Sharp: Closing a door [LWN.net]

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 21:09 UTC (Mon) by fredrik (subscriber, #232)
In reply to: Sharp: Closing a door by sorokin
Parent article: Sharp: Closing a door

Sorokin, you've googled? Really?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linus+Torwalds+rant

Try a few variations on that last keyword, say "abusive", "flame", etc. It doesn't take much effort to find many quotes from Linus where he asks people to kill themselves, or calls them idiots and full of bullshit.

As a bystander who isn't the target of such language it is perhaps easy to paint it all merely as a poor attempt by Torvalds to make some of his messages a bit more memorable. But try for one moment to imagine that you're a developer who's code will be scrutinized by Torvalds, and I'm sure you'll understand how unpleasant it is to be exposed to public humiliation on one of the most watched mailing lists in the world.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 23:24 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (11 responses)

So... I found some Linus Torvalds rants.

As the owner of a software development company, I would fire someone who behaved that way in public to other developers, no matter how good a developer he or she was.

It's completely unnecessary to behave that way to produce good code. Plenty of other projects have far more congenial development environments and have high quality code. Maybe in 1991 it was amusing, but I really think in 2015 it's time for Linus and others to grow up.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 9:44 UTC (Tue) by ortalo (guest, #4654) [Link]

As I said previously, maybe it's not only growing up now, but also sharing the benefits of their work. Whatever the merits of major maintainers and past contributors they do not have a right to take more of a *share* of the current benefits generated by the kernel than newer or minor developers. Unless Linux has turned into a company that is.
As much as I would appreciate one who only swears by the command line; there is no need for another american software magnate in this world. Is all this "toughness" just an attitude or a way of preventing sharing the pie with foreigners or newcomers?
Sorry for raising the question, but everyone is so much into protecting its own assets and investments in the beginning of this century... Remember Keynes: in the long term...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 12:25 UTC (Tue) by hitmark (guest, #34609) [Link] (5 responses)

That page seems to limit themselves to showcasing only the "naughty" lines, and fail to present the context etc that preceded the rants.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 14:30 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

Maybe, but I cannot think of any circumstance under which I would tolerate an employee going on such public rants. It's just childish and rude behavior.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 14:50 UTC (Tue) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (3 responses)

I'd not talk like that, and I'd have problems accepting some of those directed towards me (and obviously also others). But maintaining a one-sided character assassination page isn't exactly proper behaviour either.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 19:43 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, maintaining a page of rants is slightly unfair. But it's par for the course, especially if you're a celebrity (which Linus Torvalds is in our little world.) We're in the middle of an election campaign in Canada and several candidates have been brought down by people digging up embarrassing Twitter or Facebook posts from their past. That's just how it works.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 20:22 UTC (Tue) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't find the status quo, especially not politics, a good argument here. Otherwise there'd be no need to discuss the communication style in communities either.

Most of the examples where Linus lashes out I in a totally over the top manner, seem to be in cases where the code of conduct *he*sees as a given is violated. Asking for a merge of non compiling or completely broken code, arguing for breakaging userspace, sidestepping procedures and so on. It often seems line both sides of this discussion don't try to understand the other.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 2:47 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

That's fine, but if Linus wants to lash out in that way he should compose the email and then delete it. Or at most send it to the person he's mad at. Not publish it on a public mailing list.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 17:57 UTC (Tue) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (1 responses)

"http://*.aspx"
enough said...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:21 UTC (Wed) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

How does the file extension invalidate the content?

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:39 UTC (Wed) by Kamilion (subscriber, #42576) [Link] (1 responses)

Part of the way I see it, there is nobody who has risen to the position to be able to take the position of chief maintainer from Linus. As far as I know, he's said he'd give it up if someone was worthy of carrying the torch. And, well, it *IS* his project, despite all the contributions from hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Putting him out doesn't seem quite right either.

One of the reasons I work for myself is because I'd probably get fired for how I talk about some of the opinions I hold. (Mostly against oracle.)

[07:14:55] <====> ----- there is corruption in the MySQL database, attempts to repair are ongoing. I'm waiting on an update from ++++++ as to how he's getting on with it.
[07:16:26] <Kamilion> too bad postgresql isn't supported more widely :<
[07:17:20] <Kamilion> ever since I converted years ago, I've either not noticed problems, or just had so few that they aren't flagged in memory...
[07:17:47] <Kamilion> versus having to remember far too many hairy days fighting with mysql
[07:18:05] <====> Kamilion: had we known of the w-p issue, steps would have been taken. It's the 1st time I've had a MySQL dbase go sick in over 5 years.
[07:18:09] <Kamilion> and two years of the pain of Oracle Enterprise Database
[07:18:24] <Kamilion> I still cringe when I remember most of that
[07:19:37] <Kamilion> a hundred thousand man-hours of pointless boilerplate because some chump thought that being super extra mega explicit was the better way to go. And then someone else decided later, oop, nope, not good enough, let's do the same thing with a 2 at the end.
[07:19:54] <Kamilion> and thus, was born, the bane of my existence... datetime2
[07:20:22] <Kamilion> a million years of pain, conflict, and torment on the mind who inflicted this upon other human beings
[07:21:33] <Kamilion> just knowing of it's dark power brings sorrow and regret to all who hear of it (because they have to listen to me whinge about it in long-form)

Frankly, I'd much rather remove the influence of commercial software's make-work attitude that has resulted in such overspecified solutions as CORBA, Java, and XML.

To illustrate my point:
Here is a new python script:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import antigravity

And here is a new java project:
https://github.com/making/spring-boot-blank

As a developer, I can demonstrate an opinion that I clearly prefer the former over the latter. There *WILL* be people out there that will demonstrate the opposing opinion.
Arguments will be held, drinks will be thrown, sharp words exchanged, and among men, fisticuffs to the floor or first blood.

I simply cannot imagine a female persona that would equate software development with a barfight. It would not even occur to them as a last thought, let alone a first. The mere association between the two would be a concept as foreign to them as the myriad of uses woolite has for hosiery cleaning to a male persona.

I fear the issue has a far deeper-seated cultural mismatch between participants than the surface appears. The log trapped under fifty feet of murky lake water, itching to catch your anchor. If it's not causing a tangle *right now* it's easily overlooked until it's got you, and just as easily ignored once again after you've gotten untangled.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 20:55 UTC (Wed) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]

> Part of the way I see it, there is nobody who has risen to the position to be able to take the position of chief maintainer from Linus.

"Risen"? That word could be exposing your prejudices.
Where I come from, the key role of a leader is to support the workers, enable them to get the work done, lift them up when they fall down, support them so they don't trip.
Seeing a leader at the "top" of a pyramid is such an unhelpful picture.

Leadership is certainly an important role, but not necessarily more important than any other.
Leadership is also a specialist role. It is harder to replace a leader than some other roles, but not all.

I suspect there are a number of people who could step into Linus' shoes if they were vacated. Each would bring a different set of strengths - certainly not the same strengths as Linus, but probably not the same weaknesses either.

But as Linus' shoes are not vacated, there are no candidates pressing for the job (and if there were, we probably would reject them for that reason).

> I simply cannot imagine a female persona that would equate software development with a barfight.

I've never had doubts about my gender before ... but maybe I'm a bit female.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 2:14 UTC (Mon) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link]

I can't help but notice this rhetorical behaviour of the anti-Torvalds mob. 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." "It's generally agreed." "The lurkers all support me in E-mail." Might as well ask us to go convince ourselves, or to keep lowering a threshold of complaint until the conclusion matches.

It's not as though a convincing answer were difficult to provide. It'll be at the minimum a hyperlink, for crying out loud; copy and paste from the browser's URL bar, basic post-1984 GUI skills required. Surely some activist or another will have written the argument out in full on some wiki or another, by now? It's been two years already.

This suggests that the evidence doesn't exist, and that the current re-heating of the "depose that awful fire-breathing Torvalds" campaign has an even greater portion of hot air to reason for complaint than the previous. If this is true, then it's sad that all they can muster are some bargain-basement distortions, in themselves debunkable with a brief trawl through the LKML archives.[0] However it's (slightly) disturbing to see various tech media swallow and regurgitate the provided narrative hook-line-and-sinker: these are questions which they could've asked as well (and it'd be nice to quote something properly cut-and-dried, right?), were it not for their fear of seeming heretic to the pitchforks-and-torches of Twitter.

I argue that the preceding is indeed the case. My evidence is that all was quiet on that front until this latest pair of ragequits; and that therefore all that's actually going on is the raging, and quitting, of a shrill but well-connected minority.

[0] like that "dicksucking contest" one where it's clearly seen advantageous[1] to point to "blue language"[2] over its justification, namely that the justification for merging was a variation of "security interest trumps all", and that the submitter had been previously accused of "doubling down on fear". But who's going to justify a good moral conclusion, these days?
[1] to an incredibly minute degree[2]
[2] what's this anyway, pre-school?