There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article. [LWN.net]

There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.

Posted Jul 18, 2013 8:30 UTC (Thu) by jsorensen (guest, #83220)
Parent article: On kernel mailing list behavior

Most people will agree that being nicer to each other is better, but reality is that it doesn't work that easily. The quotes from Rusty show this very well.

The big problem here is that the strong advocates of pushing out rules for lkml behaviour are thinking in terms of their own standards and rules and expect those to be what should be applied to everybody.

Linus hit it spot on in his reply here:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58317

"The thing is, the "victim card" is exactly about trying to enforce
your particular expectations on others, and trying to do so in a very
particular way. It's the old "think of the children" argument. And
it's bogus. Calling things "professional" is just more of the same -
trying to enforce some kind of convention on others by trying to claim
that it's the only acceptable way."

The kernel community doesn't respect country borders, we cover close to every culture. What is considered beyond rude in the US may be considered normal in Scandinavia, while some things considered normal in the US would be considered beyond acceptable elsewhere.

Off-list polite discussions when something gets out of hand are likely to work well. On the other hand, formalizing things too much has a high risk of leading us much closer to the nannystate.

to post comments

There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.

Posted Jul 18, 2013 10:58 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (5 responses)

Linus totally missed the point because Sarah was not playing the "victim card". Just because she's a woman making this point doesn't mean she's complaining about sexism. The point she's making is that there is a difference between saying "this patch is unacceptable" (or even "this is an idiotic idea") and shouting "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" and she was complaining about the latter, not the former. And it's not the f-word she's objecting to either.

There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.

Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:08 UTC (Thu) by jsorensen (guest, #83220) [Link] (1 responses)

Again you're missing the point. I deliberately did not make any references to the sexism comments, because that has *nothing* to do with this discussion. Unfortunately this is the first thing some people pull out, the moment a female raises such an issue.

The point is that there is no universal set of rules that are applicable across the set of cultures we are covering and Sarah is pushing for her set of rules and playing the victim card as Linus correctly pointed out!

There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.

Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:34 UTC (Thu) by simosx (guest, #24338) [Link]

> Again you're missing the point. I deliberately did not make any references to the sexism comments, because that has *nothing* to do with this discussion. Unfortunately this is the first thing some people pull out, the moment a female raises such an issue.

You twist rsid's reference to 'sexism' which is not fine. His point is not about 'sexism' and I think it is evident enough.

> The point is that there is no universal set of rules that are applicable across the set of cultures we are covering and Sarah is pushing for her set of rules and playing the victim card as Linus correctly pointed out!

There is a fallacy here. It's the one that you set the goals so high as a way to accept no action to be taken.

Being civil is something that many people can achieve, and there are smaller free software projects that can do this, and they thrive. Actually, for smaller project, if they can be civil is the only way for success. Linux is so big that collateral damage is not a problem yet.

Think about disciplining children. Many people would still consider smacking a child is the most cost-effective method of discipline. There are other ways, parents simply do not know them and they suffer [just to be preemptive, I am NOT conflating that the Linux kernel issue is a father-child issue].

There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.

Posted Jul 19, 2013 10:19 UTC (Fri) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link] (2 responses)

> Linus totally missed the point because Sarah was not playing the "victim card".

Linus intentionally missed the point.

There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.

Posted Jul 20, 2013 7:54 UTC (Sat) by deepfire (guest, #26138) [Link]

You see, this appears to be a contended point..

There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.

Posted Jul 20, 2013 7:55 UTC (Sat) by deepfire (guest, #26138) [Link]

You see, the fact whether Sarah played the victim card or not is a contended point..

Judgements vary.