Slashdot Mirror
The New Yorker on Linus Torvalds (newyorker.com)
Linus Torvalds announced on Sunday that he was sorry for how he treated the community over the years. Torvalds, 48, said he planned to make some changes to how he conducted himself, and on that part, he said he would be taking some time off from Linux kernel development work. The New Yorker has published a story on Torvalds today in which it notes that it reached out to Torvalds days before he made the big announcement. From the story, which may be paywalled for some readers: Torvalds's decision to step aside came after The New Yorker asked him a series of questions about his conduct for a story on complaints about his abusive behavior discouraging women from working as Linux-kernel programmers. In a response to The New Yorker, Torvalds said, "I am very proud of the Linux code that I invented and the impact it has had on the world. I am not, however, always proud of my inability to communicate well with others -- this is a lifelong struggle for me. To anyone whose feelings I have hurt, I am deeply sorry."
Torvalds's response was conveyed by the Linux Foundation, which supports Linux and other open-source programming projects and paid Torvalds $1.6 million in annual compensation as of 2016. The foundation said that it supported his decision and has encouraged women to participate but that it has little control over how Torvalds runs the coding process. "We are able to have varying degrees of impact on these outcomes in newer projects," the statement said. "Older more established efforts like the Linux kernel are much more challenging to influence."
Linux's elite developers, who are overwhelmingly male, tend to share their leader's aggressive self-confidence. There are very few women among the most prolific contributors, though the foundation and researchers estimate that roughly ten per cent of all Linux coders are women. "Everyone in tech knows about it, but Linus gets a pass," Megan Squire, a computer-science professor at Elon University, told me, referring to Torvalds's abusive behavior. "He's built up this cult of personality, this cult of importance."
Torvalds's response was conveyed by the Linux Foundation, which supports Linux and other open-source programming projects and paid Torvalds $1.6 million in annual compensation as of 2016. The foundation said that it supported his decision and has encouraged women to participate but that it has little control over how Torvalds runs the coding process. "We are able to have varying degrees of impact on these outcomes in newer projects," the statement said. "Older more established efforts like the Linux kernel are much more challenging to influence."
Linux's elite developers, who are overwhelmingly male, tend to share their leader's aggressive self-confidence. There are very few women among the most prolific contributors, though the foundation and researchers estimate that roughly ten per cent of all Linux coders are women. "Everyone in tech knows about it, but Linus gets a pass," Megan Squire, a computer-science professor at Elon University, told me, referring to Torvalds's abusive behavior. "He's built up this cult of personality, this cult of importance."
I've had a personal epiphany
oh yeah and there may possibly also be a story about me and this subject coming out in a major publication in a few days too
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It seems more and more certain that Linus has indeed fallen to one of the "honeypots" and is being blackmailed.
I hope nothing bad happens to Linus. Other lives have been ruined by the suspected group of people.
So? Linux has likely become successful exactly because of the behaviour of the developers. There's no 'fluffing' anything, it's simply good enough to go in, or shit and shouldn't be in. Linux has succeeded, and is in great shape and this has been the way since it started and likely the 'behaviour' has contributed to that directly.
If that's what it takes for this to keep succeeding, should it change? Probably not.
Being arrogant makes you more likely to do something big.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I'd like to see at least a couple of proofs of this egregiously dubious statement.
... I have to ask, does this mean you can suggest women are more influenced by abusive behavior, and that's not sexist?
Plenty of people out there see any sort of strong self-confidence as "jerk behavior." In fact the more insecure the individual, the more hopelessly assholeish your confidence will appear to them.
I always though Linus was a bit of a douche bag, but really, a lot of intelligent people who achieve "fame" or success relatively young are. I think the same personality type that leads to the dedication needed to create something as important as Linux, also tends to create less than stellar human beings.
You need a lesson on douchebaggery. Coders like Poettering are douchebags. His code will fuck up everything that others do and he maintains that it is working as designed. Not a bug. Won't fix. EVERYONE ELSE has to work around his assholery. Linus puts up with none of that shit and will tell you to your face that you suck and your code sucks. That makes him abrasive but definitely not a douchebag. The fact that others have to retreat to their safe spaces after being called out for shit work does not constitute douchebaggery on Linus' part. Do your best work and you won't be called out. If you can't do acceptable work that won't get you called out, maybe you aren't kernel developer material.
Do you think that, maybe, people with anti-social psychological makeups are drawn to a field where they don't really need to talk to anyone to accomplish something?
Most people would consider me to be a nice guy. Maybe a little off in one way or another, but I'm affable. That doesn't mean that I *like* to talk to people. I'm working from home today. I'm going to write code for nine hours straight without talking to another human being (besides occasionally looking at /. ) I'm perfectly fine with this.
I work with marketing, services and support people who can't stand not talking. They constantly come around and talk to other people about stuff, not necessarily work related. I don't mind it, but I'd rather not.
I work with people who come off as jerks if you would meet them in passing, but I understand their mindset. They don't like talking to people. It's not that they hate you, they would rather not interact with you.
This is the central disconnect, I think. People who are - I guess you can call them introverts - would simply rather not talk to other people. It's not that they don't like women, or minorities, or any other specific category of people. They don't like talking to *people* All inclusive. That doesn't make it OK. That doesn't make them not jerks. But understanding their mindset is important in dealing with them.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Linux's elite developers, who are overwhelmingly male, tend to share their leader's aggressive self-confidence. There are very few women among the most prolific contributors, though the foundation and researchers estimate that roughly ten per cent of all Linux coders are women.
So women are the same as men, and if you don't think so, you are a knuckle dragging sexist.
On the other hand, women are so different from men that they bring magical special goodness to a project. So we need to do whatever we can to bring them in.
Linus didn't "build up this cult of personality, this cult of importance", he actually built one of the most important pieces of software on the planet. People respect and accept his behavior because he delivers. Nobody ever forced anybody to work with Linus.
If you don't like someone, don't work with them. If you don't like a company, don't buy their products. If you don't like who an open source project is run, fork the project and do better. Stop intruding into other people's business.
It's a choice I exercise frequently.
And by all available, reasonably hard facts, it is because women in general want to become engineers significantly less often than men. Stop complaining, let women decide what they want to do in life and accept that! And no, it is not discrimination, harassment or "the patriarchy". It is just that women are fully capable human beings that can make their own decisions on what they want to do in life.
As a result, you will have significantly less female contributors in any larger tech project, whether in leadership position or more hands-on position. Again, stop complaining about this, it is by choice and it actually shows that women these days make their own decisions regarding what career they want. Implying that all these women that decide not to go into engineering are weak, oppressed little children that cannot make their own decisions or run away crying as soon as some hasher words are used (as is frequently done by "feminists") is one of the most misogynistic and repulsive things I know.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Why isn't everyone perfect?? I'm sure everyone at The New Yorker treats everyone fairly and this Linus Torvalds guy is a horrible monster outlier. Or maybe it could just be men that are focused and practiced enough to be kernel/device driver programmers didn't take time hanging around a bunch of people who share their feels on snapchats every 5 seconds. Maybe instead of going out with a group of friends to the bar last night he was in a dark room with glowing monitors until 3am ironing out a bug or 30 and responding to emails from other devs doing the same thing across the world. It takes sacrifices to be a certain type of person. Not everyone is meant to be social and friendly and courteous because that takes time and effort away from I dunno launching an entire Kernel project that represents your entire life's work.
I know quite a few female engineers and some scientists. None of them have a problem with being called out when they screw up. All of them do it to others as well. And all of them can very well distinguish between a personal insult and language directed at their work but not at them. I don't think any of them would have any problem with the style of Linus or the kernel core team.
Incidentally, I had some interactions with the core Linux team from some bug reports I made and I found them to be very focused, but in no way arrogant or insulting or the like. They just have a lot to do and a lot of responsibility and really want to get the job done well. I fully approve of that attitude.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Quite frankly, compared to others and given his accomplishments, I think Linus is actually a pretty modest person.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
No, no...Poettering is a cunt.
As Linus gets pretty much called out every time he is an asshole by, ahem, some special interest parties, it seems he is actually very rarely an asshole.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. — George Carlin
In corporate America, so much of being part of a business involves learning to suffer fools. In some way I am envious that, for this little small corner, someone gets to run the experiment of what happens if you stop playing the participation trophy game and refuse to sugar coat things to idiots when they do something really wrong.
But, it's one thing to tell people they're wrong and wasting your time bluntly. It's another to rip someone a new asshole, making sure they know you think they're being an idiot, which is very much Torvalds' style. I'm sure most people have met someone who rules by fear rather than leadership. These overly-emotional assholes are often fools themselves, but Linus is the rare form of asshole who happens to be smart and have solid logic behind the emotion. That makes me think twice about it, but doesn't exempt him from criticism for shitty leadership. I'm glad he's acknowledged the err of his ways -- there's a lot of room for him to improve while still offering blunt efficiency.
That was before the age of Codes of Conduct. Now the squeaky wheel not only gets the grease, but gets the presumption of wrongdoing on your part because they were ever squeaking in the first place.
. . . and promote and value excellent contributions, or you can care more about someones' feelz above all else. Linux just chose the latter, initiating a well-known downward spiral of complaining and inevitable technical stagnation that's been seen many times before once these CoCs are introduced into open source projects. At the end of the day, these two things are mutually exclusive, thanks to the everything-offends-me-and-if you-don't-agree-you're-a-misogynist-racist SJW brigade. This is the logical conclusion of weaponizing CoCs which target straight white males from the get-go, particularly those authored by people who hate the idea of meritocracy.
Guess what? The real world doesn't give a *fuck* how you feel, especially in unforgiving disciplines like engineering and tech. Life ain't fair, and 99%+ of the people contributing to Linux don't give two shits about social justice one way or the other. Open source is *not* a social movement! Those people are there to code -- well -- and because they're adults they can handle a rant or two every one in awhile and even a nasty, well-deserved public undressing, and they don't need one of these batshit-crazy CoCs to tell them how to behave. The simple addition of "Don't be an asshole" would've addressed the specific concern without throwing the baby out with the bathwater while giving power to those who don't necessarily deserve it.
biology
Whoa, there, Sparky. Let's not get all crazy and talk about biological differences between the sexes. If you work at Google, please report yourself to HR so that you may be fired.
so that number will include repetitions and other people's craps, and as such it does not accurately measure the magnitude of the defendant's crime. I believe that the inquisition should be repeated with more scrupulous zeal.
And remember, even though he says that he's sorry, we're still talking about a male here, therefore he's not to be trusted: he could start again uttering mild profanities at any time.
So you are only an asshole on Slashdot then, because only an asshole would argue that Linus has been out of line. Anyone who has actually invested the necessary time to have a clue would have seen his talks and interviews. He isn't an asshole; he is in fact quite humble for a guy who literally improved the state of computing by an order of magnitude beyond the pathetic state it was in when "great guy and philanthropist" Gates was fucking everyone over. E-mail is simply a piss poor communication method when you don't know the person with whom you are communicating. I can say "You incompetent baffoon" in a way that is ascerbic, or in a way that is not. And frankly, when Linus rants he is generally justified in doing so. This is a sad set of events, and the kernel code *will* suffer down the road as a result. Go back Linus ... You have been bamboozled by incompetents who know their code is sub-par and want to put on their resume that they "participated."
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Being anti-social and lacking empathy doesn't make you a better coder, it makes you an asshole. You can be both; a good coder and a good person. Being deficient in a healthy human emotion shouldn't be a badge of honor.
I work in medicine, and while many fail at empathy, at least there is a focus on it.
Linus is many things, but he is not a "tech-bro" in the modern valley sense. This seems orthogonal to the original discussion, as startup/Silicon Valley/Web 3.0 Culture is toxic for far more reasons than simply the kernel maintainer chewing you out if you try to commit really bad design flaws into it.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Linux Torvalds is an arrogant asshole. But, as usual, everyone is trotting out the same old bullshit "We ain't got enuff wimmins! He be scarrin' away all the wimmins!"
No. Just fucking no. Just fuck off with your stupid bullshit.
He is an asshsole to *EVERYONE*. He is insulting and demeaning to *EVERYONE*. Not just men, not just women. Everyone.
If you're terribly upset because Linux Torvalds was mean to you, not in person but *IN A FUCKING E-MAIL* then the real problem is you, not him.
I think you're confusing non-profit and charity. Non-profit simply means that it doesn't have a legal obligation to maximize profits for its shareholders.
Being confident, when you're also competent, makes you more likely to do something big.
Being arrogant makes you more likely to walk straight into a catastrophe because you're too much of a dick to question yourself.
Yes, a lot of people confuse them.
He is insulting and demeaning to *EVERYONE*. Not just men, not just women. Everyone.
IOW, from the article:
“He is an equal-opportunity abuser,” she said. Squire added, though, that for non-male programmers the hostility and public humiliation is more isolating.
From what I've seen, it's OK to tell a white male programmer "your code is crap". But if you want to criticize the code of someone from a minority, you need to be extra careful, because you never know when they take it as an insult against their minority group. It's pretty sad, because it used to be that "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog", and code was good because it was good code, not because it was written by a nice guy.
Still, there's an older and more general idea that if you want to play in the big leagues, you need to grow a thick skin. Linux kernel development isn't some neighbourhood hobby group where anyone can play. I just hope it continues be the big league in terms of code quality rather than political correctness. On that, Linus has a nice quote from 2013 in the same article:
“The same way I’m not going to start wearing ties, I’m also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what ‘acting professionally’ results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.”
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.