6 ms·

Linus blasts again

48 points by reactor 13y ago

noonespecial 13y ago
I love Linus. I love his rants. But seriously, he's going to be one crazy old man by the time he hits the old-folk's home.
- guiambros 13y ago
  He is a crazy old man. Since he was 20. Look at his rants against Minix, before he created the first Linux kernel. But yeah, I love his style too. It's certainly not for everybody, but he earned it.
- neuroscr 13y ago
  These rants are what make him a good leader. He has a clear mission/focus of how he wants things to work, and clearly communicates when he feels things are broken.
  - davidw 13y ago
    Swearing at other people is pretty easy, and lots of people do it, yet there are few people who create and manage something like Linux. My conclusion is that the rants are not what make him a good leader. Perhaps his style is part of the equation, but it's more complex than simply being good at ranting and calling other people stupid.
- Svip 13y ago
  You should hear him rant in Finnish.
stephenr 13y ago
...and it worked. The replies that follow admit some error on their part and identify steps they are/have tak(ing)(en) to prevent it happening again. What's with the obsession with his process?
- duncan_bayne 13y ago
  Because that style has a cost: it drives away people who don't like being called a fucking motherfucker on a public mailing list (at least, that's how Google Translate translated his comment). Perhaps the benefit (fewer commits like this) is worth the cost. I suspect it is.
  - mmcnickle 13y ago
    Read it again. He doesn't call anyone any names. All his ire is directed at the commit.
    - miles 13y ago
      "Read it again. He doesn't call anyone any names." Yes he does: "now I'll have to call you perkeleen vittupää" And according to other comments in this thread, it is apparently quite a foul moniker. This sort of management style has been lauded on HN ("It worked for Jobs!"), but I have to agree with foobarbazqux's comment[1]; I just don't understand why folks are so eager to not only overlook, but to praise this sort of behvior. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6050411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6050411
      - derefr 13y ago
        Possibly because some people (myself included) would actually volunteer to work under someone like this--because "caring enough about the product to get angry" is actually a useful quality in a leader, if you believe in the product and want it to succeed (rather than just being there to make your pay and not make waves.) Of course, if he also gets angry about not-the-product, he might be horrible to work with--but I've never seen this to be the case; Linus seems like a genuinely nice guy in every other situation.
        cjh_ 13y ago
        I also quite like the bluntness in that it is very clear what his opinion is, I can easily understand where and how I went wrong and actively work to correct this.
RyanZAG 13y ago
I've never seen such fast buy in and process change when something goes wrong if someone is polite. Just read the comments replying to Linus' post. All parties involved realized how bad their mistake was and changed their build testing to make sure it doesn't happen again. There's a reason Linux is such an awesome system despite its hobbyist nature and previously low budget, and Linus is likely that reason. EDIT: Linus explains the reasoning behind his method far better than I could: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2
- rtpg 13y ago
  I think it's important to note that Linus' style isn't resumed just in "being an asshole", because the narrative he builds usually makes the issues he has overtly obvious. I think a lot of people here seem to think that "being rude" is the same as "being Linus". But it actually requires a certain amount of skill to emulate. And if you don't do it properly, you end up being less than useless. Dunno about his reasoning, though. If someone's attitude is too disruptive to the group, something has to change. Also, "acting professional" is more of a buffer to try to keep people's emotions from going too over the top. Linus seems to be able to control himself and keep the respect of people, but I think we can all agree that there are a good amount of engineers that, if not discouraged from doing so, would go a bit over the top in their actions, thinking they're just being "direct", when in fact they're just harming things. Acting professional has always been first and foremost about separating issues from people. The clothes seem to help in that for some reason, who knows why. The lying and office politics is just human interaction.
  - RyanZAG 13y ago
    I agree - most of the comments below are arguing over whether being an asshole is okay or not. I think that's completely missing the point as Linus isn't being an asshole here. Half the world runs on Linux. Hospital systems run on Linux. Peoples lives are literally at stake. If they're committing garbage with obvious errors because they want to head home for the weekend earlier, this is a serious problem that requires some serious action. Linus calling out the problem and expressing just how badly the people responsible have fucked up is the best coarse of action. If Linus was just randomly insulting people he'd be an asshole. However, these mistaken commits cost Linus hours of time and probably hours of time for many other people as well, and likely slowed down the release of the kernel. If the problem doesn't get fixed, the whole Linux project suffers. The only valid management styles here would be removal of everyone involved from the project, or making it as clear as possible how bad the mistake was. Linus chose the second option - and I'd say that is a better option than the 'professional' option of passive-aggressive removal of commit privileges / disciplinary action and starting real problems.
greenyoda 13y ago
"There aren't enough swear-words in the English language, so now I'll have to call you perkeleen vittupää just to express my disgust and frustration with this crap." According to Google Translate, perkeleen vittupää means the following in Finnish: http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#fi/en/perkeleen%20vittup%C3%A4%C3%A4 http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#fi/en/perkeleen%20...
- container 13y ago
  Finn here. That's a reasonable translation, but the original Finnish statement has a somewhat more drastic effect. The interlinear gloss to English would be something like "devil's cunthead".
  - Svip 13y ago
    I thought Linus was a Swedish Finn. But maybe Swedish is too polite!
    - Sharlin 13y ago
      I think many/most finlandssvenska use Finnish swearwords even when speaking Swedish exactly because the rather pathetic Swedish ones just don't quite cut it.
      - Svip 13y ago
        Hm, that's strange to me as a Dane, because Danish swear words can be quite terrible. I assumed it would be the same for Swedish. Also, aren't they called 'Swedish Finns', as they are Finns (Finnish nationality) but speak Swedish?
        Sharlin 13y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_Swedish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_Swedish
- deleted 13y ago
neuroscr 13y ago
Props to the replies. His team there are responsible professionals. Any one could have stopped after the first took the blame but they all stepped up and this is how it's supposed to work. Hopefully Linus won't rip their heads off =]
foobarbazqux 13y ago
What I don't understand about Linus Torvalds is why everybody is so quick to justify and forgive what is obviously emotional abuse. If he was shooting people that submitted buggy patches, would you say that was awesome? Obviously not. How is a less violent form of abuse suddenly great? Lots of shitty solutions are highly effective. Relying on them is the lazy and uncaring way of dealing with your fellow humans.
- zby 13y ago
  Sometimes you need to escalate the consequences - otherwise groups just fall apart. It is not easy to lead a group. I used to be the object of similar attacks by a leader that I believe were unjust (because I believe that technically I was right) - but I still think that leaders sometimes have to use this power.
- lloeki 13y ago
  How do you expect one's boss in a startup/enterprise to behave if one: - pushed some code that fired warnings all over the place and made the CI server go red on the main platform used out there - developed said code in vague hopes that it is somehow useful, yet is admittedly "probably not" straight in the commit comment hence time was 1. developer wasted time 2. team wasted time 3. boss wasted time I'd expect 2 and 3 to be quite angry, and ultimately 1 to be angry at himself for having wasted everyone's time.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    It's possible to express anger without being abusive. It is definitely harder to do this.
    - Marwy 13y ago
      Can you give some examples?
      - foobarbazqux 13y ago
        So based on the above case, something like: "Your commit broke the build because it contained something you knew was probably not okay. This is costing us money because it wastes everyone's time. If you do it again I'm going to have to revoke some privileges, because it's my responsibility as CEO to keep us afloat. Is there anything I don't understand about what happened so we can prevent this from happening again?" This is hypothetical of course, a less severe response may be called for, and obviously it would be more of a conversation. It isn't nice and friendly, but it isn't abusive either.
zalew 13y ago
On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle If you want to talk cultural sensitivity, I'll join you. But my culture includes cursing. http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2 tldr: deal with it.
- otterley 13y ago
  I hope he doesn't talk to his children that way.
  - antocv 13y ago
    Wont somebody please think of the children!
  - tankenmate 13y ago
    No, but his children's friends swear like troopers when the adults aren't around.
krakensden 13y ago
Are we going to do this every time now?
bowerbird 13y ago
i would guess somebody sensed that linus had built up too much steam -- it happens to the best of us -- so they gave him a great reason to blow his stack and clear the air... and they all got a good laugh with it. yep, that's what i would guess... :+) -bowerbird
dschiptsov 13y ago
And it works.) Actually, so-called polite-correctness is exaggerated. Of course, it is unacceptable to, say, constantly remind a person with some disability that he is somehow handicapped, comparing to other - he knows it perfectly well. But there is nothing wrong to point out to a healthy adult, who act like an idiot that he acts like an idiot - it is just an observation of what is.) In case of a collaborative project, where an act of negligence or lack of attention could cause an unpleasant difficulties, such tactic is quite efficient, especially when you just cannot code-review everything. Actually, it could be called a culture. Almost every, say, "primitive" community is using the tactics of mocking and languagely abusing each other to, so to speak, stay in a shape. A military unit or criminal gang are canonical examples.) Of course, some constructive feedback must be given, otherwise this would be regarded as offence and severely punished. Psychology of lower classes isn't that sophisticated, and the methods they use are primitive but efficient to some extent. One could use /b/ as a working model.)
kamaal 13y ago
Abuse, swearing and provoking people(using stuff like taunts, shouting on them, publicly humiliating them, challenging them etc) to get some thing done never works. The only reason why its working for him, is his fame. And even that won't be put up by any guy who has problems giving away his self esteem. Around 3 years back I worked under two very technically brilliant people, but their biggest problem was just the kind of stuff you see here. I remember the entire team would change every 6 months. The team was supposed to be some kind of an elite hand picked team from within the whole company, as they were supposed to focus on big revenue based projects. But I saw some awesome people, leave every 3-6 months of joining just because it was impossible to work with those two people. 'Do you know how he behaved yesterday with person X' kind of lunch/coffee table discussions were simply too common. I recently happened to meet a guy who just left that team. He recalled the impossibility of working with those two people. Something that we both noticed, those two haven't seem to have anything substantial in the past decade. Almost any project that they touch crashes and burns and ever never proceeds anywhere beyond 30-50% mark. The thing is plain and simple. You have no rights to behave that way with anyone(No matter who you are). Secondly, anybody who is good has no reason to put up with you, Why should they? So the net-net is these are team destroying activities. If you are good, and then that is that. What can you do without a team in software these days? Never resort to a impolite public engagement. Your best bet is to be calm(even in case of a big goof up) take the person to a room and explain to him the seriousness of his mistake and help him avoid making such mistakes in the future.
- mercer 13y ago
  I think it depends. I'm inclined to agree with Linus' approach, but I'll just argue that sometimes "abuse, swearing and provoking people" is the best approach. Some of the best lessons I learned was being chewed out by a manager. The magnitude of my stupidity or fuck-up would simply not have sunken in even if this manager had been factual and direct, without chewing me out. The same goes for my youth. I remember some lessons mostly because they involved my father yelling at me. I recall very few lessons where he sat me down and provided a detailed, factual argument of why I was being a dumb-ass. I don't get the impression that, in growing up, our ability to assess magnitudes of failure by factual analysis of the situation has improved enough to render 'chewing-out' pointless.
pupppet 13y ago
I'd be interested in seeing how many people here giving Linus a free pass were just fine with sweaty Ballmer throwing chairs. That's just his personality and it works because MS makes billions, right?

48 points by reactor 13y ago

I love Linus. I love his rants. But seriously, he's going to be one crazy old man by the time he hits the old-folk's home.

guiambros 13y ago
He is a crazy old man. Since he was 20. Look at his rants against Minix, before he created the first Linux kernel. But yeah, I love his style too. It's certainly not for everybody, but he earned it.
neuroscr 13y ago
These rants are what make him a good leader. He has a clear mission/focus of how he wants things to work, and clearly communicates when he feels things are broken.
- davidw 13y ago
  Swearing at other people is pretty easy, and lots of people do it, yet there are few people who create and manage something like Linux. My conclusion is that the rants are not what make him a good leader. Perhaps his style is part of the equation, but it's more complex than simply being good at ranting and calling other people stupid.
Svip 13y ago
You should hear him rant in Finnish.

stephenr 13y ago

...and it worked. The replies that follow admit some error on their part and identify steps they are/have tak(ing)(en) to prevent it happening again. What's with the obsession with his process?

duncan_bayne 13y ago
Because that style has a cost: it drives away people who don't like being called a fucking motherfucker on a public mailing list (at least, that's how Google Translate translated his comment). Perhaps the benefit (fewer commits like this) is worth the cost. I suspect it is.
- mmcnickle 13y ago
  Read it again. He doesn't call anyone any names. All his ire is directed at the commit.
  - miles 13y ago
    "Read it again. He doesn't call anyone any names." Yes he does: "now I'll have to call you perkeleen vittupää" And according to other comments in this thread, it is apparently quite a foul moniker. This sort of management style has been lauded on HN ("It worked for Jobs!"), but I have to agree with foobarbazqux's comment[1]; I just don't understand why folks are so eager to not only overlook, but to praise this sort of behvior. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6050411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6050411
    - derefr 13y ago
      Possibly because some people (myself included) would actually volunteer to work under someone like this--because "caring enough about the product to get angry" is actually a useful quality in a leader, if you believe in the product and want it to succeed (rather than just being there to make your pay and not make waves.) Of course, if he also gets angry about not-the-product, he might be horrible to work with--but I've never seen this to be the case; Linus seems like a genuinely nice guy in every other situation.
      - cjh_ 13y ago
        I also quite like the bluntness in that it is very clear what his opinion is, I can easily understand where and how I went wrong and actively work to correct this.

RyanZAG 13y ago

I've never seen such fast buy in and process change when something goes wrong if someone is polite. Just read the comments replying to Linus' post. All parties involved realized how bad their mistake was and changed their build testing to make sure it doesn't happen again. There's a reason Linux is such an awesome system despite its hobbyist nature and previously low budget, and Linus is likely that reason. EDIT: Linus explains the reasoning behind his method far better than I could: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2

rtpg 13y ago
I think it's important to note that Linus' style isn't resumed just in "being an asshole", because the narrative he builds usually makes the issues he has overtly obvious. I think a lot of people here seem to think that "being rude" is the same as "being Linus". But it actually requires a certain amount of skill to emulate. And if you don't do it properly, you end up being less than useless. Dunno about his reasoning, though. If someone's attitude is too disruptive to the group, something has to change. Also, "acting professional" is more of a buffer to try to keep people's emotions from going too over the top. Linus seems to be able to control himself and keep the respect of people, but I think we can all agree that there are a good amount of engineers that, if not discouraged from doing so, would go a bit over the top in their actions, thinking they're just being "direct", when in fact they're just harming things. Acting professional has always been first and foremost about separating issues from people. The clothes seem to help in that for some reason, who knows why. The lying and office politics is just human interaction.
- RyanZAG 13y ago
  I agree - most of the comments below are arguing over whether being an asshole is okay or not. I think that's completely missing the point as Linus isn't being an asshole here. Half the world runs on Linux. Hospital systems run on Linux. Peoples lives are literally at stake. If they're committing garbage with obvious errors because they want to head home for the weekend earlier, this is a serious problem that requires some serious action. Linus calling out the problem and expressing just how badly the people responsible have fucked up is the best coarse of action. If Linus was just randomly insulting people he'd be an asshole. However, these mistaken commits cost Linus hours of time and probably hours of time for many other people as well, and likely slowed down the release of the kernel. If the problem doesn't get fixed, the whole Linux project suffers. The only valid management styles here would be removal of everyone involved from the project, or making it as clear as possible how bad the mistake was. Linus chose the second option - and I'd say that is a better option than the 'professional' option of passive-aggressive removal of commit privileges / disciplinary action and starting real problems.

greenyoda 13y ago

"There aren't enough swear-words in the English language, so now I'll have to call you perkeleen vittupää just to express my disgust and frustration with this crap." According to Google Translate, perkeleen vittupää means the following in Finnish: http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#fi/en/perkeleen%20vittup%C3%A4%C3%A4 http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#fi/en/perkeleen%20...

container 13y ago
Finn here. That's a reasonable translation, but the original Finnish statement has a somewhat more drastic effect. The interlinear gloss to English would be something like "devil's cunthead".
- Svip 13y ago
  I thought Linus was a Swedish Finn. But maybe Swedish is too polite!
  - Sharlin 13y ago
    I think many/most finlandssvenska use Finnish swearwords even when speaking Swedish exactly because the rather pathetic Swedish ones just don't quite cut it.
    - Svip 13y ago
      Hm, that's strange to me as a Dane, because Danish swear words can be quite terrible. I assumed it would be the same for Swedish. Also, aren't they called 'Swedish Finns', as they are Finns (Finnish nationality) but speak Swedish?
      - Sharlin 13y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_Swedish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_Swedish
deleted 13y ago

neuroscr 13y ago

Props to the replies. His team there are responsible professionals. Any one could have stopped after the first took the blame but they all stepped up and this is how it's supposed to work. Hopefully Linus won't rip their heads off =]

foobarbazqux 13y ago

What I don't understand about Linus Torvalds is why everybody is so quick to justify and forgive what is obviously emotional abuse. If he was shooting people that submitted buggy patches, would you say that was awesome? Obviously not. How is a less violent form of abuse suddenly great? Lots of shitty solutions are highly effective. Relying on them is the lazy and uncaring way of dealing with your fellow humans.

zby 13y ago
Sometimes you need to escalate the consequences - otherwise groups just fall apart. It is not easy to lead a group. I used to be the object of similar attacks by a leader that I believe were unjust (because I believe that technically I was right) - but I still think that leaders sometimes have to use this power.
lloeki 13y ago
How do you expect one's boss in a startup/enterprise to behave if one: - pushed some code that fired warnings all over the place and made the CI server go red on the main platform used out there - developed said code in vague hopes that it is somehow useful, yet is admittedly "probably not" straight in the commit comment hence time was 1. developer wasted time 2. team wasted time 3. boss wasted time I'd expect 2 and 3 to be quite angry, and ultimately 1 to be angry at himself for having wasted everyone's time.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  It's possible to express anger without being abusive. It is definitely harder to do this.
  - Marwy 13y ago
    Can you give some examples?
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      So based on the above case, something like: "Your commit broke the build because it contained something you knew was probably not okay. This is costing us money because it wastes everyone's time. If you do it again I'm going to have to revoke some privileges, because it's my responsibility as CEO to keep us afloat. Is there anything I don't understand about what happened so we can prevent this from happening again?" This is hypothetical of course, a less severe response may be called for, and obviously it would be more of a conversation. It isn't nice and friendly, but it isn't abusive either.

zalew 13y ago

On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle If you want to talk cultural sensitivity, I'll join you. But my culture includes cursing. http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2 tldr: deal with it.

otterley 13y ago
I hope he doesn't talk to his children that way.
- antocv 13y ago
  Wont somebody please think of the children!
- tankenmate 13y ago
  No, but his children's friends swear like troopers when the adults aren't around.

krakensden 13y ago

Are we going to do this every time now?

bowerbird 13y ago

i would guess somebody sensed that linus had built up too much steam -- it happens to the best of us -- so they gave him a great reason to blow his stack and clear the air... and they all got a good laugh with it. yep, that's what i would guess... :+) -bowerbird

dschiptsov 13y ago

And it works.) Actually, so-called polite-correctness is exaggerated. Of course, it is unacceptable to, say, constantly remind a person with some disability that he is somehow handicapped, comparing to other - he knows it perfectly well. But there is nothing wrong to point out to a healthy adult, who act like an idiot that he acts like an idiot - it is just an observation of what is.) In case of a collaborative project, where an act of negligence or lack of attention could cause an unpleasant difficulties, such tactic is quite efficient, especially when you just cannot code-review everything. Actually, it could be called a culture. Almost every, say, "primitive" community is using the tactics of mocking and languagely abusing each other to, so to speak, stay in a shape. A military unit or criminal gang are canonical examples.) Of course, some constructive feedback must be given, otherwise this would be regarded as offence and severely punished. Psychology of lower classes isn't that sophisticated, and the methods they use are primitive but efficient to some extent. One could use /b/ as a working model.)

kamaal 13y ago

Abuse, swearing and provoking people(using stuff like taunts, shouting on them, publicly humiliating them, challenging them etc) to get some thing done never works. The only reason why its working for him, is his fame. And even that won't be put up by any guy who has problems giving away his self esteem. Around 3 years back I worked under two very technically brilliant people, but their biggest problem was just the kind of stuff you see here. I remember the entire team would change every 6 months. The team was supposed to be some kind of an elite hand picked team from within the whole company, as they were supposed to focus on big revenue based projects. But I saw some awesome people, leave every 3-6 months of joining just because it was impossible to work with those two people. 'Do you know how he behaved yesterday with person X' kind of lunch/coffee table discussions were simply too common. I recently happened to meet a guy who just left that team. He recalled the impossibility of working with those two people. Something that we both noticed, those two haven't seem to have anything substantial in the past decade. Almost any project that they touch crashes and burns and ever never proceeds anywhere beyond 30-50% mark. The thing is plain and simple. You have no rights to behave that way with anyone(No matter who you are). Secondly, anybody who is good has no reason to put up with you, Why should they? So the net-net is these are team destroying activities. If you are good, and then that is that. What can you do without a team in software these days? Never resort to a impolite public engagement. Your best bet is to be calm(even in case of a big goof up) take the person to a room and explain to him the seriousness of his mistake and help him avoid making such mistakes in the future.

mercer 13y ago
I think it depends. I'm inclined to agree with Linus' approach, but I'll just argue that sometimes "abuse, swearing and provoking people" is the best approach. Some of the best lessons I learned was being chewed out by a manager. The magnitude of my stupidity or fuck-up would simply not have sunken in even if this manager had been factual and direct, without chewing me out. The same goes for my youth. I remember some lessons mostly because they involved my father yelling at me. I recall very few lessons where he sat me down and provided a detailed, factual argument of why I was being a dumb-ass. I don't get the impression that, in growing up, our ability to assess magnitudes of failure by factual analysis of the situation has improved enough to render 'chewing-out' pointless.

pupppet 13y ago

I'd be interested in seeing how many people here giving Linus a free pass were just fine with sweaty Ballmer throwing chairs. That's just his personality and it works because MS makes billions, right?