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Linus Torvalds is Back in Charge of Linux (zdnet.com)
At Open Source Summit Europe in Edinburgh, Scotland, Linus Torvalds is meeting with Linux's top 40 or so developers at the Maintainers' Summit. This is his first step back in taking over Linux's reins. From a report: A little over a month ago, Torvalds stepped back from running the Linux development community. In a note to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), Torvalds said, "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." That time is over. Torvalds is back.
Whether he'll be a kinder and gentler Torvalds remains to be seen. In the Linux 4.19 announcement, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux's temporary leader and maintainer of the stable branch, wrote: "Linus, I'm handing the kernel tree back to you. You can have the joy of dealing with the merge window :)"
Whether he'll be a kinder and gentler Torvalds remains to be seen. In the Linux 4.19 announcement, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux's temporary leader and maintainer of the stable branch, wrote: "Linus, I'm handing the kernel tree back to you. You can have the joy of dealing with the merge window :)"
Whether he'll be a kinder and gentler Torvalds remains to be seen.
Which is part of the problem with these public confession/appeasement things.
Someone can always claim you didn't get "woke" enough.
No small part of it is because the left has adopted a view that "marginalized people" are effectively entitled to be disruptive, toxic, etc. Because discrimination(tm). If you want proof that most human beings are miserably stupid, it's the fact that so many left wing activists cannot reconcile two principles they've advocated and realize how the lock together like Lego pieces:
1. Every innocent civilian killed by anti-terrorism operations breeds new terrorists as people bitterly resent being collateral damage.
2. "Marginalized people" cannot be guilty of oppressing "non-marginalized people" no matter how they behave.
A rational person with an IQ higher than the thermostat might have an "oh fuq...." moment here. Every "non-marginalized person" who is disemployed, hounded out of public life, etc. creates collateral damage in their family, friends and people sympathetic saying "shit man, that could be me too" just like many a Muslim has done when the USAF bombs a village.
Someone stuck a gun to his head? Look, the world is changing whether you like it or not. Linus Torvalds chose to roll with it.
What's the alternative, spouting a bunch of bullshit nonsense about leading a revolution, and watching Linux get forked, and all the Corporate types (who are 95% of the devs now) follow the Kernel with the Best Code Of Conduct?
Seriously, when faced with 'take empathy training' or 'lead the community off to the biggest flame war of all time', which did you think he was going to choose?
Which would YOU choose were you in his position? Personally taking a little empathy training seems like a not-bad tradeoff to avoid Linux Developer Civil War. its not like he's wearing a swasitka now and spouting a bunch of bullshit. Maybe he'll just stop calling people names, and I hope he keeps being Hard about his opinions, just not so personal.
don't know the difference?
1. This code is a pile of garbage. -- cricitcism of result, harsh, if the code truly is a pile of garbage marginally acceptable. not constructive at all.
2. Whoever wrote this code is a fucking idiot -- criticism of perosn, not acceptable, no feedback on if its even the code that is at fault
3. This code is truly awful and will never be merged because of A, B, and C, and could be improved by doing X, Y, and | -- harsh but completely fair
Linus will probably fall back to somplece between #1 and #3. And if you don't think thats a choice, you don't understand what that word means and have never had your family threatened by other people for what you SHOULD say.
No matter how good he is -- he would have had to been fired by almost all companies out there.
Being bluntly honest about that code does or does not live up to standard is not the problem -- just keep it professional. Just eliminate the gratuitous BS that he is known for. Also if it is not up to standard, make it constructive.
Funny how some just cannot help seeing a conspiracy at work only because a bully decides his bully ways were unprofessional, detrimental behaviour, which shouldn't be tolerated whereever people work together.
Also if it is not up to standard, make it constructive.
Some of the cases he called out ended up that way because constructive criticism was met with denial and deflections. In one case I remember the maintainer broke a user land API by introducing a new error code, we got to see Linus laying it in on the maintainer long **after** the maintainer dismissed Linus statements about unacceptable compatibility issues. Wether professional or not BS remains BS and in that case Linus had to tell the maintainer to quit with his BS.
Doesn't require a life changing event, all it takes is insight that frequently comes with maturity. This happens literally every day and happens to everybody. It's how children become adults.
We all know many programmers exist in a state of arrested development. Not all are doomed to remain that way.
Someone stuck a gun to his head? Look, the world is changing whether you like it or not. Linus Torvalds chose to roll with it.
Most people have a problem with "diversity initiatives" that look like they came out of the 1953 playbook of "fuck insert race here." This is after decades of "judge by the content of character, not by their skin" with the west moving for a more meritocratic system. And then the leftwing progressives, universities, and government policies that fell all over themselves by giving handouts, freebies, preferential hiring, slots in universities, government jobs to people who wouldn't have cut it otherwise.
There's a reason why Harvard and several other US universities are being sued for active discrimination against whites and asians.
Seriously, when faced with 'take empathy training' or 'lead the community off to the biggest flame war of all time', which did you think he was going to choose?
Easy answer, because outrage mobs have already made the choice for him. If he didn't bow, they'd start slandering him and trying to ruin him financially among others who refused to bow down. So the choice between bowing to the mob that does nothing, and the group that contributes? He made a choice hoping it would blow over.
Empathy is an interesting thing, problem is the people riding the outrage mob don't care. They don't want empathy, they want their victimization validated. Victimization as a currency is valuable, you can get pretty far on it if you're a shitty human who's done shitty things to people. Because there's an entire mob of people inside that progressive stack who will defend your actions, and go out of their way to ruin the detractors. Matt Taylor, Tim Hunt, Donglegate, take your pick among the hundreds of other cases.
Om, nomnomnom...
I would, and my AC was upvoted whereas yours was not.
Yes a bit of hyperbole - but this is the choice Linus was faced with. Don't believe it? #metoo has unseated CEOs and politicans. You think Linus would have 'kept his community together' when he was the biggest insulter on the list?? No way, doesn't matter that everyone who knows him knows he's not overtly sexist - he chose the right path, not because Its Morally Right, here's your red badge of courage, but because this little thing (and its really a little thing) of empath training and a CoC helped keep some upset mob happy.
America (where Linus lives) no matter what the Alt-right are feeding you, is not a communist re-education camp sort of place, unless that's how you want to live, because if thats the reality your alt-right websites and ideas would not have survived the Obama administration.
But hey, America is a free country, do what you want and live with the consequences, or so I'm always told...
The main problem with Social Justice Warrior mob-style attack is that they function like a pack of hyenas. They will not attack until they sense weakness, but single hyenas will make forays to poke the target for weakness. But they will not make a full out attack until they see a weakness. But once they begin attacking, it's a bloodbath and does not stop until it's a full and unconditional surrender or utter defeat of the target.
This is why it's critically important that when Social Justice Mob attacks you, you never show any weakness and never flinch in the face of the brutal onslaught. Any sign of weakness, like an apology is a mark on you that you're the weak target and everyone in the pack goes after you instead of just a few scout hyenas poking you.
Linus caved with his apology and stepping back. He's now either their slave or a pariah in the eyes of anyone who is either a part of Social Justice Mob or is afraid of them and therefore will not take his side in fear of becoming a target himself.
He's done. That's the sad reality of the polarized world of today.
Most people have a problem with "diversity initiatives" that look like they came out of the 1953 playbook of "fuck insert race here."
And what does that have to do with the Linux Code of Conduct? What part of it is like a "1953 playbook of fuck insert race here"?
The real problem is snowflakes who are triggered by the mere suggestion that they shouldn't be assholes all the time (part time is fine), and then assume that it's a giant conspiracy against their race and soon they will be the ones at the back of the bus.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You live in a very fucked-up non-reality bro
If anything is obvious it is that whatever process led to the creation of the greatest operating system ever written, that process, needs to change!
Everyone knows that when you've got the top product, company, or team, you need to pull a 180.
There is nothing constructive about walking on eggshells.
Straw man. Nobody suggested walking on eggshells. They suggested being professional and courteous. If you can't express yourself while being those things, the problem is you and your inadequate vocabulary.
People should take ownership of their own feelings. Feelings are valid, in the sense you feel them, it doesn't mean they are reasonable, appropriate, or fair.
Yes, that's right. That's why it's not appropriate for Linus to let his feelings run away with him, and cause him to abuse people unnecessarily.
SJW are threatening you and and your family for what they think you SHOULD say.
[citation needed]
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Most of these people have never actually been in any management position, and most of them, quite frankly, are all talk on anonymous forums, but when push comes to shove, if they're hauled to the mat by their HR department for being insufferable prats, they'll roll over.
I have a great deal of admiration for Linus. He's pulled off one of the most extraordinary technology achievements in history. He gave the still pretty young open source community a functioning *nix kernel unimpeded (no matter what SCO thought) by the crazy licensing issues which had prevented Unix's adoption beyond servers and high end workstations.
But he's a fucking asshole. There are ways to deal with people who are doing substandard work that doesn't involve vast streams of personal insults. There are even ways of basically telling someone who has clearly subpar skills to take a walk that don't involve public dressings down. That kind of behavior effects all the developers, even the ones who are doing a damned good job. And the realpolitik of the situation is pretty simple; much of Linux is being developed by developers in corporate environments, and those corporations pretty much all of have codes of conduct, and they have every right to expect that the maintainer and overall strategist for the project that they are contributing resources to abide by a similar set of rules. If Linus wanted to prevent forking of Linux, in effect he being fired, and someone else whose vision, quite frankly, might not be at all in the open source community's best interests, taking over the fork with the greater resources, he had to alter his behavior and demonstrate that he meant it.
So all the chest thumpers here can basically get stuffed. They're delusional beta male types who like to imagine themselves in some alternative universe being alpha males. They've got a massive inferiority complex that they betray every time they talk about SJWs. They're mean spirited fantasists who in all likelihood will never be in any kind of management position because, well, they're emotionally-fraught cunts.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Have you actually read a code of conduct? It's not "walking on eggshells", it's "be a decent, professional human being".
Let's look at the Linux one you're so upset about. What does it prohibit?
* Sexualized language, imagery, and unwelcome advances
* Trolling
* Insults and personal attacks
* Harassment
* Doxing
* "Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting"
What are the consequences? Not being allowed to contribute to the codebase. That's it. You can still access the code, mod it, fork it, use it, whatever you want. They just won't be accepting your patches and will be blocking your emails.
In other words, this CoC says "any shit that would get you fired from a 'real' job will get you fired from an open-source job". Which seems fair to me. Linux might not be a for-profit business, but it's a large enough, and important enough, project that it needs people who are professionals, not assholes.
"Straw man. Nobody suggested walking on eggshells. They suggested being professional and courteous. If you can't express yourself while being those things, the problem is you and your inadequate vocabulary."
Having to stop and expend effort on avoiding offense rather than putting your thought on the actual message your communication is meant to convey, particularly because of fear of social outcry and your words being twisted, is walking on eggshells. To suggest anything that amounts to that, is walking on eggshells. You achieve a far more professional and tolerant result by applying the principle of philosophical charity to the speaker than rescinding it and demanding the speaker cater to unknown, changing, conflicting, and fickle sensitivities of the audience. Note, I'm not defining which speaker, what message, or what audience. The logical principle is sound agnostic of those considerations.
You can extract value from logically sound arguments whether the speaker is biased or not. If the speaker is biased the result of applying philosophical charity will be to transform their invalid argument into a stronger and more valid one which does have merit. In this manner you do not need to fear the quality, merit, or agenda of the speaker because their argument carries it's own merits or lack thereof.
"Yes, that's right. That's why it's not appropriate for Linus to let his feelings run away with him, and cause him to abuse people unnecessarily."
Which is something for Linus to evaluate, judge, and decide for himself via self-analysis. For all the negativity applied to the idea of a double standard, the best result comes from a double standard wherein you apply logical charity and forgiveness to others and forgiveness alongside internal correction and analysis to oneself. It is not my or your place to correct or judge Linus' feelings, acting in a logical manner requires considering the validity of what is spoken not the speaker.
"[citation needed]"
Please refer to your own post here which is nowhere near as extreme but likely a good example of the concept with good intention:
"That's why it's not appropriate for Linus to let his feelings run away with him"
The question is not whether that is appropriate. In most cases I am not proud of letting my feelings run away with me as you'd say. But that is a judgement for Linus to make in self-analysis about whether he feels that is what he is doing. If we apply philosophical charity to his arguments the responses will contrast and highlight that to him because they will inherit the logical strengths of his perspective. If we instead apply judgement of him that only blinds us to the logical merit that came alongside any inappropriate sentiment he expressed alongside making him feel defensive and attacked making him lose face and more angry. Even worse, we might be wrong and he may simply have been ambivalent or ignorant of sensitivities and passionate about his point.
If enough people pass judgement like you have it undermines his ability to lead a technical project even if he is the best technical person to do so. It attacks his reputation and weakens his character. Further it makes it more challenging for him to grow and develop his character. This threatens his career and his family. It also threatens the entire project.
The group of roles for which it is more important what social values they represent than how well they function in their role is extremely slim. It feels like people are forgetting that and blurring the lines.
But he's a fucking asshole. There are ways to deal with people who are doing substandard work that doesn't involve vast streams of personal insults.
Did you put these two sentences next to each other to invoke irony or hypocrisy (or both)? I can't tell.