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I'm probably going to be alone in saying so, but I always enjoyed Linus and his attitude. (to me) it made him appear honest and dedicated to (his own) goals, a

by serf 8y ago

I'm probably going to be alone in saying so, but I always enjoyed Linus and his attitude. (to me) it made him appear honest and dedicated to (his own) goals, and I always felt like that was respectable. (mostly) whenever he was proven technically wrong about how to do something he would concede to the technically better solution, and if he didn't do so he gave reasons for his conclusion. in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality.

coffeemug 8y ago
Same. Linus always called a spade a spade, and I always respected that. In a culture where the Overton window has shrunk considerably and people habitually hide their thoughts, I think this kind of attitude is more important, not less. People give up ability to say certain things in the name of inclusion, and then lose ability to think those things in the first place. I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day, and most of us are pushovers.
- grzm 8y ago
  > ”I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day“ This is a false dichotomy. There’s no need to be an asshole to not be a pushover.
  - tomp 8y ago
    It's not even a dichotomy. The poster is just saying which one out of two negative situations s/he prefers.
    - grzm 8y ago
      It’s a straw man meant to excuse bad behavior as the only way to provide strong direction. Pushovers are not the under discussion here: Torvalds’ behavior is.
      - DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Or perhaps an acknowledgement that people are imperfect and the world is imperfect and, if you want to accomplish things, x all-too-common defect is preferable to y all-too-common defect.
        grzm 8y ago
        In other contexts, perhaps. I don’t read the comment I initially replied to as supporting that interpretation, even reading charitably. They explicitly separate people into (primarily) two groups: "I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day, and most of us are pushovers."
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Well, that's exactly what I see in the comment in question.
        staticassertion 8y ago
        They very clearly are setting up a false dichotomy. They support one side by stating that it is preferable to the other (when there are no sides to begin with). You have to be willfully ignorant to read it otherwise. As blatant support of this, "People give up ability to say certain things in the name of inclusion, and then lose ability to think those things in the first place." This is a clear testament that there are two sides and you must 'give up' something (ie: become a pushover) to not be an asshole.
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        You have to be willfully ignorant to read it otherwise. This is a personal insult. Ironic given what you are arguing "for" in theory.
        komali2 8y ago
        I disagree that that level of asshole behavior is all-too-common. I've never encountered anybody like Linus professionally and if I did I simply wouldn't work with/for/over them.
  - coffeemug 8y ago
    Actually, it isn't. For example in today's environment when someone suggests something stupid, it is no longer acceptable to say "this seems stupid to me" because it might hurt someone's feelings. So instead you walk it back and say things diplomatically (which is a tiny form of a white lie). Then people reply to your diplomatic statement with another diplomatic statement, and pretty soon nobody is saying the thing they want to be saying at all. Have you been to a corporate meeting? It feels like soul death for precisely this reason -- nobody is saying the thing they want to be saying at all. Tech/open-source was one of very few domains where people did say the thing they wanted to say. The culture selected for people who want to interact that way, and then encouraged that form of interaction. Now that's dead. Codes of conduct, inclusion, and caring about people's feelings are lofty ideals, but if people can't say "it's a stupid idea" when they think "it's a stupid idea" the whole thing will disintegrate into a dilbertesque nightmare along with the rest of the corporate America.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      "Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best." That's Robert A. Heinlein, hardly known for being a social justice activist.
      - coffeemug 8y ago
        There are different ways to oil the machine, I'm not throwing out the baby along with the bathwater in naivete. Lots of cultures encouraged being direct, were insanely productive, and oiled the gears in a different way. The current cultural trend is just fashion, it will pass, but things will get worse before they get better.
        int_19h 8y ago
        And once again, being direct is orthogonal to being polite.
- CoryShmallager 8y ago
  >In a culture where the Overton window has shrunk considerably How do you figure? Genuinely curious. I think you have to take into account where in the world you're talking about. Perhaps in metropolitan parts of the world this is true, but for other large swaths of the world, especially in politics not just individuals, the opposite is happening with authoritarianism prevailing. It's a pretty stark contrast between cultural mores these days.
  - darkengine 8y ago
    When authoritarianism is prevailing, the shrinking of the Overton window is, to my mind, exactly what one would expect.
    - CoryShmallager 8y ago
      It seems like no matter what wing of the spectrum both sides are shrinking their windows and growing in reactionary frustrations.
- lgleason 8y ago
  Reality is more important than one's feelings which is why he has been effective in making linux what it is today. Throwing that out the window and caving to the postmodernist "feels" will not bode well for the project as a whole... and in the end the activists will try to find another reason to push him out of the project he founded even if he completely capitulates to them.
  - FuckOffNeemo 8y ago
    From one person embedded in 'reality' to another. There's a fine line between striding for truth and being a dickhead. Linux consistently leaches across to the latter while occasionally being the former. Fortunately he's realised this now and not later and chosen to work on himself to better his community. Unlike you. And your 'feels'.
- FuckOffNeemo 8y ago
  "A man who says a spade is a spade is only fit to wield one" - I can't recall who this quote is from but it had a profound impact on my how I conduct myself. Or: "A hammer is no more or less honest than a scalpel." I had the same sense of reality as Linus is having now, fortunately I was only 26 when it was brought to my attention. Previously I took pride in calling a spade a spade. I was abrupt, people actually praised me in this behavior before I realised it was holding me back. To be specific, some close friends who were in Senior positions to me gave me a reality check. My behavior was not genetic, it was nurture and not nature. The Finish brash is not too far from the Northern English brashness. I've had my ego checked on a few occasions and I've changed my tact accordingly when I realised it wasn't a win/lose or a zero sum game. It's about working together. I shouldn't escalate to a combative state so eagerly. The above quote resonated with me when it highlighted I need to better at communicating. 'Disagree and commit' is one such method that I've been trying to practice. Anothe I'm glad he's been given a reality check, though I hope it doesn't take anything away from his matter of fact way of speaking. He doesn't need to sink to ab hominem based attacks to get his point accross.
  - coffeemug 8y ago
    If calling a spade a spade is defined as being an asshole for the enjoyment of being an asshole, then I agree with you. If that's what you were doing, then good on you for growing out of it (seriously!) The flipside of being too diplomatic is that everything shifts too slowly for people to notice, and by the time they have noticed they're boiled like a frog. That's why SF police basically doesn't work at all, there are tent cities and needles on the streets, and a tiny bedroom costs $2k/mo. That's why everyone is using Jira and nobody likes it. That's why 90% of corporate meetings are a complete waste of time. Small diplomatic concessions compound and lead to equilibrium traps where it's no longer possible to say "enough is enough". There are plenty of situations where being an asshole is much, much better than the alternative.
    - FuckOffNeemo 8y ago
      I don't enjoy being an arsehole. No, that's not entirely true. Sometimes I do. I take pride in my work, I take pride in where I've come. If some one comes out and says something that's so moronic that it makes me cringe, I consider it my civil and/or professional duty to bring this around. How I bring this around depends on many factors. I replied to one of your other comments about an 'Architect' who claimed AWS was single site. Those type of comments... I will never harbor. This particular gentlemen needs euthanising and forced into retirement. He and his cronies will single handedly destroy the company I left but, after 4.5 of years of fighting them. I gave up and quit. I can't fix stupid. And his bosses couldn't see through their bullshit. My mental health deserves better. I'd consider those arguments described above and opinions like that to be up there with fucking anti-vaccers and (I hate to say it... contentiously) global-warming deniers. But there's a nuance there. I can't go around talking to people like they don't know what they're talking about all of the time. I could be wrong. I have been. Even when I was absolutely certain I was correct. Even if it's not that binary and there's something in the grey between what they're saying and I'm saying. You can be delicate sometimes. Sometimes you need to be. Sometimes you need to be a hammer and destroy some one with words. Sometimes you need to be a feather duster. Or a scalpel. And sometimes you need to shut the fuck up and quit. Edit: I'm speaking here amongst like minded people and the comment about euthanasia was entirely sarcastic for the sake of humour. In the context of this conversation I'd never say this to anyone. I however, did quote Full Metal Jacket ("What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?") and expresses my shock and embarrassment that we both represent the same company. It's evident I'm still figuring out the syntax around the word 'tact'.
TomVDB 8y ago
Would you have enjoyed it if you were the object of one of his rants?
- serf 8y ago
  In this thought experiment, which one of us is correct (technically)? If he's correct: I'd be upset at being wrong about something, but hopefully i'd have willpower to sober up to the fact that I may in fact be wrong once in awhile. If I'm correct: I'd be upset because a person I respect is technically wrong about something, and then decided to rant about it. Choice C: What if the question is non-technical? Answer : Don't ask Torvalds. He's not an expert in that domain. (truthful answer: I've been a member of a project criticized by him. It felt terrible, but not because of some personal sleight; he just happened to be correct about the inappropriate-ness of what was being used, and being wrong is a tough pill to swallow when you're young and cocky.)
  - TomVDB 8y ago
    There are plenty of people who can deal with a rational explanation about why they are wrong, but who are not able to deal with being bullied. As I wrote in a different comment in this thread: I would never consider contributing to the kernel because of the chance (minute as it may be) of getting the Linus-of-old treatment.
    - jlawson 8y ago
      Use of the word "bully" here is concept creep. Bullying is a sustained pattern of targeted verbal or physical aggression. A person insulting your work is not "bullying" unless they're doing it in a targeted, continuous way in order to get at you personally. It's just "insulting". More on why you should not be using concept creep: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/concept-creep/477939/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/concept...
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
tomp 8y ago
I agree. I liked his rants, I found them entertaining, and I wish I was the target of one! (I would probably need to work on my coding skills first.) I wish people would grow thicker skins and get more emotionally mature, and be able to tolerate harsh words without taking them personally.
- zemo 8y ago
  ignoring your emotions and the emotions of others and seeing all of life as an exercise of pure rationalism is not emotional maturity, it's emotional cowardice.
  - merpnderp 8y ago
    Parent didn’t say ignore them. I’m pretty sure they meant not be an emotional child completely incapable of surviving the slings and arrows of life. Rule your emotions instead of being ruled by them.
    - zemo 8y ago
      acknowledging your emotions is not being ruled by them.
    - checkyoursudo 8y ago
      Applies equally to archer and target, yes?
- komali2 8y ago
  > I wish people would grow thicker skins and get more emotionally mature, and be able to tolerate harsh words without taking them personally This is the "rock polisher" thesis of life, which I've also called the "bully thesis." I grew up swapping between different parts of America that approached "how to generate a functional adult" differentally. Some places, it was "love and care for your fellow man. Work together to make a better world." Other places it was "we believe the world is harsh and unforgiving, therefore we're gonna beat you to get you ready for it." What I've learned is that society is exactly how you make it. If you allow kids to bully and beat the shit out of each other in the playground, you're gonna get a society of Biggest Fist Wins. If you go the other direction, you'll get one where people work together and work to see the best in each other. Once you've been raised one way though, the other way seems a weakness, so I generally don't have hope of doing anything other than preach to the choir. In your example - what's the point of thicker skin if people simply don't say mean things to each other?
DannyBee 8y ago
"in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality." One thing that is true in all successful organizations over time is that for any given person, no amount of genius will make up for being an asshole. It may take time, etc, but eventually, it ends up a significant net negative for the organization. The sooner folks are forced to deal with it, the better off the organization ends up in the long run. It also turns out you can be effective at dealing with people and still be brilliant, and it usually doesn't take a lot more than spending more energy in being self aware and trying to see the perspectives of others.
- endtime 8y ago
  > One thing that is true in all successful organizations over time is that for any given person, no amount of genius will make up for being an asshole. Wouldn't Steve Jobs be a counterexample to this? And possibly Bill Gates?
  - DannyBee 8y ago
    No, actually (at least, IMHO). Jobs organization failed more than once due to him? Remember that Apple (etc) have been troubled at many times through their history with him at the helm :) Gates also eventually left in part because he was doing more harm than good (and has tried to turn himself into a more reasonable person it seems). Compare that to the organization that MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole? I'm certainly not going to claim you can't make a successful company or organization by being a brilliant asshole. I'm only claiming it eventually catches up with you, and over time, ends up a net negative for the organization.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - DKnoll 8y ago
      Suggesting the largest philanthropic donor in history (Bill Gates at 27 billion USD) is an asshole ('MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole') seems like an oversimplification.
JoshTriplett 8y ago
Take a look at https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/764325/09702eb949176f55/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/764325/09702eb949176f55/ for the most recent one of many examples of the kinds of problems that this type of behavior led to in the past. > Popov said that all of that "kills my motivation" to work on Linux.
- moosingin3space 8y ago
  Reading this demonstrates perfectly well why "direct" and "brutal" are not at all synonymous. Direct communication wouldn't have required Popov to "extract the technical complaints from them".
  - JoshTriplett 8y ago
    That's one of the most concise and clear statements of that point I've seen, thank you.
senectus1 8y ago
he's almost always right... so yeah I enjoy his rants.
djsumdog 8y ago
Did you ever get called out? Total aside, I'm a spoken word poet and performer. The original Poetry Slam started in Chicago and it's still run by the original guy; a dude who is kinda a dick and encourages the audience to be rude and boo people off stage who are bad. I use to think this was kinda neat; you know where you stand right? I went up on the open mic several week and did really well. I saw some people get booed off stage that were really terrible, but a few that I really enjoyed -- they typically got booed off due to people not liking the content. Then I eventually did a narrative about a prostitute in LA. I almost changed what I was going to do since I realized it was an x-mas show and maybe I should do something brighter/happier. But I've had other experiences where changing last minute was a bad idea, so I stuck to my guns and got booed off stage. I was told I went too long, but people were already hissing at me for all the parts about the prostitute growing up on the streets. I've gotten good feedback every other time I've done this story. I misread the audience, theme and time of the year. I thought the booing was a good thing, until it happened to me. I've literally done shows in Dublin, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Denver, Vegas and I've never seen any other venue do anything remotely similar at their open mics. Some have a timer and go are pushed off stage if you go over, but the audience is never encouraged or praised for being rude. In the comedy circuit, we stopped heckling and booing people off stage years ago. You can push the edge of jokes, but you don't disrespect people on stage .. unless they go over time. The guy who runs the Chicago scene is the first and the original in this concept of Spoken Word, and the scene is crusty and old just like him. I know a number of performers who hate going there and I think I'm included too. I still think the master/slave thing with Redis was/is dumb. But with Torvalds .. I am glad that he said this, in the way he did. I think he could benefit from the basic rules on StackOverflow. You can simply say, "I don't think that's going to work because of x, y, z. Look at commit x and try doing a, b and c instead and resubmit," compared to the yelling we've often seen. I've generally been against code of conducts, maybe because I've only seen them misused or people get pushed out for non-clean/arbitrary reasons. But maybe we're moving into a new era? Who knows, but I hope we find a balance in the middle. And I still don't think the Redis guy should have made that change; but asked the issue requester to submit a patch with all the changes if they wanted them. I think there is a balance in the middle.
marmot777 8y ago
It's easy to enjoy a spectacle like that from the stands but if you had a boss like that you'd be a nervous wreck. Linus realizes that his behavior's far from optimal, though changing isn't easy as we all know.
weel 8y ago
There's a whole lot of people who don't have the luxury of just being able to assume a baseline level of trust, because they feel out of place for whatever reason. Think about what groups of people that might be, in the kernel context.
fareesh 8y ago
You're definitely not alone, it's just that people who agree with you are less likely to speak out because of chilling effects.
lainproliant 8y ago
I too appreciated his style of candor at times. I hope that he is able to find a way to keep being Linus while also not resorting to personal attacks, and I applaud him for reflecting on his actions.

by serf 8y ago

coffeemug 8y ago

Same. Linus always called a spade a spade, and I always respected that. In a culture where the Overton window has shrunk considerably and people habitually hide their thoughts, I think this kind of attitude is more important, not less. People give up ability to say certain things in the name of inclusion, and then lose ability to think those things in the first place. I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day, and most of us are pushovers.

grzm 8y ago
> ”I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day“ This is a false dichotomy. There’s no need to be an asshole to not be a pushover.
- tomp 8y ago
  It's not even a dichotomy. The poster is just saying which one out of two negative situations s/he prefers.
  - grzm 8y ago
    It’s a straw man meant to excuse bad behavior as the only way to provide strong direction. Pushovers are not the under discussion here: Torvalds’ behavior is.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      Or perhaps an acknowledgement that people are imperfect and the world is imperfect and, if you want to accomplish things, x all-too-common defect is preferable to y all-too-common defect.
      - grzm 8y ago
        In other contexts, perhaps. I don’t read the comment I initially replied to as supporting that interpretation, even reading charitably. They explicitly separate people into (primarily) two groups: "I'll take an asshole over a pushover any day, and most of us are pushovers."
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        Well, that's exactly what I see in the comment in question.
        staticassertion 8y ago
        They very clearly are setting up a false dichotomy. They support one side by stating that it is preferable to the other (when there are no sides to begin with). You have to be willfully ignorant to read it otherwise. As blatant support of this, "People give up ability to say certain things in the name of inclusion, and then lose ability to think those things in the first place." This is a clear testament that there are two sides and you must 'give up' something (ie: become a pushover) to not be an asshole.
        DoreenMichele 8y ago
        You have to be willfully ignorant to read it otherwise. This is a personal insult. Ironic given what you are arguing "for" in theory.
      - komali2 8y ago
        I disagree that that level of asshole behavior is all-too-common. I've never encountered anybody like Linus professionally and if I did I simply wouldn't work with/for/over them.
- coffeemug 8y ago
  Actually, it isn't. For example in today's environment when someone suggests something stupid, it is no longer acceptable to say "this seems stupid to me" because it might hurt someone's feelings. So instead you walk it back and say things diplomatically (which is a tiny form of a white lie). Then people reply to your diplomatic statement with another diplomatic statement, and pretty soon nobody is saying the thing they want to be saying at all. Have you been to a corporate meeting? It feels like soul death for precisely this reason -- nobody is saying the thing they want to be saying at all. Tech/open-source was one of very few domains where people did say the thing they wanted to say. The culture selected for people who want to interact that way, and then encouraged that form of interaction. Now that's dead. Codes of conduct, inclusion, and caring about people's feelings are lofty ideals, but if people can't say "it's a stupid idea" when they think "it's a stupid idea" the whole thing will disintegrate into a dilbertesque nightmare along with the rest of the corporate America.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    "Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best." That's Robert A. Heinlein, hardly known for being a social justice activist.
    - coffeemug 8y ago
      There are different ways to oil the machine, I'm not throwing out the baby along with the bathwater in naivete. Lots of cultures encouraged being direct, were insanely productive, and oiled the gears in a different way. The current cultural trend is just fashion, it will pass, but things will get worse before they get better.
      - int_19h 8y ago
        And once again, being direct is orthogonal to being polite.
CoryShmallager 8y ago
>In a culture where the Overton window has shrunk considerably How do you figure? Genuinely curious. I think you have to take into account where in the world you're talking about. Perhaps in metropolitan parts of the world this is true, but for other large swaths of the world, especially in politics not just individuals, the opposite is happening with authoritarianism prevailing. It's a pretty stark contrast between cultural mores these days.
- darkengine 8y ago
  When authoritarianism is prevailing, the shrinking of the Overton window is, to my mind, exactly what one would expect.
  - CoryShmallager 8y ago
    It seems like no matter what wing of the spectrum both sides are shrinking their windows and growing in reactionary frustrations.
lgleason 8y ago
Reality is more important than one's feelings which is why he has been effective in making linux what it is today. Throwing that out the window and caving to the postmodernist "feels" will not bode well for the project as a whole... and in the end the activists will try to find another reason to push him out of the project he founded even if he completely capitulates to them.
- FuckOffNeemo 8y ago
  From one person embedded in 'reality' to another. There's a fine line between striding for truth and being a dickhead. Linux consistently leaches across to the latter while occasionally being the former. Fortunately he's realised this now and not later and chosen to work on himself to better his community. Unlike you. And your 'feels'.
FuckOffNeemo 8y ago
"A man who says a spade is a spade is only fit to wield one" - I can't recall who this quote is from but it had a profound impact on my how I conduct myself. Or: "A hammer is no more or less honest than a scalpel." I had the same sense of reality as Linus is having now, fortunately I was only 26 when it was brought to my attention. Previously I took pride in calling a spade a spade. I was abrupt, people actually praised me in this behavior before I realised it was holding me back. To be specific, some close friends who were in Senior positions to me gave me a reality check. My behavior was not genetic, it was nurture and not nature. The Finish brash is not too far from the Northern English brashness. I've had my ego checked on a few occasions and I've changed my tact accordingly when I realised it wasn't a win/lose or a zero sum game. It's about working together. I shouldn't escalate to a combative state so eagerly. The above quote resonated with me when it highlighted I need to better at communicating. 'Disagree and commit' is one such method that I've been trying to practice. Anothe I'm glad he's been given a reality check, though I hope it doesn't take anything away from his matter of fact way of speaking. He doesn't need to sink to ab hominem based attacks to get his point accross.
- coffeemug 8y ago
  If calling a spade a spade is defined as being an asshole for the enjoyment of being an asshole, then I agree with you. If that's what you were doing, then good on you for growing out of it (seriously!) The flipside of being too diplomatic is that everything shifts too slowly for people to notice, and by the time they have noticed they're boiled like a frog. That's why SF police basically doesn't work at all, there are tent cities and needles on the streets, and a tiny bedroom costs $2k/mo. That's why everyone is using Jira and nobody likes it. That's why 90% of corporate meetings are a complete waste of time. Small diplomatic concessions compound and lead to equilibrium traps where it's no longer possible to say "enough is enough". There are plenty of situations where being an asshole is much, much better than the alternative.
  - FuckOffNeemo 8y ago
    I don't enjoy being an arsehole. No, that's not entirely true. Sometimes I do. I take pride in my work, I take pride in where I've come. If some one comes out and says something that's so moronic that it makes me cringe, I consider it my civil and/or professional duty to bring this around. How I bring this around depends on many factors. I replied to one of your other comments about an 'Architect' who claimed AWS was single site. Those type of comments... I will never harbor. This particular gentlemen needs euthanising and forced into retirement. He and his cronies will single handedly destroy the company I left but, after 4.5 of years of fighting them. I gave up and quit. I can't fix stupid. And his bosses couldn't see through their bullshit. My mental health deserves better. I'd consider those arguments described above and opinions like that to be up there with fucking anti-vaccers and (I hate to say it... contentiously) global-warming deniers. But there's a nuance there. I can't go around talking to people like they don't know what they're talking about all of the time. I could be wrong. I have been. Even when I was absolutely certain I was correct. Even if it's not that binary and there's something in the grey between what they're saying and I'm saying. You can be delicate sometimes. Sometimes you need to be. Sometimes you need to be a hammer and destroy some one with words. Sometimes you need to be a feather duster. Or a scalpel. And sometimes you need to shut the fuck up and quit. Edit: I'm speaking here amongst like minded people and the comment about euthanasia was entirely sarcastic for the sake of humour. In the context of this conversation I'd never say this to anyone. I however, did quote Full Metal Jacket ("What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?") and expresses my shock and embarrassment that we both represent the same company. It's evident I'm still figuring out the syntax around the word 'tact'.

TomVDB 8y ago

Would you have enjoyed it if you were the object of one of his rants?

serf 8y ago
In this thought experiment, which one of us is correct (technically)? If he's correct: I'd be upset at being wrong about something, but hopefully i'd have willpower to sober up to the fact that I may in fact be wrong once in awhile. If I'm correct: I'd be upset because a person I respect is technically wrong about something, and then decided to rant about it. Choice C: What if the question is non-technical? Answer : Don't ask Torvalds. He's not an expert in that domain. (truthful answer: I've been a member of a project criticized by him. It felt terrible, but not because of some personal sleight; he just happened to be correct about the inappropriate-ness of what was being used, and being wrong is a tough pill to swallow when you're young and cocky.)
- TomVDB 8y ago
  There are plenty of people who can deal with a rational explanation about why they are wrong, but who are not able to deal with being bullied. As I wrote in a different comment in this thread: I would never consider contributing to the kernel because of the chance (minute as it may be) of getting the Linus-of-old treatment.
  - jlawson 8y ago
    Use of the word "bully" here is concept creep. Bullying is a sustained pattern of targeted verbal or physical aggression. A person insulting your work is not "bullying" unless they're doing it in a targeted, continuous way in order to get at you personally. It's just "insulting". More on why you should not be using concept creep: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/concept-creep/477939/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/concept...
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

tomp 8y ago

I agree. I liked his rants, I found them entertaining, and I wish I was the target of one! (I would probably need to work on my coding skills first.) I wish people would grow thicker skins and get more emotionally mature, and be able to tolerate harsh words without taking them personally.

zemo 8y ago
ignoring your emotions and the emotions of others and seeing all of life as an exercise of pure rationalism is not emotional maturity, it's emotional cowardice.
- merpnderp 8y ago
  Parent didn’t say ignore them. I’m pretty sure they meant not be an emotional child completely incapable of surviving the slings and arrows of life. Rule your emotions instead of being ruled by them.
  - zemo 8y ago
    acknowledging your emotions is not being ruled by them.
  - checkyoursudo 8y ago
    Applies equally to archer and target, yes?
komali2 8y ago
> I wish people would grow thicker skins and get more emotionally mature, and be able to tolerate harsh words without taking them personally This is the "rock polisher" thesis of life, which I've also called the "bully thesis." I grew up swapping between different parts of America that approached "how to generate a functional adult" differentally. Some places, it was "love and care for your fellow man. Work together to make a better world." Other places it was "we believe the world is harsh and unforgiving, therefore we're gonna beat you to get you ready for it." What I've learned is that society is exactly how you make it. If you allow kids to bully and beat the shit out of each other in the playground, you're gonna get a society of Biggest Fist Wins. If you go the other direction, you'll get one where people work together and work to see the best in each other. Once you've been raised one way though, the other way seems a weakness, so I generally don't have hope of doing anything other than preach to the choir. In your example - what's the point of thicker skin if people simply don't say mean things to each other?

DannyBee 8y ago

"in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality." One thing that is true in all successful organizations over time is that for any given person, no amount of genius will make up for being an asshole. It may take time, etc, but eventually, it ends up a significant net negative for the organization. The sooner folks are forced to deal with it, the better off the organization ends up in the long run. It also turns out you can be effective at dealing with people and still be brilliant, and it usually doesn't take a lot more than spending more energy in being self aware and trying to see the perspectives of others.

endtime 8y ago
> One thing that is true in all successful organizations over time is that for any given person, no amount of genius will make up for being an asshole. Wouldn't Steve Jobs be a counterexample to this? And possibly Bill Gates?
- DannyBee 8y ago
  No, actually (at least, IMHO). Jobs organization failed more than once due to him? Remember that Apple (etc) have been troubled at many times through their history with him at the helm :) Gates also eventually left in part because he was doing more harm than good (and has tried to turn himself into a more reasonable person it seems). Compare that to the organization that MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole? I'm certainly not going to claim you can't make a successful company or organization by being a brilliant asshole. I'm only claiming it eventually catches up with you, and over time, ends up a net negative for the organization.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - DKnoll 8y ago
    Suggesting the largest philanthropic donor in history (Bill Gates at 27 billion USD) is an asshole ('MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole') seems like an oversimplification.

JoshTriplett 8y ago

Take a look at https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/764325/09702eb949176f55/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/764325/09702eb949176f55/ for the most recent one of many examples of the kinds of problems that this type of behavior led to in the past. > Popov said that all of that "kills my motivation" to work on Linux.

moosingin3space 8y ago
Reading this demonstrates perfectly well why "direct" and "brutal" are not at all synonymous. Direct communication wouldn't have required Popov to "extract the technical complaints from them".
- JoshTriplett 8y ago
  That's one of the most concise and clear statements of that point I've seen, thank you.

senectus1 8y ago

he's almost always right... so yeah I enjoy his rants.

djsumdog 8y ago

Did you ever get called out? Total aside, I'm a spoken word poet and performer. The original Poetry Slam started in Chicago and it's still run by the original guy; a dude who is kinda a dick and encourages the audience to be rude and boo people off stage who are bad. I use to think this was kinda neat; you know where you stand right? I went up on the open mic several week and did really well. I saw some people get booed off stage that were really terrible, but a few that I really enjoyed -- they typically got booed off due to people not liking the content. Then I eventually did a narrative about a prostitute in LA. I almost changed what I was going to do since I realized it was an x-mas show and maybe I should do something brighter/happier. But I've had other experiences where changing last minute was a bad idea, so I stuck to my guns and got booed off stage. I was told I went too long, but people were already hissing at me for all the parts about the prostitute growing up on the streets. I've gotten good feedback every other time I've done this story. I misread the audience, theme and time of the year. I thought the booing was a good thing, until it happened to me. I've literally done shows in Dublin, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Denver, Vegas and I've never seen any other venue do anything remotely similar at their open mics. Some have a timer and go are pushed off stage if you go over, but the audience is never encouraged or praised for being rude. In the comedy circuit, we stopped heckling and booing people off stage years ago. You can push the edge of jokes, but you don't disrespect people on stage .. unless they go over time. The guy who runs the Chicago scene is the first and the original in this concept of Spoken Word, and the scene is crusty and old just like him. I know a number of performers who hate going there and I think I'm included too. I still think the master/slave thing with Redis was/is dumb. But with Torvalds .. I am glad that he said this, in the way he did. I think he could benefit from the basic rules on StackOverflow. You can simply say, "I don't think that's going to work because of x, y, z. Look at commit x and try doing a, b and c instead and resubmit," compared to the yelling we've often seen. I've generally been against code of conducts, maybe because I've only seen them misused or people get pushed out for non-clean/arbitrary reasons. But maybe we're moving into a new era? Who knows, but I hope we find a balance in the middle. And I still don't think the Redis guy should have made that change; but asked the issue requester to submit a patch with all the changes if they wanted them. I think there is a balance in the middle.

marmot777 8y ago

It's easy to enjoy a spectacle like that from the stands but if you had a boss like that you'd be a nervous wreck. Linus realizes that his behavior's far from optimal, though changing isn't easy as we all know.

weel 8y ago

There's a whole lot of people who don't have the luxury of just being able to assume a baseline level of trust, because they feel out of place for whatever reason. Think about what groups of people that might be, in the kernel context.

fareesh 8y ago

You're definitely not alone, it's just that people who agree with you are less likely to speak out because of chilling effects.

lainproliant 8y ago

I too appreciated his style of candor at times. I hope that he is able to find a way to keep being Linus while also not resorting to personal attacks, and I applaud him for reflecting on his actions.