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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. [...]
Any time someone decides to do something for self-improvement, it's a good thing. Good for you, Linus.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Linus' attitude isn't the problem, at least not directly. If you go review his legendary rants, he almost never attacks a person, he attacks behaviors. He attacks stupid things that people do. The real problem is when maintainers emulate this behavior, but miss that detail about not attacking people.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
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.
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.
On the plus side, it will take many years before SJW incompetence will have destroyed the Linux kernel, and we may just see a serious fork that still values technological merits over everything else.
Nope, because the first thing that's going to happen now is they'll start sifting through contributors social media accounts to find things that they can sanction them with against the CoC. You'll see them demand people link accounts, or give places they've posted on in order to "make the best community." Once that happens they'll demand that the person "do as they're told" or they'll launch a smear campaign and attempt to displace the person via the rules they've introduced. If they refuse, they'll use their social media circle to attack them via various leftwing publications and smear the person until they fall in line or quit. And they'll bring out the various smear allegations of rape, sexual assault, misogyny, women hater, and so on. They'll find people who are willing to accuse because their feelings got hurt.
The entire thing is like a cult, you've got everything from the in-group to the out-group, original sin, and the demand to bow to the one-true-god. At least if you were catholic you could buy an indulgence. The best you can hope for is that core contributors fork it and say fuck you to the entire thing, otherwise you're going to see it go stagnant and die, unless the community gives a resounding "fuck you" to the entire pile of garbage.
Om, nomnomnom...
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.
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"
If we had a Martin Luther for Linux then 93 of the items nailed to the door would be "Systemd is shit".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And about to get better. Linus has been in denial for the last 20 years as to what his job is. However good he is as a cowboy coder, his essential role is management, and that requires people skills. Which he admits to needing improvement. Apparently some disapprove of his judgment on that front.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
For some people, persecution fantasies are as close as they can get to being important. Be nice to them.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,