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He may be a harsh critic, but looking at this [1] you can see why other developers work with him. He praises and acknowledges good work from others. He definite
by dustinmoorenet 9y ago
He may be a harsh critic, but looking at this [1] you can see why other developers work with him. He praises and acknowledges good work from others. He definitely contributes to the overall discussion, and in the end, I even understand the problem discussed.
[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/12/29/449 https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/12/29/449
- cup-of-tea 9y agoAnd praise from Linus is far more highly valued than praise from your standard overly-optimistic business-type yes-man. The thing is Linus speaks volumes to people like Linus. And it just so happens that people like Linus are really good at writing the kind of software that goes in an operating system. Most of the criticism either comes from outside or from the type of people who feel they need to protect others from things that they themselves are able to handle. The latter is basically where ideas about censorship come from (I'm going to read this first to decide whether it's suitable for you to read).
- cm2187 9y agoIt's actually the motto of one of the main french newspapers. Sans la liberté de blâmer, il n'est pas d'éloge flatteur, i.e. something like "Where there is no freedom of blaming, there can be no genuine praise".
- digi_owl 9y agoThe French really do not get enough praise these days. Perhaps because so much of the world do not learn how to read French...
- walterstucco 9y agoAs an Italian who can read French, I don't think that's true.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoThe English translation of the french phrase seems fine to me. So there isn't a need to be able to learn to read French in order to express that thought, since it can be done in English. Or is the English translation missing something important?
- oarsinsync 9y agoElegance and eloquence. Or to put it another way, “it doesn’t really matter what you call a flower, it still smells just as good”
- stinkytaco 9y agoSort of a sampling bias though. How many potentially qualified contributors simply do not contribute to the kernel because of Linus?
- bluejekyll 9y agoThe process for submitting patches probably has an even larger deterrent effect than the personalities: http://nickdesaulniers.github.io/blog/2017/05/16/submitting-your-first-patch-to-the-linux-kernel-and-responding-to-feedback/ http://nickdesaulniers.github.io/blog/2017/05/16/submitting-... I think I saw a quote from Linus that this is a good filter for non-serious contributors, but it is an additional barrier for anyone who might want to get involved.
- setr 9y agoThe way I understand it, the kernel work is heavily subdivided into subcommanders and such; only a few people show code to linus directly. So I imagine its extremely unlikely that any early contributer could be turned off by a linus rant targeting them. They contributor loss would have to be based on the fact that the rants exist at all. My suspicion is that very few qualified contributors are scared off by the existence of Linus's rants. Maybe if it targetted them, repeatedly, but otherwise its difficult to imagine this is a significant source of loss.
- Retra 9y agoDoes it matter? If someone has some kernel development skill, they're probably writing kernel software. What does it matter if it isn't in Linux?