7 ms·

You need to understand one thing: you are wrong. Linus Torvalds is not a bully. He's in charge of one of the biggest and most successful project out there. And

by xroche 12y ago

You need to understand one thing: you are wrong. Linus Torvalds is not a bully. He's in charge of one of the biggest and most successful project out there. And this project is open-source, and anyone can contribute to it. Anyone. Even your cat. Imagine the Windows codebase being opened to anyone, with anyone being able to suggest fixes and send patches, or ask questions, or make suggestions. You do not want any idiot to commit insane things. You need to have some barriers. And these barriers are related to technical skills. You have to understand that the alternative to "Linus is mean" is "Linus let a fucking patch enter the kernel, and it broke millions of machines around the world, causing millions of dollars worth of damage". Every single line committed in the kernel must be carefully checked, and if you lack the skills, just go away, because it will (1) spoil the precious kernel maintainers time and more importantly (2) do damages to millions of users. So I am personally very glad Linus is "abrasive", because when someone screw up, he makes it perfectly clear, and this is totally appropriate considering how critical the linux kernel is nowadays. And yes, if you want to live in a politically correct, nice, cheerful project, this is not the project you need to work for. [Having said that, I do not think Linus has ever been dishonest (such as refusing a patch only because he did not like its author, unlike some C-library guy), which is precisely the reason why his abrasiveness is perfectly fine to me]

mike_hearn 12y ago
You realise that there are large, commercial projects that are just as high stakes as the Linux kernel or arguably even higher stakes, and they manage to operate with reasonable team dynamics? There is no correlation between "runs an important project" and "must be an asshole" even though certainly everyone has off days from time to time (I've been known to flame people when reaching the end of my tether but usually regretted it later). I think this notion - which Linus pushes - that the alternative to yelling at people and generally being short tempered is always "political correctness" ... well it's quite harmful. Yes, it CAN get that way, if people interpret criticism of their work as personal criticism and try to shut it down by complaining about it. I've seen that happen before. Some people don't know how to handle someone implying, even if politely, that their work sucks and can't handle it. But that doesn't mean it has to be that way and well functioning teams manage to avoid it.
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  You realise that there are large, commercial projects that are just as high stakes as the Linux kernel or arguably even higher stakes, and they manage to operate with reasonable team dynamics? I wonder about those projects sometime. If we took all of the conversations that ever took place at their office and stuck them online and in public. What would that be like? How many journalists and bloggers would find inflammatory quotes that can be published out of context to shame the person who spoke those words? How would Linus stack up next to John Doe of the Foo project? Or, think about everything you read, said, wrote or heard at work over the last month. Now imagine hand wringing blogposts about all of it. Especially the things that you want to exclude from this thought experiment because they would have never been said if your only communication method was a public mailing list.
Diederich 12y ago
I don't understand this perspective. One can be a very effective guardian of quality without being an asshole about it. For example, this is what Linus wrote: "Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE FCKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the fck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on? Linus" Instead, he might have been able to write something like this: "It is a very bad idea to read one byte at a time with a system call, for a variety of reasons, including and especially performance." I would love to hear how being an abusive asshole actually does any good? I see it as a way to artificially limit the size and diversity of the potential contributor pool.
- vidarh 12y ago
  Had this been Kay's first mistake of this magnitude, it would indeed have been reasonable to expect Linus to have been more civilised. Anyone who has followed this more closely would know that this was nowhere near the first time Linus had issues with his code. Yet he did not appear to be interested in listening no matter what Linus told him.
  - Diederich 12y ago
    I am aware of the fact that this wasn't his first 'offense'. Nonetheless, my question still stands: how is a verbally abusive diatribe in any way better than a shorter, more reasoned, and perhaps final response?
    - Kalium 12y ago
      It makes the reader aware of the writer's true position on the matter, adding emphasis and clarity to the situation. It strengthens the impact. It could have been "This code is bad. I will not accept this code.". Except that would not have communicated the same message. It's not always desirable to strip away emotional content.
phloxicon 12y ago
I disagree. He can produce the same excellent product without his childish name-calling. His ability to read and accept commits does not depend on his menacing replies to bad commits.
stephen_g 12y ago
Just curious - have you read some of Linus' posts referenced? I personally don't think that a reasonable person who is familiar with such emails could honestly say that Linus is not a bully or that such behaviour is ever acceptable. Being in charge of a very important project doesn't make it OK to tell people that they're so stupid they should have been aborted.
jtbigwoo 12y ago
>> You have to understand that the alternative to "Linus is mean" is "Linus let a fucking patch enter the kernel, and it broke millions of machines around the world, causing millions of dollars worth of damage". Every single line committed in the kernel must be carefully checked, and if you lack the skills, just go away, because it will (1) spoil the precious kernel maintainers time and more importantly (2) do damages to millions of users. This is a false dichotomy. You can tell people to go away or get better without telling them it'd be better if they'd never been born or wishing violence upon them. I honestly don't have a problem with Linus telling somebody their code is terrible. Linus has often taken it to another level in belittling and abusing the people around him. Linus has a pattern where his first (or second) reaction to an issue is to START SHOUTING AND NAME CALLING in an attempt to shut down discussion. If the issue blows up he comes back and gives a reasonable, considered response. It's a pattern that's not helpful.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  He's just one guy. Not an apologist; the guy is straight out not a great communicator and not really expected to be. But somebody has to be gatekeeper. Whoever that is, should do it to the best of their ability. This is likely the best he has to offer.
gambiting 12y ago
I work on a project which sells millions of units each year. You could also argue that idiots committing code to the code base should be stopped. Yet I am very certain that if my manager started calling anyone an idiot and telling them they should have been aborted, he would very likely end out of work very quickly. Yet somehow it's acceptable of Torvalds? How? Good quality work can be done without telling people they are pieces of shit.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  I think another issue here is that those who idealize the Jobs/Torvalds way of doing things automatically assume that they're going to be on the "good side" of things. The same way people who idealize things like eugenics know that their genes will, of course, be allowed to spread. What they don't seem to realize that its more likely they'll be on the receiving end of the negative traits they applaud. Either by an occasional screw up or because Mr Bossman is having a bad day. To be humiliated in public like this is often very painful, even for the thick-skinned. The day that happens, they're lawyering up and getting HR involved because, how dare someone yell at them. In their minds, the yelling only happens to someone else, the imagined dumb peons they see themselves as being above. I think way too many techies seem themselves as John Galt-like supermen, and that the negative consequences are for the sub-humans. There's a real dynamic of here of dehumanizing others that's often swept under the carpet. I think this dynamic is sociopathic.

by xroche 12y ago

mike_hearn 12y ago

You realise that there are large, commercial projects that are just as high stakes as the Linux kernel or arguably even higher stakes, and they manage to operate with reasonable team dynamics? There is no correlation between "runs an important project" and "must be an asshole" even though certainly everyone has off days from time to time (I've been known to flame people when reaching the end of my tether but usually regretted it later). I think this notion - which Linus pushes - that the alternative to yelling at people and generally being short tempered is always "political correctness" ... well it's quite harmful. Yes, it CAN get that way, if people interpret criticism of their work as personal criticism and try to shut it down by complaining about it. I've seen that happen before. Some people don't know how to handle someone implying, even if politely, that their work sucks and can't handle it. But that doesn't mean it has to be that way and well functioning teams manage to avoid it.

forgottenpass 12y ago
You realise that there are large, commercial projects that are just as high stakes as the Linux kernel or arguably even higher stakes, and they manage to operate with reasonable team dynamics? I wonder about those projects sometime. If we took all of the conversations that ever took place at their office and stuck them online and in public. What would that be like? How many journalists and bloggers would find inflammatory quotes that can be published out of context to shame the person who spoke those words? How would Linus stack up next to John Doe of the Foo project? Or, think about everything you read, said, wrote or heard at work over the last month. Now imagine hand wringing blogposts about all of it. Especially the things that you want to exclude from this thought experiment because they would have never been said if your only communication method was a public mailing list.

Diederich 12y ago

I don't understand this perspective. One can be a very effective guardian of quality without being an asshole about it. For example, this is what Linus wrote: "Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE FCKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the fck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on? Linus" Instead, he might have been able to write something like this: "It is a very bad idea to read one byte at a time with a system call, for a variety of reasons, including and especially performance." I would love to hear how being an abusive asshole actually does any good? I see it as a way to artificially limit the size and diversity of the potential contributor pool.

vidarh 12y ago
Had this been Kay's first mistake of this magnitude, it would indeed have been reasonable to expect Linus to have been more civilised. Anyone who has followed this more closely would know that this was nowhere near the first time Linus had issues with his code. Yet he did not appear to be interested in listening no matter what Linus told him.
- Diederich 12y ago
  I am aware of the fact that this wasn't his first 'offense'. Nonetheless, my question still stands: how is a verbally abusive diatribe in any way better than a shorter, more reasoned, and perhaps final response?
  - Kalium 12y ago
    It makes the reader aware of the writer's true position on the matter, adding emphasis and clarity to the situation. It strengthens the impact. It could have been "This code is bad. I will not accept this code.". Except that would not have communicated the same message. It's not always desirable to strip away emotional content.

phloxicon 12y ago

I disagree. He can produce the same excellent product without his childish name-calling. His ability to read and accept commits does not depend on his menacing replies to bad commits.

stephen_g 12y ago

Just curious - have you read some of Linus' posts referenced? I personally don't think that a reasonable person who is familiar with such emails could honestly say that Linus is not a bully or that such behaviour is ever acceptable. Being in charge of a very important project doesn't make it OK to tell people that they're so stupid they should have been aborted.

jtbigwoo 12y ago

>> You have to understand that the alternative to "Linus is mean" is "Linus let a fucking patch enter the kernel, and it broke millions of machines around the world, causing millions of dollars worth of damage". Every single line committed in the kernel must be carefully checked, and if you lack the skills, just go away, because it will (1) spoil the precious kernel maintainers time and more importantly (2) do damages to millions of users. This is a false dichotomy. You can tell people to go away or get better without telling them it'd be better if they'd never been born or wishing violence upon them. I honestly don't have a problem with Linus telling somebody their code is terrible. Linus has often taken it to another level in belittling and abusing the people around him. Linus has a pattern where his first (or second) reaction to an issue is to START SHOUTING AND NAME CALLING in an attempt to shut down discussion. If the issue blows up he comes back and gives a reasonable, considered response. It's a pattern that's not helpful.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
He's just one guy. Not an apologist; the guy is straight out not a great communicator and not really expected to be. But somebody has to be gatekeeper. Whoever that is, should do it to the best of their ability. This is likely the best he has to offer.

gambiting 12y ago

I work on a project which sells millions of units each year. You could also argue that idiots committing code to the code base should be stopped. Yet I am very certain that if my manager started calling anyone an idiot and telling them they should have been aborted, he would very likely end out of work very quickly. Yet somehow it's acceptable of Torvalds? How? Good quality work can be done without telling people they are pieces of shit.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago
I think another issue here is that those who idealize the Jobs/Torvalds way of doing things automatically assume that they're going to be on the "good side" of things. The same way people who idealize things like eugenics know that their genes will, of course, be allowed to spread. What they don't seem to realize that its more likely they'll be on the receiving end of the negative traits they applaud. Either by an occasional screw up or because Mr Bossman is having a bad day. To be humiliated in public like this is often very painful, even for the thick-skinned. The day that happens, they're lawyering up and getting HR involved because, how dare someone yell at them. In their minds, the yelling only happens to someone else, the imagined dumb peons they see themselves as being above. I think way too many techies seem themselves as John Galt-like supermen, and that the negative consequences are for the sub-humans. There's a real dynamic of here of dehumanizing others that's often swept under the carpet. I think this dynamic is sociopathic.