Conflict over a code

I didn't miss it; I didn't understand it. Maybe because I'm not a native English speaker.

> What I was saying was that although Linus himself (in my limited
> experience) tends to attack code and not people, it doesn't seem to me
> from his responses to questions to understand the difference between
> being harsh to code and being harsh to people. It's no contradiction to
> say that although he doesn't do a certain behavior, he doesn't seem to
> recognize that behavior when someone else does it.

OK; that i can understand and subscribe to, to a certain extend.

What I observe is: Linus only cares about his own conversation style. He reacts and contemplates only attacks that are about his personal email style; the rest get ignored by him. He doesn't accept criticism of his frank communication style readily, since it's usually targeting people he knows well and who know (and often publicly acknowledge) the reason why he sends vitriol to them.

You wrote, he attacks code, not people. Well, that's not quite true. I saw him "attack" people as well, people he trusted and who planted changes on Linux he didn't expect them to do. But this kind of "attack" is more akin to the scolding a sub-project leader gets from his guidance committee on their weekly/monthly meeting, in my experience words are much harsher there, not that I think that's appropriate and goal-oriented...

The bigger issue, IMHO, is that people seem to want Linus more to do than he's willing to provide. Linus is expected to set an example of "how to communicate on LKML". He's implicitely expected to reign in those how overstep communication style there. His own communication style to his "lieutnants" (btw, a communication style that would be private in a propriate development culture) is often attacked, sometimes not; but most often it is attributed as perpetuating communication style on LKML. That he's not even subscribed to LKML is not acknowledged and not taken into account into these postings. He get's accused to the fact that non-reigning on a mailing-list he's not subscribed to does not happen -- even though it's acknowledged at the same time that he himself is not guilty of "attacking people" (which he does, as I mentioned above).

Well, the problem seems to be: Linus doesn't seem to be feel himself to be a member of the "LKML community" however they constitute themselves. He doesn't seem to care about the communication style there, isn't even subscribed himself -- witness his commit remark, paraphrased "let's see how his pans out". He obviously thinks himself as an obeserver here, not as an actor -- and you want him to be an actor. He declines.

In my opinion, it's an question open for discussion if that is a problem that we can attribute to Linus, or if it's your problem. Who can decide what the role of Linus in Linux development shall be? Currently, only Linus himself.

You seem to want to establish more responsibilities on him that he is not willing to take. In a proprietary environment, that is easy: convince his managers and tell him to take the task. But in Linux development, you don't have an executive with that power and thus other means are sought. IMNSHO, it's a pity that the intentions behind those other means -- convincing Linus to take on an additional non-technical task that's advantageous to the overall project but that he doesn't want to do -- are not clearly spelled out.

PS: My own thoughts about that topic are not finalized. I recognize the bias in Linux' development culture towards male dominant personalities. After all, I'm married to a CS Geek myself and share her dread experience in IT culture. (Myself, actually, I would paint Ingo Molnar more as an actor in the push-contributors-away camp than Linus Torvalds, btw. Maybe you want to talk with Con Kolivas about that.) But I'm not at the point to pin that mis-balance on Linus, personally.

Even more to say, I don't think it's his reponsibility to change our communities' behavior. It's our common responsibility, for each of us. We shouldn't duck away saying "Linus does it as well". He doesn't do it, not in the sense that he's attacked of. All the other guys, with their scolding remarks targeting newbies, not following Linux path, need to touch their own noses. *We* need to tell *them* to shut off; we don't need to tell Linus how he communicate with his lieutnants.