I see a lot of confirmation bias in these kinds of threads. Because Linux is a success, it must be because of Linus's particular brand of being a jerk, for the same reason that Apple is a success because Steve Jobs was a jerk. That is, an effective leader must be a jerk.
But there are lots of other companies that are successful where people don't act like jackasses. For example, Google culture is anti-jackass, Googley means not being a dickhead. If you have a problem, explain what's wrong calmly and coherently, it's more efficient. Simply telling someone that they, or their code, is a piece of shit is not likely to be as efficient.
IBM is another, when I worked at T.J. Watson, people were very civil.
Civility is not about being "fake" or "politically correct", it's about being able to communicate your position by reason instead of by emotion, by shouting, by abuse, by reptilian brain.
Linus gets a lot of leeway because of his work on Linux, and we will forever be thankful for that. But I don't believe good works earns you a pass from criticism of behavior. The founders of the United States are forever thanked for the Constitution, but that doesn't let them off for being slaveholders.
I expect there will be some reflexive downvoting on this for criticizing the prophet, but honestly, Linus makes geeks look bad socially. Say what you will about Richard Stallman, there are lots of things he says I disagree with, but he says them with integrity and positivism and love, and not with angry denouncements.
While Linus should not be saying that all civility and political correctness are fake, I think there is a valid point to be made. For many people, such things ARE fake, and they prefer environments without it. The key idea, though, is that both are viable options.
There is nothing inherently superior about "I think this patch could use work" vs "This patch is garbage", outside of emotional response, and to some people, the first is actually worse, for the reasons he stated. And just as it would be out of place for someone in google to state "You ought to be expressing your code reviews with less weasel words and more profanity to be more honest", it is wholly out of place for someone to come in to the linux kernel mailing lists and demand everyone stop swearing as much to be more "professional".
They think your communication sucks because it is indirect and dishonest. You think their communication sucks because it is vulgar and excessive. Maybe the best solution is to understand that in a different culture, similar ideas may be expressed differently, and be tolerant of these cultural and personal differences?
How about "This patch has the following problems...." which would be much more conducive to getting the person to fix them, rather than provoking a flame war.
I've been online since the 80s, and I have seen this attitude over and over, that somehow, SHOUTING and INSULTS are "just part of the process" of engineering culture, and if "you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen"
It's really an excuse for people, in many cases with ego problems, to justify behavior that most people find distasteful. It's no wonder many people are turned off from STEM fields where this kind of "alpha male" behavior is wide spread.
We need more Vulcan and less Klingon, especially in fields where people consider themselves intellectually superior, more educated, and supposedly, more rational.
"more vulcan less klingon" i think bones would disagree. I also don't think Neelix GNU operating system would be any good, it would just keep reaffirming sloppy development until everything fell apart because those people shouldve been dumped at the first habitable planet.
Aesthetically the Vulcans certainly have the Klingon's beat, but was "Do humans think our ship looks nice?" high up on the list of Klingon design considerations? ;)
Just like Linus said, some people work better with certain types of people. If you are a highly sensitive person then working with Steve Jobs/Linus/Bill Gates [1] is probably not going to go well.
The question might be that because Jobs/Linus/Gates are in positions of power and management, should they have to adjust their personality when working with other people?
I'm not convinced that should be the case. Choosing to work with someone is largely voluntary.
The big difference between Linux and Jobs/Bill Gates is that people working on Linux are not employees. They are more like friends at a dinner party. The host can be a jerk to his party guests when they say something the host finds disagreeable and as long as it is personal opinion and doesn't come to blows the offended guest can just leave in a huff and have their own party where the host is not invited.
The only problem with this perspective is that Linus is kind of the only show in town where it regards the Linux kernel. You can't just leave and have your own party without the host because the host has a monopoly on this particular party.
Sure, you can fork the kernel, but good luck with that!
As much as anything can be forked, the Linux kernel can be forked.
The only barrier to forking is the fact that most kernel developers are not bothered by Linus. Which raises the question of why we should want a fork if nobody wants a fork...
Narrator's comment, to which I was responding, implied that some might want a fork because the host is a 'bad' host.
The other barrier is the effort required to compete with what is currently the most used Linux kernel base. It's not like forking OpenOffice, KDevelop, or Eclipse where you can compete as an alternative on top of a standard OS. It's replacing the basis of the OS that everything else is written to work for.
There are absolutely no technical limitations to forking the kernel. Hell, even XFree86 got forked. Make a point of not breaking userland (aside: one of the things Linus flames for) and you will be fine in the short term until you fail to implement features that Linux proper implements and others choose to use.
The problems with forking are social. You are only going to have a handful of people working with you instead of Linus (because nobody cares that Linus can be a meanie) and as a consequence you are only going to have a handful of people using your fork instead of Linus' (because nobody cares that Linus can be a meanie). Because of this progress on Linux will progress faster than progress on your fork, which will make your fork obsolete (but nobody would care, because nobody would be using it, because nobody cares that Linus is a meanie).
These are not problems with forking Linux. These are problems with forking anything if nobody cares about your fork.
> Because Linux is a success, it must be because of Linus's particular brand of being a jerk [...] If you have a problem, explain what's wrong calmly and coherently, it's more efficient. Simply telling someone that they, or their code, is a piece of shit is not likely to be as efficient.
You're setting up quite a straw man there by making it look as though Linus's first reply to things he doesn't like is "this is a piece of shit". In fact, if you go through these threads, in almost every case there is an escalation where he explains his reasoning first, in detail and repeatedly. When someone really doesn't get it, he will indeed escalate to foul language. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Unlike established corporations, the Linux community doesn't have options like subtly threatening to fire someone.
>You're setting up quite a straw man there by making it look as though Linus's first reply to things he doesn't like is "this is a piece of shit". In fact, if you go through these threads, in almost every case there is an escalation where he explains his reasoning first, in detail and repeatedly
Yes it's true, his first responds isn't "this is a piece of shit". It's "YOU are a piece of shit".
As far as I can see, that was his first post to that thread. He said his target was "full of bullshit", then proceeded into a rant about how C++ programmers are so bad he wants to deliberately keep them off his projects by pissing them off.
I think it's a good example because there are plenty of criticisms of C++ one could make but Linus does a terrible job of putting forward those criticisms. He seems to be so blinded with rage that he can barely form a coherent argument.
Additionally, as far as I can tell the people involved here were not old timer core git contributors, they were new people making an honest attempt to contribute, so the argument being put about that he only targets old hands who have a thick skin isn't true.
He didn't write that blinded with rage. He carefully crafted a work of literature. The person he responded to was one of those sociopath fact-assumptors that make every online conversation difficult.
The linux kernel is a far less dysfunctional social setup than any of the other places you mentioned (even though it's older than some of them), and I weakly suspect it's partly because of Linus's modus operandi.
People notice his swearing but not who he attacks. My observation has been that he's exquisitely careful about picking his targets, always picking people who've been in the group for a while, and never attacking a noob. This sets an extremely egalitarian tone for the group: nobody is immune, and anybody can be questioned on their actions.
(I'm a lot less sanguine than him, though, about the effect this confrontational ethos has on the participation of women in the group.)
He's attacked noobs before (I specifically recall one case on the git mailing lists) but I've never seen him attack a noob who wasn't trolling and already flinging mud themselves.
Enlighten me, what is the herd mindset? Was Mr Spock on Star Trek or Data "part of a herd mindset", because they didn't engage in verbal insults on the crew when they disagreed?
Let's not beat around the bush. This is exactly the type of insidious tripe that wants to make everyone the same, that wants to live in a gingerbread world where they hold hands and sing Kumbayah. We tell kids in school and adults to "be themselves and be an individual", yet, your way of thinking wants to remove any individuality and homogenize them so every one is polite and considerate of everyone else's garbage opinion as if they all had equal weight, They do not. Telling people they are doing something dumb, even in harsh terms can be useful, as it will drive the point home. That's not to say be mean, but, be direct and upfront.
Oh that's right, not wanting people to be jerks is tantamount for wanting _Harrison Bergeron_.
This slippery slope argument is garbage and YOU are a piece of shit for advocating it! You must watch Fox news and are a devotee of "shock jock" radio that tickles your reptilian brain and amps up the right neurotransmitters in the risk reward system to crave impolite and rude behavior!
(I hope I drove home the point with that bogus rant that individuality-through-angry-shouting doesn't elevate the debate at all, it just incentivizes the other party to become even more recalcitrant and unreasonable)
Hot tempers and passionate are not the problem. Strongly worded rebuttals are not a problem. Direct ad hominem attacks are just unnecessary. You can be strong and aggressive without telling people to "SHUT THE FUCK UP"
Trust me, being a dick isn't only way to be adversarial.
I like the bogus example because though you claim it's bogus it went through your mind I may very well watch Fox News given my focus on individualism. I find it fascinating that people that have a difference of view point are always lumped into a black or white view of the world so people can "figure them out".
That observation aside, I easily see what your point is, but I don't agree with the principle of it. In this case this wasn't a direct ad hominem attack by Linus. I fail to see that given the rest of the email thread. More importantly however is the fact that the individualism involved is what makes things interesting and gets the points across. Since you like literature it seems, you should surely understand the importance of the reviews and critics of such works. Often these were quite brutal, but again they drove home the points, whether they are right or wrong isn't the issue either. A sugar coated world just isn't a reflection of a real world.
I have to agree with the "Linus isn't perfect" assessment. What's got him this far is in the results - much of his abuse is accompanied with "this is bad for userland" and a specific indication of where the patch went wrong.
But criticism of developers is apparently too difficult for him. He doesn't distiguish between "this code is bad" and "YOUR code is bad" - indeed, he seems to enjoy pinning the perp and assuming they are an idiot and not just ignorant.
"As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die -- not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing."
And? I mean, it's tasteless right after his death, but is it equivalence to personal attack and intimation?
Is the world black and white, and if someone says even one negative thing, then it's a full equivalence?
You can delete the Stallman reference, and the point still stands.
"As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, 'I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone.' Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing."
Clearly, that was an angry denouncement...
/sarcasm
Seemed to be pretty obvious truth to me. Steve Jobs has created an ecosystem that is far more locked down than the 1984 he envisioned in the original Mac Ad. He has ushered in an era of computing in which the general purpose device is giving way to a device where you don't even control what content you can put on it.
We used to think that DRM on desktop PCs was bad, but for mobile devices it's 10x worse.
Now, see how I just explained the issue with Steve Jobs, instead of saying "He was a piece of shit who passed of Woz's work as his own, lied to him about money, denied paternity of his daughter, verbally abused employees and kept them in a state of fear, maintained an 'enemy list' of journalists, .....!" That's inflammatory rhetoric, and not relevant. The only thing that is relevant is the sea change in DRM'ed computing platforms have been popularized and his role in them, which is what Stallman was alluding too -- the effects of his leadership.
> Do you really want to oppress a minority? Because Finns are a minority compared to almost any other country. If you want to talk cultural sensitivity, I'll join you. But my culture includes cursing.
That made me chuckle. Based on my experience having worked with a few Fins; they are quite efficient and straight to the point. There is also a Quora answer [1] on why Nokia phones are so durable.
Israelis have a similar mentality. From [2]:
> Whenever there was a bombing, Israelis would run TO the blast to bandage people and help out. They risked their lives without a second thought to help each other with an 'of course' kind of attitude. Israelis don't even realize this is unique to them. Most just silently believe everyone shares the same attitude toward helping people in danger.
> When you're in that kind of society, fake politeness is actually offensive.
I've also experienced this mentality with Punjabi Sikhs.
I believe that this Israeli-Finnish mentality of informality and "to the point" attitude has something to do with both still having military draft, besides the usual being small, educated, remote and history of living under threat.
In both countries there is remarkably small difference in perceived (and acted upon) status, say between prime minister and common man should they engage in casual conversation.
The core problem here is that there are two different ideas about tolerance in play here, which I think is poorly understood as people tend to fling around the term without understanding that the word can describe almost diametrically opposed things.
Linus is advocating for what you might call personal tolerance; as a human being, you should be prepared for the fact that not everyone in the world is like you, not everyone shares your standards or your culture, and that some people may be abrasive by your standards in a way that is acceptable in their culture or microculture. (And while it is talked about less, the alternative can occur too, where you encounter a culture that is more deferential than you are used too, and similar misunderstandings can easily occur.) It is for each person to accept these differences and learn to deal with them.
The American left/liberalism has embraced a different definition of "tolerance", what I might call social or societal tolerance, which is that each individual is responsible for learning what is offensive to the person you are dealing with, and treating them as the other individual expects. This is what has given birth to the concept of "political correctness", and this is the domain in which "You have offended me" takes on moral overtones; you have abrogated your social responsibilities in that case.
I mention this without endorsing one or the other. (I'll freely admit to thinking the former is generally more scalable and a better idea, but I could easily write an argument in favor of the latter as well. As a personal matter I tend towards a mix of both.) I just don't think you can really understand the full context of this discussion without having this idea clearly in your head.
The use of words such as violence and abuse is disturbing. We are talking about a guy thats swearing - not a rapist. Sorry, but swearing isn't very uncommon in Scandinavia.
I didn't sign an agreement to act according to some US code of conduct - I assume Linus is feeling the same way. Although I certainly wouldn't do what he does, I respect him standing up against the American CoC mafia.
I heard Steve Jobs was very rude to his employees, if they did a poor job as well - I guess all of this happened inside the Apple HQ as well - its just easier to be angry with someone who is not your boss (oh, and if everything happens on a mailing list).
However, "Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence." is something I just copied and pasted. I don't think it's that out of line to observe that this is an attempt to win the argument by defining Linus' behavior as intrinsically beyond the pale without having to engage it directly. It's not like that's a particular uncommon rhetorical tactic....
Neither does he. He's not creating a caricature, he's engaging the part of the argument that uses the same language on Linus that we normally reserve for wife beaters, child molesters and rapists. "Violence" and "abuse". It's not out of line to draw the parallel and question whether the language is appropriate for the situation, especially since the topic to begin with is language and it's appropriateness.
We drop motherfucker and other "curse" words in my US office all day long here. Mostly due to some bullshit coming down the fucking pike from some dumbass account manager who doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
Loosely related anegdote: Not so long ago I heard of a study here in Poland (we curse like sailors) about which parts of society swear the most. The first group were the uneducated, bottom class workers, etc., just because they just don't know better how to express themselves. Obvious, right? At this point you think it will decrease linearally, but as it turns out, the second most cursing group were the well educated, people in position, all sorts of groups you would 'expect better', yet they are confident enough about their intelligence and vocabulary they don't feel the need to apply artificial boundaries around their means of expression. The ones who curse the least are the ones in between - because they are the ones who care enough to pretend and want to separate themselves from the lower classes - a matter of being paranoid about their social perception supposedly originating from insecurity.
It's beyond me why people expect Linus to beat around the bushes like he were on an audition with the queen when he's not in a position to care enough to bend over third party social standards.
We're users and admirers of profanity here as well. My admiration of profane language runs so deep that it is a parenting problem; my kids swear, we don't punish it, and they risk trouble at school. Which, fine.
Sarah Sharp isn't criticizing Torvalds merely for using profanity. That's not her argument at all.
Also, consider the different impact the same words have when you're using them in person and the target of those words can assess body language. Consider also whether every person in your office is someone you'd feel equally comfortable using that language with.
She says she will "roar back" and considers that a threat of retaliation that might deter them, but she is talking to people who don't mind roaring at all. She really is missing the point of cultural sensitivity -- cultures that are louder and more confrontational aren't required to play by the rules of cultures that work more quietly, just to cooperate with them. There isn't any accusation here that Linus unfairly judges the work or contributions of people who don't "roar." They just want him to stop yelling because their cultural bias causes them to perceive him as a threatening and potentially violent person.
The premise of your argument is that it's reasonable for a project manager to invoke "Finnish Culture" as a justification for calling people on their team names and singling them out for expletive-laced approbation in public. I don't know a lot of Finns, but do you honestly think a typical Finnish person would be comfortable with having their culture summed up that way?
You're begging the question. The question is, is that behavior intrinsically offensive? What does it mean? With Linus, as far as I can tell, all it means is that you've done one stupid thing and have taxed his patience by trying to justify it. Other cultures would express the same thing via what Linus calls "false politeness" and "backstabbing." So they have harsh words for his style of communication, and he has harsh words for theirs. Why do we assume that one of them has to change? And why do we assume it should be Linus? Their argument boils down to invoking the fear and discomfort they feel in response to Linus. Unreasonable fear based on cultural discomfort isn't good grounds for asking someone else to change their behavior.
Take a guy like me who grew up in a house where everybody sat quietly and read books and nobody ever raised their voice. Maybe I don't feel entirely comfortable when I go someplace where everybody is loud and open about everything, including their unpleasant feelings. In a different time, I would just call them animals. I would judge them for all the danger and aggression that I intuitively attributed to them. And for a long time such judgments were unquestioningly accepted. But times are different. You can't hold someone responsible for whatever meaning you read into their behavior. You have an obligation to question your interpretation and see if your assumptions are reasonably consistent with the facts. Is it reasonable for anyone to fear violence because of harsh comments directed to them by Linus Torvalds? Of course not. We all suffer from unreasonable fear because of cultural preconceptions, and we ought to doubt ourselves first before claiming that other people should change because of how we emotionally react to them.
I thought the Finnish culture excuse was pretty weak, but I think he'd be perfectly justified in saying "I don't plan to stop cursing at people who I think deserve it. If that means nobody wants to work on my project, then so be it."
Because it's pretty obvious that there are plenty of people with enough enthusiasm for working on the kernel that they're willing to work with a profane curmudgeon, or perhaps people who do it because they actually enjoy that type of environment.
And trying to frame this in terms of Linus being an abuser or advocating violence or preying on the weak is just extremely dumb and insulting to people who are actually victims of real abuse. It's emails on a mailing list calling your code shitty and/or calling you stupid for writing shitty code. For fuck's sake, if you're victimized by that, maybe every open source project isn't for you.
She didn't claim that she was vicitimized, but she definitely took it to that level on others' behalf:
> Good lord. So anyone that is one of your "top maintainers" could be
exposed to your verbal abuse just because they "should have known
better"?
> You know what the definition of an abuser is? Someone that seeks out
victims that they know will "just take it" and keep the abuse "between
the two of them". They pick victims that won't fight back or report the
abuse.
I dream of working for/with someone like Linus Torvalds. Seriously.
There is absolutely no pretense here, no guessing, no fakery. If you work with Linus, you know exactly where you stand. He doesn't hold anything back, including criticisms that are critical to your own growth as a developer.
And there can be no question - NONE - that what he does WORKS. Linux is on BILLIONS of devices worldwide, affecting BILLIONS of peoples' lives in as literal a sense as can be imagined. You have to be strict about that sort of software, you have to be hard, you have to have a very sharp edge, and you absolutely cannot afford to make mistakes.
You don't have to like it, and you don't have to agree with it, but you certainly don't walk into Linus Torvalds' kitchen and tell him it's too hot.
I feel similarly. People who are willing to be blunt with others are something of a dying breed in many social circles. I actively attempt to surround myself with people who communicate like Linus.
When I use to do farmwork, there was no shortage of people like this. If you did something wrong, you heard about swiftly and clearly. That clarity wasn't limited to just informational content, the person delivering the news made a point of making sure you got the message, that requires clarity on an emotional level too. You don't get "Dear, please don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest."; you get a string of profanity and information so clear and targeted that I am unable to give it a fair representation. In that culture the "familiar" tone that people used with each other was a symptom of mutual respect. You wouldn't "baby" people that you respected.
You don't get clarity on an emotional level when being cursed and yelled at. You get into fight or flight mode. You get into danger mode.
"Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is perfectly fine.*
You really are demonstrating and promoting the "yell on my employee to make them work better" attitude that just don't work on the long-term.
* Anecdote: My grand-father decided to take evening studies after the war to get out of this blue collar mentality of cursing and not getting much more done. He rose from one social ladder to the next and always made it clear the senseless profanity, bravado and fake expertise (the fuck do you need an expert to lift haystack or push wagon in the mines as he did in his 20's was his conclusion) was what he was fleeing from. And the fact they could be pretty good at back-stabbing too.
There is no respect in insulting someone else when trying to convene information.
Are we going to have that bro-grammer fad all over again ?
"Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is NOT perfectly fine if it does not sufficiently drive the importance of that sentence home.
jlgreco's example of working on a farm is incredibly relevant because one tiny mistake on a farm can literally cost the lives of anyone or everyone in the family. If you're working on a tractor and you get something remotely wrong then suddenly you can't harvest this season, and everyone is broke and starving. Or the tractor falls and kills you and anyone else working under it.
One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again.
> One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again.
I am really tempted to play the "citation needed" card on that one but in my experience yelling on someone has never prevented them doing the same mistake again. Quite the contrary.
Are the geeks on HN that were yelled at senseless during PE better at basket-ball or sports ? I Thought so.
Oh I don't say that encouraging someone with swearing or cursing to rise the adrenaline is bad. Cursing someone or yelling at him to get information conveyed ? Ridiculous.
> One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again.
When do we really man up and just punch the other guy in the face ? That should make sure he doesn't make the same mistake again since we just associate something physically to make things connect.
> jlgreco's example of working on a farm is incredibly relevant because one tiny mistake on a farm can literally cost the lives of anyone or everyone in the family. If you're working on a tractor and you get something remotely wrong then suddenly you can't harvest this season, and everyone is broke and starving. Or the tractor falls and kills you and anyone else working under it.
Right. Because on the farms, they are dumb enough to let newbies who saw a cow for the first time in their life on the tractor when real dangerous work is needed. I have worked on a farm for some days and my SO's cousins are all farmers. They ain't that dumb.
> "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is NOT perfectly fine if it does not sufficiently drive the importance of that sentence home.
Yes, it does. We don't need cursing words as big punctuation sign to get our attention focused on the task at hand. We need words like "now, listen boy, this is dangerous and this is how you do it safely". It works as well and you don't perpetuate violence and intimidation disguised as manhood.
> I am really tempted to play the "citation needed" card on that one but in my experience yelling on someone has never prevented them doing the same mistake again. Quite the contrary.
That jack example was a real example. I was disassembling some greenbean processing equipment to move it across the plant floor (a scrubber/rinser, iirc), and decided to take a shortcut. It probably would have taken my hand if I hadn't have been stopped. You can be damn sure I never made that mistake again.
This may seem alien, it may seem like something I should have been able to get through my thick skull with kind words after the immediate danger was neutralized, so I'll give it some background:
Lots of things can take limbs on a farm; damn near everything has a warning label about that. Most of the time the labels are for stupid shit like "make sure you have this turned off, unplugged, and disabled before you stick your hand in there". Most things you do have very long drawn out procedures that seem over-engineered for the sake of safety (similar to the procedures people being trained to use firearms will learn). It is very easy to become complacent, particularly when you are being worked hard, but when somebody chews you out for something for five minutes then you know that in this case something is deadly serious.
This. My first day on my first job I heard the foreman chew out a lineman for a dangerous mistake, no profanity spared. I was young and sheltered, and it scared me half to death; but fear of disappointing that foreman certainly kept me alive and fully-limbed on multiple occasions. I've seen the same dynamic with ship captains and chief engineers laying in when needed. Here's the thing: in situations like this, hurt feelings are much preferred to other possible outcomes.
> Are the geeks on HN that were yelled at senseless during PE better at basket-ball or sports ? I Thought so.
No, in fact I hated P.E. and sports, and you know what happened? I chose not to participate. I had no interest in sports, and I was not cut out for sports, and so I did not participate.
> Oh I don't say that encouraging someone with swearing or cursing to rise the adrenaline is bad. Cursing someone or yelling at him to get information conveyed ? Ridiculous.
Linus is not a professor, he's not here to teach. When people go to work on the Linux kernel they have huge amounts of experience and it is expected that they already know what they are doing. That expectation is critical, and they are held to the highest standards.
> When do we really man up and just punch the other guy in the face ? That should make sure he doesn't make the same mistake again since we just associate something physically to make things connect.
That's an entirely facetious statement and not remotely related to what Linus is doing when he calls people out on their mistakes. But sure, what the hell, I'd say we can draw that line right about at the point where someone's "contributions" start to have a net negative affect on the development of the kernel. I'd say that's just about punch-worthy.
> Right. Because on the farms, they are dumb enough to let newbies who saw a cow for the first time in their life on the tractor when real dangerous work is needed. I have worked on a farm for some days and my SO's cousins are all farmers. They ain't that dumb.
I recommend going back to the farm for more than a few days.
> Yes, it does. We don't need cursing words as big punctuation sign to get our attention focused on the task at hand. We need words like "now, listen boy, this is dangerous and this is how you do it safely". It works as well and you don't perpetuate violence and intimidation disguised as manhood.
Since we just went right back to where we started, I can see that there's probably no way I can convince you of my (or Linus's) position. I'm okay with that, I think I've laid out my arguments fairly well and you have yours. I still disagree with a lot of what you say, but that's fine, in a week or so the only place this argument will exist is in our HN comment history.
> Since we just went right back to where we started, I can see that there's probably no way I can convince you of my (or Linus's) position. I'm okay with that, I think I've laid out my arguments fairly well and you have yours. I still disagree with a lot of what you say, but that's fine, in a week or so the only place this argument will exist is in our HN comment history.
Well, I feel the same (no hard feelings either). Moreover I am pretty sure I hit my limit regarding my ability in having a nuanced conversation in a foreign language.
I'll just chime in some personal experience regarding the matter at hand:
- I was bad in PE: insulted, made fun of and awkward, the "I don't look at the ball so nobody will pass it to me" attitude. Then around my 15's summer I started hanging with some childhood "friends" who had turned delinquents. Mostly played basket-ball with them all days and night long on the playground. They played hard and were cursing a lot, yet they were somehow supportive. Come a new year school and I got much better at sports in general and finally enjoyed PE. Some got in really bad situation regarding the law after that but I can't recall a situation where one of them would be as aggressive towards another player as Linus is towards others on those mailing-list.
But I remember reading him once saying "cursing comes after a lot of trying to get my point across and not being heard". My main grief is: I don't believe in shaming and I am under the impression cursing and yelling is really close to shaming and that this is what people try to defend when justifying any of Linus's occurrence of cursing.
This is exactly right. Admittedly software development is not usually life threatening (certainly never on the sort of timescales that farm work can be (in the blink of an eye)), but I assert it remains relevant. Profanity, creative imagery, "emotional 'abuse'", and yes, even yelling (which Linus is not doing) convey meaning in a way that polite words cannot.
This style of communication is a hard metal needle that allows you to mainline information.
In my anecdotal experience the problem with "yell on my employee to make them work better" is not when it is used for getting your point across when they have done something wrong. When it fails is when you repeatedly rant at them. Structural problems cannot be solved by yelling at people.
How many of those billions of installs were enabled by Torvalds telling Mauro Carvalho Chehab to "SHUT THE FUCK UP" after Mauro tried to explain a previous patch? Try to be as specific as you can, thanks.
How many of the people whining about this problem have ever submitted a Linux kernel patch or considered it and said they wouldn't because of him? Name names, thanks.
I can't stand it when fanboy'ish trumps the point being made around here, especially with regard to jobs and torvalds and their unprofessionalism toward their employees. nobody is saying linux isn't a major contribution to the world. linus is an unprofessional asshole. bottom line.
1. Torvalds doesn't employ anyone to work on the kernel, it's an open source project not a company. Sarah and everyone else on that mailing list are volunteers.
2. Professionalism means different things to different people, and in Linus's case it means being uncompromising in his expectations of the people he allows to work on his code.
3. Yes, he's an asshole. He wears that badge with pride (just look up the origination of the name for "git"), but he's also been an asshole for the past twenty years or so. I think people ought to know what they're getting into by now, and if not then it's their own fault.
4. He has the right to run his project how he sees fit, and so far that's working pretty damn well. Would that work for me? No. Would it work for you? Probably not. Does it work for what is potentially the most important software contribution to the world? Yes, it most certainly does. And that's the bottom line.
| 2. Professionalism means different things to different people, and in Linus's case it means being uncompromising in his expectations of the people he allows to work on his code.
by yelling and cursing at them... anyone with enough self-respect and high enough self esteem wouldn't work a day for a guy like that. I don't care what the cause/product.
| 4. He has the right to run his project how he sees fit, and so far that's working pretty damn well.
yes, I use to work for a company that had primadona dev leads who'd yell and demean their junior and senior devs in public about checking in bugs against apps that were also working pretty damn well. we also had a revolving door (lowest employee retention of all the other departments) for developers in the company.
>Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems (OS) worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013
What?! iOS is not Linux, smartphone market is not all phone market and shipments/marketshare is not equal to usage share.
Lets go with this instead. 92.3% of all smartphones are connected to projects headed (present or past tense) by blunt 'assholes' who have hurt many feelings.
He's wrong, the behaviour isn't acceptable. He's right: he can run Linux however he wants. It'd be a bit more honest to say "I can be a jerk because I wrote Linux." than all of this moral relativist survival of the fittest macho bullshit, though.
It's clear that Linus, having spent his career working from home in his bathrobe, has absolutely no clue what professionalism means. It's less about the neckties and watercooler politics he imagines and more about treating your peers with basic respect and human dignity.
He appears to have the social skills of someone recently released from maximum security prison. He's like a homeschooled kid who bites the other children at birthday parties.
He has a lot of experience doing what works for his particular project. His style works for his most active contributors and lieutenants. I don't think you can say he has under-developed social skills, but they are probably "over-fitted" to a specific social structure.
And? What makes something right? Or that there is only one right approach? That's Linus's point; having everyone agree and hug it out is a waste of his time. You don't have to report directly to him to make things happen.
(I deleted my comment above before I saw your reply)
Society has norms for determining right and wrong social behaviour. We teach children not to behave this way at a very early age. I'm sure these societal values aren't completely consistent across cultures and ages, but I'd be surprised if most people you ask don't characterize his language as hostile and abusive.
"This is specifically contrasted to the Swedish consensus decision-making, where the manager makes sure that everyone involved has been heard before decisions are taken."
Ergo the "management by perkele" - as a Swede, you probably know what perkele is ;-)
Yes, I believe another Finnish Swede active in this scene is somewhat more culturally Swedish - Monty Widenius, founder of MySQL/MariaDB.
On the other hand Linus' father is a Member of the European Parliament for Swedish People's Party of Finland, and was until 2011 the party vice chairman. But he (Nils) has been quite relaxed about things like mandatory Swedish education, which most Finnish Swedes dearly cling on to.
> what professionalism means. It's less about the neckties and watercooler politics he imagines and more about treating your peers with basic respect and human dignity
What planet did you just descend from? And what are these "peers" that exist in our profession? In my profession I have a team lead who doles out work, with a manager over him, with a manager over him and so on. The basic structure is no different than that of a dictatorship.
What's this "basic respect and human dignity" you find in your corporation which you can't find on lkml? Steve Ballmer throwing a chair across the room when a developer says he's leaving because he is going to "fucking kill Google?" Who are we to look to for these examples of professionalism and basic respect and human dignity - Steve Jobs? Larry Ellison?
Who is the one with the vivid imagination? I hope you never have to keep the network and desktops of a Wall Street trading floor running.
Back in 1999, when VC was handed out like candy and blockbuster IPOs happened every day and companies were desperate to hire even middling IT workers, I suppose a veneer of theoretical collegiality seemed to hang over dot-com's for a moment. When 2000 and 2001 rolled around, and a lord of the flies atmosphere appeared at these same startups, it was a different story.
> And what are these "peers" that exist in our profession?
Your peers are people you work with to achieve a common goal.
> I have a team lead who doles out work, with a manager over him, with a manager over him and so on. The basic structure is no different than that of a dictatorship.
The basic structure is also no different from a democracy. Or a large open-source project.
> What's this "basic respect and human dignity" you find in your corporation which you can't find on lkml?
I hope this doesn't come as a surprise to you, but you're not supposed to rage out and flame your peers. It shows a lack of self control. Those examples you gave of CEOs losing control are notorious for a reason.
> I hope you never have to keep the network and desktops of a Wall Street trading floor running.
Why is everybody so concerned about Linus being who he is? Every month there's yet another article about 'rude open source developers'. I thought we were hackers and not conformists. I could care less what Linus says it's his kernel, his project, his life, his personality. Linux is not a job, it has no sensitivity training or rules of social conduct. If you don't like it don't volunteer.
Nothing stopping you from forking the kernel, developing it yourself and calling it Sensetivlix: The GNUspeak conformity project.
You're absolutely right that it's totally up to him and he can act the way he likes, but I think the point of the article is that if you're claiming that open-source is a "community" endeavour, then perhaps being a giant asshole isn't the best means of accomplishing that end. He is discouraging potential developers from wanting to work with him for exactly the reasons you mentioned: it's not a job, there is no pay, he's not your boss. The last thing I want when volunteering my free time is some guy belittling me. As has been mentioned in this thread, there are ways of accomplishing the same task while being a reasonable human being. His ego and entitlement are justifying his behaviour and it's bullshit.
I'd say open source on the whole is a "community" endeavor, but individual open source projects are not necessarily. There are countless projects that are a single author who accepts bugfixes here and there but in general it's a one-man show.
The linux kernel is like that: it's Linus' project that he lets some people help with. It's a dictatorship, largely ego-driven, and he has the last word on any philosophical, design, architectural, or even political decision. For better or for worse.
People are trying to say that Linux could be better if it didn't have bullying in its community. "Go away if you don't like it" isn't really an answer to that, regardless of which side you're on.
Am I the only one that thinks both sides are over the top?
Linus is overly abrasive and I can't say I would want to work with someone like that, and at the same time, Sarah Sharp and Linus' critics are exaggerating and being overly dramatic (e.g., Linus is "advocating violence") and I wouldn't want to work with someone like that, either.
I totally agree with this. I think Linus is perfectly within his rights to want a project mailing list where he can just speak his mind and be an asshole when he wants to, and at the same time, I suspect that it isn't great for the project in the long term. If Linus being an asshole is a critical component to the linux kernel's success, it's doomed.
Seems like everything is just blown up to me. Are someone's words making you feel bad? Give it back to them or stop your crying. Why bother whining about it publicly? If people don't want to stand up to a single man by themselves then do you really think ganging up on him will solve anything for them individually?
Having experienced abusive behavior in the past, I feel strongly about neither engaging in nor tolerating it. But when I read Linus' rants, I don't get the feeling of someone being abusive. They're vociferous and profane, but they don't seem mean. Instead it feels like there's always a wry chuckle hidden in there (yes, even in "Mauro you are full of shit"), a sort of "You see what I have to put up with" winking to the side, and a kind of nimbleness in how he can take up or drop that tone very quickly.
Emotionally violent people, in my experience, aren't like that. They get stuck in anger, and the situation is usually about them personally (they've been insulted, are not getting their due, no one recognizes how smart/gifted/good they are, etc.) I don't read that in Linus. His ego doesn't seem so involved in those rants, which is probably why, even when he's yelling, there's an accompanying lightness.
I have no idea how accurate that impression is. One would have to know someone personally to say.
My feeling is they're still abusive, but I also agree with your analysis. They're so over the top that it's impossible for them to be completely serious.
So many words for nothing... Why don't we all just learn to judge others by their behaviour and not by their words? Sometimes, it looks that a well-spoken murderer would be better-perceived than a cursing saint...
1) Nigger. The word in itself is so politically incorrect, that it's inappropriate to use it even in conversations about the word itself! (E.g. to point out the "reverse"-racism, how blacks can use the word "nigger", but whites can't.)
2) Almost any topic that people have a very strong opinion about. E.g. feminism, chauvinism, and using rape threats against Adria Richards - for example, I could argue that people are wrong of accusing those who threatened her to be chauvinists, because if you want to threaten someone, it makes perfect sense to threaten them in the worst possible way - death, rape, hurting their children... so the problem aren't rape threats, but threats in general. But most people only hear the part of the argument "rape threats aren't the problem" and totally disregard the rest of the conversation or even the fact that I don't necessarily believe what I'm saying, I'm just presenting the rational argument!
In words of Aristotle:
> It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Many people don't get this. Attacking a good person because they swear is usually the symptom of this.
You're considering words entirely outside of their social, political, and historical context.
Context matters: if I point a gun at you, should you get upset? Why, I mean, I haven't actually _done_ anything to you, it's just a threat! Sure in an abstract sense a gun imposed no inherent harm. It's how you use it.
Also, this isn't very 'rational,' for example:
> so the problem aren't rape threats, but threats in general
If threats are a problem then rape threats are a problem.
Verbal abuse might be necessarily unprofessional, but nobody is asking Linus to wear a tie. It would be nice if he would just not bully well-intentioned contributers.
It would be nice if seasoned veterans did not submit crap and regressions. It would be nice if there was documentation coming out of our ears. It would be nice if P always equals NP. It would not be nice if Linus were a saint.
this is why you have to keep mainstream out of technology. We're going to start acting like gossip girl. I've worked in all different fields, and IT has been the most efficient field by far, mostly because of the lack of coddling. I've done the nice thing, and all it does is create more work for me. Being more direct, and yes, rude may not be your favorite way to communicate, but it is direct, and at the end you have no doubts about what needs to be done, and what people consider important. Plus, people are a bit sensitive
Why am I not surprised the majority of people complaining and getting offended in the name of third-party developers are American? It's not like we don't have our dose of pc on the old continent, but you'd be surprised how much less of a fuck is given about such issues around here.
It's because we in the US have had actual intelligence beat out of us in our schools so that garbage like this is important. I think Linus is right on the money with this.
Yes, it is. But it's his kernel and people choose to work on his kernel, and not a fork, in spite of his well known behaviour.
He gets away with his antics because of his rock star status. On the other hand, I find Linus' own behaviour much less bothersome than people who behave like Linus who aren't even remotely at his stature.
Linus Torvalds not withstanding, I've never understood the "I can't be bothered with your idiotic questions because I'm so Goddamned smart" bullshit. I remember in the nineties if you had a question about Oracle or Unix and ran a search on most message boards all you'd find were snarky comments pissing on people for not following the posting rules or not reading some obscure documentation. It was completely counterproductive and one of the reasons I began to lose interest in development after college.
I give a ton of credit to dhh and Joel Spolsky for bringing development to the masses by speaking in terms people not completely socially inept would respond to.
As an aside, most developers I've worked with who put on the dickhole computer prodigy facade were just unhappy shitty programmers with zero communication skills.
Obviously Linus is not who I'm referring to, but I think buffoonery displayed in abusive emails is emblematic of that attitude and sets a terrible example for developers who aren't Linus Torvalds. I can just picture a thousand mid level managers running around yelling at their reports thinking they're the next Steve Jobs.
I will take a 24/7 roaring colleague who roars about all of good and bad to you without reservations than a colleague who will put on smiling face, and back-stabs you when the time is right.
Sadly for most people, it is more about Corporate Culture and Interpersonal Skill and Street Smart and blah blah blah than being really competent and getting real things done.
This will sound rosy until something like this actually happens to you. It is very emotionally taxing and traumatic.
And worse, once people like Linus start advocating it, all these fan boys (who have in no way made a significant contribution like Linus) will start following suite. Imagine, that guy who setup your repo at work or your QA, come and tell you to diaf and jump off a bridge in front of everyone in the office for making an off by one error.
I think people need to realize the insignificance of the things they're doing. Yeah you think you optimized the hell out of your app, ok big guy, take a trip to Africa, no one gives a shit.
I think it's hyperbole she's missing. "You may need to learn how to shout at people" is not literal, but it's not the opposite of what is meant. It's just exaggerated.
People will always interpret written words in their own way. Interpretation of tone is not universal.
I can't tell you how many times I've told people to make a phone call instead of wasting time parsing out the tone of something their clients or coworkers wrote in an e-mail.
I'd like to hear some advice from another leader of an open source project of similar magnitude and diversity of contributors.
It occurs to me, there is no such other person. Maybe, the way Linus sets standards and decides who to communicate and how, works for his situation.
If most people are put off by his philosophy and would rather contribute through intermediaries, well, mission accomplished. Somehow he has to whittle down the 10,000 people who would like to communicate with him constantly to maybe, 20.
I find the "I'm Finnish" defense to be somewhat strange. Let's say someone comes from a culture with rampant sexism and racism, and he manages a project by throwing sexist and racist epithets at contributors, would we excuse it? Then why do you get a pass just because you were raised to be a jerk? At some point, you've got to break free of some of the bad personal habits you were raised with.
A cultural relativist view would disagree with you. What is superior about this specific breed of American culture some think Linus should conform to? As a Swede I do not see Linus as being particularly rude. Linus seems to be of the view that people should try to cooperate despite cultural differences instead of trying to remove them and all conform to a single culture (which one should they pick?).
If you don't like working with Linus, the answer is simple: Fork his repository and work without him. He encourages you to do this. He publicly states that people give his fork of the Linux kernel far too much authority, and he even designed a version control system to make it extremely easy for anyone to fork his work.
However, contributing to Linus's git repository is not the same as working for an "equal opportunity employer."
I think it's unfortunate that, being a dad, and with all that he's given to the world, he doesn't show a little more kindness and empathy. I think this would benefit everyone.
Maybe the linux community could just try being super extra nice to Linus, and see if it wears off on him? Every time he says something mean, we try even harder to respond with polite and kind language. I'd like to see that.
I'm just wondering if Linux would have been different it it wouldn't have been built on this "management by Perkele".
I personally think there are a lot of competent developers around the world that could have contributed to the kernel but chose not to because of Linus style of communication
Personally I uust feel embarrased by his behaviour, it's not typical for working in an international environment
While I wouldn't express my vision for linux the exact way Linus does if I were in his position, but I actually agree with Linus' argument. Sharp shouldn't be trying to enforce her cultural bias on Linus; it is just the way he is, and she should just put up with it. Linus, so far, has shown how to move linux forward, albeit Sharp not being comfortable with his colorful/abrasive use of the English language.
The best kind of friends are those that right out calls me idiot when they see I'm doing something idiotic. It's liberating, because we both know that the harsh tone is not due to my whole being being defined as a idiot, but that specific thing I did was indeed stupid and he/she cared enough about me to tell me straight out...
If your friend is acting like an idiot, you pull them aside and tell them so. You don't yell "_SABE_, SHUT THE FUCK UP" in front of the whole world. You can be a good friend without resorting to acting like the asshole that is Linus Torvalds.
But there are lots of other companies that are successful where people don't act like jackasses. For example, Google culture is anti-jackass, Googley means not being a dickhead. If you have a problem, explain what's wrong calmly and coherently, it's more efficient. Simply telling someone that they, or their code, is a piece of shit is not likely to be as efficient.
IBM is another, when I worked at T.J. Watson, people were very civil.
Civility is not about being "fake" or "politically correct", it's about being able to communicate your position by reason instead of by emotion, by shouting, by abuse, by reptilian brain.
Linus gets a lot of leeway because of his work on Linux, and we will forever be thankful for that. But I don't believe good works earns you a pass from criticism of behavior. The founders of the United States are forever thanked for the Constitution, but that doesn't let them off for being slaveholders.
I expect there will be some reflexive downvoting on this for criticizing the prophet, but honestly, Linus makes geeks look bad socially. Say what you will about Richard Stallman, there are lots of things he says I disagree with, but he says them with integrity and positivism and love, and not with angry denouncements.