Linus on "acting professionally"

http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2

by blacktulip • 13 years ago

488 485 13 years ago

marc.info

aymeric2• 13 years ago

I find his answer very reasonable (although I also found some of his past answers quite harsh).

lacion• 13 years ago

i don't think sugar coating the world will make it less harsh.

Ygg210• 13 years ago

Yes it would. Aggressive behavior begets more and more aggressive behavior. E.g. if you punch things to make you feel better when you are in a bad mood, you are more likely to punch people/things when you are in a bad mood (in fact it has an addictive quality).

claudius6• 13 years ago

Sure, some answers are harsh, some are nicer, but as long as they get the job done, I don’t see a reason why one would want to complain about a ‘harsh’ answer – the world is not wrapped in friendly gift wrap and if you do something stupid, people are absolutely allowed to call you out on it without the unnecessary boilerplate in particular Angloamericans are so fond of using.

Short is good, harsh is not a problem, if short means harsh, so be it.

aymeric2• 13 years ago

Because "Short" and "nice" works too.

lazyjones4• 13 years ago

if you do something stupid, people are absolutely allowed to call you out on it

The problem with cultural differences is that the effect of this might be not the intended one: the person you shouted at will consider you rude and as someone to avoid instead of reflecting on their actions and trying harder the next time. So it's not really smart to act like this, even if you feel it's "natural". You need to be someone important to be able to afford it and Linus (still) is.

lazyjones4• 13 years ago

I agree mostly, but I'm still wondering what kind of natural urges he is suppressing that he has to curse like that.

coldtea• 13 years ago

The natural urge to hit the idiot he's talking to on the head with a baseball bat of course.

pasiaj2• 13 years ago

Huh? The whole point is that he is not suppressing the urges. When he feels frustrated, he might add a "fuck" or "shit" to convey that feeling.

You, on the other hand, did not agree to something, felt mad or frustrated, and instead of conveying that frustration you snidely suggested that that he must be suppressing some "natural urges". Violent? Homosexual? From whose subconscious did those arise from? Not Linuses?

(See what I did there? What kind of urges might _I_ be suppressing?)

All in all: I find your reply to be a perfect example of what Linus is trying to avoid ("fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, _the passive aggressiveness_, and the buzzwords")

reirob• 13 years ago

I like Linus - he has character, style and he fights to stay himself no matter how often people want him to change.

Some quotes I liked:

So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other.

I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.

skriticos2• 13 years ago

I also work in a big office environment in a large company and I tend to agree with Linus. We get all this professional outsorcing and offshoring and use tech that was new in the flower power generation. It's all done very professionally and it results in mind-bogging stupidity. Every single day.

ealexhudson3• 13 years ago

Linus is dead wrong here. When he says acting professionally means "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords", he's attacking a straw man: none of that behaviour is professional, and to say that professional behaviour must degenerate to that behaviour is a stretch at best.

Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a la LKML) or covert (passive). Lying is not warranted under any circumstance. Being professional means not calling people names.

All of this stuff is what you get taught in kindergarten, it's not rocket science. Mental abuse is no better than physical abuse, and given I don't buy that hitting developers with sticks makes them "better" somehow I'm also not going to buy into clue-by-four beatings being any better.

seivan• 13 years ago

That's what it ends up being.

Also way to go to ignore all the other arguments he made, before talking about office politics, it seems like you just skipped to the end.

ealexhudson3• 13 years ago

No, I didn't just skip to the end: I pointed out that his version of "acting professionally" doesn't match any I recognise. There's no point engaging in arguments over a straw man.

Ygg210• 13 years ago

Just gonna post these two gems I found at a previous thread about Linus (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6050443):

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442916...

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442909...

To me Linus is kinda like Wagner, I do like and enjoy his work, but as a person he is not someone I'd aspire to emulate.

claudius6• 13 years ago

Regarding the last bit, I don’t quite see the point. If I had a wife and she ripped off the sink, put a plastic tub there and called it an improvement, because the metal in the sink could rust, I would be quite clear with her that I think this is a ludicrously stupid idea and she should feel extremely dumb for even thinking of it, her being my wife or not.

(Nitpick: Do you mean Richard Wagner or someone called Vagner I’ve never heard of?)

vacri18• 13 years ago

Both of those links have comments that chide Torvalds for not being polite... and then call him names. Such hypocrisy.

edit: hrm, that rather seems your point in linking them.

geuis• 13 years ago

That's not what he's saying at all. He's giving examples of exactly the kind of shit he doesn't put up with.

stephenr• 13 years ago

You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality.

The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism".

People are emotional, reactionary creatures with very different needs.

These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it. As was shown on a recent post - Linus reverted to swearing in his native tongue because English wasn't sufficiently rude enough for him, and those who let the fuckup slip through all admitted their fault and identified that they would take steps to ensure it didn't happen again.

oellegaard3• 13 years ago

Just a note. Once I worked at a tele provider and I accidentally messed up some contract and we lost $6000 - that was in a very professional working environment. I was called into the office of the manager and was told (not in a specifically pleasant way) how stupid my actions were. This taught me an important lesson about caring for details.

In open source, the office is the mailing list. Life is tough. Say sorry and make sure it doesn't happen again. Move on - and outside the US, I think swearing is pretty common if you do something stupid - working environment or not. I don't think this means that we all have to adhere to US standards.

nl3• 13 years ago

You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality.

Perhaps you have never worked in a good office, on a good team where people respect each other.

These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it.

Why? It's rude and additionally it doesn't seem to achieve anything positive that can't be achieved more politely.

ealexhudson3• 13 years ago

So lying is a result of "acting professionally", but swearing is natural and ok? I don't buy that "people" need to swear any more than they need to lie, or that the result of swearing is somehow less damaging/more productive than lying.

pavlov2• 13 years ago

You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality. The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism".

When has Linus actually worked in an office? Would he really know what it's like?

AFAIK, he moved from Finland to USA in 1998 to work at Transmeta. He was already famous at that time, and presumably could dictate his working terms. I recall reading an interview that suggested he was mostly working from home on the Linux kernel already back then.

Maybe that's why his notion that "professionalism" equals neckties and backstabbing seems like a caricature out of a '90s TV show.

cmpxchg8• 13 years ago

Being professional means you leave emotions at the door (like in poker) and back your argument with data.

The algorithm might be stupid, that doesn't make the person stupid. Ad hominem attacks are a very poor way to defend your point and will result in people not wanting to work with you.

Saying "grow a thicker skin" won't make it better either.

Linus is a brilliant engineer, his people skills not so brilliant. But we all knew that already.

jonahx7• 13 years ago

this is a false dichotomy.

it's possible to be succint, harsh, and directly to the point without swearing or being abusive. for example, off the top of my head:

"stephen, this code is riddled with basic errors and is completely unacceptable. please fix a, b, and c immediately and know that if you make mistakes like this again, your contributions will no longer be welcome."

versus:

"stephen, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??!?! seriously, a FUCKING JUNIOR DEV would not make mistakes like this. why are you wasting my time with this FUCKING BULLSHIT? FIX IT NOW OR YOU'RE FIRED!"

imagine in both cases the person writing to you has only a professional relationship (ie, is not a friend who has the type of relationship with you where the 2nd paragraph would be an establish, half-joking form of communication)

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

As was shown on a recent post - Linus reverted to swearing in his native tongue

Actually, he swore in Finnish in that post, and as a Swedish-speaking Finn, Swedish, and not Finnish, is his native language.

http://www.muktware.com/news/2857/which-linus-torvalds%E2%80...

EnderMB• 13 years ago

You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality.

I understand the whole "you've obviously never ..." thing that people do to state that their experiences are not representative, but it just sounds dickish in your post. I think it's pretty obvious that the person you are replying to has worked in an office, and has had a good dose of reality.

kenny_r• 13 years ago

I looked up the mail you're referring to: https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132

My Finnish colleague seems to like it. I'm told shouting "Perkele!" is a great stress-reliever.

Skalman• 13 years ago

If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it.

Why? Wouldn't you achieve the same thing by calling the commit fucking stupid? Why resort to personal attacks?

flumbaps3• 13 years ago

You really shouldn't call people "fucking stupid" for making mistakes in code. They're clearly not stupid, they're writing complex computer code for a big project. Calling them "fucking stupid" is as much a lie as throwing out empty compliments, and just as counter productive. Smart people don't need to be beaten into shape, just like they don't need to be mollycoddled. If you're being abusive in the workplace, it's because of your own emotional needs, not the people you're being abusive to.

If someone commits code that is fucking stupid then by all means call the code fucking stupid. But then actually take the time to identify the cause for the mistake. Is that programmer following best practises? Are they being careless? Are they working on something they don't have the expertise for? Are they spread too thin? If you identify the problem you can try to fix it. Instead of abuse, you should be giving clear and direct instructions on how to not make mistakes like that ever again. If you call someone "fucking stupid" then you incorrectly identify the problem and, moreover, you're being abusive, which can be very harmful.

kyllo• 13 years ago

Speaking of his native tongue--based on my own experiences working with international colleagues, I think there's also a little bit of a cultural component to his behavior.

This obviously doesn't hold true for all individuals, but Americans tend to prefer the "Let's all hold hands and sing kumbaya" type of social dynamic. "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything." Much emphasis is placed on not hurting anyone's feelings, and maintaining the appearance that everyone likes everyone else.

Northern Europeans, meanwhile, tend to prefer the "We're all adults here, so let's cut the bullshit and say exactly what we think." Being honest and genuine is more important than being liked.

This part, I find really significant: And hey, I don't actually think we've personally even had any problems. And I realize that you may react very strongly and get nervous about us having problems, but realistically, do you actually expect to like all the other kernel engineers? And equally importantly, not everybody has to like you, or necessarily think they have to be liked by you. OK?

That strikes me as a very Northern European view, that is not as likely to be shared by most Americans. It's just not how we're socialized in America. And too often, "professionalism" gets defined as "American style," while anything un-American is deemed unprofessional, which is not quite right.

gregd4• 13 years ago

Those things don't happen as a result of professionalism. They happen because some people can be assholes. Assholes don't care if a workplace is "professional" or a fucking free-for-all.

Nrsolis• 13 years ago

The real danger here is that once you've developed the habit of berating people who screw up, you'll continue to do it when it's not really called for.

I'm no shrinking violet. I got a good ass-chewing from time to time in the Navy and each time I deserved it. That said, you'd be surprised to hear that ass-chewing doesn't happen NEARLY as often as you'd expect it to in a hyper-aggressive life-or-death type world like the military.

I can't imagine anyone in the civilian world getting their panties bunched up enough to justify the kinds of shit I see from people who get their nose bent out of shape when someone screws up, but see it I do. Often, I think it's an over-reaction.

It's one thing to yell at someone who makes a mistake that might get people killed. It's another to flip out because it might make someone's browser run slower or crash.

YMMV.

bmj• 13 years ago

This reminds me of stories and discussions about athletic coaches who belittle and insult their players. There is the same sort of division between reactions to them...some folks will say someone like Bobby Knight is a great coach and leader of men, while others will call him out as wacko who gets off pushing guys around.

Lapsa• 13 years ago

Man, you were in navy. You got completely different prism to look through.

vickytnz• 13 years ago

I know a designer who used to be a psychologist working with disabled children. He has a similar perspective: "it's design, not brain surgery!"

Confusion3• 13 years ago

  The real danger here is that once you've developed the 
  habit of berating people who screw up, you'll continue to 
  do it when it's not really called for.

Which has already happened to Linus numerous times.

antirez• 13 years ago

So what is the profesional way to refuse to work with somebody you don't want to, or to mark the work of somebody else as bad? Of course options that will require a lot of time are not good, like gently showing how a "few" things could be improved.

arrrg2• 13 years ago

"I do not want to work with you because of reasons A, B, C."

Leaving out the reasons would also be ok, but don't be surprised if this results in confusion and anger. (However, the abusive alternative to this will likely not help reducing the confusion or anger.)

"This work is bad because of reasons A, B, C."

Leaving out the reasons would also be ok, but don't expect other people to agree with you if you do that.

Being straightforward doesn't require one to be abusive.

hahainternet2• 13 years ago

After a few years of tangible disdain for me and after ridiculing me saving his business, I recently refused to work for someone with a succinct 'I quit'.

Of course it was later followed up by telling him to go fuck himself but that's how things go.

arrrg2• 13 years ago

I also don't really understand how not abusing other people is somehow fake politeness. I mean, who's to say that the abuse isn't fake abuse? This distinction just makes no sense at all to me.

hannibal5• 13 years ago

About professionalism. Have you ever been meetings filled with vice presidents when somebody screws up. What Linus does in mailing list is very mild compared to how CEO's behave in competitive business. Rest assured, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs treated their lieutenants much worse.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/407

" I really fundamentally believe that being honest and open about your emotions about core/process is good. And because it's damn hard to read people over email, I think you need to be more honest and more open over email. I'm generally nicer in person. Not always."

Dylan168074• 13 years ago

He's sarcastically showing the negative consequences of attempting to enforce professionalism. This is very different from a strawman. His argument is not 'you want bad thing B'. His argument is 'your desire for A causes bad thing B'.

The only thing worse than someone using a fallacy is someone calling out a fallacy that isn't there.

ekianjo• 13 years ago

fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords

that describes pretty well what is happening in so called professional environments. I have been pissed up at people and told them in their face what I thought of them when they fucked something up for the 4th time in a row, and I was reprimanded for this several times. Office politics does not like honesty. It encourages fake politeness and you indeed end up with people talking in your back like women. This sucks bad and I applaud Linus for taking the stance of saying what needs to be said.

metaphorm4• 13 years ago

Linus' entire message just whooooshed right over your head.

philjackson• 13 years ago

I think he might have a point. Every now and again I receive an email from a customer (of ApiAxle) who is asking questions obviously not having read documentation or replies or something else which riles me. I respond to them in a calm, polite manner which might not be how I'm feeling, so, it's a lie, of sorts.

sz4kerto3• 13 years ago

The reason why Linus (or anybody else) might want to act 'professionally' (or nicely, whatever) is because some people feel bad when they are shouted at. It's completely valid to argue that shouting is just a culturally different, but acceptable way of expressing one's thoughts but then you need to be aware that you'll potentially lose people who just simply hate this form of communication.

So this discussion is not about whether shouting and cursing is morally acceptable or not. It's about who's going to make compromises, who's able to make compromises and who are we going to lose in the process. What Sarah (probably) implicitly says is 'I hate this, and I don't want to work in an environment like this - and there might be other people who feel the same'. If Linus thinks that he cannot work in a different way then (because he's pretty important for Linux) probably Sarah is going to be sacrificed in some way. That might be all right, but again: this is not a moral issue.

jonahx7• 13 years ago

because some people feel bad when they are shouted at.

while people tolerate it at different levels, the phrase "some people" is misleading: almost nobody likes to be shouted at, or even feels neutral about it.

It's completely valid to argue that shouting is just a culturally different, but acceptable way of expressing one's thoughts but then you need to be aware that you'll potentially lose people who just simply hate this form of communication.

this is true, but it's worth noting the same logical argument applies to physically hitting someone. and indeed, in other times and other cultures this was and is acceptable. and whenever those social norms have changed, there are people making what is essentially the same argument linus is making (just substituting "hitting" for "yelling").

nawitus3• 13 years ago

while people tolerate it at different levels, the phrase "some people" is misleading: almost nobody likes to be shouted at, or even feels neutral about it.

Well, most people don't like criticism either, even when it's constructive. Some things are necessary even if people dislike them, but I don't think shouting is like that.

derefr3• 13 years ago

I don't think that Linus imagined that the result of his messages wouldn't be people feeling bad. Feeling bad is the whole point. Negative reinforcement; hitting the puppy with a newspaper so it won't shit on your carpet again.

I think the question is, for any kernel developer--do you care enough about Linux that you want to be negatively reinforced when you're being stupid, or do you care more about feeling good all the time?

Xylakant• 13 years ago

See, you need to read up on puppy education. Hitting the puppet with a newspaper will not achieve the desired goal - now the puppy is confused and afraid.[1]

Same is true in work environments: You criticise the work, do not insult the person. Otherwise problems will be swept under the rug until they start to rot and can't be hidden any more.

[1] You can actually achieve the exact opposite: Peeing is a gesture of submission for dog puppies, so if you yell at them, they might just pee again.

yuvadam• 13 years ago

Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%...

oellegaard3• 13 years ago

Ugh, mailing lists. I wonder why so smart people as Linus doesn't invent something thats slightly more comfortable to use. Maybe they just like to be left alone, without interference from mortals.

eyko• 13 years ago

What's uncomfortable about email?

oellegaard3• 13 years ago

I don't think email is a good format for long discussions. Also, the page linked doesn't make it better.

Dylan168074• 13 years ago

A mailing list is threaded comments just like HN. Are you criticizing the page style of a particular list viewer or do you find HN equally uncomfortable?

D9u2• 13 years ago

All I can think of is when Linus said told Nvidia "F... you!" and flipped the bird.

http://youtu.be/IVpOyKCNZYw

This isn't just an isolated incident either, but I'm no shining example of acting professionally.

martin-adams• 13 years ago

> Because I can pretty much guarantee that I'll continue cursing. To me, the discussion would be about how to work together despite these kinds of cultural differences

So if I get this right, we just need a Linus communication adapter that can translate messages so they are compatible with either side.

Does that mean when someone talks to Linus it should add swear words to be compatible with him? :)

I see his point, but it comes at a cost. People may start trying to work around him for fear of backlash rather than working with him. Or worse, just not try at all. We can only trust his technique has a greater net benefit.

derefr3• 13 years ago

Reminds me of the discussion of the difference between Ask and Guess cultures (http://lesswrong.com/lw/375/ask_and_guess/).

nawitus3• 13 years ago

Does that mean when someone talks to Linus it should add swear words to be compatible with him? :)

I wonder if anyone has called Linus 'fucking stupid' (etc.) on the mailing lists, and how Linus reacted.

sixbrx• 13 years ago

In a long term relationship, I don't like subtlety and politeness. It just leads to emotional amplification on the receiver side - the receiver just learns to "turn up the volume" on anything said to try find the true signal. (Was that praise just a bit faint this time, hiding some kind of displeasure with my work? What was that slight smile about?)

Some of the most offensive put-downs come as faint praise from people who are just so convinced that they're always reasonable to the nth degree. I'd rather someone come out flailing so I can defend myself and my work, with both of us being wrong (and open about it) from time to time so it's not something unusual or noteworthy.

boothead• 13 years ago

Interesting view point. I'd never really considered the turn up the volume effect being the flip side of being subtle with people, but I think you're spot on!

CrLf5• 13 years ago

I fully agree.

Some people call this being transparent. Let people see what you really feel, and let them be sure that when they see your approval, they can be damn sure you are really approving and not just faking it.

Now, there is a difference between being transparent or honest and being aggressive or rude, and I don't approve of the latter. But that interpretation depends on the people involved and their relationship: what may be considered rude by a third party or someone from a different culture, may be considered normal and acceptable by the ones involved.

If you would take offense by something that you say/said to others, they you are being rude. Otherwise, you are being honest. Pretty simple rule.

But sometimes people are just so used to politically correct (faked) behavior that they take transparency for rudeness, and honesty for impoliteness.

flog• 13 years ago

There's a big difference between tolerance and respect. The two have become blurred in modern society. Respect is the higher goal.

jakobe4• 13 years ago

Torvalds seems to be a real bully. And it hurts me to see all these responses justifying his behaviour, as if this is the way it must be.

Just look at this message: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1TUvG3J...

There is no justification for this kind of behaviour. If anybody else behaved this way, they would be sent to a psychiatrist. But apparently since it's Linus Torvalds, he's just being a little "harsh" and that's necessary to get his point across.

vacri18• 13 years ago

Another example of "he's not being polite, why can't be be polite, now I'm going to call him names", in this case, saying that he's mentally disturbed.

Why is it that so many people demanding politeness of Torvalds can't live by their own rules? Perhaps what Torvalds is saying is true, that people will find ways around the 'false rules'.

jakobe4• 13 years ago

I did not mean to call Torvalds names. Apparently I wasn't careful enough in my wording.

I meant to express my frustration how the community often accepts socially inacceptable behaviour from accomplished people.

When "normal" people fall into a rage, we tell them to learn coping with their anger. If they keep yelling angrily at people, we might even suggest they see a psychiatrist. Not as an insult, but because we sincerely believe that they could maybe learn some coping strategies to get along better with other people.

But for some people the rules are different. When someone complains that Steve Jobs verbally abused his employees, or when someone complains that Linus Torvalds uses unnecessary profanity, a lot of people start to justify this behaviour. They claim it is necessary for their success, etc.

return0• 13 years ago

He says he's angry in that message. Seemingly he'd rather lash out than be passive aggressive. If it was such a big deal, people would have forked the kernel under new leadership.

estebank2• 13 years ago

I remember that thread. You have a senior kernel committer breaking userspace and then turning around and laying the blame on the userspace application when it broke. In Linus' email I see cursing, and an ass chewing for all to see.

The thing is, the kernel mailing list being in the open makes it so we see conversations like this, but they should be seen as the equivalent of a private conversation, because that's what they really are.

jakobe4• 13 years ago

I find verbal abuse in private just as inacceptable as in public.

glogla• 13 years ago

This email makes me wonder if Linus just likes hurting people.

bagacrap• 13 years ago

There is actually a ton of helpful feedback in that email in between the verbal lashings. I don't think he's trying to hurt this guy's feelings as much as he's trying to emphasize the importance of his point, which seems to be a tenet of the Linux kernel development philosophy.

Quarrelsome4• 13 years ago

I don't think you get it. The premise of his attitude is that you've shat on his carpet. He wants to express his most wholesome distaste for the previous post this person made (breaking user space and then blaming user space). If someone shits on your carpet you don't make then a cup of tea, clean it up for them and ask them how their day was, you do _this_. It's effective communication.

If you perform this text in a "professional" manner then you will completely lose the correct tone of the message, which is: DON'T FUCKING DO THAT.

Psychiatrist? Bully? He's not punching this person in the face he's teaching them a very hard lesson on the correct attitude of a kernal maintainer.

claudius6• 13 years ago

Which part of his behaviour in this email is unacceptable in particular? Let’s look at it:

Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Okay, so he tells Mauro to stop talking because he apparently thinks that what Mauro was saying is wrong. To make very sure that what he wrote is read, he puts in fancy caps and some light swearing, which, however, is not directed at anyone in particular. A more polite version of this would have been ‘No.’, but I don’t see any bullying/abuse.

It's a bug alright - in the kernel. How long have you been a maintainer? And you still haven't learnt the first rule of kernel maintenance?

It appears that this guy violated some rather important rule of kernel development which he should have known given his experience. Again, no name-calling or directed swearing whatsoever, however. Again, a more polite version could be ‘We don’t break userspace, and you know that.’, which doesn’t look particularly different to me.

If a change results in user programs breaking, it's a bug in the kernel. We never EVER blame the user programs. How hard can this be to understand?

I would wager the guess that similar problems pop up from time to time and Linus is getting tired of seeing them all the time, hence his question. Again, no name-calling at all, also no abuse, but a (justified, though maybe slightly aggressive) question.

[technical details]
Shut up, Mauro. And I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. Seriously.

Again, no name-calling of the maintainer, but only an assessment of what he wrote, which, to Linus, appears very wrong. Again, more politely, this would have been ‘No.’

[…] And you've shown yourself to not be competent in this issue

This is the first personal ‘attack’, however, it is still only aimed at the competence rather than person, and if the above holds true, is yet again entirely justified. Is this the line with which you had a problem?

Linus then goes on to explain again why this particular idea was ‘TOTAL CRAP’, with some more colourful adjectives regarding the patch. Again, no abuse.

The fact that you then try to make excuses for breaking user space, and blaming some external program that used to work, is just shameful. It's not how we work.

This could be interpreted as somewhat personal, though it likely only means ‘I expected better and am disappointed in you’.

Fix your f*cking "compliance tool", because it is obviously broken. And fix your approach to kernel programming.

Note that the ‘fucking’ is for the ‘compliance tool’, which apparently is broken; the comment regarding kernel programming is again directed at their competence rather than person, so I don’t see any particular abuse there, either.

The remaining question is then, why didn’t Linus just write something along the lines of ‘No. / Don’t break userspace. / No. / No.’? Likely because then someone would have called him out on not going into details or because they got the same email regarding three small mistakes and a question and now don’t know whether this issue is a similar ‘small mistake’ or something more problematic.

rmrfrmrf• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling

galactus• 13 years ago

You make it sound as if it was a perfectly normal tone to use... Do you talk like that to, say, your parents?

olalonde2• 13 years ago

There's a theory in neuroscience which says that decisions are made unconsciously and only rationalized afterward.

The fact that you managed to describe "SHUT THE FUCK UP" as a slightly less polite version of "No." leads me to believe that this theory is quite plausible.

gregd4• 13 years ago

I tend to try to live by The Four Agreements:

Be Impeccable With Your Words

Don't Take Anything Personally

Don't Make Assumptions

Always Do Your Best

This is from an excellent book called, "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom" by Don Ruiz.

We could all do with a lot more of number two, don't take anything personally.

gdulli2• 13 years ago

"We could all do with a lot more of number two, don't take anything personally."

This is really a Postel's Law situation. Yes, your life will be improved if you can receive bad behavior and not take it personally. But it would be a shitty world to live in if this burden was only on recipients. The only robust way to maintain a worthwhile society is to expect, in the general case, that adults will have control of their impulses. Enabling this kind of behavior from celebrities is a loophole we might try harder to close, but fortunately, most of us don't have to deal with celebrities.

I can't control what kinds of behavior that others will tolerate, and I won't lose sleep over the existence of name-calling among adults in the world, but there's no way I'd keep a job where I was treated that way, let alone continue to volunteer my time in that situation.

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

His last paragraph sums it up perfectly. When people hide behind false politeness and act passive aggressively they tend to let someone else know about their frustrations which leads to rumours, backstabbing etc.

It's also important to remember that tone doesn't come across well online so you shouldn't overreact to what you're reading. If someone curses online you could read it very aggressively. But if you were to hear them speak it it might seem much less threatening and aggressive and most or a speech pattern/way of phrasing things/way of making a point.

Fuxy• 13 years ago

I like this guy more and more every time i read some of his comments.

I agree acting professional is not healthy for a real social interaction and you need real social interactions when you're building a collaborative system like Linux.

The only time i act professional is when somebody pissed me off and I'm not in a position to tell him he's a moron without being fired or otherwise get into trouble.

andyhmltn• 13 years ago

I think he is correct. If you censor yourself in order to act 'nice' and 'polite' then you won't be able to put across the points you could've before.

Anyway: just because you act nice and act like you like somebody, doesn't mean you do.

I would much rather a person called me out on my bullshit than them politely skirting around the issue in an attempt to make me feel better and protect my feelings.

I personally have no experience writing kernel code, but I can imagine it's incredibly important that you get things right. So then if getting cursed at means you won't fuck up as often and learn from your mistake, then it works.

jdietrich• 13 years ago

You don't get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional. He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years. However he decides to get that done is his business.

Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team.

There's nothing stopping anyone from mounting a coup d'etat. Anyone can fork the kernel, build a team of developers and usurp Linus. They'll struggle to build that team, because Linus is deeply trusted with the stewardship of the kernel, in no small part because of his "unprofessional" behaviour.

smtddr• 13 years ago

So, basically your position is "If you don't like it, get out". I'm not sure this view is productive in any kind of discussion. Personally, I think the amount of abusive speech & profanity in the tech-field is way too much. I assume(incorrectly?) that it's because it's mostly male and a lot of men like to do that to each other. I personally don't do it to anyone and don't like it being directed at me.

fosap• 13 years ago

And that is the concept of the "benevolent dictator". If he is a dick, incompetent or does technical stuff you don't like, fork. IMO the best way to run FOSS project, but of course there are others.

dotmanish• 13 years ago

No, it's rather "If you don't like it, fork it."

phryk9• 13 years ago

Too much profanity? Well butter my ass and call me fucking skittles!

So you want to censor everyone who doesn't buy into your flowery child talk? Fuck that. Cursing is a perfectly fine means of setting emphasis and I sure as shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits am not going to surrender that just so some shithead I don't even care about can jack off to his or her little control fantasies.

You don't like that? I couldn't really give less of a fuck; You're supposed to be a tech person, write a few sloc to filter profanity out or something but don't get on my nerves with that shit.

And yes, that was offensive and I am fully aware of that. That was also exactly what I was going for.

I have to concede that abuse is never a good thing, but since you seem to be seeing profanity as a problem I'm not sure we could agree on what exactly constitutes an 'abuse'.

EDIT:

It was (correctly) pointed out that censoring communication was not mentioned or even necessarily implied in smtddr's comment so this might not apply to said comment. That said, this still reflects aptly what I think about censoring away profanity.

nawitus3• 13 years ago

Swearing and swearing at are different things, though. You can have profanity without abusive speech, e.g. 'fuck, race conditions suck' etc.

forgottenpaswrd• 13 years ago

"I think the amount of abusive speech & profanity in the tech-field is way too much. I assume(incorrectly?) that it's because it's mostly male and a lot of men like to do that to each other."

It seems clear to me that you don't have contact with lots of women. Do you?.

It seems to me you are idealizing what you don't know about.

Profanity was not their forte(recent generations in some sectors could compete with men), but abusive speech is. They could be formidable verbal aggressors, specially between them.

The strongest verbal abusers I know all are women.

I Know a woman that was so socked that his father slapped her once, but now she is so verbal abusive with her children. I have seen it, and certainly if I were one of her children I would prefer a slap to this psychological pressure.

anExcitedBeast• 13 years ago

I assume (incorrectly?) you're female. Believe it or not, plenty of women are fine with and participate in profanity. And plenty of men don't.

At lunch I said, "That's a good fucking burger." Female coworker says, "Goddamn right it is." This doesn't have anything to do with gender - it's about culture. Some people can handle profanity in the work place. The rest can fuck off. </joke> The rest can get a job somewhere more professional.

criley22• 13 years ago

I think his position isn't "If you don't like it, get out", I think his position is much better summarized by the quintessential hacker ideology: "lead, follow, or get out of the way".

Linus is leading. So challenge his leadership, follow the man, or get out of his way.

Goladus2• 13 years ago

So, basically your position is "If you don't like it, get out". I'm not sure this view is productive in any kind of discussion.

Yes. The discussion shouldn't even be taking place. It is a waste of time. That's why the parent qualified Linus as the leader of one of the most important human endeavors of the last century.

Most project managers do not behave like Linus. There's a whole world full of people who "act professionally." Linus is not one of them, and contrary to some of hand-wringing I've seen in this thread he is not inspiring hordes of foul-mouthed abusive managers to go out and oppress poor developers.

pmelendez6• 13 years ago

"He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years"

Yes, Linux has remarkable importance mostly because its installed base (IMHO it doesn't offer any innovation from an OS perspective, other that being stable enough and free)

However, that doesn't give Linus a free card to be abusive and rude. Yes, not being polite and being insulting is indeed being unprofessional, there are ways to say things and in most cases insults is the wrong path.

"If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done"

Yeah, Romans and Egyptians knew how to get shit done too, but we call that slavery in these days, so it is not precisely a good thing.

k__• 13 years ago

define good ... oh well...

scotty7911• 13 years ago

He gets a free card to be rude and you get a free card to not like him and never do any favours for him and he gets a free card to not care what you think, do or don't do.

I am yet to see him abusing anyone. Verbal abuse mentioned is just swearing in aggressive tone of voice. How the word abuse got attached to expressing being pissed off is a mystery to me but I think it involves american lawyers.

sclangdon• 13 years ago

Making people do things against their will or fear punishment by death is not exactly the same thing is swearing at someone is it?

Anyone who works with Linus does so freely and can stop at any time they choose.

Furthermore, applying today's morale standards to civilizations thousands of years old doesn't strengthen your point as well as you think it does.

arkades• 13 years ago

People criticizing Linus in this thread really seem to act like their arms are being twisted to work with him. I mean you literally compared him to a slaver. You know what the key difference is? He's running a voluntary programming project, which people are welcome to voluntarily join if the project and its other members suit them, and are welcome to leave (with all of its work-product at this time) if they want to, when they want to.

People are literally sitting around bitching and moaning that they can't play with a local, volunteer-staffed sunday afternoon basketball league because they don't like the people doing the volunteer staffing and organization.

You have absolutely NO right to demand that volunteer organizations began, ran, and maintained by other people change their behavior to suit you. The only time there is any duty created towards you is when (a) you are absolutely dependent on them for something, by their own doing, (b) they are forcing you to interact with such folks, (c) various other versions of coercion.

You do not get to dictate the behavior of every freely-assembled group of people which takes no action to coerce you to join them. You don't get to dictate the behavior of every group of people you might conceivably want to join.

This is some of the most entitled whining I've ever seen on HN.

b1daly• 13 years ago

What do you mean, precisely? Is there some other meta code of conduct where calling obnoxious behavior unprofessional is itself a violation?

It beggars disbelief that some posters here can't see that torvald's insults add noise to his critiques. He states the issue, then ads in a bunch of pointless aggression. It seems like being honest succinct and to the point is most efficient. If your undies are truly in a bunch, you could add a comment at the end along those lines.

rtpg4• 13 years ago

Some thing can happen in spite of things, instead of because of them.

Some people link Job's success to his attitude. But his attitude didn't make him successful, it was his vision and ability to convince people.

That said, I think Linus is fairly professional in the core of his communication. Just because you swear doesn't mean that the message you're passing along isn't.

boomlinde2• 13 years ago

I know what you mean, but you writing "Job's" (as in the biblical character) instead of "Jobs'" gives this post an interesting angle.

planb• 13 years ago

His attitude played a major role in his ability to convince people. And it is way more time efficient to be rude sometimes, so he had more time to worry about important stuff.

d4nt• 13 years ago

In the early days, Linux was not the only open source kernal out there. It's possible that Linus's blunt approach is actually a key factor in Linux's success. Society hasn't yet had long to establish a set of norms for working in distributed teams like this (where the members aren't compelled to do as their told by traditional employment contracts). Maybe he's right and removing the offensiveness would just bog Linux down in endless political games.

prawks• 13 years ago

I suspect you're on to something here. In the absence of formal contracts, leadership needs to be established in other ways. Linus's method may be a bit vulgar, but more importantly he exudes authority.

kapowaz• 13 years ago

You don't get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional.

Yeah, he's earned a free pass to be a dick. That's how it works, right?

sbuk• 13 years ago

"He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years..."

No. Let's have just a modicum of perspective. That's not to belittle Torvald's achievement or contribution to computer science, but on the scale of importance generally it's way down the list.

GoofballJones• 13 years ago

Actually, I do get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional...and so do you and everyone else. It's called "opinion".

Also, while I admire what he's done, let's lay off the hyperbole for a bit. "..one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years"? Really? That's laying it on a bit thick there. But hey, you're entitled to your opinion too.

cygx• 13 years ago

Channeling my inner Linus: Who the fuck are you to tell Sarah what she can or cannot say to him?

Or on a more serious note:

Sarah's involvement with the project gives her the right to voice her opinion. If people work together on an open source project and have a disagreement over management styles and professional conduct, this disagreement needs to be addressed instead of ignored.

In addition to the discussion on the mailing list, there will apparently be a meeting in meat-space as well that's going to involve cookies and brownies of questionable origin, so they are dealing with it.

Nothing more to see here, and the internet at large can move along - rallying in support of a the semi-mystical Linus that cannot do wrong is misguided and unnecessary - I'm confident he's able to fight his own fights...

6d0debc0713• 13 years ago

Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team.

There are some extremely dedicated people who are prepared to put up with his tantrums to work on the kernel. I'm not sure that's the same thing as knowing how to run an effective team. He's at the top of a hierarchy but he doesn't run most of the activities in it, he doesn't even interact in a meaningful way with most of the people in it.

volume• 13 years ago

To be honest, I don't keep up with the internal politics or interactions between Linus and his crew.

What are examples of Linus not interacting "in a meaningful way with most of the people in it"?

pcwalton• 13 years ago

They'll struggle to build that team, because Linus is deeply trusted with the stewardship of the kernel, in no small part because of his "unprofessional" behaviour.

If I gave examples of other very successful open source projects in which the project maintainers act courteously, would you change your mind?

slantyyz2• 13 years ago

I think it's fair to say that Linus can be unprofessional. Just because you've got great accomplishments doesn't mean you're professional. But what people forget is that Linus is essentially a rock star in his field.

Because he's a rock star who continuously proves it with results, Linus can say and do whatever he wants. He's earned it, and most people will not only tolerate his abrasiveness, but they'll accept it.

Many people who might be very good at what they do but are not rock stars think they can act like Linus, Crockford, DHH or [insert grumpy tech icon here]. Personally, I think that's a mistake, because "pretend rock stars" just end up being regarded as overrated tools.

cdmckay• 13 years ago

I don't think you ever earn being a douchebag.

kamaal• 13 years ago

>He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years.

Seriously?

He did not invent Unix, more like wrote a famous flavor of it.

Someone like Dennis Ritchie would get the credit for that not Linus.

CrLf5• 13 years ago

http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137390362508794&w=2

This is the start of the thread. It is pretty obvious that no one is being serious about actual violence. It's just banter. Harmless (and not at all unhealty) banter.

The type of communication in the LKML has always been straight to the point and without unnecessary diplomacy. Sometimes it reads as assertiveness, sometimes it reads as rudeness. The point is that it works.

Every community has its "rules". Those rules are made by its members, all its members. If you disagree, act differently. If you are right and the others are wrong, they will follow you.

Asking for "professional behavior" when others are just acting normally is whining for politically correctness, which is pretty annoying and a sure way to not change anything.

temphn• 13 years ago

Yeah, that's very useful context. Sarah Sharp is not Linus. She doesn't get to to dictate the tone of the mailing list, and was obviously trying to publicly shame/attack Linus. One doesn't have to endorse Linus' management strategy to grant that (a) it works and (b) it works without Sarah Sharp's input.

jvdh2• 13 years ago

The fact that it works does not mean that it can't be improved.

And a context that scares people off is not one that I would say "works".

Ras_• 13 years ago

Few posts later, what might be the crux of the matter (first four paragraphs): http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2

Linus really has only a few tools at hand to restrict otherwise almost unlimited access he is providing. Instead of usual secretaries filtering and rationing access, he has to be blunt whenever he encounters inconsiderate time wasting. Like he said previously, occasional swearing shortens the e-mail queue. If Linus resorted to hand holding he would never get anything else done, because there is virtually endless demand for it.

Karn3• 13 years ago

I'm glad Linus isn't budging on this one. As soon as you start considering how not to hurt someone's feelings, you're putting speed bumps in the paths of your thoughts. If something is fucking stupid, then someone needs to say exactly that, not "That's a good idea, but it seems to me and my mealy mouth that such and such may be another way of doing it...?"

The fact that the hacker community is full of mean gits is no coincidence. Let's consider where the opposite type of people (the ones who'll smile charmingly while stabbing you in the back) congregate - HR, PR, management, politics - all fields where creativity is less important than manipulativeness.

I'll take a brutally honest genius over a charming "socially intelligent" liar any day.

groby_b• 13 years ago

There's nothing wrong with "That's a really bad idea, and here's why". There's everything wrong with "THAT IDEA IS FUCKING STUPID. YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT".

Do you really think the only way to communicate a mistake is like this: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 ?

And Linus is perfectly capable of giving a more reasoned response while still being direct: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/99 (same thread, Linus' reply to a reasoned response from yelled at developer)

Still pretty direct, but gone are the insults. Nobody has been asking for a sugar coating, but simply for Linus to stop being personally abusive.

Yes, people make mistakes. Really stupid mistakes. But if you think they're idiots, don't accept their contributions. If you don't think they're idiots, why call them that just because you can't control your anger?

Karn3• 13 years ago

And here we see the pitfalls of fuzzy thinking. There is all the difference between "that's a stupid idea" and "you're an idiot."

thejsjunky• 13 years ago

you're putting speed bumps in the paths of your thoughts.

I would argue that for many of the people I have met in my life, this would be a good thing. I don't we need to coddle each other all the time, but neither is the opposite workable or desirable - a little consideration is important.

professee• 13 years ago

It figures a top voted comment on Hacker News is that Linus is wrong and we should all hold hands and sing camp songs.

There are tons of useful discussions that simply don't happen on HN because anybody with an actual strong opinion gets helbanned. For instance Google's Go language is lauded here because of fake politeness, but almost universally dismissed elsewhere.

This discussion has already achieved its real goal: to put "Linus Torvalds" and "Sarah" in the same sentence; this is the bullshit politics Linus talks about.

camus• 13 years ago

For instance Google's Go language is lauded here because of fake politeness,

that's called "political correctness". I thought HN was about "disruption"... And yes , here you cant critize GO or suffer the consequences ;)

lnanek23• 13 years ago

Haha, agreed. I see two "dead" comments above you invisible to most people that are actually very valuable and pointing out that Finland where Linus started is not like America in regards to PC and honesty. I think HN is lessened by banning people who just have different or brutally honest opinions. They should save banning for spammers/trolls/people intentionally disrupting the discussion or lying, etc., but I see people ghosted all the time who are not that.

Karn3• 13 years ago

Correct on all counts. People need to realise that smart people tend to have short tempers because they've encountered the same idiocy many, many times; the first few times they may have explained patiently but after a while it begins to get wearisome. People with precious, precious feelings should stay away.

"The entire principle is wrong: it's like insisting that adults live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak." - Heinlein

davorak• 13 years ago

A good quote from Linus in the link is:

So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make everybody please each other.

One method of getting people to work together despite people being different is to get everyone to agree to a standard communication protocol when dealing with each other. This is often consider getting everyone to act professionally and in many/most organizations the standard of conduct is enforced from the top down.

It can be enforced from the top down because the people at the top can provide the right mix of incentives and can cull those who do not conform.

In most volunteer communities it can be difficult/undesirable to enforce a detailed/strict code of conduct. It can limit your access to volunteers and is one more hurdle to joining the organization. Think of how much sales/conversions can drop if a user has to click through one more screen or is required to click one more confirmation, now add on top of that the user is trying to volunteer, an action which is more complex if not more costly then a simple purchase. It would be interesting to quantify the codes of conduct(how they are enforced not written) from different web forums and correlate it with member growth, retention, and level of interaction.

So in a diverse volunteer community it seems advantageous to first encourage members to be generous of what they accept before encouraging them to be careful with what they share.

mortdeus• 13 years ago

The only professionals in this business are the people who are coding while everybody else is typing words that dont compile.

droob• 13 years ago

This is the nerd equivalent of "MAN UP, BRO."

It's not how grownups deal with each other.

nilved• 13 years ago

The most interesting thing about this post is that, were it not Linus, this comments page would be full of people calling him out.

Gigablah• 13 years ago

Were it not Linus, nobody would bat an eyelid, because it's the "internet". Heck, just look at some of the comments here, they're not full of capitalized swear words yet they manage to be more nasty and hurtful than Linus was.

officemonkey6• 13 years ago

Linus gets to do what he wants to do because he was extraordinarily successful in his field from a very young age. In other words, he's spoiled.

If he had to "work for a living," ie: work in a job he needed, rather than a job he wanted, he would likely have had a job which enforced behavioral norms. He probably wouldn't have been as happy, but he likely would more polite.

One of the things schools do is to socialize us to maintain civility. This only works for some people. It's clear to me that Linus is rather incapable of realizing he's being a douche, and even if he does realize it, he's not interested in changing for other people. And since it's Linus' sandbox, you either deal with it or go home.

However, the main point of his argument is valid. People are different and we should align ourselves with people that support our preferred way of working. If you can't work with Linus directly because he's a douche, then you better find an insulating support structure, or find another project.

vacri18• 13 years ago

And yet another comment chiding Torvalds for not maintaining civility... while insulting him ('being a douche').

You talk about being 'incapable of realising' - perhaps review your own comment.

rtpg4• 13 years ago

isn't any form of criticism an insult? Plus we're talking about Torvald's attitude, hard to avoid personal attacks when we're talking about the person himself.

officemonkey6• 13 years ago

I'm not chiding him. I'm describing him.

I don't have a problem with his attitude. I wouldn't like working with him, but I at least accept it.

Tyrannosaurs5• 13 years ago

People seem to be mistaken about why most teams accept certain standards. It's not about artificial politeness, it's about trying to get the best out of the team.

Not shouting people down is good because it means that people who are more reserved but who have valuable things to add get their say.

Not calling people stupid is good because generally people working on a project such as this aren't stupid and you're missing a chance to find out what really went wrong (misunderstanding, miscommunication or whatever).

Even if what they have said IS stupid, not abusing people for mistakes is good because abuse is a sub-optimal way of teaching.

Yes modern organisations have taken much of this too far and ended up as insincere, inefficient behemoths, but some of the standards within the community seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water and taking almost gleeful pride in doing so.

enterx• 13 years ago

argv & argc! :)

vacri18• 13 years ago

I think that there is something of a mismatch in taking the contents of a private email public to complain about them, then complaining about a lack of professionalism on the part of the other person.

escapedmonkey• 13 years ago

I have very few code projects that I really truly feel passionate about. In my opinion Linus' violent reactions stems the fact that he truly cares about his product. These violent outburst kinda proofs my point. A tech lead that cares about the product will of course get mad when other messes with their "baby". I myself at times have "lost-it" like that but only when I truly cared about the code. The stability of the Linux kernel is a direct result of this kind of passion. Like it or not the proof is in the pudding.

siscia• 13 years ago

I agree completely with Linus, what he is saying is simple: people are different and they behave in different ways; you cannot force anybody to behave in a way that don't belong to him/her.

Then is raising the point: "How we manage a team of different people who need to interact each other ?"

It is not "if you don't like get out", it is more something like: "I know why you don't like, you don't like because you are expecting thing that you should not expect, so change your expectation."

Then him is using a very powerful language, maybe too powerful for a public mail list, but again is just the way Linus is, so get mad for it simply means to don't have understand a single word of his speech.

dirktheman• 13 years ago

Making a private conversation/quarrel public like this isn't exactly 'professional' either...

coldcode• 13 years ago

Linus can do whatever he wants because of what he does and how good he is at it. I'm just glad I don't have to work with him. It's possible to be honest and truthful and not be an asshole about it. It's just not possible for him.

scrrr2• 13 years ago

I'd rather have my feelings hurt in exchange for an honest opinion than to hear worthless words that sound nice. Always.

And I'd always prefer a competent asshole boss to a friendly guy that doesn't know how to do his job.

Personally, I think too much niceness and, by extension, political correctness is bad for honesty, truth, effectiveness and, ultimately, for culture. The culture in the office and the culture as a whole.

We shouldn't expect to go through life with everyone being nice all the time. It's not realistic. Tough love is good. I don't want to live in an environment of friendly bullshit.

And thus I am happy that Linus is the way he is. A very accomplished man that doesn't care about your precious political correctness.

(I assume Steve Jobs was similar in that regard.)

subsection1h2• 13 years ago

    I'd rather have my feelings hurt in exchange for an honest
    opinion than to hear worthless words that sound nice.

False dichotomy.

    And I'd always prefer a competent asshole boss to a friendly
    guy that doesn't know how to do his job.

False dichotomy.

goblin89• 13 years ago

I agree, but with a reservation that personalities are different. Someone less sociable (like me) may even confuse extensively sugar-coated criticism for an approval. Those more sophisticated and well-versed in politics would see right through it—and direct criticism may sound insulting to them. (I believe the latter kind isn't very common among programmer folk, but still.)

IMO it's important that a person can position themselves in a company so that they mostly communicate with colleagues who share communication style.

Anyway, Linus is known for his personality even outside Linux kernel development team, so I wonder whether this issue is blown out of proportion.

hoodoof• 13 years ago

Each to his own. I wouldn't behave the way he does but I sure do respect that he stands up for what he thinks is right.

Vornir2• 13 years ago

I know now what I could tell to a young nerd who's been bullied:

Don't worry, later you'll be able to do the same

I guess it's a great example for young peoples that you can get away with any despicable behaviors as long as you have done something worthwhile in your life. People are then able to rationalize that by saying it was "warranted" or "thought provoking" or any garbage they can find to justify it, because somehow that person is in their "tribe".

Yes it's more efficient to say "I don't like that because X, Y or Z, change that." than "I don't like that because X, Y or Z, CHANGE THAT PIECE OF SHIT". Otherwise, you're implying that without swear words, Linus wouldn't have any power over the kernel.

Ridiculous isn't it?

pivnicek2• 13 years ago

No, it's not ridiculous. If building a bridge were the context, and someone built a piece that would collapse the bridge, I'd fully expect any foreman to say "What the fuck is that?" "That is shit".

And I'd fully expect any worker to say "Yeah, damn, you're right, that was stupid. Cheers, I'll fix that"

People didn't start building stuff in the digital era., It's the same principles.

I hope to hell all crap gets called out, otherwise we're in a position where the bridge builders "meant well", and I wouldn't want to cross a river over such a bridge.

Vornir2• 13 years ago

You still haven't proved it's more efficient, here for example is a study[0] showing that self-blame is counter-productive.

Also, your example is actually a good example of why this technique is not only inefficient, but morally and ethically wrong, because if a single worker can destroy a bridge, then there is a couple of engineers that didn't do their jobs correctly.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...

tjr2• 13 years ago

My grandfather supervised the construction of bridges. I cannot imagine him using such words, though he also would not have knowingly allowed faulty workmanship to be done.

derleth• 13 years ago

If you think this is bullying, you've never been bullied.

shubb2• 13 years ago

Agreement not to be nasty to people mostly protects people in a weak position. It's a long time since that has been Linus, so it's not surprising he's forgotten the merits of it.

Say 'Sarah Sharp' was hired by her company as a kernel developer. She knows that, if she makes a commit and Linus doesn't like it, he will write up what she has done like it was terrible (rather than slightly careless, or even just different from how he'd do it), and her boss will doubt her competence. Twice, three times, appears on google when he searches for her name... maybe she'll need a new employer...

So Sarah can either throw away her Linux expertise, and go work on BSD for way less money, or live in fear of Linus. Personally, I don't like living in fear. But presumably, she likes renting a house for her kids to live in. So there is nothing she can do except wake up in the night, unable to sleep until she checks the mailing list one last time.

I'm sure Linus doesn't care if she cusses at him. His worst case isn't homelessness.

CrLf5• 13 years ago

That's a totally ludicrous argument. There are plenty of assholes in the open source world, some of them are even at the helm of pretty significant projects. Linus, however, does not seem to be one of them, merely for the fact that his "abuse" seems to always be accompanied by very strong arguments based on actual facts.

You are suggesting that getting a shake down from Linus is a bad thing. Well, only if you have no arguments of your own to stand upon. Otherwise, it benefits you to even have an argument with Linus (even if you end up on the wrong side - which isn't guaranteed to always be the case).

shubb2• 13 years ago

That's a totally ludicrous argument.

In hindsight yeah. The catastrophic 'could be homeless' stuff was deliberate, and I thought it was a good idea at the time, but it's not realistic.

In tech, things are made by teams, and some people have a lot of power over others. If the others are young, they might be more vulnerable because they would find it harder to up and get work elsewhere, and because they haven't developed belief in their skills yet.

I don't really care about Linus and Sarah. But having been on the wrong end of a dysfunctional senior the odd time, stopping bullying in the workplace is important for productivity and making going to work a nice thing.

gadders2• 13 years ago

See, the danger with Linus, and to a similar extent Steve Jobs, is that you will now get a bunch of mediocre developers or managers believing that the best way to get stuff done is to act like an arsehole.

It worked for those two. There are probably a few other people in history it has worked for as well (Patton?). You are not them. If you treat people badly it will bite you in the arse.

rachelbythebay• 13 years ago

I only have one Linus story. Way back in 2007, he was supposed to come and give a talk on git. I had to do an on-site interview with a candidate immediately beforehand, but managed to get it done and got there in time to see the talk start. I had never seen him in person and figured it might be interesting, particularly since I had actually used git on some projects prior to that point.

This wound up being recorded, and it's online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8

I think I lasted ten minutes and left after deciding it was too much. There was enough of that kind of energy going around already to willingly sit there and take in more. Besides, I had an interview to write up.

lucb1e• 13 years ago

I lasted eight minutes watching the video. He just rambles about how screwed everything is and how right he is.

jeltz3• 13 years ago

Interesting how different people can see the same thing. To me Linus seems to be mostly pleasant during that talk and to the point. I have heard ranty talks and this is not one of them.

I assume it must be cultural difference, since I also checked with my colleagues and they do not think Linus was rude either during that talk.

qwerta4• 13 years ago

You would see it differently, if you would know CVS :-)

tls• 13 years ago

this did not need to be aired out infront of anyone - just like theo handles his business, let linus handle his how he wants. maybe theo rubbed off on him. maybe people like OP can go fuck themselves.

quizotic• 13 years ago

Amusing post! Linus makes a nice point about finding ways to work together without imposing expectations on each other. OTOH, Linus seems to expect that everyone has "names will never hurt me" world view. Most of us can be deeply hurt by the kind of verbal abuse Linus so freely supplies. And why should anyone work with someone who hurts them?

Isn't OP's appeal to "professional behavior" exactly the same as Linus' point? Professional behavior is the set of rules the world has evolved to find ways to work together when we're all different. Those rules work statistically well ... except for outliers like Linus.

I don't know much about Linus other than his brilliance and his verbal abuse... which reminds me of Bobby Fisher - breathtakingly beautiful chess mind and pathetic garbage heap of a person. I hope Linus is better than that, and suffers from nothing more than anger management and healthy rebelliousness

scrrr2• 13 years ago

Video where Linus addresses the subject in response to an audience question (2:50 mins): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZRvHbHxr-k&list=PLAD73BF2CF9...

bguthrie• 13 years ago

Who cares if he acts professionally or not? But he's certainly not kind, and that counts.

Whenever someone talented acts like a dick, take a moment to think of all the talented people in history who managed to remain civil despite their accomplishments. It's a long enough list to matter. No one gets a free pass.

whydee• 13 years ago

I call bullshit on that entire argument. Assholes will be assholes no matter what the context, and while I don't know Linus personally nor have I worked with him, I can spot his in-defense-of-being-an-asshole argument from a mile away. That's all it is. That entire text can be summarized as "I like to be an asshole sometimes, deal with it or leave".

The people who curse and yell and throw angry hissy fits are the exact same people who infuse work environments with the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords when forced to operate in a professional environment.

If his self-description really is accurate ("I'm not polite, and I get upset easily"), then telling other people "deal with it" is just an asshole move to do, nothing more nothing less. He could stand to become a better person by figuring out why he gets upset so easily and finding ways to either mitigate or work around that deficiency. Because however effective he may be right now, he would be even more effective then.

i_c_b• 13 years ago

I wish more comments engaged his actual argument. Here, there's a lot of "Torvalds is a jerk and unprofessional" versus "Blunt is good, and screw the PC police talk!" That's not his argument.

Torvalds is saying, "Some people think there SHOULD BE a universal 'professionalism' that 'we' can haggle over in the public sphere and then enforce on bystanders in local contexts" and "Other people think there are just local relationships in groups to be negotiated ad hoc in those local contexts." And he works as though the second statement is more credible.

Saying "we" should be "professional" is actually assuming a bunch of very contestable propositions from the first word. There absolutely ends up being a bullying component when you invent a broad "we", declare other people to be members of it, and then try to enforce norms on that imagined "we".

And I say all this with the caveat that Torvalds is probably too blunt for me. But that doesn't make him wrong.

mbrock• 13 years ago

That's a good rhetorical play by Torvalds... But the norms of "professionalism" that Sharp is invoking aren't just arbitrary rules. Of course the specific situation on this mailing list is different from a corporate office. But when Linus semi-jokingly says "I'm in my bedroom wearing a bathrobe, why should I be professional?" it sounds to me like he's trying to evade responsibility for his communicative behavior.

petercooper• 13 years ago

If someone pushed their cart in front of him at the grocery store checkout and said "I hate lines. This is just how I roll." I wonder if he'd be OK with this other person's "expectations" of behavior.

The argument that acting "professionally" is an act or compromise we must try to avoid is bizarre to me. I dislike compromising over all sorts of things but having manners and not just doing everything or acting in a way your impulses desire is much of what it means to be an adult than an adolescent.

Forget the term "professional" even, let's just go with "courtesy" or "having manners." Fake, they may be, but people who act upon negative impulses in public whether sexual, violent, or even just bad language aren't typically going to have a good time.

columbo• 13 years ago

This is another great example of why you can't take successful people and distil them down to their base components and say "ah, this is what made him great!"

I believe being a loud-abrasive-dictator works for Linus because he is famous for being a loud-abrasive-dictator.

That's not important. What is important is the reader. Let's be clear on a few things

#1 - Linus doesn't run a business. He's the kernel admin, he's a popular figure, he manages millions of lines of code. That's an entirely different game than what is necessary to run a small/mid/large business. Comparing the two is an apples-to-hammers comparison.

In a business, or small open source project, you have to be willing to deal with what you get. You will make sacrifices, it wont be easy. You might have this great idea but only 2 people are willing to work the occasional weekend on it; are you about to start an email chain calling them all dogshit coders?

Linus doesn't have that problem. He's famous for being Linus. You are not famous for being you.

#2 - YOU need to know how to be critical and polite. I don't care what Linus gets to do. You as a developer, you as a person who isn't famous, you as someone working in a team must (MUST) learn how to give constructive criticism.

"Bob, This isn't up to our quality standards, here's an example (cite)".

Easy, no frills, no shit-sandwich, no sugar-coated-political-correct-everyone-holds-hands-and-sings-around-the-campfire filler text. It's clear and it gets straight to the point. Learn how to do this, or fight an uphill battle with diminishing returns.

Linus can start a project tomorrow and have a hundred developers working on it, you cannot.

#3 - I'd take Linus' opinion on business culture with about the same size of salt as I would when listening to Jonathan Ive's opinion on middle-eastern-politics.

Everyone gets to have an opinion on something. I'm sure Tim Cook has an opinion on healthcare, and Bill Gates has an opinion on footwear. This doesn't make them experts on the subject or even any more informed than your average person. They're famous for doing X, listen to their opinions on X, take everything else as amateur opinion.

Linus is the kernal admin. I want to know how he manages 15 million lines of code, I want to know how he forks/branches/merges this code, how he handles bugs, how he tests it, and how work is handed out. I want to get his opinion on managing code not managing people. He doesn't deal with payroll, 401ks, employee vacations or benefits, he doesn't care about retention, he cares about code.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

I agree with everything you say.

The problem that you don't explicitly mention is that people see Linus behaving this way and feel it's acceptable, and they carry on that behaviour.

Some open source environments are toxic and horrible and it's hard to correct that when you have very public figures acting in that toxic horrible way.

corresation3• 13 years ago

In no way is he acting in a "toxic horrible way". Some people simply have very, very thin skin and the judgment of behavior -- the social expectations -- is absolutely a thinly-veiled tactic of control. Linus doesn't have to be put in his place, and if you don't like that tough luck.

Linus is absolutely right that in the professional sense the same behavior simply moves to the shadows. By being professional we vent the same feelings in hushed murmurs and ever-so-gentle sideband criticism.

theorique4• 13 years ago

Linus gets away with it because he's Linus and people are willing to swim through a river of shit to work closely with him.

Conversely, an average OSS developer will drive people away with this attitude unless the benefit of working with him is so attractive that it outweighs the pain of abuse (in which case he's probably not 'average' at all).

Assholes who really deliver get a pass from (some of) the world. Doesn't mean that you can get their results by being an asshole.

DodgyEggplant• 13 years ago

Linus manages combined efforts of hundreds of people for years, probably leading the most successful open source project ever. Without salaries, without command and rule authority, without perks, without shared office space, even without HR. He probably knows something about what it takes to manage people

podperson2• 13 years ago

Or maybe he's just so talented that he can carry a huge interpersonal handicap.

Actually, this email is pretty polite and to-the-point. I don't know exactly what it is that he said that was offensive in private, but he's actually being pretty reasonable here.

The thing is, some people spend a lot of effort when writing to check that they don't accidentally leave "sharp edges" in their writing (and then they still fail to find them all) while others write the way they would talk and assume that their tone of voice is "obvious" when of course it isn't. I expect if you knew Linus personally (I do not) his most outrageous written comments would seem just fine.

There's a ton of research on how written communications (especially with relative anonymity, etc.) can lead to cascading flamewars and so forth without anyone setting out to troll or be outrageous. Linus lives in that world, so he probably offends a lot of people accidentally just as a matter of percentages.

most successful open source project ever

Surely that would be BSD which, without Linux, would probably be Linux (and was Linux before Linux), and with Linux is still most of Linux and a good deal of Mac OS X and iOS, and without which Linux would be irrelevant.

bad_user• 13 years ago

I do not think managing an open-source project is so different than running a company.

Linus doesn't run a business. He's the kernel admin

He's also the original author. And he still is an awesome developer and the Linux kernel is not his only accomplishment. Git is another one. Linus is one of those people that can change the face of our industry over night and he has done so at least twice.

Not only that, but if you read his trail of angry emails, one thing is for sure - he's also one of those people in the open-source community that care deeply about users. Many of his rants are about changes in the kernel that break the userland. This is not so different than a business owner caring for his customers.

I want to get his opinion on managing code not managing people. He doesn't deal with payroll, 401ks, employee vacations or benefits, he doesn't care about retention, he cares about code

That's an odd statement to make. A business owner cares about revenue, not payrolls, 401ks, employee's vacations or benefits - those are just things that a business owner must do to secure the company's revenue.

Also, you're wrong, because Linus's job and greatest skill is in managing people. If it were about "the code", Linux the kernel would have taken a back seat to 386BSD.

DigitalJack• 13 years ago

The main difference is everybody is remote. I don't doubt Linus would be less brutal in person.

141132• 13 years ago

The point about users reminds me of some of the better quotes about steve jobs, and his insistence on getting the feel, and user experience right.

joanofarf• 13 years ago

On what basis do you decide to contribute to one open-source project over another? On what basis do you decide to work for one business over another? Are your answers to those two questions the same? No? Then there's the difference.

Also, you're wrong, because Linus's job and greatest skill is in managing people.

He doesn't manage people. He manages their contributions. Why are they contributing? Because they want to make it better.

In general, businesses don't have volunteer employees who work there solely on the basis of wanting to make the product better. Their decision to work there is also based factors like the salary, the benefits, the culture, whether they like the people they work with/for, etc., some or all of which will vary from person to person.

metaphorm4• 13 years ago

are you seriously meaning to imply that Linus Torvalds is not responsible for managing people on a massive scale? who do you think writes that code anyway?

VikingCoder2• 13 years ago

I have a huge problem with what you're saying - you are nowhere establishing what would be going TOO FAR, or how people should react, if they believe he has gone too far.

For a completely imperfect analogy, it's okay that [project leader X] makes some sexual jokes every now and then. But if he sexually assaulted someone, that would be too far.

Is it possible, in your mind, for Linus to go TOO FAR in one of his rants, what would that look like, and how should people react if it happens?

Sarah thinks it's already happened, that he's already gone too far. Where do you propose to draw the line? Because there I believe there IS a line.

sanoli3• 13 years ago

If he wasn't communicating through emails, it probably would have been considered as going too far already. And he probably doesn't rant the same way when talking face-to-face with others, or when dealing with people outside of the tech/Linux community.

flagnog• 13 years ago

And that's the beauty of the GPL - if you whiny fucks don't like it, fork it.

141132• 13 years ago

I want to find some mailing list archives from near the start of the linux project, say 3-4 years in, when it's starting to take off, but is still small. Was linus as abrasive then? Or had he realised how big it might become, and was actively trying to get people on board.

zorange• 13 years ago

I agree with everything this person is saying. Linus is definitely acting the way he does because he can. He definitely makes some good points but being obnoxious and accepting that behavior isn't right. Being obnoxious has just worked for him because he is very independent, capable and doesn't need to deal with people.

robmclarty2• 13 years ago

I think you're missing the really great point Linus is making: that we (as humans) can find a way to work together on a common goal despite our differences.

Linus obviously has some differences, and yet is managing to pull off this amazing project that affects so many of us.

Forget business and software development, the world needs to learn how to work this way, because there's no way the entire world will ever "be professional" in that we all agree to the same ideology and behaviour. If the human race as a whole is going to function effectively, we need to be able to work together even though we don't always agree. If we can do that, as Linus does, we win.

KaeseEs• 13 years ago

"Being professional" is not about all agreeing to the same ideology, but consistent standards of behavior are the core of professionalism. If we cannot agree that screaming "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" and calling people brain-damaged and "worthless piece[s] of shit" (as Linus has done elsewhere; the specific example in the OP isn't as bad) is inconsonant with professionalism, the concept has lost all meaning. There are ways to express disagreement or that someone's actions are wrong without namecalling, screaming, profanity (which is not always problematic in many environments, but can get off the rails) or dressing them down publicly.

Linus isn't a drill sergeant and his poor imitation thereof when he power trips doesn't get his point across any better than just saying "X was a bad decision, don't do it again for reasons Y and Z".

fnordfnordfnord2• 13 years ago

The real reason that everyone should embrace/appreciate Linus' abrasiveness is this. Imagine what Linus' job as kernel boss would be like if people thought it was okay to submit crap-quality/untested patches to him (hint, it would be impossible). Imagine how long it would take for Linux kernel quality to dive off a cliff if quality were dependent wholly upon Linus' capacity to review and fix mistakes. Linus catching a cold unexpectedly could cause the whole thing to fall apart. Therefore, he needs, we all need for there to be some impetus to prevent folks from submitting crap.

Also, he isn't always abrasive, usually just if things don't go right.

TDL• 13 years ago

Being polite is not the same as being a push-over.

riggins4• 13 years ago

I love what Linus is saying here. I feel like some people haven't really internalized the lesson of the schoolyard saying 'sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me'.

I think that saying is deeper than it seems at first blush. It's a reminder that we are 100% in control of how we react to words. We choose how we react to words. You can always choose. Anyone who complains about language is implicitly saying they're unable to control themselves and how they react to words.

snowwrestler3• 13 years ago

Anyone who complains about language is implicitly saying they're unable to control themselves and how they react to words.

The reality is that most people (probably even including you) cannot do this 100%.

Total equanimity is something to strive for in our own lives, but it should not be a criteria by which we judge other people. And it should not be an excuse to be a jerk.

One of the key insights of working together constructively with other people is that I don't get to decide how other people think. If I want them to do something, I have to get them to see why they should do it, from their own perspective. Abusing them, and then telling them to get over it, usually does not work well.

mpyne4• 13 years ago

Words are just words. They merely convey the message.

But the message itself can be harmful. Psychological abuse is just as real to the brain as physical abuse is to the skin and muscle beneath.

If messages meant nothing then there would be no reason to talk about hate speech, sexually abusive speech, or the many, many other harmful messages people can and do convey to others.

It's not my job to build an impenetrable moat around my psyche just to survive other people being abusive.

6d0debc0713• 13 years ago

The counterpoint of believing that the pen is mightier than the sword is the fact that, while sticks and stones may break my bones, words sent thousands to the death camps.

If you choose not to react to language then I can make you look weak or evil or whatever in front of those who do, and by the time I decide to make things physical you'll have no-one ready to help you. That's the lesson of the school yard.

The lesson of the world beyond the school yard, as above, is even more brutal.

Edit: Point being that being verbally attacked scares and upsets me/many others, and it seems to me that's a perfectly reasonable response to have.

dominotw• 13 years ago

So basically you can be a dick as long as you can get away with it.

theorique4• 13 years ago

Well, you can do anything you want. There may be consequences, of course.

Perhaps a backlash from disgruntled developers may be one of the consequences of Linus's behavior?

dobbsbob• 13 years ago

Just be who you are. If you are a no BS direct person then be that way. Conformity isn't a hacker trait. Guys like Theo and Linus would definitely be like this to your face too remember just because a few people here are scared of IRL confrontation doesnt mean everybody else is. Mathmaticians like Grigori Perelman are the exact same way in person as they are when writing and calling out other peers to their faces.

mwfunk2• 13 years ago

This is right on. Just because he's a guy that gets a lot of challenging stuff done and can also be a jerk doesn't mean that being a jerk is somehow essential to getting a lot of challenging stuff done. Correlation isn't causation, etc. He's a jerk because he can get away with it, plain and simple. I sort of understand the people who are amused by his jerkiness, but at the same time I frequently get the vibe that many of those people wish they could be jerks too in their day to day life, so they're living vicariously through him. I can slip up and be a jerk too sometimes but it's not something I aspire to, and I don't know why anyone else would. That's only a form of leadership if the people you are leading are idiots and/or jerks themselves.

pullo• 13 years ago

Talent of a certain caliber invites imitators. I will not be surprised if people reading through Linus's email think that it is ok to behave abrasively if you get work done. or even worse, that you need to be this way to achieve greatness. The choice between politeness and honesty is a false choice. If you care, you can have both.

Confusion3• 13 years ago

My guess: if Linus would behave in a nicer, politer way, the Linux kernel would be much more awesome than it already is. Through his behavior and that of the people he has attracted (those that will deal with his shit and have a higher incidence of behaving in the same way), hundreds of would-be contributors have been annoyed, alienated and scared away.

If you questioned every developer on this planet, for every kernel contributor, on every level of expertise, there are two that simply wouldn't deal with his shit and have been lost. The Linux kernel could have been much better.

dgesang2• 13 years ago

Do you have any numbers of how many would-be contributers have been scared aways by him? How many, on the other hand, have been attracted by his person? And what about the 1-to-2 ratio, any proof for that? And how would all of this make the Linux kernel better? How is being nice and polite related to the quality of your code?

jasonlotito• 13 years ago

I think it's fine that Linus act that way in the context that he's in. However, there are far too many people agreeing that his way is the best way in all environments (or at least, in all "professional" environments). The reality is, each context is different. There are times when he's not going to curse at people. When he's not going to act the way he does.

Which leads to my point: you shouldn't be using his reasoning to justify your own actions. You are not a kernel developer replying to people on the kernel mailing list (unless you really are =)).

The fact that people look up to him and admire him does mean his cursing and attitude does have a harmful impact: people see him doing and use that as qualification for their own attitude.

There is also the assumption that professionalism means a lot of negative things. The truth is, it doesn't. Being a professional isn't about office politics (despite what some might want to believe). Professionalism is all about context. To slap a definition to professionalism and assume it applies everywhere equally means you need to accept those defining profanity as abusive everywhere in all context.

Basically, if you are using Linus as a justification to allow you to curse or be rude, you are doing it wrong and missing the point.

p.s. I should also note that I believe that anything that worth doing well takes effort. And while it's easier to skip being polite all together, I find that it's usually worth the effort. In the end, you spend less time dealing with discussions of profanity, and get to discuss the actual point. Context matters of course, which is why it works on the kernel mailing list, but not in many others.

gnoway• 13 years ago

I think we need to remember that the words and the intent of the words are two different things. If he's just given to rudeness and profanity, that in and of itself is not a big deal. There are plenty of very abrasive people who do good work and aren't trying to hurt anyone. If Linus was out to actually harm people - maybe he is, I don't know - that would be a problem IMO.

He's absolutely correct that everyone doesn't have to like and be able to work with everyone. All the people who continue to find ways to complain about his behavior just don't like him. OK. Fork the project.

See: OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD for domain examples of what to do when you have personality conflicts in an open source OS project.

xradionut4• 13 years ago

If you are a Linux kernel programmer/submitter, you should know the situation by now. You don't have to submit code to Linus as he has stated, you can go through an intermediary. Don't waste his time, that's the most valuable thing he has.

As far as professionals cursing, I reckon most of the individuals on HN have never been in the military. There's a fine art of stressing the importance of paying attention to details, which good noncoms and shipmates enforce through creative profanity and rich English. It stress the importance of the situation.

rfctr• 13 years ago

I strongly believe now Linus' mother had an affair in Russia !

(Its only 100 or so kilometers to the border)

That kind of working environment: "I openly tell you when you do s--t but I do not hold grudge against you, it is for our mutual benefit" was common in Russian software companies around year 2000. This is largely a part of the culture.

It looks like a rudeness for an unprepared Western folks, but in fact it is not -- it is just unwillingness (or lack of proper training) to play games when one can do work instead.

I left Russia in 2003, and in the following years got adjusted my ways to be... nice.

I work from home in my pijamas too, so I wonder why Linus didn't catch that skill?..

mkramlich• 13 years ago

This is a brilliant piece of writing by Linus. Love it. Rarely seen his points expressed that well.

jasallen• 13 years ago

I actually agree with him on the term "professionalism", and I've come out against the term "maturity" for the same reasons.

That said, Linus is a jerk. He says things that are aimed to hurt people. It's one thing to 'not think about it', or to not 'play into the game'. But he goes well beyond that, saying things that are mean and vitriolic. He can get away with it, he's a genius coder, yeah, all true. He's still a jerk.

DevX101• 13 years ago

There is HUGE difference between 'your code sucks' and 'you suck'.

I'd argue the former is more effective at addressing the problem at hand, while hearing the latter from someone you respect can be emotionally devastating for some people.

Pitarou• 13 years ago

But when you say "your code sucks" a lot of people hear "you suck", especially when they've put their heart and soul into it.

Still, I think we all know how difficult and time-consuming it can be to deal with people who just "don't get it" and won't listen. If Linus finds that cutting people like that off at the knees is an effective strategy for managing open source projects, who am I to argue with him?

ksec• 13 years ago

I think is it has more to do with Human Interaction, or working as Remote.

When I dont see your face, listen to you directly, It is rather hard to understand the importance of something. Especially when they are working on kernel, which is the most critical component.

Would Linus have said it loudly in front of hundreds of other Engineers? I would have properly called it verbal abuse. But in real life at least i can rise my voice and tone and shout without having to use a single abusive word.

pivnicek2• 13 years ago

He's correct about the cultural aspects. Many cultures value directness in criticism. Why should an open source community be bound by an American ideal of "correct behaviour"?

skc• 13 years ago

I feel the people defending Linus are being a tad hypocritical. I feel as though because you like Linus or Linux, his behavior is effectively being excused.

A thought experiment would be to replace "Linus" with someone you don't particularly care for and see if you don't wince just a bit.

wnewman• 13 years ago

Like? I think it's more nearly that serious programmers tend to be very impressed with Linus's results, and his critics have tried to attack him in ways that don't properly acknowledge that. If a critic had said upfront "I don't much care whether a project can build a useful piece of software, what I care about is that people don't lose their temper" then we'd agree to disagree. But instead the critics seem to be arguing that getting angry interferes with projects working well, for some value of "working well" presumably related to the stated purpose. Linux works awfully well...

I kinda like Linus, but I don't particularly care for most sports coaches. I don't follow any spectator sports, but even I know that a nontrivial fraction of highly successful sports coaches lose their temper. I think the people who are arguing for more restraint or care or kabuki wrapped around expression of justified anger should face some burden of proof to show that their way works better, rather than just demanding that organizations be run their way while implying that Linus's way works worse.

I think it's very important for a leader to make technical decisions correctly, including the technical decision whether something is screwed up enough to get angry about. (And my strong impression is that Linus is unusually good at this.) I have some preference for leaders trying to be careful and dispassionate and clear about expressing their anger (e.g., full sentences with constructs "this is unacceptable", followed any detail that might be needed to be easily understood). But judging by results, it's not clear that my preference works any better than Linus's. And in long-term interactions with serious people, any difference may naturally tend to be small: most conversations between people are more about "what does he really mean" than about what was literally said, and you can quickly learn if A generally means the same thing by "what the F*CK" as B means by "this is unacceptable".

ferdo• 13 years ago

Linus is a brilliant asshat.

inaudible• 13 years ago

This is out of context, and while Linus is an entertaining and impassioned writer, it really shouldn't be discussed outside of the group who's job it is to read it, albeit on a public list.

I guess that Linus generally achieves results from a direct and terse tone, but that may also be the fastest way to get through his vast inbox. It's far from diplomatic bureaucracy and that's going to rub some people, but the parent was probably right on calling him out.

I just don't think this is the forum for this kind of gossip, why not leave it to lowest denominator tech journalism?

gtt• 13 years ago

He poses an interesting question: "How to work together DESPITE people being different" yet leaves it unanswered. It would be interesting to see the answers.

bbrks• 13 years ago

Mirror: http://marc.info.nyud.net/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&...

oleganza• 13 years ago

Linus makes a great point here. While I personally don't think I'd enjoy working with Linus, I have to agree with him. He can behave how he wants and it's my responsibility if I don't like it. Linus does not run after me with curses and I don't want to do that to him either.

abdel3• 13 years ago

love it

ilitirit• 13 years ago

RE: Linus

There are/were other people in similar positions who did not act in that way to their peers. If people that thought that treating others with respect, or remaining emotionally neutral toward them was something worth mentioning, HN would be flooded with newsgroup posts and emails. Most of the time we really only talk about Linus because he's an asshole. Usually noone really cares about the technical merits of his arguments. I don't really think it belongs on TBH.

JulianMorrison3• 13 years ago

Aren't they talking past each other?

Sarah says: quit being sexist, racist, and stuff.

Linus says: I'm a shouty dude and that's fine.

To which I say: surely these are non-overlapping concerns?

qwerta4• 13 years ago

My impression is that Linus shouts at everyone. Where the sexist comes from?

JulianMorrison3• 13 years ago

Implied by "this is not just about me, or other minorities".

Zikes• 13 years ago

I swear he must have some copy/paste responses for this by now. It seems like it pops up every couple of months, when someone shows up seemingly completely oblivious to the way Linus has behaved for the past what, two decades? And decides they want to be a part of the kernel team? How does that even happen? I only have a passing familiarity with Linus and his kernel development team and I fully know what I could expect if I decided to become a part of it.

Regardless, why would anyone think they can tell him what is or is not professional? I think once you've created something on the scale of Linux, you get to define that word for yourself. It reminds me of the line from Parks & Recreation: "Everything I do is the behavior of an award winner because I HAVE WON AN AWARD."

Don't screw with the formula folks. Linux is too damn important to screw up, and Linus obviously knows what the hell he's doing.

agentultra• 13 years ago

The one thing that annoys me about posts like this is the lack of context. We get one post from Linus trying to rationalize his outbursts. And we end up with a debate about whether we have the right to swear and call unsatisfactory commits, "stupid."

It's not about this LKML thread. The discussion is about justifying a certain set of behaviours that a certain group identifies with. Posts like this polarize the discussion. No one wins when there are only two options.

Personally I think losing your temper in public is a weakness. Swearing is a rude form of language. And I don't take people very seriously who are too quick to point out how stupid other people are (it's a sign of insecurity).

Maven911• 13 years ago

I think that most people who have no peoblem with profanity and unprofessional behaviour have not worked in a office where it regularly occurs. trust me its not a fun place to work.

mhd• 13 years ago

I think that apart from Linux specific peculiarities (cf. 'git'), I guess that part of this might be due to European/American differences. My personal impression is that overseas work environments tend to be rather non-confrontational, with even raised voices often being seen as a persona attack, instead of a temporary "airing of grievances". In places I've worked in Europe (Germany/Ireland), this often was treated as the same reaction you have when you hit your finger with a hammer -- meant as a stress relief, not as attacking someone's core values and competences.

Anecdatal, sure, but I've heard people tell of similar experiences. And my US data points included blue collar workers in Jersey, not exactly the pinnacle of PC, I'd say.

peterwwillis• 13 years ago

This really stands out: "people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways."

Stop considering emotional outbursts, negative attitudes, lack of compassion and childishness as "normal urges". Regardless of your opinion on professionalism, it's just fucked up to be rude to people.

acjohnson553• 13 years ago

Show some intellectual curiosity, people. The same way some hackers get mad at others' unwillingness to dig into math/tech, many of you are refusing to put just a little bit of effort into being civil. It can be difficult to separate what's actually factually making you upset from the basal urge to express raw ire by cursing and belittling, but it becomes easier with practice. Just like math, or any other intelligence based skill.

Once you put some practice in, you can even do it with the same level of brevity as a immature tirade. I have immense respect for Linus and his accomplishments, but he frankly doesn't deserve a medal or apologetics for his refusal to increase his interpersonal intelligence. There is a higher level of humanity to aspire to than yelling at one another like cavemen OR Machiavellian passive-aggressive faux-politeness.

When I taught high school in Baltimore, I taught a lot of students whose most basic frame for interpersonal interaction was might-makes-right yelling and cursing. One of my goals was to demonstrate that no matter what, it's possible to conduct yourself without devolving to that level. It admittedly made it difficult for me to get my points across sometimes, but on the whole, I think I taught my students a very valuable lesson--that there is an alternative. In the end, there was a certain level on which my students always trusted me to treat them with human respect.

I expect more from a professional than a high school student. Being "politically incorrect" can make it easier to express your emotions, but it can also cause deeply held long-term resentments that manifest in unpredictable and damaging ways. Crying foul about political correctness is just making excuses about refusing to put in the effort to see things from others' points of view. And it also refuses to acknowledge that you yourself have your hot buttons that will set you off as well. And when emotional buttons are getting pressed, intellectual messages are getting lost.

grannyg00se4• 13 years ago

"There is a higher level of humanity to aspire to than yelling at one another like cavemen OR Machiavellian passive-aggressive faux-politeness."

Faux-politeness is exactly what Linus is criticising here and he definitely doesn't engage in it. And there is no evidence of him yelling like a caveman at this person. Are you referring to some other example? I'd like to see that. The only time I've seen him yelling and fully throttling someone is when they appear to really need a kick in the ass (multiple horrific offenses).

acjohnson553• 13 years ago

I'm referring to faux-politeness as Linus's strawman alternative to being rude. It's a false dichotomy.

And when I talk about behaving like a caveman, I should be clear that I'm generalizing the behavior he's trying to legitimize. I don't claim to have an in depth knowledge of his behavior outside of the handful of times things he's written have popped up here or on Slashdot.

For all I know, these are isolated incidents. But even if that's the case, I think it's behavior he should be working on improving, instead of rationalizing. Whether it's coming from him, Steve Jobs, the former Rutgers basketball coach, or whoever else, I simply don't believe that being rude or bullying is optimal or morally acceptable. And I'm not some softie hippie who thinks we should all argue with kid gloves. It's quite possible to be severe and explicit with your thoughts, without being insulting, either to the person or their work.

rogerchucker• 13 years ago

Has he ever tasted his own medicine?

kraemate• 13 years ago

As always, Linus is right. 99% commenters here probably work for businesses which are surviving only because of the Free and amazing kernel which he has managed to build.

Linus has explained his directness and lack of sugar coating several times. Sugar coating something, he believes, dilutes the importance of the message AND confuses his subordinates. "We can try avoiding X" is more ambiguous than "X is crap, you dumb morons". The latter statement is absolutely clear where Linus stands. Which is what communication is all about?

Plus, i reckon it is different in a "Proper Business" where employees are paid to do work directly under a manager. To avoid connotations of servitude and slavery, modern businesses decided that managers should be polite so that their subordinates feel that they aren't slaves. With Linux, no one is forcing you to commit "bullshit" patches.

RANT: I reckon a deeper problem is that a lot of kernel developers are now paid to work on it (as observed in this thread). So i reckon that in this case, the developer expects the same kind of feel-goody emails as her corporate manager keeps sending her.

whiddershins• 13 years ago

What matters is that Linus isn't attacking someone for WHO THEY ARE (identity). He is attacking them for WHAT THEY DID (actions). I think this is the gold standard for whether behavior is abusive.

Other than that,

This concept of "professional standards" of behavior is completely parochial. Try going to a constuction site. Or bootcamp. Or working on a pig farm. Standards of behavior vary dramatically between organizations, industries, and cultures.

HNJohnC• 13 years ago

I think this is largely generational. People over 30 are not surprised at all to run into abrasive, hard nosed people at work, people under 30 in many cases have a very hard time with any amount of criticism or negativity and consider even tiny amounts "bullying".

It's become a well known issue in professional sports with coaching where old time successful coaches have had to completely change their style to deal with the latest generation of athletes who do not respond well at all to the traditional dictatorship that coaches used to run.

Now a lot of hand holding is reportedly required. I'm not judging but struggle to think of anything great that was ever built by a committee.

wging• 13 years ago

Faster mirror: https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/15/547

puppetmaster33• 13 years ago

I'm in the group that agree w/ Linus and disagree w/ user Columbo. Columbo may be a manager, but Linus is a leader. Leader of thousands of software developers, a leader that inspires. A manager is someone you can fire and you software company works better.

puppetmaster33• 13 years ago

And sounds a lot like Steve Jobs.

puppetmaster33• 13 years ago

A lot like Steve Jobs.

eeky• 13 years ago

Linus is awesome. He gets things done. He calls out bullshit when he sees it. And he doesn't afraid of anything.

tmoertel• 13 years ago

The historical evidence suggests that when it comes to massive social systems like the Linux kernel project, Linus knows more about keeping them vigorous and relevant than just about any other person in existence. He runs what is probably the most successful software project in human history. He has created a sustainable, growing social system that, for over two decades, has accomplished monumental technical feats and shows no signs of slowing. As impressive as Linux is as a technical achievement, it pales in comparison to the social achievement that is the Linux kernel project.

Therefore, I don’t put much stock in people telling Linus how the Linux kernel project ought to be run. When he writes,

The fact is, people need to know what my position on things are. And I can't just say "please don't do that", because people won't listen. I say "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle", and I mean it. [1]

I’m inclined to believe him. Correspondingly, I have a hard time taking seriously the claims that the Linux kernel project, as a social system, would be better if Linus stopped doing what he’s doing and did something “nicer” instead. The historical evidence suggests that what Linus is doing (whatever it is) works better than what everybody else is doing.

[1] http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2

dionidium• 13 years ago

Robert Heinlein had something to say about this:

"Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best."

throwwiffle• 13 years ago

Since Linus is not actually impolite in this email, I'm just going to ignore that and comment on the main thing he talked about:

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.

Being professional is similar to being politically correct. Don't say anything impolite or you'll offend people, don't say anything 'unprofessional' or you'll get fired, don't say anything 'not politically correct' or (in some countries) you'll have the police knocking at your door. That is where it leads and that is why I support his argument.

Additionally, in my experience, the above behavior leads to behind-the-back sneaky and spiteful behavior. People who don't like something xyz is doing, so instead of risking confrontation by telling someone politely that it's annoying / won't work, they'll talk to the manager or get back at someone 3 weeks later.

grannyg00se4• 13 years ago

Anytime one of these "Linus is too harsh" topics comes up, it always seems like he's completely reasonable and level headed. I'd like to see the whole thread here so we know why he accused her of playing the victim card.

kfcm• 13 years ago

"Profanity is the language common to all programmers".

This entire thing is the clash of two cultures: corporatism (and its drive to mediocrity/milquetoasts) vs "getting sh*t done right"-ism.

It all comes down to this: do you value political sensitivity, or calling a spade a spade (granted, profanity isn't required for this, but it certainly helps)?

Give me the latter any day. I'm an adult; I can handle it.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

This entire thing is the clash of two cultures: corporatism (and its drive to mediocrity/milquetoasts) vs "getting sh*t done right"-ism.

a) You're a stupid cunt if you think that's the fucking argument. Your comprehension sucks. Don't bother responding if you come up with retarded shit like this. Idiot.

b) No, the people asking for an end to viciousness are not asking for "politically correct" over-polite speech. You can call a spade a spade. You can call broken code broken. What you shouldn't do is call a spade a fucking useless spade. You shouldn't call the spade-user a clueless fuckwit. This is also not about "getting shit done". Starting a flamewar distracts people from the actual job, and makes people less, not more, efficient.

nicolethenerd• 13 years ago

The fact that so many people have popped up here to defend or justify Linus's behavior terrifies me.

There is no excuse for being mean. Period. Full stop. This is basic human courtesy - they teach it in grade school.

It doesn't matter if you're famous, or if you lead a project with tons of users and contributors, or you're nobody - anything that you can yell at people, you can also tell them politely. And you can argue about the technicalities of what constitutes "professionalism" or "abusive speech" all you want - the fact is, what Linus said was mean, and nobody should have to be on the receiving end of that. It doesn't matter if it's said in public or private, or whether the person he was talking to did something "stupid" (and haven't we all, at some point?) - nobody should have to be treated that way.

And if you think otherwise, well, I hope I never have to work with you.

kyberias2• 13 years ago

All I can say is, people should read the whole thread. I don't think the examples presented by Sarah are all that good. Yes, Linus uses strong words but they are not really ad hominem. He doesn't hate the people who made the errors, but he is angry since they "should have known better". He has a great point about email communication: that one really has to be more honest and open about feelings. And that obviously includes feelings of anger and frustration.

Start from here:

http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391145411685&w=2

Update: bad -> good.

kyberias2• 13 years ago

This is the gem: "Sarah, I don't have Tourettes syndrome." :D

antitrust• 13 years ago

He reminds me a bit (in a good way) of Steve Jobs.

NTDF• 13 years ago

Honestly, if Linus was my boss, I'd quit my job cursing him. He has a lot going for him. I understand why he needs to be like this and why it works, but in all seriousness, I'd much rather be like Eric Schmidt or Bill Joy.

kapilkaisare• 13 years ago

Regardless of the rectitude of either point of view, I consider it important to develop the resilience necessary to soak in difficult language. You can't decide - or always influence - how your peers or bosses talk to you. More importantly, you may miss the feedback the language comes with - feedback that might help you improve yourself.

I deal with a yelling boss by hearing him out and then, once the moment has passed, rerunning the event and mining it for real criticism, minus the emotional baggage it came with. If I find nothing, I disregard his gibber entirely; if I find something substantial, I make note of it and (in the days that follow) try to weed it out.

Worst case: I get nothing useful, in which case the boss was simply venting. Best case: I learn something about myself, and get better in the process.

Linus on "acting professionally"

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