4 ms·

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

by 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.

by shubb 13y ago

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.