10 ms·

Linux kernel dev Sarah Sharp quits

113 points by albertzeyer 11y ago

ibotty 11y ago
source is her blog entry http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/ http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/
kzrdude 11y ago
Lwn discussion: http://lwn.net/Articles/659221/ http://lwn.net/Articles/659221/
rjsw 11y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331891
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- skylan_q 11y ago
  Agreed. I can't even find examples of transgressions. It's not sexist and homophobic to perform software development, so why can't she just ignore any of those comments or subtexts? She harps on about lack of professionalism but she can't raise the bar for herself?
  - Kristine1975 11y ago
    >so why can't she just ignore any of those comments or subtexts? Why should she have to?
    - javert 11y ago
      Because you can't control other people, but you can control how you react internally to what they say. Thinking about what they are saying in an appropriate way will lead to an appropriate emotional response. If you can't do that, and you are feeling inappropriate emotions, the only other option you have is to just quit. Which is what she did. It isn't even a male vs. female thing. Men are constantly assholes to other men.
      - Kristine1975 11y ago
        >but you can control how you react internally to what they say. Life would certainly be easier in some situations if humans were this rational. However I don't think they are. FWIW I also don't think it has anything to do with people's (real or perceived) gender.
        javert 11y ago
        > Life would certainly be easier in some situations if humans were this rational. However I don't think they are. In this case you say, "How much does it really matter that Linus is being a huge asshole to me? Is this really something I should be ashamed about? Do I really care that much? Is this going to have any effect long term?" and so on. And perhaps most importantly, you remember the positive things that counterbalance the negatives. It doesn't take a genius. Humans are certainly "rational enough" to do this. This is the same technique used by/promoted by cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. A person who never learns to do this effectively is going to be at the mercy of random emotions their entire life.
        jpmoral 11y ago
        There's a huge difference between being "at the mercy of random emotions their entire life" and deciding that staying in the situation you're in just isn't worth it anymore. People make that decision all the time, and have different thresholds for it. I don't understand the hostility towards Sarah's decision in the thread.
        javert 11y ago
        > There's a huge difference between being "at the mercy of random emotions their entire life" and deciding that staying in the situation you're in just isn't worth it anymore. Right. We weren't specifically taking about Sarah Sharp any more at the point in the conversation that I said that. I would not want to stay in a genuinely hostile work environment, and I would leave. That said, I doubt the LKML is actually a genuinely hostile work environment. The people on LKML do not genuinely wish others harm or genuinely despise them. They just have a culture of being confrontational, harsh, and direct, sometimes with exaggeration, and it works. That is something that Sarah Sharp could not (or wasn't willing to) adapt to, by her own admission. Conversely, there should be no expectation that the community of Linux developers is going to adapt to Sarah Sharp. Nor should they---what they have works very well.
- afandian 11y ago
  I'm unfamiliar with the situation. What do you mean?
- hawkice 11y ago
  I caught an earlier edit of this comment, and I think it may have incidentally demonstrated (shall we say) a focus on blunt honesty that resonated with the description in the article. I've gone back and forth about posting about the edit, but it seemed germane to discussions of possible communications issues experienced by the subject of the article.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  In Germany we have the term "Empöreria" for people who have nothing better to do than complain about "bad culture" just for the sake of complaining. In the case of the Linux kernel, well, the culture seems to work out just fine - the kernel is pretty much a solid piece of technology and used in literally billions, if not trillions, of devices. So why change if it is not needed? edit: Downvotes, just because I'm not following the radfem ideology? Please either explain your downvotes or fuck off, thank you very much... edit 2: oh, more downvotes? Looks like I hit an uncomfortable core of truth, huh? <3
  - lorenzhs 11y ago
    You're being downvoted because it's not "just fine" to verbally abuse and harass people. This has nothing to do with complaining for the sake of complaining, this is about not wanting to work in a hostile environment.
    - mschuster91 11y ago
      Well, Linus succeeds in keeping off crap code because he is not afraid calling crap crap. Might be it appears hostile, but it forces people to submit quality code.
      - coldpie 11y ago
        And forces otherwise useful people to leave, and intimidates first-time contributors who might not be completely up to snuff yet. Is the rudeness worth the trade-off? It's an open question.
        mschuster91 11y ago
        Well, it's known for decades that the culture on LKML isn't exactly newbie-friendly. I believe that keeping newbies (which most often have no idea about how much security is required in kernel code) off is actually valuable in the kernel - just imagine what sloppy coding can cause on millions of devices, or actually, see it happening right now on routers and Samsung smartphones. There's a reason why lots of Android driver stuff is not in mainline Linux, and the biggest reason is that most of the code shipped by the manufacturers is utter crap which Linus would tear apart in seconds, not to mention security experts or actual blackhats using said crap code to own devices.
bru_ 11y ago
Nice!!! Finally!!! I'm so happy. I'm going out with all my other Linux friends and having a little smorgasvine this evening. We all knew the day would come, it's just wonderful that it's here now. Thank you Sarah!
- Paul_S 11y ago
  I don't see a reason to be happy that Linux lost a maintainer. Or to celebrate. This is a rather sad story all round.
- dang 11y ago
  You've been posting uncivil and unsubstantive comments to HN. Please stop. We ban accounts that do that repeatedly.
teh_klev 11y ago
Yesterday's discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331891
raverbashing 11y ago
Actually even though Linus has shown to be 'direct' and sometimes 'rude' there are much worse people > within a developer culture that required overworked maintainers to be rude and brusque in order to get the job done And I guess that's the root cause of it
- FLGMwt 11y ago
  Why something have to be the worst for someone to be fed up with it?
coldpie 11y ago
I strongly empathize with this decision, and I think it's unfortunate to lose a valuable developer because many people feel a lack of basic politeness is a virtue. It is a hard problem to solve, and the open source model greatly aggravates the problem. Within an open source project, no one is accountable for their actions, by design. This ends up meaning you can say whatever hurtful things you want, and unless you really cross a line, most people except for the target of the attack will ignore it. If you haven't been the target of such frequent negative reinforcement, it's easy to tell others to "shake it off" and learn from the experience. And maybe you can do that a handful of times. But it really drags to have the work you put a lot of effort into described as crap and yourself physically threatened for having dared to bother someone else with it. Eventually, you're not going to want to work on it anymore. The reason it's a hard problem to solve, though, is that sometimes you do get crap code, or bad community members, and you need a mechanism for dealing with that, too. Open source means you effectively can't "fire" anyone from the project. The best you could do is ban them from all of the project communication channels, or make it extremely clear that they're not welcome, and well now you're back to negativity. On a project the size of the kernel, where do you draw the line? I guess if your attitude is "software uber alles" then hounding and insulting submitters that aren't up to standard seems like a legitimate way to improve your product. But if you're more concerned about creating a welcoming and diverse development environment, then it's time to lighten up and dial down the vitriol. Those goals are at odds, and a balance needs to be found. Sharp's departure might be a sign that the current balance is wrong.
- jzzskijj 11y ago
  I think hounding and insulting Linus does comes at least a bit from self protection. I can just assume the amount of wacky ideas he might get on daily basis, that would have little or no value in the product. Being aggressive about low quality ideas is to limit the input that is wasting his time. And to end the discussion and not to waste more time on explaining why he doesn't want to consider that any longer than he already has. Just trying to understand why he behaves as he does.
- deleted 11y ago
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- 11y ago
dlss 11y ago
I'm always surprised to read about how awful the linux community sounds, given how great the product is. Does anyone familiar with the psych literature know if Linus' behavior here might be causal of quality? Abrasiveness feels like it might cause conformity[1] effects or similar, which sounds like poison for a tech project... but then again, some of the best software I've seen has come from "proving someone wrong on the internet" so maybe it depends on the type of person? Any references would be appreciated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
- thesz 11y ago
  Criticism: http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Asch's_Conformity_Study#Criticisms http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Asch's_Conformity_Study#Critic... The experiment is so badly constructed http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html that it is hard to imagine one takes results seriously.
- crusso 11y ago
  To me it's always seemed strange how there's an expectation that iconic leaders could have achieved all they achieved while being nice, polite, gentle, etc. You see it a lot when Steve Jobs is discussed - as though he could have been as docile and friendly as Woz and still accomplished all the same things. The truth is that the truly exceptional achievers are typically a-holes to deal with. Their uncompromising attitudes and relentless techniques for getting what they want rub many people the wrong way. Personally, I don't have to be good friends with these people or approve of how they interact with others in order to appreciate their contributions to technology and society in general.
- forgottenpass 11y ago
  I'm always surprised to read about how awful the linux community sounds, given how great the product is. Digging into the psych here is a wild goose chase because you're starting without a useful impression of what the kernel community is like. Unless you're already a kernel dev, you only hear about kernel maintenance if the drama blows up big enough to wind up in your periphery. The kernel community is about work, it's generally way too fucking boring for anyone other than Jon Corbet to report on. If you want to analyze the kernel culture, then the things that do show up on your radar are just anchoring your assumptions. Even if they turn out to be right, it's still bad craftsmanship to extrapolate from them alone.
zamalek 11y ago
I see where she is coming from. My first (and last) foray into the Linux community was ~2003 in high school. I decided that I was going to try and use Linux for "real stuff" - which implied internet access. At the time I used my smart phone as an EDGE modem which didn't work in Linux. After hours of switching dual-booting between Linux and Windows I had devised a 1-liner that would detect the PCI vendor/id by diffing some device listing with the device plugged in vs. not plugged in. It would then insert the information into <some file>. I approached the IRC room for the distro I was using (this time from within Linux!), asked for a wiki or some website where they would recommend I post the quick-fix and got a disproportionate aggressive response from a few of the participants. A few weeks later my brother got me a friends-and-family license for Visual Studio and I've been developing on Windows ever since - I found people always appreciated contribution (ironic) no matter how insignificant, and would give far friendlier (as a relative term) advice on how to fix problems with the contributions. I praise Linus and the Linux community in general for their bluntness and honesty, but I don't think being honest requires being nasty to high school children. Edit: I strongly recommend having a look at the Contributor Covenant[1]. It has some great guidelines for ensuring that any misguided contributions are guided toward success in a friendly manner. [1]: http://contributor-covenant.org/ http://contributor-covenant.org/
- jordigh 11y ago
  Although unfortunate, your experience doesn't seem to be directly related to the community that Sharp is experiencing problems with. She is talking about working with Linux-the-kernel, not a particular distribution of GNU/Linux. What I mean to say is that "the Linux community" in this case refers to kernel hackers, not to Debian, Ubuntu, or whatever other distro maintainers. There are different attitudes and factions within those larger communities. I also find a bit of a contradiction between you praising bluntness and honesty while at the same wishing for not being nasty to high school children. It is kind of impossible to have both. I would prefer if people were cautious, not blunt.
  - panglott 11y ago
    Honesty and cruelty are in no wise the same.
jzzskijj 11y ago
The Linux kernel development culture has always been like this, so it is a bit strange that foul language using bunch of developers turning out to be foul language using bunch of developers is a shock for someone. It suits for some and sure will annoy/scare some. As far as I know bashing is not about the person, but it is about the quality of idea or implementation. Is it right? Maybe. Maybe not. Of course there is this line, where some people are doing it in professional context and are expecting it to be... professional. In every level. That I find a false expectation, as LKML and this "terrible" culture has a public track record of a few decades. Of course not everyone can choose what kind of work they do and which projects they attend to, but someone working in IT corporations probably isn't one of those unfortunates. I don't find it amusing, that someone's feelings have been hurt. But on the other hand I find it a viable alternative for all that wasted time on correctness, when someone's idea or implementation is terrible, but no-one can tell it directly, that this really is crap.
- imgabe 11y ago
  I don't have much experience with the Linux community, but it seems there should be a difference between telling someone their idea or implementation is terrible and telling them that they are terrible. It is possible to give honest, direct feedback without personally attacking someone, and I don't see why it would be necessary or desirable to include personal attacks in a technical discussion. If an idea is technically bad, it should be sufficient to point out the technical flaws without defaming the character of the contributor.
  - jzzskijj 11y ago
    Yes, I don't argue with that. But, saying "this dual locking implementation we're looking at is definitely written by a retard"* is still 99% more about the quality of the implementation than about the person who did it. *) quote made up
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      No its not. There is no constructive criticism in that comment, it was 100% abusive. And what did you gain by calling someone a "retard"? The entire reason for saying that was to make the commenter look good by making someone else look bad. Torvalds, ironically, doesn't encourage this sort of thing. Unfortunately, he is also an offender - the "shut the fuck up Mauro" incident comes to mind.
Syssiphus 11y ago
And then there is this: http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8123533&cid=50664697 http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8123533&cid=506646...
- jordigh 11y ago
  I hope you are not agreeing with the "SJW" monicker.
  - j_s 11y ago
    For the lazy: "SJW" is not mentioned in the linked post, but is mentioned in a highly-ranked reply.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  Thank you. Still it would have been helpful to note that the quote is from 2013.
- RyanZAG 11y ago
  >> Then Linus made a joke about Greg being big and squishing people > Not fucking cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists. WHAT? Thanks for injecting some actual facts into this. I was actually hoodwinked by that blogpost into thinking something was wrong here, but upon reading the actual conversation it's clear that this Sarah started any and all problems herself. Well, there goes my sympathy in this case. Goes to show you should never believe anything without actually checking the source.
  - jpmoral 11y ago
    >it's clear that this Sarah started any and all problems herself How so?
    - zxcvcxz 11y ago
      She created a false narrative that Linus was encouraging "physical intimidation and violence". She purposefully took a joke out of context to push her agenda. She seems to be trying to create a situation where it impossible to disagree with her, else you're some kind of "abuser", whether it be a racist or misogynist. Why? I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if she was seeking a position of power where she could govern the moral rules over a large project and assimilate everyone into her monoculture by calling everyone who disobeyed her rules racist or sexist or what-have-you.
hueving 11y ago
Good riddance. Her blog indicates that she was trying to change an entire community's behavior so she didn't have to be offended. That's just as oppressive as the people slinging around insults. Some people work better in harsh environments and some work better under environments where everyone's feelings are taken into account and you kill any behavior that could offend anyone. The kernel dev community is not a place that censors rudeness. If you don't have the ability to read mean words, it's not a community for you.
- metaphorm 11y ago
  this is kind of the problem, though. surely you can see there's a difference between bluntness or directness and meanness or cruelty? we can have the former without the latter.
- steego 11y ago
  It sounds like she likes working on the kernel but she'd like to do with without hostility/rudeness/insults. So she took the first step that everybody takes which is to complain or try to discourage behavior they don't like. Now she's taking the step of leaving. How is she being oppressive again?
  - zxcvcxz 11y ago
    It was oppressive to try to change the culture in the first place.
    - EmanueleAina 11y ago
      So the Free Software movement is oppressive because it is trying to change the software culture from proprietary to free?
      - bardan 11y ago
        Seems like a moot point given that proprietary isn't free to begin with.
FussyZeus 11y ago
Can I just say, the comments on this article are amazing. Guys drawing from the experiences of people like Joel Schumacher or the Fortune 500 men. You're writing drivers you nitwits, and based on my experiences with the graphics drivers in linux, you have a long damn way to go. Just sounds like a bunch of those "rockstar" programmers that we all dread working with, the ones who walk into your office and tell you half your codebase needs to be rewritten to use Node.js or whatever trendy thing is up at the time. Honestly, looks like a whole bunch of guys who never got around to growing up. If an idea is that terrible as to warrant that level of criticism, turning it into personal attacks both trivializes the actual criticism you're giving and should be completely unnecessary. As they said in a Cracked video...people this obsessed with winning are usually losing in their natural state.
chris_wot 11y ago
Curious, is Mauro Chehab still doing Linux kernel development?
- snits 11y ago
  Yes, he is still the maintainer of a number of things in the kernel.
deleted 11y ago
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hpihhgibb 11y ago
Hard to read any discussion here on HN when random posts get removed while hating on stereotypes of men get a pass.
- sp332 11y ago
  Neither this article nor Sharp's own blog post are about sexism or problems with "men". This is about the Linux kernel devs.
gadders 11y ago
Political incorrectness != being an arsehole, which is what seems to happen here.
deleted 11y ago
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delish 11y ago
it's "basic human decency" if you're in favor and "political correctness" if you're not. Both refer to an external virtue/sin. This lkml conflict would be addressed with statistics, that is: It would be so nice if we could give evidence that the culture improves the kernel's quality, or hurts it. I have no opinion on whether it is or isn't "just basic human decency" or "the insidious threat of political correctness." I do think that if the kernel "succeeds" (for whatever definition of that) that we'll retroactively decide we defended against political correctness. And vice versa.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  I think you have it backwards: people will believe that the Linux kernel is better than it would be without the cultural elements that are complained of if they believe the complaints are excessive political correctness, and believe that it is worse than it otherwise would be if they believe the complaints are about basic human decency.
kazinator 11y ago
In my over 30 years of BBS, mailing list and Usenet experience, the pattern I've observed that the ones complaining about the behavior of others are almost invariably annoying personae non gratae. Based on that experience, before digging into any facts here, I'm already predisposed to a suspicion that this person might be a poor developer who is bad for Linux, and the hostility is basically doing its intended job. That is to say, if you're the target of hostility, it's likely because you've been written off by the community as an imbecile or some such. Not saying this is the case here, but I'd avoid making big public displays of complaining about forum behavior, and "exit drama" exactly for the reason of attracting such suspicion on myself.
fapjacks 11y ago
It takes a certain type.

113 points by albertzeyer 11y ago

source is her blog entry http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/ http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/05/closing-a-door/

kzrdude 11y ago

Lwn discussion: http://lwn.net/Articles/659221/ http://lwn.net/Articles/659221/

rjsw 11y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331891

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

skylan_q 11y ago
Agreed. I can't even find examples of transgressions. It's not sexist and homophobic to perform software development, so why can't she just ignore any of those comments or subtexts? She harps on about lack of professionalism but she can't raise the bar for herself?
- Kristine1975 11y ago
  >so why can't she just ignore any of those comments or subtexts? Why should she have to?
  - javert 11y ago
    Because you can't control other people, but you can control how you react internally to what they say. Thinking about what they are saying in an appropriate way will lead to an appropriate emotional response. If you can't do that, and you are feeling inappropriate emotions, the only other option you have is to just quit. Which is what she did. It isn't even a male vs. female thing. Men are constantly assholes to other men.
    - Kristine1975 11y ago
      >but you can control how you react internally to what they say. Life would certainly be easier in some situations if humans were this rational. However I don't think they are. FWIW I also don't think it has anything to do with people's (real or perceived) gender.
      - javert 11y ago
        > Life would certainly be easier in some situations if humans were this rational. However I don't think they are. In this case you say, "How much does it really matter that Linus is being a huge asshole to me? Is this really something I should be ashamed about? Do I really care that much? Is this going to have any effect long term?" and so on. And perhaps most importantly, you remember the positive things that counterbalance the negatives. It doesn't take a genius. Humans are certainly "rational enough" to do this. This is the same technique used by/promoted by cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. A person who never learns to do this effectively is going to be at the mercy of random emotions their entire life.
        jpmoral 11y ago
        There's a huge difference between being "at the mercy of random emotions their entire life" and deciding that staying in the situation you're in just isn't worth it anymore. People make that decision all the time, and have different thresholds for it. I don't understand the hostility towards Sarah's decision in the thread.
        javert 11y ago
        > There's a huge difference between being "at the mercy of random emotions their entire life" and deciding that staying in the situation you're in just isn't worth it anymore. Right. We weren't specifically taking about Sarah Sharp any more at the point in the conversation that I said that. I would not want to stay in a genuinely hostile work environment, and I would leave. That said, I doubt the LKML is actually a genuinely hostile work environment. The people on LKML do not genuinely wish others harm or genuinely despise them. They just have a culture of being confrontational, harsh, and direct, sometimes with exaggeration, and it works. That is something that Sarah Sharp could not (or wasn't willing to) adapt to, by her own admission. Conversely, there should be no expectation that the community of Linux developers is going to adapt to Sarah Sharp. Nor should they---what they have works very well.
afandian 11y ago
I'm unfamiliar with the situation. What do you mean?
hawkice 11y ago
I caught an earlier edit of this comment, and I think it may have incidentally demonstrated (shall we say) a focus on blunt honesty that resonated with the description in the article. I've gone back and forth about posting about the edit, but it seemed germane to discussions of possible communications issues experienced by the subject of the article.
mschuster91 11y ago
In Germany we have the term "Empöreria" for people who have nothing better to do than complain about "bad culture" just for the sake of complaining. In the case of the Linux kernel, well, the culture seems to work out just fine - the kernel is pretty much a solid piece of technology and used in literally billions, if not trillions, of devices. So why change if it is not needed? edit: Downvotes, just because I'm not following the radfem ideology? Please either explain your downvotes or fuck off, thank you very much... edit 2: oh, more downvotes? Looks like I hit an uncomfortable core of truth, huh? <3
- lorenzhs 11y ago
  You're being downvoted because it's not "just fine" to verbally abuse and harass people. This has nothing to do with complaining for the sake of complaining, this is about not wanting to work in a hostile environment.
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    Well, Linus succeeds in keeping off crap code because he is not afraid calling crap crap. Might be it appears hostile, but it forces people to submit quality code.
    - coldpie 11y ago
      And forces otherwise useful people to leave, and intimidates first-time contributors who might not be completely up to snuff yet. Is the rudeness worth the trade-off? It's an open question.
      - mschuster91 11y ago
        Well, it's known for decades that the culture on LKML isn't exactly newbie-friendly. I believe that keeping newbies (which most often have no idea about how much security is required in kernel code) off is actually valuable in the kernel - just imagine what sloppy coding can cause on millions of devices, or actually, see it happening right now on routers and Samsung smartphones. There's a reason why lots of Android driver stuff is not in mainline Linux, and the biggest reason is that most of the code shipped by the manufacturers is utter crap which Linus would tear apart in seconds, not to mention security experts or actual blackhats using said crap code to own devices.

bru_ 11y ago

Nice!!! Finally!!! I'm so happy. I'm going out with all my other Linux friends and having a little smorgasvine this evening. We all knew the day would come, it's just wonderful that it's here now. Thank you Sarah!

Paul_S 11y ago
I don't see a reason to be happy that Linux lost a maintainer. Or to celebrate. This is a rather sad story all round.
dang 11y ago
You've been posting uncivil and unsubstantive comments to HN. Please stop. We ban accounts that do that repeatedly.

teh_klev 11y ago

Yesterday's discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10331891

raverbashing 11y ago

Actually even though Linus has shown to be 'direct' and sometimes 'rude' there are much worse people > within a developer culture that required overworked maintainers to be rude and brusque in order to get the job done And I guess that's the root cause of it

FLGMwt 11y ago
Why something have to be the worst for someone to be fed up with it?

coldpie 11y ago

I strongly empathize with this decision, and I think it's unfortunate to lose a valuable developer because many people feel a lack of basic politeness is a virtue. It is a hard problem to solve, and the open source model greatly aggravates the problem. Within an open source project, no one is accountable for their actions, by design. This ends up meaning you can say whatever hurtful things you want, and unless you really cross a line, most people except for the target of the attack will ignore it. If you haven't been the target of such frequent negative reinforcement, it's easy to tell others to "shake it off" and learn from the experience. And maybe you can do that a handful of times. But it really drags to have the work you put a lot of effort into described as crap and yourself physically threatened for having dared to bother someone else with it. Eventually, you're not going to want to work on it anymore. The reason it's a hard problem to solve, though, is that sometimes you do get crap code, or bad community members, and you need a mechanism for dealing with that, too. Open source means you effectively can't "fire" anyone from the project. The best you could do is ban them from all of the project communication channels, or make it extremely clear that they're not welcome, and well now you're back to negativity. On a project the size of the kernel, where do you draw the line? I guess if your attitude is "software uber alles" then hounding and insulting submitters that aren't up to standard seems like a legitimate way to improve your product. But if you're more concerned about creating a welcoming and diverse development environment, then it's time to lighten up and dial down the vitriol. Those goals are at odds, and a balance needs to be found. Sharp's departure might be a sign that the current balance is wrong.

jzzskijj 11y ago
I think hounding and insulting Linus does comes at least a bit from self protection. I can just assume the amount of wacky ideas he might get on daily basis, that would have little or no value in the product. Being aggressive about low quality ideas is to limit the input that is wasting his time. And to end the discussion and not to waste more time on explaining why he doesn't want to consider that any longer than he already has. Just trying to understand why he behaves as he does.
deleted 11y ago
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11y ago

dlss 11y ago

I'm always surprised to read about how awful the linux community sounds, given how great the product is. Does anyone familiar with the psych literature know if Linus' behavior here might be causal of quality? Abrasiveness feels like it might cause conformity[1] effects or similar, which sounds like poison for a tech project... but then again, some of the best software I've seen has come from "proving someone wrong on the internet" so maybe it depends on the type of person? Any references would be appreciated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

thesz 11y ago
Criticism: http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Asch's_Conformity_Study#Criticisms http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Asch's_Conformity_Study#Critic... The experiment is so badly constructed http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html that it is hard to imagine one takes results seriously.
crusso 11y ago
To me it's always seemed strange how there's an expectation that iconic leaders could have achieved all they achieved while being nice, polite, gentle, etc. You see it a lot when Steve Jobs is discussed - as though he could have been as docile and friendly as Woz and still accomplished all the same things. The truth is that the truly exceptional achievers are typically a-holes to deal with. Their uncompromising attitudes and relentless techniques for getting what they want rub many people the wrong way. Personally, I don't have to be good friends with these people or approve of how they interact with others in order to appreciate their contributions to technology and society in general.
forgottenpass 11y ago
I'm always surprised to read about how awful the linux community sounds, given how great the product is. Digging into the psych here is a wild goose chase because you're starting without a useful impression of what the kernel community is like. Unless you're already a kernel dev, you only hear about kernel maintenance if the drama blows up big enough to wind up in your periphery. The kernel community is about work, it's generally way too fucking boring for anyone other than Jon Corbet to report on. If you want to analyze the kernel culture, then the things that do show up on your radar are just anchoring your assumptions. Even if they turn out to be right, it's still bad craftsmanship to extrapolate from them alone.

zamalek 11y ago

I see where she is coming from. My first (and last) foray into the Linux community was ~2003 in high school. I decided that I was going to try and use Linux for "real stuff" - which implied internet access. At the time I used my smart phone as an EDGE modem which didn't work in Linux. After hours of switching dual-booting between Linux and Windows I had devised a 1-liner that would detect the PCI vendor/id by diffing some device listing with the device plugged in vs. not plugged in. It would then insert the information into <some file>. I approached the IRC room for the distro I was using (this time from within Linux!), asked for a wiki or some website where they would recommend I post the quick-fix and got a disproportionate aggressive response from a few of the participants. A few weeks later my brother got me a friends-and-family license for Visual Studio and I've been developing on Windows ever since - I found people always appreciated contribution (ironic) no matter how insignificant, and would give far friendlier (as a relative term) advice on how to fix problems with the contributions. I praise Linus and the Linux community in general for their bluntness and honesty, but I don't think being honest requires being nasty to high school children. Edit: I strongly recommend having a look at the Contributor Covenant[1]. It has some great guidelines for ensuring that any misguided contributions are guided toward success in a friendly manner. [1]: http://contributor-covenant.org/ http://contributor-covenant.org/

jordigh 11y ago
Although unfortunate, your experience doesn't seem to be directly related to the community that Sharp is experiencing problems with. She is talking about working with Linux-the-kernel, not a particular distribution of GNU/Linux. What I mean to say is that "the Linux community" in this case refers to kernel hackers, not to Debian, Ubuntu, or whatever other distro maintainers. There are different attitudes and factions within those larger communities. I also find a bit of a contradiction between you praising bluntness and honesty while at the same wishing for not being nasty to high school children. It is kind of impossible to have both. I would prefer if people were cautious, not blunt.
- panglott 11y ago
  Honesty and cruelty are in no wise the same.

jzzskijj 11y ago

The Linux kernel development culture has always been like this, so it is a bit strange that foul language using bunch of developers turning out to be foul language using bunch of developers is a shock for someone. It suits for some and sure will annoy/scare some. As far as I know bashing is not about the person, but it is about the quality of idea or implementation. Is it right? Maybe. Maybe not. Of course there is this line, where some people are doing it in professional context and are expecting it to be... professional. In every level. That I find a false expectation, as LKML and this "terrible" culture has a public track record of a few decades. Of course not everyone can choose what kind of work they do and which projects they attend to, but someone working in IT corporations probably isn't one of those unfortunates. I don't find it amusing, that someone's feelings have been hurt. But on the other hand I find it a viable alternative for all that wasted time on correctness, when someone's idea or implementation is terrible, but no-one can tell it directly, that this really is crap.

imgabe 11y ago
I don't have much experience with the Linux community, but it seems there should be a difference between telling someone their idea or implementation is terrible and telling them that they are terrible. It is possible to give honest, direct feedback without personally attacking someone, and I don't see why it would be necessary or desirable to include personal attacks in a technical discussion. If an idea is technically bad, it should be sufficient to point out the technical flaws without defaming the character of the contributor.
- jzzskijj 11y ago
  Yes, I don't argue with that. But, saying "this dual locking implementation we're looking at is definitely written by a retard"* is still 99% more about the quality of the implementation than about the person who did it. *) quote made up
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    No its not. There is no constructive criticism in that comment, it was 100% abusive. And what did you gain by calling someone a "retard"? The entire reason for saying that was to make the commenter look good by making someone else look bad. Torvalds, ironically, doesn't encourage this sort of thing. Unfortunately, he is also an offender - the "shut the fuck up Mauro" incident comes to mind.

Syssiphus 11y ago

And then there is this: http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8123533&cid=50664697 http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8123533&cid=506646...

jordigh 11y ago
I hope you are not agreeing with the "SJW" monicker.
- j_s 11y ago
  For the lazy: "SJW" is not mentioned in the linked post, but is mentioned in a highly-ranked reply.
venomsnake 11y ago
Thank you. Still it would have been helpful to note that the quote is from 2013.
RyanZAG 11y ago
>> Then Linus made a joke about Greg being big and squishing people > Not fucking cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists. WHAT? Thanks for injecting some actual facts into this. I was actually hoodwinked by that blogpost into thinking something was wrong here, but upon reading the actual conversation it's clear that this Sarah started any and all problems herself. Well, there goes my sympathy in this case. Goes to show you should never believe anything without actually checking the source.
- jpmoral 11y ago
  >it's clear that this Sarah started any and all problems herself How so?
  - zxcvcxz 11y ago
    She created a false narrative that Linus was encouraging "physical intimidation and violence". She purposefully took a joke out of context to push her agenda. She seems to be trying to create a situation where it impossible to disagree with her, else you're some kind of "abuser", whether it be a racist or misogynist. Why? I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if she was seeking a position of power where she could govern the moral rules over a large project and assimilate everyone into her monoculture by calling everyone who disobeyed her rules racist or sexist or what-have-you.

hueving 11y ago

Good riddance. Her blog indicates that she was trying to change an entire community's behavior so she didn't have to be offended. That's just as oppressive as the people slinging around insults. Some people work better in harsh environments and some work better under environments where everyone's feelings are taken into account and you kill any behavior that could offend anyone. The kernel dev community is not a place that censors rudeness. If you don't have the ability to read mean words, it's not a community for you.

metaphorm 11y ago
this is kind of the problem, though. surely you can see there's a difference between bluntness or directness and meanness or cruelty? we can have the former without the latter.
steego 11y ago
It sounds like she likes working on the kernel but she'd like to do with without hostility/rudeness/insults. So she took the first step that everybody takes which is to complain or try to discourage behavior they don't like. Now she's taking the step of leaving. How is she being oppressive again?
- zxcvcxz 11y ago
  It was oppressive to try to change the culture in the first place.
  - EmanueleAina 11y ago
    So the Free Software movement is oppressive because it is trying to change the software culture from proprietary to free?
    - bardan 11y ago
      Seems like a moot point given that proprietary isn't free to begin with.

FussyZeus 11y ago

Can I just say, the comments on this article are amazing. Guys drawing from the experiences of people like Joel Schumacher or the Fortune 500 men. You're writing drivers you nitwits, and based on my experiences with the graphics drivers in linux, you have a long damn way to go. Just sounds like a bunch of those "rockstar" programmers that we all dread working with, the ones who walk into your office and tell you half your codebase needs to be rewritten to use Node.js or whatever trendy thing is up at the time. Honestly, looks like a whole bunch of guys who never got around to growing up. If an idea is that terrible as to warrant that level of criticism, turning it into personal attacks both trivializes the actual criticism you're giving and should be completely unnecessary. As they said in a Cracked video...people this obsessed with winning are usually losing in their natural state.

chris_wot 11y ago

Curious, is Mauro Chehab still doing Linux kernel development?

snits 11y ago
Yes, he is still the maintainer of a number of things in the kernel.

deleted 11y ago

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hpihhgibb 11y ago

Hard to read any discussion here on HN when random posts get removed while hating on stereotypes of men get a pass.

sp332 11y ago
Neither this article nor Sharp's own blog post are about sexism or problems with "men". This is about the Linux kernel devs.

gadders 11y ago

Political incorrectness != being an arsehole, which is what seems to happen here.

deleted 11y ago

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delish 11y ago

it's "basic human decency" if you're in favor and "political correctness" if you're not. Both refer to an external virtue/sin. This lkml conflict would be addressed with statistics, that is: It would be so nice if we could give evidence that the culture improves the kernel's quality, or hurts it. I have no opinion on whether it is or isn't "just basic human decency" or "the insidious threat of political correctness." I do think that if the kernel "succeeds" (for whatever definition of that) that we'll retroactively decide we defended against political correctness. And vice versa.

dragonwriter 11y ago
I think you have it backwards: people will believe that the Linux kernel is better than it would be without the cultural elements that are complained of if they believe the complaints are excessive political correctness, and believe that it is worse than it otherwise would be if they believe the complaints are about basic human decency.

kazinator 11y ago

In my over 30 years of BBS, mailing list and Usenet experience, the pattern I've observed that the ones complaining about the behavior of others are almost invariably annoying personae non gratae. Based on that experience, before digging into any facts here, I'm already predisposed to a suspicion that this person might be a poor developer who is bad for Linux, and the hostility is basically doing its intended job. That is to say, if you're the target of hostility, it's likely because you've been written off by the community as an imbecile or some such. Not saying this is the case here, but I'd avoid making big public displays of complaining about forum behavior, and "exit drama" exactly for the reason of attracting such suspicion on myself.

fapjacks 11y ago

It takes a certain type.