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> Despite his unreasonable tone, Linus is a hugely reasonable person. Is this a legitimate leadership technique? I mean I presume the intention is to have a ki

> Despite his unreasonable tone, Linus is a hugely reasonable person. Is this a legitimate leadership technique? I mean I presume the intention is to have a kind of megaphone which will get the attention of a widely dispersed, highly independent group of people. The ultimate cat herding weapon. On the other hand I find it really unpleasant and feel like there must be better ways.

rhaps0dy 9y ago
>Is this a legitimate leadership technique? Perhaps it is for the Finnish. Check out "management by perkele" https://infogalactic.com/info/Management_by_perkele https://infogalactic.com/info/Management_by_perkele https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_profanity#perkele https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_profanity#perkele
- lostboys67 9y ago
  A system designed to bully a mainly conscript army doesn't really work in the work place :-) This approach also doesn't work in modern professional armies note that from the beginning SF Troops (starting with the SAS) are very informal.
- watwut 9y ago
  There is no direct command nor "swift decision making over prolonged pondering of many alternatives before making a decision" in that quote. All it is is calling people fucking morons in (most likely) hope that they are less likely argue back if arguing makes you a moron instead of someone engaging in meritocratic open discussion. I don't really mind people swearing, but attempts to frame that as something noble when it is nothing but emotions targetting argumentation technique are ridiculous.
- tree_of_item 9y ago
  I really hate this excuse. "Oh, it's okay that he's an asshole, he's European!!"
  - geofft 9y ago
    I think this is what I've heard referred to on conservative forums as "the soft bigotry of low expectations." It's arguing that he doesn't know any better, he acts this way because that's how his people act. That sort of reasoning has historically led nowhere good, and it's pretty insulting to everyone of his race who's capable of not being an asshole.
    - carlmr 9y ago
      I've met really nice Finish guys, so probably not everyone is an asshole. Communication culture in Northern Europe is a lot more direct than what I experienced in North America though. So it's not low expectations, there is a real difference in cultures here. What might seem extreme in an American context might be just the top end of the "directness" scale in Finland. Bigotry of low expectations is something like saying voter ID is racist because black people don't have voter IDs and are not reasonably expected to be able to obtain them.
      - eru 9y ago
        As a German in Britain, lots of the politeness and round-about-ness I see here would be seen as wasting people's time back home, or even worse, been interpreted as implying a need for coddling.
      - geofft 9y ago
        > What might seem extreme in an American context might be just the top end of the "directness" scale in Finland. Sure. But he knows that, right? In which case participating in an international project with the extreme of norms in your homeland is not a "he can't help it" situation. It's no different from me saying "I'm not Finnish, but I really like Finnish culture, so I'm going to be an asshole." I'm still choosing to be an asshole. > Bigotry of low expectations is something like saying voter ID is racist because black people don't have voter IDs and are not reasonably expected to be able to obtain them. (This is mostly off topic, but the standard claim here is that the legal system makes it intentionally difficult for black people, or people who live in majority black areas, or poor people to obtain voter IDs. I don't think I've seen a serious argument that anyone actually thinks black people are racially less competent at getting IDs.)
jasode 9y ago
>legitimate leadership technique? It's not a "technique". It's Linus' personality. One can go back to his Usenet postings from 1991 and see he's been writing like that when he was not a leader.
jacquesm 9y ago
This is hugely disproportional. If you look at the volume of Linus' communications with others over 20+ years you will find some stuff to object to, but the vast majority is just regular and normal. I am pretty sure that if we had access to a similar volume of comms between any of the tone police and their counterparties that more and worse stuff would turn up.
gaius 9y ago
Linus is extremely lucky to have found his niche, as he is otherwise unemployable. One of his sweary rants at a cow-orker in any normal company would see him fired for gross misconduct and probably a restraining order taken out. Much of the toxic behaviour in the tech industry can be traced back to Linus "getting away with it".
- angry_octet 9y ago
  The idea of toxic behavior in tech deriving from Linus is completely hyperbolic. If you want to pick someone to hang that on, look more to the Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmers of the industry.
- bauerd 9y ago
  >Much of the toxic behaviour in the tech industry can be traced back to Linus "getting away with it". I think you're grossly overestimating the impact Linus' rants have on the industry.
- user5994461 9y ago
  It's the "designated asshole" archetype, the role can have a purpose in large companies in some rare circumstances.
  - gaius 9y ago
    the "designated asshole" archetype A previous employer had someone in that "role", I don't think he will ever be able to work at any company that employs a former cow-orker of his. It may be fun for a short while for a certain kind of person, but it's career suicide.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      I don't think it's fun actually. It's just the job. There are some roles, like the one Linux has, where a critical aspect of the work is to tell NO to people and reject most of their requests.
xelxebar 9y ago
> legitimate leadership technique What do you mean? If by "legitimate" you mean effective, then sure; linux kernel development seems to be humming along and providing value to lots of people. If by "legitimate" you mean socially acceptable, then I'd look to the large community that seems to find little problem with "Linus language". If by "legitimate" you mean causing no harm, then perhaps you have a case. Linus does seem to get under some people's skin. But what are our priorities, really? From a stoic standpoint, Linus' words have nothing to do with anybody but himself, so it says a something about me or you if we get bothered by him. However you look at it though, Linus is a human just like you or me. If we dislike him, then we're free to ignore him and move on; why spend time trying to argue what he "should" be doing?
- sgift 9y ago
  > From a stoic standpoint, Linus' words have nothing to do with anybody but himself, so it says a something about me or you if we get bothered by him. That's just a rephrasing of the old rhyme "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." -- which has been shown to be wrong. Sure, you can go around and try to block everything away, but it will still take its toll.
  - xelxebar 9y ago
    No. It explicitly acknowledges that words can bother us. The point is that those feelings are our own and merit investigation in their own right. I find it often pays to ask, "Hmm, why would I be bothered by that?" in place of saying "You should stop saying that."
    - sgift 9y ago
      > I find it often pays to ask, "Hmm, why would I be bothered by that?" in place of saying "You should stop saying that." That's actually an interesting strategy. I'm not sure it works for everyone, but I would at least consider it.
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      That's just victim blaming. I have the same problem as Linus that I'll go overly dramatic and nasty in calling people stupid in replying online, something I don't do to people's faces. The more strongly I feel about something, the more likely it'll happen. It's like some sort of social filter doesn't get applied, one I use when I'm speaking, but it just gets skipped when typing. When I read back those posts, I'm embarrassed, not proud of my "technique". It's my problem, not the victim's. Luckily, because I'm not internet famous, those sort of posts get downvoted and I get some sort of feedback loop. But Linus gets defended and the cycle continues.
baby 9y ago
It is bad, but this is what happens to major open source projects. Especially when security is brought up. I see a bunch of github issues where Alice comes up and tell the developers their code is insecure. Of course code is art, so developer Bob takes it to heart and say something along the lines "what do you mean? Can you prove it? I don't think I agree, the code is nice like this". And then Alice and others start becoming aggressive, Bob starts getting defensive. At the end nothing is probably fixed but Bob is now sour and will probably become someone like Linus. What I'm saying is that Linus must probably have had, and still has, to respond to a bunch of "f*cking morons" (to quote his words) and he's developed a thin skin has well as a wearable douchitude as a result of that.
- andreime 9y ago
  I like it when we just assume things. Someone mentioned Usenet archive from 91 when Linus was just the same. Nice assumptions though.
  - baby 9y ago
    I'm not assuming, I read this kind of bullying from security peeps every day. You're going to have me write a blog post about the topic. (PS: I'm a security consultant.)
dawnbreez 9y ago
It depends. The comparison I always make is to Gordon Ramsay, the (in)famous chef of Kitchen Nightmares fame. He's famous for two things: swearing constantly at the subjects of the day's episode, and being entirely right--his strongest language comes out when someone has just done something absolutely indefensible. The balancing act here is that Ramsay's reaction is only okay because he's reacting to something that is obviously wrong, and that's what Linus does--he only starts yelling if you break userspace or the kernel. The advantage is that you don't have to, for lack of a better word, play footsies with the problem: "This is wrong, you fucked up, go fix it" is immediately clear, whereas an entire email consisting of variations on "I think you might have maybe done something wrong" is technically more 'acceptable' but doesn't get the point across. TL;DR: It's okay to yell at someone if they're being stupid, but you need to be sure.
- eternalban 9y ago
  > "This is wrong, you fucked up, go fix it" "This is wrong, you've introduced a bug here. Go fix it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_behavior#Leadership.2C_dominance_and_social_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_behavior#Leadership.2C_dom...
golergka 9y ago
Yes. The problem that people are having with Linus' rants is that he makes the receiver uncomfortable and offended. I have been on receiving end of such rants. It feels really shitty, and I would love never to be subjected to something like this. But the point is, it's directed towards a person who is about to significantly worsen the quality of a core information tech that is used by billions of people around the world. Thousands of human-hours will be lost. Millions of people affected in one case or another. And quite probably, in a couple of cases something really bad will happen if a process that previously worked flawlessly suddenly quits. Isn't Linux used anywhere in critical infrastructure? Hospitals? Domes? Banks? And it's not a random contributor, but (as I understand it) a major maintainer - a person who has a lot of authority and responsibility that goes with it. So yeah, I think that this person deserves to feel shitty for a bit.
- carlmr 9y ago
  I don't think anybody deserves to feel shitty for doing important work for free. My problem is when the insults are personal, and not about the code. Even good coders produce shit code at times, you need to tell them when you see it, and they need to tell you, that's what reviews are for. But you don't need to attack them personally.
  - golergka 9y ago
    This is not an attack for a random mistake. This is an attack for the core competence. Which is part of you, personally. So yeah, still feels justified.
Arnt 9y ago
It is a plain old rhetorical device: If your counterparty doesn't seem to pay attention to what you're saying, raise your voice and say the same thing again. There are many other rhetorical devices, raising your voice is not the only way to counter inattention. You may want to read Linus' earlier messages in the same thread, such as the immediate predecessor, just as an example: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1711.2/01357.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1711.2/01357.html
- tytso 9y ago
  What people often forget is in the corporate world, you can always escalate to the person's manager if they refuse to listen. In a volunteer project, that's not an option. How many times you say, "I guess you didn't understand what I said; in this project it's not acceptable to sacrifice the user for developer convenience" before you "raise your voice. Some people seem to think the only acceptable answer is "never". (And if you do, there is a zero-tolerance policy where you kick out the developer in question, even if he is the founder.) That's not the Linux kernel, for better or for worse.
keldaris 9y ago
I think there's a further reason why Linus' tone could be seen as reasonable in addition to those already outlined by the other replies. One of the criticisms these cases get is that Linus is effectively using his abrasive language to shut down discussion and enforce his point of view. However, that's exactly how the Linux kernel development is supposed to work, by design. Most discussions on the kernel mailing list are resolved long before they reach Linus and when contentious subjects do actually get to him, he is supposed to be the ultimate arbiter, the final check before something harmful (like the horrible idea he shuts down in this case) actually makes it into the kernel. In that role, I would argue that using strong, abrasive language to conclusively resolve an issue is exactly the right (as in, most efficient and likely to succeed) thing to do, and Linus has historically exercised very good judgment in resolving these situations. You can argue whether this development model is a good one, of course, but I think it's quite clear that it's working as intended, rather than these being random outbursts.
stareatgoats 9y ago
I can choose not to care (I'm not a Linux kernel developer), and this may not be representative of his communication on the whole (although there have been other examples). This kind of language is however not good leadership IMO, and will backfire, because it is grotesquely insulting to the highly intelligent, capable and mature individuals who are the targets of such attacks. In my experience, the only people who may get away with such are dictators, authoritarians and thugs (and then only for a while). So don't try this at home, if you ask me.
eru 9y ago
> Is this a legitimate leadership technique? By what measure? Linus seems to be getting away with it. Whether it's because his other qualities (or just the other qualities of the Linux project) let him do that and this style is detrimental or whether the style actually helps, is a different question.

rhaps0dy 9y ago

>Is this a legitimate leadership technique? Perhaps it is for the Finnish. Check out "management by perkele" https://infogalactic.com/info/Management_by_perkele https://infogalactic.com/info/Management_by_perkele https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_profanity#perkele https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_profanity#perkele

lostboys67 9y ago
A system designed to bully a mainly conscript army doesn't really work in the work place :-) This approach also doesn't work in modern professional armies note that from the beginning SF Troops (starting with the SAS) are very informal.
watwut 9y ago
There is no direct command nor "swift decision making over prolonged pondering of many alternatives before making a decision" in that quote. All it is is calling people fucking morons in (most likely) hope that they are less likely argue back if arguing makes you a moron instead of someone engaging in meritocratic open discussion. I don't really mind people swearing, but attempts to frame that as something noble when it is nothing but emotions targetting argumentation technique are ridiculous.
tree_of_item 9y ago
I really hate this excuse. "Oh, it's okay that he's an asshole, he's European!!"
- geofft 9y ago
  I think this is what I've heard referred to on conservative forums as "the soft bigotry of low expectations." It's arguing that he doesn't know any better, he acts this way because that's how his people act. That sort of reasoning has historically led nowhere good, and it's pretty insulting to everyone of his race who's capable of not being an asshole.
  - carlmr 9y ago
    I've met really nice Finish guys, so probably not everyone is an asshole. Communication culture in Northern Europe is a lot more direct than what I experienced in North America though. So it's not low expectations, there is a real difference in cultures here. What might seem extreme in an American context might be just the top end of the "directness" scale in Finland. Bigotry of low expectations is something like saying voter ID is racist because black people don't have voter IDs and are not reasonably expected to be able to obtain them.
    - eru 9y ago
      As a German in Britain, lots of the politeness and round-about-ness I see here would be seen as wasting people's time back home, or even worse, been interpreted as implying a need for coddling.
    - geofft 9y ago
      > What might seem extreme in an American context might be just the top end of the "directness" scale in Finland. Sure. But he knows that, right? In which case participating in an international project with the extreme of norms in your homeland is not a "he can't help it" situation. It's no different from me saying "I'm not Finnish, but I really like Finnish culture, so I'm going to be an asshole." I'm still choosing to be an asshole. > Bigotry of low expectations is something like saying voter ID is racist because black people don't have voter IDs and are not reasonably expected to be able to obtain them. (This is mostly off topic, but the standard claim here is that the legal system makes it intentionally difficult for black people, or people who live in majority black areas, or poor people to obtain voter IDs. I don't think I've seen a serious argument that anyone actually thinks black people are racially less competent at getting IDs.)

jasode 9y ago

>legitimate leadership technique? It's not a "technique". It's Linus' personality. One can go back to his Usenet postings from 1991 and see he's been writing like that when he was not a leader.

jacquesm 9y ago

This is hugely disproportional. If you look at the volume of Linus' communications with others over 20+ years you will find some stuff to object to, but the vast majority is just regular and normal. I am pretty sure that if we had access to a similar volume of comms between any of the tone police and their counterparties that more and worse stuff would turn up.

gaius 9y ago

Linus is extremely lucky to have found his niche, as he is otherwise unemployable. One of his sweary rants at a cow-orker in any normal company would see him fired for gross misconduct and probably a restraining order taken out. Much of the toxic behaviour in the tech industry can be traced back to Linus "getting away with it".

angry_octet 9y ago
The idea of toxic behavior in tech deriving from Linus is completely hyperbolic. If you want to pick someone to hang that on, look more to the Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmers of the industry.
bauerd 9y ago
>Much of the toxic behaviour in the tech industry can be traced back to Linus "getting away with it". I think you're grossly overestimating the impact Linus' rants have on the industry.
user5994461 9y ago
It's the "designated asshole" archetype, the role can have a purpose in large companies in some rare circumstances.
- gaius 9y ago
  the "designated asshole" archetype A previous employer had someone in that "role", I don't think he will ever be able to work at any company that employs a former cow-orker of his. It may be fun for a short while for a certain kind of person, but it's career suicide.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    I don't think it's fun actually. It's just the job. There are some roles, like the one Linux has, where a critical aspect of the work is to tell NO to people and reject most of their requests.

xelxebar 9y ago

> legitimate leadership technique What do you mean? If by "legitimate" you mean effective, then sure; linux kernel development seems to be humming along and providing value to lots of people. If by "legitimate" you mean socially acceptable, then I'd look to the large community that seems to find little problem with "Linus language". If by "legitimate" you mean causing no harm, then perhaps you have a case. Linus does seem to get under some people's skin. But what are our priorities, really? From a stoic standpoint, Linus' words have nothing to do with anybody but himself, so it says a something about me or you if we get bothered by him. However you look at it though, Linus is a human just like you or me. If we dislike him, then we're free to ignore him and move on; why spend time trying to argue what he "should" be doing?

sgift 9y ago
> From a stoic standpoint, Linus' words have nothing to do with anybody but himself, so it says a something about me or you if we get bothered by him. That's just a rephrasing of the old rhyme "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." -- which has been shown to be wrong. Sure, you can go around and try to block everything away, but it will still take its toll.
- xelxebar 9y ago
  No. It explicitly acknowledges that words can bother us. The point is that those feelings are our own and merit investigation in their own right. I find it often pays to ask, "Hmm, why would I be bothered by that?" in place of saying "You should stop saying that."
  - sgift 9y ago
    > I find it often pays to ask, "Hmm, why would I be bothered by that?" in place of saying "You should stop saying that." That's actually an interesting strategy. I'm not sure it works for everyone, but I would at least consider it.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    That's just victim blaming. I have the same problem as Linus that I'll go overly dramatic and nasty in calling people stupid in replying online, something I don't do to people's faces. The more strongly I feel about something, the more likely it'll happen. It's like some sort of social filter doesn't get applied, one I use when I'm speaking, but it just gets skipped when typing. When I read back those posts, I'm embarrassed, not proud of my "technique". It's my problem, not the victim's. Luckily, because I'm not internet famous, those sort of posts get downvoted and I get some sort of feedback loop. But Linus gets defended and the cycle continues.

baby 9y ago

It is bad, but this is what happens to major open source projects. Especially when security is brought up. I see a bunch of github issues where Alice comes up and tell the developers their code is insecure. Of course code is art, so developer Bob takes it to heart and say something along the lines "what do you mean? Can you prove it? I don't think I agree, the code is nice like this". And then Alice and others start becoming aggressive, Bob starts getting defensive. At the end nothing is probably fixed but Bob is now sour and will probably become someone like Linus. What I'm saying is that Linus must probably have had, and still has, to respond to a bunch of "f*cking morons" (to quote his words) and he's developed a thin skin has well as a wearable douchitude as a result of that.

andreime 9y ago
I like it when we just assume things. Someone mentioned Usenet archive from 91 when Linus was just the same. Nice assumptions though.
- baby 9y ago
  I'm not assuming, I read this kind of bullying from security peeps every day. You're going to have me write a blog post about the topic. (PS: I'm a security consultant.)

dawnbreez 9y ago

It depends. The comparison I always make is to Gordon Ramsay, the (in)famous chef of Kitchen Nightmares fame. He's famous for two things: swearing constantly at the subjects of the day's episode, and being entirely right--his strongest language comes out when someone has just done something absolutely indefensible. The balancing act here is that Ramsay's reaction is only okay because he's reacting to something that is obviously wrong, and that's what Linus does--he only starts yelling if you break userspace or the kernel. The advantage is that you don't have to, for lack of a better word, play footsies with the problem: "This is wrong, you fucked up, go fix it" is immediately clear, whereas an entire email consisting of variations on "I think you might have maybe done something wrong" is technically more 'acceptable' but doesn't get the point across. TL;DR: It's okay to yell at someone if they're being stupid, but you need to be sure.

eternalban 9y ago
> "This is wrong, you fucked up, go fix it" "This is wrong, you've introduced a bug here. Go fix it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_behavior#Leadership.2C_dominance_and_social_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_behavior#Leadership.2C_dom...

golergka 9y ago

Yes. The problem that people are having with Linus' rants is that he makes the receiver uncomfortable and offended. I have been on receiving end of such rants. It feels really shitty, and I would love never to be subjected to something like this. But the point is, it's directed towards a person who is about to significantly worsen the quality of a core information tech that is used by billions of people around the world. Thousands of human-hours will be lost. Millions of people affected in one case or another. And quite probably, in a couple of cases something really bad will happen if a process that previously worked flawlessly suddenly quits. Isn't Linux used anywhere in critical infrastructure? Hospitals? Domes? Banks? And it's not a random contributor, but (as I understand it) a major maintainer - a person who has a lot of authority and responsibility that goes with it. So yeah, I think that this person deserves to feel shitty for a bit.

carlmr 9y ago
I don't think anybody deserves to feel shitty for doing important work for free. My problem is when the insults are personal, and not about the code. Even good coders produce shit code at times, you need to tell them when you see it, and they need to tell you, that's what reviews are for. But you don't need to attack them personally.
- golergka 9y ago
  This is not an attack for a random mistake. This is an attack for the core competence. Which is part of you, personally. So yeah, still feels justified.

Arnt 9y ago

It is a plain old rhetorical device: If your counterparty doesn't seem to pay attention to what you're saying, raise your voice and say the same thing again. There are many other rhetorical devices, raising your voice is not the only way to counter inattention. You may want to read Linus' earlier messages in the same thread, such as the immediate predecessor, just as an example: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1711.2/01357.html http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1711.2/01357.html

tytso 9y ago
What people often forget is in the corporate world, you can always escalate to the person's manager if they refuse to listen. In a volunteer project, that's not an option. How many times you say, "I guess you didn't understand what I said; in this project it's not acceptable to sacrifice the user for developer convenience" before you "raise your voice. Some people seem to think the only acceptable answer is "never". (And if you do, there is a zero-tolerance policy where you kick out the developer in question, even if he is the founder.) That's not the Linux kernel, for better or for worse.

keldaris 9y ago

I think there's a further reason why Linus' tone could be seen as reasonable in addition to those already outlined by the other replies. One of the criticisms these cases get is that Linus is effectively using his abrasive language to shut down discussion and enforce his point of view. However, that's exactly how the Linux kernel development is supposed to work, by design. Most discussions on the kernel mailing list are resolved long before they reach Linus and when contentious subjects do actually get to him, he is supposed to be the ultimate arbiter, the final check before something harmful (like the horrible idea he shuts down in this case) actually makes it into the kernel. In that role, I would argue that using strong, abrasive language to conclusively resolve an issue is exactly the right (as in, most efficient and likely to succeed) thing to do, and Linus has historically exercised very good judgment in resolving these situations. You can argue whether this development model is a good one, of course, but I think it's quite clear that it's working as intended, rather than these being random outbursts.

stareatgoats 9y ago

I can choose not to care (I'm not a Linux kernel developer), and this may not be representative of his communication on the whole (although there have been other examples). This kind of language is however not good leadership IMO, and will backfire, because it is grotesquely insulting to the highly intelligent, capable and mature individuals who are the targets of such attacks. In my experience, the only people who may get away with such are dictators, authoritarians and thugs (and then only for a while). So don't try this at home, if you ask me.

eru 9y ago

> Is this a legitimate leadership technique? By what measure? Linus seems to be getting away with it. Whether it's because his other qualities (or just the other qualities of the Linux project) let him do that and this style is detrimental or whether the style actually helps, is a different question.