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Linux Kernel Dev Sarah Sharp Quits, Citing 'Brutal' Communications Style
JG0LD writes: A prominent Linux kernel developer announced today in a blog post that she would step down from her direct work in the kernel community. “My current work on userspace graphics enabling may require me to send an occasional quirks kernel patch, but I know I will spend at least a day dreading the potential toxic background radiation of interacting with the kernel community before I send anything,” Sharp wrote. Back in July, 2013 Sarah made a push to make the Linux Kernel Development Mailing List a more civil place.
Can't take it? Go! -- No problem.
Everyone who gets involved in kernel development (male, female or other) finds the whole process utterly brutal and gets the shit kicked out of them at some stage. While not all that nice sometimes it at least does ensure that ideas and code passes the mustard.
in the *very* early days (0.9x), and back then Linus never seemed like much of a dick, but then again, at the time he was still a student. Even met him face-to-face a couple of times. I stepped away due to the huge time commitments required by my regular job, not because of any issues I had with anyone.
The stories I hear leave me scratching my head. This isn't the Linus I knew back in the day. I guess all the fame and all of that must have gone to his head.
While I appreciate the idea of catering your communication to your target(s), I have to say that dealing with people who need constant emotional petting to stay productive is exhausting ( women mostly ).
I much prefer working with men for this reason. While it's not a guarantee you won't get "Whiny Bitches" in a male dominated environment, it's far less likely. By putting aside the emotional overhead, the entire team can more effectively focus on the task(s) at hand.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
It took a hell of a lot of digging, but it seems to have started with this thread, way back in 2013.
Now, I'm all for professional communication, and emails can be easy to misinterpret, but this looks like a bit of an over-reaction. Someone commented that they send patches to Greg KH because Linus scares him, but added a winkey smiley afterwards, i.e. not really all that scary. Then Linus made a joke about Greg being big and squishing people that may or may not be playful or insulting, without knowing much about the relationship between these guys it's hard to say. Squish is hardly a word you use when you're really angry though.
And then Linus and Ingo gently tick off Greg and says he should be tougher, Linus says Greg is acting like a "door mat" and says "You may need to learn to say no to people". Ingo says "be frank with contributors and sometimes swear a bit". Probably this discussion would be held off list in a more traditional corporate environment to avoid embarrassing Greg (though "you are too nice" is not that embarrassing), but he takes it in his stride and agrees to be tougher.
OK, so far, just another day in open source land? Well, then Sarah Sharp flies off the handle and says:
What the heck? The only thing she could be referring to this thread so far has been Linus talking about Greg being a giant who might "squish you without even noticing". Nobody could seriously interpret that as advocating for violence unless you were so unbelievably literal you'd be unable to handle ordinary conversations.
And then there's the conflation of "verbal abuse" with "violence". These are two words that mean very different things. And finally the assertion that by trying to make jokes (perhaps not very well), Linus and Ingo were being unprofessional. Not surprisingly, Linus had a problem with this claim.
Now I don't know, probably this could have been avoided if the discussion with Greg had been private. But it seems Sharp would have let rip at some other point if someone else made an off-colour joke. I can believe LKML is a tough environment, but this isn't the best evidence possible. Perhaps there have been other incidents, but as Sharp doesn't list any, it's hard to say.
That's not toxic masculinity cupcake, that's just being a dickhead. And guess what, women can be just as bad if not worse. Step out of the feminist echo chamber for once and actually ask a woman, they'll be happy to tell you how ruthlessly competitive and cut-throat women can be when it suits them.
My first knee-jerk reaction was also, "Yeah, SHE couldn't take it." But after reflecting on Linus Torvald's style and comparing it with workplaces that I've been at over the years... yeah, I can't say I blame her. The key to successful leadership is giving criticism when it's due and also giving praise when it's due. Books have been written about how to be a successful manager and leader. A few I can think of off the top of my head:
How to Make Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
You have to be able to understand what motivates and what de-motivates people. The Linux community has a hard time attracting talent precisely because the people in charge have essentially zero skill in interpersonal relationships, and often they are completely unaware of this. Looking at it from the perspective of pure instrumental rationality, when you're leading a project, your primary focus should be saying and doing things that advance the project. Taking glee in dishing verbal abuse does not, most of the time, advance this goal.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
I was curious and did some research on this. I know Linus and some of the other guys can be a lot to take. However, after reading a lot of the posts Sarah made complaining about people and things, I started to get the feeling she's attention seeking and disruptive. She constantly brings up gender in irrelevant ways and appears to be the self styled 'girl kernel developer'. She also punches below the belt. For example:
"*Snort*. Perhaps we haven't interacted very often, but I have never seen you be nice in person at KS. Well, there was that one time you came to me and very quietly explained you had a problem with your USB 3.0 ports, but you came off as "scared to talk to a girl kernel developer" more than "I'm trying to be polite"."
Linus tends to be very direct, as are a lot of important open source communities. The critical people are very busy and get frustrated when people display various kinds of incompetence. In fact, it appears to me that they were treating Sarah very gently precisely *because* she was a girl. Or maybe it was the intel.com email adress -- who knows.
If the person is being a bully, call them out.
It's not so easy, this is a community fostered and led by a man who has an unprofessional and childishly abrasive way of communicating. He has said he will not change but the Linux community needs him so ultimately pretty much whatever he does will be accepted in that community and that community attempts to emulate him. You don't need the childish name-calling but in the Linux community Linus does it so they will justify it some way like "well that's just how he is so you have to accept it".
You can call out Linus but the whole Linux community will turn on you.
Rather than view it in terms of "the right way" versus "the wrong way", how about we agree that on average men PREFER a certain communication style that is different from women's average preferred communication style.
It's an old-fashioned "culture conflict" type of problem.
These are mostly volunteers in this case such that we cannot simply slap a discrimination lawsuit on them to force them to talk "professionally".
Maybe someone can offer special classes to learn how to sling "dude crap" with the best of them. I've known women who perfected the art. They can be fun to be around, but I wouldn't want to date them.
As an anecdote, I was arguing with one lady about a signature on a document. "I don't care how it's signed, I'll sign it with my damned wanker if I have to!".
"Ah, you mean short-hand!", she replied.
Table-ized A.I.
Seriously. "Professional Communication" is not the time to be addressing "emotional needs." Emotional needs get addressed in personal time with your cat, bottle of whiskey, or other chosen emotional support method. It isn't about "toxic" or "masculinity." It is about people trying to work don't work well in an aspie hugbox.
I don't, I prefer "I don't appreciate your behaviour". Years ago I left Usenet because I noticed that the abrasive attitude was very easy to pick up (I certainly have played my ugly part) and in most IT related groups. It's also the reason why I don't contribute to any open source project. No idea if it's IT specific because I have friends who are biologists and I don't see that attitude between them. Maybe I don't know them well enough, I only see them a few days now and then during field trips. But each time it's like a fresh breath of air compared to the IT attitude.
Perl Programmer for hire
Can you point to a specific example of her mocking or abusing people? I read her post, it was very carefully written so as not to do that, and not to make it a gender issue.
You are reading your own prejudices against someone you consider to be an "SJW" into this.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC