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Linus Torvalds On Linux's Code of Conduct (bbc.com)
Linus Torvalds oversees every line of code added to the Linux kernel, but in recent years the male-dominated community has become increasingly divided, reports BBC. Rows about sexism and rudeness led to the creation of a Code of Conflict (CoC) in 2015 which was short -- simply recommending people "be excellent to each other." That has now been replaced by a more detailed Code of Conduct -- which retains the acronym, but attempts to be more inclusive and eliminate insulting and derogatory comments and behaviour. Reader sinij writes: Recently Linux Community adopted a new controversial Code of Conduct authored by Contributor Covenant also known for authoring the Post-Meritocracy Manifesto. In an exclusive email interview with the BBC, Mr Torvalds shared his thoughts on his decision to temporarily step aside, the controversy behind the CoC, and the defects of the community he set up. His thoughts on CoC: The advantage of concentrating on technology is that you can have some mostly objective measures, and some basis for agreement, and you can have a very nice and healthy community around it all. I really am motivated by the technology, but the community around Linux has been a big positive too. But there are very tangible and immediate common goals in any technical project like Linux, and while there is occasionally disagreement about how to solve some particular issue, there is a very real cohesive force in that common goal of improving the project. And even when there are disagreements, people in the end often have fairly clear and objective measures of what is better. Code that is faster, simpler, or handles more cases naturally is just objectively 'better', without people really having to argue too much about it.
In contrast, the arguments about behaviour never seem to end up having a common goal. Except, in some sense, the argument itself. Have you read the Twitter feeds and other things by the people who seem to care more about the non-technical side? I think your 'hyped stories' is about as polite as you can put it. It's a morass of nastiness. Instead of a 'common goal', you end up with horrible fighting between different 'in-groups'. It's very polarising, and both sides love egging the other side on. It's not even a 'discussion', it's just people shouting at each other. That's actually the reason I for the longest time did not want to be involved with the whole CoC discussion in the first place. That whole subject seems to very easily just devolve and become unproductive. And I found a lot of the people who pushed for a CoC and criticised me for cursing to be hypocritical and pointless. I could easily point you to various tweet storms by people who criticise my 'white cis male' behaviour, while at the same time cursing more than I ever do.
So that's my excuse for dismissing a lot of the politically correct concerns for years. I felt it wasn't worth it. Anybody who uses the words 'white cis male privilege' was simply not worth my time even talking to, I felt. "And I'm still not apologising for my gender or the colour of my skin, or the fact that I happen to have the common sexual orientation. What changed? Maybe it was me, but I was also made very aware of some of the behaviour of the 'other' side in the discussion. Because I may have my reservations about excessive political correctness, but honestly, I absolutely do not want to be seen as being in the same camp as the low-life scum on the internet that think it's OK to be a white nationalist Nazi, and have some truly nasty misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic behaviour. And those people were complaining about too much political correctness too, and in the process just making my public stance look bad. And don't get me wrong, please -- I'm not making excuses for some of my own rather strong language. But I do claim that it never ever was any of that kind of nastiness. I got upset with bad code, and people who made excuses for it, and used some pretty strong language in the process. Not good behaviour, but not the racist/etc claptrap some people spout. So in the end, my 'I really don't want to be too PC' stance simply became untenable. Partly because you definitely can find some emails from me that were simply completely unacceptable, and I need to fix that going forward. But to a large degree also because I don't want to be associated with a lot of the people who complain about excessive political correctness.
In contrast, the arguments about behaviour never seem to end up having a common goal. Except, in some sense, the argument itself. Have you read the Twitter feeds and other things by the people who seem to care more about the non-technical side? I think your 'hyped stories' is about as polite as you can put it. It's a morass of nastiness. Instead of a 'common goal', you end up with horrible fighting between different 'in-groups'. It's very polarising, and both sides love egging the other side on. It's not even a 'discussion', it's just people shouting at each other. That's actually the reason I for the longest time did not want to be involved with the whole CoC discussion in the first place. That whole subject seems to very easily just devolve and become unproductive. And I found a lot of the people who pushed for a CoC and criticised me for cursing to be hypocritical and pointless. I could easily point you to various tweet storms by people who criticise my 'white cis male' behaviour, while at the same time cursing more than I ever do.
So that's my excuse for dismissing a lot of the politically correct concerns for years. I felt it wasn't worth it. Anybody who uses the words 'white cis male privilege' was simply not worth my time even talking to, I felt. "And I'm still not apologising for my gender or the colour of my skin, or the fact that I happen to have the common sexual orientation. What changed? Maybe it was me, but I was also made very aware of some of the behaviour of the 'other' side in the discussion. Because I may have my reservations about excessive political correctness, but honestly, I absolutely do not want to be seen as being in the same camp as the low-life scum on the internet that think it's OK to be a white nationalist Nazi, and have some truly nasty misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic behaviour. And those people were complaining about too much political correctness too, and in the process just making my public stance look bad. And don't get me wrong, please -- I'm not making excuses for some of my own rather strong language. But I do claim that it never ever was any of that kind of nastiness. I got upset with bad code, and people who made excuses for it, and used some pretty strong language in the process. Not good behaviour, but not the racist/etc claptrap some people spout. So in the end, my 'I really don't want to be too PC' stance simply became untenable. Partly because you definitely can find some emails from me that were simply completely unacceptable, and I need to fix that going forward. But to a large degree also because I don't want to be associated with a lot of the people who complain about excessive political correctness.
Unfortunately we live in an era where we can say the Earth is Round, and Nazi's are bad and have it seem like a political statement.
But being cavil to each other shouldn't be considered politically correct.
So in a development community:
A political correct response to a bad idea: That is a good idea, we will prioritize it. (Then make it bottom priority) The person who made the bad idea didn't learn anything new, and thinks his idea is a good one. However the person who did the respond is not necessarily hated.
A politically incorrect and uncivil response: Calling the person an idiot questioning his parentage and life style. The person who made the bad idea still didn't learn anything, and he is just pissed off at the community.
A politically incorrect yet civil response: We don't agree or like your idea, we find such faults in the design that we find unacceptable. The person has learned the reason for the rejection, and while may be angry that his idea and work didn't get the praise he feels it may deserve. The civil and rational response gives them the opportunity to learn and try again, perhaps with the direction the community is trying to follow.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
All or nothing, black and white arguments are the fave among practiced hypocrites who like to whine about hypocrisy (and that is something we see too much of on all over the political spectrum).
Torvald's argues that his essential stance and values have always been the same, but how he promotes his position has changed because circumstances have changed. Maybe that is right, maybe that is wrong, but I am not going to take your snowflaky opinion about Linus without you baking it up with...anything. Linus has an argument to back up his position. You have whining.
...objective is to beat the other guy by any means available.
The problem modern political discourse is that both sides act out belief that they are oppressed side and are under attack, while in fact neither is. In turn, they justify their questionable behavior as self-defense or "they did it first".
How do you explain behavior of two groups of predominantly white, middle to upper class and educated, heterosexual people fighting each other over "oppression" of minorities? SJW are modern age puritans, this culture war isn't about LGBT or visible minority rights, rather these are co-opted. It is about undoing 60s sexual revolution and replacing Christianity with some alternative form of religious-like behavior.
I think progressives really do believe that. I've seen too many "free speech is hate speech" posters at free speech protests to think it'a all a sham. And how are protests against free speech even a thing at colleges?
I think it's just a very small, but noisy minority (and I wouldn't label anyone who's against free speech a progressive regardless of what they might like to call themselves) that appears to be much larger or more important because the internet makes it easy to propel such occurrences to a front-and-center position where everyone can engage.
I recall hearing that enrollment at Missouri (where that one professor shut down a student reporter at some protest and was captured on video calling for "some muscle") and Evergreen (where students tried to have a no white people day) are way down. It seems that people are generally aware of this and seem to be steering clear. Just because the silent majority isn't screaming back, doesn't mean that they aren't acting on their beliefs.
Also, you can't really have free speech unless someone is free to argue that you shouldn't. There's a certain sense of the paradox of tolerance in that, but at the same time if people aren't forced to confront their beliefs about why free speech is important, they probably won't hold them dearly. I almost think that it's necessary for there to be a continual opposition to freedom of speech for it to have any chance to survive. If no one bothered to question it for sufficiently long, I suspect that people would take it entirely for granted and it would be much easier for that liberty to erode.
If Linus hasn't already been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, this missive should put him there.
I completely agree with him on this, even though I've often been on one side or the other in a flame war. For the most part, the reason flame wars break out on the Internet is precisely because neurotypicals don't realize that text is an autistic media- that all emotion is stripped out of any given text transmission. Any emotions you feel when reading text were likely never intended by the author, and come from your own neurosis and inadequacies. Add to that a topic that is not objective and doesn't have a common goal, and you've got all the ingredients you need for a first-class flame war.
XKCD had a great cartoon on this many years ago: https://www.xkcd.com/386/ and repeated the theme just yesterday https://www.xkcd.com/2051/
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Listen, I've been doing *this* a lot longer than most people in the industry (but not as long as some) ... about anything
and certainly longer than Linus. It's how the industry has always been - polarized
where sides can be taken.
Whether it's about C vs. C++, Makefiles vs. build systems, /bin/sh vs. csh, or tabs vs. spaces in source code.
I've seen a lot. I remember asking a very smart person (no, I do mean a highly qualified person) a Makefile
question. He became so upset that I would ask such a thing -- I'll never forget it! His wasn't a unique situation --
many had "odd" personality quirks, but were / are fantastic engineers. And after work, completely different.
It's not unique to software. Medicine certainly was the same way - amazing doctors usually had terrible, terrible
bedside manner. Bedside manner has improved, but I sometimes wonder if the "newer" doctors are as gifted.
I'd much rather have an AHole save my life than die by the care of a nice doctor.
I picked the medical profession as an example I think most can relate to, but in other industries that I've been
involved, the same thing happens. It's just our nature. I think today's generation is taking things too personal
and are not being taught properly by well-paid educators (this goes back to even elementary schooling) and
all of this PC stuff is at the expense of our ability to excel.
Guess what, not everybody is Linus, or one of the many pioneers of the industry. These are whiners who
can't compete at that level and this is how their jealously is expressed. By attacking the very human flaws
that make these individuals the amazing contributors to our industry that they are. I used to work for a team
lead who had the wonderful philosophy - "I don't care about the crying, just show me the baby!"
(And you know what, I don't care that you think that was a sexist remark!)
Just my HO...
CAP == 'antidote'
Small but noisy seems to dominate social media though, and Twitter lynch mobs have ended several people's careers.
Eventually people will collectively realize that social media explosions are stupid and that they should be ignored. It's something new and society just doesn't know how to deal with it yet. And once we get this figured out, something else will be new and people will react badly when it comes to their interactions with perceptions of whatever the new thing might be.
If you're going to fund public education at all, I don't think you can reasonably restrict what someone wants to teach at such a micro level. Is it okay if someone can teach that the US was almost never good, expect for one instance? Go far enough and eventually you end up with you can only teach that the U.S. is the best ever and you get something that looks like North Korea. Further, anyone taking such a class with half a brain should be able to realize that the U.S. must be pretty good if you can stand up and declare that it's all shit without the government coming down on you. I suspect that a course like that is pretty useless and that the people who take it aren't going to amount to anything. In the long run everyone starts to recognize the pattern and people stop enrolling, just like the universities I mentioned previously.
If someone wants to proclaim that the U.S. is great and teach others about all of the good stuff it does or has done, then someone should be just a free to do the opposite. There are all kinds of sites that let students rate or discuss professors or courses these days. Eventually people will avoid the useless courses. And if there's someone who really just wants to hear what they already believe, they pay taxes as well and it's their own life. It's not any of my business if they want to live it in a way that I disagree with.
Ever committed a patch to the kernel? You have to sign off with your real name and email address.
With that info, you are very far from anonymous.
And there are certainly people that can use that info to cross-reference your goings all across the internet
and learn lots of personal details.
You're right not everything need to be a trade-off, there is no acceptable middle ground between tolerance and bigotry.
If you criticize Muslims for throwing homosexuals off of buildings, are you being tolerant of homosexuals or are you being bigoted against Muslims?
The funny thing about narrow minded idiots like you is that, in the name of "tolerance", you often end up sounding more intolerant and insane than the "Nazis" you criticize.