Yes it would. Aggressive behavior begets more and more aggressive behavior. E.g. if you punch things to make you feel better when you are in a bad mood, you are more likely to punch people/things when you are in a bad mood (in fact it has an addictive quality).
Not particularly suprising, since he's spent over twenty years in constant communication with people, something that very few other technocrats can boast.
Sure, some answers are harsh, some are nicer, but as long as they get the job done, I don’t see a reason why one would want to complain about a ‘harsh’ answer – the world is not wrapped in friendly gift wrap and if you do something stupid, people are absolutely allowed to call you out on it without the unnecessary boilerplate in particular Angloamericans are so fond of using.
Short is good, harsh is not a problem, if short means harsh, so be it.
> if you do something stupid, people are absolutely allowed to call you out on it
The problem with cultural differences is that the effect of this might be not the intended one: the person you shouted at will consider you rude and as someone to avoid instead of reflecting on their actions and trying harder the next time. So it's not really smart to act like this, even if you feel it's "natural". You need to be someone important to be able to afford it and Linus (still) is.
> The problem with cultural differences is that the effect of this might be not the intended one
‘Be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send’ has two clauses for a reason, namely that trying to gauge the effect of what one says on every possible group will fail. Sure, someone you tell ‘no, this is utter crap, go back and fix it’ might find that rude and will never talk to you again, but on the other hand, someone might understand ‘this could be improved here and there and maybe you could change that’ as ‘oh, that’s fine apart from some trivialities’.
> You need to be someone important to be able to afford it and Linus (still) is.
I wouldn’t say you need to be someone important, you just have to be in a position where you don’t have to care about possibly maybe hurting the delicate feelings of the other person.
"Texas teen charged with making terroristic threat after online joke"
Careful with baseball bats here! Whatever we consider it, the "online world" became bigger and started to be less tolerant for friend-between-friend exploring of "who can think of something nastier."
Huh? The whole point is that he is not suppressing the urges. When he feels frustrated, he might add a "fuck" or "shit" to convey that feeling.
You, on the other hand, did not agree to something, felt mad or frustrated, and instead of conveying that frustration you snidely suggested that that he must be suppressing some "natural urges". Violent? Homosexual? From whose subconscious did those arise from? Not Linuses?
(See what I did there? What kind of urges might _I_ be suppressing?)
All in all: I find your reply to be a perfect example of what Linus is trying to avoid ("fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, _the passive aggressiveness_, and the buzzwords")
Freud's own work is considered heavily out of date, even by Freudian psychologists. Appealing to his image doesn't really lend weight to your argument.
Freudian analysis in debate is something I find incredibly rude, one of the rudest things you can do to a person. I realize you might not have meant that way, which is why I generally do not call people out on it. But in this discussion rudeness seemed like a relevant thing to think about.
By the way most of the theories of Freud have since long been discredited by the scientific community.
I like Linus - he has character, style and he fights to stay himself no matter how often people want him to change.
Some quotes I liked:
So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work
together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make
everybody please each other.
I'm also not going to
buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and
backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because
THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all
kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their
normal urges in unnatural ways.
I also work in a big office environment in a large company and I tend to agree with Linus. We get all this professional outsorcing and offshoring and use tech that was new in the flower power generation. It's all done very professionally and it results in mind-bogging stupidity. Every single day.
Linus is dead wrong here. When he says acting professionally means "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords", he's attacking a straw man: none of that behaviour is professional, and to say that professional behaviour must degenerate to that behaviour is a stretch at best.
Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a la LKML) or covert (passive). Lying is not warranted under any circumstance. Being professional means not calling people names.
All of this stuff is what you get taught in kindergarten, it's not rocket science. Mental abuse is no better than physical abuse, and given I don't buy that hitting developers with sticks makes them "better" somehow I'm also not going to buy into clue-by-four beatings being any better.
No, I didn't just skip to the end: I pointed out that his version of "acting professionally" doesn't match any I recognise. There's no point engaging in arguments over a straw man.
Regarding the last bit, I don’t quite see the point. If I had a wife and she ripped off the sink, put a plastic tub there and called it an improvement, because the metal in the sink could rust, I would be quite clear with her that I think this is a ludicrously stupid idea and she should feel extremely dumb for even thinking of it, her being my wife or not.
(Nitpick: Do you mean Richard Wagner or someone called Vagner I’ve never heard of?)
O right - my reply is disgusting ad hominem and out of place, but suggesting that you call your wife "ludicrously stupid" and "extremely dumb" is not?
Edit: Just saw your reply to the OP: "If she is dimwitted to a point that she doesn't understand even when it's explained, I'd try to find a new wife."
I don't know. I can't stand to be with someone that isn't on par with me when it comes to intellect/emotions (and that is not that difficult to achieve). To commit to such a serious relationship with someone that doesn't and can't understand my position seems almost impossible for me.
Also the wife in question is a theoretical construct, not an actual human being, that was for purpose of mental experiment made 'extremely dumb'. He isn't saying his or any other wife/parter was dumb, he made a thought experiment to demonstrate his point. Try to not be so obtuse.
Point is if you are going to be totally honest, that marriage won't work off really well. You need to be honest about some things but some small things you need to overlook (like her snooring, or eating her caked blood, or smoking or etc.).
If she did that, I'd definitely say it is a stupid/bad idea because X, Y, Z and move along. She just lacks context/knowledge why it is a stupid idea. If she is dimwitted to a point that she doesn't understand even when it's explained, I'd try to find a new wife.
If you make a ridiculous decision and go all the way to implementation without thinking it through, you objectively should feel extremely dumb about it. That means the feedback loops in your brain are working correctly. I feel sorry for anyone who has a systemic inability to learn impulse control.
>you objectively should feel extremely dumb about it.
Precisely, but that is the for the person themselves to feel and not to be told. If you get off on telling people they are lesser beings than you then there is something intrinsically wrong with your impulse control; it's called learning, and the day the world makes that a shameful thing is the day we all return to the middle ages.
N.B, this was specifically related to he/she having to feel dumb for even thinking it. Doing something when you have no expertise in that field is an entirely different kettle of fish. It seems in this case he/she would have been insulted for contemplating the idea inside the boundaries of his/her own mind..
I'd agree there are degrees of someone being a dick. There is also the matter of it being done in different context, it's different to be a asshole in public is different that in semi-privacy of a mailing list.
Another thing to note, that both commenters didn't go into foreign language swear mode :) and called Linus a devil's cunthead. They pointed out he is behaving as douchebag.
If it's not meant in an ironic sense, then why post the comments? You have people complaining that someone isn't acting professionally... and then not acting professionally. It serves to bolster Torvalds' point, not weaken it.
If the response is 'context', then it should also be pointed out that we only ever see the slimmest speck of his emails from the list and we never see them in the context in which they're presented. As someone else in the thread mentioned, we don't see the many messages where he doesn't behave this way; we don't see the actual personality that is seen when working with him.
Again acting professionally, isn't their job, they are commenting on thread on Slashdot, not on a Github issue or LK mailing list, which is his implied business (as in things that keeps him busy around the day and that he strives to prefect professionally).
It's true we might miss some of the context by not being there, that said, from his previous discussions you can draw a lot of observation that help clarify the current context.
Point of the messages was that him acting "unprofessional" will actually cause the same behavior he is trying to avoid by acting "unprofessional".
One of the links isn't about professionalism, it's about politeness, and the author is not being polite in return. The 'jobness' of the comment is irrelevant.
The other comment spends the first half in character assassination and really gives us no particular reason to consider that author particularly versed in how to behave professionally.
The thing is, if you stop and actually read how Torvalds presents himself, it's not just spewing forth expletives. There is a lot of consideration and thought behind what he says. It's just that this hoopla erupts because occasionally an uptight person makes a complete meal of things by publicising one of these comments out of the greater context. It's pretty much textbook yellow journalism.
I've read his argument concerning Minix, and I'm pretty sure that entire thread wasn't out of context. It was just him being a douchebag i.e. an annoying, abrasive person.
You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality.
The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism".
People are emotional, reactionary creatures with very different needs.
These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it. As was shown on a recent post - Linus reverted to swearing in his native tongue because English wasn't sufficiently rude enough for him, and those who let the fuckup slip through all admitted their fault and identified that they would take steps to ensure it didn't happen again.
Just a note. Once I worked at a tele provider and I accidentally messed up some contract and we lost $6000 - that was in a very professional working environment. I was called into the office of the manager and was told (not in a specifically pleasant way) how stupid my actions were. This taught me an important lesson about caring for details.
In open source, the office is the mailing list. Life is tough. Say sorry and make sure it doesn't happen again. Move on - and outside the US, I think swearing is pretty common if you do something stupid - working environment or not. I don't think this means that we all have to adhere to US standards.
The important difference is that the mailing list is public, your humbling was private.
I'm guessing your co-workers knew you'd been chewed out but how much worse would you have felt (I guess plenty) and how much more would you have learned (I guess nothing) had your dressing down been in public?
Much of this isn't about some artificial standard for the sake of it, it's about getting the best out of people. Public beatings have been shown not to do that. If the OSS community wants to behave this way then it can but ultimately it's going to drive a bunch of people away, or cow them into not really speaking up for fear of retribution and as a result will likely miss out on valuable contributions.
I much prefer being publicly berated. There's no question of what was said, and there is pressure on the one doing the berating to get it right and not be unreasonable in their expectations. It further urges consistency -- if one person is dressed down for doing X in Y circumstances, failure to do the same to the next person who makes the same error will either reveal obvious bias, or make clear that the original berating was undeserved.
Research shows that you're not typical - most people find it massively demotivating.
There seems to be a thing here with a lot of people saying "I work like this and like it". That's fine but the worst mistake you can make with others is often assuming that everyone else is like you. a lot of management science is bullshit but alongside the nonsense there is actual quantitative research about how people behave and so on.
There is possibly a discussion to be had around whether programmers (or more strictly people with the potential to be good programmers as that's what you want to optimise for, rather than the people who are currently programmers) are typical but as a hypothesis I'd rather go with programmers behave broadly as other people do.
> Research shows that you're not typical - most people find it massively demotivating
What is "it", exactly? Any public criticism? Public belittling (which is severely different from a proper dressing down)? Swearing? There's a lot mixed in here.
And does research conclusively establish a significantly different reaction to otherwise identical acts in public vs private?
> I'd rather go with programmers behave broadly as other people do.
Even if programmers behave broadly as other people do, that doesn't mean they'd have the same reaction to the same behavior in two very different scenarios.
Our dressing-downs[1] are as likely to come from our peers as our management. And even when they come from managers, we have a much different relationship with them. We are in positions of relative power and economic security, as well as positions of trust. A manager is more peer or patron than overlord, and we are more agent than minion. This is a very different dynamic than most jobs.
I question the relevance of any research on this that doesn't specifically target highly-skilled fields with economically-secure workers.
[1] Dressings down? Can you make bandages out of soft feathers?
"It" was referring to being publicly berated from your reply. Berating is angry criticism so I think it's fairly specific.
Ultimately it depends on what you're trying to achieve when you're talking to someone. There might be occasions when being shamed in front of the team is the best thing for the person but I'd suggest that they're few and far between.
As a manager if I act angrily towards you then regardless of what you've done I'd suggest that I've both failed - yes you might have done something which has annoyed me but I've then responded by handling it badly. The best I can say at the end is that I didn't start it. The twice I've lost my temper publicly at a member of my team my overriding sense afterwards was that I should have handled the situation better. Certainly in neither case do I think what I did got the best from the person in question (one I think viewed the whole thing with complete indifference, the other was demotivated by it).
In terms of the specifics of the research, it's been a while since I looked at it (back in my days studying). I recall that public was generally a greater demotivator than private but I'm not aware of anything that's been done on different skill levels - would certainly be interested in that. My gut feel is that while there might be differences constructive engagement in private would still be the most productive way of handling it - I don't think programmers and other skilled workers are that different to the rest of the world. If anything I'd suggest they'd be more inclined to dislike anything involving anger directed at them - after all, they generally have the option to go elsewhere so why should they put up with it?
The comments you make about everything being out in the open are interesting. I can see if the manager or other berater is untrustworthy that this could be a thing, but if there are overall issues of trust of that type I think that how this sort of thing is handled is largely irrelevant in the face of that much larger problem.
I trust no one to be unbiased and fair at all times. I trust no one to be conscious of their own prejudices. I trust no one to be omniscient or infallible or to have even a reasonably accurate memory of past events. And I particularly distrust them in these matters when they are angry. These individual failings cannot be wholly eradicated from anyone, but they can be compensated for by the involvement of the team.
You can't even trust yourself. You've "lost your temper" twice. Why won't you do it a third time? A fourth? A fifth?
Does it not occur to you that this is all just part of being human?
I don't believe anyone to be infallible (including myself) but I find that my broadly trusting people who've shown themselves to be trustworthy I gain a lot (not having to cover my arse, gratitude from those who I trust - which I've had them comment positively on, the friendships it creates). On the occasions it's let me down it's not come close to outweighing the benefits I had up to that point.
And yes, I've lost my temper twice and will probably do so again but as with those times when it has happened in the past I'll apologise, attempt to repair the damage and move on.
No-one needs to be perfect and unbiased, for the most part your flawed best with good intentions is plenty. If you find yourself working with people who don't have good intentions then maybe the level of suspicion is fair enough but personally I'd get the hell out of there rather than work in somewhere that poisonous - 20 years working has taught me that it's simply not necessary to put up with places like that and that there are plenty of alternatives.
It's rude and additionally it doesn't seem to achieve anything positive that can't be achieved more politely.
It saves time when you don't have to carefully structure each criticism in a compliment sandwich and so forth. It's understood in this environment that that's how the story goes - the excerpts people see of 'linus being rude again' are tut-tutted by a bunch of people who've never read a single other message on the kernel mailing list.
It’s not as black and white as you make it out to be. On one end of the spectrum, we have the inane “compliment sandwich”. On the other, we have Linus saying “your code is shit”. In the middle, we have professional yet effective criticism. Something like, “Sorry, we’re not going to take this code — it’s too half-baked and exposes some serious security vulnerabilities.”
Even "your code is shit" is direct, but directed at the code, not the person. He seems to sometimes take it even farther and call people stupid, which just seems wrong to me. "This code is shit" seems like it'd be even better, as it takes even more of the 'you' out of it.
It's technically different but in practice people react pretty much same way when you tell them they did something stupid and when you tell them they are stupid if it was propmpted by them doing someting stupid.
Insulting the person probably serves as a filter - at that point that person either shapes up or stops committing, either of which is a better outcome for Linus than that person continuing to commit crap code for Linus to have to look at/approve. Your more reasonable comment doesn't have the same effect, so it's not the strictly better solution, depending on what Linus values.
Note in my comment that I said that some people will reject his insult and try harder next time, which potentially adds another good contributor to the project. Just telling them to go away and never come back doesn't do that, and is probably more hurtful to boot.
@flumbaps - Because it's more impolite and hurtful? People tend to be more hurt by clear rejection then they are by being called stupid for something they did.
And yet your halfway comment still contains an insult - 'half-baked'.
I was using the 'compliment sandwich' as a shorthand for reviewing all the commentary to make sure it's pleasant or polite. That stuff does take effort and time, particularly if you aren't intimately familiar with the other party and have to generalise it to the generic person. I've done a hell of a lot of support in my time and this is abundantly clear to me. There are even people who perform better when you swear around them, because they don't feel like they have to control their language.
Couched phrasing takes effort - and Torvalds is one of the few technocrats who still gets his hands dirty in the trenches.
> There are even people who perform better when you swear around them, because they don't feel like they have to control their language.
The closest friend I'm with the more I swear. What I don't get is people awkwardly swearing in presence of people they just met. I see it as attempt to desperately get connection to other people.
Perhaps because the person spent their time working on something for no compensation? Just an expression of a little empathy for that person's wasted time? Is the cost of that word really so much?
>It saves time when you don't have to carefully structure each criticism in a compliment sandwich and so forth.
I can only imagine only the most socially incompetent people would actually find it a major time-sink to say things civilly. You don't have to make a compliment sandwich, saying "Your kernel patch throws a bunch of warnings, what the fuck is this?" is hell of a lot better than "which one of you retards can't read the guidelines?"
The basis of civility is to avoid personal attacks when it's not about the person. This isn't about the person. You can be civil and still be pissed off.
The only reason being polite saves time is because someone is unpracticed at it.
This comment (and indeed your comment) are both polite and completely disagree. I spent a while thinking of how best to express my point, but none at all working out how to avoid being offensive.
But if it makes you feel better: fuck compliment sandwiches ;)
Yes it can. Direct criticism leads to more honesty, leads to a more productive work environment. Just grow some balls and learn to deal with direct criticism..
this is a false dichotomy. the choice is not between "be polite and evasive" and "be honest and abusive". it's easy to be direct and honest without being abusive. see my example in another reply:
It's not that hard to give honest direct criticism without being abusive. Not knowing the difference indicates that you're a terrible leader. Belittling anyone who refuses to tolerate abuse as needing to "grow some balls" is utterly ridiculous. I wouldn't work for anyone with your attitudes.
So lying is a result of "acting professionally", but swearing is natural and ok? I don't buy that "people" need to swear any more than they need to lie, or that the result of swearing is somehow less damaging/more productive than lying.
I don't buy that "people" need to swear any more than they need to lie, or that the result of swearing is somehow less damaging/more productive than lying.
Lying is dishonorable, counterproductive in context of multiple cooperating people, and a really bad idea overall, purely objectively. Swearing, linguistics-wise, is indeed a completely normal ("natural and ok") trait (present to some extent in individuals of all cultures, gender, professions etc., even in some higher animals) that is orthogonal to anyone's performance. How could you possibly equate these two is beyond me.
> How could you possibly equate these two is beyond me.
I'd say is a cultural thingie. Compared to other languages English has very few swear words/expressions, for example in my native language you could swear at someone by saying something like "fuck your mother's dead relatives" (it sounds way worse in original, trust me). If someone were to say that to my face my first instinct would be to see if I can beat him right there on the spot (and if yes, would I risk going to prison for hospitalizing him?) and if no then I'd think of swearing back with something even harsher (while looking for an escape route).
On the other hand everybody lies, that's why we have things like contracts etc, it's assumed that at some point or another we'll stop telling the truth.
Swearing affects the form; lying affects the content. For obvious reasons, it is much easier to maintain meaningful communication ignoring form than ignoring content. So, yes, swearing can be much less damaging; it doesn't always HAVE to be less damaging, but in the case at hand it seems to work wonderfully.
You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality. The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism".
When has Linus actually worked in an office? Would he really know what it's like?
AFAIK, he moved from Finland to USA in 1998 to work at Transmeta. He was already famous at that time, and presumably could dictate his working terms. I recall reading an interview that suggested he was mostly working from home on the Linux kernel already back then.
Maybe that's why his notion that "professionalism" equals neckties and backstabbing seems like a caricature out of a '90s TV show.
"Office politics" is a universally known behavior of most offices, and I suspect that maybe you were simply not paying attention to it if you don't think it exists.
Being professional means you leave emotions at the door (like in poker) and back your argument with data.
The algorithm might be stupid, that doesn't make the person stupid. Ad hominem attacks are a very poor way to defend your point and will result in people not wanting to work with you.
Saying "grow a thicker skin" won't make it better either.
Linus is a brilliant engineer, his people skills not so brilliant. But we all knew that already.
it's possible to be succint, harsh, and directly to the point without swearing or being abusive. for example, off the top of my head:
"stephen, this code is riddled with basic errors and is completely unacceptable. please fix a, b, and c immediately and know that if you make mistakes like this again, your contributions will no longer be welcome."
versus:
"stephen, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??!?! seriously, a FUCKING JUNIOR DEV would not make mistakes like this. why are you wasting my time with this FUCKING BULLSHIT? FIX IT NOW OR YOU'RE FIRED!"
imagine in both cases the person writing to you has only a professional relationship (ie, is not a friend who has the type of relationship with you where the 2nd paragraph would be an establish, half-joking form of communication)
I upvoted you and would like to add a reply to emphasize how correct I think this is.
honest open criticism != rude dick
It takes a little more work, because you have to think carefully about your words and calm down, but that action itself makes
a) the criticism more useful
b) creates a frame where the criticism is more likely to be acted on and leave no resentment
Also, I believe that apologizing is something we should do more often. As in "I don't apologize for my behavior" is not as good a path as "I'm sorry I blew up, but I did have a point".
In my experience, the closer you are to action the more swearing (sales, press, front-line dev) and the polite stuff is more for the office bureaucrats who aren't critical to the success of the organization. There's something refreshingly blunt and urgent about the 2nd case.
(Edit: My experience includes Fortune 100 in consumer tech and finance)
to be clear, i'm not against swearing in all circumstances. in some relationships, in some circumstances, it's perfectly fine, but it's an implicitly negotiated rule that both parties understand. i'm thinking, eg, of most male friendships that go back a long way, but i could also see it between two sales guys who've been in the trenches together, etc.
the point is it's taken in a certain spirit, and you can't force people who don't know you well, or don't share that sensibility, to partake of that spirit.
even if you personally prefer that style, it's hard to argue that it's effective from a practical perspective. for the large majority of people, the first example is far more likely to actually get you your desired result than 2nd.
> There's something refreshingly blunt and urgent about the 2nd case.
In this scenario Stephen has been hired to write code/produce something, I'll go all-Marxist on this and say he was hired to produce plus-value. He was not hired to be sworn at, no matter how good or bad his code/work might be, and this is why swearing directly at people is unprofessional.
As an aside, I'm surprised at the people who say that swearing to other people's face is "manly" (or something of the sorts). In the part of the world that I live if you swear someone directly in the face you'd better be prepared for a physical fight or worse.
That's a false representation of how Torvalds behaves, since pretty much every time one of this "oo, he swore!" threads pops up, he also explains why he has problems. And it's never been half in all caps.
I think you need to read the email again. You failed to see his point.
You are trying to create uniformity and conformance, which is not in our nature. Some people are polite, others are not (Linus for example). The working environment of the kernel mailing list is public and subject to harsh language because it's run (rather successfully it could easily be concluded) with the philosophy that people should be able to express themselves.
i see his point, i just disagree with it. i said this in another comment, but your logic would apply equally well to physical abuse:
"you are trying to create uniformity and conformance, but people are different. some people are kind and patient with their children, others are explosive and sometimes beat them. some of those children grow up to be very successful and hit their children. who are you to tell people how to raise their children?"
to be clear, i am not saying linus's swearing in an email is even the same league as child abuse, but the logical argument above and the one you are making is the same.
honestly, it just seems like a clever piece of rhetoric to justify treating people any way you please. it reminds me of the evangelical christians here who are against gay marriage, and argue that they are the victims now because they can no longer preach against homosexuality in peace, and lobby for laws against it, what with all the liberal media painting them as monsters and not respecting their rights to express their own religious beliefs
@jonax - I know your intention, but I don't think you can do that. Calmly stated threat is alway more real and chiling. You'd be better of with removing threat from both forms.
> You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality.
I understand the whole "you've obviously never ..." thing that people do to state that their experiences are not representative, but it just sounds dickish in your post. I think it's pretty obvious that the person you are replying to has worked in an office, and has had a good dose of reality.
Yeah "perkeleen vittupää" is a pretty "bad" swear/insult. You really have to be upset about somebody to call them that. "Fucking cunthead" is a pretty direct translation :)
You really shouldn't call people "fucking stupid" for making mistakes in code. They're clearly not stupid, they're writing complex computer code for a big project. Calling them "fucking stupid" is as much a lie as throwing out empty compliments, and just as counter productive. Smart people don't need to be beaten into shape, just like they don't need to be mollycoddled. If you're being abusive in the workplace, it's because of your own emotional needs, not the people you're being abusive to.
If someone commits code that is fucking stupid then by all means call the code fucking stupid. But then actually take the time to identify the cause for the mistake. Is that programmer following best practises? Are they being careless? Are they working on something they don't have the expertise for? Are they spread too thin? If you identify the problem you can try to fix it. Instead of abuse, you should be giving clear and direct instructions on how to not make mistakes like that ever again. If you call someone "fucking stupid" then you incorrectly identify the problem and, moreover, you're being abusive, which can be very harmful.
Speaking of his native tongue--based on my own experiences working with international colleagues, I think there's also a little bit of a cultural component to his behavior.
This obviously doesn't hold true for all individuals, but Americans tend to prefer the "Let's all hold hands and sing kumbaya" type of social dynamic. "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything." Much emphasis is placed on not hurting anyone's feelings, and maintaining the appearance that everyone likes everyone else.
Northern Europeans, meanwhile, tend to prefer the "We're all adults here, so let's cut the bullshit and say exactly what we think." Being honest and genuine is more important than being liked.
This part, I find really significant:
And hey, I don't actually think we've personally even had any problems. And I realize that you may react very strongly and get nervous about us having problems, but realistically, do you actually expect to like all the other kernel engineers? And equally importantly, not everybody has to like you, or necessarily think they have to be liked by you. OK?
That strikes me as a very Northern European view, that is not as likely to be shared by most Americans. It's just not how we're socialized in America. And too often, "professionalism" gets defined as "American style," while anything un-American is deemed unprofessional, which is not quite right.
Those things don't happen as a result of professionalism. They happen because some people can be assholes. Assholes don't care if a workplace is "professional" or a fucking free-for-all.
The real danger here is that once you've developed the habit of berating people who screw up, you'll continue to do it when it's not really called for.
I'm no shrinking violet. I got a good ass-chewing from time to time in the Navy and each time I deserved it. That said, you'd be surprised to hear that ass-chewing doesn't happen NEARLY as often as you'd expect it to in a hyper-aggressive life-or-death type world like the military.
I can't imagine anyone in the civilian world getting their panties bunched up enough to justify the kinds of shit I see from people who get their nose bent out of shape when someone screws up, but see it I do. Often, I think it's an over-reaction.
It's one thing to yell at someone who makes a mistake that might get people killed. It's another to flip out because it might make someone's browser run slower or crash.
This reminds me of stories and discussions about athletic coaches who belittle and insult their players. There is the same sort of division between reactions to them...some folks will say someone like Bobby Knight is a great coach and leader of men, while others will call him out as wacko who gets off pushing guys around.
This serves to illustrate the serious disconnect between the Linus the general public sees through these occasional stories, and the Linus people who actually follow kernel development see.
Some of the coaches you're talking about display apoplectic aggression as a matter of routine. Linus is never genteel, but his serious rants are unusual. You just don't hear much about him the rest of the time, because most of what he says is completely uninteresting to non-kernel-devs. It seriously skews your perception.
The real danger here is that once you've developed the
habit of berating people who screw up, you'll continue to
do it when it's not really called for.
Which has already happened to Linus numerous times.
So what is the profesional way to refuse to work with somebody you don't want to, or to mark the work of somebody else as bad? Of course options that will require a lot of time are not good, like gently showing how a "few" things could be improved.
"I do not want to work with you because of reasons A, B, C."
Leaving out the reasons would also be ok, but don't be surprised if this results in confusion and anger. (However, the abusive alternative to this will likely not help reducing the confusion or anger.)
"This work is bad because of reasons A, B, C."
Leaving out the reasons would also be ok, but don't expect other people to agree with you if you do that.
Being straightforward doesn't require one to be abusive.
After a few years of tangible disdain for me and after ridiculing me saving his business, I recently refused to work for someone with a succinct 'I quit'.
Of course it was later followed up by telling him to go fuck himself but that's how things go.
I also don't really understand how not abusing other people is somehow fake politeness. I mean, who's to say that the abuse isn't fake abuse? This distinction just makes no sense at all to me.
About professionalism. Have you ever been meetings filled with vice presidents when somebody screws up. What Linus does in mailing list is very mild compared to how CEO's behave in competitive business. Rest assured, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs treated their lieutenants much worse.
" I really fundamentally believe that being honest and open
about your emotions about core/process is good. And because it's damn
hard to read people over email, I think you need to be more honest
and more open over email. I'm generally nicer in person. Not always."
He's sarcastically showing the negative consequences of attempting to enforce professionalism. This is very different from a strawman. His argument is not 'you want bad thing B'. His argument is 'your desire for A causes bad thing B'.
The only thing worse than someone using a fallacy is someone calling out a fallacy that isn't there.
> fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords
that describes pretty well what is happening in so called professional environments. I have been pissed up at people and told them in their face what I thought of them when they fucked something up for the 4th time in a row, and I was reprimanded for this several times. Office politics does not like honesty. It encourages fake politeness and you indeed end up with people talking in your back like women. This sucks bad and I applaud Linus for taking the stance of saying what needs to be said.
I think he might have a point. Every now and again I receive an email from a customer (of ApiAxle) who is asking questions obviously not having read documentation or replies or something else which riles me. I respond to them in a calm, polite manner which might not be how I'm feeling, so, it's a lie, of sorts.
The reason why Linus (or anybody else) might want to act 'professionally' (or nicely, whatever) is because some people feel bad when they are shouted at. It's completely valid to argue that shouting is just a culturally different, but acceptable way of expressing one's thoughts but then you need to be aware that you'll potentially lose people who just simply hate this form of communication.
So this discussion is not about whether shouting and cursing is morally acceptable or not. It's about who's going to make compromises, who's able to make compromises and who are we going to lose in the process. What Sarah (probably) implicitly says is 'I hate this, and I don't want to work in an environment like this - and there might be other people who feel the same'. If Linus thinks that he cannot work in a different way then (because he's pretty important for Linux) probably Sarah is going to be sacrificed in some way. That might be all right, but again: this is not a moral issue.
>because some people feel bad when they are shouted at.
while people tolerate it at different levels, the phrase "some people" is misleading: almost nobody likes to be shouted at, or even feels neutral about it.
>It's completely valid to argue that shouting is just a culturally different, but acceptable way of expressing one's thoughts but then you need to be aware that you'll potentially lose people who just simply hate this form of communication.
this is true, but it's worth noting the same logical argument applies to physically hitting someone. and indeed, in other times and other cultures this was and is acceptable. and whenever those social norms have changed, there are people making what is essentially the same argument linus is making (just substituting "hitting" for "yelling").
>while people tolerate it at different levels, the phrase "some people" is misleading: almost nobody likes to be shouted at, or even feels neutral about it.
Well, most people don't like criticism either, even when it's constructive. Some things are necessary even if people dislike them, but I don't think shouting is like that.
I don't think that Linus imagined that the result of his messages wouldn't be people feeling bad. Feeling bad is the whole point. Negative reinforcement; hitting the puppy with a newspaper so it won't shit on your carpet again.
I think the question is, for any kernel developer--do you care enough about Linux that you want to be negatively reinforced when you're being stupid, or do you care more about feeling good all the time?
See, you need to read up on puppy education. Hitting the puppet with a newspaper will not achieve the desired goal - now the puppy is confused and afraid.[1]
Same is true in work environments: You criticise the work, do not insult the person. Otherwise problems will be swept under the rug until they start to rot and can't be hidden any more.
[1] You can actually achieve the exact opposite: Peeing is a gesture of submission for dog puppies, so if you yell at them, they might just pee again.
Right--and indeed, what Linus was doing here was criticizing the work ("the work" not being the commit itself--there are plenty of horrible commits submitted to the kernel every day--but rather the process that allowed this commit to end up in a stable merge patchset.)
The puppy-newspaper thing was intended to just be an evocative metaphor--I'm well-aware that hitting actual puppies with actual newspapers doesn't help anything. This is mostly because it's hard to understand, whether as a puppy or a human, exactly what you did that led you to being hit with a newspaper. Harsh words are much clearer than newspapers in giving causal structure.
(Though, if the stimulus-response is direct enough, words aren't exactly necessary; those "invisible fence" shock/noise collars for dogs do work, since the dog is given a much tighter feedback loop. As soon as they leave the defined zone, a pain-signal begins; as soon as they re-enter the zone, it ends. They can do science to figure out what is and is not painful, rather than being presented with a punishment and then having to use abductive logic to derive (that is, to guess at) possible causes. On the other hand, it is very hard to do science about where is or is not safe to defecate, unless you have the runs. ;)
Ugh, mailing lists. I wonder why so smart people as Linus doesn't invent something thats slightly more comfortable to use. Maybe they just like to be left alone, without interference from mortals.
A mailing list is threaded comments just like HN. Are you criticizing the page style of a particular list viewer or do you find HN equally uncomfortable?
>> Because I can pretty much guarantee that I'll continue cursing. To me, the discussion would be about how to work together despite these kinds of cultural differences
So if I get this right, we just need a Linus communication adapter that can translate messages so they are compatible with either side.
Does that mean when someone talks to Linus it should add swear words to be compatible with him? :)
I see his point, but it comes at a cost. People may start trying to work around him for fear of backlash rather than working with him. Or worse, just not try at all. We can only trust his technique has a greater net benefit.
In a long term relationship, I don't like subtlety and politeness. It just leads to emotional amplification on the receiver side - the receiver just learns to "turn up the volume" on anything said to try find the true signal. (Was that praise just a bit faint this time, hiding some kind of displeasure with my work? What was that slight smile about?)
Some of the most offensive put-downs come as faint praise from people who are just so convinced that they're always reasonable to the nth degree. I'd rather someone come out flailing so I can defend myself and my work, with both of us being wrong (and open about it) from time to time so it's not something unusual or noteworthy.
Interesting view point. I'd never really considered the turn up the volume effect being the flip side of being subtle with people, but I think you're spot on!
Some people call this being transparent. Let people see what you really feel, and let them be sure that when they see your approval, they can be damn sure you are really approving and not just faking it.
Now, there is a difference between being transparent or honest and being aggressive or rude, and I don't approve of the latter. But that interpretation depends on the people involved and their relationship: what may be considered rude by a third party or someone from a different culture, may be considered normal and acceptable by the ones involved.
If you would take offense by something that you say/said to others, they you are being rude. Otherwise, you are being honest. Pretty simple rule.
But sometimes people are just so used to politically correct (faked) behavior that they take transparency for rudeness, and honesty for impoliteness.
There is no justification for this kind of behaviour. If anybody else behaved this way, they would be sent to a psychiatrist. But apparently since it's Linus Torvalds, he's just being a little "harsh" and that's necessary to get his point across.
Another example of "he's not being polite, why can't be be polite, now I'm going to call him names", in this case, saying that he's mentally disturbed.
Why is it that so many people demanding politeness of Torvalds can't live by their own rules? Perhaps what Torvalds is saying is true, that people will find ways around the 'false rules'.
I did not mean to call Torvalds names. Apparently I wasn't careful enough in my wording.
I meant to express my frustration how the community often accepts socially inacceptable behaviour from accomplished people.
When "normal" people fall into a rage, we tell them to learn coping with their anger. If they keep yelling angrily at people, we might even suggest they see a psychiatrist. Not as an insult, but because we sincerely believe that they could maybe learn some coping strategies to get along better with other people.
But for some people the rules are different. When someone complains that Steve Jobs verbally abused his employees, or when someone complains that Linus Torvalds uses unnecessary profanity, a lot of people start to justify this behaviour. They claim it is necessary for their success, etc.
Torvalds is not 'falling into a rage', he's venting, and doing it in a controlled manner, as a ton of people do. He also doesn't 'keep yelling angrily' - it only appears that way because the only comments of his that get publicised are the fruity ones.
I remember one of this 'Linus Swore!' threads on HN a while back, linking to a comment of Torvalds' that had little in it but anger... presented out of context. I went back and had a look, and it was in a bug thread where it was around comment 120. Up to that point, most of his comments (about 10% of the thread) were informative and trying to explain the issue to the recipient of his eventual ire, who obstinately refused to give way. That Torvalds had spent a dozen patient comments was not advertised... only the one with his final anger.
This is why these threads fire passion in me despite not being a kernel dev myself, because there is clear and constant misrepresentation of who he is and how he operates.
You are right, I don't know much about Torvalds. He might be a very patient person most of his life. Like any public figure, he is probably badly misrepresented on the web.
But what makes me sad is that when he does snap, there's a large number of people who come and justify his behaviour. People don't say "You are misrepresenting him!". People say "He gave so much to us. He has the right to behave this way."
A lot of people use the "he's given so much" defense as a reaction to how widely it seems to be published out of context. This seems especially when they appreciate the culture that created the kernel but have not been following the discussion themselves. There is some feeling that this painfully honest abrasiveness is part of what makes the whole distributed contribution culture work so well and that if we do not defend this uniqueness it will give way to the same watered-down politics you find in so many corporate and even open source projects. Which is kind of silly because Linus isn't going to change. He has made that much clear.
> I did not mean to call Torvalds names. Apparently I wasn't careful enough in my wording.
_This_ is the problem. We're all engineers here, right? We appreciate that swearing in such a fashion is a concrete implementation of an abstract concept. The abstract concept of scorn or vehement disagreement. It just so happens your implementation was a little off before:
"Apparently I wasn't careful enough in my wording"
... but even if you tidy it up, its still the same abstract.
This post more or less proves his entire point. I can wander around in a professional capacity and utterly slaughter people with fancy sounding words because my implementation of scorn is _very_ sly when I'm in enterprise. Yours is IDENTICAL.
> socially inacceptable
> fall into a rage
> yelling angrily
> see a psychiatrist
> Not as an insult
> learn some coping strategies
> get along better with other people
That is all 100% unadulterated scorn. It's incredibly, incredibly personally _offensive_..... but your implementation is sly so it's acceptable in a "professional" environment.
Personally I prefer Linus's implementation as its more straight-forward and its easier to see what he's thinking making it more clear how he feels if one were to work together with him.
He says he's angry in that message. Seemingly he'd rather lash out than be passive aggressive. If it was such a big deal, people would have forked the kernel under new leadership.
I remember that thread. You have a senior kernel committer breaking userspace and then turning around and laying the blame on the userspace application when it broke. In Linus' email I see cursing, and an ass chewing for all to see.
The thing is, the kernel mailing list being in the open makes it so we see conversations like this, but they should be seen as the equivalent of a private conversation, because that's what they really are.
I don't see that as abuse. I've lived with abusive people. They slowly but surely try to destroy you mentally, not through cussing, but in other ways that might even seem friendly at first.
Being told what you did was moronic is very different to being told you are a moron.
Linus is rude, not abusive. There is a difference.
There is actually a ton of helpful feedback in that email in between the verbal lashings. I don't think he's trying to hurt this guy's feelings as much as he's trying to emphasize the importance of his point, which seems to be a tenet of the Linux kernel development philosophy.
I don't think you get it. The premise of his attitude is that you've shat on his carpet. He wants to express his most wholesome distaste for the previous post this person made (breaking user space and then blaming user space). If someone shits on your carpet you don't make then a cup of tea, clean it up for them and ask them how their day was, you do _this_. It's effective communication.
If you perform this text in a "professional" manner then you will completely lose the correct tone of the message, which is: DON'T FUCKING DO THAT.
Psychiatrist? Bully? He's not punching this person in the face he's teaching them a very hard lesson on the correct attitude of a kernal maintainer.
Which part of his behaviour in this email is unacceptable in particular? Let’s look at it:
> Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Okay, so he tells Mauro to stop talking because he apparently thinks that what Mauro was saying is wrong. To make very sure that what he wrote is read, he puts in fancy caps and some light swearing, which, however, is not directed at anyone in particular. A more polite version of this would have been ‘No.’, but I don’t see any bullying/abuse.
> It's a bug alright - in the kernel. How long have you been a maintainer? And you still haven't learnt the first rule of kernel maintenance?
It appears that this guy violated some rather important rule of kernel development which he should have known given his experience. Again, no name-calling or directed swearing whatsoever, however. Again, a more polite version could be ‘We don’t break userspace, and you know that.’, which doesn’t look particularly different to me.
> If a change results in user programs breaking, it's a bug in the kernel. We never EVER blame the user programs. How hard can this be to understand?
I would wager the guess that similar problems pop up from time to time and Linus is getting tired of seeing them all the time, hence his question. Again, no name-calling at all, also no abuse, but a (justified, though maybe slightly aggressive) question.
> [technical details]
> Shut up, Mauro. And I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. Seriously.
Again, no name-calling of the maintainer, but only an assessment of what he wrote, which, to Linus, appears very wrong. Again, more politely, this would have been ‘No.’
> […] And you've shown yourself to not be competent in this issue
This is the first personal ‘attack’, however, it is still only aimed at the competence rather than person, and if the above holds true, is yet again entirely justified. Is this the line with which you had a problem?
Linus then goes on to explain again why this particular idea was ‘TOTAL CRAP’, with some more colourful adjectives regarding the patch. Again, no abuse.
> The fact that you then try to make excuses for breaking user space, and blaming some external program that used to work, is just shameful. It's not how we work.
This could be interpreted as somewhat personal, though it likely only means ‘I expected better and am disappointed in you’.
> Fix your f*cking "compliance tool", because it is obviously broken. And fix your approach to kernel programming.
Note that the ‘fucking’ is for the ‘compliance tool’, which apparently is broken; the comment regarding kernel programming is again directed at their competence rather than person, so I don’t see any particular abuse there, either.
The remaining question is then, why didn’t Linus just write something along the lines of ‘No. / Don’t break userspace. / No. / No.’? Likely because then someone would have called him out on not going into details or because they got the same email regarding three small mistakes and a question and now don’t know whether this issue is a similar ‘small mistake’ or something more problematic.
I usually don’t swear, but rather ignore people quickly and/or make my disregard for them or what they say very clear in a ‘civilised’ tone; furthermore I tend to avoid getting emotional.
That, of course, doesn’t mean I want others not to swear, not everyone has to behave exactly like me for me to be happy :)
There's a theory in neuroscience which says that decisions are made unconsciously and only rationalized afterward.
The fact that you managed to describe "SHUT THE FUCK UP" as a slightly less polite version of "No." leads me to believe that this theory is quite plausible.
"We could all do with a lot more of number two, don't take anything personally."
This is really a Postel's Law situation. Yes, your life will be improved if you can receive bad behavior and not take it personally. But it would be a shitty world to live in if this burden was only on recipients. The only robust way to maintain a worthwhile society is to expect, in the general case, that adults will have control of their impulses. Enabling this kind of behavior from celebrities is a loophole we might try harder to close, but fortunately, most of us don't have to deal with celebrities.
I can't control what kinds of behavior that others will tolerate, and I won't lose sleep over the existence of name-calling among adults in the world, but there's no way I'd keep a job where I was treated that way, let alone continue to volunteer my time in that situation.
Well I agree with you based on the 2nd agreement only. But really what I should have said was we could see a LOT more use of the FOUR agreements out of everyone.
Being impeccable with your word takes the "burden" off of the recipient, which of course is the first agreement.
His last paragraph sums it up perfectly. When people hide behind false politeness and act passive aggressively they tend to let someone else know about their frustrations which leads to rumours, backstabbing etc.
It's also important to remember that tone doesn't come across well online so you shouldn't overreact to what you're reading. If someone curses online you could read it very aggressively. But if you were to hear them speak it it might seem much less threatening and aggressive and most or a speech pattern/way of phrasing things/way of making a point.
I like this guy more and more every time i read some of his comments.
I agree acting professional is not healthy for a real social interaction and you need real social interactions when you're building a collaborative system like Linux.
The only time i act professional is when somebody pissed me off and I'm not in a position to tell him he's a moron without being fired or otherwise get into trouble.
I think he is correct. If you censor yourself in order to act 'nice' and 'polite' then you won't be able to put across the points you could've before.
Anyway: just because you act nice and act like you like somebody, doesn't mean you do.
I would much rather a person called me out on my bullshit than them politely skirting around the issue in an attempt to make me feel better and protect my feelings.
I personally have no experience writing kernel code, but I can imagine it's incredibly important that you get things right. So then if getting cursed at means you won't fuck up as often and learn from your mistake, then it works.
You don't get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional. He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years. However he decides to get that done is his business.
Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team.
There's nothing stopping anyone from mounting a coup d'etat. Anyone can fork the kernel, build a team of developers and usurp Linus. They'll struggle to build that team, because Linus is deeply trusted with the stewardship of the kernel, in no small part because of his "unprofessional" behaviour.
So, basically your position is "If you don't like it, get out". I'm not sure this view is productive in any kind of discussion. Personally, I think the amount of abusive speech & profanity in the tech-field is way too much. I assume(incorrectly?) that it's because it's mostly male and a lot of men like to do that to each other. I personally don't do it to anyone and don't like it being directed at me.
And that is the concept of the "benevolent dictator". If he is a dick, incompetent or does technical stuff you don't like, fork. IMO the best way to run FOSS project, but of course there are others.
It's quite easy for an open source project to just waddle around and start blindly accepting things random developers contribute with no real decision or filtering process (cough PHP). They may verify the code's not buggy or that it at least does something that could be of use to someone, but they generally don't care if it fits in with the overall design and goals of the project.
Having someone who has the complete vision in his head, who's also extremely technical and knows what changes are good and bad, is absolutely invaluable.
Linux is not just code. It's a brand, a community, whatever. As people on HN should very well know, success is mostly about execution and luck - lot of people have very good ideas. The reason behind Linux being so successful is only partly attributable to it's technical merit (well, from the technical standpoint it didn't have anything too exciting when it started to have traction). It had to have all luck, good moments, industrial/social situation what eventually made it successful.
I don't think luck plays that big a part. But regardless, As you said, execution is very integral to the success of the project and since Linus, has executed the project so well over the years, it does say something about the execution style(it works and people still support him as well as the way he leads :).
That's a very hypocritical approach I believe. A few years' ago our ex-prime minister said that if you don't like what's going on in the country, you're free to leave. It doesn't work like that.
Not good comparison.
A country is essentially a fixed physical plot of land, with people, resources, climate, etc. If you leave a country you have to leave all of those things (and more) behind.
Forking code essentially gives you the ability to take everything, and then move it in your own new direction. You leave behind only the parts you thought were "bad" or unprofessional or whatever.
> Not good comparison. A country is essentially a fixed physical plot of land, with people, resources, climate, etc. If you leave a country you have to leave all of those things (and more) behind.
Yes it is. Saying you can just fork it is like saying you can just move yourself and all your family and friends to another country.
You might be able to move yourself but moving any significant amount of developers is in practise impossible.
After you fork, you know you can just pull from the original project? That's why they call it the upstream.
Perhaps you're saying that you can't take the community with you? That doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation. You can fork, and you can continue to pull from upstream, but you can't force people to use it.
That's a bit of a an apples-to-oranges comparison. An open-source project isn't exactly a democratic government. It's not about protecting the people, it's about getting shit done and getting it done right.
For several years I did maintain a private kernel fork for my then-employer.
I was not interested in contributing any of our work (mostly netfilter related) back to the core precisely because I have better things to do with my emotional energy than engage with the aggressively toxic personalities of LKML.
That's one of the joys of open source, of course, doing your own thing.
In contrast I had a much better experience contributing to Postfix and Dovecot, where the benevolent dictators did not feel the urge to spew pages of vitriol in response to a blunder when a neutrally worded admonishment would do.
Exactly. Friendly communities attract more people. Linus gets away with it because there's tons of people who want to work on his projects, and he can afford to alienate some talent. Others don't have that luxury.
I've heard of plenty of people who prefer one language over another because of the nicer community. Eventually that should mean that projects with friendly communities are more successful.
Too much profanity? Well butter my ass and call me fucking skittles!
So you want to censor everyone who doesn't buy into your flowery child talk? Fuck that.
Cursing is a perfectly fine means of setting emphasis and I sure as shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits am not going to surrender that just so some shithead I don't even care about can jack off to his or her little control fantasies.
You don't like that? I couldn't really give less of a fuck; You're supposed to be a tech person, write a few sloc to filter profanity out or something but don't get on my nerves with that shit.
And yes, that was offensive and I am fully aware of that. That was also exactly what I was going for.
I have to concede that abuse is never a good thing, but since you seem to be seeing profanity as a problem I'm not sure we could agree on what exactly constitutes an 'abuse'.
EDIT:
It was (correctly) pointed out that censoring communication was not mentioned or even necessarily implied in smtddr's comment so this might not apply to said comment. That said, this still reflects aptly what I think about censoring away profanity.
I agree. The curse-density in that post is obviously a good deal above my average. :)
People communicate in different ways (and with different "curse-densities") and that is completely fine. What isn't fine is trying to get everyone to conform to a certain way of communication that you personally think is agreeable.
Diversity is to be cherished, not frowned upon.
It makes for a more interesting world, and I am not willing to lose that just to make my environment have a few less sharp edges.
I don't need nor am willing to be rolled up in bubble wrap for what somebody calls my "own safety", which then isn't even determined by myself.
> Diversity is to be cherished, not frowned upon. It makes for a more interesting world, and I am not willing to lose that just to make my environment have a few less sharp edges.
If the effect of not censoring yourself in this regard is to work in a much less diverse environment, which side is going to give? Honest question.
If the effect of not censoring yourself in this regard is to work in a much less diverse environment, which side is going to give? Honest question.
And a good one, too. The honest answer is: I don't know. I think this is highly contextual. At least I can't make a generalized decision for that. If the "less diversity" bit for instance means incorporating a 'No Nazis'-rule then the choice might be clear while in other cases it might be much more nuanced. As a rule of thumb I am against limiting someone's freedom until there is no other way around it. I would for instance only vote for a 'No Nazis'-rule if there would be a real problem with Nazis without that particular rule.
If, however, we are still talking about the case of censoring out profanity, you know my opinion.
The people who are filtered out (or constitute the "less diversity") are the sort of people who get offended by me making use of a basic freedom (the one of speech). I am not interested in meeting people like that - frankly I hope they stay as far away from me as fucking possible.
This is similar to the reason of why I am against anti-discrimination rules at hacker cons; They are liable to be abused at some point while not providing anything of worth.
The sort of abuse they are supposed to prevent are reason enough to throw someone out even without those rules. Any major abuse is reason enough to get thrown out of a hacker event, or really any event.
The argument I have heard a few times for anti-discrimination rules is that girls get hit on all the time. I was kind of flabbergasted when I first heard this. I mean I can understand that it gets on ones nerves, but kicking someone out of an event because they hit on somebody really is not the right thing to do. If you don't want to get hit on there's a plethora of ways to communicate that in a non-verbal fashion, like wearing a wedding ring or - less subtle - wearing a shirt that says "I don't want to get hit on" or something, you get the idea…
I can use profanity in a peaceful manner to set emphasis and if someone feels attacked, denounced or otherwise mistreated they can just talk to me. Seriously, I don't bite and if I see your point I will act accordingly. Even if you are offended by someones actions that doesn't mean that they are unyielding dogmatic assholes - Just give them the benefit of the doubt and try to reason with them. And if it works you might've just broadened your personal horizon, maybe even made a new friend.
You'd think a community consisting of some of the most intelligent people on this planet would manage to have a proper communication culture, but in many aspects we are clearly lacking. I hope for this to change and of course discussions like this are a great first step towards doing so.
> If, however, we are still talking about the case of censoring out profanity, you know my opinion. The people who are filtered out (or constitute the "less diversity") are the sort of people who get offended by me making use of a basic freedom (the one of speech). I am not interested in meeting people like that - frankly I hope they stay as far away from me as fucking possible.
This is interesting. My instinctive reaction to someone trying to censor me is pretty damn negative, and I can swear like a sailor. On the other hand, what you wrote reminded me of a super sweet, gentle guy that I worked with once who was just genuinely freaked out by my profane manner. From a different country, deeply religious, etc. etc. I found out from a third party that the guy was weirded out by the way some of us carried ourselves, since the guy was a gentleman and wouldn't/couldn't say anything.
Of course I started behaving more carefully around him, and a little more carefully in general. He was always nice to me and a very, very skilled worker, someone I respected, so it would have seemed churlish to me to do otherwise.
> If you don't want to get hit on there's a plethora of ways to communicate that in a non-verbal fashion, like wearing a wedding ring or - less subtle - wearing a shirt that says "I don't want to get hit on" or something, you get the idea…
I believe the onus is entirely on the guy who is trying to be charming (if that's what we're talking about, as opposed to simple catcalling sorts of harassment) to notice when the object of his wit does not reciprocate with a smile and a kind word and to move the fuck on before his behavior gets creepy. I suppose I'm agreeing with you, as not smiling is a pretty clear form of communication - no rings or shirts or pepper spray are required.
I'm not sure what we should do with the guys who aren't clever enough to pick up on such signals but I'm open to a Soylent Green sort of option. (attending the average hacker event seems like a punishment all its own to me, so I'm useless for envisioning rules for something like that. Punish them by making them attend more hacker events?)
Of course I started behaving more carefully around him, and a little more carefully in general.
This, I believe, is the wrong way to go about it. To me this seems like some sort of culture clash and in my opinion staying silent is the wrong way to go about this.
If I notice someone getting offended by my profanity I just tell them that they were not the target of that profanity and that I have no 'beef' with them. I haven't ever met anyone with whom this was a problem. I usually make a pretty good case for open communication, depending on sobriety of course. ;)
I believe the onus is entirely on the guy who is trying to be charming (if that's what we're talking about, as opposed to simple catcalling sorts of harassment) to notice when the object of his wit does not reciprocate with a smile and a kind word and to move the fuck on before his behavior gets creepy. I suppose I'm agreeing with you, as not smiling is a pretty clear form of communication - no rings or shirts or pepper spray are required.
I think the point of the "getting hit on all the time sucks"-argument for anti-discrimination rules was that even if all the guys who hit on a girl stop it after (instantly) seeing that she isn't interested it would still be a lot of input which "sucks". So the case many people skeptic of anti-discriminatory rules saw was that a girl gets hit on all the time and even if they all do so in a civil manner, the one unlucky guy who represents the 'final straw' to that girl then gets kicked out. The examples I put up for showing that you're not interesting were aimed at communicating that before you get hit on. A rough analogue for this might be a spam filter - You don't have to manually decide whether or not something is spam by reading it, you don't have to read it in the first place. :P
Harassment is obviously a reason to warn somebody or - if they repeatedly harass someone - kick them out of the event. That said, I think 'catcalling' is very nuanced, couples or people who know each other for $random_reason can catcall each other in play and fun, you can also do it in a sarcastic/parodic fashion etc. The only thing I'd generalize about catcalling is that you probably shouldn't do it to someone you don't know (and of course not to someone of whom you know that they don't like it).
But in general I think pretty much everything I said here can be succinctly shortened to "Be merry, have fun and if you feel there's a problem - talk about it - just don't do it behind someone's back."
> To me this seems like some sort of culture clash and in my opinion staying silent is the wrong way to go about this.
I'm perfectly capable of expressing everything I might express with profanity, without profanity. I'm now conscious of the fact that I'm a lot more persuasive if I take half a second to edit myself. The whole thing was a valuable learning experience.
> I think 'catcalling' is very nuanced
Interesting. I'd only ever use the word to describe the kind of rude behavior that happens between strangers on the street.
> the one unlucky guy who represents the 'final straw' to that girl then gets kicked out.
I wonder. The implication is that the guy said something which in isolation would have been completely within the bounds of good taste and then got kicked out. I bet this never, ever happens.
> But in general I think pretty much everything I said here can be succinctly shortened to "Be merry, have fun and if you feel there's a problem - talk about it - just don't do it behind someone's back."
That seems well-intentioned but entirely utopian to me.
I'm perfectly capable of expressing everything I might express with profanity, without profanity. I'm now conscious of the fact that I'm a lot more persuasive if I take half a second to edit myself. The whole thing was a valuable learning experience.
Of course, from a social engineering standpoint that makes complete sense. But the point is that around my peers I don't need to edit myself; I do when I have to (I for instance swear a bit less in the presence of my boss), but I always take it with a grain of salt. I don't want to edit myself, I like being free in that sense and think that freedom of speech is something that first and foremost starts with yourself.
Interesting. I'd only ever use the word to describe the kind of rude behavior that happens between strangers on the street.
Might be, I'm not a native speaker so what I'm thinking about might still fit under the label of flirting, but I can't really say that I know the terminology 'normal' people use to talk about social interaction.
I bet this never, ever happens.
I think it's pretty unlikely, but possible. The point was that while (at least from my perspective) anti-discrimination rules don't do anything to enable a safe environment for minorities there is the potential for abuse. In my eyes those rules are snake oil, I think the TSA might be a somewhat fitting analogy if you think about their efficiency.
That seems well-intentioned but entirely utopian to me.
Of course it is, but that's not reason not to use it as a guideline and strive for its implementation. If you don't try, you'll never get there. You can probably already find multiple examples of me violating this guideline in this thread, but that doesn't stop me from at least trying to make the way I communicate better. :)
>> profanity as a language tool is meant to accentuate things (like an exclamation mark). If you overuse it, it becomes useless.
I generally associate overuse of profanity with laziness in word selection, but that's just me.
I agree with you on overuse. The only times where profanity has any impact on me is when someone who doesn't normally use profanity uses it for emphasis.
The OP was just commenting that they didn't find abuse and profanity productive. They didn't mention censoring anyone. They said it didn't work for them.
Do you have one single way of expressing yourself? Do you use profanity 100% of the time? Do you automatically reject all feedback on how you express yourself? ... On how you write code? ... Or how you interact with your colleagues?
Because, from your comment, that's how you come across.
All feedback can be made to be useful, even if you end up filtering it out early.
True that, I will try to get a bit less triggerable about this.
Do you have one single way of expressing yourself? Do you use profanity 100% of the time? Do you automatically reject all feedback on how you express yourself? ... On how you write code? ... Or how you interact with your colleagues?
No, of course not. I have however come into contact with quite a few people who tried to censor me before, that might be the reason why I'm so easily "triggerable" with this.
Pleasant ≠ profanity free. I identify fully with Linus' stance of profanity bursts followed by no-grudges held. A common professional profanity free, revenge backstabbing, work environment is much much more unpleasant.
I agree with your first statement totally, the difference is I would rate Linus' attitude, separate from his language, as unpleasant and unnecessarily aggressive. I don't like aggression in the workplace (or anywhere.) And I think that links into a comment above regarding women; in general women are less aggressive and so feel less at home in this industry. In general, in my opinion, etc, etc.
I don't buy into the view that women are less aggressive. IMO, they display a different kind of aggressiveness, somewhat less frontal but just as damaging.
This may be a guy thing, and a clash in behaviour of the sexes. Guys are more prone to bursts of aggressiveness, gals more adept of moderate long term aggressive stances. Which one is more difficult to handle is largely a matter of opinion. Quick bursts are automatically solved immediately, leaving bruised egos, long term allows more time to manage the underlying reason. Just because Linus' stance is flashy does not make it wrong.
Unless you posit that aggression is never warranted. Then, we'll have to disagree. Aggression is a normal behaviour, artificial suppression leads to non healthy alternatives; it's better to lay problems out in the open and fix them than to sweep them under the politically correct rug.
I would posit that aggression is generally unwarranted. I would consider aggression to be the non healthy alternative to, say, being matter of fact, blunt, terse, and other such ways of giving negative feedback without directly attacking the person.
I'm sure there's no perfect dividing line between non-aggressive/aggressive. But it's generally clear when something is nearer the extremes.
"Alice, that's completely wrong because X, this code needs to be rewritten from scratch following principle Y."
"Bob, what is this retarded shit? You stupid fool, go RTFM and do it again."
Tomato tomahto. We're saying the same thing. Blunt, terse can easily be aggressive. Further, when immediate reaction is needed, an open critic to either behaviour or results(code) may be needed. This may be aggressive, but it gets the job done. If there is no Ill intention towards the other, if the aggression is objectively to get the job done, there's no harm. It leaves a sour taste, but no long lasting effects. Again, full circle, frontal aggressiveness with no grudges. No grudges is really important.
There is a happy medium :) But in general, I'd always choose (true, sincerely meant) pleasantness and kindness over intelligence. Though, if a kernel developer is required, then maybe intelligence is the more useful, giving rise to this current situation...
The hurt caused by such aggression varies too. Should this not be taken into account, or should we never consider the affects our behaviour has on others? Some people are more sensitive. Some people think calling someone a "dense jackass" as a reproach is OK.
Fortunately for me, I'm in a position to choose exactly who I work with. (Unlike perhaps this Sarah is.)
I can spend good, fulfilling and interesting times with a 'pleasant' idiot friend. Intelligent assholes, on the other hand, besides some intellectual discussion in their field of expertise, I would pass on their company.
But, since this is about people within the workspace, I guess the intelligent asshole would, sometimes, be preferable to some polite but less intelligent person. The other one would still be an asshole, though. Plus, I don't think Linus would get away with this crap outside of electronic mailing lists and kernel stuff.
Whether if "profanity" is involved in the speech or not, if someone is prone to blowing up in a rage of anger, I do not enjoy being around such a person. Depending on the details, it might be worth understanding what makes them upset and trying to avoid it, but it seems to me that a lot of the time some people are just overly angry.
I recently witnessed some programmer going to town, blasting out a supply cabinet. Hurling rage and profane insults at a supply cabinet just seems... uncalled for, to me. My personal evaluation is that the guy needs to learn to not let little things bother him so much. Though I doubt the supply cabinet was offended.
I much prefer to hang out with my very kind-hearted and pleasant (yet slightly less intelligent[1]) fraternity brothers over some of my extremely bright computer science classmates who don't have as much social tact. That's because most conversations with the latter group turn into pissing matches over intellectualism, programming skill, and the like. That's not to say that I don't get along with these kids; they're great to study with, and I learn a lot from them. However, it just gets grating when we're in algorithms class discussing selection sort versus merge sort and some smart aleck asks why we can't just use radix sort because it's asymptotically linear and blah blah blah we get that you're smart, stop gloating in lecture.[2]
[1] Of course, that's not to say that my brothers are unintelligent (they're very bright). However, one of the most important life skills I learned in public school was learning how to get along with those "pleasant idiots," as you put it.
[2] And I'm not disagreeing that kernel dev requires a more authoritative leadership style than most pursuits, but it seemed that this conversation had dropped into speaking in generalities about life.
From what I have seen of Linus in interviews and presentations he seems like a very fun and pleasant person. He is harsh and swears when he gets angry which does not mean he cannot also be pleasant.
I'd prefer an intelligent asshole over an unintelligent...anything else just about. One thing I've learned about myself in my 30-some years on this earth is that I just can't stomach the company of people less intelligent than me (that's not to say I'm a genius, or even above average necessarily) for a very long time.
However, don't conflate "tech type" with "high IQ/intelligence." The tech industry has the same percentage of idiots as any other, and our idiots aren't any smarter than those others' idiots just because they can scratch out a chunk of python or haskell or whatever.
"I think the amount of abusive speech & profanity in the tech-field is way too much. I assume(incorrectly?) that it's because it's mostly male and a lot of men like to do that to each other."
It seems clear to me that you don't have contact with lots of women. Do you?.
It seems to me you are idealizing what you don't know about.
Profanity was not their forte(recent generations in some sectors could compete with men), but abusive speech is. They could be formidable verbal aggressors, specially between them.
The strongest verbal abusers I know all are women.
I Know a woman that was so socked that his father slapped her once, but now she is so verbal abusive with her children. I have seen it, and certainly if I were one of her children I would prefer a slap to this psychological pressure.
I assume (incorrectly?) you're female. Believe it or not, plenty of women are fine with and participate in profanity. And plenty of men don't.
At lunch I said, "That's a good fucking burger." Female coworker says, "Goddamn right it is." This doesn't have anything to do with gender - it's about culture. Some people can handle profanity in the work place. The rest can fuck off. </joke> The rest can get a job somewhere more professional.
I think his position isn't "If you don't like it, get out", I think his position is much better summarized by the quintessential hacker ideology: "lead, follow, or get out of the way".
Linus is leading. So challenge his leadership, follow the man, or get out of his way.
So, basically your position is "If you don't like it, get out". I'm not sure this view is productive in any kind of discussion.
Yes. The discussion shouldn't even be taking place. It is a waste of time. That's why the parent qualified Linus as the leader of one of the most important human endeavors of the last century.
Most project managers do not behave like Linus. There's a whole world full of people who "act professionally." Linus is not one of them, and contrary to some of hand-wringing I've seen in this thread he is not inspiring hordes of foul-mouthed abusive managers to go out and oppress poor developers.
Is that so? The issue is manners on a mailing list. Qualifying Linux as a top-10, top-100, or top-1000 accomplishment or whatever definitely seems like quibbling when we're comparing it to a complaint that won't even be a historical footnote.
> "He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years"
Yes, Linux has remarkable importance mostly because its installed base (IMHO it doesn't offer any innovation from an OS perspective, other that being stable enough and free)
However, that doesn't give Linus a free card to be abusive and rude. Yes, not being polite and being insulting is indeed being unprofessional, there are ways to say things and in most cases insults is the wrong path.
"If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done"
Yeah, Romans and Egyptians knew how to get shit done too, but we call that slavery in these days, so it is not precisely a good thing.
He gets a free card to be rude and you get a free card to not like him and never do any favours for him and he gets a free card to not care what you think, do or don't do.
I am yet to see him abusing anyone. Verbal abuse mentioned is just swearing in aggressive tone of voice. How the word abuse got attached to expressing being pissed off is a mystery to me but I think it involves american lawyers.
>"He gets a free card to be rude and you get a free card to not like him"
No, he doesn't. If your boss or your client would talk to you in that tone you would call it verbal abuse. There is no such thing as a jerk free card, you can always be one but that doesn't mean is excusable.
"I am yet to see him abusing anyone. Verbal abuse mentioned is just swearing in aggressive tone of voice."
This is not the first time that we see this kind of emails from Linus so it is not exactly a new thing. I don't know where are you from that this is considered OK. I am a Venezuelan living in Canada and in both countries this is considered abusive, so it is not only in USA.
> If your boss or your client would talk to you in that tone you would call it verbal abuse.
Are you referring to the email we just read? Because I find nothing at all offensive or inappropriate about it. A forceful dressing down to be sure, but not disrespectful.
I think this line is important:
I'm not polite, and I get upset easily but generally don't hold a grudge
If my boss was rude I'd wait up a bit to see if he'll last longer at his job than I could put up with. I wouldn't like him. I wouldn't do any favors for him. Boss is part of the job. If you don't like that part of the job you'll like the job less. If you like it little enough you overcome your inertia and leave job.
If my client was rude and I wasn't ok with him I'd stop responding to him. That's the beauty of freelancing. You don't have to work for people whoose behavior doesn't suit you.
In my opinion swearing doesn't make you a jerk but jerks don't get free pass. They offend some people and get less respect and cooperation from them. That's the social price. No law necessary.
Abuse at workplace is much wider subject. First thing is that there has to be relation of power. Linus has no power over people who he swears at. They can freely choose to never interact with Linus again at any point in time at no loss to themseves or their loved ones. Heck, they can even take all the stuff Linus did, copy it and work on that instead.
Linus is not your boss.
Nobody is forcing you to contribute to the kernel. If you want to, he's the "benevolent dictator". If you don't agree, "fork it and go your own way" as someone else said.
It may look like masochism, but people who work with a "benevolent dictator" know what they are in for. We don't need to be "protected" and if you don't like it, just don't come, the same way I'm not going to play with soccer players because I don't play soccer.
Linus exercises authority over his project. He decides which contribution to take in and which to leave out. He is a boss of linux. But not the boss of people who contibute because he has no authority over them to exercise.
I think you missed my point, I was addressing a comment that basically stated that the behaviour is OK because he knows how to get things done and I gave an extreme example of how to get things done with an innapropiate behaviour. I think the comparison is correct in that context
People criticizing Linus in this thread really seem to act like their arms are being twisted to work with him. I mean you literally compared him to a slaver. You know what the key difference is? He's running a voluntary programming project, which people are welcome to voluntarily join if the project and its other members suit them, and are welcome to leave (with all of its work-product at this time) if they want to, when they want to.
People are literally sitting around bitching and moaning that they can't play with a local, volunteer-staffed sunday afternoon basketball league because they don't like the people doing the volunteer staffing and organization.
You have absolutely NO right to demand that volunteer organizations began, ran, and maintained by other people change their behavior to suit you. The only time there is any duty created towards you is when (a) you are absolutely dependent on them for something, by their own doing, (b) they are forcing you to interact with such folks, (c) various other versions of coercion.
You do not get to dictate the behavior of every freely-assembled group of people which takes no action to coerce you to join them. You don't get to dictate the behavior of every group of people you might conceivably want to join.
This is some of the most entitled whining I've ever seen on HN.
No, I didn't. OP implied that because Linus knows how to get things done his behaviour is excusable, then I gave a counter-example in which that statement is false (at least in my opinion, there exists people who believe in slavery)
>"You have absolutely NO right to demand that volunteer organizations began, ran, and maintained by other people change their behavior to suit you."
"I" have no right to demand that (and that's the reason why I didn't). However, email's author has the right to ask for respect if he is feeling offended by his lead. Your phrase seems to imply that because is a volunteer group is OK if his leader is abusing, but for the people affected is actually worse because they are giving up their time and they are being offended by the project lead.
>"This is some of the most entitled whining I've ever seen on HN."
Well apparently if you don't like something you are free to go away, that was your argument right? In any case I think whining is acceptable in a discussion (which I think is this part of the site about but you are free to prove me wrong)
What do you mean, precisely? Is there some other meta code of conduct where calling obnoxious behavior unprofessional is itself a violation?
It beggars disbelief that some posters here can't see that torvald's insults add noise to his critiques. He states the issue, then ads in a bunch of pointless aggression. It seems like being honest succinct and to the point is most efficient. If your undies are truly in a bunch, you could add a comment at the end along those lines.
Some thing can happen in spite of things, instead of because of them.
Some people link Job's success to his attitude. But his attitude didn't make him successful, it was his vision and ability to convince people.
That said, I think Linus is fairly professional in the core of his communication. Just because you swear doesn't mean that the message you're passing along isn't.
His attitude played a major role in his ability to convince people. And it is way more time efficient to be rude sometimes, so he had more time to worry about important stuff.
In the early days, Linux was not the only open source kernal out there. It's possible that Linus's blunt approach is actually a key factor in Linux's success. Society hasn't yet had long to establish a set of norms for working in distributed teams like this (where the members aren't compelled to do as their told by traditional employment contracts). Maybe he's right and removing the offensiveness would just bog Linux down in endless political games.
I suspect you're on to something here. In the absence of formal contracts, leadership needs to be established in other ways. Linus's method may be a bit vulgar, but more importantly he exudes authority.
>"He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years..."
No. Let's have just a modicum of perspective. That's not to belittle Torvald's achievement or contribution to computer science, but on the scale of importance generally it's way down the list.
Actually, I do get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional...and so do you and everyone else. It's called "opinion".
Also, while I admire what he's done, let's lay off the hyperbole for a bit. "..one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years"? Really? That's laying it on a bit thick there. But hey, you're entitled to your opinion too.
Channeling my inner Linus: Who the fuck are you to tell Sarah what she can or cannot say to him?
Or on a more serious note:
Sarah's involvement with the project gives her the right to voice her opinion. If people work together on an open source project and have a disagreement over management styles and professional conduct, this disagreement needs to be addressed instead of ignored.
In addition to the discussion on the mailing list, there will apparently be a meeting in meat-space as well that's going to involve cookies and brownies of questionable origin, so they are dealing with it.
Nothing more to see here, and the internet at large can move along - rallying in support of a the semi-mystical Linus that cannot do wrong is misguided and unnecessary - I'm confident he's able to fight his own fights...
> Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team.
There are some extremely dedicated people who are prepared to put up with his tantrums to work on the kernel. I'm not sure that's the same thing as knowing how to run an effective team. He's at the top of a hierarchy but he doesn't run most of the activities in it, he doesn't even interact in a meaningful way with most of the people in it.
It's just not possible, there are thousands of people who contribute to the Linux kernel. I believe I saw a chart a while back that showed two or three levels of hierarchy between Linus and contributors. Realistically, you run a small team of people who run other small teams of people who....
And because of that, it's entirely possible to be at the head of an organisation made up, primarily, of far better people than yourself.
Heck, it's highly probable that's going to happen if you fall far beneath the average in social skills and have significant leverage along some other axis. Nice people will generally refuse to work with an arsehole - but every now and then someone will, (maybe because they have thicker skin than the average, or value your leverage more, or come in for less of your flak.) So, the people who are nice and will, for whatever reason, put up with you tend to end up filling those positions because no-one else can do so effectively. If they're nasty, then no-one will be more likely to work with them than they are to work with you and the problem recurs one level down - except this time you need to find people'll who'll work with five (or whatever the size of your immediate project team is) arseholes rather than one to make the project work.
This all, of course, depends on the alternatives that the people at the base of the hierarchy have. In situations where the people can't go elsewhere it often seems to be very much a case of, 'You'll take it and like it, if you know what's good for you.'
Does any of this mean Linus is bad at running teams? No. But it does mean that he's not necessarily any good at it just because the system's giving reasonable output. The naive model of a hierarchy as something in which all the influence flows from the top down is nonsense.
> They'll struggle to build that team, because Linus is deeply trusted with the stewardship of the kernel, in no small part because of his "unprofessional" behaviour.
If I gave examples of other very successful open source projects in which the project maintainers act courteously, would you change your mind?
I think it's fair to say that Linus can be unprofessional. Just because you've got great accomplishments doesn't mean you're professional. But what people forget is that Linus is essentially a rock star in his field.
Because he's a rock star who continuously proves it with results, Linus can say and do whatever he wants. He's earned it, and most people will not only tolerate his abrasiveness, but they'll accept it.
Many people who might be very good at what they do but are not rock stars think they can act like Linus, Crockford, DHH or [insert grumpy tech icon here]. Personally, I think that's a mistake, because "pretend rock stars" just end up being regarded as overrated tools.
This is the start of the thread. It is pretty obvious that no one is being serious about actual violence. It's just banter. Harmless (and not at all unhealty) banter.
The type of communication in the LKML has always been straight to the point and without unnecessary diplomacy. Sometimes it reads as assertiveness, sometimes it reads as rudeness. The point is that it works.
Every community has its "rules". Those rules are made by its members, all its members. If you disagree, act differently. If you are right and the others are wrong, they will follow you.
Asking for "professional behavior" when others are just acting normally is whining for politically correctness, which is pretty annoying and a sure way to not change anything.
Yeah, that's very useful context. Sarah Sharp is not Linus. She doesn't get to to dictate the tone of the mailing list, and was obviously trying to publicly shame/attack Linus. One doesn't have to endorse Linus' management strategy to grant that (a) it works and (b) it works without Sarah Sharp's input.
But it's debatable that it actually scares anyone off...
This is not about grinding newcomers to the LKML, this is about the type of communication between people that have known each other for quite some time, and are well aware of each other's technical "sensibilities".
True, the LKML is also known to be a bit harsh to newcomers. But only in a sense that newcomers are often unaware of the high technical standards that the kernel abides to, and often resent the level of criticism or suggestions for change that they receive.
I would not want to work in an environment where mistakes are punished by a shouting tyrant. Even if I know I should not make those mistakes.
It does not matter that he does this to people he knows well and perhaps can even handle this kind of verbal abuse. He does this publicly to the entire world which is not acceptable in my book.
Linus really has only a few tools at hand to restrict otherwise almost unlimited access he is providing. Instead of usual secretaries filtering and rationing access, he has to be blunt whenever he encounters inconsiderate time wasting. Like he said previously, occasional swearing shortens the e-mail queue. If Linus resorted to hand holding he would never get anything else done, because there is virtually endless demand for it.
I'm glad Linus isn't budging on this one. As soon as you start considering how not to hurt someone's feelings, you're putting speed bumps in the paths of your thoughts. If something is fucking stupid, then someone needs to say exactly that, not "That's a good idea, but it seems to me and my mealy mouth that such and such may be another way of doing it...?"
The fact that the hacker community is full of mean gits is no coincidence. Let's consider where the opposite type of people (the ones who'll smile charmingly while stabbing you in the back) congregate - HR, PR, management, politics - all fields where creativity is less important than manipulativeness.
I'll take a brutally honest genius over a charming "socially intelligent" liar any day.
There's nothing wrong with "That's a really bad idea, and here's why". There's everything wrong with "THAT IDEA IS FUCKING STUPID. YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT".
And Linus is perfectly capable of giving a more reasoned response while still being direct: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/99 (same thread, Linus' reply to a reasoned response from yelled at developer)
Still pretty direct, but gone are the insults. Nobody has been asking for a sugar coating, but simply for Linus to stop being personally abusive.
Yes, people make mistakes. Really stupid mistakes. But if you think they're idiots, don't accept their contributions. If you don't think they're idiots, why call them that just because you can't control your anger?
> you're putting speed bumps in the paths of your thoughts.
I would argue that for many of the people I have met in my life, this would be a good thing. I don't we need to coddle each other all the time, but neither is the opposite workable or desirable - a little consideration is important.
It figures a top voted comment on Hacker News is that Linus is wrong and we should all hold hands and sing camp songs.
There are tons of useful discussions that simply don't happen on HN because anybody with an actual strong opinion gets helbanned. For instance Google's Go language is lauded here because of fake politeness, but almost universally dismissed elsewhere.
This discussion has already achieved its real goal: to put "Linus Torvalds" and "Sarah" in the same sentence; this is the bullshit politics Linus talks about.
Haha, agreed. I see two "dead" comments above you invisible to most people that are actually very valuable and pointing out that Finland where Linus started is not like America in regards to PC and honesty. I think HN is lessened by banning people who just have different or brutally honest opinions. They should save banning for spammers/trolls/people intentionally disrupting the discussion or lying, etc., but I see people ghosted all the time who are not that.
Correct on all counts. People need to realise that smart people tend to have short tempers because they've encountered the same idiocy many, many times; the first few times they may have explained patiently but after a while it begins to get wearisome. People with precious, precious feelings should stay away.
"The entire principle is wrong: it's like insisting that adults live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak." - Heinlein
> So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other.
One method of getting people to work together despite people being different is to get everyone to agree to a standard communication protocol when dealing with each other. This is often consider getting everyone to act professionally and in many/most organizations the standard of conduct is enforced from the top down.
It can be enforced from the top down because the people at the top can provide the right mix of incentives and can cull those who do not conform.
In most volunteer communities it can be difficult/undesirable to enforce a detailed/strict code of conduct. It can limit your access to volunteers and is one more hurdle to joining the organization. Think of how much sales/conversions can drop if a user has to click through one more screen or is required to click one more confirmation, now add on top of that the user is trying to volunteer, an action which is more complex if not more costly then a simple purchase. It would be interesting to quantify the codes of conduct(how they are enforced not written) from different web forums and correlate it with member growth, retention, and level of interaction.
So in a diverse volunteer community it seems advantageous to first encourage members to be generous of what they accept before encouraging them to be careful with what they share.
Were it not Linus, nobody would bat an eyelid, because it's the "internet". Heck, just look at some of the comments here, they're not full of capitalized swear words yet they manage to be more nasty and hurtful than Linus was.
Linus gets to do what he wants to do because he was extraordinarily successful in his field from a very young age. In other words, he's spoiled.
If he had to "work for a living," ie: work in a job he needed, rather than a job he wanted, he would likely have had a job which enforced behavioral norms. He probably wouldn't have been as happy, but he likely would more polite.
One of the things schools do is to socialize us to maintain civility. This only works for some people. It's clear to me that Linus is rather incapable of realizing he's being a douche, and even if he does realize it, he's not interested in changing for other people. And since it's Linus' sandbox, you either deal with it or go home.
However, the main point of his argument is valid. People are different and we should align ourselves with people that support our preferred way of working. If you can't work with Linus directly because he's a douche, then you better find an insulating support structure, or find another project.
isn't any form of criticism an insult? Plus we're talking about Torvald's attitude, hard to avoid personal attacks when we're talking about the person himself.
Not at all. Constructive criticism isn't insulting by definition.
Calling someone a douche isn't constructive criticism. And there's a difference between attacking a person and attacking the actions - and look at what Torvalds does. Even his famous "shut the fuck up Mauro" comment is telling Mauro that his behaviour is inappropriate. He's not saying 'Mauro, you are a douche' directly insulting the guy, he's saying "I'm angry with you because you're breaking our tenets", talking about his actions and behaviour, and he even finishes up with expecting Mauro to fix the technical issue - a tacit acknowledgment of capability.
Calling someone a douche is constructive criticism. If I call you a douche, it means you're acting in self-centered, antagonistic manner that aggravating the relationship.
Of course some people don't care about that. People don't fix things they don't feel are broken.
Rubbish. Constructive criticism requires input on specific paths to improve the situation. Telling someone they're a douche is just applying a generic insult. It's not even criticism of any kind, as douche is nonspecific.
I also think exactly the same thing of you, given that you think I'm stupid enough to believe that being called a douche is 'constructive criticism'. It doesn't require profanity to insult someone.
If you're offended by the word douche to describe a jerk, then we occupy different cultures.
Similarly, if someone thinks being called a "jerk" is an insult devoid of constructive criticism, then they're likely either intentionally obdurate or they lack the self-awareness to identify their failings.
I'm perfectly aware of my ability to be a douche. I just choose who to be a jerk to. Strangers on the internet: possibly; colleagues I work with: not so much.
I'm not offended by it in the slightest. I swear like a trooper. My issue is that you're trying to pass off a generic insult as 'constructive criticism'. What is insulting is that you think I'm stupid enough to believe it - it's not the words you're using, but the underlying context.
It's either that, or you don't actually understand what constructive criticism is.
I'm probably stupid for starting this up again, but at the top of the thread, in my first comment, before I call Linus a douche, I spend two paragraphs describing what I think the problem is.
If Linus actually read my HN comment and (a) was offended and (b) wanted constructive criticism, he would see that I believe he is poorly socialized for working in a certain (rather popular) type of work environment. That seems to me pretty constructive. Linus would not be suited for a job in diplomacy, or any other type of relationship-intensive enterprise.
Now, if I just said "Linus is a douche," I'd give you your point.
I already regret starting this up again, because you seem to be committed to your point. But WTF, I had 10 minutes to kill before I pick up my kid.
People seem to be mistaken about why most teams accept certain standards. It's not about artificial politeness, it's about trying to get the best out of the team.
Not shouting people down is good because it means that people who are more reserved but who have valuable things to add get their say.
Not calling people stupid is good because generally people working on a project such as this aren't stupid and you're missing a chance to find out what really went wrong (misunderstanding, miscommunication or whatever).
Even if what they have said IS stupid, not abusing people for mistakes is good because abuse is a sub-optimal way of teaching.
Yes modern organisations have taken much of this too far and ended up as insincere, inefficient behemoths, but some of the standards within the community seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water and taking almost gleeful pride in doing so.
503 comments
[ 7.3 ms ] story [ 316 ms ] threadShort is good, harsh is not a problem, if short means harsh, so be it.
The problem with cultural differences is that the effect of this might be not the intended one: the person you shouted at will consider you rude and as someone to avoid instead of reflecting on their actions and trying harder the next time. So it's not really smart to act like this, even if you feel it's "natural". You need to be someone important to be able to afford it and Linus (still) is.
‘Be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send’ has two clauses for a reason, namely that trying to gauge the effect of what one says on every possible group will fail. Sure, someone you tell ‘no, this is utter crap, go back and fix it’ might find that rude and will never talk to you again, but on the other hand, someone might understand ‘this could be improved here and there and maybe you could change that’ as ‘oh, that’s fine apart from some trivialities’.
> You need to be someone important to be able to afford it and Linus (still) is.
I wouldn’t say you need to be someone important, you just have to be in a position where you don’t have to care about possibly maybe hurting the delicate feelings of the other person.
http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Texas-teen-charged-with-...
"Texas teen charged with making terroristic threat after online joke"
Careful with baseball bats here! Whatever we consider it, the "online world" became bigger and started to be less tolerant for friend-between-friend exploring of "who can think of something nastier."
You, on the other hand, did not agree to something, felt mad or frustrated, and instead of conveying that frustration you snidely suggested that that he must be suppressing some "natural urges". Violent? Homosexual? From whose subconscious did those arise from? Not Linuses?
(See what I did there? What kind of urges might _I_ be suppressing?)
All in all: I find your reply to be a perfect example of what Linus is trying to avoid ("fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, _the passive aggressiveness_, and the buzzwords")
Freud would disagree and so do I.
> you snidely suggested that that he must be suppressing some "natural urges"
Same thing Linus did in the last paragraph. :-/
> your reply to be a perfect example of what Linus is trying to avoid ("fake politeness[...]"
That makes no sense. I am just trying to analyze and understand his behavior. There's no emotion involved at all.
> Freud would disagree and so do I.
So one can not curse out of anger or frustration without there being suppressed urges? I do not think Freud would agree with you.
If the "cursing" involves typing things on a keyboard, then yes, I believe there are some things (urges, actions) being suppressed.
By the way most of the theories of Freud have since long been discredited by the scientific community.
Some quotes I liked:
So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other.
I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.
Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a la LKML) or covert (passive). Lying is not warranted under any circumstance. Being professional means not calling people names.
All of this stuff is what you get taught in kindergarten, it's not rocket science. Mental abuse is no better than physical abuse, and given I don't buy that hitting developers with sticks makes them "better" somehow I'm also not going to buy into clue-by-four beatings being any better.
Also way to go to ignore all the other arguments he made, before talking about office politics, it seems like you just skipped to the end.
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442916...
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442909...
To me Linus is kinda like Wagner, I do like and enjoy his work, but as a person he is not someone I'd aspire to emulate.
(Nitpick: Do you mean Richard Wagner or someone called Vagner I’ve never heard of?)
I am now poorer for the time wasted replying to your post.
Edit: Just saw your reply to the OP: "If she is dimwitted to a point that she doesn't understand even when it's explained, I'd try to find a new wife."
Words fail me.
Also the wife in question is a theoretical construct, not an actual human being, that was for purpose of mental experiment made 'extremely dumb'. He isn't saying his or any other wife/parter was dumb, he made a thought experiment to demonstrate his point. Try to not be so obtuse.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner#Racism_and_anti...
If she did that, I'd definitely say it is a stupid/bad idea because X, Y, Z and move along. She just lacks context/knowledge why it is a stupid idea. If she is dimwitted to a point that she doesn't understand even when it's explained, I'd try to find a new wife.
Note: meant Wagner, and it's fixed.
I feel sorry for her and you haven't even found her yet.
Precisely, but that is the for the person themselves to feel and not to be told. If you get off on telling people they are lesser beings than you then there is something intrinsically wrong with your impulse control; it's called learning, and the day the world makes that a shameful thing is the day we all return to the middle ages.
N.B, this was specifically related to he/she having to feel dumb for even thinking it. Doing something when you have no expertise in that field is an entirely different kettle of fish. It seems in this case he/she would have been insulted for contemplating the idea inside the boundaries of his/her own mind..
edit: hrm, that rather seems your point in linking them.
I'd agree there are degrees of someone being a dick. There is also the matter of it being done in different context, it's different to be a asshole in public is different that in semi-privacy of a mailing list.
Another thing to note, that both commenters didn't go into foreign language swear mode :) and called Linus a devil's cunthead. They pointed out he is behaving as douchebag.
If the response is 'context', then it should also be pointed out that we only ever see the slimmest speck of his emails from the list and we never see them in the context in which they're presented. As someone else in the thread mentioned, we don't see the many messages where he doesn't behave this way; we don't see the actual personality that is seen when working with him.
It's true we might miss some of the context by not being there, that said, from his previous discussions you can draw a lot of observation that help clarify the current context.
Point of the messages was that him acting "unprofessional" will actually cause the same behavior he is trying to avoid by acting "unprofessional".
The other comment spends the first half in character assassination and really gives us no particular reason to consider that author particularly versed in how to behave professionally.
The thing is, if you stop and actually read how Torvalds presents himself, it's not just spewing forth expletives. There is a lot of consideration and thought behind what he says. It's just that this hoopla erupts because occasionally an uptight person makes a complete meal of things by publicising one of these comments out of the greater context. It's pretty much textbook yellow journalism.
The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism".
People are emotional, reactionary creatures with very different needs.
These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it. As was shown on a recent post - Linus reverted to swearing in his native tongue because English wasn't sufficiently rude enough for him, and those who let the fuckup slip through all admitted their fault and identified that they would take steps to ensure it didn't happen again.
In open source, the office is the mailing list. Life is tough. Say sorry and make sure it doesn't happen again. Move on - and outside the US, I think swearing is pretty common if you do something stupid - working environment or not. I don't think this means that we all have to adhere to US standards.
I'm guessing your co-workers knew you'd been chewed out but how much worse would you have felt (I guess plenty) and how much more would you have learned (I guess nothing) had your dressing down been in public?
Much of this isn't about some artificial standard for the sake of it, it's about getting the best out of people. Public beatings have been shown not to do that. If the OSS community wants to behave this way then it can but ultimately it's going to drive a bunch of people away, or cow them into not really speaking up for fear of retribution and as a result will likely miss out on valuable contributions.
There seems to be a thing here with a lot of people saying "I work like this and like it". That's fine but the worst mistake you can make with others is often assuming that everyone else is like you. a lot of management science is bullshit but alongside the nonsense there is actual quantitative research about how people behave and so on.
There is possibly a discussion to be had around whether programmers (or more strictly people with the potential to be good programmers as that's what you want to optimise for, rather than the people who are currently programmers) are typical but as a hypothesis I'd rather go with programmers behave broadly as other people do.
What is "it", exactly? Any public criticism? Public belittling (which is severely different from a proper dressing down)? Swearing? There's a lot mixed in here.
And does research conclusively establish a significantly different reaction to otherwise identical acts in public vs private?
> I'd rather go with programmers behave broadly as other people do.
Even if programmers behave broadly as other people do, that doesn't mean they'd have the same reaction to the same behavior in two very different scenarios.
Our dressing-downs[1] are as likely to come from our peers as our management. And even when they come from managers, we have a much different relationship with them. We are in positions of relative power and economic security, as well as positions of trust. A manager is more peer or patron than overlord, and we are more agent than minion. This is a very different dynamic than most jobs.
I question the relevance of any research on this that doesn't specifically target highly-skilled fields with economically-secure workers.
[1] Dressings down? Can you make bandages out of soft feathers?
Ultimately it depends on what you're trying to achieve when you're talking to someone. There might be occasions when being shamed in front of the team is the best thing for the person but I'd suggest that they're few and far between.
As a manager if I act angrily towards you then regardless of what you've done I'd suggest that I've both failed - yes you might have done something which has annoyed me but I've then responded by handling it badly. The best I can say at the end is that I didn't start it. The twice I've lost my temper publicly at a member of my team my overriding sense afterwards was that I should have handled the situation better. Certainly in neither case do I think what I did got the best from the person in question (one I think viewed the whole thing with complete indifference, the other was demotivated by it).
In terms of the specifics of the research, it's been a while since I looked at it (back in my days studying). I recall that public was generally a greater demotivator than private but I'm not aware of anything that's been done on different skill levels - would certainly be interested in that. My gut feel is that while there might be differences constructive engagement in private would still be the most productive way of handling it - I don't think programmers and other skilled workers are that different to the rest of the world. If anything I'd suggest they'd be more inclined to dislike anything involving anger directed at them - after all, they generally have the option to go elsewhere so why should they put up with it?
The comments you make about everything being out in the open are interesting. I can see if the manager or other berater is untrustworthy that this could be a thing, but if there are overall issues of trust of that type I think that how this sort of thing is handled is largely irrelevant in the face of that much larger problem.
You can't even trust yourself. You've "lost your temper" twice. Why won't you do it a third time? A fourth? A fifth?
Does it not occur to you that this is all just part of being human?
And yes, I've lost my temper twice and will probably do so again but as with those times when it has happened in the past I'll apologise, attempt to repair the damage and move on.
No-one needs to be perfect and unbiased, for the most part your flawed best with good intentions is plenty. If you find yourself working with people who don't have good intentions then maybe the level of suspicion is fair enough but personally I'd get the hell out of there rather than work in somewhere that poisonous - 20 years working has taught me that it's simply not necessary to put up with places like that and that there are plenty of alternatives.
Perhaps you have never worked in a good office, on a good team where people respect each other.
These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it.
Why? It's rude and additionally it doesn't seem to achieve anything positive that can't be achieved more politely.
It saves time when you don't have to carefully structure each criticism in a compliment sandwich and so forth. It's understood in this environment that that's how the story goes - the excerpts people see of 'linus being rude again' are tut-tutted by a bunch of people who've never read a single other message on the kernel mailing list.
I was using the 'compliment sandwich' as a shorthand for reviewing all the commentary to make sure it's pleasant or polite. That stuff does take effort and time, particularly if you aren't intimately familiar with the other party and have to generalise it to the generic person. I've done a hell of a lot of support in my time and this is abundantly clear to me. There are even people who perform better when you swear around them, because they don't feel like they have to control their language.
Couched phrasing takes effort - and Torvalds is one of the few technocrats who still gets his hands dirty in the trenches.
The closest friend I'm with the more I swear. What I don't get is people awkwardly swearing in presence of people they just met. I see it as attempt to desperately get connection to other people.
Why are you apologizing?
I can only imagine only the most socially incompetent people would actually find it a major time-sink to say things civilly. You don't have to make a compliment sandwich, saying "Your kernel patch throws a bunch of warnings, what the fuck is this?" is hell of a lot better than "which one of you retards can't read the guidelines?"
The basis of civility is to avoid personal attacks when it's not about the person. This isn't about the person. You can be civil and still be pissed off.
The only reason being polite saves time is because someone is unpracticed at it.
This comment (and indeed your comment) are both polite and completely disagree. I spent a while thinking of how best to express my point, but none at all working out how to avoid being offensive.
But if it makes you feel better: fuck compliment sandwiches ;)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6051057
Politeness does not mean standing for incompetence.
Lying is dishonorable, counterproductive in context of multiple cooperating people, and a really bad idea overall, purely objectively. Swearing, linguistics-wise, is indeed a completely normal ("natural and ok") trait (present to some extent in individuals of all cultures, gender, professions etc., even in some higher animals) that is orthogonal to anyone's performance. How could you possibly equate these two is beyond me.
I'd say is a cultural thingie. Compared to other languages English has very few swear words/expressions, for example in my native language you could swear at someone by saying something like "fuck your mother's dead relatives" (it sounds way worse in original, trust me). If someone were to say that to my face my first instinct would be to see if I can beat him right there on the spot (and if yes, would I risk going to prison for hospitalizing him?) and if no then I'd think of swearing back with something even harsher (while looking for an escape route).
On the other hand everybody lies, that's why we have things like contracts etc, it's assumed that at some point or another we'll stop telling the truth.
When has Linus actually worked in an office? Would he really know what it's like?
AFAIK, he moved from Finland to USA in 1998 to work at Transmeta. He was already famous at that time, and presumably could dictate his working terms. I recall reading an interview that suggested he was mostly working from home on the Linux kernel already back then.
Maybe that's why his notion that "professionalism" equals neckties and backstabbing seems like a caricature out of a '90s TV show.
The algorithm might be stupid, that doesn't make the person stupid. Ad hominem attacks are a very poor way to defend your point and will result in people not wanting to work with you.
Saying "grow a thicker skin" won't make it better either.
Linus is a brilliant engineer, his people skills not so brilliant. But we all knew that already.
it's possible to be succint, harsh, and directly to the point without swearing or being abusive. for example, off the top of my head:
"stephen, this code is riddled with basic errors and is completely unacceptable. please fix a, b, and c immediately and know that if you make mistakes like this again, your contributions will no longer be welcome."
versus:
"stephen, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??!?! seriously, a FUCKING JUNIOR DEV would not make mistakes like this. why are you wasting my time with this FUCKING BULLSHIT? FIX IT NOW OR YOU'RE FIRED!"
imagine in both cases the person writing to you has only a professional relationship (ie, is not a friend who has the type of relationship with you where the 2nd paragraph would be an establish, half-joking form of communication)
honest open criticism != rude dick
It takes a little more work, because you have to think carefully about your words and calm down, but that action itself makes
a) the criticism more useful b) creates a frame where the criticism is more likely to be acted on and leave no resentment
Also, I believe that apologizing is something we should do more often. As in "I don't apologize for my behavior" is not as good a path as "I'm sorry I blew up, but I did have a point".
(Edit: My experience includes Fortune 100 in consumer tech and finance)
the point is it's taken in a certain spirit, and you can't force people who don't know you well, or don't share that sensibility, to partake of that spirit.
even if you personally prefer that style, it's hard to argue that it's effective from a practical perspective. for the large majority of people, the first example is far more likely to actually get you your desired result than 2nd.
In this scenario Stephen has been hired to write code/produce something, I'll go all-Marxist on this and say he was hired to produce plus-value. He was not hired to be sworn at, no matter how good or bad his code/work might be, and this is why swearing directly at people is unprofessional.
As an aside, I'm surprised at the people who say that swearing to other people's face is "manly" (or something of the sorts). In the part of the world that I live if you swear someone directly in the face you'd better be prepared for a physical fight or worse.
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=135628421403144&w=2
You are trying to create uniformity and conformance, which is not in our nature. Some people are polite, others are not (Linus for example). The working environment of the kernel mailing list is public and subject to harsh language because it's run (rather successfully it could easily be concluded) with the philosophy that people should be able to express themselves.
"you are trying to create uniformity and conformance, but people are different. some people are kind and patient with their children, others are explosive and sometimes beat them. some of those children grow up to be very successful and hit their children. who are you to tell people how to raise their children?"
to be clear, i am not saying linus's swearing in an email is even the same league as child abuse, but the logical argument above and the one you are making is the same.
honestly, it just seems like a clever piece of rhetoric to justify treating people any way you please. it reminds me of the evangelical christians here who are against gay marriage, and argue that they are the victims now because they can no longer preach against homosexuality in peace, and lobby for laws against it, what with all the liberal media painting them as monsters and not respecting their rights to express their own religious beliefs
Actually, he swore in Finnish in that post, and as a Swedish-speaking Finn, Swedish, and not Finnish, is his native language.
http://www.muktware.com/news/2857/which-linus-torvalds%E2%80...
I understand the whole "you've obviously never ..." thing that people do to state that their experiences are not representative, but it just sounds dickish in your post. I think it's pretty obvious that the person you are replying to has worked in an office, and has had a good dose of reality.
My Finnish colleague seems to like it. I'm told shouting "Perkele!" is a great stress-reliever.
Why? Wouldn't you achieve the same thing by calling the commit fucking stupid? Why resort to personal attacks?
If someone commits code that is fucking stupid then by all means call the code fucking stupid. But then actually take the time to identify the cause for the mistake. Is that programmer following best practises? Are they being careless? Are they working on something they don't have the expertise for? Are they spread too thin? If you identify the problem you can try to fix it. Instead of abuse, you should be giving clear and direct instructions on how to not make mistakes like that ever again. If you call someone "fucking stupid" then you incorrectly identify the problem and, moreover, you're being abusive, which can be very harmful.
Calling someone stupid after he did something stupid is different than calling him that as a main point of his semiannual performance review.
This obviously doesn't hold true for all individuals, but Americans tend to prefer the "Let's all hold hands and sing kumbaya" type of social dynamic. "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything." Much emphasis is placed on not hurting anyone's feelings, and maintaining the appearance that everyone likes everyone else.
Northern Europeans, meanwhile, tend to prefer the "We're all adults here, so let's cut the bullshit and say exactly what we think." Being honest and genuine is more important than being liked.
This part, I find really significant: And hey, I don't actually think we've personally even had any problems. And I realize that you may react very strongly and get nervous about us having problems, but realistically, do you actually expect to like all the other kernel engineers? And equally importantly, not everybody has to like you, or necessarily think they have to be liked by you. OK?
That strikes me as a very Northern European view, that is not as likely to be shared by most Americans. It's just not how we're socialized in America. And too often, "professionalism" gets defined as "American style," while anything un-American is deemed unprofessional, which is not quite right.
I'm no shrinking violet. I got a good ass-chewing from time to time in the Navy and each time I deserved it. That said, you'd be surprised to hear that ass-chewing doesn't happen NEARLY as often as you'd expect it to in a hyper-aggressive life-or-death type world like the military.
I can't imagine anyone in the civilian world getting their panties bunched up enough to justify the kinds of shit I see from people who get their nose bent out of shape when someone screws up, but see it I do. Often, I think it's an over-reaction.
It's one thing to yell at someone who makes a mistake that might get people killed. It's another to flip out because it might make someone's browser run slower or crash.
YMMV.
Some of the coaches you're talking about display apoplectic aggression as a matter of routine. Linus is never genteel, but his serious rants are unusual. You just don't hear much about him the rest of the time, because most of what he says is completely uninteresting to non-kernel-devs. It seriously skews your perception.
Leaving out the reasons would also be ok, but don't be surprised if this results in confusion and anger. (However, the abusive alternative to this will likely not help reducing the confusion or anger.)
"This work is bad because of reasons A, B, C."
Leaving out the reasons would also be ok, but don't expect other people to agree with you if you do that.
Being straightforward doesn't require one to be abusive.
Of course it was later followed up by telling him to go fuck himself but that's how things go.
https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/407
" I really fundamentally believe that being honest and open about your emotions about core/process is good. And because it's damn hard to read people over email, I think you need to be more honest and more open over email. I'm generally nicer in person. Not always."
The only thing worse than someone using a fallacy is someone calling out a fallacy that isn't there.
that describes pretty well what is happening in so called professional environments. I have been pissed up at people and told them in their face what I thought of them when they fucked something up for the 4th time in a row, and I was reprimanded for this several times. Office politics does not like honesty. It encourages fake politeness and you indeed end up with people talking in your back like women. This sucks bad and I applaud Linus for taking the stance of saying what needs to be said.
So this discussion is not about whether shouting and cursing is morally acceptable or not. It's about who's going to make compromises, who's able to make compromises and who are we going to lose in the process. What Sarah (probably) implicitly says is 'I hate this, and I don't want to work in an environment like this - and there might be other people who feel the same'. If Linus thinks that he cannot work in a different way then (because he's pretty important for Linux) probably Sarah is going to be sacrificed in some way. That might be all right, but again: this is not a moral issue.
while people tolerate it at different levels, the phrase "some people" is misleading: almost nobody likes to be shouted at, or even feels neutral about it.
>It's completely valid to argue that shouting is just a culturally different, but acceptable way of expressing one's thoughts but then you need to be aware that you'll potentially lose people who just simply hate this form of communication.
this is true, but it's worth noting the same logical argument applies to physically hitting someone. and indeed, in other times and other cultures this was and is acceptable. and whenever those social norms have changed, there are people making what is essentially the same argument linus is making (just substituting "hitting" for "yelling").
Well, most people don't like criticism either, even when it's constructive. Some things are necessary even if people dislike them, but I don't think shouting is like that.
I think the question is, for any kernel developer--do you care enough about Linux that you want to be negatively reinforced when you're being stupid, or do you care more about feeling good all the time?
Same is true in work environments: You criticise the work, do not insult the person. Otherwise problems will be swept under the rug until they start to rot and can't be hidden any more.
[1] You can actually achieve the exact opposite: Peeing is a gesture of submission for dog puppies, so if you yell at them, they might just pee again.
The puppy-newspaper thing was intended to just be an evocative metaphor--I'm well-aware that hitting actual puppies with actual newspapers doesn't help anything. This is mostly because it's hard to understand, whether as a puppy or a human, exactly what you did that led you to being hit with a newspaper. Harsh words are much clearer than newspapers in giving causal structure.
(Though, if the stimulus-response is direct enough, words aren't exactly necessary; those "invisible fence" shock/noise collars for dogs do work, since the dog is given a much tighter feedback loop. As soon as they leave the defined zone, a pain-signal begins; as soon as they re-enter the zone, it ends. They can do science to figure out what is and is not painful, rather than being presented with a punishment and then having to use abductive logic to derive (that is, to guess at) possible causes. On the other hand, it is very hard to do science about where is or is not safe to defecate, unless you have the runs. ;)
http://youtu.be/IVpOyKCNZYw
This isn't just an isolated incident either, but I'm no shining example of acting professionally.
So if I get this right, we just need a Linus communication adapter that can translate messages so they are compatible with either side.
Does that mean when someone talks to Linus it should add swear words to be compatible with him? :)
I see his point, but it comes at a cost. People may start trying to work around him for fear of backlash rather than working with him. Or worse, just not try at all. We can only trust his technique has a greater net benefit.
I wonder if anyone has called Linus 'fucking stupid' (etc.) on the mailing lists, and how Linus reacted.
Some of the most offensive put-downs come as faint praise from people who are just so convinced that they're always reasonable to the nth degree. I'd rather someone come out flailing so I can defend myself and my work, with both of us being wrong (and open about it) from time to time so it's not something unusual or noteworthy.
Some people call this being transparent. Let people see what you really feel, and let them be sure that when they see your approval, they can be damn sure you are really approving and not just faking it.
Now, there is a difference between being transparent or honest and being aggressive or rude, and I don't approve of the latter. But that interpretation depends on the people involved and their relationship: what may be considered rude by a third party or someone from a different culture, may be considered normal and acceptable by the ones involved.
If you would take offense by something that you say/said to others, they you are being rude. Otherwise, you are being honest. Pretty simple rule.
But sometimes people are just so used to politically correct (faked) behavior that they take transparency for rudeness, and honesty for impoliteness.
Just look at this message: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1TUvG3J...
There is no justification for this kind of behaviour. If anybody else behaved this way, they would be sent to a psychiatrist. But apparently since it's Linus Torvalds, he's just being a little "harsh" and that's necessary to get his point across.
Why is it that so many people demanding politeness of Torvalds can't live by their own rules? Perhaps what Torvalds is saying is true, that people will find ways around the 'false rules'.
I meant to express my frustration how the community often accepts socially inacceptable behaviour from accomplished people.
When "normal" people fall into a rage, we tell them to learn coping with their anger. If they keep yelling angrily at people, we might even suggest they see a psychiatrist. Not as an insult, but because we sincerely believe that they could maybe learn some coping strategies to get along better with other people.
But for some people the rules are different. When someone complains that Steve Jobs verbally abused his employees, or when someone complains that Linus Torvalds uses unnecessary profanity, a lot of people start to justify this behaviour. They claim it is necessary for their success, etc.
I remember one of this 'Linus Swore!' threads on HN a while back, linking to a comment of Torvalds' that had little in it but anger... presented out of context. I went back and had a look, and it was in a bug thread where it was around comment 120. Up to that point, most of his comments (about 10% of the thread) were informative and trying to explain the issue to the recipient of his eventual ire, who obstinately refused to give way. That Torvalds had spent a dozen patient comments was not advertised... only the one with his final anger.
This is why these threads fire passion in me despite not being a kernel dev myself, because there is clear and constant misrepresentation of who he is and how he operates.
But what makes me sad is that when he does snap, there's a large number of people who come and justify his behaviour. People don't say "You are misrepresenting him!". People say "He gave so much to us. He has the right to behave this way."
You think Linus is mental. You can't massage it out to be non derogatory unless you give up the content.
_This_ is the problem. We're all engineers here, right? We appreciate that swearing in such a fashion is a concrete implementation of an abstract concept. The abstract concept of scorn or vehement disagreement. It just so happens your implementation was a little off before:
"Apparently I wasn't careful enough in my wording"
... but even if you tidy it up, its still the same abstract.
This post more or less proves his entire point. I can wander around in a professional capacity and utterly slaughter people with fancy sounding words because my implementation of scorn is _very_ sly when I'm in enterprise. Yours is IDENTICAL.
> socially inacceptable > fall into a rage > yelling angrily > see a psychiatrist > Not as an insult > learn some coping strategies > get along better with other people
That is all 100% unadulterated scorn. It's incredibly, incredibly personally _offensive_..... but your implementation is sly so it's acceptable in a "professional" environment.
Personally I prefer Linus's implementation as its more straight-forward and its easier to see what he's thinking making it more clear how he feels if one were to work together with him.
The thing is, the kernel mailing list being in the open makes it so we see conversations like this, but they should be seen as the equivalent of a private conversation, because that's what they really are.
Being told what you did was moronic is very different to being told you are a moron.
Linus is rude, not abusive. There is a difference.
If you perform this text in a "professional" manner then you will completely lose the correct tone of the message, which is: DON'T FUCKING DO THAT.
Psychiatrist? Bully? He's not punching this person in the face he's teaching them a very hard lesson on the correct attitude of a kernal maintainer.
> Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Okay, so he tells Mauro to stop talking because he apparently thinks that what Mauro was saying is wrong. To make very sure that what he wrote is read, he puts in fancy caps and some light swearing, which, however, is not directed at anyone in particular. A more polite version of this would have been ‘No.’, but I don’t see any bullying/abuse.
> It's a bug alright - in the kernel. How long have you been a maintainer? And you still haven't learnt the first rule of kernel maintenance?
It appears that this guy violated some rather important rule of kernel development which he should have known given his experience. Again, no name-calling or directed swearing whatsoever, however. Again, a more polite version could be ‘We don’t break userspace, and you know that.’, which doesn’t look particularly different to me.
> If a change results in user programs breaking, it's a bug in the kernel. We never EVER blame the user programs. How hard can this be to understand?
I would wager the guess that similar problems pop up from time to time and Linus is getting tired of seeing them all the time, hence his question. Again, no name-calling at all, also no abuse, but a (justified, though maybe slightly aggressive) question.
> [technical details]
> Shut up, Mauro. And I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. Seriously.
Again, no name-calling of the maintainer, but only an assessment of what he wrote, which, to Linus, appears very wrong. Again, more politely, this would have been ‘No.’
> […] And you've shown yourself to not be competent in this issue
This is the first personal ‘attack’, however, it is still only aimed at the competence rather than person, and if the above holds true, is yet again entirely justified. Is this the line with which you had a problem?
Linus then goes on to explain again why this particular idea was ‘TOTAL CRAP’, with some more colourful adjectives regarding the patch. Again, no abuse.
> The fact that you then try to make excuses for breaking user space, and blaming some external program that used to work, is just shameful. It's not how we work.
This could be interpreted as somewhat personal, though it likely only means ‘I expected better and am disappointed in you’.
> Fix your f*cking "compliance tool", because it is obviously broken. And fix your approach to kernel programming.
Note that the ‘fucking’ is for the ‘compliance tool’, which apparently is broken; the comment regarding kernel programming is again directed at their competence rather than person, so I don’t see any particular abuse there, either.
The remaining question is then, why didn’t Linus just write something along the lines of ‘No. / Don’t break userspace. / No. / No.’? Likely because then someone would have called him out on not going into details or because they got the same email regarding three small mistakes and a question and now don’t know whether this issue is a similar ‘small mistake’ or something more problematic.
That, of course, doesn’t mean I want others not to swear, not everyone has to behave exactly like me for me to be happy :)
The fact that you managed to describe "SHUT THE FUCK UP" as a slightly less polite version of "No." leads me to believe that this theory is quite plausible.
Be Impeccable With Your Words
Don't Take Anything Personally
Don't Make Assumptions
Always Do Your Best
This is from an excellent book called, "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" by Don Ruiz.
We could all do with a lot more of number two, don't take anything personally.
This is really a Postel's Law situation. Yes, your life will be improved if you can receive bad behavior and not take it personally. But it would be a shitty world to live in if this burden was only on recipients. The only robust way to maintain a worthwhile society is to expect, in the general case, that adults will have control of their impulses. Enabling this kind of behavior from celebrities is a loophole we might try harder to close, but fortunately, most of us don't have to deal with celebrities.
I can't control what kinds of behavior that others will tolerate, and I won't lose sleep over the existence of name-calling among adults in the world, but there's no way I'd keep a job where I was treated that way, let alone continue to volunteer my time in that situation.
Being impeccable with your word takes the "burden" off of the recipient, which of course is the first agreement.
It's also important to remember that tone doesn't come across well online so you shouldn't overreact to what you're reading. If someone curses online you could read it very aggressively. But if you were to hear them speak it it might seem much less threatening and aggressive and most or a speech pattern/way of phrasing things/way of making a point.
I agree acting professional is not healthy for a real social interaction and you need real social interactions when you're building a collaborative system like Linux.
The only time i act professional is when somebody pissed me off and I'm not in a position to tell him he's a moron without being fired or otherwise get into trouble.
Anyway: just because you act nice and act like you like somebody, doesn't mean you do.
I would much rather a person called me out on my bullshit than them politely skirting around the issue in an attempt to make me feel better and protect my feelings.
I personally have no experience writing kernel code, but I can imagine it's incredibly important that you get things right. So then if getting cursed at means you won't fuck up as often and learn from your mistake, then it works.
Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team.
There's nothing stopping anyone from mounting a coup d'etat. Anyone can fork the kernel, build a team of developers and usurp Linus. They'll struggle to build that team, because Linus is deeply trusted with the stewardship of the kernel, in no small part because of his "unprofessional" behaviour.
It's quite easy for an open source project to just waddle around and start blindly accepting things random developers contribute with no real decision or filtering process (cough PHP). They may verify the code's not buggy or that it at least does something that could be of use to someone, but they generally don't care if it fits in with the overall design and goals of the project.
Having someone who has the complete vision in his head, who's also extremely technical and knows what changes are good and bad, is absolutely invaluable.
Forking code essentially gives you the ability to take everything, and then move it in your own new direction. You leave behind only the parts you thought were "bad" or unprofessional or whatever.
Yes it is. Saying you can just fork it is like saying you can just move yourself and all your family and friends to another country.
You might be able to move yourself but moving any significant amount of developers is in practise impossible.
So it's better to force that significant amount of developers to do your bidding? That sounds just a just a weee bit unreasonable, IMHO.
You're basically saying that you want the fruits of Linus's labor without Linus there to do it?
Perhaps you're saying that you can't take the community with you? That doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation. You can fork, and you can continue to pull from upstream, but you can't force people to use it.
I was not interested in contributing any of our work (mostly netfilter related) back to the core precisely because I have better things to do with my emotional energy than engage with the aggressively toxic personalities of LKML.
That's one of the joys of open source, of course, doing your own thing.
In contrast I had a much better experience contributing to Postfix and Dovecot, where the benevolent dictators did not feel the urge to spew pages of vitriol in response to a blunder when a neutrally worded admonishment would do.
I've heard of plenty of people who prefer one language over another because of the nicer community. Eventually that should mean that projects with friendly communities are more successful.
So you want to censor everyone who doesn't buy into your flowery child talk? Fuck that. Cursing is a perfectly fine means of setting emphasis and I sure as shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits am not going to surrender that just so some shithead I don't even care about can jack off to his or her little control fantasies.
You don't like that? I couldn't really give less of a fuck; You're supposed to be a tech person, write a few sloc to filter profanity out or something but don't get on my nerves with that shit.
And yes, that was offensive and I am fully aware of that. That was also exactly what I was going for.
I have to concede that abuse is never a good thing, but since you seem to be seeing profanity as a problem I'm not sure we could agree on what exactly constitutes an 'abuse'.
EDIT:
It was (correctly) pointed out that censoring communication was not mentioned or even necessarily implied in smtddr's comment so this might not apply to said comment. That said, this still reflects aptly what I think about censoring away profanity.
Swearing all the time is not equivalent to talking like an adult, despite what you might think.
People communicate in different ways (and with different "curse-densities") and that is completely fine. What isn't fine is trying to get everyone to conform to a certain way of communication that you personally think is agreeable.
Diversity is to be cherished, not frowned upon. It makes for a more interesting world, and I am not willing to lose that just to make my environment have a few less sharp edges.
I don't need nor am willing to be rolled up in bubble wrap for what somebody calls my "own safety", which then isn't even determined by myself.
If the effect of not censoring yourself in this regard is to work in a much less diverse environment, which side is going to give? Honest question.
And a good one, too. The honest answer is: I don't know. I think this is highly contextual. At least I can't make a generalized decision for that. If the "less diversity" bit for instance means incorporating a 'No Nazis'-rule then the choice might be clear while in other cases it might be much more nuanced. As a rule of thumb I am against limiting someone's freedom until there is no other way around it. I would for instance only vote for a 'No Nazis'-rule if there would be a real problem with Nazis without that particular rule.
If, however, we are still talking about the case of censoring out profanity, you know my opinion. The people who are filtered out (or constitute the "less diversity") are the sort of people who get offended by me making use of a basic freedom (the one of speech). I am not interested in meeting people like that - frankly I hope they stay as far away from me as fucking possible.
This is similar to the reason of why I am against anti-discrimination rules at hacker cons; They are liable to be abused at some point while not providing anything of worth.
The sort of abuse they are supposed to prevent are reason enough to throw someone out even without those rules. Any major abuse is reason enough to get thrown out of a hacker event, or really any event.
The argument I have heard a few times for anti-discrimination rules is that girls get hit on all the time. I was kind of flabbergasted when I first heard this. I mean I can understand that it gets on ones nerves, but kicking someone out of an event because they hit on somebody really is not the right thing to do. If you don't want to get hit on there's a plethora of ways to communicate that in a non-verbal fashion, like wearing a wedding ring or - less subtle - wearing a shirt that says "I don't want to get hit on" or something, you get the idea…
I can use profanity in a peaceful manner to set emphasis and if someone feels attacked, denounced or otherwise mistreated they can just talk to me. Seriously, I don't bite and if I see your point I will act accordingly. Even if you are offended by someones actions that doesn't mean that they are unyielding dogmatic assholes - Just give them the benefit of the doubt and try to reason with them. And if it works you might've just broadened your personal horizon, maybe even made a new friend.
You'd think a community consisting of some of the most intelligent people on this planet would manage to have a proper communication culture, but in many aspects we are clearly lacking. I hope for this to change and of course discussions like this are a great first step towards doing so.
This is interesting. My instinctive reaction to someone trying to censor me is pretty damn negative, and I can swear like a sailor. On the other hand, what you wrote reminded me of a super sweet, gentle guy that I worked with once who was just genuinely freaked out by my profane manner. From a different country, deeply religious, etc. etc. I found out from a third party that the guy was weirded out by the way some of us carried ourselves, since the guy was a gentleman and wouldn't/couldn't say anything.
Of course I started behaving more carefully around him, and a little more carefully in general. He was always nice to me and a very, very skilled worker, someone I respected, so it would have seemed churlish to me to do otherwise.
> If you don't want to get hit on there's a plethora of ways to communicate that in a non-verbal fashion, like wearing a wedding ring or - less subtle - wearing a shirt that says "I don't want to get hit on" or something, you get the idea…
I believe the onus is entirely on the guy who is trying to be charming (if that's what we're talking about, as opposed to simple catcalling sorts of harassment) to notice when the object of his wit does not reciprocate with a smile and a kind word and to move the fuck on before his behavior gets creepy. I suppose I'm agreeing with you, as not smiling is a pretty clear form of communication - no rings or shirts or pepper spray are required.
I'm not sure what we should do with the guys who aren't clever enough to pick up on such signals but I'm open to a Soylent Green sort of option. (attending the average hacker event seems like a punishment all its own to me, so I'm useless for envisioning rules for something like that. Punish them by making them attend more hacker events?)
This, I believe, is the wrong way to go about it. To me this seems like some sort of culture clash and in my opinion staying silent is the wrong way to go about this.
If I notice someone getting offended by my profanity I just tell them that they were not the target of that profanity and that I have no 'beef' with them. I haven't ever met anyone with whom this was a problem. I usually make a pretty good case for open communication, depending on sobriety of course. ;)
I believe the onus is entirely on the guy who is trying to be charming (if that's what we're talking about, as opposed to simple catcalling sorts of harassment) to notice when the object of his wit does not reciprocate with a smile and a kind word and to move the fuck on before his behavior gets creepy. I suppose I'm agreeing with you, as not smiling is a pretty clear form of communication - no rings or shirts or pepper spray are required.
I think the point of the "getting hit on all the time sucks"-argument for anti-discrimination rules was that even if all the guys who hit on a girl stop it after (instantly) seeing that she isn't interested it would still be a lot of input which "sucks". So the case many people skeptic of anti-discriminatory rules saw was that a girl gets hit on all the time and even if they all do so in a civil manner, the one unlucky guy who represents the 'final straw' to that girl then gets kicked out. The examples I put up for showing that you're not interesting were aimed at communicating that before you get hit on. A rough analogue for this might be a spam filter - You don't have to manually decide whether or not something is spam by reading it, you don't have to read it in the first place. :P
Harassment is obviously a reason to warn somebody or - if they repeatedly harass someone - kick them out of the event. That said, I think 'catcalling' is very nuanced, couples or people who know each other for $random_reason can catcall each other in play and fun, you can also do it in a sarcastic/parodic fashion etc. The only thing I'd generalize about catcalling is that you probably shouldn't do it to someone you don't know (and of course not to someone of whom you know that they don't like it).
But in general I think pretty much everything I said here can be succinctly shortened to "Be merry, have fun and if you feel there's a problem - talk about it - just don't do it behind someone's back."
I'm perfectly capable of expressing everything I might express with profanity, without profanity. I'm now conscious of the fact that I'm a lot more persuasive if I take half a second to edit myself. The whole thing was a valuable learning experience.
> I think 'catcalling' is very nuanced
Interesting. I'd only ever use the word to describe the kind of rude behavior that happens between strangers on the street.
> the one unlucky guy who represents the 'final straw' to that girl then gets kicked out.
I wonder. The implication is that the guy said something which in isolation would have been completely within the bounds of good taste and then got kicked out. I bet this never, ever happens.
> But in general I think pretty much everything I said here can be succinctly shortened to "Be merry, have fun and if you feel there's a problem - talk about it - just don't do it behind someone's back."
That seems well-intentioned but entirely utopian to me.
Of course, from a social engineering standpoint that makes complete sense. But the point is that around my peers I don't need to edit myself; I do when I have to (I for instance swear a bit less in the presence of my boss), but I always take it with a grain of salt. I don't want to edit myself, I like being free in that sense and think that freedom of speech is something that first and foremost starts with yourself.
Interesting. I'd only ever use the word to describe the kind of rude behavior that happens between strangers on the street.
Might be, I'm not a native speaker so what I'm thinking about might still fit under the label of flirting, but I can't really say that I know the terminology 'normal' people use to talk about social interaction.
I bet this never, ever happens.
I think it's pretty unlikely, but possible. The point was that while (at least from my perspective) anti-discrimination rules don't do anything to enable a safe environment for minorities there is the potential for abuse. In my eyes those rules are snake oil, I think the TSA might be a somewhat fitting analogy if you think about their efficiency.
That seems well-intentioned but entirely utopian to me.
Of course it is, but that's not reason not to use it as a guideline and strive for its implementation. If you don't try, you'll never get there. You can probably already find multiple examples of me violating this guideline in this thread, but that doesn't stop me from at least trying to make the way I communicate better. :)
I generally associate overuse of profanity with laziness in word selection, but that's just me.
I agree with you on overuse. The only times where profanity has any impact on me is when someone who doesn't normally use profanity uses it for emphasis.
Do you have one single way of expressing yourself? Do you use profanity 100% of the time? Do you automatically reject all feedback on how you express yourself? ... On how you write code? ... Or how you interact with your colleagues?
Because, from your comment, that's how you come across.
All feedback can be made to be useful, even if you end up filtering it out early.
True that, I will try to get a bit less triggerable about this.
Do you have one single way of expressing yourself? Do you use profanity 100% of the time? Do you automatically reject all feedback on how you express yourself? ... On how you write code? ... Or how you interact with your colleagues?
No, of course not. I have however come into contact with quite a few people who tried to censor me before, that might be the reason why I'm so easily "triggerable" with this.
I'm just getting a bit jittery whenever someone tries to regulate free speech.
If you think I'm an asshole you are hereby invited to meet me at the OHM in a few weeks and yell at me. :)
This may be a guy thing, and a clash in behaviour of the sexes. Guys are more prone to bursts of aggressiveness, gals more adept of moderate long term aggressive stances. Which one is more difficult to handle is largely a matter of opinion. Quick bursts are automatically solved immediately, leaving bruised egos, long term allows more time to manage the underlying reason. Just because Linus' stance is flashy does not make it wrong.
Unless you posit that aggression is never warranted. Then, we'll have to disagree. Aggression is a normal behaviour, artificial suppression leads to non healthy alternatives; it's better to lay problems out in the open and fix them than to sweep them under the politically correct rug.
I'm sure there's no perfect dividing line between non-aggressive/aggressive. But it's generally clear when something is nearer the extremes.
"Alice, that's completely wrong because X, this code needs to be rewritten from scratch following principle Y." "Bob, what is this retarded shit? You stupid fool, go RTFM and do it again."
Fortunately for me, I'm in a position to choose exactly who I work with. (Unlike perhaps this Sarah is.)
I recently witnessed some programmer going to town, blasting out a supply cabinet. Hurling rage and profane insults at a supply cabinet just seems... uncalled for, to me. My personal evaluation is that the guy needs to learn to not let little things bother him so much. Though I doubt the supply cabinet was offended.
[edited the obvious typo]
[1] Of course, that's not to say that my brothers are unintelligent (they're very bright). However, one of the most important life skills I learned in public school was learning how to get along with those "pleasant idiots," as you put it.
[2] And I'm not disagreeing that kernel dev requires a more authoritative leadership style than most pursuits, but it seemed that this conversation had dropped into speaking in generalities about life.
However, don't conflate "tech type" with "high IQ/intelligence." The tech industry has the same percentage of idiots as any other, and our idiots aren't any smarter than those others' idiots just because they can scratch out a chunk of python or haskell or whatever.
It seems clear to me that you don't have contact with lots of women. Do you?.
It seems to me you are idealizing what you don't know about.
Profanity was not their forte(recent generations in some sectors could compete with men), but abusive speech is. They could be formidable verbal aggressors, specially between them.
The strongest verbal abusers I know all are women.
I Know a woman that was so socked that his father slapped her once, but now she is so verbal abusive with her children. I have seen it, and certainly if I were one of her children I would prefer a slap to this psychological pressure.
At lunch I said, "That's a good fucking burger." Female coworker says, "Goddamn right it is." This doesn't have anything to do with gender - it's about culture. Some people can handle profanity in the work place. The rest can fuck off. </joke> The rest can get a job somewhere more professional.
Linus is leading. So challenge his leadership, follow the man, or get out of his way.
Yes. The discussion shouldn't even be taking place. It is a waste of time. That's why the parent qualified Linus as the leader of one of the most important human endeavors of the last century.
Most project managers do not behave like Linus. There's a whole world full of people who "act professionally." Linus is not one of them, and contrary to some of hand-wringing I've seen in this thread he is not inspiring hordes of foul-mouthed abusive managers to go out and oppress poor developers.
How quickly people forget the Polio vaccine. I don't think Linux qualifies in the top 10, and hyperbole doesn't really help the conversation.
Is that so? The issue is manners on a mailing list. Qualifying Linux as a top-10, top-100, or top-1000 accomplishment or whatever definitely seems like quibbling when we're comparing it to a complaint that won't even be a historical footnote.
Yes, Linux has remarkable importance mostly because its installed base (IMHO it doesn't offer any innovation from an OS perspective, other that being stable enough and free)
However, that doesn't give Linus a free card to be abusive and rude. Yes, not being polite and being insulting is indeed being unprofessional, there are ways to say things and in most cases insults is the wrong path.
"If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done"
Yeah, Romans and Egyptians knew how to get shit done too, but we call that slavery in these days, so it is not precisely a good thing.
I am yet to see him abusing anyone. Verbal abuse mentioned is just swearing in aggressive tone of voice. How the word abuse got attached to expressing being pissed off is a mystery to me but I think it involves american lawyers.
No, he doesn't. If your boss or your client would talk to you in that tone you would call it verbal abuse. There is no such thing as a jerk free card, you can always be one but that doesn't mean is excusable.
"I am yet to see him abusing anyone. Verbal abuse mentioned is just swearing in aggressive tone of voice."
This is not the first time that we see this kind of emails from Linus so it is not exactly a new thing. I don't know where are you from that this is considered OK. I am a Venezuelan living in Canada and in both countries this is considered abusive, so it is not only in USA.
Are you referring to the email we just read? Because I find nothing at all offensive or inappropriate about it. A forceful dressing down to be sure, but not disrespectful.
I think this line is important:
I'm not polite, and I get upset easily but generally don't hold a grudge
If my client was rude and I wasn't ok with him I'd stop responding to him. That's the beauty of freelancing. You don't have to work for people whoose behavior doesn't suit you.
In my opinion swearing doesn't make you a jerk but jerks don't get free pass. They offend some people and get less respect and cooperation from them. That's the social price. No law necessary.
Abuse at workplace is much wider subject. First thing is that there has to be relation of power. Linus has no power over people who he swears at. They can freely choose to never interact with Linus again at any point in time at no loss to themseves or their loved ones. Heck, they can even take all the stuff Linus did, copy it and work on that instead.
It may look like masochism, but people who work with a "benevolent dictator" know what they are in for. We don't need to be "protected" and if you don't like it, just don't come, the same way I'm not going to play with soccer players because I don't play soccer.
From Dictionary.com, a boss is:
3. a person who makes decisions, exercises authority, dominates, etc.: My grandfather was the boss in his family.
So, for the people who is working on the linux kernel project, Linus is indeed their boss.
Anyone who works with Linus does so freely and can stop at any time they choose.
Furthermore, applying today's morale standards to civilizations thousands of years old doesn't strengthen your point as well as you think it does.
People are literally sitting around bitching and moaning that they can't play with a local, volunteer-staffed sunday afternoon basketball league because they don't like the people doing the volunteer staffing and organization.
You have absolutely NO right to demand that volunteer organizations began, ran, and maintained by other people change their behavior to suit you. The only time there is any duty created towards you is when (a) you are absolutely dependent on them for something, by their own doing, (b) they are forcing you to interact with such folks, (c) various other versions of coercion.
You do not get to dictate the behavior of every freely-assembled group of people which takes no action to coerce you to join them. You don't get to dictate the behavior of every group of people you might conceivably want to join.
This is some of the most entitled whining I've ever seen on HN.
No, I didn't. OP implied that because Linus knows how to get things done his behaviour is excusable, then I gave a counter-example in which that statement is false (at least in my opinion, there exists people who believe in slavery)
>"You have absolutely NO right to demand that volunteer organizations began, ran, and maintained by other people change their behavior to suit you."
"I" have no right to demand that (and that's the reason why I didn't). However, email's author has the right to ask for respect if he is feeling offended by his lead. Your phrase seems to imply that because is a volunteer group is OK if his leader is abusing, but for the people affected is actually worse because they are giving up their time and they are being offended by the project lead.
>"This is some of the most entitled whining I've ever seen on HN."
Well apparently if you don't like something you are free to go away, that was your argument right? In any case I think whining is acceptable in a discussion (which I think is this part of the site about but you are free to prove me wrong)
It beggars disbelief that some posters here can't see that torvald's insults add noise to his critiques. He states the issue, then ads in a bunch of pointless aggression. It seems like being honest succinct and to the point is most efficient. If your undies are truly in a bunch, you could add a comment at the end along those lines.
Some people link Job's success to his attitude. But his attitude didn't make him successful, it was his vision and ability to convince people.
That said, I think Linus is fairly professional in the core of his communication. Just because you swear doesn't mean that the message you're passing along isn't.
Yeah, he's earned a free pass to be a dick. That's how it works, right?
No. Let's have just a modicum of perspective. That's not to belittle Torvald's achievement or contribution to computer science, but on the scale of importance generally it's way down the list.
Also, while I admire what he's done, let's lay off the hyperbole for a bit. "..one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years"? Really? That's laying it on a bit thick there. But hey, you're entitled to your opinion too.
Or on a more serious note:
Sarah's involvement with the project gives her the right to voice her opinion. If people work together on an open source project and have a disagreement over management styles and professional conduct, this disagreement needs to be addressed instead of ignored.
In addition to the discussion on the mailing list, there will apparently be a meeting in meat-space as well that's going to involve cookies and brownies of questionable origin, so they are dealing with it.
Nothing more to see here, and the internet at large can move along - rallying in support of a the semi-mystical Linus that cannot do wrong is misguided and unnecessary - I'm confident he's able to fight his own fights...
There are some extremely dedicated people who are prepared to put up with his tantrums to work on the kernel. I'm not sure that's the same thing as knowing how to run an effective team. He's at the top of a hierarchy but he doesn't run most of the activities in it, he doesn't even interact in a meaningful way with most of the people in it.
What are examples of Linus not interacting "in a meaningful way with most of the people in it"?
And because of that, it's entirely possible to be at the head of an organisation made up, primarily, of far better people than yourself.
Heck, it's highly probable that's going to happen if you fall far beneath the average in social skills and have significant leverage along some other axis. Nice people will generally refuse to work with an arsehole - but every now and then someone will, (maybe because they have thicker skin than the average, or value your leverage more, or come in for less of your flak.) So, the people who are nice and will, for whatever reason, put up with you tend to end up filling those positions because no-one else can do so effectively. If they're nasty, then no-one will be more likely to work with them than they are to work with you and the problem recurs one level down - except this time you need to find people'll who'll work with five (or whatever the size of your immediate project team is) arseholes rather than one to make the project work.
This all, of course, depends on the alternatives that the people at the base of the hierarchy have. In situations where the people can't go elsewhere it often seems to be very much a case of, 'You'll take it and like it, if you know what's good for you.'
Does any of this mean Linus is bad at running teams? No. But it does mean that he's not necessarily any good at it just because the system's giving reasonable output. The naive model of a hierarchy as something in which all the influence flows from the top down is nonsense.
If I gave examples of other very successful open source projects in which the project maintainers act courteously, would you change your mind?
Because he's a rock star who continuously proves it with results, Linus can say and do whatever he wants. He's earned it, and most people will not only tolerate his abrasiveness, but they'll accept it.
Many people who might be very good at what they do but are not rock stars think they can act like Linus, Crockford, DHH or [insert grumpy tech icon here]. Personally, I think that's a mistake, because "pretend rock stars" just end up being regarded as overrated tools.
Seriously?
He did not invent Unix, more like wrote a famous flavor of it.
Someone like Dennis Ritchie would get the credit for that not Linus.
This is the start of the thread. It is pretty obvious that no one is being serious about actual violence. It's just banter. Harmless (and not at all unhealty) banter.
The type of communication in the LKML has always been straight to the point and without unnecessary diplomacy. Sometimes it reads as assertiveness, sometimes it reads as rudeness. The point is that it works.
Every community has its "rules". Those rules are made by its members, all its members. If you disagree, act differently. If you are right and the others are wrong, they will follow you.
Asking for "professional behavior" when others are just acting normally is whining for politically correctness, which is pretty annoying and a sure way to not change anything.
And a context that scares people off is not one that I would say "works".
This is not about grinding newcomers to the LKML, this is about the type of communication between people that have known each other for quite some time, and are well aware of each other's technical "sensibilities".
True, the LKML is also known to be a bit harsh to newcomers. But only in a sense that newcomers are often unaware of the high technical standards that the kernel abides to, and often resent the level of criticism or suggestions for change that they receive.
It does not matter that he does this to people he knows well and perhaps can even handle this kind of verbal abuse. He does this publicly to the entire world which is not acceptable in my book.
Linus really has only a few tools at hand to restrict otherwise almost unlimited access he is providing. Instead of usual secretaries filtering and rationing access, he has to be blunt whenever he encounters inconsiderate time wasting. Like he said previously, occasional swearing shortens the e-mail queue. If Linus resorted to hand holding he would never get anything else done, because there is virtually endless demand for it.
The fact that the hacker community is full of mean gits is no coincidence. Let's consider where the opposite type of people (the ones who'll smile charmingly while stabbing you in the back) congregate - HR, PR, management, politics - all fields where creativity is less important than manipulativeness.
I'll take a brutally honest genius over a charming "socially intelligent" liar any day.
Do you really think the only way to communicate a mistake is like this: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 ?
And Linus is perfectly capable of giving a more reasoned response while still being direct: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/99 (same thread, Linus' reply to a reasoned response from yelled at developer)
Still pretty direct, but gone are the insults. Nobody has been asking for a sugar coating, but simply for Linus to stop being personally abusive.
Yes, people make mistakes. Really stupid mistakes. But if you think they're idiots, don't accept their contributions. If you don't think they're idiots, why call them that just because you can't control your anger?
I would argue that for many of the people I have met in my life, this would be a good thing. I don't we need to coddle each other all the time, but neither is the opposite workable or desirable - a little consideration is important.
There are tons of useful discussions that simply don't happen on HN because anybody with an actual strong opinion gets helbanned. For instance Google's Go language is lauded here because of fake politeness, but almost universally dismissed elsewhere.
This discussion has already achieved its real goal: to put "Linus Torvalds" and "Sarah" in the same sentence; this is the bullshit politics Linus talks about.
that's called "political correctness". I thought HN was about "disruption"... And yes , here you cant critize GO or suffer the consequences ;)
"The entire principle is wrong: it's like insisting that adults live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak." - Heinlein
> So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other.
One method of getting people to work together despite people being different is to get everyone to agree to a standard communication protocol when dealing with each other. This is often consider getting everyone to act professionally and in many/most organizations the standard of conduct is enforced from the top down.
It can be enforced from the top down because the people at the top can provide the right mix of incentives and can cull those who do not conform.
In most volunteer communities it can be difficult/undesirable to enforce a detailed/strict code of conduct. It can limit your access to volunteers and is one more hurdle to joining the organization. Think of how much sales/conversions can drop if a user has to click through one more screen or is required to click one more confirmation, now add on top of that the user is trying to volunteer, an action which is more complex if not more costly then a simple purchase. It would be interesting to quantify the codes of conduct(how they are enforced not written) from different web forums and correlate it with member growth, retention, and level of interaction.
So in a diverse volunteer community it seems advantageous to first encourage members to be generous of what they accept before encouraging them to be careful with what they share.
Expect to be downvoted by the "marketing hackers"...
It's not how grownups deal with each other.
If he had to "work for a living," ie: work in a job he needed, rather than a job he wanted, he would likely have had a job which enforced behavioral norms. He probably wouldn't have been as happy, but he likely would more polite.
One of the things schools do is to socialize us to maintain civility. This only works for some people. It's clear to me that Linus is rather incapable of realizing he's being a douche, and even if he does realize it, he's not interested in changing for other people. And since it's Linus' sandbox, you either deal with it or go home.
However, the main point of his argument is valid. People are different and we should align ourselves with people that support our preferred way of working. If you can't work with Linus directly because he's a douche, then you better find an insulating support structure, or find another project.
You talk about being 'incapable of realising' - perhaps review your own comment.
Calling someone a douche isn't constructive criticism. And there's a difference between attacking a person and attacking the actions - and look at what Torvalds does. Even his famous "shut the fuck up Mauro" comment is telling Mauro that his behaviour is inappropriate. He's not saying 'Mauro, you are a douche' directly insulting the guy, he's saying "I'm angry with you because you're breaking our tenets", talking about his actions and behaviour, and he even finishes up with expecting Mauro to fix the technical issue - a tacit acknowledgment of capability.
Of course some people don't care about that. People don't fix things they don't feel are broken.
You're acting in self-centered, antagonistic manner that is aggravating the relationship.
Similarly, if someone thinks being called a "jerk" is an insult devoid of constructive criticism, then they're likely either intentionally obdurate or they lack the self-awareness to identify their failings.
I'm perfectly aware of my ability to be a douche. I just choose who to be a jerk to. Strangers on the internet: possibly; colleagues I work with: not so much.
It's either that, or you don't actually understand what constructive criticism is.
If Linus actually read my HN comment and (a) was offended and (b) wanted constructive criticism, he would see that I believe he is poorly socialized for working in a certain (rather popular) type of work environment. That seems to me pretty constructive. Linus would not be suited for a job in diplomacy, or any other type of relationship-intensive enterprise.
Now, if I just said "Linus is a douche," I'd give you your point.
I already regret starting this up again, because you seem to be committed to your point. But WTF, I had 10 minutes to kill before I pick up my kid.
Not if you go by the dictionary definitions. By what definition is any form of criticism an insult?
I don't have a problem with his attitude. I wouldn't like working with him, but I at least accept it.
Not shouting people down is good because it means that people who are more reserved but who have valuable things to add get their say.
Not calling people stupid is good because generally people working on a project such as this aren't stupid and you're missing a chance to find out what really went wrong (misunderstanding, miscommunication or whatever).
Even if what they have said IS stupid, not abusing people for mistakes is good because abuse is a sub-optimal way of teaching.
Yes modern organisations have taken much of this too far and ended up as insincere, inefficient behemoths, but some of the standards within the community seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water and taking almost gleeful pride in doing so.