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Insults in general are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as something that speeds socialization. It's the "football coach" approach to managing new talent, a calc
by neutronicus 14y ago
Insults in general are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as something that speeds socialization. It's the "football coach" approach to managing new talent, a calculated gamble that the stick is more effective than the carrot and that little of value is lost when someone is pushed away from a community when they're socialized harshly.
It'll be interesting to see whether kinder, gentler open source communities start obviously outproducing ones operating on the Torvalds/Drepper model.
- rsanchez1 14y agoIt may be the norm for Torvalds, but more often than not, insults are just an easy cop-out from people who got in too far or realize that the other person had a point all along. Besides, I'm sure Torvalds doesn't throw around insults to people who have clearly articulated a point and demonstrated an understanding of the topic discussed, and were willing to listen.
- andos 14y agoThe comparison to a football coach is very accurate, but I think it's unfair to put Linus Torvalds and Ulrich Drepper in the same bucket. While Drepper is pure asshole, Linus just uses insults in the same situations the rest of us would use bold text. I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of one such email, of course, but most of his tirades are actually very constructive.
- neutronicus 14y agoI think both of their demeanors have the same cultural lineage. I didn't want to cherrypick, so I threw Drepper in there, too.