36 ms·

Linus on "acting professionally"

• davorak 13y ago
  A good quote from Linus in the link is: > So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other. One method of getting people to work together despite people being different is to get everyone to agree to a standard communication protocol when dealing with each other. This is often consider getting everyone to act professionally and in many/most organizations the standard of conduct is enforced from the top down. It can be enforced from the top down because the people at the top can provide the right mix of incentives and can cull those who do not conform. In most volunteer communities it can be difficult/undesirable to enforce a detailed/strict code of conduct. It can limit your access to volunteers and is one more hurdle to joining the organization. Think of how much sales/conversions can drop if a user has to click through one more screen or is required to click one more confirmation, now add on top of that the user is trying to volunteer, an action which is more complex if not more costly then a simple purchase. It would be interesting to quantify the codes of conduct(how they are enforced not written) from different web forums and correlate it with member growth, retention, and level of interaction. So in a diverse volunteer community it seems advantageous to first encourage members to be generous of what they accept before encouraging them to be careful with what they share.
• aymeric 13y ago
  I find his answer very reasonable (although I also found some of his past answers quite harsh).
  • lacion 13y ago
    i don't think sugar coating the world will make it less harsh.
    • Ygg2 13y ago
      Yes it would. Aggressive behavior begets more and more aggressive behavior. E.g. if you punch things to make you feel better when you are in a bad mood, you are more likely to punch people/things when you are in a bad mood (in fact it has an addictive quality).
      • vacri 13y ago
        Repression is also bad. Moderation is key.
        • Ygg2 13y ago
          I never said repression is bad, but this isn't a singular time he was verbally abusive.
          • vacri 13y ago
            Not particularly suprising, since he's spent over twenty years in constant communication with people, something that very few other technocrats can boast.
  • claudius 13y ago
    Sure, some answers are harsh, some are nicer, but as long as they get the job done, I don’t see a reason why one would want to complain about a ‘harsh’ answer – the world is not wrapped in friendly gift wrap and if you do something stupid, people are absolutely allowed to call you out on it without the unnecessary boilerplate in particular Angloamericans are so fond of using. Short is good, harsh is not a problem, if short means harsh, so be it.
    • aymeric 13y ago
      Because "Short" and "nice" works too.
    • lazyjones 13y ago
      > if you do something stupid, people are absolutely allowed to call you out on it The problem with cultural differences is that the effect of this might be not the intended one: the person you shouted at will consider you rude and as someone to avoid instead of reflecting on their actions and trying harder the next time. So it's not really smart to act like this, even if you feel it's "natural". You need to be someone important to be able to afford it and Linus (still) is.
      • claudius 13y ago
        > The problem with cultural differences is that the effect of this might be not the intended one ‘Be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send’ has two clauses for a reason, namely that trying to gauge the effect of what one says on every possible group will fail. Sure, someone you tell ‘no, this is utter crap, go back and fix it’ might find that rude and will never talk to you again, but on the other hand, someone might understand ‘this could be improved here and there and maybe you could change that’ as ‘oh, that’s fine apart from some trivialities’. > You need to be someone important to be able to afford it and Linus (still) is. I wouldn’t say you need to be someone important, you just have to be in a position where you don’t have to care about possibly maybe hurting the delicate feelings of the other person.
  • lazyjones 13y ago
    I agree mostly, but I'm still wondering what kind of natural urges he is suppressing that he has to curse like that.
    • coldtea 13y ago
      The natural urge to hit the idiot he's talking to on the head with a baseball bat of course.
      • acqq 13y ago
        He's lucky he grew up in older times and outside US: http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Texas-teen-charged-with-making-terroristic-threat-after-online-joke-212931111.html http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Texas-teen-charged-with-... "Texas teen charged with making terroristic threat after online joke" Careful with baseball bats here! Whatever we consider it, the "online world" became bigger and started to be less tolerant for friend-between-friend exploring of "who can think of something nastier."
    • pasiaj 13y ago
      Huh? The whole point is that he is not suppressing the urges. When he feels frustrated, he might add a "fuck" or "shit" to convey that feeling. You, on the other hand, did not agree to something, felt mad or frustrated, and instead of conveying that frustration you snidely suggested that that he must be suppressing some "natural urges". Violent? Homosexual? From whose subconscious did those arise from? Not Linuses? (See what I did there? What kind of urges might _I_ be suppressing?) All in all: I find your reply to be a perfect example of what Linus is trying to avoid ("fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, _the passive aggressiveness_, and the buzzwords")
      • lazyjones 13y ago
        > The whole point is that he is not suppressing the urges. Freud would disagree and so do I. > you snidely suggested that that he must be suppressing some "natural urges" Same thing Linus did in the last paragraph. :-/ > your reply to be a perfect example of what Linus is trying to avoid ("fake politeness[...]" That makes no sense. I am just trying to analyze and understand his behavior. There's no emotion involved at all.
• reirob 13y ago
  I like Linus - he has character, style and he fights to stay himself no matter how often people want him to change. Some quotes I liked: So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other. 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.
  • skriticos2 13y ago
    I also work in a big office environment in a large company and I tend to agree with Linus. We get all this professional outsorcing and offshoring and use tech that was new in the flower power generation. It's all done very professionally and it results in mind-bogging stupidity. Every single day.
• ealexhudson 13y ago
  Linus is dead wrong here. When he says acting professionally means "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords", he's attacking a straw man: none of that behaviour is professional, and to say that professional behaviour must degenerate to that behaviour is a stretch at best. Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a la LKML) or covert (passive). Lying is not warranted under any circumstance. Being professional means not calling people names. All of this stuff is what you get taught in kindergarten, it's not rocket science. Mental abuse is no better than physical abuse, and given I don't buy that hitting developers with sticks makes them "better" somehow I'm also not going to buy into clue-by-four beatings being any better.
  • hannibal5 13y ago
    About professionalism. Have you ever been meetings filled with vice presidents when somebody screws up. What Linus does in mailing list is very mild compared to how CEO's behave in competitive business. Rest assured, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs treated their lieutenants much worse. https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/407 https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/407 " I really fundamentally believe that being honest and open about your emotions about core/process is good. And because it's damn hard to read people over email, I think you need to be more honest and more open over email. I'm generally nicer in person. Not always."
  • seivan 13y ago
    That's what it ends up being. Also way to go to ignore all the other arguments he made, before talking about office politics, it seems like you just skipped to the end.
    • ealexhudson 13y ago
      No, I didn't just skip to the end: I pointed out that his version of "acting professionally" doesn't match any I recognise. There's no point engaging in arguments over a straw man.
  • Ygg2 13y ago
    Just gonna post these two gems I found at a previous thread about Linus (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6050443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6050443): http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=44291653 http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442916... http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=44290909 http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442909... To me Linus is kinda like Wagner, I do like and enjoy his work, but as a person he is not someone I'd aspire to emulate.
• sz4kerto 13y ago
  The reason why Linus (or anybody else) might want to act 'professionally' (or nicely, whatever) is because some people feel bad when they are shouted at. It's completely valid to argue that shouting is just a culturally different, but acceptable way of expressing one's thoughts but then you need to be aware that you'll potentially lose people who just simply hate this form of communication. So this discussion is not about whether shouting and cursing is morally acceptable or not. It's about who's going to make compromises, who's able to make compromises and who are we going to lose in the process. What Sarah (probably) implicitly says is 'I hate this, and I don't want to work in an environment like this - and there might be other people who feel the same'. If Linus thinks that he cannot work in a different way then (because he's pretty important for Linux) probably Sarah is going to be sacrificed in some way. That might be all right, but again: this is not a moral issue.
  • jonahx 13y ago
    >because some people feel bad when they are shouted at. while people tolerate it at different levels, the phrase "some people" is misleading: almost nobody likes to be shouted at, or even feels neutral about it. >It's completely valid to argue that shouting is just a culturally different, but acceptable way of expressing one's thoughts but then you need to be aware that you'll potentially lose people who just simply hate this form of communication. this is true, but it's worth noting the same logical argument applies to physically hitting someone. and indeed, in other times and other cultures this was and is acceptable. and whenever those social norms have changed, there are people making what is essentially the same argument linus is making (just substituting "hitting" for "yelling").
    • nawitus 13y ago
      >while people tolerate it at different levels, the phrase "some people" is misleading: almost nobody likes to be shouted at, or even feels neutral about it. Well, most people don't like criticism either, even when it's constructive. Some things are necessary even if people dislike them, but I don't think shouting is like that.
  • derefr 13y ago
• yuvadam 13y ago
  Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Amarc.info%2F%3Fl%3Dlinux-kernel%26m%3D137392506516022%26w%3D2 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%...
• oellegaard 13y ago
  Ugh, mailing lists. I wonder why so smart people as Linus doesn't invent something thats slightly more comfortable to use. Maybe they just like to be left alone, without interference from mortals.
  • eyko 13y ago
    What's uncomfortable about email?
    • oellegaard 13y ago
      I don't think email is a good format for long discussions. Also, the page linked doesn't make it better.
  • Dylan16807 13y ago
    A mailing list is threaded comments just like HN. Are you criticizing the page style of a particular list viewer or do you find HN equally uncomfortable?
• D9u 13y ago
  All I can think of is when Linus said told Nvidia "F... you!" and flipped the bird. http://youtu.be/IVpOyKCNZYw http://youtu.be/IVpOyKCNZYw This isn't just an isolated incident either, but I'm no shining example of acting professionally.
• martin-adams 13y ago
  >> Because I can pretty much guarantee that I'll continue cursing. To me, the discussion would be about how to work together despite these kinds of cultural differences So if I get this right, we just need a Linus communication adapter that can translate messages so they are compatible with either side. Does that mean when someone talks to Linus it should add swear words to be compatible with him? :) I see his point, but it comes at a cost. People may start trying to work around him for fear of backlash rather than working with him. Or worse, just not try at all. We can only trust his technique has a greater net benefit.
  • derefr 13y ago
    Reminds me of the discussion of the difference between Ask and Guess cultures (http://lesswrong.com/lw/375/ask_and_guess/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/375/ask_and_guess/).
  • nawitus 13y ago
    >Does that mean when someone talks to Linus it should add swear words to be compatible with him? :) I wonder if anyone has called Linus 'fucking stupid' (etc.) on the mailing lists, and how Linus reacted.
• sixbrx 13y ago
  In a long term relationship, I don't like subtlety and politeness. It just leads to emotional amplification on the receiver side - the receiver just learns to "turn up the volume" on anything said to try find the true signal. (Was that praise just a bit faint this time, hiding some kind of displeasure with my work? What was that slight smile about?) Some of the most offensive put-downs come as faint praise from people who are just so convinced that they're always reasonable to the nth degree. I'd rather someone come out flailing so I can defend myself and my work, with both of us being wrong (and open about it) from time to time so it's not something unusual or noteworthy.
  • boothead 13y ago
    Interesting view point. I'd never really considered the turn up the volume effect being the flip side of being subtle with people, but I think you're spot on!
  • CrLf 13y ago
    I fully agree. Some people call this being transparent. Let people see what you really feel, and let them be sure that when they see your approval, they can be damn sure you are really approving and not just faking it. Now, there is a difference between being transparent or honest and being aggressive or rude, and I don't approve of the latter. But that interpretation depends on the people involved and their relationship: what may be considered rude by a third party or someone from a different culture, may be considered normal and acceptable by the ones involved. If you would take offense by something that you say/said to others, they you are being rude. Otherwise, you are being honest. Pretty simple rule. But sometimes people are just so used to politically correct (faked) behavior that they take transparency for rudeness, and honesty for impoliteness.
• flog 13y ago
  There's a big difference between tolerance and respect. The two have become blurred in modern society. Respect is the higher goal.
• jakobe 13y ago
  Torvalds seems to be a real bully. And it hurts me to see all these responses justifying his behaviour, as if this is the way it must be. Just look at this message: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1TUvG3J3JHkJ:marc.info/%3Fl%3Dlinux-kernel%26m%3D135628421403144%26w%3D2+http://marc.info/%3Fl%3Dlinux-kernel%26m%3D135628421403144%26w%3D2&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1TUvG3J... There is no justification for this kind of behaviour. If anybody else behaved this way, they would be sent to a psychiatrist. But apparently since it's Linus Torvalds, he's just being a little "harsh" and that's necessary to get his point across.
  • vacri 13y ago
    Another example of "he's not being polite, why can't be be polite, now I'm going to call him names", in this case, saying that he's mentally disturbed. Why is it that so many people demanding politeness of Torvalds can't live by their own rules? Perhaps what Torvalds is saying is true, that people will find ways around the 'false rules'.
    • jakobe 13y ago
      I did not mean to call Torvalds names. Apparently I wasn't careful enough in my wording. I meant to express my frustration how the community often accepts socially inacceptable behaviour from accomplished people. When "normal" people fall into a rage, we tell them to learn coping with their anger. If they keep yelling angrily at people, we might even suggest they see a psychiatrist. Not as an insult, but because we sincerely believe that they could maybe learn some coping strategies to get along better with other people. But for some people the rules are different. When someone complains that Steve Jobs verbally abused his employees, or when someone complains that Linus Torvalds uses unnecessary profanity, a lot of people start to justify this behaviour. They claim it is necessary for their success, etc.
      • vacri 13y ago
        Torvalds is not 'falling into a rage', he's venting, and doing it in a controlled manner, as a ton of people do. He also doesn't 'keep yelling angrily' - it only appears that way because the only comments of his that get publicised are the fruity ones. I remember one of this 'Linus Swore!' threads on HN a while back, linking to a comment of Torvalds' that had little in it but anger... presented out of context. I went back and had a look, and it was in a bug thread where it was around comment 120. Up to that point, most of his comments (about 10% of the thread) were informative and trying to explain the issue to the recipient of his eventual ire, who obstinately refused to give way. That Torvalds had spent a dozen patient comments was not advertised... only the one with his final anger. This is why these threads fire passion in me despite not being a kernel dev myself, because there is clear and constant misrepresentation of who he is and how he operates.
• k-mcgrady 13y ago
  His last paragraph sums it up perfectly. When people hide behind false politeness and act passive aggressively they tend to let someone else know about their frustrations which leads to rumours, backstabbing etc. It's also important to remember that tone doesn't come across well online so you shouldn't overreact to what you're reading. If someone curses online you could read it very aggressively. But if you were to hear them speak it it might seem much less threatening and aggressive and most or a speech pattern/way of phrasing things/way of making a point.
• Fuxy 13y ago
  I like this guy more and more every time i read some of his comments. I agree acting professional is not healthy for a real social interaction and you need real social interactions when you're building a collaborative system like Linux. The only time i act professional is when somebody pissed me off and I'm not in a position to tell him he's a moron without being fired or otherwise get into trouble.
• andyhmltn 13y ago
  I think he is correct. If you censor yourself in order to act 'nice' and 'polite' then you won't be able to put across the points you could've before. Anyway: just because you act nice and act like you like somebody, doesn't mean you do. I would much rather a person called me out on my bullshit than them politely skirting around the issue in an attempt to make me feel better and protect my feelings. I personally have no experience writing kernel code, but I can imagine it's incredibly important that you get things right. So then if getting cursed at means you won't fuck up as often and learn from your mistake, then it works.
• jdietrich 13y ago
  You don't get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional. He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years. However he decides to get that done is his business. Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team. There's nothing stopping anyone from mounting a coup d'etat. Anyone can fork the kernel, build a team of developers and usurp Linus. They'll struggle to build that team, because Linus is deeply trusted with the stewardship of the kernel, in no small part because of his "unprofessional" behaviour.
  • smtddr 13y ago
    So, basically your position is "If you don't like it, get out". I'm not sure this view is productive in any kind of discussion. Personally, I think the amount of abusive speech & profanity in the tech-field is way too much. I assume(incorrectly?) that it's because it's mostly male and a lot of men like to do that to each other. I personally don't do it to anyone and don't like it being directed at me.
    • fosap 13y ago
      And that is the concept of the "benevolent dictator". If he is a dick, incompetent or does technical stuff you don't like, fork. IMO the best way to run FOSS project, but of course there are others.
      • meowface 13y ago
        Agreed. It's quite easy for an open source project to just waddle around and start blindly accepting things random developers contribute with no real decision or filtering process (cough PHP). They may verify the code's not buggy or that it at least does something that could be of use to someone, but they generally don't care if it fits in with the overall design and goals of the project. Having someone who has the complete vision in his head, who's also extremely technical and knows what changes are good and bad, is absolutely invaluable.
      • deleted 13y ago
• CrLf 13y ago
  http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137390362508794&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137390362508794&w=2 This is the start of the thread. It is pretty obvious that no one is being serious about actual violence. It's just banter. Harmless (and not at all unhealty) banter. The type of communication in the LKML has always been straight to the point and without unnecessary diplomacy. Sometimes it reads as assertiveness, sometimes it reads as rudeness. The point is that it works. Every community has its "rules". Those rules are made by its members, all its members. If you disagree, act differently. If you are right and the others are wrong, they will follow you. Asking for "professional behavior" when others are just acting normally is whining for politically correctness, which is pretty annoying and a sure way to not change anything.
  • temphn 13y ago
    Yeah, that's very useful context. Sarah Sharp is not Linus. She doesn't get to to dictate the tone of the mailing list, and was obviously trying to publicly shame/attack Linus. One doesn't have to endorse Linus' management strategy to grant that (a) it works and (b) it works without Sarah Sharp's input.
    • jvdh 13y ago
      The fact that it works does not mean that it can't be improved. And a context that scares people off is not one that I would say "works".
      • CrLf 13y ago
        But it's debatable that it actually scares anyone off... This is not about grinding newcomers to the LKML, this is about the type of communication between people that have known each other for quite some time, and are well aware of each other's technical "sensibilities". True, the LKML is also known to be a bit harsh to newcomers. But only in a sense that newcomers are often unaware of the high technical standards that the kernel abides to, and often resent the level of criticism or suggestions for change that they receive.
• Karn 13y ago
  I'm glad Linus isn't budging on this one. As soon as you start considering how not to hurt someone's feelings, you're putting speed bumps in the paths of your thoughts. If something is fucking stupid, then someone needs to say exactly that, not "That's a good idea, but it seems to me and my mealy mouth that such and such may be another way of doing it...?" The fact that the hacker community is full of mean gits is no coincidence. Let's consider where the opposite type of people (the ones who'll smile charmingly while stabbing you in the back) congregate - HR, PR, management, politics - all fields where creativity is less important than manipulativeness. I'll take a brutally honest genius over a charming "socially intelligent" liar any day.
  • groby_b 13y ago
    There's nothing wrong with "That's a really bad idea, and here's why". There's everything wrong with "THAT IDEA IS FUCKING STUPID. YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT". Do you really think the only way to communicate a mistake is like this: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 ? And Linus is perfectly capable of giving a more reasoned response while still being direct: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/99 https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/99 (same thread, Linus' reply to a reasoned response from yelled at developer) Still pretty direct, but gone are the insults. Nobody has been asking for a sugar coating, but simply for Linus to stop being personally abusive. Yes, people make mistakes. Really stupid mistakes. But if you think they're idiots, don't accept their contributions. If you don't think they're idiots, why call them that just because you can't control your anger?
    • Karn 13y ago
      And here we see the pitfalls of fuzzy thinking. There is all the difference between "that's a stupid idea" and "you're an idiot."
  • thejsjunky 13y ago
    > you're putting speed bumps in the paths of your thoughts. I would argue that for many of the people I have met in my life, this would be a good thing. I don't we need to coddle each other all the time, but neither is the opposite workable or desirable - a little consideration is important.
• professee 13y ago
  It figures a top voted comment on Hacker News is that Linus is wrong and we should all hold hands and sing camp songs. There are tons of useful discussions that simply don't happen on HN because anybody with an actual strong opinion gets helbanned. For instance Google's Go language is lauded here because of fake politeness, but almost universally dismissed elsewhere. This discussion has already achieved its real goal: to put "Linus Torvalds" and "Sarah" in the same sentence; this is the bullshit politics Linus talks about.
  • camus 13y ago
    > For instance Google's Go language is lauded here because of fake politeness, that's called "political correctness". I thought HN was about "disruption"... And yes , here you cant critize GO or suffer the consequences ;)
  • lnanek2 13y ago
    Haha, agreed. I see two "dead" comments above you invisible to most people that are actually very valuable and pointing out that Finland where Linus started is not like America in regards to PC and honesty. I think HN is lessened by banning people who just have different or brutally honest opinions. They should save banning for spammers/trolls/people intentionally disrupting the discussion or lying, etc., but I see people ghosted all the time who are not that.
  • Karn 13y ago
    Correct on all counts. People need to realise that smart people tend to have short tempers because they've encountered the same idiocy many, many times; the first few times they may have explained patiently but after a while it begins to get wearisome. People with precious, precious feelings should stay away. "The entire principle is wrong: it's like insisting that adults live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak." - Heinlein
• mortdeus 13y ago
  The only professionals in this business are the people who are coding while everybody else is typing words that dont compile.
  • marketdouche 13y ago
    Buddy, your in the wrong place to make spot on observations. Expect to be downvoted by the "marketing hackers"...
• droob 13y ago
  This is the nerd equivalent of "MAN UP, BRO." It's not how grownups deal with each other.
• nilved 13y ago
  The most interesting thing about this post is that, were it not Linus, this comments page would be full of people calling him out.
  • Gigablah 13y ago
    Were it not Linus, nobody would bat an eyelid, because it's the "internet". Heck, just look at some of the comments here, they're not full of capitalized swear words yet they manage to be more nasty and hurtful than Linus was.
• officemonkey 13y ago
  Linus gets to do what he wants to do because he was extraordinarily successful in his field from a very young age. In other words, he's spoiled. If he had to "work for a living," ie: work in a job he needed, rather than a job he wanted, he would likely have had a job which enforced behavioral norms. He probably wouldn't have been as happy, but he likely would more polite. One of the things schools do is to socialize us to maintain civility. This only works for some people. It's clear to me that Linus is rather incapable of realizing he's being a douche, and even if he does realize it, he's not interested in changing for other people. And since it's Linus' sandbox, you either deal with it or go home. However, the main point of his argument is valid. People are different and we should align ourselves with people that support our preferred way of working. If you can't work with Linus directly because he's a douche, then you better find an insulating support structure, or find another project.
  • vacri 13y ago
    And yet another comment chiding Torvalds for not maintaining civility... while insulting him ('being a douche'). You talk about being 'incapable of realising' - perhaps review your own comment.
    • rtpg 13y ago
      isn't any form of criticism an insult? Plus we're talking about Torvald's attitude, hard to avoid personal attacks when we're talking about the person himself.
      • vacri 13y ago
        Not at all. Constructive criticism isn't insulting by definition. Calling someone a douche isn't constructive criticism. And there's a difference between attacking a person and attacking the actions - and look at what Torvalds does. Even his famous "shut the fuck up Mauro" comment is telling Mauro that his behaviour is inappropriate. He's not saying 'Mauro, you are a douche' directly insulting the guy, he's saying "I'm angry with you because you're breaking our tenets", talking about his actions and behaviour, and he even finishes up with expecting Mauro to fix the technical issue - a tacit acknowledgment of capability.
• Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
  People seem to be mistaken about why most teams accept certain standards. It's not about artificial politeness, it's about trying to get the best out of the team. Not shouting people down is good because it means that people who are more reserved but who have valuable things to add get their say. Not calling people stupid is good because generally people working on a project such as this aren't stupid and you're missing a chance to find out what really went wrong (misunderstanding, miscommunication or whatever). Even if what they have said IS stupid, not abusing people for mistakes is good because abuse is a sub-optimal way of teaching. Yes modern organisations have taken much of this too far and ended up as insincere, inefficient behemoths, but some of the standards within the community seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water and taking almost gleeful pride in doing so.
• enterx 13y ago
  argv & argc! :)
• loginalready 13y ago
  Besides Linus' very personal opinion, this, and the discussion here on HN, once again highlights a major cultural difference between the US and most of the rest of the world in two areas: (bad) language and legal liability. In the area of language, Americans in general seem to way more sensitive to "bad" language than most other (at least Western) cultures. As far as legal liability is concerned, it seems to me that the US has gone completely overboard in banning normal human interaction that might lead to undesirable consequences from professional environments in order to avoid legal issues. In both cases, the term "professional" is used as a euphemism for "enforced conformity". And I agree with Linus, this "acting" professional (and "acting" is exactly what it is, not "being" professional), leads to repressing normal human interaction which then expresses itself in much more damaging and underhanded ways.
• vacri 13y ago
  I think that there is something of a mismatch in taking the contents of a private email public to complain about them, then complaining about a lack of professionalism on the part of the other person.
• escapedmonkey 13y ago
  I have very few code projects that I really truly feel passionate about. In my opinion Linus' violent reactions stems the fact that he truly cares about his product. These violent outburst kinda proofs my point. A tech lead that cares about the product will of course get mad when other messes with their "baby". I myself at times have "lost-it" like that but only when I truly cared about the code. The stability of the Linux kernel is a direct result of this kind of passion. Like it or not the proof is in the pudding.
• siscia 13y ago
  I agree completely with Linus, what he is saying is simple: people are different and they behave in different ways; you cannot force anybody to behave in a way that don't belong to him/her. Then is raising the point: "How we manage a team of different people who need to interact each other ?" It is not "if you don't like get out", it is more something like: "I know why you don't like, you don't like because you are expecting thing that you should not expect, so change your expectation." Then him is using a very powerful language, maybe too powerful for a public mail list, but again is just the way Linus is, so get mad for it simply means to don't have understand a single word of his speech.
• dirktheman 13y ago
  Making a private conversation/quarrel public like this isn't exactly 'professional' either...
• coldcode 13y ago
  Linus can do whatever he wants because of what he does and how good he is at it. I'm just glad I don't have to work with him. It's possible to be honest and truthful and not be an asshole about it. It's just not possible for him.
• scrrr 13y ago
  I'd rather have my feelings hurt in exchange for an honest opinion than to hear worthless words that sound nice. Always. And I'd always prefer a competent asshole boss to a friendly guy that doesn't know how to do his job. Personally, I think too much niceness and, by extension, political correctness is bad for honesty, truth, effectiveness and, ultimately, for culture. The culture in the office and the culture as a whole. We shouldn't expect to go through life with everyone being nice all the time. It's not realistic. Tough love is good. I don't want to live in an environment of friendly bullshit. And thus I am happy that Linus is the way he is. A very accomplished man that doesn't care about your precious political correctness. (I assume Steve Jobs was similar in that regard.)
  • subsection1h 13y ago
    I'd rather have my feelings hurt in exchange for an honest opinion than to hear worthless words that sound nice. False dichotomy. And I'd always prefer a competent asshole boss to a friendly guy that doesn't know how to do his job. False dichotomy.
  • goblin89 13y ago
    I agree, but with a reservation that personalities are different. Someone less sociable (like me) may even confuse extensively sugar-coated criticism for an approval. Those more sophisticated and well-versed in politics would see right through it—and direct criticism may sound insulting to them. (I believe the latter kind isn't very common among programmer folk, but still.) IMO it's important that a person can position themselves in a company so that they mostly communicate with colleagues who share communication style. Anyway, Linus is known for his personality even outside Linux kernel development team, so I wonder whether this issue is blown out of proportion.
• hoodoof 13y ago
  Each to his own. I wouldn't behave the way he does but I sure do respect that he stands up for what he thinks is right.
• Vornir 13y ago
  I know now what I could tell to a young nerd who's been bullied: Don't worry, later you'll be able to do the same I guess it's a great example for young peoples that you can get away with any despicable behaviors as long as you have done something worthwhile in your life. People are then able to rationalize that by saying it was "warranted" or "thought provoking" or any garbage they can find to justify it, because somehow that person is in their "tribe". Yes it's more efficient to say "I don't like that because X, Y or Z, change that." than "I don't like that because X, Y or Z, CHANGE THAT PIECE OF SHIT". Otherwise, you're implying that without swear words, Linus wouldn't have any power over the kernel. Ridiculous isn't it?
  • pivnicek 13y ago
    No, it's not ridiculous. If building a bridge were the context, and someone built a piece that would collapse the bridge, I'd fully expect any foreman to say "What the fuck is that?" "That is shit". And I'd fully expect any worker to say "Yeah, damn, you're right, that was stupid. Cheers, I'll fix that" People didn't start building stuff in the digital era., It's the same principles. I hope to hell all crap gets called out, otherwise we're in a position where the bridge builders "meant well", and I wouldn't want to cross a river over such a bridge.
    • Vornir 13y ago
      You still haven't proved it's more efficient, here for example is a study[0] showing that self-blame is counter-productive. Also, your example is actually a good example of why this technique is not only inefficient, but morally and ethically wrong, because if a single worker can destroy a bridge, then there is a couple of engineers that didn't do their jobs correctly. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886910000474?np=y https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...
    • tjr 13y ago
      My grandfather supervised the construction of bridges. I cannot imagine him using such words, though he also would not have knowingly allowed faulty workmanship to be done.
• shubb 13y ago
  Agreement not to be nasty to people mostly protects people in a weak position. It's a long time since that has been Linus, so it's not surprising he's forgotten the merits of it. Say 'Sarah Sharp' was hired by her company as a kernel developer. She knows that, if she makes a commit and Linus doesn't like it, he will write up what she has done like it was terrible (rather than slightly careless, or even just different from how he'd do it), and her boss will doubt her competence. Twice, three times, appears on google when he searches for her name... maybe she'll need a new employer... So Sarah can either throw away her Linux expertise, and go work on BSD for way less money, or live in fear of Linus. Personally, I don't like living in fear. But presumably, she likes renting a house for her kids to live in. So there is nothing she can do except wake up in the night, unable to sleep until she checks the mailing list one last time. I'm sure Linus doesn't care if she cusses at him. His worst case isn't homelessness.
  • CrLf 13y ago
    That's a totally ludicrous argument. There are plenty of assholes in the open source world, some of them are even at the helm of pretty significant projects. Linus, however, does not seem to be one of them, merely for the fact that his "abuse" seems to always be accompanied by very strong arguments based on actual facts. You are suggesting that getting a shake down from Linus is a bad thing. Well, only if you have no arguments of your own to stand upon. Otherwise, it benefits you to even have an argument with Linus (even if you end up on the wrong side - which isn't guaranteed to always be the case).
    • shubb 13y ago
      >That's a totally ludicrous argument. In hindsight yeah. The catastrophic 'could be homeless' stuff was deliberate, and I thought it was a good idea at the time, but it's not realistic. In tech, things are made by teams, and some people have a lot of power over others. If the others are young, they might be more vulnerable because they would find it harder to up and get work elsewhere, and because they haven't developed belief in their skills yet. I don't really care about Linus and Sarah. But having been on the wrong end of a dysfunctional senior the odd time, stopping bullying in the workplace is important for productivity and making going to work a nice thing.
• gadders 13y ago
  See, the danger with Linus, and to a similar extent Steve Jobs, is that you will now get a bunch of mediocre developers or managers believing that the best way to get stuff done is to act like an arsehole. It worked for those two. There are probably a few other people in history it has worked for as well (Patton?). You are not them. If you treat people badly it will bite you in the arse.
• rachelbythebay 13y ago
  I only have one Linus story. Way back in 2007, he was supposed to come and give a talk on git. I had to do an on-site interview with a candidate immediately beforehand, but managed to get it done and got there in time to see the talk start. I had never seen him in person and figured it might be interesting, particularly since I had actually used git on some projects prior to that point. This wound up being recorded, and it's online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 I think I lasted ten minutes and left after deciding it was too much. There was enough of that kind of energy going around already to willingly sit there and take in more. Besides, I had an interview to write up.
  • lucb1e 13y ago
    I lasted eight minutes watching the video. He just rambles about how screwed everything is and how right he is.
  • jeltz 13y ago
    Interesting how different people can see the same thing. To me Linus seems to be mostly pleasant during that talk and to the point. I have heard ranty talks and this is not one of them. I assume it must be cultural difference, since I also checked with my colleagues and they do not think Linus was rude either during that talk.
  • qwerta 13y ago
    You would see it differently, if you would know CVS :-)
• tls 13y ago
  this did not need to be aired out infront of anyone - just like theo handles his business, let linus handle his how he wants. maybe theo rubbed off on him. maybe people like OP can go fuck themselves.
• quizotic 13y ago
  Amusing post! Linus makes a nice point about finding ways to work together without imposing expectations on each other. OTOH, Linus seems to expect that everyone has "names will never hurt me" world view. Most of us can be deeply hurt by the kind of verbal abuse Linus so freely supplies. And why should anyone work with someone who hurts them? Isn't OP's appeal to "professional behavior" exactly the same as Linus' point? Professional behavior is the set of rules the world has evolved to find ways to work together when we're all different. Those rules work statistically well ... except for outliers like Linus. I don't know much about Linus other than his brilliance and his verbal abuse... which reminds me of Bobby Fisher - breathtakingly beautiful chess mind and pathetic garbage heap of a person. I hope Linus is better than that, and suffers from nothing more than anger management and healthy rebelliousness
• scrrr 13y ago
  Video where Linus addresses the subject in response to an audience question (2:50 mins): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZRvHbHxr-k&list=PLAD73BF2CF936A922 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZRvHbHxr-k&list=PLAD73BF2CF9...
• bguthrie 13y ago
  Who cares if he acts professionally or not? But he's certainly not kind, and that counts. Whenever someone talented acts like a dick, take a moment to think of all the talented people in history who managed to remain civil despite their accomplishments. It's a long enough list to matter. No one gets a free pass.
• kisstheblade 13y ago
  This is a cultural thing. In Finland we are more into brutal honesty than fake politeness (although this is sadly changing, we're getting more "american" in this regard). I'm not saying that there isn't a middle road there somewhere which would be better and more effective, but in general actions are more important than words. I like people who say their honest opinion instead of what I want to hear (psychopaths mainly always tell you what you want to hear and are "nice" to you, when it suits them). That way I know that they are serious if they for example tell me "job well done" or something like that. If Linus says that he thinks some work is good or bad then you can actually trust that he means it and isn't just saying so for some "PC" reason or some such.
• whydee 13y ago
  I call bullshit on that entire argument. Assholes will be assholes no matter what the context, and while I don't know Linus personally nor have I worked with him, I can spot his in-defense-of-being-an-asshole argument from a mile away. That's all it is. That entire text can be summarized as "I like to be an asshole sometimes, deal with it or leave". The people who curse and yell and throw angry hissy fits are the exact same people who infuse work environments with the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords when forced to operate in a professional environment. If his self-description really is accurate ("I'm not polite, and I get upset easily"), then telling other people "deal with it" is just an asshole move to do, nothing more nothing less. He could stand to become a better person by figuring out why he gets upset so easily and finding ways to either mitigate or work around that deficiency. Because however effective he may be right now, he would be even more effective then.
• i_c_b 13y ago
  I wish more comments engaged his actual argument. Here, there's a lot of "Torvalds is a jerk and unprofessional" versus "Blunt is good, and screw the PC police talk!" That's not his argument. Torvalds is saying, "Some people think there SHOULD BE a universal 'professionalism' that 'we' can haggle over in the public sphere and then enforce on bystanders in local contexts" and "Other people think there are just local relationships in groups to be negotiated ad hoc in those local contexts." And he works as though the second statement is more credible. Saying "we" should be "professional" is actually assuming a bunch of very contestable propositions from the first word. There absolutely ends up being a bullying component when you invent a broad "we", declare other people to be members of it, and then try to enforce norms on that imagined "we". And I say all this with the caveat that Torvalds is probably too blunt for me. But that doesn't make him wrong.
  • mbrock 13y ago
    That's a good rhetorical play by Torvalds... But the norms of "professionalism" that Sharp is invoking aren't just arbitrary rules. Of course the specific situation on this mailing list is different from a corporate office. But when Linus semi-jokingly says "I'm in my bedroom wearing a bathrobe, why should I be professional?" it sounds to me like he's trying to evade responsibility for his communicative behavior.
• petercooper 13y ago
  If someone pushed their cart in front of him at the grocery store checkout and said "I hate lines. This is just how I roll." I wonder if he'd be OK with this other person's "expectations" of behavior. The argument that acting "professionally" is an act or compromise we must try to avoid is bizarre to me. I dislike compromising over all sorts of things but having manners and not just doing everything or acting in a way your impulses desire is much of what it means to be an adult than an adolescent. Forget the term "professional" even, let's just go with "courtesy" or "having manners." Fake, they may be, but people who act upon negative impulses in public whether sexual, violent, or even just bad language aren't typically going to have a good time.
• columbo 13y ago
  This is another great example of why you can't take successful people and distil them down to their base components and say "ah, this is what made him great!" I believe being a loud-abrasive-dictator works for Linus because he is famous for being a loud-abrasive-dictator. That's not important. What is important is the reader. Let's be clear on a few things #1 - Linus doesn't run a business. He's the kernel admin, he's a popular figure, he manages millions of lines of code. That's an entirely different game than what is necessary to run a small/mid/large business. Comparing the two is an apples-to-hammers comparison. In a business, or small open source project, you have to be willing to deal with what you get. You will make sacrifices, it wont be easy. You might have this great idea but only 2 people are willing to work the occasional weekend on it; are you about to start an email chain calling them all dogshit coders? Linus doesn't have that problem. He's famous for being Linus. You are not famous for being you. #2 - YOU need to know how to be critical and polite. I don't care what Linus gets to do. You as a developer, you as a person who isn't famous, you as someone working in a team must (MUST) learn how to give constructive criticism. "Bob, This isn't up to our quality standards, here's an example (cite)". Easy, no frills, no shit-sandwich, no sugar-coated-political-correct-everyone-holds-hands-and-sings-around-the-campfire filler text. It's clear and it gets straight to the point. Learn how to do this, or fight an uphill battle with diminishing returns. Linus can start a project tomorrow and have a hundred developers working on it, you cannot. #3 - I'd take Linus' opinion on business culture with about the same size of salt as I would when listening to Jonathan Ive's opinion on middle-eastern-politics. Everyone gets to have an opinion on something. I'm sure Tim Cook has an opinion on healthcare, and Bill Gates has an opinion on footwear. This doesn't make them experts on the subject or even any more informed than your average person. They're famous for doing X, listen to their opinions on X, take everything else as amateur opinion. Linus is the kernal admin. I want to know how he manages 15 million lines of code, I want to know how he forks/branches/merges this code, how he handles bugs, how he tests it, and how work is handed out. I want to get his opinion on managing code not managing people. He doesn't deal with payroll, 401ks, employee vacations or benefits, he doesn't care about retention, he cares about code.
  • DanBC 13y ago
    I agree with everything you say. The problem that you don't explicitly mention is that people see Linus behaving this way and feel it's acceptable, and they carry on that behaviour. Some open source environments are toxic and horrible and it's hard to correct that when you have very public figures acting in that toxic horrible way.
• jasonlotito 13y ago
  I think it's fine that Linus act that way in the context that he's in. However, there are far too many people agreeing that his way is the best way in all environments (or at least, in all "professional" environments). The reality is, each context is different. There are times when he's not going to curse at people. When he's not going to act the way he does. Which leads to my point: you shouldn't be using his reasoning to justify your own actions. You are not a kernel developer replying to people on the kernel mailing list (unless you really are =)). The fact that people look up to him and admire him does mean his cursing and attitude does have a harmful impact: people see him doing and use that as qualification for their own attitude. There is also the assumption that professionalism means a lot of negative things. The truth is, it doesn't. Being a professional isn't about office politics (despite what some might want to believe). Professionalism is all about context. To slap a definition to professionalism and assume it applies everywhere equally means you need to accept those defining profanity as abusive everywhere in all context. Basically, if you are using Linus as a justification to allow you to curse or be rude, you are doing it wrong and missing the point. p.s. I should also note that I believe that anything that worth doing well takes effort. And while it's easier to skip being polite all together, I find that it's usually worth the effort. In the end, you spend less time dealing with discussions of profanity, and get to discuss the actual point. Context matters of course, which is why it works on the kernel mailing list, but not in many others.
• gnoway 13y ago
  I think we need to remember that the words and the intent of the words are two different things. If he's just given to rudeness and profanity, that in and of itself is not a big deal. There are plenty of very abrasive people who do good work and aren't trying to hurt anyone. If Linus was out to actually harm people - maybe he is, I don't know - that would be a problem IMO. He's absolutely correct that everyone doesn't have to like and be able to work with everyone. All the people who continue to find ways to complain about his behavior just don't like him. OK. Fork the project. See: OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD for domain examples of what to do when you have personality conflicts in an open source OS project.
• xradionut 13y ago
  If you are a Linux kernel programmer/submitter, you should know the situation by now. You don't have to submit code to Linus as he has stated, you can go through an intermediary. Don't waste his time, that's the most valuable thing he has. As far as professionals cursing, I reckon most of the individuals on HN have never been in the military. There's a fine art of stressing the importance of paying attention to details, which good noncoms and shipmates enforce through creative profanity and rich English. It stress the importance of the situation.
• rfctr 13y ago
  I strongly believe now Linus' mother had an affair in Russia ! (Its only 100 or so kilometers to the border) That kind of working environment: "I openly tell you when you do s--t but I do not hold grudge against you, it is for our mutual benefit" was common in Russian software companies around year 2000. This is largely a part of the culture. It looks like a rudeness for an unprepared Western folks, but in fact it is not -- it is just unwillingness (or lack of proper training) to play games when one can do work instead. I left Russia in 2003, and in the following years got adjusted my ways to be... nice. I work from home in my pijamas too, so I wonder why Linus didn't catch that skill?..
• mkramlich 13y ago
  This is a brilliant piece of writing by Linus. Love it. Rarely seen his points expressed that well.
• jasallen 13y ago
  I actually agree with him on the term "professionalism", and I've come out against the term "maturity" for the same reasons. That said, Linus is a jerk. He says things that are aimed to hurt people. It's one thing to 'not think about it', or to not 'play into the game'. But he goes well beyond that, saying things that are mean and vitriolic. He can get away with it, he's a genius coder, yeah, all true. He's still a jerk.
• DevX101 13y ago
  There is HUGE difference between 'your code sucks' and 'you suck'. I'd argue the former is more effective at addressing the problem at hand, while hearing the latter from someone you respect can be emotionally devastating for some people.
  • Pitarou 13y ago
    But when you say "your code sucks" a lot of people hear "you suck", especially when they've put their heart and soul into it. Still, I think we all know how difficult and time-consuming it can be to deal with people who just "don't get it" and won't listen. If Linus finds that cutting people like that off at the knees is an effective strategy for managing open source projects, who am I to argue with him?
• ksec 13y ago
  I think is it has more to do with Human Interaction, or working as Remote. When I dont see your face, listen to you directly, It is rather hard to understand the importance of something. Especially when they are working on kernel, which is the most critical component. Would Linus have said it loudly in front of hundreds of other Engineers? I would have properly called it verbal abuse. But in real life at least i can rise my voice and tone and shout without having to use a single abusive word.
• pivnicek 13y ago
  He's correct about the cultural aspects. Many cultures value directness in criticism. Why should an open source community be bound by an American ideal of "correct behaviour"?
• skc 13y ago
  I feel the people defending Linus are being a tad hypocritical. I feel as though because you like Linus or Linux, his behavior is effectively being excused. A thought experiment would be to replace "Linus" with someone you don't particularly care for and see if you don't wince just a bit.
  • wnewman 13y ago
    Like? I think it's more nearly that serious programmers tend to be very impressed with Linus's results, and his critics have tried to attack him in ways that don't properly acknowledge that. If a critic had said upfront "I don't much care whether a project can build a useful piece of software, what I care about is that people don't lose their temper" then we'd agree to disagree. But instead the critics seem to be arguing that getting angry interferes with projects working well, for some value of "working well" presumably related to the stated purpose. Linux works awfully well... I kinda like Linus, but I don't particularly care for most sports coaches. I don't follow any spectator sports, but even I know that a nontrivial fraction of highly successful sports coaches lose their temper. I think the people who are arguing for more restraint or care or kabuki wrapped around expression of justified anger should face some burden of proof to show that their way works better, rather than just demanding that organizations be run their way while implying that Linus's way works worse. I think it's very important for a leader to make technical decisions correctly, including the technical decision whether something is screwed up enough to get angry about. (And my strong impression is that Linus is unusually good at this.) I have some preference for leaders trying to be careful and dispassionate and clear about expressing their anger (e.g., full sentences with constructs "this is unacceptable", followed any detail that might be needed to be easily understood). But judging by results, it's not clear that my preference works any better than Linus's. And in long-term interactions with serious people, any difference may naturally tend to be small: most conversations between people are more about "what does he really mean" than about what was literally said, and you can quickly learn if A generally means the same thing by "what the F*CK" as B means by "this is unacceptable".
• ferdo 13y ago
  Linus is a brilliant asshat.
• inaudible 13y ago
  This is out of context, and while Linus is an entertaining and impassioned writer, it really shouldn't be discussed outside of the group who's job it is to read it, albeit on a public list. I guess that Linus generally achieves results from a direct and terse tone, but that may also be the fastest way to get through his vast inbox. It's far from diplomatic bureaucracy and that's going to rub some people, but the parent was probably right on calling him out. I just don't think this is the forum for this kind of gossip, why not leave it to lowest denominator tech journalism?
• gtt 13y ago
  He poses an interesting question: "How to work together DESPITE people being different" yet leaves it unanswered. It would be interesting to see the answers.
• bbrks 13y ago
  Mirror: http://marc.info.nyud.net/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2 http://marc.info.nyud.net/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&...
• oleganza 13y ago
  Linus makes a great point here. While I personally don't think I'd enjoy working with Linus, I have to agree with him. He can behave how he wants and it's my responsibility if I don't like it. Linus does not run after me with curses and I don't want to do that to him either.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• abdel 13y ago
  love it
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• ilitirit 13y ago
  RE: Linus There are/were other people in similar positions who did not act in that way to their peers. If people that thought that treating others with respect, or remaining emotionally neutral toward them was something worth mentioning, HN would be flooded with newsgroup posts and emails. Most of the time we really only talk about Linus because he's an asshole. Usually noone really cares about the technical merits of his arguments. I don't really think it belongs on TBH.
• JulianMorrison 13y ago
  Aren't they talking past each other? Sarah says: quit being sexist, racist, and stuff. Linus says: I'm a shouty dude and that's fine. To which I say: surely these are non-overlapping concerns?
  • qwerta 13y ago
    My impression is that Linus shouts at everyone. Where the sexist comes from?
    • JulianMorrison 13y ago
      Implied by "this is not just about me, or other minorities".
      • qwerta 13y ago
        So basically she implies he is a racist? Is not this even worse abuse than initial Linus rant?
        • JulianMorrison 13y ago
          1. I didn't find/read Sarah's up thread message. But the snippet implies somebody is (pick one of) sexist/racist/etc. Not necessarily Linus. 2. Accusing someone of sexism, racism, etc, is not "abuse". It is never an insult. If you get accused of it, consider being less sexist/racist/etc rather than taking offense.
          • qwerta 13y ago
            I read the email thread. Sarah asks to be polite on mailing list, because there is no feedback, and author can not know how it was taken. Latter she talks about karate and beating opponent when he is down. There is really nothing about sexism/racism in there.
          • nknighthb 13y ago
            Even if you had, you would still have been taking things wildly out of context. You are peeking into a subset of a single day in a virtual "office". The conversation you're seeing snippets of is against a backdrop of more than two decades of that office's operation and social interactions you obviously have not observed. Linus swears a lot (compared to an American), and sometimes blows up at maintainers who do stupid things. That's what this is about. Not racism, sexism, or any other form of oppression you might want it to be about. When you walk in on a conversation and hear "I keep her in a cage", they might be talking about their pet rabbit, not their wife.
• Zikes 13y ago
  I swear he must have some copy/paste responses for this by now. It seems like it pops up every couple of months, when someone shows up seemingly completely oblivious to the way Linus has behaved for the past what, two decades? And decides they want to be a part of the kernel team? How does that even happen? I only have a passing familiarity with Linus and his kernel development team and I fully know what I could expect if I decided to become a part of it. Regardless, why would anyone think they can tell him what is or is not professional? I think once you've created something on the scale of Linux, you get to define that word for yourself. It reminds me of the line from Parks & Recreation: "Everything I do is the behavior of an award winner because I HAVE WON AN AWARD." Don't screw with the formula folks. Linux is too damn important to screw up, and Linus obviously knows what the hell he's doing.
• agentultra 13y ago
  The one thing that annoys me about posts like this is the lack of context. We get one post from Linus trying to rationalize his outbursts. And we end up with a debate about whether we have the right to swear and call unsatisfactory commits, "stupid." It's not about this LKML thread. The discussion is about justifying a certain set of behaviours that a certain group identifies with. Posts like this polarize the discussion. No one wins when there are only two options. Personally I think losing your temper in public is a weakness. Swearing is a rude form of language. And I don't take people very seriously who are too quick to point out how stupid other people are (it's a sign of insecurity).
• Maven911 13y ago
  I think that most people who have no peoblem with profanity and unprofessional behaviour have not worked in a office where it regularly occurs. trust me its not a fun place to work.
• mhd 13y ago
  I think that apart from Linux specific peculiarities (cf. 'git'), I guess that part of this might be due to European/American differences. My personal impression is that overseas work environments tend to be rather non-confrontational, with even raised voices often being seen as a persona attack, instead of a temporary "airing of grievances". In places I've worked in Europe (Germany/Ireland), this often was treated as the same reaction you have when you hit your finger with a hammer -- meant as a stress relief, not as attacking someone's core values and competences. Anecdatal, sure, but I've heard people tell of similar experiences. And my US data points included blue collar workers in Jersey, not exactly the pinnacle of PC, I'd say.
• peterwwillis 13y ago
  This really stands out: "people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways." Stop considering emotional outbursts, negative attitudes, lack of compassion and childishness as "normal urges". Regardless of your opinion on professionalism, it's just fucked up to be rude to people.
• acjohnson55 13y ago
  Show some intellectual curiosity, people. The same way some hackers get mad at others' unwillingness to dig into math/tech, many of you are refusing to put just a little bit of effort into being civil. It can be difficult to separate what's actually factually making you upset from the basal urge to express raw ire by cursing and belittling, but it becomes easier with practice. Just like math, or any other intelligence based skill. Once you put some practice in, you can even do it with the same level of brevity as a immature tirade. I have immense respect for Linus and his accomplishments, but he frankly doesn't deserve a medal or apologetics for his refusal to increase his interpersonal intelligence. There is a higher level of humanity to aspire to than yelling at one another like cavemen OR Machiavellian passive-aggressive faux-politeness. When I taught high school in Baltimore, I taught a lot of students whose most basic frame for interpersonal interaction was might-makes-right yelling and cursing. One of my goals was to demonstrate that no matter what, it's possible to conduct yourself without devolving to that level. It admittedly made it difficult for me to get my points across sometimes, but on the whole, I think I taught my students a very valuable lesson--that there is an alternative. In the end, there was a certain level on which my students always trusted me to treat them with human respect. I expect more from a professional than a high school student. Being "politically incorrect" can make it easier to express your emotions, but it can also cause deeply held long-term resentments that manifest in unpredictable and damaging ways. Crying foul about political correctness is just making excuses about refusing to put in the effort to see things from others' points of view. And it also refuses to acknowledge that you yourself have your hot buttons that will set you off as well. And when emotional buttons are getting pressed, intellectual messages are getting lost.
  • grannyg00se 13y ago
    "There is a higher level of humanity to aspire to than yelling at one another like cavemen OR Machiavellian passive-aggressive faux-politeness." Faux-politeness is exactly what Linus is criticising here and he definitely doesn't engage in it. And there is no evidence of him yelling like a caveman at this person. Are you referring to some other example? I'd like to see that. The only time I've seen him yelling and fully throttling someone is when they appear to really need a kick in the ass (multiple horrific offenses).
• rogerchucker 13y ago
  Has he ever tasted his own medicine?
• marketdouche 13y ago
  Wow. The hacker news pretentious circle jerk begins. I wonder what a bunch of non-developers and self aggrandizing people with piffy blogs who think they are "in tech" think about this. Lets read!
• kraemate 13y ago
  As always, Linus is right. 99% commenters here probably work for businesses which are surviving only because of the Free and amazing kernel which he has managed to build. Linus has explained his directness and lack of sugar coating several times. Sugar coating something, he believes, dilutes the importance of the message AND confuses his subordinates. "We can try avoiding X" is more ambiguous than "X is crap, you dumb morons". The latter statement is absolutely clear where Linus stands. Which is what communication is all about? Plus, i reckon it is different in a "Proper Business" where employees are paid to do work directly under a manager. To avoid connotations of servitude and slavery, modern businesses decided that managers should be polite so that their subordinates feel that they aren't slaves. With Linux, no one is forcing you to commit "bullshit" patches. RANT: I reckon a deeper problem is that a lot of kernel developers are now paid to work on it (as observed in this thread). So i reckon that in this case, the developer expects the same kind of feel-goody emails as her corporate manager keeps sending her.
• whiddershins 13y ago
  What matters is that Linus isn't attacking someone for WHO THEY ARE (identity). He is attacking them for WHAT THEY DID (actions). I think this is the gold standard for whether behavior is abusive. Other than that, This concept of "professional standards" of behavior is completely parochial. Try going to a constuction site. Or bootcamp. Or working on a pig farm. Standards of behavior vary dramatically between organizations, industries, and cultures.
• HNJohnC 13y ago
  I think this is largely generational. People over 30 are not surprised at all to run into abrasive, hard nosed people at work, people under 30 in many cases have a very hard time with any amount of criticism or negativity and consider even tiny amounts "bullying". It's become a well known issue in professional sports with coaching where old time successful coaches have had to completely change their style to deal with the latest generation of athletes who do not respond well at all to the traditional dictatorship that coaches used to run. Now a lot of hand holding is reportedly required. I'm not judging but struggle to think of anything great that was ever built by a committee.
• wging 13y ago
  Faster mirror: https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/547 https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/547
• puppetmaster3 13y ago
  I'm in the group that agree w/ Linus and disagree w/ user Columbo. Columbo may be a manager, but Linus is a leader. Leader of thousands of software developers, a leader that inspires. A manager is someone you can fire and you software company works better.
• puppetmaster3 13y ago
  And sounds a lot like Steve Jobs.
• puppetmaster3 13y ago
  A lot like Steve Jobs.
• eeky 13y ago
  Linus is awesome. He gets things done. He calls out bullshit when he sees it. And he doesn't afraid of anything.
• tmoertel 13y ago
  The historical evidence suggests that when it comes to massive social systems like the Linux kernel project, Linus knows more about keeping them vigorous and relevant than just about any other person in existence. He runs what is probably the most successful software project in human history. He has created a sustainable, growing social system that, for over two decades, has accomplished monumental technical feats and shows no signs of slowing. As impressive as Linux is as a technical achievement, it pales in comparison to the social achievement that is the Linux kernel project. Therefore, I don’t put much stock in people telling Linus how the Linux kernel project ought to be run. When he writes, The fact is, people need to know what my position on things are. And I can't just say "please don't do that", because people won't listen. I say "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle", and I mean it. [1] I’m inclined to believe him. Correspondingly, I have a hard time taking seriously the claims that the Linux kernel project, as a social system, would be better if Linus stopped doing what he’s doing and did something “nicer” instead. The historical evidence suggests that what Linus is doing (whatever it is) works better than what everybody else is doing. [1] http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2
• dionidium 13y ago
  Robert Heinlein had something to say about this: "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."
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• throwwiffle 13y ago
  Since Linus is not actually impolite in this email, I'm just going to ignore that and comment on the main thing he talked about: Calling things "professional" is just more of the same - trying to enforce some kind of convention on others by trying to claim that it's the only acceptable way. Being professional is similar to being politically correct. Don't say anything impolite or you'll offend people, don't say anything 'unprofessional' or you'll get fired, don't say anything 'not politically correct' or (in some countries) you'll have the police knocking at your door. That is where it leads and that is why I support his argument. Additionally, in my experience, the above behavior leads to behind-the-back sneaky and spiteful behavior. People who don't like something xyz is doing, so instead of risking confrontation by telling someone politely that it's annoying / won't work, they'll talk to the manager or get back at someone 3 weeks later.
• grannyg00se 13y ago
  Anytime one of these "Linus is too harsh" topics comes up, it always seems like he's completely reasonable and level headed. I'd like to see the whole thread here so we know why he accused her of playing the victim card.
• kfcm 13y ago
  "Profanity is the language common to all programmers". This entire thing is the clash of two cultures: corporatism (and its drive to mediocrity/milquetoasts) vs "getting sh*t done right"-ism. It all comes down to this: do you value political sensitivity, or calling a spade a spade (granted, profanity isn't required for this, but it certainly helps)? Give me the latter any day. I'm an adult; I can handle it.
  • DanBC 13y ago
    > This entire thing is the clash of two cultures: corporatism (and its drive to mediocrity/milquetoasts) vs "getting sh*t done right"-ism. a) You're a stupid cunt if you think that's the fucking argument. Your comprehension sucks. Don't bother responding if you come up with retarded shit like this. Idiot. b) No, the people asking for an end to viciousness are not asking for "politically correct" over-polite speech. You can call a spade a spade. You can call broken code broken. What you shouldn't do is call a spade a fucking useless spade. You shouldn't call the spade-user a clueless fuckwit. This is also not about "getting shit done". Starting a flamewar distracts people from the actual job, and makes people less, not more, efficient.
• nicolethenerd 13y ago
  The fact that so many people have popped up here to defend or justify Linus's behavior terrifies me. There is no excuse for being mean. Period. Full stop. This is basic human courtesy - they teach it in grade school. It doesn't matter if you're famous, or if you lead a project with tons of users and contributors, or you're nobody - anything that you can yell at people, you can also tell them politely. And you can argue about the technicalities of what constitutes "professionalism" or "abusive speech" all you want - the fact is, what Linus said was mean, and nobody should have to be on the receiving end of that. It doesn't matter if it's said in public or private, or whether the person he was talking to did something "stupid" (and haven't we all, at some point?) - nobody should have to be treated that way. And if you think otherwise, well, I hope I never have to work with you.
• kyberias 13y ago
  All I can say is, people should read the whole thread. I don't think the examples presented by Sarah are all that good. Yes, Linus uses strong words but they are not really ad hominem. He doesn't hate the people who made the errors, but he is angry since they "should have known better". He has a great point about email communication: that one really has to be more honest and open about feelings. And that obviously includes feelings of anger and frustration. Start from here: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391145411685&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391145411685&w=2 Update: bad -> good.
  • kyberias 13y ago
    This is the gem: "Sarah, I don't have Tourettes syndrome." :D
• antitrust 13y ago
  He reminds me a bit (in a good way) of Steve Jobs.
• godgod 13y ago
  Regardless of his skill or importance to the development of the Linux Kernel, Linus is a real dickhead. You can't treat people like crap and expect no static back. There are numerous examples of him being a bully just because he can. I'd like to see how far this behavior would be tolerated if he didn't hold the keys to the Linux kingdom. TL;DR Linus is a dick.
• NTDF 13y ago
  Honestly, if Linus was my boss, I'd quit my job cursing him. He has a lot going for him. I understand why he needs to be like this and why it works, but in all seriousness, I'd much rather be like Eric Schmidt or Bill Joy.
• kapilkaisare 13y ago
  Regardless of the rectitude of either point of view, I consider it important to develop the resilience necessary to soak in difficult language. You can't decide - or always influence - how your peers or bosses talk to you. More importantly, you may miss the feedback the language comes with - feedback that might help you improve yourself. I deal with a yelling boss by hearing him out and then, once the moment has passed, rerunning the event and mining it for real criticism, minus the emotional baggage it came with. If I find nothing, I disregard his gibber entirely; if I find something substantial, I make note of it and (in the days that follow) try to weed it out. Worst case: I get nothing useful, in which case the boss was simply venting. Best case: I learn something about myself, and get better in the process.