wrong, just wrong, his decision to allow continued access to rdrand was irresponsible...
Even the smartest guy in the room is going to be wrong from time to time, the difficulty is getting them to accept it.
Git is a great tool, but it's very easy to get all tied up in frivolous fooling around with it (I mean things like rebase, reset, etc.). I've learned that git can be used in a reasonable matter when staying away from those commands and basically using push, pull, checkout and branch. For the other stuff, you can create aliases like for git checkout -- . (which is just revert everything). Git has a stupid backward UI, but since we have a shell, we can easily alias it or write small scripts to make it sane.
There's a metric sh*#load of those.
So...what is that in imperial measurements?
Or, it replicates the insanity of the Mac laptop.
For example, certain USB devices can cause the boot system to fall apart, not something I would like to see replicated in the Linux world. Tight integration sounds nice, and makes for easy argumentation.... but it's really the same old shit with new polish. People have been selling soup-to-nuts integration since the dawn of computing. What did it get us? Fucked.
If you don't like how the loosely coupled system is working, then fix it, optimize it. Don't tie it together so tightly that you create new, and likely catastrophic problems.
(typing this on a MacBook Pro, provided by my employer.)
saying "fuck", but somehow, your society has decided it should not be uttered
Fucking-A right it shouldn't be fucking uttered. Who are these fuckers that have to go the fuck around and say "fuck" all day?
Sounds like you're just mad at the parent's tone, but git is not perfect. Its command naming structure IS quite inconsistent. It technically is extremely capable, and got wide adoption, so it's entrenched. It's a social tool that can do that, just as Craigslist and Facebook have done.
That assumes that I'm as good as Linus technically and all other things are equal. Neither of these assumptions are likely true. He already has the name recondition, I would have none. He has the technical experience with the kernel, mine is limited. So your test isn't exactly apples to apples.
So what you're saying is "I don't think he's doing it the right way but I can't do better." How does that add ANYTHING helpful to the debate?
OK, I'll bite.
As a bit of background, I've worked in the software industry for nearly 25 years. I've been involved in many development projects, some successful, some failures. I've worked with and for a lot of different people. I've observed what works well, what works, and what doesn't, and I've taken note of why the projects I've worked on either failed or succeeded. What management styles are most effective and succeed more often and what styles to avoid. What makes a team more effective and what destroys otherwise good teams.
From this experience, I can tell you that certain management styles are generally more successful. Such styles build collaboration and cooperation between team members, which leads to the team being more productive. Management (which Torvalds is in this case) does more than just guide the technical solution, they also set the tone for the team, they manage the culture of the project. How they treat team members has a great impact on the productivity of the team and the productivity of the team can be more important than the technical solution on determining the level of success of a team.
In "free" development projects, developers are really donating their time (usually). For example, few kernel developers get paid for their efforts. Who would want to donate their time and risk being publicly reprimanded? I suppose there are a few, but the universe of prospective team members gets smaller and thus the active contributors in your project is more limited. It's simple to understand why.
Also, one more time, just in case you missed it... I am not claiming to be *technically* as qualified as Torvalds. Now I've never seen a C or C++ program that I couldn't figure out given enough time, so the Kernel code is not beyond my capabilities, but I fully understand that Torvalds has decades experience with this project, it's why he's the leader. (Well that and he holds the trademark..) So do NOT misunderstand me. I am not saying I would or could be better than Torvalds or that I would want to take his job because I could do it better. What I'm saying is that Torvalds could be doing better.
So, in a way, I'm agreeing with Torvalds, his biggest mistake is how he treats his team. And I'm asking him how he intends to do better. Because I think (and my experience tells me) that this mistake has harmed his projects by producing a less than optimal culture on his teams which leads to less than ideal performance. PLUS it has discouraged many from even trying to help given his projected public persona.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I think you have captured my feelings on this fairly well. I'm certainly NOT trying to say Torvalds has totally messed things up or even that I think I could have done better. But I am saying that his management style is sometimes too abrasive and often way too public. I think this has had a chilling effect on the pool of prospective contributors and has contributed to a less than optimal culture on the kernel project and you point to some examples of this. His projects have likely suffered from this. Not that the Kernel isn't successful, only that the project could be managed better.
I'm hoping that Torvalds' admission of this "biggest" mistake can lead to improvement in his style and the culture of the projects he manages, for the betterment of the projects in question...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Effectively, Git is abusive. It drags every user through a steep learning curve.
You strike me as the kind of person that also considers all men latent rapists.
Wow, you're really an asshole. Because someone had an argument you didn't like, you conflated them with someone else you didn't like, in a way that let you work rape into the conversation.
I see where you're coming from, and indeed I am sometimes an asshole/ But I think you're misunderstanding what I meant by my earlier post. Let me explain.
In a number of news stories about particularly vocal feminists and/or politically correct college campus administrators, I've seen what I'd consider an unreasonable inflation of the seriousness of their perceived slights. For example, a man looking a woman up and down is the same as rape. Or a white person getting a job for which a black person applied being racist.
The statement "Effectively, Git is abusive. It drags every user through a steep learning curve." reminded me of that kind of inflation. And so, I quipped, he reminded me of the silliness I've seen in the "staring = rape" crowd.
However, my apologies for making a joke that was more confusing than funny. Apparently I struck the wrong balance.
Your not going for the latest writing award you know.
Effectively, Git is abusive. It drags every user through a steep learning curve.
You strike me as the kind of person that also considers all men latent rapists.
WHAT THE FUCK
All those words, and still missing the point. All your observations seems to come from environments where people can be a) be fired or b) genuinely puts the project first rather than some ulterior motive and c) seems quite limited in scale.
Linux is a huge undertaking and not all players are team players. In fact a lot of the players represent fierce competitors. Also, *you* put your code out there in the public eye, then it's logical that you get to face the music in public too, no? Finally, acting like the first thing Linus does is crap all over people who give him an opportunity is a (deliberate?) misrepresentation of the reality. But hey, it made you feel important for a few minutes, so I guess it wasn't all in vain.
It's a valid complaint. You bitch about a free product being substandard and then give *us* funny looks when we point out that you could get off your ass and do something about it if you care that much.
"we must help him become more socially capable"
Fuck you! Your definition of "socially capable" seems to be my definition of "mundane, homogenised milquetoast".
Swear and curse, shout and scream, Linus! Get shit done! Fix problems. Call out idiocy.
Also, please don't tell me how to have an argument. The last thing we need is more ill-informed theories. If you're willing to present an idea, be ready to defend it in the face of my cynicism. If you say something I don't like, I will complain. And I will continue to complain until you prove yourself correct. Which means making statements of fact rather than spouting opinions.
The great thing about being the negative one, is that all I need is opinion, whereas you need evidence.
For example, few kernel developers get paid for their efforts.
That's not true.
A new Linux Kernel Development report (informally known as "Who Writes Linux") released today by the Linux Foundation names Samsung and Google as the seventh and eighth most frequent corporate contributors, behind Red Hat, Intel, Texas Instruments, Linaro, SUSE, and IBM. The report covers almost 92,000 changes to Linux from 3,738 individuals since version 3.3 in March 2012. Most Linux developers contribute to the kernel as part of their employment.
Only 13.6% of code contributions are from people who are not paid by employers to do so. Those who are working for companies are devoting time to the kernel because both they and their employer see it's worth doing. If they were uncomfortable with the process, they are certainly in a position to demand changes.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Shesh.. Really? Yes, I knew Torvalds gets paid and other developers are paid to contribute... .
Perhaps there would be more volunteers who are not paid by others if Torvalds would knock off his management rough edges?
I think my point still stands..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Come off it, you made a claim that was grossly inaccurate when you wrote "For example, few kernel developers get paid for their efforts." One that took only seconds to search for the facts.
Your point doesn't stand; it's based entirely on anecdotal musings based on your experience, and not on evidence.
But let's expand my original test. There are others who could also have forked the kernel under a "kinder, more humane" approach, and reaped tangible benefits. Nobody has. Certainly not Mark "My Way or the Highway" Shuttleworth with Ubuntu.
Why not?
Paid contributors have to meet certain expectations in terms of quality to their employers. That sets a standard. You don't want someone who doesn't get the rules to submit a bunch of code in c++, for example. If they don't get why it's in c only, it's not up to the maintainers to educate them. There's just too much of a gap to make that a profitable use of one's time.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
You still haven't presented a valid argument, you are just arguing I don't know what I'm talking about because of some minor wording issue. I already knew some people get paid, some people don't, and said so. You think I should have said "MOST" when I said "FEW" and because of that difference I don't have any creditability here?
You sir are nit picking, while not addressing your real objection. What's that argument technique called? Oh yes.. A red herring fallacy, ad Hominem argument known as Poisoning the well – where adverse information about a target is presented with the intention of discrediting everything that the target person says.
You have a good weekend, and I'm done with this thread.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I really hate that guy and his slot machines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Disclaimer: I also hate the guy in the video.
lucm, indeed.
And yet we use it, because it's that effective If you can make a better git than git, I'm sure we'll all eventually move to it.
What makes you think people would reliably move to a better git than git?
The history of computing is littered with the carcasses of applications that were better than the competition, but never achieved much success for whatever reason (e.g., perhaps the competition got the first mover advantage, and that was enough to guarantee its dominance).
You still haven't presented a valid argument, you are just arguing I don't know what I'm talking about because of some minor wording issue. I already knew some people get paid, some people don't, and said so. You think I should have said "MOST" when I said "FEW" and because of that difference I don't have any creditability here?
Why should anyone trust your evaluation when you come up with factoids that are demonstrably false by anyone who has kept half an eye on kernel development over the last couple of decades? Your other claims come into doubt because you have refused, despite repeated opportunities, to supply ANY proof, just more unsubstantiated opinions.
I offered several ways for you to prove otherwise, even though that's certainly not my job when someone makes a claim, and you rejected them because you are not interested, not qualified, it would be too hard because Linus as too much of a lead, whatever ... even though if you were right, this would be a great business opportunity.
where adverse information about a target is presented with the intention of discrediting everything that the target person says
I didn't attack you personally, I attacked your claims. You on the other hand ...
You sir are nit picking
That I take personal offense to.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
“the rudest word, the rudest letter is more good natured, more straightforward than silence. [...] I should not like to see rudeness undervalued; it is by far the most humane form of contradiction” — F.N.
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." --Oscar
Casteism
It sucks but the daughter inherited that too.
Linus threw his life away. Why?
He's not that bad looking.
The most hot-tempered and foul-mouths were shot down fast "in the old west", I believe.
...Oh, almost so.
Thankfully (esp. for Linus), no one is killing others today, because it's the internets.
IMHO... Your opinion is still wrong and your argument inappropriate as it doesn't address the issue at hand..
You sir are nit picking
That I take personal offense to.
My apologies. I was not intending to offend you by incorrectly imposing a specific sexual identity on you. Please OMIT the word "sir" from my previous post. However, you are increasingly nit picking on non relevant issues, which IMHO says to me that this debate is pointless as you insist on beating around unrelated bushes...
Until next time.....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101