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I've been extremely critical of Linus Torvalds in the past. I was glad to see him decide publicly to change his behavior, and I am glad to see him doing better

I've been extremely critical of Linus Torvalds in the past. I was glad to see him decide publicly to change his behavior, and I am glad to see him doing better here. Personally, I think this level of disappointment/anger/trust issue would be best dealt with face-to-face or via a phone or Skype call, or at least an off-list email. However, given the unique situation of the Linux kernel, I think it was appropriate to send to the public list. The only line I'd remove or finesse is "Yeah, this is complete garbage." Otherwise, I think this is a great example of how to convey anger without personally attacking anyone. Linus doesn't swear, he doesn't call Eric stupid or curse him out, but he still says what he means: The behavior was out of line, it has to stop, and, most importantly, it represents a breach of trust. He's not saying Eric is a bad, stupid or worthless person - he is saying that in this instance, Eric's behavior is bad. That's the key difference.

polishTar 8y ago
Eh it’s better, but don’t kid yourself, it’s still pretty terrible. Still too aggressive, still too personal. The reprimand part of this email really shouldn’t have been made public. The tone used was not necessary to convey the ideas he was trying to communicate. Don’t get me wrong, the lack of direct insults/namecalling is definitely an improvement, but I’d personally still hate to work with someone who chooses to communicate to their subordinates this way.
- Valmar 8y ago
  This is better than his old style. If Linus doesn't put his trusted submaintainers into line, they'll think they can violate core rules of kernel maintenance ~ something as bad breaking userspace. Linus was right to reply exactly the way he did for such breakage. There's nothing terrible about reprimanding someone you trusted, especially in front of everyone else. Helps to tell people to not repeat this level of mistake.
philwelch 8y ago
> The only line I'd remove or finesse is "Yeah, this is complete garbage." Otherwise, I think this is a great example of how to convey anger without personally attacking anyone. The basic principle that I think Linus is trying to follow is, "criticize the <subject matter>, not the person" (whether you're criticizing someone's ideas, someone's work, or someone's behavior). Linus isn't saying that Eric is complete garbage, he's saying that a specifically quoted statement is complete garbage for reasons that he expands on later. I have seen things like this interpreted as personal attacks before, even though they don't actually parse out that way logically, but for someone (like me) who has to learn these rules instead of instinctively knowing them by feel, this is an easy mistake to make.
geofft 8y ago
He's still saying that Eric's behavior is so far beyond acceptable that no defense can be offered, and the entire rest of his work is worthless until he admits that. I think Eric probably had a reasonable explanation for this change, and the fact that Linux containers work so well is due far more to Eric than Linus, so in a healthy project it would be worth hearing out Eric and letting the more meritorious idea win by technical argument. But Linus's email closes that possibility.
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  At no point does he declare Eric's other work worthless or otherwise "permanently" anything. He indicates that trust has been breached, temporarily, withdraws his willingness to accept patches due to the breach of trust, and specifies precisely how Eric can rebuild trust: > until you have made it clear that you comprehend this very fundamental issue
  - geofft 8y ago
    The problem is that Linus has transformed a technical disagreement into the language of a breach of trust. There is no argument that Eric can offer to demonstrate that he weighed the factors and determined breaking userspace was the right call (it's certainly a call commonly made in kernel development, even by Linus himself on occasion!). And Eric can't argue fully because he feels a duty to his users to continue the rest of his work, which is now being held hostage. (Should he refuse to concede the point, then permanence kicks in. It reminds me of certain teachers I had in high school who I still believe were wrong on the facts but the threatened social consequences for pushing the point weren't worth it.) So fundamentally we have the same practical problem as with personal attacks: that it's bypassing what should be a discussion on technical merit. Maybe Eric's feelings aren't hurt, but it's still not clear we're building the best kernel we could.
    - _asummers 8y ago
      If you read the rest of the chain til the end, Linus acknowledges that occasionally userspace has to break. He mentions security issues and extremely old code that provides no other option but breaking it, but then suggests that this was not one of them. > () Yes, there are exceptions. We have had situations where some interface was simply just a huge security issue or had some other fundamental issue. And we've had cases where the breakage was just so old that it was no longer fixable. So even rule #1 can sometimes have things that hold it back. But it is very* rare. Certainly nothing like this.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
xani 8y ago
> The only line I'd remove or finesse is "Yeah, this is complete garbage." Otherwise, I think this is a great example of how to convey anger without personally attacking anyone. Strong words are best way to convey the issue in a way that leaves no room for inaccuracies. Sugarcoating it helps no-one as some people might inaccurately think it was not a big fuckup. If you use words from the very end of the expressivenes range there is no room left to doubt

polishTar 8y ago

Eh it’s better, but don’t kid yourself, it’s still pretty terrible. Still too aggressive, still too personal. The reprimand part of this email really shouldn’t have been made public. The tone used was not necessary to convey the ideas he was trying to communicate. Don’t get me wrong, the lack of direct insults/namecalling is definitely an improvement, but I’d personally still hate to work with someone who chooses to communicate to their subordinates this way.

Valmar 8y ago
This is better than his old style. If Linus doesn't put his trusted submaintainers into line, they'll think they can violate core rules of kernel maintenance ~ something as bad breaking userspace. Linus was right to reply exactly the way he did for such breakage. There's nothing terrible about reprimanding someone you trusted, especially in front of everyone else. Helps to tell people to not repeat this level of mistake.

philwelch 8y ago

> The only line I'd remove or finesse is "Yeah, this is complete garbage." Otherwise, I think this is a great example of how to convey anger without personally attacking anyone. The basic principle that I think Linus is trying to follow is, "criticize the <subject matter>, not the person" (whether you're criticizing someone's ideas, someone's work, or someone's behavior). Linus isn't saying that Eric is complete garbage, he's saying that a specifically quoted statement is complete garbage for reasons that he expands on later. I have seen things like this interpreted as personal attacks before, even though they don't actually parse out that way logically, but for someone (like me) who has to learn these rules instead of instinctively knowing them by feel, this is an easy mistake to make.

geofft 8y ago

He's still saying that Eric's behavior is so far beyond acceptable that no defense can be offered, and the entire rest of his work is worthless until he admits that. I think Eric probably had a reasonable explanation for this change, and the fact that Linux containers work so well is due far more to Eric than Linus, so in a healthy project it would be worth hearing out Eric and letting the more meritorious idea win by technical argument. But Linus's email closes that possibility.

floatingatoll 8y ago
At no point does he declare Eric's other work worthless or otherwise "permanently" anything. He indicates that trust has been breached, temporarily, withdraws his willingness to accept patches due to the breach of trust, and specifies precisely how Eric can rebuild trust: > until you have made it clear that you comprehend this very fundamental issue
- geofft 8y ago
  The problem is that Linus has transformed a technical disagreement into the language of a breach of trust. There is no argument that Eric can offer to demonstrate that he weighed the factors and determined breaking userspace was the right call (it's certainly a call commonly made in kernel development, even by Linus himself on occasion!). And Eric can't argue fully because he feels a duty to his users to continue the rest of his work, which is now being held hostage. (Should he refuse to concede the point, then permanence kicks in. It reminds me of certain teachers I had in high school who I still believe were wrong on the facts but the threatened social consequences for pushing the point weren't worth it.) So fundamentally we have the same practical problem as with personal attacks: that it's bypassing what should be a discussion on technical merit. Maybe Eric's feelings aren't hurt, but it's still not clear we're building the best kernel we could.
  - _asummers 8y ago
    If you read the rest of the chain til the end, Linus acknowledges that occasionally userspace has to break. He mentions security issues and extremely old code that provides no other option but breaking it, but then suggests that this was not one of them. > () Yes, there are exceptions. We have had situations where some interface was simply just a huge security issue or had some other fundamental issue. And we've had cases where the breakage was just so old that it was no longer fixable. So even rule #1 can sometimes have things that hold it back. But it is very* rare. Certainly nothing like this.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

xani 8y ago

> The only line I'd remove or finesse is "Yeah, this is complete garbage." Otherwise, I think this is a great example of how to convey anger without personally attacking anyone. Strong words are best way to convey the issue in a way that leaves no room for inaccuracies. Sugarcoating it helps no-one as some people might inaccurately think it was not a big fuckup. If you use words from the very end of the expressivenes range there is no room left to doubt