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 :)"

Comments

Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 2: Admit that he was blackmailed and fuck all that bullshit he was forced to say.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[CraigCruden]

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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[demon driver]

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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that kind of change doesn't happen at the flip of a switch. Either he was forced to, or he had some life changing event happen to him that caused him to rethink things. Either way, there is something bigger happening that we may never know about.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[dfghjk]

"Look, the world is changing whether you like it or not. Linus Torvalds chose to roll with it."

And maybe he just realized he was wrong. This happens every day, even with people who feel entitled to exhibit sociopathic behaviors.

Perhaps he realized that reducing the frequency of the root cause assumed in all 3 of your examples, "terrible code", is what is needed. Abuse and contempt don't accomplish that, better developers and a better environment do. Better judgement also does, and perhaps he realizes he has some room for improvement there. Software development occurs all the time without this nonsense because many developers are adults.

But perhaps he doesn't. One thing's certain, sociopaths feel their actions are always justified. Maybe he's an irredeemable a-hole, like the OP, and maybe he's just finally growing up. A hostile work environment is nothing to be proud of and it's not clear that there's anything here to be proud of at all.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[dfghjk]

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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Mashiki]

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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Mashiki]

Heard this and the other conspiracy theory about Linus never being alone in a room with a woman, but never seen any evidence that it's true.

You mean when the stuff started coming out that the ada initiative was honeypotting people in order to pressure them out of jobs or positions of influence to get other people in there? That's where the rumors of Linus never being in a room alone with a woman came from.

Meanwhile Linux hasn't forked, hasn't been destroyed, the predicted mass exodus of developers and use of the CoC to oust all straight white men hasn't happened.

Yeah the only reason why it didn't happen is because contributors and developers refused to bow to it, and that's the reason why Linus is suddenly coming back. This isn't rocket surgery, this is what happens when a moral busybody pushes something in, gets into place and people go "nope - fuck you" and the entire thing starts to degenerate into a mess of infighting. The "average" people who don't pay attention, were suddenly paying attention when it directly affected them.

This isn't any different then say, the decade of loss for blue collar jobs via outsourcing and white collar works went on about "lulz low skilled workers, you should have gotten jobs like us." And a bit down the road, those white collar jobs are suddenly being outsourced and "average people" suddenly see it as an issue as well.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Mashiki]

Not really. The reason why it didn't happen is because there was no reason for it to happen in the first place. All the people complaining about SJWs are quickly becoming far more obtrusive than the SJWs themselves.

Really? So explain how people who don't want intrusiveness in their lives and to be left alone is more obtrusive then SJW's who want to restrict speech, engage in witch hunts, and demand historical monuments to be torn down are worse.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[shaitand]

There is nothing constructive about walking on eggshells. 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. Even if they are reasonable and appropriate and fair they are still your responsibility and concern not those of others. If a person isn't feeling hateful and you feel they are hateful just because they are harsh, rough spoken, or insensitive, it is you who is wrong.

People who are so thinned skinned they get upset about any of your examples (outside of being disappointed in themselves for producing a poor result) are the ones who need training. They have problems with emotional stability.

"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."

SJW are threatening you and and your family for what they think you SHOULD say. Do you want to talk about actual emotional trauma, how about walking around terrified under constant threat of having your name and family being equated to the most genocidal monsters in human history? Every moment of every day any minor slip of SOMEONE ELSES inner thoughts and whimsical feelings potentially able to destroy your career and ability to provide for your family.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting description of SJW tactics. Such tactics won't work though. SJWs may think they scored an important point - but I don't think they will get any further. Linux development is still a meritocracy, SJWs hold no power over such organizations. Linux himself may have issued an apology - no "tought police" has been installed anywhere.

The mob attack only works when SJWs have time to install themselves in positions of power. But they aren't capable of real work, and so cannot get power in a true meritocracy. So they love infiltrating HR departments or leader positions (when capable of getting them) or steering committees. Committees are often seen as 'the boring stuff' so they can get in by volunteering - then they strike. But Linux development is a true meritocracy. There is no HR department (it is not a business anyway) and no steering committee. No power positions they can worm their way into, in order to ruin things or mess with individuals. One almost feel sorry for the SJWs in this case :-) . I am not sure they even tried - perhaps Linus just came up with his apology on his own.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re: Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[jd]

I live in a complex one. It's like a real world but it has imaginary components. if

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Anonymous Coward]

You live in a very fucked-up non-reality bro

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[shaitand]

"What evidence do we have that Linus was threatened"

Linus referenced it in his own statement. Linus Torvalds constitutes one of the most credible witnesses on the planet. He might be a jerk but his credibility certainly isn't in question.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[drinkypoo]

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]

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re: Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Type44Q]

But he's a fucking asshole.

And yet we could use more just like him.*

*The problem isn't abrasive and impatient pragmatists; it's chaotic, confused minds and fragile egos.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[shaitand]

"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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Xenographic]

> Correct. Fortunately these diversity initiatives only exist in the mad ramblings of the far right, as admitted justification to further oppress people.

Tell that to Harvard, they're in court over that.

> Funny that the only mention I can find of this is on literal fake news sites. Not a single public record has any mention of this.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/15/harvard-sued-discrimination-against-asian-americans
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/15/620368377/harvard-accused-of-racial-balancing-lawsuit-says-asian-americans-treated-unfairl

If you want to call those "literal fake news sites," it's a free country ... :)

Guess I'd better use DuckDuckGo to dig up public records for this and an earlier lawsuit:

http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/SFFA-v.-Harvard-Complaint.pdf
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-981

> It's well known that conservatives only allow others that believe math and science and reading comprehension are all liberal conspiracies.

Most relevant to this, here's Linus' daughter, signing the post-meritocracy manifesto. So instead of building the best Linux for the benefit of everyone, we should worry more about politics.

Here's a liberal trying to decolonize science so we can get rid of the racism, in which they're saying things like "through black magic" people can send lightning to strike someone and then asking "can you explain that scientifically?" Is this part of that magical liberal bias in reality? :)

CNN has declared that "math is racist" (archive).

In general, a lot of this nonsense traces back to the ideas of critical theory. There are groups who think that every wrong in the world traces back to bad power structures which they need to deconstruct and recreate to achieve fairness. It should tell you something when they're currently trying to deconstruct things like science and meritocracy, though...

The irony is that none of that is necessary and it's actively harmful to the supposed goals. It's true that bad luck, oppression, disasters, etc. unfairly keep some people down or prop others up. The right way to fix that would be to help all disadvantaged people equally. Insofar as certain groups have been historically kept down as such, this would disproportionately help them and right things over time. Instead, it's more fashionable to decide that help must be on the basis of group membership, which instead creates new competition among groups and animosity.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[shaitand]

Linus Torvalds on the code of Conduct.

"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."

And again here:

"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."

It is fair to paraphrase this as his reputation and integrity, his life's work, and his achievements being threatened by unsubstantiated and invalid comparisons to "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."

Were you looking for threats of violence (which frankly are less alarming and damaging overall than attacks on the character and structure of society). There are groups of SJWs advocating violence toward Nazi's... when random straight white males are being invalidly equated to Nazi's that means general advocacy of violence toward straight white males. This is no different than advocating violence against all Muslims and equating them all to terrorists or considering any who won't disavow Islam to be terrorists.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[AmiMoJo]

But was laying it on them necessary, or could Linus just have said "no, this code isn't good enough, refer to my earlier email about it, patch rejected"?

Functionally there is no difference.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[shaitand]

"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""

I think you'll find the issue is less about the rules than the interpretation. Also, not one of those things is about ability to perform.

"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."

It's important enough to be blind to those issues which have no impact. Large publicly traded companies rightly have policies like this in order to avoid prejudice impacting someone's ability to live in accord with their merit. The idea isn't to get rid of the assholes, the idea is to enable people the assholes don't like to have the opportunity to prove their merit. There is no need for that in the effectively anonymous setting of open-source development, your work output can speak for itself.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[WaffleMonster]

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.

So what if it is? Then what?

Lets assume everyone agrees 'Villager A' is a mean nasty person who makes everyone "feel" bad. 'Villager A' is simply incapable of being professional or courteous without "pretending" and even then he sucks at it.

Does this mean 'Villager A' has no place and is not welcomed to participate in society? 'Villager A' is not allowed to have a job (everyone knows what he said, Internet never forgets) or contribute to an open source project just because everyone else doesn't like mean nasty 'Villager A' and is totally unwilling to tolerate him? What would you have 'Villager A' do? Fight rats for food? Rot in a dungeon? Kill himself?

The price we all pay for an open society and also very much what makes professionals professional is tolerance of others. No matter how much you insult, annoy and offend I will still tolerate your (pathetic) existence and won't try and force you to shut up and go away. (Please leave)

DFTT = freedom
CoC = tyranny

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[AmiMoJo]

And I found a lot of the people who pushed for a CoC and criticised me for cursing to be hypocritical and pointless.

So you are saying he was forced to apologise by the criticism he found hypocritical and pointless?

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.

Yep, SJWs definitely got to him, forcing him to NOT apologise for being a straight white male.

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 the truth comes out. He noticed his behaviour was similar to some pretty awful people whose views he regarded as "truly nasty" and decided that he should change it.

How did you read his statement that went out of its way to say he wasn't pressured in to it or forced to apologise, which did its best to debunk your conspiracy theory, and yet somehow interpreted it as evidence you were right?

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[shaitand]

"Also, the code of conduct says nothing about merit because code quality already has its own rules. If your code sucks, the patch gets rejected, doesn't matter how politely you ask. "

If your code is amazing you'll get rejected or never even seen under this new policy because someone found the dancing hola girl in your sig offensive. Rejecting someone's patches for reasons that aren't contained in the patch lowers the quality of the result. Rejecting and silencing those who produce the best code does so on a more permanent basis. This is an open source project, maybe someone will fork but that is a lot of extra work on top of what they are already doing. A few will try to conform and grit and bear it. Many will likely just leave and the kernel will be the worse for it... along with the what 80+% of electronic devices in your home running it under the hood these days?

You could argue that people are being deterred and I'm sure there are a few but frankly there is a very strong correlation between being arrogant and having talent to be arrogant about in the development world. Someone who runs away when they get a harsh response to poor code is far less likely to be an asset than someone who moves on because they don't want to waste brain cycles they could use their work on tip toeing around the sensitivities of the former.

"Yeah, I'm having a real hard time imagining him kicking someone off the kernel team because they didn't properly conjugate some personal pronoun invented two weeks ago."

Linus you say? You mean this crushed soul who caved on issues exactly like that and abandoned his principle that the code comes first? This entire story is about his return after having given up on neutrality and reason.

https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12791359&cid=57518841

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[tbird20d]

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.

Re:Step 1: Remove the Code of Cancer.

[Highdude702]

Hi, I have been in a management position for the last 5 years. how about yourself? I am an electrician, I deal with people that couldn't write any code if you did it for them and asked them to close the statement. I don't LIKE having to yell at my guys/girl that work for us. But the truth is what we do can kill somebody and when they make a mistake that puts peoples lives in jeopardy I lose my shit, most of them don't cry about it(even our femanazi), sometimes you have to get personal and let the person know they need to pull their head out of their ass before it gets hit with the doorknob on the way out. I personally don't like firing people even know I'm an asshole. I don't like being the person responsible for taking food out of their mouth. But sometimes it has to be done. That all being said, some people are too stupid to listen unless you force them to.

Anything happen when he was gone?

[jellomizer]

I mean with the actual development of Linux? I seem to be getting regular kernel update.

Other then Linus trying to keep a cooler head, it was also a test to have Linux development controlled by someone else for a while to make sure it will still function, that all the support and infrastructure was in place.

If something happen to Linus, I really don't want to see the End of Linux.

Re: Anything happen when he was gone?

[Crashmarik]

Now lately in the news we see a lot of people getting put in jail or in general trouble for what they did when they were much younger. However they are not being repentant about it, just defiant about it. Thus not getting our sympathy.

B.S. if anything that's just people deciding that the inquisition and witch hunts are fine things if they get to do them and pick the targets Linus was targeted because he had a no nonsense style in running the project that bears his name.

Re:Anything happen when he was gone?

[IPFreely]

The conduct issue aside, the other question of how Linux survives without Linus is certainly important.

Over the years, he has set up a highly hierarchical power structure based on trust and loyalty with him at the top. Sort of dictatorial. That is not necessarily a bad thing as long as he manages it with the right goals in mind, and he seems to have done that fairly well.
(It was often said the best leadership is a benevolent monarchy.)
I think this speaks to strong focused goals and the ability to exclude trying to manage things that are not part of his focus. This would include trying to manage culture as part of the development community. He said as much in his letter. When the single leader tries to manage culture, it will invariably go wrong somewhere.There are too many opinions and to much incompatibility to succeed in this alone. Some amount of exclusion is almost inevitable. But avoiding managing it can also lead to some level of chaos and the culture we see now.

Going forward, we probably should consider two paths for Linux development without Linus.
The first is to maintain the hierarchical structure by putting someone else in that place. It could work for a while, if you can find someone who is properly focused like Linus was. If you find someone focused on software first and culture second (or not at all) you probably will end up with a quality OS and similar environment. If you end up with someone who is not quite as well focused as Linus and who does end up trying to manage culture, then it is highly likely the quality of the software will go down.

The other option is to change the leadership structure completely to something more community based and/or democratic. This could be able to handle both software quality and culture, but will very likely lower efficiency. Many distributions have done this with varying degrees of success.

Managing culture is hard enough under any circumstances. There will always be differences in opinion, incompatibility and preferences, and usually some conflict about what the priorities should be. If there is a single leader, then there will be a single point for focusing conflict. If there is a broader community and some democracy, then at least the blame for certain priorities can be spread out and excused with "majority rules". It is more about defusing incompatibility than curing it. A single person simply cannot do that by the design of the hierarchy, even if they have the support of the majority. And we don't really know if Linus had that.

right

[cascadingstylesheet]

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.

Re:right

[azcoyote]

There's rarely a need to bring right and wrong into these matters, and an apology is basically an admission of guilt.

I've been pondering this a lot lately. As ridiculous as Trump is, his lack of remorse for anything and everything has shown a kind of fault line in the way in which today's culture has become a culture of blame. Most public figures, when confronted with something that brings public ire, try to apologize even if they don't really feel bad about it, because they think that apologies will diffuse the situation. But these days an apology is not just an admission of guilt; it's also an admission of weakness. It causes people to go in for the kill like a pack of wolves. Trump is just about the only person who can survive in such a situation, precisely because he refuses to apologize and simply "misremembers" what he said or did in a convenient way. Thus ironically it's the kind of witch hunt culture today that has helped to cement Trump's position. Every time people attack him, he shows his dominance by refusing to apologize.

This is visible, for example, in the difference between the affairs of Bill Clinton and Trump's tryst with Stormy Daniels. Now in terms of morality, both deeds are of course gravely sinful, despite being mutual (notwithstanding the illicit power dynamic in the case of Bill, though Hillary still refuses to acknowledge it). But looking at the cultural/political impact, apart from the question of right and wrong, it's fascinating how Trump is able to weather the storm simply by refusing to apologize. It's almost as if, in the public eye, it's the apology that constitutes the sin.

Re:right

[Mashiki]

You're right on the culture of blame, but misunderstand why Trump is able to whether it. It's because he refuses to "bow" to the politically correct culture around it and through it. People were getting pissed off over it ~20 years ago, that PC culture has gotten far worse over the last 6 years. Everything from destroying historical monuments, to active discrimination against others "for the greater good" for education, job positions, loans, and so forth. In general western society was on a very good track towards meritocracy, and the political left injected identity politics into it hard pushing that if you don't fall in line with what they tell you, then you're a racist, sexist, misogynist, rapist, and so on.

You can round all of this out, that in many cases the people who are screaming this culture of blame from the rooftops are people who've actually done the things they've accused others of. The rank hypocrisy is simply the final nail in the coffin for it.

Re: right

[jd]

"I'm sorry you have a headache" doesn't mean the speaker caused it. Although it might.

Apologizing for historic crimes doesn't mean you possess a TARDIS.

Hidden meanings, secret codes, this is not a good communication strategy. I suggest saying what you mean, meaning what you say, never using coded messages outside of IPSec, GnuPG or SSL.

Kinder? You mean smalltalk?

[houghi]

https://science.slashdot.org/s...

So it seems he is able to survive without smaltalk just fine.

So now you know that if you ask him a question you will get an anser, even if you don't like the answer. You will even get an answer without asking a question.

If you think it will be different, I have to ask: what have you been smoking?

What's so surprising???

[unixbhaskar]

Like all "real men", he keeps what he said. Everyone needs a break sometimes. Linus also deserved that.

Why you are getting resistance

[MikeRT]

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.

Did he get rid of those blue haired whiners?

[KiviPall]

When you allow too many professional complainers and trouble makers, usually with bizarre hair colour and face piercings, your team or even the whole business will got sh**t. Don't hire those freaks and keep everyone else happy.

Re:Wait..what?

[110010001000]

I would make it all Ring 0 for performance reasons. Nothing could possibly go wrong. But now that Linus is back in charge it probably will never happen.

Re: Wait..what?

[jd]

X11. If your client is on a separate machine, the correct way to run it, then you need a way to send audio to it.

I agree 100%

[ckatko]

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.