Wow - on a rare visit to Slashdot, stumbled across this incredibly insightful comment by Charliemopps[1]:<p><i>Ironically his argument about fake politeness is EXACTLY what he's getting. People are pretending that his horrible behavior is acceptable just because they don't want to get on his bad side. Acting professionally is not about politeness, it's about not muddying up the conversation with information that's not useful.</i><p>[1] <a href="http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=44291653" rel="nofollow">http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442916...</a><p>EDIT: Had to add one more gem from the Slashdot discussion, this one by Culture20[2]:<p><i>It's not "fake politeness" to stop using abusive language, it's normal politeness.</i><p>[2] <a href="http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=44290909" rel="nofollow">http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442909...</a>
I like Rusty Russell's point of view:<p><a href="http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1525480" rel="nofollow">http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1525480</a><p>"
You have to be harsh with code: People mistake politeness for
uncertainty. Whenever I said 'I prefer if you XYZ' some proportion
didn't realize I meant 'Don't argue unless you have new facts: do XYZ or
go away.' This wastes my time, so I started being explicit.<p>But be gentle with people. You've already called their baby ugly."
This is my position:<p>Words are just a way to express something we want to communicate, and their meaning must be considered within the context they are expressed.<p>When Linus says something like "This piece-of-shit commit is marked for stable, but you clearly never
even test-compiled it, did you?" <a href="https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132" rel="nofollow">https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132</a> , he clearly has an insane reaction to something that at the end isn't nothing more than a normal human mistake.<p>But what his exaggerated reactions want to really express is "I INSANELY care about kernel quality, so I have INSANE reactions to actions that lower its value", and in this way he subliminally transmits its kernel care to the subject of the rant.<p>What do you think about my interpretation?
Sarah according to those who know more than me wrote "the entire USB3 stack" and then in one discussion<p><a href="http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus=1525074" rel="nofollow">http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...</a><p>thus reacted on Linus claims:<p><i>On Fri, 12 Jul 2013 08:22:27 -0700, Linus wrote:
"Greg, the reason you get a lot of stable patches seems to be that you make it easy to act as a door-mat. Clearly at least some people say 'I know this patch isn't important enough to send to Linus, but I know Greg will silently accept it after the fact, so I'll just wait and mark it for stable'.<p>You may need to learn to shout at people."<p>Seriously, guys? Is this what we need in order to get improve -stable?
Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence.
Ingo Molnar and Linus are advocating for verbal abuse.<p>Not _fucking_ cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation,
verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional
on the mailing lists.<p>Let's discuss this at Kernel Summit where we can at least yell at each
other in person. Yeah, just try yelling at me about this. I'll roar
right back, louder, for all the people who lose their voice when they
get yelled at by top maintainers. I won't be the nice girl anymore.</i><p>I think she's definitely right. Keep it professional. The implementation of any piece of something can be stupid. It's often not because we want to make it that way, or because it's stupid as it is, it's stupid <i>in a given context.</i> Somebody like Linus is somebody who must handle at that level. There bluntness can help. Still it's about the context, not about what people who produce work are or aren't.<p>Just don't call people stupid, don't intimidate, threat or abuse them personally.
It's interesting that this story has just been heavily flagged. Into sank from 3rd position to 45th in five minutes: <a href="http://hnrankings.info/6050443/" rel="nofollow">http://hnrankings.info/6050443/</a>
Wtf, now we fight the way Linus is dictating things around ?<p>Next, we'll be down to having respect for colleagues and maintain civility in all cases.
It's all about "constructive criticism".<p>We all know Linus is right most of the time. But I think his abusive tone isn't constructive and won't motivate people to do a better job.<p>Edit:<p><i>"Adopting the most effective style of criticism should be tempered by the cultural context, the recipient's personality, and nature of the relationship between provider and recipient."</i><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_criticism" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_criticism</a>
I don't agree with verbal abuse, but correct me if I'm wrong is this really classified as that? <a href="http://marc.info/?l=linux-acpi&m=136157944603147&w=2" rel="nofollow">http://marc.info/?l=linux-acpi&m=136157944603147&w=2</a><p>The only reason I can see that being abuse is swearing. Swearing shouldn't be seen as offensive. It's just a good way of expressing certain points.
I've been wondering, when Linus expresses his anger at different people on mailing lists, does he mean it? When he calls someone a fucking idiot and tells them to shut the fuck up, does he really want to offend the <i>person</i> or his <i>actions/code</i>? I feel like it's the latter, i.e. when you are called a moron, you probably did something stupid. On the other hand, once you understand this, doesn't it devalue all the harsh words, i.e. "moron is new horrible"? For words to be insulting they have to be used sparingly, right?<p>I am not a subscriber of LKML, so I am not sure, but I think that Linus understands this and doesn't abuse/insult anyone too often, or it will not be too effective. Otherwise, everyone would consider him a dick instead of a blunt and straightforward person, wouldn't they?
I share Lucas De Marchi's perspective:<p><pre><code> I see lots of strong words in LKML. So much that in some other lists there's the say "hey, this isn't LKML and this behavior is not appreciated here".
However in this case I don't see it. Linus and Greg were in no way calling out for violence, but instead making joke about it.
What I am seeing more often than I'd like is people losing the ability to joke at ourselves. For me over reaction is as disturbing as the strong words. Go to the link you pointed out here, read it again. Knowing the people who wrote them can't you imagine their troll face?
</code></pre>
Honestly, she's just stirring the community into aggression mode and I'm not overly fond of what may follow.
We should be allowed to insult each other. In general. But here is the thing - if should be non discriminatory. The bullshit and idiocy should be called on spot without taking into consideration the race, gender,age, color and attitude towards my little pony of the offender.<p>So as long as Linus treats everyone as a inferior retard until proven otherwise it is ok with me.<p>I think racism and sexism (and lots of other isms that split people on us and the others) don't have place in a society but I will fight very hard for the right of the people to express misanthropy.<p>TL DR: As long as Linus insults everybody it is ok.
this issue comes up every couple of years - these guys write linux, you can't make them do anything. they are untouchable and will do/say whatever the hell they want. linus especially - is a grown ass man and does this <i>in person</i> too, as is his prerogative. anyone see his github speech? he stands up in front of 300 people and calls them all idiots.
<offtopic>
The mailing list threads she mentions both speak about a fix that creates regression and linus getting angry at it. Which makes me wonder : with that philosophy, i'm pretty sure the linux kernel code is filled with hooks to keep the old behavior in some cases and use the new one in new cases (you sometimes have to break things).<p>Is there any plan of having a non-backward compatible linux kernel one day, or just to start deprecating features ?
I don't appreciate the language he uses and, in general, I can't condone verbal abuse. If you hear a "but" coming, there are a couple questions that I can't answer, since I don't know Linus (personally) and I don't know what the relationship between Linus and the maintainers in the two examples are. These may be unpopular questions, but perhaps someone who knows can answer.<p>1) I hear plenty of foul and seemingly abusive language happen between friends. Are the examples given seem more abusive because we assume the parties are merely acquaintances? I also didn't take the time to follow the e-mail threads to see how the conversation started.<p>2) I remember once when I was 17 or 18, I heard someone swearing through a sentence (that should have been a good point in the conversation) and immediately thought they were a dullard. Then I realized that people might have the same perception of me and I quit swearing almost immediately. It doesn't really matter whether you find the curse words acceptable, the reality is that I can still verbally abuse someone using perfect grammar and "tenpenny" words. If the banter is not good-natured banter, how do you define verbal abuse?<p>3) Are Linus' responses to these e-mails simply indicative of the passion that's also let him lead the creation and fostering of Linux over the last 20 years? Would someone without that passion (whether using foul language or not) have succeeded in such a broad endeavor?<p>4) Are the supposed victims of the described abuse speaking out about this? I would assume that if they were truly offended, they would have told at least a few people, but I haven't seen any indication that they were offended. Linux isn't some dictatorial regime - have people "left the empire" (quit kernel development) because of this behavior?<p>5) Are the threads containing harsh criticisms balanced by e-mails pointing out how brilliantly someone solved an issue? It's more acceptable to rant about a mistake if you also rave over something extraordinary.<p>6) Has Linus ever lambasted himself publicly over his own mistakes? I tend to think any code I wrote over six months ago is pretty crappy (it's a perfectionist thing).<p>I can't condone verbal abuse, though I've seen similar abuse in person and in a professional environment, but I also can't say this is abuse without knowing the complete context. I tend to think personal attacks are out of place, but commentary on the technology can be as pleasant or harsh as necessary.<p>Linus: If you happen to read this, first I'd like to thank you for the work you've done. In some ways, I've grown my career as a side-effect of your work. Second, I'd like to say that following the mailing list <i>would</i> in fact be more pleasurable if the place didn't feel like walking through a ghetto.
I would think Linus has some form of light asperger, and when he calls someone "dick head" thats not aggression against a physical person but in this case to the fact that someone pushed code that does not build. He's to rational to mix up personal feelings against somebody and the quality of the code. The only way to get offended when Linus goes of in a rant is to think that he does.<p>Also maybe it's the fact that I'm Finnish too, but the best teachers from school I remember where those that valued perfection, and I don't think they raised their voice to abuse one, but to make a point...<p>I can still remember a computer teacher who went bananas every time someone used the carriage return in the middle of a paragraph, and physically broke of the key from the keyboard, just to show that It wasn't supposed to be used that way. Maybe some people got offended or scared, but to me it stuck, the importance between separating visual appearance and semantics...