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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

[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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.