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Linus has done some (okay, lots of) wonderful stuff. However, his attitude here is pretty extreme. Being incredibly rude, then proceeding to merge said pull req

Linus has done some (okay, lots of) wonderful stuff. However, his attitude here is pretty extreme. Being incredibly rude, then proceeding to merge said pull request. If Linus is willing to merge the PR, then it can't be that bad. Surely there was a more tactful way to approach this, even for Linus.

iliaznk 8y ago
Why should he NOT being rude? Has anyone ever answered him in the same way? Has anyone ever publicly explained him that while being a sociopathic nerd he still must comply to some basic rules of conduct like we all do. The guy is willingly putting on and supporting the public image he's got and, obviously, loving it. I know, that he's smart and what not, but why should it be an excuse for being an asshole? I just realised that he reminds me of Taleb.
- topspin 8y ago
  > Has anyone ever publicly explained him that while being a sociopathic nerd he still must comply to some basic rules of conduct like we all do[?] Yes. Back in 2014 several DebConf attendees publicly confronted Torvalds, quoting some of the outrageous things he's written to/at people and making him explain himself. It makes for some rather cringy moments and there is no evidence it had any meaningful impact on him. You may watch it all here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Why should he NOT being rude? Has anyone ever answered him in the same way? Several, but no one that mattered enough with respect to Linux for his opinion to matter in return. His OS, his rules. Others can always fork it if they have an issue with that. It seems to have worked fine as a gatekeeping technique for the last 25+ years, even if it hurts some feelings. Linus goes for an in-the-trenches, rough camaraderie, approach, rather than a "professional soft spoken cubicle workers" approach.
  - hfdgiutdryg 8y ago
    Linus goes for an in-the-trenches, rough camaraderie, approach He's an outright toxic and abusive person. Characterizing a lack of toxic, abusive behavior as "professional soft spoken cubicle workers approach" is disingenuous.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Well, if he was "outright toxic", then he would have had negative effects on the kernel development. Which I don't see happening. So what people mean with that is not that he actually has a toxic effect, but that they dislike his tone.
      - JakeTyo 8y ago
        This is a malformed argument. Having a 'toxic' personality does not mean he will produce bad code. Two completely different things.
        coldtea 8y ago
        I didn't say that "toxic = he'll produce bad code". I said that the claim of those saying he's language is toxic is that his language poisons the Linux kernel community development. And yet, I counter-argue, I see it doing just fine, and going from strength to strength, over the last 25 years. If there's any toxicity effect, I wont see it affecting much, if anything. I could accept that it might have led some people who could have otherwise contributed away. But I don't see this having any substantial effect on Linux's development. Perhaps it's even beneficial (since the outcome and results from Linux's development team is better than from any other Unix-like OSS OS, with their supposedly not toxic leaders). If that freedom of language is all it takes to keep Linus happy, and stewarding the project as well as he has done all these decades, then so be it...
- glaberficken 8y ago
  Taleb sees swearing as a form of signaling when you have acquired a certain "power" that gives you independence from others. He defends that by publicly swearing and being rude you are actually proving your competence. See excerpt here: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/892370148476190720 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/892370148476190720
zwischenzug 8y ago
He explicitly says the changes are fine. It's the argument that they should be merged 'because standards' that he's objecting to.
coldtea 8y ago
>Linus has done some (okay, lots of) wonderful stuff. However, his attitude here is pretty extreme. Being incredibly rude, then proceeding to merge said pull request. He already writes that he's OK with the code ("can live with it") -- he's against the reasoning that accompanies it.
- hvidgaard 8y ago
  Good code or not, if he doesn't agree with the reason to merge it, why merge it?
  - omginternets 8y ago
    Presumably, there was a follow-up discussion.
  - Narann 8y ago
    Because the code is OK, but the _rationals_ in the commit message (union aliasing is bad) are not. This is for history. If someone, later, say: "We should use union aliasing to fix this", someone would argue "No, we shouldn't because we already states _there_ that union aliasing is bad". You can't consider a such amount of code like the kernel one without its commit history. Here Linus explain why union aliasing is not "bad" per see, but considered "bad" because the C standard say so and he clearly explain standards are not holy book and compiler implementation is as important (something he always states).
    - hvidgaard 8y ago
      But if he doesn't agree with the commit message, then asking for an altered PR with a different commit message is surely the way to go. Having to trawl the mailing list for maybe-happened-discussions seems like a stupid way to organize things. Maybe I just don't know how they structure the kernel development and documentation.

iliaznk 8y ago

Why should he NOT being rude? Has anyone ever answered him in the same way? Has anyone ever publicly explained him that while being a sociopathic nerd he still must comply to some basic rules of conduct like we all do. The guy is willingly putting on and supporting the public image he's got and, obviously, loving it. I know, that he's smart and what not, but why should it be an excuse for being an asshole? I just realised that he reminds me of Taleb.

topspin 8y ago
> Has anyone ever publicly explained him that while being a sociopathic nerd he still must comply to some basic rules of conduct like we all do[?] Yes. Back in 2014 several DebConf attendees publicly confronted Torvalds, quoting some of the outrageous things he's written to/at people and making him explain himself. It makes for some rather cringy moments and there is no evidence it had any meaningful impact on him. You may watch it all here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8
coldtea 8y ago
>Why should he NOT being rude? Has anyone ever answered him in the same way? Several, but no one that mattered enough with respect to Linux for his opinion to matter in return. His OS, his rules. Others can always fork it if they have an issue with that. It seems to have worked fine as a gatekeeping technique for the last 25+ years, even if it hurts some feelings. Linus goes for an in-the-trenches, rough camaraderie, approach, rather than a "professional soft spoken cubicle workers" approach.
- hfdgiutdryg 8y ago
  Linus goes for an in-the-trenches, rough camaraderie, approach He's an outright toxic and abusive person. Characterizing a lack of toxic, abusive behavior as "professional soft spoken cubicle workers approach" is disingenuous.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Well, if he was "outright toxic", then he would have had negative effects on the kernel development. Which I don't see happening. So what people mean with that is not that he actually has a toxic effect, but that they dislike his tone.
    - JakeTyo 8y ago
      This is a malformed argument. Having a 'toxic' personality does not mean he will produce bad code. Two completely different things.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        I didn't say that "toxic = he'll produce bad code". I said that the claim of those saying he's language is toxic is that his language poisons the Linux kernel community development. And yet, I counter-argue, I see it doing just fine, and going from strength to strength, over the last 25 years. If there's any toxicity effect, I wont see it affecting much, if anything. I could accept that it might have led some people who could have otherwise contributed away. But I don't see this having any substantial effect on Linux's development. Perhaps it's even beneficial (since the outcome and results from Linux's development team is better than from any other Unix-like OSS OS, with their supposedly not toxic leaders). If that freedom of language is all it takes to keep Linus happy, and stewarding the project as well as he has done all these decades, then so be it...
glaberficken 8y ago
Taleb sees swearing as a form of signaling when you have acquired a certain "power" that gives you independence from others. He defends that by publicly swearing and being rude you are actually proving your competence. See excerpt here: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/892370148476190720 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/892370148476190720

zwischenzug 8y ago

He explicitly says the changes are fine. It's the argument that they should be merged 'because standards' that he's objecting to.

coldtea 8y ago

>Linus has done some (okay, lots of) wonderful stuff. However, his attitude here is pretty extreme. Being incredibly rude, then proceeding to merge said pull request. He already writes that he's OK with the code ("can live with it") -- he's against the reasoning that accompanies it.

hvidgaard 8y ago
Good code or not, if he doesn't agree with the reason to merge it, why merge it?
- omginternets 8y ago
  Presumably, there was a follow-up discussion.
- Narann 8y ago
  Because the code is OK, but the _rationals_ in the commit message (union aliasing is bad) are not. This is for history. If someone, later, say: "We should use union aliasing to fix this", someone would argue "No, we shouldn't because we already states _there_ that union aliasing is bad". You can't consider a such amount of code like the kernel one without its commit history. Here Linus explain why union aliasing is not "bad" per see, but considered "bad" because the C standard say so and he clearly explain standards are not holy book and compiler implementation is as important (something he always states).
  - hvidgaard 8y ago
    But if he doesn't agree with the commit message, then asking for an altered PR with a different commit message is surely the way to go. Having to trawl the mailing list for maybe-happened-discussions seems like a stupid way to organize things. Maybe I just don't know how they structure the kernel development and documentation.