8 ms·

There's also Linus's personal aversion to how GitHub implements many opinionated workflows. > I don't do github pull requests. > > github throws aw

There's also Linus's personal aversion to how GitHub implements many opinionated workflows. > I don't do github pull requests. > > github throws away all the relevant information, like having even a > valid email address for the person asking me to pull. The diffstat is > also deficient and useless. > > Git comes with a nice pull-request generation module, but github > instead decided to replace it with their own totally inferior version. > As a result, I consider github useless for these kinds of things. It's > fine for hosting, but the pull requests and the online commit > editing, are just pure garbage. > > I've told github people about my concerns, they didn't think they > mattered, so I gave up. Feel free to make a bugreport to github. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17#issuecomment-5654674 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17#issuecomment-56546...

Waterluvian 9y ago
He really talks in extremes. I see all his points but it doesn't make these things pure garbage.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  Surely someone who talks like he does will never go anywhere in life!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Progress relies strongly on unreasonable people like Linus. Keep in mind that Github mutilated his baby so that's a pretty good reason to be upset.
  - jowiar 9y ago
    Maybe, but solving truly big problems relies on people working together. Linus (and the unfortunate proliferation of jackasses who emulate him) do more to hinder progress than help it.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      He solved the problem with git, he's upset that the company trying to make money off it broke it again. Most of the times Linus is an asshole are completely justified. Being rude to groups like Nvidia isn't hindering progress.
      - res0nat0r 9y ago
        I'm sure github has done more for git uptake than anyone else involved on the lkml or Linus himself. He should be thanking them for that.
        uiri 9y ago
        He should only be thanking them for that if git uptake around a mutilated version of his tooling is something that Linus wants. I suspect very strongly that he doesn't want that. In fact, if GitHub were a less popular service he wouldn't need to spend nearly as much time dealing with people who don't RTFM and submit GitHub PRs despite Linus' objections to them.
        qb45 9y ago
        > In fact, if GitHub were a less popular service he wouldn't need to spend nearly as much time dealing with people who don't RTFM and submit GitHub PRs despite Linus' objections to them. Does he even bother reading them nowadays? If anything, I would say that if git were less popular, its developers wouldn't have to deal with constant complaints that their UI scares noobs.
        eosrei 9y ago
        He doesn't read them. There is a bot for that now. Example: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/445#issuecomment-320309817 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/445#issuecomment-3203...
        icebraining 9y ago
        Why do you think he cares that anyone else besides Linux kernel developers use git?
  - kibwen 9y ago
    Progress relies strongly on people working together toward a common goal. If being "unreasonable" works for Linux, that's fine. But before others go trying to blindly emulate Linus, I'd suggest attempting to be reasonable first.
    - emidln 9y ago
      Nobody cares how reasonable you are if you don't actually produce anything.
      - kibwen 9y ago
        And nobody cares how much you produce if you're too unreasonable to sell them on your creation. Creating strawmen out of maximally-extreme arguments is silly. Unless you think that being reasonable is mutually exclusive with being productive?
        laumars 9y ago
        I think it's fair to say Linus has already proven his worth. But even the Linux kernel and git aside, the fact that people listen to him despite his frankness speaks volumes for how respected he is.
        kibwen 9y ago
        Agreed, just as it would be a fallacy to presume that one can't be both productive and polite, it would also be a fallacy to believe that being impolite immediately invalidates all productive endeavors. I'm not using this thread to try to tear Linus down, just trying to keep people from promulgating the myth that Linus' governance style is the only effective one. :P
        lomnakkus 9y ago
        True, but irrelevant for Linus. It's not a good way to get ahead[1], but if you're already far enough ahead... Personally, I think I'm on "your" side -- as it were -- on the side of civility, but sometimes you've just got to get shit done. Properly, which sometimes means shouting the right things at the right people[2]. I do think it's unreasonable of you to say that Linus is not "being reasonable", as you've clearly implied in your comment. To my mind he's being entirely reasonable, just not very "polite" or "civil" or whatever you want to call it. [1] As in: Rise up the corporate ladder. [2] Sorkin's "Too Big To Fail" was a big eye-opener in this regard, FWIW.
  - geofft 9y ago
    Progress relies strongly on strong-willed people whose strong opinions are going in the direction of progress. I doubt you will find many people who think that the state of GitHub PRs today represents less progress than the state of the `git request-pull` workflow. And, to be clear, there are a lot of things I prefer about `git request-pull`, starting with the ability to provide inline commentary on the commit message itself. But it's clear that GitHub has built a better product that keeps improving and has enabled a lot of teams to successfully build their own software. `git request-pull` is easily available to anyone with email, and I use it myself when there's no PR interface for a git repo, but people still tend to prefer the GitHub-style workflow.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Github also created the most productive (set of) open source communities ever around "his" baby. Seriously: Everyone calling Github "garbage" should be forced to use sourceforge until they're willing to reconsider. Or Bugzilla. Or trac. Or whatever it is that ubuntu is using to make it impossible to ever find anything.
    - dozzie 9y ago
      I don't see why you deem Trac worse than GitHub for helping a project.
      - mi100hael 9y ago
        but muh bootstrap
        Viper007Bond 9y ago
        https://github.com/rmccue/not-trac https://github.com/rmccue/not-trac
      - floatboth 9y ago
        I remember Trac, just browsing Trac instances was terrible. But "whatever it is that ubuntu is using" — Launchpad — was pretty awesome. I used bzr before git, and I really liked Launchpad.
  - uhhhhhhh 9y ago
    I wouldn't say he is unreasonable. He is firm, strongly opinionated, and doesn't waste time catering to irrelevant feelings. That isn't "unreasonable", more "difficult" in my mind as far as personal interaction goes. His actual opinions are usually very reasonable, just not communicated in ways that come across as such. At least in my opinion
- pmh 9y ago
  The comment was also made over 5 years ago. GitHub PRs have improved since then, though he may still find them deficient.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- qb45 9y ago
  > He really talks in extremes. I see all his points but it doesn't make these things pure garbage. Why, from his point of view - if GH lacks functionality he needs and git proper delivers this functionality in conjunction with email, GH is just about as useful as an empty beer can ;) But sure, outsiders with zero idea of what is being discussed love to take his words out of context and derive all sorts of bizarre conclusions.
  - jowiar 9y ago
    He doesn't qualify his statements, though. In my view, one of the most offputting parts of the nerd worldview is "I don't like it therefore it's shit". This juvenile lack of empathy is at the root of a lot of conflict (and the reason many people leave tech).
- akira2501 9y ago
  > He really talks in extremes. Easiest way to herd cats on a mailing list. > I see all his points but it doesn't make these things pure garbage. Well.. you see his points and his opinion. People are always in a hurry to take affront to this, but really, he's just putting the argument where it's ultimately going to end up anyways, and in the process, he gets to avoid the dozens of follow-up emails that fruitlessly attempt to convince him out of this opinion. You're really only left with two options, disagree and move on, or fix the problems he has with it and try to get him to use it again later.
- hackbinary 9y ago
  Linus has a very successful project, he put in a lot of hard graft to get his project where it is, he continues to put a lot of hard graft, and he has a very limited amount of time. We can ask him to sugar coat his communications, so had not to ruffle too many feathers, or we can ask him to churn out as much techinical work as possible. I think we're asking him to churn out as much technical work as possible, so therefore he is optimising against that and his communications with humans are going to be terse. Maybe we need intermediaries to assist him in managing his communications, but then we loose direct access, so ultimately there has to be compromise. There is always compromise. We can ask Linus to compromise, or we can. Are his inputs better put in at a technical level or at a human touchy-feelie level? What do you think is the best use of Linus' time? It is incredibly easy to offer criticism, but very much more difficult to offer real and implementable solutions.
- cryptonector 9y ago
  It's not pure garbage, but it's not workable for Linus. Nothing wrong with that. Also, he's right in this case.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
iamcreasy 9y ago
> Git comes with a nice pull-request generation module, Can anybody explain a little more about this module? I thought 'pull request' is Github only.
- shmerl 9y ago
  Also, should it really be called merge request? What exactly are they pulling during the merge?
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    They're pulling changes from another repository. A pull request is a request for someone else (the maintainer) to pull the changes that you're submitting into their repo. You aren't pushing; you're requesting for them to pull. GitLab apparently does call them merge requests, though.
    - shmerl 9y ago
      Github calls it pull, even if it's within the same repo, but from different branch. It essentially is a merge anyway.
  - thethirdone 9y ago
    You are pulling the commits from another repository. The base repository is behind the forked repository and the forker is asking the base to incorporate (pull) the changes (commits).
    - shmerl 9y ago
      Why does it need to focus on who is doing it? I think merge is generic enough term that can describe both actors (i.e. if you for example have a right to write into upstream, you can merge it yourself, without asking the primary owner.
      - aisofteng 9y ago
croddin 9y ago
It looks like github's pull requests and other features Linus had problems with have improved since 2012. Here is a pull request that Linus opened recently: https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/libdc/pull/7 https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/libdc/pull/7
- solox3 9y ago
  None of those commits are signed. Apparently people on GitHub can commit as torvalds if the author email matches his: https://github.com/amoffat/masquerade/commit/9b0562595cc479ac8696110cb0a2d33f8f2b7d29 https://github.com/amoffat/masquerade/commit/9b0562595cc479a... (You can't fake a fork without hacking the torvalds account, though, so maybe it really was him.)
  - bbatha 9y ago
    Subsurface was originally created by Linus. Its pretty likely that that he authored those commits.
Stratoscope 9y ago
Mobile friendly: > I don't do github pull requests. > github throws away all the relevant information, like having even a valid email address for the person asking me to pull. The diffstat is also deficient and useless. > Git comes with a nice pull-request generation module, but github instead decided to replace it with their own totally inferior version. As a result, I consider github useless for these kinds of things. It's fine for hosting, but the pull requests and the online commit editing, are just pure garbage. > I've told github people about my concerns, they didn't think they mattered, so I gave up. Feel free to make a bugreport to github.

Waterluvian 9y ago

He really talks in extremes. I see all his points but it doesn't make these things pure garbage.

whipoodle 9y ago
Surely someone who talks like he does will never go anywhere in life!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 9y ago
Progress relies strongly on unreasonable people like Linus. Keep in mind that Github mutilated his baby so that's a pretty good reason to be upset.
- jowiar 9y ago
  Maybe, but solving truly big problems relies on people working together. Linus (and the unfortunate proliferation of jackasses who emulate him) do more to hinder progress than help it.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    He solved the problem with git, he's upset that the company trying to make money off it broke it again. Most of the times Linus is an asshole are completely justified. Being rude to groups like Nvidia isn't hindering progress.
    - res0nat0r 9y ago
      I'm sure github has done more for git uptake than anyone else involved on the lkml or Linus himself. He should be thanking them for that.
      - uiri 9y ago
        He should only be thanking them for that if git uptake around a mutilated version of his tooling is something that Linus wants. I suspect very strongly that he doesn't want that. In fact, if GitHub were a less popular service he wouldn't need to spend nearly as much time dealing with people who don't RTFM and submit GitHub PRs despite Linus' objections to them.
        qb45 9y ago
        > In fact, if GitHub were a less popular service he wouldn't need to spend nearly as much time dealing with people who don't RTFM and submit GitHub PRs despite Linus' objections to them. Does he even bother reading them nowadays? If anything, I would say that if git were less popular, its developers wouldn't have to deal with constant complaints that their UI scares noobs.
        eosrei 9y ago
        He doesn't read them. There is a bot for that now. Example: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/445#issuecomment-320309817 https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/445#issuecomment-3203...
      - icebraining 9y ago
        Why do you think he cares that anyone else besides Linux kernel developers use git?
- kibwen 9y ago
  Progress relies strongly on people working together toward a common goal. If being "unreasonable" works for Linux, that's fine. But before others go trying to blindly emulate Linus, I'd suggest attempting to be reasonable first.
  - emidln 9y ago
    Nobody cares how reasonable you are if you don't actually produce anything.
    - kibwen 9y ago
      And nobody cares how much you produce if you're too unreasonable to sell them on your creation. Creating strawmen out of maximally-extreme arguments is silly. Unless you think that being reasonable is mutually exclusive with being productive?
      - laumars 9y ago
        I think it's fair to say Linus has already proven his worth. But even the Linux kernel and git aside, the fact that people listen to him despite his frankness speaks volumes for how respected he is.
        kibwen 9y ago
        Agreed, just as it would be a fallacy to presume that one can't be both productive and polite, it would also be a fallacy to believe that being impolite immediately invalidates all productive endeavors. I'm not using this thread to try to tear Linus down, just trying to keep people from promulgating the myth that Linus' governance style is the only effective one. :P
      - lomnakkus 9y ago
        True, but irrelevant for Linus. It's not a good way to get ahead[1], but if you're already far enough ahead... Personally, I think I'm on "your" side -- as it were -- on the side of civility, but sometimes you've just got to get shit done. Properly, which sometimes means shouting the right things at the right people[2]. I do think it's unreasonable of you to say that Linus is not "being reasonable", as you've clearly implied in your comment. To my mind he's being entirely reasonable, just not very "polite" or "civil" or whatever you want to call it. [1] As in: Rise up the corporate ladder. [2] Sorkin's "Too Big To Fail" was a big eye-opener in this regard, FWIW.
- geofft 9y ago
  Progress relies strongly on strong-willed people whose strong opinions are going in the direction of progress. I doubt you will find many people who think that the state of GitHub PRs today represents less progress than the state of the `git request-pull` workflow. And, to be clear, there are a lot of things I prefer about `git request-pull`, starting with the ability to provide inline commentary on the commit message itself. But it's clear that GitHub has built a better product that keeps improving and has enabled a lot of teams to successfully build their own software. `git request-pull` is easily available to anyone with email, and I use it myself when there's no PR interface for a git repo, but people still tend to prefer the GitHub-style workflow.
- matt4077 9y ago
  Github also created the most productive (set of) open source communities ever around "his" baby. Seriously: Everyone calling Github "garbage" should be forced to use sourceforge until they're willing to reconsider. Or Bugzilla. Or trac. Or whatever it is that ubuntu is using to make it impossible to ever find anything.
  - dozzie 9y ago
    I don't see why you deem Trac worse than GitHub for helping a project.
    - mi100hael 9y ago
      but muh bootstrap
      - Viper007Bond 9y ago
        https://github.com/rmccue/not-trac https://github.com/rmccue/not-trac
    - floatboth 9y ago
      I remember Trac, just browsing Trac instances was terrible. But "whatever it is that ubuntu is using" — Launchpad — was pretty awesome. I used bzr before git, and I really liked Launchpad.
- uhhhhhhh 9y ago
  I wouldn't say he is unreasonable. He is firm, strongly opinionated, and doesn't waste time catering to irrelevant feelings. That isn't "unreasonable", more "difficult" in my mind as far as personal interaction goes. His actual opinions are usually very reasonable, just not communicated in ways that come across as such. At least in my opinion
pmh 9y ago
The comment was also made over 5 years ago. GitHub PRs have improved since then, though he may still find them deficient.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
qb45 9y ago
> He really talks in extremes. I see all his points but it doesn't make these things pure garbage. Why, from his point of view - if GH lacks functionality he needs and git proper delivers this functionality in conjunction with email, GH is just about as useful as an empty beer can ;) But sure, outsiders with zero idea of what is being discussed love to take his words out of context and derive all sorts of bizarre conclusions.
- jowiar 9y ago
  He doesn't qualify his statements, though. In my view, one of the most offputting parts of the nerd worldview is "I don't like it therefore it's shit". This juvenile lack of empathy is at the root of a lot of conflict (and the reason many people leave tech).
akira2501 9y ago
> He really talks in extremes. Easiest way to herd cats on a mailing list. > I see all his points but it doesn't make these things pure garbage. Well.. you see his points and his opinion. People are always in a hurry to take affront to this, but really, he's just putting the argument where it's ultimately going to end up anyways, and in the process, he gets to avoid the dozens of follow-up emails that fruitlessly attempt to convince him out of this opinion. You're really only left with two options, disagree and move on, or fix the problems he has with it and try to get him to use it again later.
hackbinary 9y ago
Linus has a very successful project, he put in a lot of hard graft to get his project where it is, he continues to put a lot of hard graft, and he has a very limited amount of time. We can ask him to sugar coat his communications, so had not to ruffle too many feathers, or we can ask him to churn out as much techinical work as possible. I think we're asking him to churn out as much technical work as possible, so therefore he is optimising against that and his communications with humans are going to be terse. Maybe we need intermediaries to assist him in managing his communications, but then we loose direct access, so ultimately there has to be compromise. There is always compromise. We can ask Linus to compromise, or we can. Are his inputs better put in at a technical level or at a human touchy-feelie level? What do you think is the best use of Linus' time? It is incredibly easy to offer criticism, but very much more difficult to offer real and implementable solutions.
cryptonector 9y ago
It's not pure garbage, but it's not workable for Linus. Nothing wrong with that. Also, he's right in this case.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

iamcreasy 9y ago

> Git comes with a nice pull-request generation module, Can anybody explain a little more about this module? I thought 'pull request' is Github only.

shmerl 9y ago
Also, should it really be called merge request? What exactly are they pulling during the merge?
- khedoros1 9y ago
  They're pulling changes from another repository. A pull request is a request for someone else (the maintainer) to pull the changes that you're submitting into their repo. You aren't pushing; you're requesting for them to pull. GitLab apparently does call them merge requests, though.
  - shmerl 9y ago
    Github calls it pull, even if it's within the same repo, but from different branch. It essentially is a merge anyway.
- thethirdone 9y ago
  You are pulling the commits from another repository. The base repository is behind the forked repository and the forker is asking the base to incorporate (pull) the changes (commits).
  - shmerl 9y ago
    Why does it need to focus on who is doing it? I think merge is generic enough term that can describe both actors (i.e. if you for example have a right to write into upstream, you can merge it yourself, without asking the primary owner.
    - aisofteng 9y ago

croddin 9y ago

It looks like github's pull requests and other features Linus had problems with have improved since 2012. Here is a pull request that Linus opened recently: https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/libdc/pull/7 https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/libdc/pull/7

solox3 9y ago
None of those commits are signed. Apparently people on GitHub can commit as torvalds if the author email matches his: https://github.com/amoffat/masquerade/commit/9b0562595cc479ac8696110cb0a2d33f8f2b7d29 https://github.com/amoffat/masquerade/commit/9b0562595cc479a... (You can't fake a fork without hacking the torvalds account, though, so maybe it really was him.)
- bbatha 9y ago
  Subsurface was originally created by Linus. Its pretty likely that that he authored those commits.

Stratoscope 9y ago

Mobile friendly: > I don't do github pull requests. > github throws away all the relevant information, like having even a valid email address for the person asking me to pull. The diffstat is also deficient and useless. > Git comes with a nice pull-request generation module, but github instead decided to replace it with their own totally inferior version. As a result, I consider github useless for these kinds of things. It's fine for hosting, but the pull requests and the online commit editing, are just pure garbage. > I've told github people about my concerns, they didn't think they mattered, so I gave up. Feel free to make a bugreport to github.