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man it's always a trip to see how much of a jerk torvalds could be, even if exasperation is warranted in this context (i have no idea), by god, this is not how

man it's always a trip to see how much of a jerk torvalds could be, even if exasperation is warranted in this context (i have no idea), by god, this is not how you build consensus or a high functioning team

moomin 4y ago
People often think that because jerks work at successful companies, you need to be a jerk to be successful. It’s more the other way around: a successful firm can carry many people who don’t add value, like parasites. Guarantee you Linus wasn’t this bad in the 90s.
- tasuki 4y ago
  I think he's not this bad these days? He issued some public apologies for his behaviour. He gave us Linux and Git. Yes, he used to be an asshole, but he still did way more for the betterment of humanity than most people.
  - freedomben 4y ago
    Yep Linus is reformed these days. He took some time off and went to sensitivity training a few years ago. I'm sure like all humans he has bad days and makes mistakes, but all in all he's really trying.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > Guarantee you Linus wasn’t this bad in the 90s. Guarantee you that Linux was not that big and influential in the industry in the 90s.
  - val314159 4y ago
    Everyone I knew ran Linux in the late 90's, I chose to run FreeBSD. I guarantee you Linux was very influential. Solaris was its only real competitor after a while, and Sun went all Java and screwed up its OS.
pdntspa 4y ago
He's a product of a different time. Personally, I love his attitude -- wouldn't want to work under him though.
dshpala 4y ago
Speaking about consensus - there is another thread on the HN where people complain about Android 13 UI. I guess that was built with a healthy dose of consensus. The point is - sometimes you need a jerk with a vision so that the thing you're building don't turn into amorphous blob.
- celtain 4y ago
  You need someone with vision who enforces strict adherence to that vision. I'm not convinced you have to be a jerk to do that though.
  - tasuki 4y ago
    Yes, you don't need to be a jerk to do that. Linus Torvalds used to be a jerk (perhaps still is, but I think much less so these days). Do you have a non-jerk with Torvalds' vision?
- kurupt213 4y ago
  How is Steve Jobs getting left out of this conversation
  - pestatije 4y ago
    Maybe because: if you cannot say anything good about a dead person, don't say anything.
- a9h74j 4y ago
  The old quote: I would trust Einstein, but I wouldn't trust a committee of Einsteins.
rayiner 4y ago
It’s not my personal style, but there’s plenty of high functioning teams in different domains headed by leaders who communicate like Torvalds. From Amy Klonuchar throwing binders (https://www.businessinsider.com/amy-klobuchar-throwing-binder-office-staffers-minnesota-2019-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/amy-klobuchar-throwing-binde...) to tons of high level folks in banking, law firms, etc. Put differently, you can construct a high functioning team composed of certain personalities who can dish out and take this sort of communication style without burning out on it.
- JamesBarney 4y ago
  I've definitely seen teams that were low functioning because they were so worried about consensus and upsetting someone else that no one ever criticized any decisions any team member made even if they were both impactful and objectively terrible.
  - kurupt213 4y ago
    This is worse
  - brigandish 4y ago
    You've just described Japanese work culture.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      That’s too cliche. As a counterpoint, HP and IBM are US firms and also get no shit done. And Japanese groups have their share of jerks, in spades. Issue is not jerks vs consensus, it’s way more complicated than that.
      - brigandish 4y ago
        If you mean cliché as in "widespread and pre-eminent" then I agree, because that it's a fair description of Japanese work culture. The jerk side of it is taken care of by the hierarchy, those who are above you may be a jerk to you, and those on a similar level will instead use passive aggressive tactics but are incredibly unlikely to be a Torvalds style jerk. If you want to point out where the extra complication is, I'd love to know.
pydry 4y ago
I think if you take it out of context (which most people do), it looks a lot worse than it is. A very senior guy who shouldve known better was trying, fairly persistently, to break a very simple rule everybody agreed to for a very bad reason. Linus told him to shut the fuck up. I wouldnt say that Linus's reaction was anything to look up to but I wouldnt say that calling the tone police is at all justified either.
- mrtranscendence 4y ago
  I mean, the guy sent one short email before Torvalds flew off the handle; that’s hardly “trying persistently” to break a rule. I can think of a thousand assertive ways to tell the guy to shut up that wouldn’t have required behaving like an angry toddler.
kochb 4y ago
The context, from Mauro’s previous message: > Only an application that handles video should be using those controls, and as far as I know, pulseaudio is not a such application. Or are it trying to do world domination? So, on a first glance, this doesn't sound like a regression, but, instead, it looks tha pulseaudio/tumbleweed has some serious bugs and/or regressions. Style and culture are certainly open for debate (I wouldn’t be as harsh as Linus), but correcting a maintainer who was behaving this way towards a large number of affected users was warranted. The kernel broke the API contract, a user reported it, and Mauro blamed the user for it.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  I'd like to mention that Mauro is a very nice person. I worked briefly with him when I submitted some patches to ZBar and it was the best experience I've had contributing to open source to this day. He gave me feedback and I got to learn new stuff such as D-Bus integration.
moonchrome 4y ago
>by god, this is not how you build consensus or a high functioning team Says you, while criticizing Linus Torvalds from 2012. Who has a better track record of building consensus and high functioning teams ?
- 542458 4y ago
  Says Linus Torvalds from 2018… > My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me. I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry. > The above is basically a long-winded way to get to the somewhat painful personal admission that hey, I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely. https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/16/167 https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/16/167 He still writes very frankly, but he generally doesn’t resort to personal insults like he did in the past.
  - fezfight 4y ago
    That doesn't change his point about building high functioning teams in the past, though. Just that he is capable of adapting to the times. He had 27 years of career leading Linux before 2018. Successful, by any measure.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > Says Linus Torvalds from 2018… He was successful between 2012 and 2018 with that style. The track record is still there.
nomoreusernames 4y ago
naw man, let the old git be. he is a lovely old man. one day we wont have people like this. he gave more than he took.
blibble 4y ago
maybe it is how you build the world's most popular operating system? because he did
robertlagrant 4y ago
> man it's always a trip to see how much of a jerk torvalds could be, even if exasperation is warranted in this context (i have no idea), by god, this is not how you build consensus or a high functioning team True. I think Linux could've been pretty successful if someone with good management practices had been in charge from the start.
ekianjo 4y ago
> by god, this is not how you build consensus or a high functioning team Linus has been pretty successful so far. There's not just "one style" that works.
harry8 4y ago
When this comes up in conversation it is worthwhile remembering that Linux was built on the team of volunteers centered around Torvalds who was famous for not acting like a jerk. Really. The perception of him among hackers of being a good guy, you could work with, who acknowledged when linux had bugs, accepted patches and was pretty self-effacing is probably the thing that most made that project at that time take off to the stratosphere. Linus was a massive contrast to traditional bearded unix-assholery. The nature of the work changes. The pressures change. The requirements change. We age. Also the times change too. But yeah, it is possible to act like a jerk sometime without actually being a jerk in all things. It is also possible to be a lovely person who makes the odd mistake. Assholes can have good points. Life is nuanced. Of the bajillion emails linus has sent to lkml how many of them can you find that you believe show evidence of being a jerk. Compare to Theo de Raadt at OpenBSD who have also built a pretty useful thing with their community. Compare also to Larry Wall and Guido van Rossum. None of us is above reasoned, productive criticism. Linus has done ok.
codeguro 4y ago
> by god, this is not how you build a consensus or a high functioning team I beg to differ. Linus Torvalds is an example for us all, and I’d argue he has one of the most, if not the most, highly functioning open source teams in the world. The beauty in open source is you’re not stuck with the people you do not want to work with. You can “pick” your “boss”. Plus, different people communicate differently. Linus is abrasive. That is Okay because it works for him. What is not okay is having other people policing the tone in a conversation. Linus had this same conversation with Sarah Sharp, I’ll post the relevant quote below: Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearign a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.

moomin 4y ago

People often think that because jerks work at successful companies, you need to be a jerk to be successful. It’s more the other way around: a successful firm can carry many people who don’t add value, like parasites. Guarantee you Linus wasn’t this bad in the 90s.

tasuki 4y ago
I think he's not this bad these days? He issued some public apologies for his behaviour. He gave us Linux and Git. Yes, he used to be an asshole, but he still did way more for the betterment of humanity than most people.
- freedomben 4y ago
  Yep Linus is reformed these days. He took some time off and went to sensitivity training a few years ago. I'm sure like all humans he has bad days and makes mistakes, but all in all he's really trying.
ekianjo 4y ago
> Guarantee you Linus wasn’t this bad in the 90s. Guarantee you that Linux was not that big and influential in the industry in the 90s.
- val314159 4y ago
  Everyone I knew ran Linux in the late 90's, I chose to run FreeBSD. I guarantee you Linux was very influential. Solaris was its only real competitor after a while, and Sun went all Java and screwed up its OS.

pdntspa 4y ago

He's a product of a different time. Personally, I love his attitude -- wouldn't want to work under him though.

dshpala 4y ago

Speaking about consensus - there is another thread on the HN where people complain about Android 13 UI. I guess that was built with a healthy dose of consensus. The point is - sometimes you need a jerk with a vision so that the thing you're building don't turn into amorphous blob.

celtain 4y ago
You need someone with vision who enforces strict adherence to that vision. I'm not convinced you have to be a jerk to do that though.
- tasuki 4y ago
  Yes, you don't need to be a jerk to do that. Linus Torvalds used to be a jerk (perhaps still is, but I think much less so these days). Do you have a non-jerk with Torvalds' vision?
kurupt213 4y ago
How is Steve Jobs getting left out of this conversation
- pestatije 4y ago
  Maybe because: if you cannot say anything good about a dead person, don't say anything.
a9h74j 4y ago
The old quote: I would trust Einstein, but I wouldn't trust a committee of Einsteins.

rayiner 4y ago

It’s not my personal style, but there’s plenty of high functioning teams in different domains headed by leaders who communicate like Torvalds. From Amy Klonuchar throwing binders (https://www.businessinsider.com/amy-klobuchar-throwing-binder-office-staffers-minnesota-2019-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/amy-klobuchar-throwing-binde...) to tons of high level folks in banking, law firms, etc. Put differently, you can construct a high functioning team composed of certain personalities who can dish out and take this sort of communication style without burning out on it.

JamesBarney 4y ago
I've definitely seen teams that were low functioning because they were so worried about consensus and upsetting someone else that no one ever criticized any decisions any team member made even if they were both impactful and objectively terrible.
- kurupt213 4y ago
  This is worse
- brigandish 4y ago
  You've just described Japanese work culture.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    That’s too cliche. As a counterpoint, HP and IBM are US firms and also get no shit done. And Japanese groups have their share of jerks, in spades. Issue is not jerks vs consensus, it’s way more complicated than that.
    - brigandish 4y ago
      If you mean cliché as in "widespread and pre-eminent" then I agree, because that it's a fair description of Japanese work culture. The jerk side of it is taken care of by the hierarchy, those who are above you may be a jerk to you, and those on a similar level will instead use passive aggressive tactics but are incredibly unlikely to be a Torvalds style jerk. If you want to point out where the extra complication is, I'd love to know.

pydry 4y ago

I think if you take it out of context (which most people do), it looks a lot worse than it is. A very senior guy who shouldve known better was trying, fairly persistently, to break a very simple rule everybody agreed to for a very bad reason. Linus told him to shut the fuck up. I wouldnt say that Linus's reaction was anything to look up to but I wouldnt say that calling the tone police is at all justified either.

mrtranscendence 4y ago
I mean, the guy sent one short email before Torvalds flew off the handle; that’s hardly “trying persistently” to break a rule. I can think of a thousand assertive ways to tell the guy to shut up that wouldn’t have required behaving like an angry toddler.

kochb 4y ago

The context, from Mauro’s previous message: > Only an application that handles video should be using those controls, and as far as I know, pulseaudio is not a such application. Or are it trying to do world domination? So, on a first glance, this doesn't sound like a regression, but, instead, it looks tha pulseaudio/tumbleweed has some serious bugs and/or regressions. Style and culture are certainly open for debate (I wouldn’t be as harsh as Linus), but correcting a maintainer who was behaving this way towards a large number of affected users was warranted. The kernel broke the API contract, a user reported it, and Mauro blamed the user for it.

matheusmoreira 4y ago
I'd like to mention that Mauro is a very nice person. I worked briefly with him when I submitted some patches to ZBar and it was the best experience I've had contributing to open source to this day. He gave me feedback and I got to learn new stuff such as D-Bus integration.

moonchrome 4y ago

>by god, this is not how you build consensus or a high functioning team Says you, while criticizing Linus Torvalds from 2012. Who has a better track record of building consensus and high functioning teams ?

542458 4y ago
Says Linus Torvalds from 2018… > My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me. I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry. > The above is basically a long-winded way to get to the somewhat painful personal admission that hey, I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely. https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/16/167 https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/9/16/167 He still writes very frankly, but he generally doesn’t resort to personal insults like he did in the past.
- fezfight 4y ago
  That doesn't change his point about building high functioning teams in the past, though. Just that he is capable of adapting to the times. He had 27 years of career leading Linux before 2018. Successful, by any measure.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > Says Linus Torvalds from 2018… He was successful between 2012 and 2018 with that style. The track record is still there.

nomoreusernames 4y ago

naw man, let the old git be. he is a lovely old man. one day we wont have people like this. he gave more than he took.

blibble 4y ago

maybe it is how you build the world's most popular operating system? because he did

robertlagrant 4y ago

> man it's always a trip to see how much of a jerk torvalds could be, even if exasperation is warranted in this context (i have no idea), by god, this is not how you build consensus or a high functioning team True. I think Linux could've been pretty successful if someone with good management practices had been in charge from the start.

ekianjo 4y ago

> by god, this is not how you build consensus or a high functioning team Linus has been pretty successful so far. There's not just "one style" that works.

harry8 4y ago

When this comes up in conversation it is worthwhile remembering that Linux was built on the team of volunteers centered around Torvalds who was famous for not acting like a jerk. Really. The perception of him among hackers of being a good guy, you could work with, who acknowledged when linux had bugs, accepted patches and was pretty self-effacing is probably the thing that most made that project at that time take off to the stratosphere. Linus was a massive contrast to traditional bearded unix-assholery. The nature of the work changes. The pressures change. The requirements change. We age. Also the times change too. But yeah, it is possible to act like a jerk sometime without actually being a jerk in all things. It is also possible to be a lovely person who makes the odd mistake. Assholes can have good points. Life is nuanced. Of the bajillion emails linus has sent to lkml how many of them can you find that you believe show evidence of being a jerk. Compare to Theo de Raadt at OpenBSD who have also built a pretty useful thing with their community. Compare also to Larry Wall and Guido van Rossum. None of us is above reasoned, productive criticism. Linus has done ok.

codeguro 4y ago

> by god, this is not how you build a consensus or a high functioning team I beg to differ. Linus Torvalds is an example for us all, and I’d argue he has one of the most, if not the most, highly functioning open source teams in the world. The beauty in open source is you’re not stuck with the people you do not want to work with. You can “pick” your “boss”. Plus, different people communicate differently. Linus is abrasive. That is Okay because it works for him. What is not okay is having other people policing the tone in a conversation. Linus had this same conversation with Sarah Sharp, I’ll post the relevant quote below: Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearign a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.