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Sure, the kernel development process "works", but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? The trouble is, the nastiness drives away people not based on their

by jleader 11y ago

Sure, the kernel development process "works", but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? The trouble is, the nastiness drives away people not based on their level of competence, but based on their willingness to put up with nastiness. So you end up with fewer good developers, and people talking about how the senior kernel maintainers are so overworked that they "have" to be nasty, because they don't have time to be nice. Do you really think that widespread open nastiness means there are no politics now?

wpietri 11y ago
> Sure, the kernel development process "works", but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? So much agreed. I find it deeply weird that technical people suddenly be against improving something on the grounds that it appears to work now. Look at Linux itself. Did the world really need another OS? Does it need all those features, all those patches? Thank goodness nobody worried too much about that. If they had, Linux wouldn't exist. Hell, computers wouldn't exist.
msandford 11y ago
> but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? Yes, so simply prove that having an official code of conduct and that enforcing it wouldn't cause more harm than good. Show me a big-corp that's more agile and effective and gets things done better than a startup and I'll totally believe in the power of a fully staffed HR slash police department in promoting effective work. I don't think that happens very often (if at all) but being able to point out that it works for dozens or hundreds of big companies would be pretty convincing. I'd love to be wrong about this actually! The other problem is that it's a volunteer "organization" and as such there's not much you can do to kick people out. They're mostly hired by outside companies and those companies would have to choose to fire them for failing to adhere to a standard that they themselves don't set, so they'd be outsourcing the management of their own people to a certain extent. I suspect they wouldn't be keen to agree to this. > Do you really think that widespread open nastiness means there are no politics now? I would venture to guess that at least the nastiness now means that the politics are mostly out in the open and that it's easier to navigate. It's possible to eke out tremendous performance gains making small changes inside hot loops with computers these days because processors don't expose their characteristics very well. The CPU is happy to execute some kind of awful loop that causes it to wait hundreds or thousands of cycles per iteration because you're column indexing instead of row indexing. This might be in some ways analogous to what happens when everyone has to be polite; nobody can tell you what you did wrong lest they get yelled at by the be-nice-police and things slow way down as people have to hint and guess as to what the problems are. I don't think there is anything such as a free lunch; unintended consequences are rife in the world. Suggesting that the linux kernel could work better, free of unintended consequences seems to be a bold claim. But the great thing about hackers, geeks and nerds is that solid evidence trumps politics and preference.
- jleader 11y ago
  > I would venture to guess that at least the nastiness now means that the politics are mostly out in the open and that it's easier to navigate. Perhaps, for people who can tolerate the nastiness. The question is, how many excellent developers leave (or never participate in the first place) without saying a word, because they don't want to deal with the nastiness? No one's suggesting "never say anything negative". As the original article said "I need communication that is technically brutal but personally respectful." In other words, you don't need homophobic sexist insults to tell someone they're doing something wrong. You're setting up a false dichotomy, between pointless nastiness, and some imaginary ultra-polite fairy land that no one is asking for. What's so hackerish and geeky and nerdly about insulting people for their sexual preference or appearance or grooming, instead of discussing the actual technical issues?
  - msandford 11y ago
    > The question is, how many excellent developers leave (or never participate in the first place) without saying a word, because they don't want to deal with the nastiness? That's a great point, and together we're actually correct. How many new developers would you gain by implementing some kind of (largely unenforceable) code of conduct versus how many old developers would you scare away with such a thing. Now you've got an actual engineering tradeoff that you can consider. Would the gains more than offset the losses? I certainly don't know. I don't think there is any way to know except to try it and hope it doesn't go badly. I can understand why people might not be keen to take a risk like that, though.

by jleader 11y ago

wpietri 11y ago

> Sure, the kernel development process "works", but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? So much agreed. I find it deeply weird that technical people suddenly be against improving something on the grounds that it appears to work now. Look at Linux itself. Did the world really need another OS? Does it need all those features, all those patches? Thank goodness nobody worried too much about that. If they had, Linux wouldn't exist. Hell, computers wouldn't exist.

msandford 11y ago

> but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? Yes, so simply prove that having an official code of conduct and that enforcing it wouldn't cause more harm than good. Show me a big-corp that's more agile and effective and gets things done better than a startup and I'll totally believe in the power of a fully staffed HR slash police department in promoting effective work. I don't think that happens very often (if at all) but being able to point out that it works for dozens or hundreds of big companies would be pretty convincing. I'd love to be wrong about this actually! The other problem is that it's a volunteer "organization" and as such there's not much you can do to kick people out. They're mostly hired by outside companies and those companies would have to choose to fire them for failing to adhere to a standard that they themselves don't set, so they'd be outsourcing the management of their own people to a certain extent. I suspect they wouldn't be keen to agree to this. > Do you really think that widespread open nastiness means there are no politics now? I would venture to guess that at least the nastiness now means that the politics are mostly out in the open and that it's easier to navigate. It's possible to eke out tremendous performance gains making small changes inside hot loops with computers these days because processors don't expose their characteristics very well. The CPU is happy to execute some kind of awful loop that causes it to wait hundreds or thousands of cycles per iteration because you're column indexing instead of row indexing. This might be in some ways analogous to what happens when everyone has to be polite; nobody can tell you what you did wrong lest they get yelled at by the be-nice-police and things slow way down as people have to hint and guess as to what the problems are. I don't think there is anything such as a free lunch; unintended consequences are rife in the world. Suggesting that the linux kernel could work better, free of unintended consequences seems to be a bold claim. But the great thing about hackers, geeks and nerds is that solid evidence trumps politics and preference.

jleader 11y ago
> I would venture to guess that at least the nastiness now means that the politics are mostly out in the open and that it's easier to navigate. Perhaps, for people who can tolerate the nastiness. The question is, how many excellent developers leave (or never participate in the first place) without saying a word, because they don't want to deal with the nastiness? No one's suggesting "never say anything negative". As the original article said "I need communication that is technically brutal but personally respectful." In other words, you don't need homophobic sexist insults to tell someone they're doing something wrong. You're setting up a false dichotomy, between pointless nastiness, and some imaginary ultra-polite fairy land that no one is asking for. What's so hackerish and geeky and nerdly about insulting people for their sexual preference or appearance or grooming, instead of discussing the actual technical issues?
- msandford 11y ago
  > The question is, how many excellent developers leave (or never participate in the first place) without saying a word, because they don't want to deal with the nastiness? That's a great point, and together we're actually correct. How many new developers would you gain by implementing some kind of (largely unenforceable) code of conduct versus how many old developers would you scare away with such a thing. Now you've got an actual engineering tradeoff that you can consider. Would the gains more than offset the losses? I certainly don't know. I don't think there is any way to know except to try it and hope it doesn't go badly. I can understand why people might not be keen to take a risk like that, though.