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Serious question here: Of those who have led the development of hugely successful OS in the past generation, who had the best manners when giving feedback? Was

• jleyank 11y ago
  It would be useful to learn if the BSD folks and their successors, or the original Bell Labs/Unix folks share these personality traits. Has anybody dealt with Bob Cutler, who had much to do with VMS and NT? Bill Joy? Fred Brooks seems to have a different reputation, and he helped create an OS as well. Is it generational? Being unable to alter one's personal-interaction style to reflect the interaction will shed talent, so it's only safe to do in a talent-rich environment (or an environment where the talent's constrained in some way). People working in what they consider hostile environments act to minimize stress, which results in fewer ideas, fewer discussions, way less criticism and crappier products. Or they walk. Yeah, Linux development "works". It has sufficient talent to continue. Until it's displaced, we won't be able to tell whether it was run as well as it could have been.
  • xiaoma 11y ago
    There was a lot less competition back in the Bell Labs days. From what I've heard of people working at MS in the 80s and 90s, feedback was possibly more searing than it is on the linux mailing lists. I hope it's not the case, but based on available evidence it looks like there may be advantages to hostile environments. Maybe some people channel the stress into more ideas, fiercer discussions and better products (as Amazon does). I've never been in one of those environments first hand though.