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I appreciate the work Linus has done a great deal. Clearly he's a gifted individual, but he does come across a bit aggressive in his communication at times! It

by osrec 8y ago

I appreciate the work Linus has done a great deal. Clearly he's a gifted individual, but he does come across a bit aggressive in his communication at times! It can be funny, but also somewhat offensive. "... and a black star for being stupid"

vortico 8y ago
As a BDFL, it's the only way to survive, unless you're on sedatives your whole life. You very frequently come across ideas that are so unexplainably stupid that the only way to fix them is to stop them in their tracks. Opening a friendly debate about the advantages and disadvantages is just a huge waste of multiple hours, because you'll never end up convincing people that their pet ideas/projects should go back to square one (or square zero in programming). His aggression has turned contributers away from the project and made negative relations, but the end goal is to maintain the Linux operating system, and his aggression, strictness, and blows to self esteem have had a proven effectiveness 10x more than soft discussions. Think about it this way: A dictator has to be extremely assertive because if he said "No, I don't want that in Linux" with no basis, he'd eventually lose his dictatorship power as people would form their own "unions" to try to change things, making several directionless forks of Linux. If he instead said, "This is a completely idiotic approach and anyone that thinks it's okay is braindead," nobody would question it and most people would just take his word for it. Most heated debates have an equal number of supporters for each side, and it takes someone with a strong voice to remind them that one decision must be chosen regardless.
- osrec 8y ago
  Fair enough! Given the wild swings in up/down votes on my original comment, the subject is clearly divisive :P
- chris_wot 8y ago
  Except it sort of seems to me that he changes his mind years later.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  You skipped the middle ground between "no basis" and "ad hominem is the only basis". Lying about things and people is a bad way to force people to accept decisions. Calling someone or something stupid isn't a technical argument, it's a poorly worded conclusion.
toopsss 8y ago
Rusty Russell and Linus had a long working relationship at that point and Rusty was quite amused by that line. He quoted it in the talk he gave on futexes.

by osrec 8y ago

vortico 8y ago

As a BDFL, it's the only way to survive, unless you're on sedatives your whole life. You very frequently come across ideas that are so unexplainably stupid that the only way to fix them is to stop them in their tracks. Opening a friendly debate about the advantages and disadvantages is just a huge waste of multiple hours, because you'll never end up convincing people that their pet ideas/projects should go back to square one (or square zero in programming). His aggression has turned contributers away from the project and made negative relations, but the end goal is to maintain the Linux operating system, and his aggression, strictness, and blows to self esteem have had a proven effectiveness 10x more than soft discussions. Think about it this way: A dictator has to be extremely assertive because if he said "No, I don't want that in Linux" with no basis, he'd eventually lose his dictatorship power as people would form their own "unions" to try to change things, making several directionless forks of Linux. If he instead said, "This is a completely idiotic approach and anyone that thinks it's okay is braindead," nobody would question it and most people would just take his word for it. Most heated debates have an equal number of supporters for each side, and it takes someone with a strong voice to remind them that one decision must be chosen regardless.

osrec 8y ago
Fair enough! Given the wild swings in up/down votes on my original comment, the subject is clearly divisive :P
chris_wot 8y ago
Except it sort of seems to me that he changes his mind years later.
fjsolwmv 8y ago
You skipped the middle ground between "no basis" and "ad hominem is the only basis". Lying about things and people is a bad way to force people to accept decisions. Calling someone or something stupid isn't a technical argument, it's a poorly worded conclusion.

toopsss 8y ago

Rusty Russell and Linus had a long working relationship at that point and Rusty was quite amused by that line. He quoted it in the talk he gave on futexes.