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> In many contexts, being kind just means being a professional. Which, taken to its logical conclusion, means that some important figures in our industry (e.g.

> In many contexts, being kind just means being a professional. Which, taken to its logical conclusion, means that some important figures in our industry (e.g. Linus Torvalds) act quite unprofessionally. Sadly, this seems to be true.

tomjen3 9y ago
I hate the word professional, because it comes with a lot of stupid baggage (in particular, it doesn't, or shouldn't, matter if I am in a suit or a hoaddy), but I can agree with that small part of it.
pdonis 9y ago
> Which, taken to its logical conclusion, means that some important figures in our industry (e.g. Linus Torvalds) act quite unprofessionally. No, it doesn't. It means that the people Linus has to say harsh things do are being unprofessional--because, as Linus himself said in the quote given in the article, when he tries to say things kindly--"Please don't do that"--people don't listen. If those people were being professional, they would realize that when Linus says "Please don't do that", they need to listen. The article even acknowledges this: "If you really have trust and conviction that your peers are not wasting your time, you pay attention when they say something - a “please don’t do that”, to quote Linus’ example, ends up being one of the more strongly worded pieces of guidance you can get." So the problem isn't Linus, it's all the people who don't take the time to realize that it's not a waste of time to pay attention to what he says--so he has to shout to make himself heard.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  That's a self-fulfilling problem, though: if you have a community of people built around flames and attacks, then anything short of that may have a harder time getting noticed and acknowledged. It raises the noise floor, and drowns out other signals. Build a community that doesn't have that problem, and people will respect disagreement and "don't do that" without the accompanying toxicity.
  - pdonis 9y ago
    > if you have a community of people built around flames and attacks The Linux community is not built around flames and attacks. Linus' flames are what get public attention, but that doesn't mean they are the majority, or even a significant minority, of all his communications. He has explained many times exactly what the conditions are under which he will flame--basically, that a kernel developer does something that he has already explained many, many times should never be done, like breaking userspace. Do something that meets those conditions, you get flamed. Don't do something like that, and you don't.
    - JoshTriplett 9y ago
      The Linux kernel community, by and large, has far more vitriol than average. It's far more than just Linus; many other developers do the same.
      - pdonis 9y ago
        Do you have data backing this up, or is it just an opinion?
        JoshTriplett 9y ago
        Personal experience working in that community and other communities for a prolonged period of time, as well as the first-hand experience of many other developers I've worked with, and the second-hand reports of an even larger set of developers. I'm also aware of projects to do more formal analysis of various FOSS communities, such as FOSS Heartbeat. But in the meantime, the plural of "anecdote" is absolutely "data" for sufficiently large values of "plural".
        pdonis 9y ago
        > the plural of "anecdote" is absolutely "data" for sufficiently large values of "plural". I disagree, but I doubt we're going to resolve that here. To me, "the plural of anecdote is data" means "I can't be bothered to figure out whether the information I have is actually representative of the population".
psyc 9y ago
It's a big world. There's room for a Linus or 2.
maxxxxx 9y ago
Make an effort to actually read his comments. He is very kind and patient but he expects to be treated kindly too.

tomjen3 9y ago

I hate the word professional, because it comes with a lot of stupid baggage (in particular, it doesn't, or shouldn't, matter if I am in a suit or a hoaddy), but I can agree with that small part of it.

pdonis 9y ago

> Which, taken to its logical conclusion, means that some important figures in our industry (e.g. Linus Torvalds) act quite unprofessionally. No, it doesn't. It means that the people Linus has to say harsh things do are being unprofessional--because, as Linus himself said in the quote given in the article, when he tries to say things kindly--"Please don't do that"--people don't listen. If those people were being professional, they would realize that when Linus says "Please don't do that", they need to listen. The article even acknowledges this: "If you really have trust and conviction that your peers are not wasting your time, you pay attention when they say something - a “please don’t do that”, to quote Linus’ example, ends up being one of the more strongly worded pieces of guidance you can get." So the problem isn't Linus, it's all the people who don't take the time to realize that it's not a waste of time to pay attention to what he says--so he has to shout to make himself heard.

JoshTriplett 9y ago
That's a self-fulfilling problem, though: if you have a community of people built around flames and attacks, then anything short of that may have a harder time getting noticed and acknowledged. It raises the noise floor, and drowns out other signals. Build a community that doesn't have that problem, and people will respect disagreement and "don't do that" without the accompanying toxicity.
- pdonis 9y ago
  > if you have a community of people built around flames and attacks The Linux community is not built around flames and attacks. Linus' flames are what get public attention, but that doesn't mean they are the majority, or even a significant minority, of all his communications. He has explained many times exactly what the conditions are under which he will flame--basically, that a kernel developer does something that he has already explained many, many times should never be done, like breaking userspace. Do something that meets those conditions, you get flamed. Don't do something like that, and you don't.
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    The Linux kernel community, by and large, has far more vitriol than average. It's far more than just Linus; many other developers do the same.
    - pdonis 9y ago
      Do you have data backing this up, or is it just an opinion?
      - JoshTriplett 9y ago
        Personal experience working in that community and other communities for a prolonged period of time, as well as the first-hand experience of many other developers I've worked with, and the second-hand reports of an even larger set of developers. I'm also aware of projects to do more formal analysis of various FOSS communities, such as FOSS Heartbeat. But in the meantime, the plural of "anecdote" is absolutely "data" for sufficiently large values of "plural".
        pdonis 9y ago
        > the plural of "anecdote" is absolutely "data" for sufficiently large values of "plural". I disagree, but I doubt we're going to resolve that here. To me, "the plural of anecdote is data" means "I can't be bothered to figure out whether the information I have is actually representative of the population".

psyc 9y ago

It's a big world. There's room for a Linus or 2.

maxxxxx 9y ago

Make an effort to actually read his comments. He is very kind and patient but he expects to be treated kindly too.