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OMG is he a 10x engineer? 11??? Seriously, there's no productivity benchmark beyond which you shouldn't treat people with respect. There are broken cultures wh

by moomin 12y ago

OMG is he a 10x engineer? 11??? Seriously, there's no productivity benchmark beyond which you shouldn't treat people with respect. There are broken cultures where you can get away with it, but you'll still be an asshole. Linus is an asshole not because it's some deep essential part of his nature, he's an asshole because people give him a free pass.

pyre 12y ago
Parent post was asking whether your knowledge of how much of an "asshole" Linus is comes from only reading the publicized outbursts, and not interacting on a day to day basis. While it's not preferable, I think that we can be understanding of the fact that people can sometimes have outbursts due to stressors in their life. That said, whenever I've seen people bashing a Linus outburst, I've gone and read said outburst. It's never as bad as the "tech press" make it out to be.
- anon1385 12y ago
  >While it's not preferable, I think that we can be understanding of the fact that people can sometimes have outbursts due to stressors in their life. Sure. The question is, do the rest of us treat those incidents as mistakes where somebody went over the line and behaved poorly, or do we defend the behaviour and even try to argue that it's a sign of good project management that should be emulated because it 'tells it like it is' and keeps away the 'idiots'? Sadly the latter is a common attitude, as seen in other comments in this thread.
raverbashing 12y ago
I'm not sure, but given his cultural background, I'd say he's less of an asshole than most people think he is. The level of rudeness in conversation is very dependent on cultural background and those ignoring it display cultural insensitiveness Europeans are more straightforward than Canadians and Indians where everything is said in a mild passive-aggressive tone that goes nowhere.
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  I understand and have experienced what you're talking about, but I don't think it gets to the meat of what people dislike about the way Linus (occasionally) communicates with people. Being more straightforward as in "no that's a dumb idea because X" may put people off, but can be chalked up to "cultural differences in communication". This doesn't really apply to the kinda stuff Linus has said that people complain about: "Mauro SHUT THE FUCK UP" "I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. " "fix your approach to kernel programming." "There aren't enough swear-words in the English language, so now I'll have to call you perkeleen vittupää just to express my disgust and frustration with this crap." It's ridiculous to claim that that's just avoiding unnecessary civility. Those statements aren't "blunt", they're just him being a dick.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    While they are blunt and I don't disagree about "him being a dick" written communication is very different from spoken ones, I can imagine someone using such words in a certain context and they sound less harsh. But in the written medium it really come across is the most harsh way. But while maintaining the kernel sometimes he needs to get the point across and saying "this is unacceptable, I am disappointed" will not work. For those examples, when reading the context I (usually) agree with Linus (and with his attitude), and this usually happens when the situation has been building up and people keep repeating those mistakes. Also, there are people much worse than Linus on the LKML (and subsystem lists), also some people are very polite and helpful.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    I agree - and in fact, Linus does also - that some of those are crossing the limit. What I find remarkable is that people always talk about the same half-dozen remarks - from an history of 20 years of kernel development completely in the open. Linus is a fucking remarkable example of civility. He just doesn't have an office where he can shit all over people in private, like so many managers.
    - 12y ago
ncza 12y ago
I think you should treat Linus with more respect.
agumonkey 12y ago
It's also a mass communication strategy. Concise and harsh. No time wasted.
wvh 12y ago
Linus has a sense of humour that is often misunderstood, especially by the PC crowd. Abrasiveness is an innate Finnish quality. Just think you're in a Monty Python sketch.
topynate 12y ago
What are you proposing? Because if it involves preventing him posting to mailing lists or restricting his contributions to kernel development I'm against, and on pretty fundamental ethical principles: you appear to think there's a deontological injunction against permitting someone to do harm by disrespecting others, whereas I think that harm should be weighed against the benefits that would be lost thereby. I also think that your opinion on why Linus behaves as he does is wishful thinking, sorry. There's a decent chance he'd take his ball and go home if the above were done. That would be bad.

by moomin 12y ago

pyre 12y ago

Parent post was asking whether your knowledge of how much of an "asshole" Linus is comes from only reading the publicized outbursts, and not interacting on a day to day basis. While it's not preferable, I think that we can be understanding of the fact that people can sometimes have outbursts due to stressors in their life. That said, whenever I've seen people bashing a Linus outburst, I've gone and read said outburst. It's never as bad as the "tech press" make it out to be.

anon1385 12y ago
>While it's not preferable, I think that we can be understanding of the fact that people can sometimes have outbursts due to stressors in their life. Sure. The question is, do the rest of us treat those incidents as mistakes where somebody went over the line and behaved poorly, or do we defend the behaviour and even try to argue that it's a sign of good project management that should be emulated because it 'tells it like it is' and keeps away the 'idiots'? Sadly the latter is a common attitude, as seen in other comments in this thread.

raverbashing 12y ago

I'm not sure, but given his cultural background, I'd say he's less of an asshole than most people think he is. The level of rudeness in conversation is very dependent on cultural background and those ignoring it display cultural insensitiveness Europeans are more straightforward than Canadians and Indians where everything is said in a mild passive-aggressive tone that goes nowhere.

wutbrodo 12y ago
I understand and have experienced what you're talking about, but I don't think it gets to the meat of what people dislike about the way Linus (occasionally) communicates with people. Being more straightforward as in "no that's a dumb idea because X" may put people off, but can be chalked up to "cultural differences in communication". This doesn't really apply to the kinda stuff Linus has said that people complain about: "Mauro SHUT THE FUCK UP" "I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. " "fix your approach to kernel programming." "There aren't enough swear-words in the English language, so now I'll have to call you perkeleen vittupää just to express my disgust and frustration with this crap." It's ridiculous to claim that that's just avoiding unnecessary civility. Those statements aren't "blunt", they're just him being a dick.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  While they are blunt and I don't disagree about "him being a dick" written communication is very different from spoken ones, I can imagine someone using such words in a certain context and they sound less harsh. But in the written medium it really come across is the most harsh way. But while maintaining the kernel sometimes he needs to get the point across and saying "this is unacceptable, I am disappointed" will not work. For those examples, when reading the context I (usually) agree with Linus (and with his attitude), and this usually happens when the situation has been building up and people keep repeating those mistakes. Also, there are people much worse than Linus on the LKML (and subsystem lists), also some people are very polite and helpful.
- icebraining 12y ago
  I agree - and in fact, Linus does also - that some of those are crossing the limit. What I find remarkable is that people always talk about the same half-dozen remarks - from an history of 20 years of kernel development completely in the open. Linus is a fucking remarkable example of civility. He just doesn't have an office where he can shit all over people in private, like so many managers.
  - 12y ago

ncza 12y ago

I think you should treat Linus with more respect.

agumonkey 12y ago

It's also a mass communication strategy. Concise and harsh. No time wasted.

wvh 12y ago

Linus has a sense of humour that is often misunderstood, especially by the PC crowd. Abrasiveness is an innate Finnish quality. Just think you're in a Monty Python sketch.

topynate 12y ago

What are you proposing? Because if it involves preventing him posting to mailing lists or restricting his contributions to kernel development I'm against, and on pretty fundamental ethical principles: you appear to think there's a deontological injunction against permitting someone to do harm by disrespecting others, whereas I think that harm should be weighed against the benefits that would be lost thereby. I also think that your opinion on why Linus behaves as he does is wishful thinking, sorry. There's a decent chance he'd take his ball and go home if the above were done. That would be bad.