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Linux Code of Conflict
- exo762 12y agoLinux caving in to pressure at 8th of March? I really don't know what to think about it.
- raverbashing 12y agoGood There are a lot of rude people, people who answer in several ridiculous ways, etc. Linus answers may be rough, but it's usually a clear answer, and well founded. There's a lot of worse behaviour out there (especially in subsystems)
- Argorak 12y ago_usually_ is the keyword. Sometimes he wants people retroactively aborted. https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495 https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495 You never know when it hits you.
- raverbashing 12y agoI'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with: "This is crap" (without pointing why or how to fix it - of course with ruder words) "We're not applying this fix" (without any explanation why and the system is pretty much broken/only works for limited cases/bug waiting to happen/etc) "What are you talking about?"/patronizing behaviour (when it's crystal clear what you mean) And usually the ones with thinner skin are the ones who try to push fundamentally bad things.
- Xylakant 12y agoI'm not fine with that. He's questioning whether another human being should be allowed to live or survive. I'm puzzled how calling for someones death (retroactively or not) is even remotely defensible in this context.
- raverbashing 12y agoIt's a language construct, a figure of speech, nobody is being realistically threatened I'm puzzled by how someone can miss that, but of course this is HN and some people take everything literally.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago> but of course this is HN and some people take everything literally. I have my pet theory that getting outraged about random things like that is not genuine, but just signalling. You can see a lot of this kind of behaviour among the social justice movement.
- digi_owl 12y agoBe outraged on someone else's behalf, get attention, ???, PROFIT?
- afarrell 12y agoOne doesn't have to take something literally to feel like is hostile and aggressive.
- topkekz 12y agobeing rude is the essence of the hacker subculture
- EmanueleAina 12y agoI beg to differ: hacking stuff is the real essence of the hacker subculture. Being rude is completely orthogonal to hacking.
- lmm 12y agoNot at all. Both are about not conforming to unstated conventions. A lot of what's been written about "unprofessional" applies equally well to "offensive".
- TeMPOraL 12y agoYou have a point. While I don't think being an asshole is a part of hacker culture, I can see a lot of things hacker say and do be labelled as "offensive" or "unprofessional", because they break unwritten rules about behaviour. Most of the time I saw that happening it was because hackers tend to state things directly instead of engaging in political correctness that is perceived to be a waste of time.
- topkekz 12y agohttp://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#keepcool http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#keepcool
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y agoHow come people jump all over themselves to justify Torvalds' attitude but nobody speaks up to defend Stallman eating stuff off his feet.
- digi_owl 12y agoBecause one look like a suburbanite, while the other looks like a hobo carrying a "the end is nigh!" sign?
- smcl 12y agoI've read that Linus is only mean to people who he's familiar\friends with or who senior enough that they should already know better. This was recently on HN and shows the more patient side of Linus (not sure how often this happens) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8761539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8761539
- Alupis 12y agoTypically when Linus has gotten involved, and when it's been made news, etc... it's long long after the offending commiter has taken a hard stance and a large portion of other senior commiters have attempted to deal with the situation. At a point he steps in and "brings down the hammer" so-to-speak. Linus' "rants" are fairly infrequent in reality, and are never targeted at random people in the Kernel community -- always someone who has been in a senior position for a long while and ought to be behaving more appropriately.
- bracewel 12y agoSide note: http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/ http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/ is great for Linus smackdowns of the past
- iveqy 12y agoI guess we have Sarah Sharp to thank for this. It took over 2 years for this to come so far and it's a quite complicated subject. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-07/22/sarah-sharp http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-07/22/sarah-sharp
- pvdebbe 12y agoMore like one and a half to me
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- cookiecaper 12y agoIt occurs to me that Linus's occasional "smackdowns" can be seen as a necessary and realistic form of discipline. Since Linux is developed in the open, these disciplinary discussions occur before a worldwide audience. One could argue that disciplinary mails should be taken off-list to allow the individuals involved to save face, but it could be counterargued that such mails are relevant and important to the kernel's overall development process and shouldn't be obscured lest other developers make the same mistakes. The high visibility of Linus's posts expose him to a lot of bleeding heart criticism, but it doesn't really say anything about how useful or important the mails may or may not be; in short, the criticism that Linus is "mean" doesn't say anything about the efficacy of the management style. When management actually has to happen, when the manager actually has to step in and try to correct someone who isn't doing their job correctly, it's never a popular thing. The political impulse is to rally behind "the little guy". We all respond easily and quickly to the stories of spurned employees who were "totally mistreated" by the Big Bad Employer. Because of this, it's easy to look in and criticize Linus for sending a "mean email", but probably not very fair. We all want to sympathize with our peers, and no matter how much we may like them on a personal level, it seems there is an almost irrepressible instinct to want to denigrate our bosses. That makes it easy to criticize the calls when we're on the sideline and not bearing the responsibility for the outcome. The actual knowledge of that responsibility and all that comes with it, including the massive flood of disastrously uninformed critics and the need to bite the tongue as they take their swipes, is "the weight" that persons in positions of high responsibility sometimes discuss. While it's easy to acknowledge the hypothetical existence of such a phenomenon, I think it doesn't really crystallize until one finds some measure of "the weight" on his or her own shoulders. I hope we can all save a bit of empathy for the decision makers on the other side of the coin after getting an earful from and commiserating with our disgruntled contemporaries, even if it's just on LKML.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- SwellJoe 12y agoLovely grumpy ol' Linus. I admire him for being willing to try doing something a little bit differently to make the kernel a more welcoming place for developers who aren't part of the old school he was raised in. I'm only slightly younger than Linus, and I have made more than my fair share of rude comments in various Open Source mailing lists...but, well, I'm no longer convinced it's the only or even best way to get things done in a community. And, I enjoy that it's called "code of conflict", as it's clear that getting code into the kernel is still going to involve a fight, it's just going to be a civil one wherein everyone is following some basic rules ("no hitting below the belt", so to speak).
- eeZi 12y agohttps://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=ddbd2b7ad99a418c60397901a0f3c997d030c65e https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.... Note how Linus did not ACK the commit. Haha.
- jgrowl 12y agoThat's hilarious. Classic Linus.
- digi_owl 12y agoAs best i understand it, when Torvalds breaks out the big guns the issue has usually spent some time simmering in the lower tiers of the developer chain. Also the person being chewed out is likely to be someone senior in the kernel community, and so should already know what is expected in terms of code quality and behavior.
- stonogo 12y agoI'm somewhat amazed to see this coming from greg k-h, who is one of the most condescending and combative people I've ever encountered.
- smhenderson 12y agoThat's a pretty broad statement to make; do you have some examples? Linus's coming down on people is practically legendary but I don't remember seeing a lot of grief coming out of Greg over the years.
- vidarh 12y agoLinus posts are legendary because of a combination of his high profile and their extreme hyperbole. It's trivial to be condescending and insulting in ways that wouldn't be entertaining to post about (note: I have not read many of Greg KH's posts, so I have no idea how he usually comes across), so that doesn't say all that much.
- chaghalibaghali 12y agoInterestingly, this came to my attention via Twitter as a negative thing (https://twitter.com/hypatiadotca/status/575225661763153921 https://twitter.com/hypatiadotca/status/575225661763153921) - I was surprised as other than the title, it seems fairly well-intentioned and like a move in the right direction.
- patzerhacker 12y agoIn regards to the Twitter link: user has fuchsia hair, of her opinion I do not care.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- pgeorgi 12y agoThat thread essentially states 'they didn't fire Linus (from his own project), so it must be a ruse.' Really?
- doppp 12y agoYeah, I lost it upon reading that and the rest of her Twitter feed.
- hluska 12y agoI've never met her in person, but Hypatia ripped apart a product that a company I worked for released. Not only did she disclose terrifying problems in the most responsible and respectable way possible, but she was genuinely kind and interesting to work with. Based on my real world experience as opposed to 140 character bursts, I have a tremendous amount of respect for her.
- greenrd 12y agoConsider that someone might have incentives to communicate with a potential client far more nicely than to a person they dislike who probably will never be their client.
- doppp 12y agoLinus adpots a Finnish approach to leadership known as "Management by perkele." [1] I'd imagine most people who's unfamiliar with this sort of culture to be extremely offended, especially now that there is this movement towards political correctness and caring for another's feelings. Someone also brought up Sarah Sharp. This was discussed heavily in the /r/linux subreddit [2] about a year ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_perkele https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_perkele [2] http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1idt79/kernel_developer_sarah_sharp_tells_linus_torvalds/ http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1idt79/kernel_develop...
- fulafel 12y agoSo according to the WP definition it's mostly about "swift decisionmaking" in contrast to consensus seeking in Swedish culture. But the Linux process doesn't really seem to be about swift decisions, it's against extensive consensus seeking for other reasons. The WP article isn't helped by the longest section dismissing itself as tangential in the first sentence...
- digi_owl 12y agoFrankly my impression of Torvalds is that his reference to "management by perkele" was meant as a self-deprecating joke, that sadly the web has taken at face value. The guy seems to have a sense of humor that goes over most peoples heads. Maybe they are too desensitized by the outrageousness of stand up "comedy" to pick up on it...
- intortus 12y agoI love how grudging this is. It's like when someone apologizes for you feeling a certain way, rather than for what they did. Half the "code" is claiming that nothing is wrong and the kernel is perfect because reasons, and the TAB is 80% white guys. Isn't meritocracy perfect? On the other hand, this is a step in the right direction and I'm not a kernel developer, so I shouldn't nit pick too much.
- sarciszewski 12y agoWhy are you judging the TAB members based entirely on their ethnicity and apparent gender? "80% white guys" - yes, and if you don't know who's gay, who's transgendered, or how these individuals handle conflict, then this observation is kind of irrelevant. Being racist and sexist isn't going to help an already toxic environment.
- intortus 12y agoThere is a well known and studied lack of diversity in the open source community, and particularly in linux kernel development. Putting this code in place is meant to address that, so it's reasonable to point out the various half-measures.
- sarciszewski 12y agoAnd these real social problems are going to be resolved by empowering the people who are poorly represented, not by bringing people down because of something they are. You're in your right to disagree, but the answer to wrong has never been more wrong. Educate. Raise awareness. Encourage. But snarky remarks about the race and apparent gender of people? Not helpful.
- intortus 12y agoI'm totally being helpful. If you increase the sincerity of the code (and remove the stupid non-apology and change the spiteful name) and provide more diverse oversight then you will have an immediate positive impact.
- neindanke 12y agohttp://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/advisory-councils/tab http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/advisory-councils/ta... Diversity issues aside, is it true that the token Asian was rejected due to accusations of being a rape apologist? http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/18505.html http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/18505.html