Torvalds is an abusive leader and I don't understand why people keep workin on Linux under him. Are kernel devs paid? Is it worth being abused in front of the entire world because your boss has the emotional maturity of a child?
Who would work on Linux if Torvalds was ousted as the leader of the Kernel Team? It would be one more project that would have died out in a sea of dead open source projects.
Are you still using Visicalc, released 37 years ago? If everything goes right and Linus lives up to his mid-80's even at that minimum, those years will be several life times for a single software project to live.
There's a much better chance that kernel writing would have been fully automated by AI or evolved through much advanced genetic algorithms by the time Linus Torvalds passes away.
One of his top-level maintainers. Probably Greg Koah-Hartman.
You aren't seriously suggesting that the future of Linux (one of the largest open-source projects backed by multi-billion companies) depends on one single guy?
I can understand how some take personal offense when faced with criticism, but it is little more than that. Linus is quite good at illustrating the problems with the code, backing up what he says with extensive knowledge.
As soon as someone owns their mistake, the problem moves towards resolution.
It is really not uncommon for strong language to emerge when dealing with people doing the wrong thing, especially when they should know better.
I have stripped down and been stripped down when dealing with crap before.
Trying not to offend skips around the issue: it's crap, and you should know better.
These are not just instances of "strong language," these are personal attacks. Linus never differentiates between the problem and the person. He just yells and insults. There's a difference between not trying to not offend, and going out of your way to offend.
It's entirely possible, and indeed normal and accepted, to communicate in a straightforward and clear way without insulting people. Linus could do that. He chooses not to.
"This is shit, get your act together" is more than just blunt, it's rude and insulting. Plus this is just one relatively small incident out of many many over the years.
Professional communication in a public setting means not being rude and offensive. If my best friend shows me something and I say "what the fuck were you thinking?", that's one thing. That's not what's happening here.
What would be lost by Linus just saying "this clearly doesn't work. Don't submit things without compile-testing in the future."?
Where are the personalidade attacks? You thrown the accusation around, the ball is on your court to prove it. Stop beating around the bush and answer the question.
I was very clear in my reply to parent about what in this discussion constitutes a personal attack. Others apparently have a different definition of the term.
... Rude and insulting? Crap is crap. Don't pretend to polish a turd.
I seriously do not understand why you think it's insulting. Because a swear word was used for emphasis?
And they weren't a friend. A colleague. In a professional review of their conduct.
What would be lost is this: standards.
Linus shouldn't have had to deal with the issue, and that was immediately acknowledged by the correspondents, who truly did not seem offended, "my bad".
How would standards be lost? The exact same change in behavior is being requested, just more politely.
I think it's insulting because it's an implied value judgment on a person as a person, not just a judgment on the work.
I don't understand why you don't think it's insulting. If I'm trying to do my job, and you come in and shit all over me in public because I made a mistake, which one of us is the problem? Would you really want to work for someone who thinks it's okay to do that as a management technique?
In the context of any job I've ever worked this is unacceptable language and if a senior colleague, in particular, talked to me like that he'd be taking his arse home in a paper bag.
> Why shouldn't someone have an opinion on things?
The commenter I replied to doesn't know whether kernel devs are paid, thinks this is a case of getting yelled at by your boss, and seems to not understand why people work on the project.
Does that answer your question?
> Who are you to tell the parent commenter not to?
The parent commenter is calling someone "abusive" in a situation that they clearly aren't involved in and seem pretty clueless about. If I suggest they not do that, does it really matter who I am?
> Are kernel devs paid? Is it worth being abused in front of the entire world because your boss has the emotional maturity of a child?
Yes, kind of - there's a significant business advantage in having your company's work be included in the upstream kernel, so it's often the case that some individual is employed and paid a good salary by Intel or someone and their job involves getting code into Linux or maintaining it in Linux. Which leads to the weird situation where you're bound by the feedback / technical direction of this person who isn't in turn answerable to your company.
This isn't exclusive to Linux alone; the same thing happens in other open-source communities.
The worst language he used is 'piece-of-shit' and it was directed at a thing someone produced, not at a person. And then the person apologized because the quality of that thing indeed was bad.
You are calling Linus Torvalds a person with 'the emotional maturity of a child' which is a personal attack and far more abusive.
I've posted many, many times here on how abusive and gross Linus's conduct is. It continues to flabbergast me just how many people leap to his defense. He doesn't need defending. The people he insults do.
You say that as if that doesn't happen already - there's quite a bit of code that's maintained collaboratively between the various Linux distros because upstream is too interested in being a meanie to merge needed and working code. Secure boot support comes to mind, but there's a lot of other stuff.
That doesn't make those people deserving of abuse, it just indicates they were willing to subject themselves to it in service of something. What's your point?
My point? Certain personality characteristics can get results. Was there another person out there with all of Jobs's abilities but none of the rough edges?
Some people are sweetly manipulative, personally I'd rather work with someone who occasionally swears.
My overall position in this thread is somewhere between "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" and "don't kibitz if you don't know the game".
How is this abusive and hurtful? They chose to abuse trust and got hurt by their own arrogance. It was lazy, arrogant, and unbefitting of their positions. They deserved far worse.
They made a mistake, they got flamed and they won't make that mistake again. Others are also less likely to make this mistake, which is very likely why he does it that way.
It appears this branch does not even compile, please check this before submitting in the future?
Maybe migrate from ancient featureless mailing lists to any decent open source CI pipeline to require branch-validation before wasting other people's time with discussion?
The situation described was Linus going nuts about an unchecked branch being posted for discussion. The question was asked how this can be avoided. The point I was making was that technical, workflow-management oriented solutions can solve these things before they happen.
Mr Linus need to be careful, he can be censured, he's online accounts could be deleted, He's site could endup blacklisted and ofcause he could be fined or jailed of "hate speech"?
My opinion "Management by Perkele" is part of everyone's freedom of speech. Mr Linus, I hope you continue to be you and talk exactly like you want.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 94.8 ms ] threadThat's a good reason to not use Linux
There's a much better chance that kernel writing would have been fully automated by AI or evolved through much advanced genetic algorithms by the time Linus Torvalds passes away.
Linus could die tomorrow, and then what?
You aren't seriously suggesting that the future of Linux (one of the largest open-source projects backed by multi-billion companies) depends on one single guy?
I can understand how some take personal offense when faced with criticism, but it is little more than that. Linus is quite good at illustrating the problems with the code, backing up what he says with extensive knowledge.
As soon as someone owns their mistake, the problem moves towards resolution.
It is really not uncommon for strong language to emerge when dealing with people doing the wrong thing, especially when they should know better.
I have stripped down and been stripped down when dealing with crap before.
Trying not to offend skips around the issue: it's crap, and you should know better.
It's entirely possible, and indeed normal and accepted, to communicate in a straightforward and clear way without insulting people. Linus could do that. He chooses not to.
I very much doubt Linus goes out of his way to offend, rather that he's a Finn, and their culture tends to be blunt.
I'm Australian. I'm blunt, and to the point.
A colleague left a backdoor in software that got deployed. The conversation started with, "What the fuck where you thinking?"
Nobody got offended, it was a valid question with valid tone.
You can't exactly compare, "You didn't test this." with some of the rants broadcast on shows like, "Kitchen Nightmares".
[0] http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1612.2/00545.html
Professional communication in a public setting means not being rude and offensive. If my best friend shows me something and I say "what the fuck were you thinking?", that's one thing. That's not what's happening here.
What would be lost by Linus just saying "this clearly doesn't work. Don't submit things without compile-testing in the future."?
I seriously do not understand why you think it's insulting. Because a swear word was used for emphasis?
And they weren't a friend. A colleague. In a professional review of their conduct.
What would be lost is this: standards.
Linus shouldn't have had to deal with the issue, and that was immediately acknowledged by the correspondents, who truly did not seem offended, "my bad".
I think it's insulting because it's an implied value judgment on a person as a person, not just a judgment on the work.
I don't understand why you don't think it's insulting. If I'm trying to do my job, and you come in and shit all over me in public because I made a mistake, which one of us is the problem? Would you really want to work for someone who thinks it's okay to do that as a management technique?
The only implication of judgement upon the person is one you have applied yourself.
It isn't even one the recipients have seen.
The judgement is entirely on the work: seen by how the fixed work is gratefully added to the whole, in a manner befitting the project.
If a Finn wished to insult you and not just your work, there would be no implication. It would be explicit.
In the context of any job I've ever worked this is unacceptable language and if a senior colleague, in particular, talked to me like that he'd be taking his arse home in a paper bag.
By the way, Linus isn't their boss. Maybe you should find out how the project is organized before commenting on it.
Linus is the de facto head honcho and enjoys special privilege.
You didn't answer my questions. Plus, you talk about not having standing to express an opinion, but that's precisely what you're doing.
> Why shouldn't someone have an opinion on things?
The commenter I replied to doesn't know whether kernel devs are paid, thinks this is a case of getting yelled at by your boss, and seems to not understand why people work on the project.
Does that answer your question?
> Who are you to tell the parent commenter not to?
The parent commenter is calling someone "abusive" in a situation that they clearly aren't involved in and seem pretty clueless about. If I suggest they not do that, does it really matter who I am?
Yes, kind of - there's a significant business advantage in having your company's work be included in the upstream kernel, so it's often the case that some individual is employed and paid a good salary by Intel or someone and their job involves getting code into Linux or maintaining it in Linux. Which leads to the weird situation where you're bound by the feedback / technical direction of this person who isn't in turn answerable to your company.
This isn't exclusive to Linux alone; the same thing happens in other open-source communities.
You are calling Linus Torvalds a person with 'the emotional maturity of a child' which is a personal attack and far more abusive.
A nigger doesn't seem to understand that a white man can invent a language when he makes a compiler.
A lot of people think that the INtel chip runs C. They don't understand what a compiler does. They think you cannot make a compiler.
Step 2.) echo "no big meanies plz :(" > CoC.md
Step 3.) git add .;git commit -m "i'm helping"; git push
You have solved the problem.
i.e. It appears this branch does not even compile, please check this before submitting in the future?
and also identifying the root cause, "this type of error can be avoided in the future by allocated more time to testing before submitting.?
thoughts? I guess its much easier to respond how Linus did out of frustration...
I wouldn't work for someone with that expectation.
Some people are sweetly manipulative, personally I'd rather work with someone who occasionally swears.
My overall position in this thread is somewhere between "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" and "don't kibitz if you don't know the game".
They made a mistake, they got flamed and they won't make that mistake again. Others are also less likely to make this mistake, which is very likely why he does it that way.
For the record, and in case anyone was confused, I meant a baseline for the behavior of others.
Maybe migrate from ancient featureless mailing lists to any decent open source CI pipeline to require branch-validation before wasting other people's time with discussion?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyenmLqJQjs&feature=youtu.be...
Edit: kbuild catching build failure in question: https://lists.01.org/pipermail/kbuild-all/2016-December/0287...
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1612.2/00545.html
My opinion "Management by Perkele" is part of everyone's freedom of speech. Mr Linus, I hope you continue to be you and talk exactly like you want.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds