3 ms·

Unacceptable by who? Some universal morality? Come on.

ivraatiems 10y ago
Unacceptable for communication in a professional setting in North America or Europe. I don't buy the argument that it's acceptable to behave as he does in the workplace in Finland any more than it's acceptable in the US or any other such country. It's also just generally a disrespectful way to treat other human beings, and that is pretty universal, actually. But to be frank, I think that context was perfectly clear in my post.
- sssilver 10y ago
  I'm an Armenian living in Texas and his communication is completely acceptable to me. If anything the standard American corporate professional speak pisses me off when matters get serious. Why don't we embrace that different things work for different people and there is no communication standard to be imposed per continent or even culture?
  - ivraatiems 10y ago
    I think you're conflating corporatespeak/not being direct with being rude. Compare these three statements: "There's a problem with the function you wrote. I need you to fix it tonight." "The function you wrote is non-optimal for our goals. Please reconsider and reevaluate when you get a chance." "You fucked up that function. Fix up your shit NOW." The first is "standard professionalspeak." It's clear, direct, gets the point across. It isn't rude. The second is worthless corporatespeak. The third is rude and dickish. It's also how Linus tends to communicate. I agree the second is not great, but would you really prefer the third to the first? My point is that you can be totally direct and clear about what must be done without being nasty to the person doing the work, and that is the ideal. I don't think there are many cultures that would prioritize being mean over being direct, but if yours does, I'd be curious to understand what advantage you think that confers. Further, if we're going to embrace different communication styles, then I would say the onus is on people to learn to communicate inoffensively, not to learn to accept offensive communication.
    - ng12 10y ago
      The third statement would have been totally acceptable in my last team's slack channel. We all respected each other as both friends and developers so language of that sort was absolutely accepted. Sure, as an outsider it might seem brusque but for someone familiar with the team it was clearly camaraderie. Talking about language without context is meaningless and so I try not to judge Linus off of a few publicly available emails. My Australian friends will refer to each other with language that is shocking to me as an American, but I acknowledge the context aound it and don't write them off as assholes because of it.
      - ivraatiems 10y ago
        It's not "a few public emails." It's many, many examples over many, many years from a massive, high-volume email list that represents the bulk of the work done on the Linux kernel. It's clear from the very public, recurrent fallout from Linus's behavior that it is not a matter of camaraderie or simple outsider misunderstanding. I agree, context matters. It's precisely because of the context that this language is not tolerable. The LKML is not a private Slack channel for friends. Absolutely, among friends, such talk is generally tolerated and isn't a sign of rudeness or disrespect. My friends and I do the same thing in private channels. But in public in a professional setting is not at all the place for that.
        taeric 10y ago
        Compared to how many emails he sends in total, it is barely even a few. By and large, you will not find a more friendly maintainer. If you keep ignoring him while trying to get something into his project, he will get rude. And this is the funny thing about it. Even the people he "explodes" on usually get a lot of friendly "stop" messages from him well before any inflammatory message comes out. Only real exceptions I can think of is that he will meet an insult with an insult. Which, ironically, can go a decent way to making everyone else feel safer in the environment. Edit to add: I do want to quickly add that as much praise as I can offer Linus in this regard, Knuth really is on another level. I do not intend to compare them.
      - 10y ago

Unacceptable for communication in a professional setting in North America or Europe. I don't buy the argument that it's acceptable to behave as he does in the workplace in Finland any more than it's acceptable in the US or any other such country. It's also just generally a disrespectful way to treat other human beings, and that is pretty universal, actually. But to be frank, I think that context was perfectly clear in my post.

sssilver 10y ago
I'm an Armenian living in Texas and his communication is completely acceptable to me. If anything the standard American corporate professional speak pisses me off when matters get serious. Why don't we embrace that different things work for different people and there is no communication standard to be imposed per continent or even culture?
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  I think you're conflating corporatespeak/not being direct with being rude. Compare these three statements: "There's a problem with the function you wrote. I need you to fix it tonight." "The function you wrote is non-optimal for our goals. Please reconsider and reevaluate when you get a chance." "You fucked up that function. Fix up your shit NOW." The first is "standard professionalspeak." It's clear, direct, gets the point across. It isn't rude. The second is worthless corporatespeak. The third is rude and dickish. It's also how Linus tends to communicate. I agree the second is not great, but would you really prefer the third to the first? My point is that you can be totally direct and clear about what must be done without being nasty to the person doing the work, and that is the ideal. I don't think there are many cultures that would prioritize being mean over being direct, but if yours does, I'd be curious to understand what advantage you think that confers. Further, if we're going to embrace different communication styles, then I would say the onus is on people to learn to communicate inoffensively, not to learn to accept offensive communication.
  - ng12 10y ago
    The third statement would have been totally acceptable in my last team's slack channel. We all respected each other as both friends and developers so language of that sort was absolutely accepted. Sure, as an outsider it might seem brusque but for someone familiar with the team it was clearly camaraderie. Talking about language without context is meaningless and so I try not to judge Linus off of a few publicly available emails. My Australian friends will refer to each other with language that is shocking to me as an American, but I acknowledge the context aound it and don't write them off as assholes because of it.
    - ivraatiems 10y ago
      It's not "a few public emails." It's many, many examples over many, many years from a massive, high-volume email list that represents the bulk of the work done on the Linux kernel. It's clear from the very public, recurrent fallout from Linus's behavior that it is not a matter of camaraderie or simple outsider misunderstanding. I agree, context matters. It's precisely because of the context that this language is not tolerable. The LKML is not a private Slack channel for friends. Absolutely, among friends, such talk is generally tolerated and isn't a sign of rudeness or disrespect. My friends and I do the same thing in private channels. But in public in a professional setting is not at all the place for that.
      - taeric 10y ago
        Compared to how many emails he sends in total, it is barely even a few. By and large, you will not find a more friendly maintainer. If you keep ignoring him while trying to get something into his project, he will get rude. And this is the funny thing about it. Even the people he "explodes" on usually get a lot of friendly "stop" messages from him well before any inflammatory message comes out. Only real exceptions I can think of is that he will meet an insult with an insult. Which, ironically, can go a decent way to making everyone else feel safer in the environment. Edit to add: I do want to quickly add that as much praise as I can offer Linus in this regard, Knuth really is on another level. I do not intend to compare them.
    - 10y ago