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Linus Torvalds Reflects On How He's Been Hostile To Linux Community Members Over the Years, Issues Apology, and Announces He Will Be Taking Some Time Off (kernel.org)
On Sunday, Linus Torvalds spoke about the confusion he had regarding Maintainer's Summit, but more importantly, how this incident gave him a chance to realize "that I really had been ignoring some fairly deep-seated feelings in the community." In an email to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, Torvalds apologized for hurting people with his behavior over the years, and possibly driving some people "away from kernel development entirely." On that end, said Torvalds, "I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately." He wrote: [...] It's one thing when you can ignore these issues. Usually it's just something I didn't want to deal with. This is my reality. I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of person and that probably doesn't come as a big surprise to anybody. Least of all me. The fact that I then misread people and don't realize (for years) how badly I've judged a situation and contributed to an unprofessional environment is not good. This week people in our community confronted me about my lifetime of not understanding emotions. My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me. I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry.
The above is basically 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.I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately.
Put another way: When asked at conferences, I occasionally talk about how the pain-points in kernel development have generally not been about the _technical_ issues, but about the inflection points where development flow and behavior changed. These pain points have been about managing the flow of patches, and often been associated with big tooling changes - moving from making releases with "patches and tar-balls" (and the _very_ painful discussions about how "Linus doesn't scale" back 15+ years ago) to using BitKeeper, and then to having to write git in order to get past the point of that no longer working for us. We haven't had that kind of pain-point in about a decade. But this week felt like that kind of pain point to me. To tie this all back to the actual 4.19-rc4 release (no, really, this_is_ related!) I actually think that 4.19 is looking fairly good, things have gotten to the "calm" period of the release cycle, and I've talked to Greg to ask him if he'd mind finishing up 4.19 for me, so that I can take a break, and try to at least fix my own behavior.
This is not some kind of "I'm burnt out, I need to just go away" break. I'm not feeling like I don't want to continue maintaining Linux. Quite the reverse. I very much *do* want to continue to do this project that I've been working on for almost three decades. This is more like the time I got out of kernel development for a while because I needed to write a little tool called "git". I need to take a break to get help on how to behave differently and fix some issues in my tooling and workflow.
And yes, some of it might be "just" tooling. Maybe I can get an email filter in place so at when I send email with curse-words, they just won't go out. Because hey, I'm a big believer in tools, and at least _some_ problems going forward might be improved with simple automation. [...]
The above is basically 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.I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately.
Put another way: When asked at conferences, I occasionally talk about how the pain-points in kernel development have generally not been about the _technical_ issues, but about the inflection points where development flow and behavior changed. These pain points have been about managing the flow of patches, and often been associated with big tooling changes - moving from making releases with "patches and tar-balls" (and the _very_ painful discussions about how "Linus doesn't scale" back 15+ years ago) to using BitKeeper, and then to having to write git in order to get past the point of that no longer working for us. We haven't had that kind of pain-point in about a decade. But this week felt like that kind of pain point to me. To tie this all back to the actual 4.19-rc4 release (no, really, this_is_ related!) I actually think that 4.19 is looking fairly good, things have gotten to the "calm" period of the release cycle, and I've talked to Greg to ask him if he'd mind finishing up 4.19 for me, so that I can take a break, and try to at least fix my own behavior.
This is not some kind of "I'm burnt out, I need to just go away" break. I'm not feeling like I don't want to continue maintaining Linux. Quite the reverse. I very much *do* want to continue to do this project that I've been working on for almost three decades. This is more like the time I got out of kernel development for a while because I needed to write a little tool called "git". I need to take a break to get help on how to behave differently and fix some issues in my tooling and workflow.
And yes, some of it might be "just" tooling. Maybe I can get an email filter in place so at when I send email with curse-words, they just won't go out. Because hey, I'm a big believer in tools, and at least _some_ problems going forward might be improved with simple automation. [...]
It was a good run...
Any time someone decides to do something for self-improvement, it's a good thing. Good for you, Linus.
He turned me into a newt!
I got better...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Wow. Good job, Linus. Hope to see you come back with a much better attitude!
Even Linus eventually realizes that people respond better when you aren't a raging asshole. Too bad many Slashtards can't also come to the same realization.
I thought April fools was, you know, in April
In all seriousness, if this is actually true, good on him. It takes a big person to admit being an asshole. Takes a bigger person to actually change. Time will tell I guess.
Heard in the background from Theo De Raadt
Why do you falsely presume that he'll stop caring solid engineering just because he stops being an assholish aspie? The two are not mutually exclusive in any shape. Instead of being a dick, he can provide constructive criticism and mentoring instead to motivate people to actually want to continue working on the kernel.
For all the brilliant jerks out there...
And yes, some of it might be "just" tooling. Maybe I can get an email filter in place so at when I send email with curse-words, they just won't go out. Because hey, I'm a big believer in tools, and at least _some_ problems going forward might be improved with simple automation.
It's heartening to hear that Linus is getting more self-aware. Another option he might consider is having someone else give his emails a quick review to ensure the tone aligns with his desired response. Sometimes the words in your head just don't sound the same when read by others.
I don't personally mind Linus being a bit abrasive (and let's be honest, it's lead to some pretty funny quotes over the years), but I think the overall approach is a good one and that Linux would not be as good as it is today if he let substandard code into the system. Hopefully he's able to keep the same tough stance on quality while being able to communicate it more effectively.
However, there are still some people that should just be told to straight up piss off however since dealing with their crap just isn't worth your time. They can always fork the project if they really want to do things their own way.
Does this mean that "git" may be renamed in the near future?
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
but I think the overall approach is a good one and that Linux would not be as good as it is today if he let substandard code into the system. Hopefully he's able to keep the same tough stance on quality while being able to communicate it more effectively.
Why do people act like a project would be forced to take in substandard code just because the maintainers aren't allowed to be assholes? Constructive criticism and mentoring can be used just as well in place of being a dickish aspie.
Counter argument: Was he a dick to competent people who screwed up and fixed their error? Or just to the ones who screwed up then tried to justify breaking the rules and he slammed the point home?
I suspect you'll find that the latter is much more common in LKML.
In any case the core point is that if you want a truly quality product, regardless of the industry, goals and results take precedence over "feelings" in any form or fashion.
I agree with the above poster.
There are some developers that need to be called out harshly just to keep them from pushing their agenda. The entitled systemd folks come to mind.
Give 'em hell, Linus!
The real news here isn't that Linus decided to get some therapy.
The real news is that Linux, the project, adopted the "Contributor's Covenant" code of conduct and thereby acknowledged SJW ideological supremacy. The CC is an SJW vehicle promulgated by Coraline Ada and a related group of activist malcontents. While the CC appears on the surface to be a call of civility, it's actually the tip of a very long and exsanguatory anti-meritocracy spear, one that ultimately seeks to elevate high-verbal-IQ non-technical politics-playing San-Francisco-residing cliques of social justice advocates into positions of recognition and authority in the free software world and beyond. If you write code and you're good at it, these people are a direct threat to your status, your hobby, and your livelihood, because if these people get their way, your technical excellence becomes secondary to their wokeness.
These people also admit, quite openly, that they use out-of-project CoC enforcement as a means to forbid FOSS contributors from supporting certain political positions. Check the HN thread. They're gleeful. They have a scalp and they're showing it to everyone.
This is a very curious move from Linus. He's previously been so adamantly anti-tone-policing, anti-SJW, and pro-meritocracy that I can't help but wonder if he is in fact being blackmailed or coerced in some fashion. Back in 2015, ESR reported that the tech-SJW community was attempting to frame Linux in some fashion. My personal hunch is that Linus got complacent about operational security and eventually got caught in an SJW trap. I don't fault him. If you or I were put in a position of swearing fealty to Coraline Ada or being forced by a Twitter mob into giving up maintainership of a project that we'd worked our whole lifetime to force into existence, we might also choose to drop to our knees, kiss the ring, and get woke.
Of course it won't work, since blackmailers are never contented. But in the heat of the moment, it doesn't feel that way.
This is a very sad day.
Who would have thought he wasn't the overly emotional touchy feely type?
Being that way is OK. It is time that the touchy feely types stop trying to force those that aren't into what they think we should be. It is the same problem as extroverts vs introverts where introverts often find extrovert behavior out right offense but won't say anything about it.
Maybe the group that has the longest list of accomplishments can tell the other group they are wrong.
but I for one
"I" who AC? At least put your account name on your proclamations.
This has been a long time coming. Linus is great, but he has been causing problems with his treatment of people and he knows it. There have been disruptive people among Linux contributors in the past and Linus recognized and dealt with them appropriately. Now he has recognized some of that in himself and is choosing to deal with that as well. Who are you to tell him he's wrong?
Your use of SJW isn't appropriate; the complaints aren't based in grievance mongering and no one is demanding special treatment or double standards. However, it is easy to anticipate an overreaction and I hope that Linus doesn't knuckle under the to "community standards" mob and end up saddled with a bunch of ambiguous, easy abused "guidelines" that are used to a empower some kangaroo court.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
He'll be apologising after each email now.
Why do people act like a project would be forced to take in substandard code just because the maintainers aren't allowed to be assholes? Constructive criticism and mentoring can be used just as well in place of being a dickish aspie.
One person with high standards is another person's "dickish aspie."
One person's constructive criticism is another's micro-aggression, sexism, racism, or whatever negative-label du jour used as a club. Projects aren't forced to take in substandard code but some projects have experienced severe losses by trying your approach and giving an inch. Take firefox as an example.
You can be certain he won't sacrifice code quality. That is his top priority, and you can tell because he talks about interpersonal issues in terms of how it affects the kernel code quality.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It seems to odd that Linus would do this out of the blue. Perhaps a formal complaint has been filed against him somewhere and he's trying to get ahead of the story. This is complete speculation on my part btw.
Sometimes when someone who shouldn't screw up does so with blatant disregard for the priorities of the project, it's useful to flame them to remind other people NOT to do the same thing.
One example is from about six years ago when Linus reminded everyone very crisply that one doesn't change userspace APIs willy nilly and then blame the applications that were broken by the change. I'm pretty sure that his response reinforced in many developers' minds that this was simply unacceptable and reminded them far more effectively than an unemotional purely technical observation would have.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Huh? The project recently adopted the Contributor's Covenant which was the brainchild of Coraline Ada, queen SJW. Of course bringing up SJW is appropriate in this context. The trend is unmistakable and the slippery slope has begun toward the fall of the high kernel standards.
I agree with Linus, of course, but still it's funny/sad that the user code it broke was... pulseaudio.
For starters, a computer acts for more like a "dickish aspie" than Linus ever will.
Furthermore, actual aspies make good code testers, and often good programmers.
Also, a hostile environment may actually be preferable, because it keeps the lowest common denominator higher.
Finally, I have to say there's a bit of irony in you describing Linus in a way that denigrates the autistic, while Linus himself has not used criticism in such a bigoted way. By the very notions behind such community conduct standards, you need to take a break before he does.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
This 4.19 patch is awesome. Linus is self-aware. I accidentally compiled in the wrong video driver. Instead of xorg crashing and spewing filth at me for my idiocy, it kindly told me that the computer needed a break while it took some time to work out what is wrong. It's been a few hours but I'm pretty sure it's going to fix itself. I think version 4.20 is going to grow its own weed and sell it for me, bringing in a better income that a Bitcoin mining rig!
So how many of you /. readers admit to being on the spectrum. Come on, at least half. So Linus is on the spectrum too.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Why do people act like a project would be forced to take in substandard code just because the maintainers aren't allowed to be assholes?
Because we've all worked at companies where substandard code is routine due to a culture of passive-aggressive nonsense.
It's very easy for people to get lazy and for code to just get worse and worse if people are not called out over letting standards slide.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Quick, make a copy of the kernel sources, we are going to see all kinds of SJW BS in the mainline now!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
One example is from about six years ago when Linus reminded [lkml.org] everyone very crisply that one doesn't change userspace APIs willy nilly and then blame the applications that were broken by the change. I'm pretty sure that his response reinforced in many developers' minds that this was simply unacceptable and reminded them far more effectively than an unemotional purely technical observation would have.
IF anything, he should have worded that message more forcefully. It's that important.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Freddie Mercury never fixed his teeth because they thought it would negatively affect his singing. I'm not a kernel dev but I sure have used, and appreciate (including supporting them monetarily) their efforts over the years. I hope this doesn't dispel the magic.
I think it takes a certain kind of person to manage such a project, Linus needs to be Linus, nothing needs to change in my eyes. What he says or does seems to get the results we all need and that is more important than people enjoying everything he says. We all get offended but we move on from it, Linux will continue with or without Linus telling some someone to shut the f**k up but it just how he is. I would hate him censored and calm
It is not mistreating someone to call them out for a serious error. A high contrast response is sometimes necessary to get their (and other's) attention and to communicate the severity of the infraction. The example I gave wasn't just "because Linus can" - it was a relevant message communicated at a fairly appropriate volume. Myself, I wouldn't have sent the message quite that way but that doesn't mean it was wrong. Everyone on the project at that point was well aware of Linus' personality and bluntness and if they didn't want to deal with such feedback when they did something really stupid and doubled down on it, they should have found something else to do. Over my career I've run across a number of people I would refuse to work "for" even if it meant I had to quit to accomplish that.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
There's a balance. Too much of either flame or light-treading can lead to problems. The most difficult situations are where there is a mismatch of culture among individuals. i.e. where remarks that are not actually offensive are mistakenly taken as such due to poor wording and because people are expecting fire or where softening the language around a critical issue leads to it being not taken seriously by those expecting more fire.
As far as this case goes specifically, I have always had the impression that Linus was a little on the flame-y side but much in the same way that all drivers in San Francisco are jerks -- if you don't drive that way you're actually more likely to cause an accident because everyone is expecting it. But honestly I don't read enough lkml to know for sure. There is a line between flame and abuse, and if that gets crossed too often then there are problems.
Puhleez. What are the odds that the nerd of all nerds has trouble being empathetic? Linus is the Sheldon Cooper of kernel developers! Let's all give him a break, ignore his ill-conceived personal rants and just love him for what he gives to the world.
*** Don't be dull.***
Do you even know what the term 'asshat' means?
(Cross posted from twitter here: https://twitter.com/gehrehmee/...)
Just read Linus' LKML email that he's taking some time off kernel development to "get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately".
Good on him. It's an example many of us in tech can learn.
I especially like how he compares this time off kernel development to his time he took off to go work on git. It's important to collaborate with your community, to be a *good person* -- but it's also important from a productivity and efficiency angle.
Investing energy into one's tooling, whether emotional awareness, social skills, communication, collaboration, verbal, written word, or tech/code mechanisms, is critical for anyone trying to be a balanced person that delivers the most they can at the things they care about.
Investing energy into one's tooling, whether emotional awareness, social skills, communication, collaboration, verbal, written word, or tech/code mechanisms, is critical for anyone trying to be a balanced person that delivers the most they can at the things they care about.
This kind of *investment* is all too easily and all too often looked down upon.
It should be celebrated. It should be taught (in post-secondary settings even!). It should be expected.
It should be normal.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
Good for Linus. Change at this point is always remarkable. On that... I have always wondered if Linus would pass a Turing Test?
Huh? The project recently adopted the Contributor's Covenant which was the brainchild of Coraline Ada, queen SJW. Of course bringing up SJW is appropriate in this context. The trend is unmistakable and the slippery slope has begun toward the fall of the high kernel standards.
Exactly this.
Oh fuck me you're not lying. https://github.com/torvalds/li...
Because we've all worked at companies where substandard code is routine due to a culture of passive-aggressive nonsense.
And for companies full of precious little snowflakes that melt down and cry at the slightest criticism. Code reviews are rubber-stamped without reading more frequently than FISA warrants just so you don't offend them by calling out issues in their work.
Sounds like the guy needs a little time for some self reflection. Personally I don't think that Linus owes us a thing. He is arguably one of the most, if not the most, important people in the history of computing. His contributions have been immense. Keep in mind that in the beginning he was doing all of this without any compensation at all.
He is in many ways the anti Bill Gates. Gates did what he did quite obviously for money and power. Torvalds more for just the love of it all. I'm happy to see that he has made a little money along the way. If anyone deserves it, it's him.
Torvalds started out managing code and slowly but surely got dragged into the business of managing people. This is something that he is clearly not cut out for and something I suspect he doesn't enjoy very much. But once a movement gets big enough it's sort of a necessary evil.
My hope is that during his time away he will think about maybe handing the "people" reins over to someone else so that he can concentrate on the code - something he is truly brilliant at and something he really loves.
The Linux kernel is quite mature now so I suspect he can take a few months off without any ill effects to the project. There are capable people in place that can guide the ship in his absence. Enjoy your time off Linus. You have surely earned it.
Look closer:
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v4.19-rc4/Documentation/process/code-of-conduct.rst
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/8a104f8b5867
Holy crap, it does sound like there's something creeping into the core kernel process here.
I think Linus has been a total dick in the past as well, and I think he could have made his arguments perfectly well with less flowery language. It did make me think twice about going into kernel contribution areas. However this is *not cool* and even hearing the name of Coraline Ada in this story makes me shudder (do your own research on this person, seriously). This sort of quiet addition to a project of a CoC is exactly the sort of thin edge of the wedge that gets projects hijacked.
People need to stand up and say they're strong enough to take being called names, if the technical reasons are justified. It ain't pretty but ultimately we want the code to work, right?
You're wrong. Linus Torvalds believes you are wrong, and he is not going to continue being wrong.
You have a point that systemd should be told to piss off. And I'm sure the new Linus will be able to tell deserving people, in his own way, to sod off.
If Linus thought it were a good approach he would not be seeking help.
Now go eat a cock you subhuman dick eating shit for brains idiot.
This is Linus figuring out something that's been obvious to outsiders for a long time: sometimes he can be kind of a dick. That's not 100% bad, and it certainly doesn't make him a bad person. And on the scale of dickishness, it's not like he's that far out on the tail end.
But now he sees it, and it's made him ask a really smart question: is this really how I want to be?
There's lots of dickish people who are basically good people who just can't grasp why people react negatively to being treated abrasively or disrespectfully. And to be fair there are a lot of unreasonably sensitive people out there, about as many as there are unreasonably dickish people. But when most people have a problem with you, for example if they have to treat your behavior as a special case, then problem isn't most people. It's you.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"There's a balance. Too much of either flame or light-treading can lead to problems."
Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Show me any peer reviewed, scientific study to back that claim.
I swear, some of the most hysterical people who believe in hokum and myths are computer science engineers who pull out this crap that negativity produces productivity.
As you get older these things don't just go away, they pile up. If you can fix something like this it is worth doing it.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Formal guidelines would suck. There are so many alternative ways to work towards a collegial atmosphere. Among the most important: media articles by respected journalists (looking at you Jon.) Blog posts. Web pages. Maybe write a book? Write several books. The market is there.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
BS, 100% BS. Show your proof.
Ok, look over your most recent commits merged into master.
*zing*
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The origins of the Contributor's covenant aside, I really don't see anything in that I would reasonably expect most people to have a problem with:
https://www.contributor-covena...
In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
-=Lothsahn=-
It's Linus's life, and more to the point Linus's job, which I suspect he may understand better than we do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Journalists, bloggers, website admins, and authors make terrible programmers.
Ah, I see. This is sometimes being enforced not just with a project space, but also to include people's personal opinions and posts outside the project, for instance, in public forums such as Twitter. Yes, I have a big problem with that.
But I think if only enforced within the scope of a project, it still seems reasonable...
-=Lothsahn=-
It takes more than just programmers to make a programming community. Military analogy: how many in a division are frontline fighters? Right, less than half. Sometimes less than a third.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
There's a Zen story which bears on this.
A farmer had a wife who was so tight-fisted she never let him spend any money, even money he needed to run the farm. So he told the Zen master his problem and the master told the farmer to bring his wife to him.
As soon as the wife walked in the door, the master shoved his fist right in front of her face. "What would you say if my hand was always stuck like THIS?" he demanded.
"I'd say you'd had a deformed hand," the wife said.
"And what would you say," the master continued, shoving his open palm in her face, "if my hand was always stuck like THIS?"
"I'd say you had a different kind of deformity."
"Well, then," the master said. "You seem to know everything you need to."
Now my natural disposition is to be accommodating, but over the years I have learned sometimes you have to be a total intransigent bastard. Being a bastard shouldn't be opening move, and being nice shouldn't be the only move you have. You need to adapt the needs of the circumstance.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't know if Linus is getting in front of something or if he's truly seen "the error of his ways" but this sure seems like a re-calibration of behavior to fit the "new normal" of PC. Age can do that, sure. But one has to wonder if maybe we're reached the point in our society where the collective opinion of the moment is overpowering the individual. History shows that doesn't end well.
Once again, you are confusing high standards with negativity. That generally happens with people who are a lot less smart than they think they are.
Linux was developed entirely without the help of the contents of Arc B.
I admire his painfully honest introspection, but I disagree that it will make Linux worse. Just because he stops cursing at people doesn't mean he will start accepting crap code. I can't imagine he would ever do that.
Good for Linux because he may now attract high quality engineers that have been put off by his harsh demeanor.
J
For starters, a computer acts for more like a "dickish aspie" than Linus ever will.
Wrong. A computer responds predictably and unemotionally. It will say "invalid command" not "that command was stupid"
So yes like a person who is particular (so some aspies) but not a person who is a "dickish" anything.
Furthermore, actual aspies make good code testers, and often good programmers.
No one said they (we) didn't. But if that same aspie can learn a few heuristics on how to deliver things in a more sensitive way, then they will become a BETTER tester or programmer. It is not an "either or" situation. I speak from experience here.
Also, a hostile environment may actually be preferable, because it keeps the lowest common denominator higher.
citation needed. It will leave the people who ignore what others have to say, it will leave those who have agendas, it will leave the "stupid and opinionated". It will drive away the people who value a sense of community, the people who don't want hate in their life. So it will drive away a lot of the talent. I would place money on hostile environments having a lower common denominator.
Finally, I have to say there's a bit of irony in you describing Linus in a way that denigrates the autistic, while Linus himself has not used criticism in such a bigoted way. By the very notions behind such community conduct standards, you need to take a break before he does.
Yay we agree! There is no place for personal attacks in any community group.
To be fair, I only watched about 1 show worth over a some bits of shows because I couldn't stand watching it.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Yay we agree!
You guys work in teams, don't you? Good cop, bad cop.
That entire passage screams SJW. Especially the "harassment-free experience" part. The problem is, that regardless of intentions, the measurement for that statement is purely subjective. It leaves open the idea that if an over-sensitive person has their feeling hurt, they've been harassed. Once the poison of such a statement gets traction, everyone has to be overly cautious and always looking over their shoulder. It's no longer a "open and welcoming environment" for most, except for the over bearing SJW types that believe they own the definition of what's acceptable. Anyone that doesn't adhere, or shows some natural human flaw, becomes harassed by the SJWs that claim to be against harassment.
One example is from about six years ago when Linus reminded everyone very crisply that one doesn't change userspace APIs willy nilly and then blame the applications that were broken by the change.
You left out the sarcasm tag when you wrote "reminder" right? Because "Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP!" goes a bit beyond that, to say the least. It's a safe bet that this is specifically one of the posts that Linus apologized for today.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Why do people act like a project would be forced to take in substandard code just because the maintainers aren't allowed to be assholes?
Because I've watched it happen. When everyone knows daddy is going to scold you if you screw up, you try really hard not to screw up. Quality stays high.
The alternative is people know they won't get scolded, so they not only commit shit to start with, but then they want to debate how bad the shit stinks when there's push back. Then they throw a tantrum when the merge is denied. "I worked a whole hour on this. I spent my time and effort!" Before long, they've worn down the maintainers who get tired of their shit and leave for another project. The gates of hell open onto the project at this point. Shit begins to flood in and nobody can stop it.
This is especially bad on large projects like Linux. Everyone will push bullshit commits trying to get "Contributes to Linux Kernel" on their resume.
Linux is officially done. I'm already looking for an alternative.
It is not mistreating someone to call them out for a serious error... Myself, I wouldn't have sent the message quite that way but that doesn't mean it was wrong.
He said "Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP!" and a bunch of other toxic stuff that would have made the message stronger simply by being deleted. Yes, it was wrong. If you don't believe me then perhaps you can believe Linus.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
What about GNU Hurd?
Why do people act like a project would be forced to take in substandard code just because the maintainers aren't allowed to be assholes? Constructive criticism and mentoring can be used just as well in place of being a dickish aspie.
One person with high standards is another person's "dickish aspie."
I think being a dick makes it easier in some ways to keep high standards since it's easy to call out BS, but I've also seen projects fail because a senior person was being a dick and no one was willing to withstand the abuse of critiquing their decisions.
One person's constructive criticism is another's micro-aggression, sexism, racism, or whatever negative-label du jour used as a club. Projects aren't forced to take in substandard code but some projects have experienced severe losses by trying your approach and giving an inch. Take firefox as an example.
People start suspecting the *isms when the criticism is centred on the person and not the work because it makes people wonder whether the criticism is motivated by the work or by a bias against the person. And frankly, when you start criticizing the person you personalize the conflict and make it much more difficult to come to a clean resolution.
Treat the other person with respect and you can still take a firm line on code quality without being a dick.
I stole this Sig
Finally, we can have true inclusivity.
Now that we've addressed those dickish aspies.
Why do you falsely presume that he'll stop caring solid engineering just because he stops being an assholish aspie? The two are not mutually exclusive in any shape. Instead of being a dick, he can provide constructive criticism and mentoring instead to motivate people to actually want to continue working on the kernel.
Yeah, I agree. I had a point well into my career where I was in a meeting and someone was being an asshole about something, and I realized ... fuck, I've been that exact same asshole. I decided at that point to work on it, and I think I improved. Somewhat. [Having kids helped a ton with training me to pause before speaking my mind.]
I think it's perfectly fine to be an asshole when that is appropriate to the situation. Sometimes you have to use strong language to get a point across. The problem is when you're being an asshole without intending to, which can really screw up the tenor of a project. I don't mean "Oh, boo hoo, someone quit because their feelings", I mean "Yeah, we decided to switch platforms because everytime we logged a valid bug with a repro, they were fucking assholes about it."
And, of course, there's always the problem where you're being an asshole by default, which probably means something is seriously wrong and you need to get some help.
It's very easy for people to get lazy and for code to just get worse and worse if people are not called out over letting standards slide.
True, but such calling out needs to be done in stages of escalation, starting diplomatically. What Linus has realised is that he hasn't helped matters by going straight to Defcon 1.
CAn you name even one competent kernel developer who was went elsewhere and contributed any significant work? I'm not saying they do not exist. I'm curious to know if you can identify them specifically, rather than from your personal impression of how technical leadership works.
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No one said they (we) didn't. But if that same aspie can learn a few heuristics on how to deliver things in a more sensitive way, then they will become a BETTER tester or programmer.
The purpose of employment is making your employer money. The assumption being a nice pleasant person is always or even usually the most effective means to that end is way overrated and in many cases total BS.
Linus has contributed more to humanity than just about anybody could hope to. Anybody with a little education and two braincells to rub together knows this. This won't change a single iota because Linus chooses to work on his choice of words. This is not "OMG! SJW controlling Linux!", This is a seasoned professional attacking a problem he sees in a professional manner: "My social interactions need improvement, let's solve the effing problem!".
I do the very same and it always has brought me forward and improved outside perception of me as a seasoned professional (not Linuses league of course, but you get my point).
We are problem solvers. We solve problems. If we apply the strategies to our social life as well, there is no place we can't go. I'm a nerd like most here who'd rather know more things than be poplar. That didn't stop me from systematically training my social skills and double checking the results like with some mission critical code. The results are palpable and sometimes the source of great envy with my buddies. It sure nothing is going to stop Linus from doing the same. If anything his childish rants are most embarrassing to himself more than they are to us. If he'd only wait a night before sending them and force himself to reword them his communications would improve tenfold when he's angry.
I'm pretty sure he'll notice that in 10 days the latest. And then we'll continue to have awesome kernel work done.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Why do people act like a project would be forced to take in substandard code just because the maintainers aren't allowed to be assholes?
Because we've all worked at companies where substandard code is routine due to a culture of passive-aggressive nonsense.
It's very easy for people to get lazy and for code to just get worse and worse if people are not called out over letting standards slide.
Did the companies deliver substandard code because of passive-aggressive nonsense, or was it because they had hired a bunch of less talented engineers and managers who didn't know how to do it any better, while the original people left because now that the project was successful it wasn't interesting any longer?
Management doesn't ask you to "dumb down" your standards to make people feel better about themselves. They do it because they need those new features to keep the company rolling, so they hired a shit-ton of new people to work on them, and all they know how to measure is whether those new people are delivering code or not. If you explain why their change has problems and they don't understand you and agree, then being an asshole about it isn't going to help, and it certainly isn't going to magically deliver you back to a world where their dumbass feature isn't going to ship for principled reasons.
[Of course, if you're in the wrong, then being an asshole about it also isn't helpful.]
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When you worry about the community dynamics more than the code, things go downhill.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
The problem is, it *makes no sense*.
You want to contribute to the kernel. Or any other OSS project. Do you gather in a room somewhere? Apply for a job? Show your diploma/degree/whatever? Learn perfect english?
No, no and no!
Nope, you simple submit a patch with an email address/account.
You could be ANYTHING. Any sex, and colour, any race, any -- anything. You could be a monkey, with human level IQ after genetic experimentation, AND NO ONE WOULD CARE.
All people care about? Is the patch good!
There is another thing people care about -- "Does this go against the direction I want this project to go".
So, you may get rejects because the project doesn't like your patch/code/whatever. You may also get rejected because, well, some people are dicks.
But, you certainly aren't being discriminated against based upon an email address.
Of all the workplaces in the world, all the places you and contribute, all the things you can do -- working on code remotely?
Is the MOST harassment-free experience with respect to "harassed because of who you are you", that you will EVER EVER EVER get.
In that context, this pledge makes no sense.
No one cares if you are poor, black, gay, female, overweight. No one.
How would they even know?!
Absurd. Absolutely absurd.
This is the 'garden of freedom', in terms of finding a place that is harassment free in this context.
He was purged, obviously. Someone told him to step down "or else".
Somehow people seem to think it's only possible to enforce high code standards by treating other people like crap. Which is really weird.
I hope Scott Adams follows his lead...
What's being suggested is not switching from openly hostile toxicity to passive-agressive toxicity. What's being suggested is to switch to respectful, open, clear communication devoid of personal attacks.
Except most people don't enjoy working in a culture of fear for very long. It's likely to drive away a lot of people who would otherwise contribute quality code.
What happened, is someone else wants control of Linux, and Linus was told to bow or or end up dead.
Not really. There's a pretty clear dividing line.
"This code is bad for technical reasons X, Y, and Z. I'm not accepting this until this is fixed", is plain and simple.
"Also, you're a fucking moron and should have been retroactively aborted" -- now this is absolutely non-technical and unnecessary.
We can have the first and not the second with no problem whatsoever.
Have they released any of this improved code to the public? That would be a nice change. Wonder why they're keeping it secret.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Also note previously to this there was the attitude "Look we should be dicks because Linus is and he must be right because the kernel is excellent! Linus Linus Linus". Now it's morphed into "We should be dicks and Linus is wrong".
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Why do people act like a project would be forced to take in substandard code just because the maintainers aren't allowed to be assholes? Constructive criticism and mentoring can be used just as well in place of being a dickish aspie.
The git merge-bot I use only rejects a pull request if a comment message fails the profanity filter. Otherwise it's auto-merged right into master.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
And on the scale of dickishness, it's not like he's that far out on the tail end.
But now he sees it, and it's made him ask a really smart question: is this really how I want to be?
Everyone has to hit rock bottom before they do something about their assholiness. Pride comes before fall and perhaps Mr Torvalds saw that and decided that a bit of humility would be a prudent course of action.
If you humble yourself it doesn't matter if anyone else does.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
As far as I know Linus has only ever exploded at people who have ignored previous warnings/questions about their code or behaviour.
And basing your code of conduct off someone who is openly anti-meritocracy is a real red flag for any technical project. The old CoC was just fine; enforcement perhaps could have been better. Some people here are asking "Why do you think that he'll stop caring solid engineering just because he stops being an asshole", but the new CoC includes requirements that are not at all technical nor are even normal conduct in real life (who do you know who never uses sexual swear-words?) so, assuming that someone falls foul of these sort of fluffy-unicorn requirements the project may no longer have the option to accept the best solution because its author is not acceptable.
No one is suggesting that any project should accept unrelated abuse from one dev to another, even from Linux. But it must accept that actions which affect the project's quality will, if continued over time, eventually attract a strong response from the guy in charge. And, yeah, that might include swearing and telling you that you're not the centre of the universe and that you have become a problem. Dry your lamps and shape up.
The Linux kernel is a construction site where getting things wrong can literally kill someone someone down the line; everyone involved should be wearing metaphorical hard-hats.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Take back the kernel under your own trademark, Linus. People will follow you and contribute, like they did in the early days. You took the bull by the horns, when you developed git. Now it's time for you to take the bull by the horns once again. You don't need platforms that give you headaches. Put boundaries on the kernel. If there is a device about which you don't feel strongly, don't include it. You be the arbiter.
Even without knowing too much about Linus or the Kernel development community, I kind of think that I understand the guy and how difficult that working environment might be. If you mostly care about technical aspects and have built from scratch a so complex piece of software on which you take lots of pride, it has to be very difficult to deal with so many different people and interests. Nobody wants to hurt others and I am sure that this wasn't his intention, but you will always try to defend that about what you care. And I am sure that lots of people, attitudes and, more importantly, interests have systematically attempted to damage (perhaps, to improve from their perspective) this development and its original, technical-excellence-focused ideas. He might have made mistakes or chosen non-ideal means to accomplish his goals, but I am quite sure that, in general, I agree with him.
Most of people dream about doing something like Linux: your own work being so relevant for a so big number of people. I am also quite sure that Linus has been quite happy with his life/work. Despite all that, I cannot avoid seeing (from my very-far-away, comfortable place) here, in this apology but also in most of the past events who provoked it, what I think that is the worst nightmare for technically-focused-taking-pride-of-their-work people: being unable to do your work as you know, losing your independence, allowing external interests to arbitrarily condition about what you care the most. And it seems very hard. Well... I guess that having a whole life of success, a big impact in the world, lots of people supporting you, etc. do sound like a quite good compensation. But still I don't think that would want that for me.
Basically, I see all this as the usual evolution in today's society of doing something really good. Eventually and by assuming that you take all the steps to get to the highest point (building a big team, getting funding, being appealing to a big community), your work, your vision, your expectations will change beyond your control. That perspective is very unappealing to me. I am not saying that I wouldn't have loved to have built something like Linux, just that I would have never (at least, as per my current ideas) taken most of required initial steps to reach to such stage. It seems impossible to build something really big by sticking to certain principles/ideas, no matter how beneficial those might be for everyone involved. In the current money-, arbitrariness-, stupidity-driven society and when dealing with something big enough, the only ones who can do as they please for as long as they want, no matter how stupid their expectations might be, seem to be the ones in formal (= for the many, certainly not for everyone) power who rarely got there for their own merits.
Perhaps all the previous ideas aren't more that a self-denying resource helping me to be happy, but they certainly do their job. I certainly don't envy Linus and, even by assuming that he has been quite happy during most of his life, I wouldn't change places with him. I might be (kind of) poor, work a lot for a little recognition and even be still quite far away from accomplishing a big number of my main goals, but I am proud of what I do at each single step and do what I want in the way I want, in the sense of not tolerating external arbitrariness of any kind. For me, this has a very high value. In fact, I cannot think of anything more valuable than that, at least, at the professional level.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Life cannot be the same without it being peppered with Linus's rants. Linus, just cut the bullshit and keep ranting, will ye?
I consider comments by Anonymous Cowards to be words of cowards.
Show me on the Dilbert doll where he touched you...
Run his emails through a filter before they get sent to people, but have a 'pre-filter' stream online for the Lulz.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
One person with high standards is another person's "dickish aspie."
One person's constructive criticism is another's micro-aggression, sexism, racism, or whatever negative-label du jour used as a club.
Err no, not at all. Each of the things in your examples are exclusive from each other. You can be a dick or not, just like you can have high standards or not. Likewise with constructive criticisms.
The fact you even lump "constructive criticism" together with "racism" should be a trigger for you to have a good hard look in the mirror.
substandard code is routine due to a culture of passive-aggressive nonsense
There's no reason you need to accept substandard code due to a culture of being passive-aggressive. You can most definitely reject substandard code in a passive-aggressive way.
I think you worked at a place which suffers from substandard code due to a culture of accepting substandard code and you're just trying to apply a different label to it.
While Linus is doing this, we need to look at getting rid of Poettering and his groupies.
How do you recognize an extrovert Fin?
When he looks at your shoes, instead of his own.
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
Brave Linux!
Somehow people seem to think it's only possible to enforce high code standards by treating other people like crap. Which is really weird.
Maybe you've never been good at anything and done it at a high level. In just about every aspect of society where there is an "elite" of something (could be ballet or sports or trading stocks, etc), being part of that higher unit has some good points, but a constant pleasant social interaction is never one of them for anything but monks.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
..a woman lurking in the background of this somewhere. He's getting in touch with his feelings. Unfortunately, the most aggressively creative males have not been historically.
E Proelio Veritas.
... when you don't pick a strong password.
That's not what I meant. I was referring to people who never became Linux kernel devs in the first place because LKML turned them off.
Everyone I can name who was already a developer and left moved into trying to make tech a less asshole place. Sarah Sharp is the most famous.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
One example is from about six years ago when Linus reminded everyone very crisply that one doesn't change userspace APIs willy nilly and then blame the applications that were broken by the change.
I agree, and if we read Mauro's response we see a person that tries to explain why they made a (wrong) choice, apologize for their mistake, and presumably move on with their life. No tears shed, no tantrum thrown, no touchy-feely-police called.
Some friendly banter (which I believe your link can be read as, too) is just the salt in our daily soup. As long as the person dishing out the compliments is willing to accept a same-level response I don't have a problem with it.
...usage predates Python (Monty) by some hundreds of years.
In popular culture, The Monkees released a song called "Randy Scouse Git" two years before the Flying Circus was first broadcast...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Now go eat a cock you subhuman dick eating shit for brains idiot.
I really hope you forgot that ironic tag there
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
I wonder how he will be tackling this, basically I don't believe people can change by following a few courses on anger mgmt or what have you.
You are what you are, and act accordingly. Unless there is some constant guidance and follow up for many many months or even years, you typically see no change in peoples behaviour (unless meds are involved, but Linus' case isn't of the nature that it requires meds).
Ofcourse, it could be his age, being at a point in his life where 'wisdom' starts to take over and your mind is calm(er), your tolerance levels rise, etc. Then again, that's just natural and not taught.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
But that wouldn't satisfy those pushing this. They are doing this specifically so that they can exercise control by finding excuses to throw anyone who disagrees with them under the bus. That's much easier to do if they can search outside the project and cherry-pick out-of-context examples with which to demonise their targets.
Linux is undisputably, the most important kernel in the world. It is no longer in *startup* phase, and now weirdly part of the establishment. It isn't cool for the establishment to be cruel.
Pop quiz: who deserves respect?
Answer: everyone.
No, that would be dignity. Everybody starts with it and I can only be harmed by your own actions (i.e. by undignified behavior). Dignity is an unalienable human right.
With respect, it's the other way around: Nobody starts with it, it has to be earned and it depends on how other people view you and thus only indirectly depends on your own actions. You have no right for the respect of other people.
ignatius
One person's constructive criticism is another's micro-aggression....
Seriously though, fuck whatever "micro-aggression" is. Smells like bubble wrap to me and it just makes me want to pop it.
I tend to rant.
Rule #6
Also, a hostile environment may actually be preferable, because it keeps the lowest common denominator higher.
, Perhaps, but it often does that by not only culling the bottom of the herd but by the really good ones leaving as well because they have options beyond putting up with such BS; often you wind up with the people who have no other choice.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The words "tor" and "valds" in norwegian transliterate to Tor = "threats or dare" and Vald = "uncountable many".
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Why do you falsely presume that he'll stop caring solid engineering just because he stops being an assholish aspie? The two are not mutually exclusive in any shape. Instead of being a dick, he can provide constructive criticism and mentoring instead to motivate people to actually want to continue working on the kernel.
I guess you learn something new every day. In this article, I learned of the assholish term "aspie". Yeah, I had to look it up. So you are making your point about how Linus should stop being an asshole and provide constructive criticism, and you make this point by being an asshole yourself? Very nice. Perhaps you should take some of your own advice, asshole.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Hopefully the SJW elements attempting to subvert and ruin the kernel project just as they did Red Hat and Gnome via Outreachy are identified and publically shamed so they aren't able to easily ruin any other projects in the future.
Ah, yes. The great Democratic tradition of "my way or execution". As practiced by the democratic movements of the modern West, in imitation of their pioneer, Robespierre.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
then we would have a few houndred overlords who want independence (Apple?Microsoft?Android?) creating their own ProtestLinux just so it suits them, so they can stop being compatible to the ~~Pope~~ original Linux.
I think this is great. Doing the whole leader thing is quite difficult and it's worth spending time to learn how to do it better. With any luck this will also make it more socially acceptable for hardcore geeks to spend time honing their soft skills. It would certainly help with programming's reputation for being full of eccentric and prickly personalities - because there's certainly lots of good people out there. Getting them all to work together is the challenge. :-)
He's recognized a problem and found a solution to fix it for the long term, and set about implementing it. What more can you ask for?
A bad manager blames his resources for poor results. A good manager finds ways to use flawed resources. A great manager finds ways to improve them. I've worked for all three types. It looks like Linus has decided to go from Type II to Type II. Good for him -- he's been a very good model already on how to handle the mechanics of producing quality software, but active cultivation is the next step up. Personal note: Linus' youngest is now 18 and I presume headed away from home. Funny how being the parent of adult children can change you (/me looks over shoulders ...)
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I used to read his blog but I stopped when it became apparent that he is a really unpleasant person. I don't know if he changed or I just started noticing.
"Aspie" doesn't imply "dickish." The difficulty we have in reading emotions, unless they are very well spelled out (and sometimes even then), can manifest in a much broader variety of ways. For instance, I certainly can be a jackass, but, much more often, I fall quite far on the opposite end: trying to delay conflict, even when it is inevitable and when delay is only going to make it worse. Sometimes I wish I could just tell off people - not in a purposefully rude way, but direct and clear and just as blunt as it needs to be, though not drastically more so. I generally can't. Usually because by the time I'm ready to do so, the situation has already escalated beyond the point where nothing short of full-blown "dickishness" is likely to achieve the hoped-for results. I've seen this same thing in others throughout my career as well. Some people whom we call "high-functioning" actually manage to get it right most of the time, because even though they may not understand other people's feelings much better than others near us on the Aspie spectrum, they've learned ways of dealing with "normals" that don't stray too far in either direction.
Nonaggression works!
More false dichotomies. The idea that there are only two possibilities: abusive hostility and constant pleasant social interactions. It's not true. There's another option - a positive and respectful atmosphere, that can include difficult conversations, disagreement, and even confrontation. If you're claiming that every elite environment includes belittlement, hostility, and personal attacks, can you back up that claim? If not, what are you claiming?
One person with high standards is another person's "dickish aspie."
Linus himself acknowledged that he was being a dick and needs to take steps to be more empathetic and less confrontational, yet you're arguing that he's wrong and he just has high standards?
I think someone's feeling a bit called out.
Say what I want you to say or else???? Who is practicing, "My way or else"? Curtailing freedom of speech is the first step towards tyranny. Tyranny, should and must be met with violence.
It's a technical term that the GP used because it's something they heard was a word "SJWs" use without any understanding. All it generally means is constant subtle or unsubtle reminders that you're out of place and don't belong in the group because of your skin color/genitalia/some other thing that has nothing to do with your ability. It wears people down, which is why groups concerned with sexism and racism, etc, bring it up occasionally.
It has no relevance (to the best of my knowledge) to this discussion, as Torvalds isn't being accused of "microaggressions", he's admitting that he can be an asshole from time to time. Whether you're a conservative, a liberal, a jackass with a KKK robe in the closet, or you've (gasp) publicly expressed disappointment at Kevin Spacey's behavior (the horror!), simple "being an ass" is usually frowned upon. If I went into a Republican meeting and started calling every idea I disagreed with "Fucking stupid" and "Retarded bullshit", I'd be kicked out, just as I would if I went to a meeting of Feminists Against Racist Transphobia.
But this is Slashdot, so people feel the need to bring "S(traw)JWs" into it. Why? I don't know. I think some people want to be assholes, and so they point at "SJWs" as the anti-assholes because they're the convenient "enemy" they think everyone on Slashdot hates, and hope that by saying "Yeah, but $PEOPLE_YOU_HATE hate assholes therefore assholedom is good."
It isn't. It really isn't. I'm ashamed when I act like an ass to anyone in RL (Slashdot doesn't count), and everyone else should be too.
I hope Torvalds can make things work, for his sake as much as anyone else's. I lost a lot of respect for him during the BitKeeper fiasco, but everyone can change, and everyone deserves a chance to change.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Counter argument: Was he a dick to competent people who screwed up and fixed their error? Or just to the ones who screwed up then tried to justify breaking the rules and he slammed the point home?
I suspect you'll find that the latter is much more common in LKML.
In any case the core point is that if you want a truly quality product, regardless of the industry, goals and results take precedence over "feelings" in any form or fashion.
Or... (and I know subtley isn't a thing on slashdot)... the reality was a bit of both? Some people deserve it but some don't and you don't get reasoned discussion when someone is shouting at you. We've all worked with people like that.
I think it has a lot to do with what your primary value is. Let me try and articulate it.
Let's establish from the start that there is an idealized leader. Someone who is technically brilliant, socially and emotionally strong, a mentor, assertive, strong, constructive...
The problem is that person is so rare. It is something we all aim for and good on Linus for trying to improve his social skills to reach this ideal.
But for all of us imperfect humans, the real question comes what do you do when push comes to shove in the day to day grind. Time is limited. Mental energy is limited. Emotional energy is limited. I think it is an absolutely legitimate worry to be concerned that Linus or anyone else for that matter will be able to maintain quality, while doing all the rest.
It's one of the reasons in most companies, there are a variety of jobs. When I first graduated from university, I didn't like being placed in a box 'developer/engineer'. I enjoyed talking to customer, gathering requirements, mentoring, leading.. little bits of everything.
The more I got into my career though, the more I realized I can't do everything. The more I realized the trade offs and skills that are lacking. The more I realized, the more I strengthen some areas, the weaker I get in others. Heck, I used to know C and C++ and Java so in depth, it was scary. I just don't know it that well anymore. I'm out of practice. The more I moved into management, the more I time and energy I spent just dealing with social games. The games of power are ridiculous in a corporation. I realized that is not for me. I now don't even look for technical skill in a manager. I realized, I am perfectly capable of communicating technical issues to a manager and they get it. What I can't do is play those games. I want someone there to offload that work. I literally walk up to my manager and tell him, this department/person is being difficult, go yell at them... and they go handle that.
I really do think it is a valid worry if Linus will be able to do both. Let's face it, if Linux was a normal company, senior technology people wouldn't be able to just say things in public. They'd have various PR and communication people as a buffer. Heck, even in a strictly technical role, if I really have a problem with the way someone is doing something and I can't just explain to them technically and they accept it, I go to my manager and explain. They handle that person part of dealing with the person.
Again, kudos to Linus for trying to improve his leadership skills. However, I don't think we can simply dismiss worries that the quality bar will not be moved. It's a very hard job to do everything. If he can do it, he'd be that one in a million leader.
Huh? The project recently adopted the Contributor's Covenant which was the brainchild of Coraline Ada, queen SJW. Of course bringing up SJW is appropriate in this context. The trend is unmistakable and the slippery slope has begun toward the fall of the high kernel standards.
Look - you either trust his judgement or you don't. If you do then all this shouting was justified and he's infallible and whatever. But you also have to accept that when he considers himself in the wrong, accept that he genuinely thinks that, and not blame some bogeyman that you currently have a grudge against.
As I've suggested before, maybe Linus' profanity is from stress resulting from fundamental monolithic Linux kernel design, where the growing complexity leading to risks of security issues and instability?
https://slashdot.org/comments....
https://linux.slashdot.org/com...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I used to read his blog but I stopped when it became apparent that he is a really unpleasant person. I don't know if he changed or I just started noticing.
The more interesting question is whether he can change while he has so much validation. People cite him regularly. He must feel like an authority.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's an obviously ridiculous suggestion. It doesn't matter if you've got the complexity spread out across multiple modules or all in one executable, the only difference in terms of complexity is that if you split it up, there will be more complexity and not less.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is good news and it's rare for someone to acknowledge abusive behavior, much less do something concrete and productive about it. Linus Torvalds has recognized that (a) his bullying behavior has been counterproductive to collective work, that (b) his abuse has had real consequences for real people, driving some out of Linux development entirely, and (c) he's taking concrete steps to address his problems.
I read the new Code of Conduct for the Kernel Team.
What does anything sexual have to do with kernel development? I find it offensive.
The offensive paragraph:
In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
Why are all of these listed separately?
sex characteristics,
gender identity and
expression,
sexual identity and
orientation.
Put them into one statement - kernel devs know how to use minimal code to solve complex issues. This was clearly written by a non-kernel developer and Linus was bullied (threatened legally) into accepting it.
What does anything sexual have to do with kernel development? I find it offensive to bring up. All the people with imaginary friends can be much more offensive, but that could be a matter of perspective.
I laughed at the master/slave thing in python. Idiots. --- see that's perfectly allowed because someone's mental ability **is** ok to ridicule - it isn't in the list.
If the submitted code is crap, it is still crap regardless of your gender identity, or lack of any gender, right?
I don't need to see "thank god" or "praise Allah" either for kernel code stuff.
BTW, I quite enjoy being a slave every other Sunday night. Mistress isn't always harsh and I try to be a good slave. On the opposite Sundays, I get to be Master. Not my favorite, but life is about compromise. None of this has anything to do with my work on the Linux kernel.
s/Linus Torvalds/The deRaat/g for the perfect April Fools story?
I'm pretty nice. I stick my foot in my mouth on a regular basis, but I don't use my disability as an excuse for running roughshod over everyone I know. Over the decades, I've learned to understand feelings, whether I experience them directly or not.
Projects aren't forced to take in substandard code but some projects have experienced severe losses by trying your approach and giving an inch. Take firefox as an example.
What incident are you referring to specifically?
I can name at leas two really good Linux kernel developers that Linus's attitude pushed away. They made a lot of valuable contributions: Matthew Garrett and Sarah Sharp.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Except passive-aggressive behavior is present in any sufficiently large group, and the hostility may have been keeping it in check. That's not to say the hostility was a good solution to passive-aggressive bullshit, only that you can probably expect to see more of such bullshit when there is less enthusiasm on calling it out.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
The best way to improve sub-standard code is to help the person producing it make it better. I find this to be extremely effective, far more so than being passive-aggressive or just aggressive.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
On the other hand we know for certain that Linus' abrasiveness has driven away a few good developers. So that doesn't seem to be any better.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is an unpopular position these days, but never-the-less: Being Nice is usually good policy. Legislating Being Nice ("code of conduct rules") is usually not.
I used to read his blog but I stopped when it became apparent that he is a really unpleasant person.
What was really unpleasant about him? Could you cite some examples?
For example, he talked about how he generally interrupts other people because he can tell what they're going to say, what he has to say is more important, and he doesn't want to waste his time listening to them. He concluded that this was an appropriate and efficient means of interpersonal interaction, and ALSO claimed (not at the same time but without sarcasm) to be a good listener.
Over time, it became clear why he got divorced. I don't remember other examples; it's been years.
And yes, some of it might be "just" tooling. Maybe I can get an email filter in place so at when I send email with curse-words, they just won't go out.
Wait, I thought that only ancient prudes like me thought that using curse words was problematic. Now it is again?
That's the problem with getting "woke"; you never know what the rules are day to day ....
Last time I read anything from him, he saw absolutely nothing wrong with his behavior or attitudes, and they were working well for him. He certainly has enough money to get away with pretty much anything he wants to do. I would be surprised if he ever sees any need to change.
We can always go back to a place where it was stable, and thankfully, unless GIT is gutted, we can find blame for those who polluted the code-base. I always go pale when annotate shows my name next to a line of code that is broken ;)
i am so very tired....
and the rejection is documented when reversed, or at least rejected code has an audit trail. Of course, that won't track those who refuse to contribute because they don't want to be part of the problem.
i am so very tired....
For example, he talked about how he generally interrupts other people because he can tell what they're going to say, what he has to say is more important, and he doesn't want to waste his time listening to them.
Presumably you're talking about this then?
"Women have made an issue of the fact that men talk over women in meetings. In my experience, that's true. But for full context, I interrupt anyone who talks too long without adding enough value. If most of my victims turn out to be women, I am still assumed to be the problem in this situation, not the talkers. The alternative interpretation of the situation -- that women are more verbal than men -- is never discussed as a contributing factor to interruptions. Can you imagine a situation where -- on average -- the people who talk the most do NOT get interrupted the most? I don't know if the amount of talking each person does is related to the amount of interrupting they experience, or if there is a gender difference to it, but it seems like a reasonable hypothesis. My point is that men are assumed guilty in this country. We don't even explore their alibis. (And watch the reaction to even bringing up the topic.)"
You misrepresented him.
Possibly, if I'm remembering right there was more too. But as I said it's been years, and I'm really not interested in getting into a ticky tack discussion about whether Scott Adams is or is not a jerk, if that's what you're trying to get started.
I wasn't looking for a ticky tack discussion. I was looking for substance to your claims. I'm satisfied that the one example you thought of was a big "meh" to me.
But if they aren't socially apt, they're going to end up treating other people like garbage. It's hard to have both. The social niceties can go a long way to making sure a company doesn't -- for example -- have men talking over women at meetings. Any meritocracy needs a mechanism for making sure that you aren't marginalizing the most skilled persons, and you might be marginalizing those who need the social structure in order to actually be heard. It's a balancing act, not a this-or-that.
Because I've watched it happen. When everyone knows daddy is going to scold you if you screw up, you try really hard not to screw up. Quality stays high. The alternative is people know they won't get scolded, so they not only commit shit to start with, but then they want to debate how bad the shit stinks when there's push back. Then they throw a tantrum when the merge is denied. "I worked a whole hour on this. I spent my time and effort!" Before long, they've worn down the maintainers who get tired of their shit and leave for another project. The gates of hell open onto the project at this point. Shit begins to flood in and nobody can stop it.
This, so much this... every time you give an inch, it comes back to haunt you. At work we've been far too kind to fix other people's problems and special cases, we say it'll be just this once little tweak or hack or kludge that we'll remove as soon as they fix the problem. Except they never do because then it's "fixed" and we end up maintaining a shitload of spaghetti with tons of little gotchas. And eventually it circles back at us because we're crumbling under all the straws that are about to break the camel's back. I wish we had an asshole in charge that pushed back harder. The first time you should be polite. The second time you can be rude. The third time to shovel the same shit our way then I think chewing them out is the only way to make them stop.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Doesn't take long to devolve into:
"This code is bad for technical reasons which I wont explain, please leave because you are a Republican."
And worse:
"This code is great because you signed my petition at postmeritocracy.org. Down with merit!"
It already has in most SV companies.
He has a high-standard for himself, and others, and he calls it like he sees it. Now I think he is just realizing that HOW he calls it makes a difference.
Not only that, but his outbursts over the years as well as this message that he is going to seek improvement on that front, is made public by his own choosing.
Show me another leader who does that.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
moved into trying to make tech a less asshole place. Sarah Sharp is the most famous.
Sage Sharp didn't move into trying to make tech a less asshole place. It* uses sexist terms like 'mansplainy' and bitches about oppression. Fuck that non-binary strange person.
Maybe being a good leader would've helped it avoid career issues. Maybe being tolerant of others would've helped it participate in Linux kernel development. Maybe losing the fucking chip on its shoulder would've made it happier.
Maybe we'll never know. Thank fuck it's started its own company and I'm never going to have to work with it.
*It describes itself as gender 'non-binary' and does not want female pronouns used to describe it. Since it's also not male, my choice out of him/her/it is quite easy.
Complaints need to be sent to a board, who will investigate and then decide on what action should be taken.
History tells us those boards will be populated and run by people with shared political views, and used to remove conflicting views from the project.
the reasonable people on the board
Will over time be removed and replaced, leaving the board in control of fanatics.
asking the "alleged victim" to be less sensitive
There are no alleged victims. There are victims and "people abusing the process to harass others".
Obviously the board will categorise people according to their own politics and not through any objective criteria.
How this works out will depend mostly on how complaints are handled.
Badly.
It's dismaying to see how many people think it's a bad thing to have a policy that basically boils down to "don't be an asshole"
So have a policy that explicitly states "don't be an asshole". Don't wrap it up in politically correct langauge that introduces a fuckton of ambiguity that the malicious can use to impose their own politics on others.
Tell you what, lets see if the maintainers ban any fuckwit that uses the sexist derogatory term 'mansplain'.
Examples of unacceptable behavior by participants include:
[..]
* Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
If you really think it's not possible to be both talented and nice, then hopefully you will get a chance to look in a mirror like Linus has done and choose to make yourself a better person.
I know for a fact that it's not possible to be nice all of the time. I don't need a fucking code of conduct to behave professionally in the workplace or when engaged in creative endeavours with others. Shit, people genuinely fucking worry if they never hear you swear or say something bad about someone - I've had that feedback on multiple occasions.
sometimes he can be kind of a dick
I think the real issue is that he's too busy to take the time to rewrite those emails in a form that's so polite it's obnoxiously insulting in a way that's obvious to everybody ut at no point crosses any professional boundaries or could be quoted as demeaning or derogatory.
There's a joyful art to doing this, but it does take rather longer than being blunt with someone.
(It may also just be a British thing. My American colleagues would always marvel and forward such emails around in wonder)
dickish aspie
Lets see, sexualised language, trolling, insulting/derogatory comment and conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting.
Yeah, you're fucked now if you want to contribute to the Linux kernel.
I mean, shit, you're pissed at people being 'assholes' to computer program code but merrily disparaging people with a neurodevelopmental impairment. Which term would you use for your behaviour?
All of the people I know with aspergers are eerily polite
Hey fuckface, you can end that shit now.
He's been acting more like a socially retarded baby-man
He's been acting like a technically capable leader with occasional examples of losing his patience. You don't build and run a project the size of the Linux Kernel if you're "socially retarded".
I don't even know what the fuck a baby-man is. He wears nappies?
Torvalds is responsible for his disregard of empathy
Maybe he's just human after all.
Perhaps SJWs are another factor in the Drake equation?
I just don't see a way we can progress forward if we discard concept of merit. Hierarchies based on other concepts (e.g. piety, clan identity, wealth) historically were nothing short of disastrous. I don't see how hierarchy based on group identity that SJWs are building will be anything short of disastrous. Our technological civilization is truly fucked if they succeed and our descendants won't know how to maintain what we built even if they reach ideal equality and perfect diversity.
However, tone policing destroys brevity and conciseness for the sake of feelings.
They don't act that way. Tone policing and CoC are just powergrabs by the insecure who can't handle criticism. If the project leads capitulate to this, it's game over. It might take years to manifest, but it'll happen.
However, tone policing destroys brevity and conciseness for the sake of feelings.
Not necessarily. Cutting out personal attacks or demeaning language can yield a shorter message. And even if the occasional message increases in size to more precisely explain one's thoughts it may well be worth the effort and result in a better understanding of each other's concerns and goals.
Generally not because now feelings have to be coddled in addition to the technical explanation. These CoCs just blow the doors open on subjective interpretation on what is considered abusive language and what is not. They are not simple cases of banning ad hominem.
Sorry, I don't agree.
Nope. False dilemma. Not agreeing to social justice derived conduct codes is not the same thing as "being dicks."
He just got tired of people whining about his personality
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Regarding those who are ejected from the Linux Kernel Community after this CoC:
Contributors can, at any time, rescind the license grant regarding their property via written notice to those whom they are rescinding the grant from (regarding their property (code)).
The GPL version 2 lacks a no-rescission clause (the GPL version 3 has such a clause: to attempt furnish defendants with an estoppel defense, the Linux Kernel is licensed under version 2, however, as are the past contributions).
When the defendants ignore the rescission and continue using the plaintiff's code, the plaintiff can sue under the copyright statute.
Banned contributors _should_ do this (note: plaintiff is to register their copyright prior to filing suit, the copyright doe not have to be registered at the time of the violation however)
Additionally when said banned contributors joined the Linux team, they were under the impression that it was a meritocracy: in-fact this belief was stated or ratified by those within the governing body regarding Linux when the contributors began their work (whatever that body was at that time, it could have been simply Linus, or Linus and a few associates).
The remuneration for the work was implied to be, or perhaps stated, to be fame as-well as a potential increase in the contributors stature, in addition to membership in the Linux Kernel club or association, or whatever it is that the Linux Kernel Community actually is (which a court may determine... it is something, suffice to say).
Thusly for work, consideration was promised by (Linus? Others? There are years of mailing list archives with which to determine).
And now that consideration has been clawed-back and the contributors image has been tarnished.
Thus the worker did work, however the other side of the implied, or perhaps written (email memorandums), understanding has been violated (once the contributor has been banned under the new non-meritocratic "CoC").
Damages could be recovered under: Breach of Contract, quazi-contract, libel, false-light.
In addition to copyright claims.
For greatest effect, all rescission should be done at once in a bloc. (With other banned contributors).
Contributors: You were promised something, you laboured for that promise, and now the promise has become a lie. You have remedies available to you now, as-well as in the close future.
Additionally, regarding those who promoted the Code of Conduct to be used against the linux kernel contributors, knowing full well the effect it would have and desiring those effects; recovery for the ejected contributors via a tortious interference claim may be possible.
Up to you.
You're putting your own false dichotomy in GP's mouth, as nowhere does GP claim that you need "abusively hostility" to get by in an elite environment. They said is that elite environments are not usually characterized by "constant pleasant social interaction". How do you get "belittlement, hostility, and personal attacks" from that?
A microkernel like MINIX 3 has about 10,000 lines of code. The Linux Kernel has about 20,000,000 lines of code. If you mainly focus on getting only 10,000 lines right, you will have a lot less stress than trying to herd cats on 20,000x more code.
Ideally, for a core kernel maintainer, drivers should be mainly someone else's responsibility (with a separate vetting process) and should be firewalled from any service they don't absolutely need access to. A monolithic kernel just provides too much surface area for mischief to hide (whether intentional or unintentional).
See the list of "reliability policies" here for MINIX (I just included the titles of each section): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
* Reduce kernel size
* Cage the bugs
* Limit drivers' memory access
* Survive bad pointers
* Tame infinite loops
* Limit damage from buffer overflows
* Restrict access to kernel functions
* Restrict access to I/O ports
* Restrict communication with OS components
* Reincarnate dead or sick drivers
* Integrate interrupts and messages
Focusing a microkernel on a very small number of core services more closely adheres to Single Responsibility Principle compared to the Linux Kernel. That makes the overall kernel simpler to understand even if it may manage many drivers. See:
https://www.infoq.com/presenta...
"Rich Hickey emphasizes simplicity's virtues over easiness', showing that while many choose easiness they may end up with complexity, and the better way is to choose easiness along the simplicity path."
It is probably harder to write a microkernel line-for-line compared to the same number of generally less sophisticated lines on average in a monolithic kernel -- but overall the system is much simpler and thus more reliable because the focused microkernel is easier to audit and test separate from all the drivers.
My suggestion is that if Linus Torvalds was focused primarily on the code quality of 10,000 lines of microkernel code he would be less stressed than worrying about the quality of 20,000x as much monolithic kernel code where any badness in those 20,000,000 lines of Linux kernel code could (if you load the driver) infect the whole. Even if Linus still used the same amount of profanity per line of hypothetical Linux microkernel code, his profanity level would still be reduced 10,000x and so essentially round to zero! :-)
A Slashdot story from 2000 on this idea:
"Could Linux Become A Microkernel?"
https://ask.slashdot.org/story...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
That's some expert-level virtue signalling, sir. Well done.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
I mentioned "treating people like crap" (which I would consider a synonym for abusive hostility). He then said that at elite levels you just can't have a continuously pleasant social atmosphere. The clear implication is that the former is the only alternative to the latter - otherwise why would he even bring it up?
That's the stupidest thing ever. And the reason you're posting as AC, you trollboi.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Linux has now included a Code of Conduct. Little strange maybe, just after the announcement of Linus.
It somehow confirms my claim he is pushed into doing this.
Linus is an employee, just like everybody else, he probably gets performance review like all of us.
Linux development is in the open, there have already been multiple incidents about Linus' treatments as well as people leaving kernel development because of his outbursts. It's waiting for real accidents to happen, and that must be avoided (too much is invested in the kernel, and Linus may be the boss on the development side, there are others who are invested in it at several levels).
https://www.zdnet.com/article/...
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
To me it merely implies that the truth falls somewhere between crap and pleasant. It's not uncommon to take a stance on the opposite side of where you think the truth might actually be, to counterbalance another's argument. You're not going to find out what he actually believes, however, by starting with accusations.
I would also consider "abusive hostility" to be significantly worse than "treating people like crap" - the former for me would require direct action against the victim, whereas the latter could just be inaction or indirect, and is generally easier to push aside. For example, we'd refer to a cashier who ignores customers as someone treating customers like crap but not necessarily as abusively hostile.
That was a lot of words to say you have no idea how Linux kernel development is done.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
How surprised am I that the top comment is about this being the end of Linux?
Not very...
I am, however disappointed.
This is a great opportunity. I fully believe the quality of releases will only improve with this move. Linus is still going to be involved but if this goes well, he'll be able to articulate what his vision actually is more clearly, and he'll be able to get people on the same page.
Not only that, but there are many skilled people who would avoid kernel development just to keep that negativity out of their life.
More eyes on the kernel means more potential bugfixes as well. This is one area where you really don't want a dearth of eyes on the code.
This is a good thing.
Most of us learn this when we are children.
Kriston
Linus should really step away and let others take over. Also, split linux into a couple of differ kernels with different focus such as embedded, server, desktop, etc.
As if the Kernel and git weren't enough, Linus now invents the "Unsend" button.
"I think it's perfectly fine to be an asshole when that is appropriate to the situation" is about as useless a statement as "I think it's perfectly fine to be a genocidal mass murderer when that is appropriate to the situation".
The question is *when* it is appropriate.
Hyperbole, much? Or do you literally think that being an asshole in a meeting is equivalent to genocide?
Just to be clear, the gist of my point is that if you're using "asshole" as a tool in your communications arsenal, good for you! That implies that you are almost never being an asshole, because in most situations it's a terrible response.
I don't know about everyone else's experience, but my experience is that VERY few people pull out "asshole" as a targeted tool, most assholes simply _are_ assholes, that's just how they interact with the world.