On user program breakage from Linux kernel changes

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1414106

by intel_ • 14 years ago

103 44 14 years ago

article.gmane.org

buster7• 14 years ago

Puhh... Linus is known to be quite reckless and he may be right in essence, but the language... he might calm down a little and learn one or two things about social interaction.. there are a ot of ways to say what you want without plainly insulting someone over and over again.

buster7• 14 years ago

It seems he calmed down a little afterwards and answered without all that rage and curse words, clearly he's upset but i don't imagine him going postal anymore:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1414130

keithpeter2• 14 years ago

  >  But since applications *do* care, and since we *do* have 
  >  multiple error values, we stick to the old ones, unless 
  >  there are some *very* good reasons not to.

Perhaps the original email could have been about 10 lines long with the quote above being the main point? My point is: is it worth attempting to convey anger in a text only medium?

I can give as good as I get in a good old shouting match f2f. My thing is waving my arms about. Other colleagues find that funny and start laughing. Then I realise, and we all calm down, then we find a way out of the problem. I find it slightly strange trying to do that in a text only medium.

ksec• 14 years ago

If you think of Linux Kernel Development as a company then i see nothing wrong with that. In the eyes of CEO, one of his SVP did something totally unacceptable by SVP standard.

buster7• 14 years ago

So, you seem to be ok with your boss shouting at you and insulting you for like half an hour because you make a one-time mistake. I wouldn't be ok with that in a company i am working. I'd quit. Either the SVP in your example is completely incompetent and absolutely not fit to do his job (then demote him, fire hime, whatever) OR it's a misstep (then tell him his error, make certain it doesn't happen again, reason with him but don't just insult him, what good is supposed to come out of that?!).

I certainly agree that a company/team/project needs strong leaders but being strong/focused/passionate/ambitious and being a dick to people has nothing to do with each other. At all.

DanBC• 14 years ago

That language would be less acceptable in a company, especially in public.

The employee would have grounds for disciplinary action against the person making the rant. And if it's a pattern of behaviour the employee could have a case for constructive dismissal.

4ad4• 14 years ago

> there are a ot of ways to say what you want without plainly insulting someone over and over again

Sure, and in the above context they are less effective. So why would he care?

> he might calm down a little and learn one or two things about social interaction

Why? What purpose would that serve? The LKML is one of the last few places where politically correct bullshit does not prevail. Communication is efficient and effective. There is no evidence that changing the tone would make it more efficient and more effective, but there's evidence galore that the opposite would happen. Experience has thought me that the only people hurt in the process are technical morons, and such people have no place in a technical discussion.

If someone cares more about the language or social niceties than about the correctitude of technical solutions they have no place in a technical community.

buster7• 14 years ago

Writing a wall of text with insults and a low amount of real communiction is not effective. It's also nothing to do with political correct. Linus' second post in the mail thread is much more technical and much less insulting.. more effective.

pcwalton2• 14 years ago

"There is no evidence that changing the tone would make it more efficient and more effective, but there's evidence galore that the opposite would happen."

What is this evidence? Do you have an example of a project that failed because the tone of its community changed from hostility to politeness?

peterwoo• 14 years ago

Everything you've said here is simply dismissive.

"Kernel dev. policy is not to break user space. ENOENT is not a valid return from ioctl. Kernel maintainers are expected to know and adhere to this" is the only point that Linus had to make in this discussion.

People just don't understand why he added a bunch of swearing and questioning of the dev's basic intelligence. That's all.

ryguytilidie• 14 years ago

"Sure, and in the above context they are less effective"

This is absolutely, 100% false. Do you have any sort of data to back this up?

"There is no evidence that changing the tone would make it more efficient and more effective, but there's evidence galore that the opposite would happen."

Again, completely, 100% could not be more incorrect.

Do you really think that just saying "X is true" makes it so?

"If someone cares more about the language or social niceties than about the correctitude of technical solutions they have no place in a technical community."

I'm not really sure its an issue of "more" one versus the other, but why can't you communicate with someone in a correct manner without screaming and swearing at them in all caps? Its not mutually exclusive that one can either talk like my grandmother or be a technical wiz.

This is probably the worst post I've ever seen on HN, and that's saying something. Every single point relies on evidence you seemed to make up in your head?

thaumaturgy• 14 years ago

I find it easy to have empathy for Linus. He's human, just like any of us, but unlike any of us, he's responsible for the development and organization of one of the core pieces of software that drives a huge amount of stuff in the world.

He's allowed to have a cranky day sometimes, especially when somebody screws up in a way that he has been very specific about in the past.

onetwothreefour• 14 years ago

I'm sure Linus loses a lot of sleep worrying about what buster on HN thinks regarding the tone of his language...

rwmj• 14 years ago

I wonder if they've fixed the various breakages of dup3 and the equivalent fcntl that I reported about 4 months ago?

iso-8859-1• 14 years ago

Why are you not linking to your report if you want to know? Your post is almost useless as it is.

dschiptsov2• 14 years ago

Good project must have passionate leader. Linus or Theo or Richard or Guido or Igor or Salvatore you name him..

Otherwise it will become a "kolkhoz". )

sdp• 14 years ago

The unbalanced paren at the end of your comment really irks my OCD.

srik• 14 years ago

I read it as a "soft-smile".

kpierre• 14 years ago

this is russian smiley. usually used like that )))))

pcwalton2• 14 years ago

Passionate, sure. Insulting, no. To be honest, I think Linux is successful despite Linus' temperament, not because of it. There are many counterexamples of successful open source projects that maintain a respectful tone: WebKit, LLVM, GCC, GNOME, KDE, Perl, etc.

dschiptsov2• 14 years ago

This is a side-effect.

vy8vWJlco• 14 years ago

I can appreciate his enthusiasm, but that man is gonna have a heart attack one of these days.

He's right of course... Breaking semantics is bad.

xradionut• 14 years ago

As a Linux user, I'm happy that Linus is passionate about not breaking USERSPACE. Had I done something of the scale that Linus is pissed about, I would have expected a much worse reaction.

16s• 14 years ago

I wonder what he says when he's really angry ;)

Orva• 14 years ago

There is only 2 rules in kernel development which you can't break:

1. Kernel APIs to userland are always backwards compatible

2. If you break something, you will take responsibility

If maintainer breaks both of those rules, how can you accept patches from him/her ever again? Remember that amount of patches handled by kernel core team is enormous, you have to able to trust subsystem maintainers at least some degree. In corporate world this would have caused immediate "clear your desk" reaction.

On user program breakage from Linux kernel changes

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