Sharp: Closing a door [LWN.net]

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 17:26 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
In reply to: Sharp: Closing a door by jackb
Parent article: Sharp: Closing a door

If you're unable or unwilling to do this, then you'll have to work on achieving your preferences without my help, and possibly while I am helping people who are trying to achieve an opposite preference because they did make a convincing case.

I would go so far as to say that's an immoral position. It's not as if you're balancing off one boring technical tradeoff against another. What you are saying, essentially, is: "I don't care how people treat each other unless they can convince me that treating other people decently improves the quality of the kernel." Showing such disregard for people's feelings in relation to some selfish goal is something I'd expect from a sociopath or a psychopath. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but there it is.

to post comments

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 17:38 UTC (Mon) by scali23 (guest, #104768) [Link] (15 responses)

> Showing such disregard for people's feelings in relation to some selfish goal is something I'd expect from a sociopath or a psychopath.

Are you wearing a pair of trousers? Or maybe using a smartphone / PC? Do you happen to know the suffering that went into that shiny piece of technology / cloth? Did you when you were deciding to buy it?
Far for me saying that every choice has the same ethical implications (on the contrary), but addressing someone as psychopath/sociopath might be a step too far.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 7:00 UTC (Tue) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link] (7 responses)

> Far for me saying that every choice has the same ethical implications (on the contrary), but addressing someone as psychopath/sociopath might be a step too far.

Actually, my though was exactly like dskoll's. "I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but there it is.", too. It *does* match the pattern.

> Are you wearing a pair of trousers? Or maybe using a smartphone / PC? Do you happen to know the suffering that went into that shiny piece of technology / cloth? Did you when you were deciding to buy it?

The ethical ramifications of our consumerist culture is whole another Pandora's box, but I would say that most of the people buying clothes and electronics are simply not aware of the abuse of workers (and environment) that enables our enjoyment of low prices - it's not [usually] willful ignorance or explicit neo-Darwinian, orthodox-Capitalist, mechanistical approach to other people(s) ("they're weak so they deserve to be oppressed by the strong", "it's just the market forces at work", etc.). I don't think anyone can say at this point that they're not aware of these issues in the kernel community.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 15:29 UTC (Fri) by aristeu (subscriber, #35826) [Link] (6 responses)

> Actually, my though was exactly like dskoll's. "I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but there it is.", too. It *does* match the pattern.

Someone does something technically stupid and a developer replies classifying said work as "idiotic" which also "does match the pattern" of what "idiotic" means and that's horrible and unacceptable.

But, since it's now trendy and socially acceptable (by some) classifying people as "psychopath", "sociopath", "misogynist", "racist" and whatever to as quickly as possible label someone as something that is known bad as form of winning the discussion, that's ok to perform a psychological evaluation based in a comment or two. It's like Godwin's law, but you look smarter too.

But hey, that's ok, "I'm sorry if this sounds harsh" was used before it.

In your culture doing something "idiotic" is way more offensive than being pointed as "psychopath" in a public forum. Did you ever consider if the person on the other side shares the same standard?

I for one see the Linux kernel as a project where I'm not there to make friends (if I do, great!), but to contribute. A refuge where true meritocracy (or as close we can get) exists and doesn't matter who you are, who you know or where you're from. In such a place, people try to understand where's the technical point behind whatever form of expression, broken english, understanding that people come from different cultures, backgrounds and their main reason behind patches are, you know, code. Thanks to that, people that agree with Sarah will still have their patches accepted if they're technically correct, despite Linus or anybody else disagreeing with these people's personal views. If enjoying being part of Linux kernel development as is and enjoying the fruits of meritocracy "does match the pattern" and makes you think I'm a "psychopath/sociopath" too, well, have fun.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 20:38 UTC (Mon) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link] (5 responses)

More generally, any argument resting on a faux-psychiatric[0] characterization of the opponent is a piss-poor argument. At most such a thing could be made as an act of petulance, or tacit admission of defeat. Yet `dskoll' went on for a while before finally claiming to have only been pretending the idiot.

As usual, the Linux community is far too reluctant to just say "oh fuck that shit, and fuck you too". And so you get played for sport, your efforts wasted in arguments with the west-coast touchy-feely tar-pit. Even the classic move of turning the discussion from being about a topic external to all participants, to being about one of the participants themselves[1], seems to have moved no-one.

[0] unless actual, degreed and licensed professional physicians are now giving unsolicited statements over the Internet -- and eschewing any chance of payment, too!
[1] for example, by speculating about their motives and then instead of justifying that speculation, passing judgement on the person[2].
[2] in this case, a variation of "you're so selfish (to not obey at once)", with a couple of freshman-tier power words tacked on because (and I speculate) that's what the other cool kids do, too.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 13, 2015 14:02 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

Please note that I did not psychoanalyze anyone. I merely said: The following behavior is what I'd expect from a psychopath: The pursuit of selfish goals above all else including other people's feelings.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 13, 2015 14:39 UTC (Tue) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link] (3 responses)

Yes, deny an accusation that wasn't made, and that would be at most peripheral to the argument. Because that sure changes everything.

Good day.

Second request

Posted Oct 13, 2015 14:44 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

Please...let's bring this to an end. The useful part of the discussion is past, and I'd just as soon do without any more of this kind of stuff.

Second request

Posted Oct 18, 2015 12:01 UTC (Sun) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link] (1 responses)

Yo. Yo!

Which part of "good day", to you, doesn't indicate that the branch of discussion is at an end? That I'm dropping the mic, tapping out, refusing to keep wrestling the pig?

More pertinently, where were you when the kindergarten-tier arguments of "that's what a sociopath would say" were ringing out, seemingly for as long as it need go? Does this just-about-readiness to close the discussion only come out when it moves out of the designated circlejerk? When the new political class gets told? When an Incontrovertible Holy Minority of Antioch requests assistance over private channels? But I repeat myself.

Articles concerning touchie-feelie topics always have a great big shitstorm in the comment section, with seemingly limitless catty abuse hurled at those who would refuse an emotional argument, or worse still, argue from evidence and reason to any conclusion besides the pre-chewed one we're expected to swallow. This is true also of articles concerning systemd; we've seen your comment section's finest politruks drive away technologists just for being "on the wrong side". What's your plan concerning this phenomenon, beyond an instinctive supplication to the best passive-aggressives that good-boy points can hire?

Is it truly the beardies alone who're at fault, here? It's certainly so if one asks the opponent: they do have naught but hatred for wrongthink, after all. "Listen And Believe", as they say: there never was any "Unix Philosophy", basic human rights as recognized by the UN are subordinate to the self-stated need of Sacred Minorities and their Not At All Chauvinist Spokespersons, and we've always been at war with Toxic Rape Apologists. Or what?

Though I could be wrong here, certainly. You could be addressing the rest of the thread by posting at one of its tails, and not my comment in particular. If that's the case then do forgive me for reading your comment as it was posted; I had no idea.

Second request

Posted Oct 18, 2015 13:39 UTC (Sun) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Which part? Maybe the part where you have to get the last word in no matter what?

Look, my desire was to close down the conversation as a whole, I said as much; I was not speaking to any single specific person.

That said, I am now speaking to you. This comment was aggressive, the one attacking Matthew Garrett rather more so. You have moved quite firmly into the realm of personal attacks, and you need to stop now.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 14:24 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

Are you wearing a pair of trousers?

Well, a skirt actually, but your point is taken. A lot of our consumer goods are produced under appalling conditions and the only reason we ignore that is that the companies producing the goods go to enormous lengths to insulate us from what's going on. This distancing is the only way to get us to continue our behavior because it blunts our natural empathy.

And I would say that the system of exploitation that gives us ultra-cheap consumer goods at the expense of people's lives is in fact sociopathic. And just because we all participate in this system, it doesn't mean it's acceptable to allow nasty behavior on a mailing list. Just because we can't fix all of the problems in the world doesn't mean we have no responsibility for fixing any of them.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 17:48 UTC (Tue) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

A lot of our consumer goods are produced under appalling conditions and the only reason we ignore that is that the companies producing the goods go to enormous lengths to insulate us from what's going on.

It's also extremely difficult to avoid because almost all manufacturers are participating to one extent or another. Just try finding modern consumer goods- or commercially produced foods- that weren't produced by exploiting vulnerable workers. Unless you're willing to more-or-less drop out of modern society, you're benefiting from exploitation.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 6:25 UTC (Wed) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link]

> Just try finding modern consumer goods- or commercially produced foods- that weren't produced by exploiting vulnerable workers. Unless you're willing to more-or-less drop out of modern society, you're benefiting from exploitation.

Actually it is no longer that bad in many areas. The main issues are becoming aware of the problem (and one can be aware of some aspects without being conscious of others), finding out where to get said products and learning to accept the price premium that often but not always goes with it. Though I think computer products are still a lot harder to do ethically than food and clothing.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 18:38 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (guest, #74652) [Link] (1 responses)

Just because we can't fix all of the problems in the world doesn't mean we have no responsibility for fixing any of them.

So is it fair to start with the easiest target?
Yes, there are people enslaved to give me this shiny phone but no one will listen to my rants. So lets rally against this genius who gave the world Linux because he acts like a grumpy grand dad on mailing lists, or the other genius (who is a noble prize winner) just to make a point. It does not matter that this technology has empowered many of the poor all over the world, has real impact on global economy, and has made the world a better place for billions of people. They are easy targets because they are decent and respectful human beings, while attacking hard targets (with real human rights violations) will result in soaring oil prices which is inconvenient.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 10, 2015 7:37 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> So is it fair to start with the easiest target?

It's called bikeshedding BTW. Looking at the length of this page...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 11:28 UTC (Wed) by jwakely (guest, #60262) [Link]

I agree the sociopath/psychopath suggestion is a bit over the top, but I agree with dskoll that "I only care about the quality of the end product" is an immoral position. I don't need a tangible benefit to me to want other people to be treated fairly, and I put my money where my mouth is by buying products like https://www.fairphone.com/ and http://subscribe.adbusters.org/products/blackspot (which are certainly not the highest quality goods available, but they are definitely good enough and they are produced more fairly).

Make a difference with your choices. You don't just have to accept products that are made at other people's expense, and I certainly can't agree with people who actively choose products that cause suffering just because the end result is a bit shinier.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:08 UTC (Wed) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

You might want to look up the phrase non sequitur.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 18:29 UTC (Mon) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (3 responses)

Showing such disregard for people's feelings in relation to some selfish goal is something I'd expect from a sociopath or a psychopath. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but there it is.

The author's desire to participate in Linux kernel development is a selfish goal.

My desire to have the best quality kernel possible is a selfish goal.

Neither goal is objectively better or worse than another - they are both matters of personal preference and nobody's personal preferences are binding on other people.

Nor is it the job of any person to manage the feelings of another person. The person who feels something is the owner of that feeling and managing it is their responsibility.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 19:01 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

The author's desire to participate in Linux kernel development is a selfish goal. My desire to have the best quality kernel possible is a selfish goal.

No, sorry. A developer giving of his or her time is not objectively as selfish as someone who just wants the fruits of their labor.

Neither goal is objectively better or worse than another - they are both matters of personal preference and nobody's personal preferences are binding on other people.

That is a strawman. You are bringing up competing goals, but competing goals are not the issue. I said that justifying or permitting bad behavior purely on the basis of a selfish goal is unethical.

Nor is it the job of any person to manage the feelings of another person.

No, it is not, and there certainly are cases where people take offense unreasonably and are hyper-sensitive. However, that doesn't give others the right to be sexist, rude, homophobic, etc. and then get a free pass by saying "don't be so sensitive!". You have to measure whether or not a reasonable person could justifiably find something offensive and use that as the basis of any decision.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 9:48 UTC (Tue) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550) [Link]

> Neither goal is objectively better or worse than another

Well, there are unselfish goals. They're definitely objectively better.

Being able to set aside my own preferences to help other people. Putting myself in their shoes and having consideration for their state. Not behaving like a little tin god at the centre of my own universe. That sort of thing...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 14:52 UTC (Tue) by dunlapg (guest, #57764) [Link]

You don't seem to know what the word "selfish" means. It's not selfish either to want to participate in the kernel process, or to want a good kernel. It's selfish to want that regardless of its effects on other people.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 13:44 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (61 responses)

If you're looking for validation and warm fuzzies, there are, quite literally, millions of places you can get them.

There's only one Linux kernel, and its impact on the world is hard to overstate. A loss of code quality to make a few people feel better would be an enormous loss to the world.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 14:14 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (21 responses)

There is no contradiction between being civil and insisting on code quality.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 17:26 UTC (Fri) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (10 responses)

In a perfect would I would agree. But there are times that people just don't get it. Pretty much every time Linus blew up and it made headlines, was due to this. After lots of civil communication, the point is not getting across. People (especially Linus) will then exert a bit of nastiness. Amazingly, people usually will take a step back and look at the bigger picture when that happens. Linus's rant about ARM is a perfect example of things getting done afterward.

Motivation is driven by emotion. The more passionate you are about something, the more you work at it. Fear of being yelled at can also motivate. There was a time that I wasn't listening to a major maintainer about something and he totally ripped into me (it wasn't Linus). It took several times at being yelled at for me to get a clue. As a result, I now have probably the best personal self made test suite that I run on my code before posting any patch to linux-next. I didn't make this because of civil conversation. I made it because I was terrified of being yelled at again.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 10, 2015 8:39 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (8 responses)

> There was a time that I wasn't listening to a major maintainer about something and he totally ripped into me (it wasn't Linus). It took several times at being yelled at for me to get a clue.

Thanks for sharing this, which - as has been said many times - isn't a usual type of events yet always gets reported.

I think it's possible to mitigate even these rare events: simply by switching to private communication. I know that private emails are "just bad" the vast majority of the time, but all good rules have exceptions and IMHO this is one. I mean: when everyone gets it but the person too passionate (or else) to listen, why keep in public the (lack of) dialogue? Yelling "Now will you at last listen to me?" at someone in public is orders of magnitude more embarrassing and problematic than the same thing in private, and not just because the former is archived forever.

I've heard and seen more than one manager practice: "praise publicly, criticize privately". While it does not completely apply in this context there's still a lesson to take from it.

BTW there's often reference to the higher value given to respect in Asian vs Western cultures but it's always about public contexts; curious about private exchanges.

Now of course there's the risk the tone raises up a bit higher in a private communication. It typically still feels much better than being scolded in public. And wait: who said private communication has to be email, which *everyone* knows to be flame-prone? What happened to the good old telephone? The Internet star killed it? A lot of this entire debate actually comes down to just "email sucks" for all the well known reasons - mainly lack of oxytocin: https://youtu.be/ReRcHdeUG9Y?t=2149

Private vs public

Posted Oct 10, 2015 14:06 UTC (Sat) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (7 responses)

Actually, there is a lot of criticism in the private. We just don't see it because, well, it's private.

But private criticism may not work as well either. When you are in a private forum, you can make claims that just wont hold up water. But doing that in a public setting has a bigger impact and both sides really need to have the facts straight before they post. Otherwise, if you yell at someone and are incorrect yourself, you can have others yell at you. This has happened, and kept the one that was yelling in check.

Escalating to public shaming really should be the last resort, but should still be on the table. Everyone that posts code to the Linux kernel should be a little nervous about it. That nervousness keeps one in check. Once you can post code without any anxiety then you can easily post low quality code. I've been submitting code to the Linux kernel for over 10 years, and I'm still nervous with every patch I send out. That drives me to make sure my patch can stand on its own, and keeps me from doing something stupid. If you can't handle that, and want to be able to send out "no worries" patches, where if you totally screw up, nobody will criticize you, I'm sorry, you are not fit to submit to a project as serious as the Linux kernel.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 10, 2015 14:09 UTC (Sat) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (2 responses)

BTW, when I said "you" at the end, I don't mean you :-) That was just a generalization. I like German because it has a separate word for that "man", which doesn't mean the English "man".

Private vs public

Posted Oct 10, 2015 15:51 UTC (Sat) by cebewee (guest, #94775) [Link]

I should be able to use "one" in (most of) those case.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 15, 2015 8:02 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

You can use "one" as a general abstract pronoun for people, as a contraction of 'someone', in conjunction with "they", "them" to reference that abstract person, etc., e.g.:

"If someone can't handle that, and they want to be able to send out "no worries" patches, where if they totally screw up, nobody will criticize them, I'm sorry, they are not fit to submit to a project as serious as the Linux kernel."

"one" just happened not to fit easily in there, but often used in "One might think", "If one wants to avoid criticism". Note that "one" can come across as a bit stilted, just using "someone" usually sounds better IMO. "someone" is pretty much the same as the germanic "jemand" / "iemand".

Private vs public

Posted Oct 11, 2015 16:38 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (3 responses)

> If you can't handle that, and want to be able to send out "no worries" patches, where if you totally screw up, nobody will criticize you, I'm sorry, you are not fit to submit to a project as serious as the Linux kernel.

That is tantamount to saying that most people from huge chunks of the Earth (where the culture militates against public criticism of people and where people will go to great lengths to avoid such criticism) are not fit to submit to "a project as serious as the Linux kernel".

There's nothing wrong with criticizing the *patches*. There's something wrong with criticizing the *person* -- and you claim above that criticizing the person is just fine. That's pretty horrendous (if you meant it, rather than being a sloppy way of phrasing "nobody will criticize your patches". Obviously if the code is crap, you should say so, but that's not the same thing. Everyone totally screws up now and again. This does not reflect on them except to prove that they are human, and attacking them for that is wrong.)

Private vs public

Posted Oct 11, 2015 19:43 UTC (Sun) by lsl (subscriber, #86508) [Link] (2 responses)

> There's nothing wrong with criticizing the *patches*. There's something wrong with criticizing the *person* -- and you claim above that criticizing the person is just fine,

I don't think criticizing a person is generally inappropriate. Sometimes the actual problem is not as much the patches but the mindset that lead to their existence. This is, I think, what Steven's saying.

If you go to great lengths to avoid it, but slip up anyway, well, that happens. The *patch* gets torn apart, you clean it up and everything's fine. But when submitters don't do their due diligence and send crap to the list where it's obvious that they didn't even bother to read the relevant docs, then that's a totally different situation. If you don't even get the most basic stuff right and send one broken patch after another, there's no point in criticizing the individual patches. Until that *person* understands that touching kernel code requires a more careful mindset, looking at the patches is just a waste of time.

So telling those submitters to stop until they change their approach to programming is not only appropriate, but desperately needed. There's more than one way to do that, of course, and no one said you're supposed to scar them for life. With a bit of empathy, you can probably do it without causing all too much pain.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 11, 2015 20:55 UTC (Sun) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link] (1 responses)

> ...where it's obvious that they didn't even bother to read the relevant docs....

It is *never* obvious what someone else has or hasn't done in private. "They didn't read the relevant docs" may be the simplest explanation that you can think of given your perspective and values.
But people are different and complex. And they change from moment to moment.

Maybe they didn't ready, maybe they read but misunderstood. Maybe they forgot. Maybe they were hasty and careless. Maybe they are having a bad day and they pushed the wrong branch.

That is why attacking the person is such a bad idea. What you are really attacking is your mental model of the person, which is probably quite different in many details to the actual person. You may know what they did publicly,. You never know for certain why. So only attach the actions (i.e the code) not the person.

> If you don't even get the most basic stuff right and send one broken patch after another, there's no point in criticizing the individual patches.

There certainly comes a point where criticizing the patches doesn't seem worth while. But that does not justify attacking the person.

"I'm sorry but I won't be reviewing your patches any more because doing so doesn't appear to help. If you stop posting patches here for at least one month I may then look at future patches you post. If they appear to address my previous review comments, then I may proceed with them"

This talks about what "I" will do, how I see the patches, and specific public actions that you may or may not perform. This is all safe territory. It does not say anything about "you" or the reasons for "your" behaviour. It just identifies the problem and outlines the rules for engagement.

> So telling those submitters to stop until they change their approach to programming

Make that "stop until their patches address the identified issues" and I'll agree with you.

Private vs public

Posted Oct 11, 2015 21:50 UTC (Sun) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]

Just a quick addendum...
Modern technological cultures like ours claim to value science over superstition.

Science is about that which is observable and measurable.
Superstition is about whatever we suppose to be the case - untested by measurement.

I'm just suggestion that we should be scientific, not superstitious, in our responses to each other.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 11, 2015 16:43 UTC (Sun) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

>But there are times that people just don't get it. Pretty much every time Linus blew up and it made headlines, was due to this.

He didn't get on news for being critical but because of the way it is being expressed. Yes, he usually doesn't respond that way but the price of being a celebrity (even if you wear that hat uncomfortably) is that you have to that much more careful.

>Motivation is driven by emotion. The more passionate you are about something, the more you work at it. Fear of being yelled at can also motivate

True but studies have shown that intrinsic motivation is often more powerful compared to external pressure. If you are involved in development in a public way, you should be open to public criticism. That by itself isn't the problem. You do have to watch out for how you do it though. You can very easily drive off other contributors by doing it poorly.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 17:42 UTC (Fri) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (9 responses)

I will admit that not everyone can work in that type of environment. Sarah obviously has the talent for kernel development, but unfortunately, she is not one that can work in this environment.

There's talk about weighing "code quality" with "human wellness". I had this conversation with someone in Seattle, and at first I couldn't find a reply. Then later I was in a room where the presenter was talking about all the things that were using Linux to solve medical diseases, and such. Then it hit me. Quality of code is directly related to "human wellness". When the quality is not there, people can die. Whether directly or indirectly, Linux is used to save lives.

Try going into the medical field (several of my friends are). You think LKML is nasty? Residents are very much belittled in order for them to understand the full seriousness of their job. The more serious the project is, the harsher the environment.

The problem with Linux is that it is not a company. If someone is constantly sending in abysmal code, there's no performance review to correct that. Same goes to someone not following the standards. The only real tactic we have is to yell at someone. Otherwise you may waste days, weeks or months trying to be civil about it. As Linus always states, "in the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle".

Note, most of the time, civil conversation is all that is needed. The yelling is the exception and not the norm. Read LKML or even just Linus's emails. You'll find them mostly boring. It's only those rare occurrences that things had to escalate to set things straight again. Unfortunately news sites don't talk about the 1000's of boring "civil" emails. They only hone in on the one rant where civility didn't work.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 11, 2015 16:41 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (8 responses)

But Sarah was *not* sending in absymal code, so it seems unlikely she was getting too much criticism herself. What you're saying is that if you can't cope with the stress of watching others be publically belittled (and it *is* stressful), sod off, we don't want you no matter how good a developer you are?

I have to say, any company I've ever heard of that had that policy would have been sued into the ground by now by ex-employees, and rightly so.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 15:53 UTC (Mon) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link] (7 responses)

>But Sarah was *not* sending in absymal code, [...]

She was, though. A "simple, trivial" patch, rejected off-hand for being obviously broken, with a comment to the effect of "did you even compile this?".

Look it up. It concerns USB3, of course.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:34 UTC (Mon) by PaXTeam (guest, #24616) [Link] (6 responses)

> Asked for evidence, a concrete reference to the public communication by which the condemners formed their opinion, what do they answer? "Go search for it yourself."

the irony is just too rich.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:41 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (3 responses)

Ha, that is funny. The reference: https://lwn.net/Articles/660365/

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:42 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

Funny or not, it's looking to me like it might be about time to close the door on this discussion. I think the important stuff has been said at this point...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:52 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

while I agree that the important stuff has probably been said, has this been open to non-subscribers? (today it would have come out of the escrow so I'm not sure)

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 22:59 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

This wasn't a feature article, so it's been open to the world since it was first posted.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 18, 2015 11:14 UTC (Sun) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, you could've asked.

Sheesh.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 18, 2015 17:45 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Are you reading what you're writing? Obviously that applies to you too.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:01 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (38 responses)

You (and others) keep bringing up a false dichotomy. Behaving decently is not incompatible with producing an excellent kernel.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:09 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (4 responses)

We're not, though, in the sense that you're explicitly prioritizing people's feelings over every other consideration.

We can all feel wonderful about ourselves, and put out a worthless project.

The code comes first. If it doesn't, there's no point to writing it. There's nothing wrong with being polite, but by your loudly stated goals, it would be best to wreck the code if that resulted in more civil behavior.

That would be an extraordinarily bad idea. Design correctness and code quality are what matter most, and developers should be as polite as possible within that constraint.

Honestly, it's probably not that severe a constraint. But the code comes first. It has to. Your stated priorities are more than a little scary.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 16:50 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> We can all feel wonderful about ourselves, and put out a worthless project.

You can keep repeating that to yourself louder and louder but it still isn't true, being an a**hole to people does not bring the best work from people, or attract the most competent people, what brings quality is competent people who are invested in a goal, projects with a**holes operate in spite the productivity drain, drama and distraction from the goal they cause and not because of it. It is in fact possible to be highly critical and demand quality without either being an a**hole or being crippled with an inability to give feedback due to fear of other peoples egos, it's not being an a**hole to reject a patch due to it not meeting the quality standards or pointing out the problems with a design.

> But the code comes first. It has to.

You act as if there is some absolute quantifiable rank that every other consideration is subservient to, but that is not how anything in life works, there are always multiple competing factors and trade-offs to be made between them, and every priority is only the "first" priority to a point.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 18:00 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

No, I am not "explicitly prioritizing people's feelings over every other consideration". I cannot for the life of me see how you've read that into anything I'm saying. I did say that people are more important than code and I stand by that.

We can all feel wonderful about ourselves, and put out a worthless project.

Once again, the logical fallacy of false dichotomy. This is really getting tiresome. Using "the code must come first!" as an excuse for disgusting behavior is lame. It's simply a distraction scheme to get people to stop thinking about the pervasiveness of aggression and rudeness in some open-source development projects.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 23:15 UTC (Wed) by luto (subscriber, #39314) [Link]

> The code comes first. If it doesn't, there's no point to writing it. There's nothing wrong with being polite, but by your loudly stated goals, it would be best to wreck the code if that resulted in more civil behavior.

I've reviewed plenty of code that might be, in the words of some people, excrement of some sort. This includes a lot of code that I really don't want to see in the kernel as is. If I review code that I don't want to see in the kernel, I often speak up.

Nonetheless, I've tried to do my best not to personally insult the people who write such code. Some of them are great contributors who add a lot of direct value to the community and to the code base. All of them, without exception, are human beings who ought to be entitled to better treatment than being shat on, whether on a mailing list or otherwise. [1]

It's more than possible that I've still said things that I probably shouldn't have said. Once or twice, I've typed a nasty email, but I think I've done a pretty good job of letting those nasty emails languish in my drafts folder.

So, yes, code reviewers should speak up, but speaking up does not require opining that a piece of code was written by an [insert derogatory term here] or came out of some orifice or other.

[1] There's actually a robot that sends me patches on occasion. They tend to be of remarkably high quality, and the people who feed said robot should be commended. Nonetheless, if the robot were to send me a bad patch, I would try to avoid insulting its parents.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 19:04 UTC (Thu) by PaulMcKenney (✭ supporter ✭, #9624) [Link]

> The code comes first.

Instead of attempting to prioritize people against code, I suggest prioritizing groups of people against other groups of people. In the case of the Linux kernel, this might mean prioritizing the needs of the users of the code against those of the developers of that code.

This is not a simple tradeoff, and different communities are going to choose differently. For the tiny piece of the Linux kernel that I maintain, I try to meet the needs of both groups. Being human, I don't always succeed. But if someone forces me to make a choice, I must prioritize the needs of the users over those of the developers. Naturally, I expect to increasingly favor the users over the developers as the Linux kernel sees increasing usage in safety-critical systems. After all, although I don't feel good when my interactions with other developers falls short, I suspect that I would feel far worse if my code ended up killing someone.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:10 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (32 responses)

Also possibly worth pointing out: you're the one banging the drum about politeness, and then calling people sociopaths in the next breath.

You may not be the best spokesperson for the issue.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 16:57 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

Pointing out the truth, the comments by jack represented an anti-social worldview, is not impolite, but your comment represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what politeness means for people with conflicting ideas, politeness doesn't demand subservience to the loudest talker in a room just to avoid conflict.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 17:09 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> politeness doesn't demand subservience to the loudest talker in a room just to avoid conflict.

It may not require it, but that's the typical outcome nonetheless.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 18:01 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (29 responses)

I very politely called someone who prioritizes his or her own selfish interests above all other considerations a sociopath/psychopath. I believe I was merely repeating the dictionary definition.

Don't try to deflect the argument, please.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 22:04 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (28 responses)

> I very politely called someone [for reasons] a sociopath/psychopath.

Yeah, okay, whatever. I think you've just disqualified yourself from the discussion.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 22:39 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (26 responses)

Please don't bring selective edits to LWN. That's an awful way to discuss things.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 23:03 UTC (Wed) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (25 responses)

Eliding the dependent clause to highlight the main part of the sentence seems quite reasonable to me. I suppose I could have used HTML highlighting, but the original text is right there, and it's not exactly a long comment.

The upshot is that if you're calling someone a sociopath, particularly in a thread about politeness, you are way off the reservation. And failing to back down when it's pointed out, instead doubling down on the rudeness, strikes me as a total disqualifier from this particular conversation. If you cannot recognize the behavior in yourself, you shouldn't be throwing stones at others.

It's also, perhaps, worth pointing out that the target of the sociopath comment was expressing one of the most fundamental values of the free software community: he wants to scratch his own itch.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 2:00 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (21 responses)

The very definition of a sociopath or psychopath embraces someone who puts his or her own goals ahead of everything else and sublimates or ignores or indeed cannot even sense other people's feelings. That's what the person I was replying to was talking about.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 3:17 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link]

So, in other words, it's perfectly okay to call someone a sociopath, as long as you're really sure you're right?

You do realize that your exact argument applies to most of the negative interactions that you claim to hate so fervently? You are doing precisely, exactly what you say is bad behavior, but gosh, Wally, it's okay for me, because I'm right.

That's probably what's going through the mind of everyone being insulting online.... if they're even aware it's an insult, well, it's justified, because they're correct about how terrible a coder their target is, or how awful a behavior that was, or what a pile of wreckage their ethical standards must be.

It seems to me that if you're going to try to impose a code of behavior on others, the very first step needs to be holding yourself to at least that strict a standard, and preferably one much stricter.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 12:37 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link] (19 responses)

"That's what the person I was replying to was talking about."

"ahead of everything else ... ignores ... cannot sense ..."
No, you're exaggerating in order to silence him with some armchair psychiatry.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:06 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (18 responses)

So, it's okay to call people sociopaths when you don't agree with them?

In threads about civility??

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:09 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link] (1 responses)

(Sorry, that was a misthreaded reply to dskoll.)

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:20 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link]

Ah, okay, that makes more sense.

Yeah, it's easy to get lost in the narrow indendation in LWN threads, but it makes them a lot more readable most of the time, so the occasional bit of confusion is probably worth it.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:51 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (15 responses)

What I wrote was this:

Showing such disregard for people's feelings in relation to some selfish goal is something I'd expect from a sociopath or a psychopath

and I stand by it.

Next, your creative little editing of my quote was the equivalent of this:

Original: "People who murder for fun and profit are evil."

Creatively quoted: "People who [do something] are evil."

So yeah... I stand by what I said and I think you are being disingenuous.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 13:59 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (14 responses)

Well, okay, you've tripled down on your abusive behavior, so I'll just leave it to the readers to judge.

This, folks, is the world he's championing: he gets to be abusive, because he's right, you see.... but other people don't.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 15:07 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (12 responses)

...he gets to be abusive, because he's right, you see.... but other people don't.

She, not he.

And no, I am not being abusive. You are simply being over-sensitive. I doubt jackb really is sociopathic. I'm sure he's a really nice person in real life as are most people who get involved in online discussions.

I was merely pointing out the logical consequences of the belief that only the code matters and that everything else should be subservient to code quality.

I'm done with this particular subthread because I doubt we'll ever see each other's point of view. Have a good day.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 17:14 UTC (Thu) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (4 responses)

"She, not he. "

Is it relevant to the discussion at hand ?

"You are simply being over-sensitive."

Is that a joke ? If it was the other way around you would be screaming bloody-murder, denouncing a 'blaming the victim' situation.

"I doubt we'll ever see each other's point of view"
Oh but we see it, do not worry.. you seems to be impervious to the fact that your position is asymmetric.
Everything you reproach to Linus, your are doing and more.. but of course in your case it is different.. because _you_ are right!

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 18:01 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (3 responses)

Is it (she vs. he) relevant to the discussion at hand ?

Not particularly, but I do strive for accuracy.

Is that a joke ? If it was the other way around you would be screaming bloody-murder, denouncing a 'blaming the victim' situation.

Congrats; you got it. It wasn't specifically a joke, but it was a pointed comment to make malor understand a little better.

Everything you reproach to Linus,

The remarks to which malor so strenuously objected were not aimed at Linus. I was simply saying that pursuing one's selfish interest above all others' feelings is the mark of a sociopath. I don't believe Linus does this nor actually anyone else on the LKML. I was just trying to point out the logical consequence of believing that the only thing that matters is code quality. I'm attacking that idea, not any specific person. I'm sorry if that hasn't been clear during this discussion.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 23:04 UTC (Thu) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (2 responses)

"Not particularly, but I do strive for accuracy. "
you strive for accuracy over irrelevant details ?
Beside this is the internet, for all I know you could be one of these reviled 'ex-young-geek-now-white-middle-man', or an 80 years old grandma from Indonesia, or a teenage transgender from Cameroon. The good news is that none of it matter nor has any bearing on the validity or lack there-thereof of your argument. But it beg the question... why do you feel compelled to insist on irrelevant alleged trivia ?

"Congrats; you got it."

no, do not get me wrong. Me pointing out that you should at the very least hold yourself to the standard that you aim to impose on others, does not in any way, shape or form imply that I accept such 'standard' as valid.
I find the whole 'right not be offended' meme whereas the lowest common denominator of all readers or imagined readers is the unimpeachable standard of what is 'acceptable', idiotic and impossible to apply.. as your foray in sociopatic behavior definition illustrated pointedly.

"The remarks to which malor so strenuously objected were not aimed at Linus"
of course it was not... When I said 'everything you reproach to Linux' I was referring to your style of discourse, and the justification for it is exactly the style you reproach to Linus - albeit with a more passive-aggressive tone, and contrary to Linux you do not own-up your discourse.

I do not care if you resort to name-calling, I bet malor does not really either..
What I care about, in this instance, is the hypocrisy, the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do attitude.... whereas Linus is not allowed to chose the tone he wants, and need to account for all sort of potentially offended peoples.. but _you_ are dispensed of such considerations.

I'll give you a US political analogy:

you can have whatever sexual lifestyle as you want, I do not care
you can preach all day long that some of these styles are a road to hell according to your favorite imaginary friend.. I do not care -- well, as long as you do not try to coerce me into sharing your delusions.
but when you do both at the same time... you will get called on it, even by people that do not care about either.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 23:34 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Wow, I guess you get offended really easily.

> why do you feel compelled to insist on irrelevant alleged trivia?

To correct a pronoun, obviously.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 12:11 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

why do you feel compelled to insist on irrelevant alleged trivia

OK, ma'am. I'll stop. shmget shows her focus on the topic by not caring which pronoun is used to refer to her.

Anyway, this really is going nowhere. You can't accept that I'm criticizing a philosophy, not a particular person. So we're done.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 17:14 UTC (Thu) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

> And no, I am not being abusive. You are simply being over-sensitive.

The point malor is making (I believe) is, that's exactly the same argument being made by many of the people defending the status quo on LKML.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 2:15 UTC (Fri) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (5 responses)

And no, I am not being abusive. You are simply being over-sensitive.

Are you even reading yourself?

I mean, you could be on LKML right now. You sound exactly like the people you profess to dislike. You're jumping up and down about protecting people's feelings, and then you post things like that.

Something seems quite amiss here. Are you trolling?

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 5:13 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> You sound exactly like the people you profess to dislike.

Are you gaslighting or putting on a performance for the crowd of some schoolyard taunt, "I know you are but what am I", like a culture warrior behind a paper shield of false "both sides doitism". Maybe you have such cripplingly sensitive feelings as to make you incapable of engaging in an honest and open conversation about this topic, to the point where you consider dskoll's mild tone and criticisms to be abusive. I think I understand your point enough that I can't take your stated position that dskoll has abused you very seriously, it seems more likely that you in fact are trolling than the other way around.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 12:13 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

*sigh*. I guess no-one really got my "you are over-senstive" comment. Of course I was being ironic. Sheesh.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 18:30 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

I will remind you that your whole argument depends on selective editing. The sentence you've been harping on for ages (in its original form, obviously) might be overly harsh, but it isn't terribly offensive. It's certainly not worth all the effort you've put in.

If you're wondering who's trolling here, well, it might be you.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 20:23 UTC (Fri) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (1 responses)

"The sentence you've been harping on for ages (in its original form, obviously) might be overly harsh, but it isn't terribly offensive."

But the argument of dskull and few others is that you or anyone else is not allowed to determine _what_ is offensive.. if you do, you are accused of 'blaming the victim'. In their world, whomever complain is de facto right to complain, the complain is, ipso facto, proof positive that there _is_ a 'problem'... denying the premises make you part of _the_ problem and not part of _the_ solution (to the alleged problem)... and of course they have 'the solution' ready. And dare you not challenge it you sexist-middle-age-white-chauvinistic-privileged-sociopathic-pig....

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 21:02 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Please show me an actual person offended by dskoll's actual statement?

Gotta say, this has turned into a weird conversation. I disliked her statement, but I also dislike how you two have boiled up a sea of hypotheticals and implications around it. I don't get it. Probably time for me to tune out.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 17:18 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

I don't see how this can be considered abusive, unless you consider any challenge to your ideas to be abuse. If you want to be in an environment where no one ever questions your thoughts then maybe LWN isn't the place you want to be?

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 2:02 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (2 responses)

he wants to scratch his own itch

What? No. He wants others to scratch his itch for him, no matter how badly they're treated. You are completely taking things out of context. Please go back and read the article that elicited my initial response.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 3:27 UTC (Thu) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (1 responses)

>What? No. He wants others to scratch his itch for him, no matter how badly they're treated. You are completely taking things out of context. Please go back and read the article that elicited my initial response.

Well, the specific quote that you pulled out, and called him a sociopath for, was this:

>If you're unable or unwilling to do this, then you'll have to work on achieving your preferences without my help, and possibly while I am helping people who are trying to achieve an opposite preference because they did make a convincing case.

What he's saying is this: he wants good quality code. That's his itch. If you convince him that your approach results in better code, he'll lend whatever help he has to offer. (he will help you scratch your itch because it helps him scratch his.) If someone else convinces him that their approach will produce better code, he'll help that person. (he'll scratch their itch because it helps him scratch his.)

This is one of the most fundamental parts of open source. People see a problem and want to solve it, and team up with other people who want to achieve similar goals. If he's a sociopath, then most of open source is, as well.

As far as I can see, not only are you way out of bounds on polite behavior, but also incorrect in your accusation. All he's saying is: "I want a good product. I'll support whoever convinces me their approach does that better."

And instead of trying to convince him, which is what he's asking you to do, you call him a sociopath.

In a thread about toxic behavior, no less.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 16:58 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> And instead of trying to convince him, which is what he's asking you to do, you call him a sociopath.

OK, so did I miss something? He was never called a sociopath. This seems to be the quote this whole thread spawned from:

> Showing such disregard for people's feelings in relation to some selfish goal is something I'd expect from a sociopath or a psychopath.

There's nothing here about a *person* being a sociopath, but *behaviors* being sociopathic in nature. One may have behaviors which indicate all kinds of mental afflictions or other problems without actually having the problem itself (e.g., nervous ticks can be *indicators* of OCD, but are not a diagnosis[1]).

Is there some other comment I missed here?

[1]Actual OCD can be *debilitating* whereas what is called OCD in common terms is usually nothing of the sort. Dislike of light switches not being "all the same way" is not the same as severe anxiety attacks about them not having been turned off "right" while you're out shopping.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 17:10 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> > I very politely called someone [for reasons] a sociopath/psychopath.

> Yeah, okay, whatever. I think you've just disqualified yourself from the discussion.

Excluding someone for telling a truth (however unpleasant) rather disqualifies the discussion from having a point, don't you think?

There are polite and nasty ways of saying things, but I think dskoll was putting it politely. And if you can't accept unpleasant facts, politely put, then you shouldn't be discussing that sort of thing ...

Cheers,
Wol

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 15:45 UTC (Thu) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (9 responses)

I personally find the attitude extremely realistic and liberating, even if it's explained a bit poorly. It's akin to being asked elide your person entirely, and just focus yourself to become a machine that best performs a given job. It's a rational position, not an immoral one.

Few people are impacted if the feelings of some random developer are hurt, but a very large number benefit if the product is good. In the end, that code may live a decade or longer, and benefit literally billions over its time span, whereas such personal feelings come and go and largely are irrelevant in comparison. This problem is, I think, in similar category to the ethics of making one person suffer more so that million more people can be a bit happier on average -- from an utilitarian point of view even a minor improvement in the lives of the multitude outweigh even large displeasure heaped on a single person.

So anyway, I feel this is a bit tangential to the discussion, but I do think that the code is way more important than the people because of how much larger impact it has, and how many more lives it affects.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 20:15 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (8 responses)

But ultimately, you're agreeing with me that the code is only important because of the good that it brings to people. If you had absolutely beautiful code that didn't benefit any people, then you'd agree with me that the code wasn't worth very much except maybe as an aesthetic object.

Now, the thing is that you can have beautiful code that benefits millions of people and whose development hurts "some random developer". But wouldn't it be better to have beautiful code that benefits millions of people and whose development is less hurtful to "random developers"?

In a slightly more subtle way, you yet again appeal to the same false dichotomy as others attempting to justify bad behavior: That we can have either good code or good behavior but not both.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 21:19 UTC (Thu) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (7 responses)

"others attempting to justify bad behavior:"

I think what you are persistently missing is that we are not in agreement wrt what constitute 'bad behaviour'.
You assume that 'your' views on the topic are universal.. that we all would be happier in an hypocritical, repressed environment, were conflict is left to fester and handled via backstabbing, rumor mills, and other passive-aggressive, superficially polite ways.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 21:32 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link] (3 responses)

Ms. Sharp has made a followup posting, some of which may be interpreted as her assessment of "bad behavior". It includes references to "microaggressions" and "known harassers" and "code of conduct" and "leadership ... at least 30% new voices" and "spectrum of privilege" and "cultural change" and of course many variants of "diversity".

http://sarah.thesharps.us/2015/10/06/what-makes-a-good-co...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 21:42 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

Her list sounds horrible to me, because it requires kicking your experience, enthusiastic, productive people out periodically to make room for 'new' people (both in development and in 'leadership')

The Linux Kernel community hits most things in most categories of her list, but there are also a lot of things that are subjective.

She then seems to say that unless every item in every category is met, she deems the whole category and effort a failure.

She's welcome to try and organize and run a project per her criteria, but I don't think I would want to operate under those rules.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 17:34 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> Her list sounds horrible to me, because it requires kicking your experience, enthusiastic, productive people out periodically to make room for 'new' people (both in development and in 'leadership')

Unfortunately, here in the real world, all the evidence is that having someone in the same position of leadership for a long time results in that person becoming a real problem :-( There is a REASON that most democracies limit the amount of time a person can be President or whatever for. I used to be a fan of Margaret Thatcher. Until she developed Maggielomania. MOST leaders get to the point where they like power, and will hang on to it come hell or high water.

How long has Linus headed the Linux project? He seems to have kept himself remarkably grounded, but he's been around a heck of a long time. Too long? I don't know, but all the stats say yes, too long. ESR has burnt himself out, he's no longer that respected. RMS seems to be shooting himself in the foot far too often today :-( I hate to say it, but I think more and more long-time luminaries can no longer see the wood for the trees :-(

As a chemist, one historic example I like is Dalton. As a student and a young man, he was a remarkable scientist. As a respected elder sage, he was one big unmitigated disaster, holding back Chemistry for ages.

A possible counter-example is Churchill, but he regularly swung between power and political wilderness - that was probably a great help in keeping his feet on the ground.

Cheers,
Wol

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 17:52 UTC (Fri) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link]

The reason I believe that Linus is still around and doesn't look anywhere close to burning out, is because he never micromanages. He gives maintainers lots of room to run their subsystems the way they seem fit. When there's in-fights within a subsystem, or competing systems, he doesn't get involved unless one side is totally off the mark and isn't changing. He's stated before that he doesn't want to get involved in those controversies, and wants the subsystems to figure things out themselves.

His biggest pet peeve (and he restated it again in Dublin), is breaking backward compatibility with user space. The majority of his rants that make headlines has mostly been due to maintainers thinking they could break a user application in the next release for whatever reason. Push that too much, and you will suffer the wrath of Linus. And usually for good reason too.

Linus has been very consistent in his leadership. I don't see him stepping down any time soon.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 22:20 UTC (Thu) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (2 responses)

Your reply calls to mind the old adage "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem". The people pointing to a problem, of whom Sharp is just one recent example, most certainly are aware that their criteria for bad behaviour are not shared universally. If there were universal agreement, there would not be a problem.

Nor is it likely that the people pointing to a problem believe that any single standard or code of behaviour will make everyone happy. But "you can't please everyone" is a very weak defense for a status quo where many people are unhappy, or where many people who perceive that they would be unhappy if they joined choose to stay away altogether.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 8, 2015 23:07 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

by the same argument, there are a lot of people who are happy with the current situation and who have said they would be very unhappy with the proposed rules

so for them, the people annoying them about changes that they don't want are the problem.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 15, 2015 8:45 UTC (Thu) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link]

The people pointing to a problem, of whom Sharp is just one recent example, most certainly are aware that their criteria for bad behaviour are not shared universally. If there were universal agreement, there would not be a problem.

Oh, they are pretty much shared universally. It's just that some misshapen person cult tends to glorify some "hero's" bad traits along with the rest until he as well as others relish in considering them a mark of quality.

It's like greed and selfishness being glorified because you admire the effects of being rich.