I agree, it’s completely unacceptable to introduce a bug and then to instead of taking responsibility for introducing such a bug, you start pointing fingers at everybody else.
It’s like when a car hits a cyclist following all the rules and then tries to blame the cyclist for not following some made up rules that only exist in the drivers head “Cyclists should be on the SIDEWALK if they don’t wanna get hit!”
Not only were they wrong to hit them, they’re DOUBLE wrong for trying to blame them after the fact.
You’re agreeing with something I didn’t state. I’m not defending the idea of introducing bugs through bad code and then blaming others. I think the way Linus responded to that was the issue.
After I saw the car hit the cyclist, I rushed to his aid.
The driver came out of the car, yelling at the cyclist for being on the street.
“Shut the fuck up. Get back in your car. You are the problem. It was wrong of you to hit him and wrong of you to blame him you fucking idiot. You can help, or you can fuck off, but you’re not going to stand here and blame the man you just injured with your own incompetence”, I screamed at the driver.
I don’t think I am missing the forest. There’s not an issue with the idea of correcting a developer, but there is an issue in the way the correction was carried out. Just because something behaves “better” after punishment doesn’t mean the punishment was good. Ends justifying means and all.
That’s very “ends justify the means” of you. No, that’s not the question here. Linus could have gotten the same results without the yelling and insults. You do not need either of those to be direct, assertive, and clear on what the issue is, something that Linus has since learned
Both Mauro and Linus are human. I trust them to be so. I don’t get the point of endlessly pontificating about human quirks & behavior, we are all not assembled from the same factory. And we all grow and we learn. No one’s perfect.
Plus, your argument fails to address the main issue here, Mauro needing to realize that he needs to improve in order to continue contributing to a project shared among many people and one passionately guarded by Linus as his baby.
Nah it’s completely fine. I vastly prefer an angry-sounding takedown over a passive aggressive takedown and a takedown Mauro definitely deserved because his code was, in fact, utter shite, and that as a maintainer. This isn’t “oh he’s a noob he doesn’t know how the kernel works” type of territory. Also note that this happened after he had been told what’s up in a neutral and factual way: Linus, even in his most management by perkele days, never made those things the first reply to anything. So Mauro got his chance to spot that he fucked up and correct his approach, he didn’t, therefore, it has to be said loudly. Simple as that.
Also, no “you should be aborted retroactively” in sight anywhere. Yeah that stuff wasn’t necessary even though everyone with an ounce of social intelligence should readily spot that those insults were always so over the top as to be obviously humorous.
It’s possible to be assertive and assign responsibility for a screwup without being a dick. “Being a dick” is the nothing else has worked option, not step one.
“being a dick” and “assertive” are weasel terms which do a hell a lot of lifting in your argument there. I have no idea where your line for behaviour to be deemed acceptable actually is.
IMO, no, Linus wasn’t a dick. He called out a specific attitude and behaviour which Mauro is not supposed to show in his role as maintainer. What about Mauro being a dick because he went in all self-righteous like “this is a bug in pulseaudio”?
If you were a restaurant manager, and a server told a customer that he’s not going to serve beer with steak but only wine because “drinking beer with steak is obviously wrong”, what would you do? Chew them out, of course. It’s way out of line. This isn’t Linus exploding over nothing just to bully someone, that’s a thing he has never done.
If you want someone toxic to complain about in the FOSS space pick Lennart Poettering, the kind of guy who replies to “We’d like to be able to disable various features to keep things small” with “why do you hate disabled people they need accessibility”. More generally speaking: Focussing on tone never ends up well. You can be incredibly toxic in the most flowery of idioms.
Your example is from one of this industries notorious for being toxic – that doesn’t make it right.
“Why would you think that’s even remotely acceptable? Now I have to go apologize and possible comp a meal.” Depending on the circumstance: take them off that table, send them home, or fire them. Being in control of themselves is one of the defining aspects of leadership, and being abusive is the sign a “leader” that isn’t.
If they start being a dick: sure, game on – so long as you’re not demeaning yourself doing it. But most people are capable of a degree of self reflection and accountability once you make the situation clear to them, and they deserve that chance. Sometimes people don’t even realize they’re the ones that screwed up, even when it’s obvious to everyone else.
There’s it again. What, precisely, is it that makes Linus’ comment “abusive”? Is he gaslighting? Is he attacking Mauro over what he is? All I see is calling out, harshly, what Mauro did, behaviour that actually occurred and that is not acceptable and that Mauro knows is not acceptable. “We do not break userspace” is the rule #1 of Linux development, Mauro ignored it and was a dick about it.
Or do you disagree with the tone of the whole thing. Things like “Shut up” instead of “This is not up for discussion”. If so, then please for the love of the gods please shut up.
Maybe fair in a typical setting, but getting iffy around programmers, especially kernel maintainers. I’m convinced linux and foss in general would not exist without the autism spectrum, and who knows maybe even borderline personality disorders
That’s why the non-parentheses number is zero for all seeded torrents. In parentheses number is “hey I’m here”. Out of parentheses number is “hey I’m here. Let me in.”
For actively downloading torrents they’re an indication of connection health. If there’s 150 announced seeders but you only open a connection to one or two of them, you might have a network problem.
It’s the other way around; you connect to seeders.
In the example of 2 (3), there are 3 total seeders and you’re connected to 2 of them.
Although in your screenshot, you’re at 100%, so you’re not connected to any seeders at the moment and are, yourself, a seeder. You have peers (leechers) connecting to you. Same principle applies; in an example of 2 (7), there are 7 peers in total, and 2 of them are actively leeching off you.
This email should have stayed in Draft for a few hours and then come back to remove all the expletives. At least Mauro has something to hang on the wall of his crapper.
One can sternly address serious mistakes by a subordinate without being outright mean about it. Doing so calmly and seriously is usually more effective anyway.
Yeah, maybe left kernal development (like Linus indicated he may have done to various people), maybe that person was traumatized. But alas, there’s no other way to let a human being know they made a mistake without making exaggerated personal attacks.
They are literally interacting with the dudes life work, and apparently shitting on core rules. No surprise he got heated. It’s not just a job to that dude, it’s like he slapped his mother
All attacks were related.to the professional output (the code, and the ability to code)
Nah my man. No excuse to act like an ass like that; life’s work or not. That’s simply a sign of poor emotional maturity, and is (plain and simple) abusive behavior. People make mistakes, regardless of the severity of the mistake. Let’s put it another way: would you be okay with someone talking to a child that way? If not, why is it okay to do so to an adult? Just because we’re older, doesn’t mean we deserve it.
Very good point. Berating someone for making a mistake does not help either party. Even more so, when the one screaming doesn’t actually mention what went wrong, so you can correct it next time
Yeah, it’s kind of invigorating to see somebody speak so plainly. No “There’s a couple issues we should maybe discuss”, no “Let’s loop back on that sometime”, no “Hmm, is that really the best approach? Do you have any documentation?” Just a straightforward “Dude, this is shit! Here’s some reasons why!”"
Having worked for a decade in tech, I would love it of people were this direct.
Well that’s pretty hilariously ironic. I’m nothing like this, I wish I were more comfortable being direct. But meanwhile, you heap abuse on me and threaten to beat me up because I said “boy, it’s nice to see someone speaking directly”. You’re much worse than Torvalds, and I completely agree it would be a terrible idea for us to ever work together. Or for you to work with anyone else, for that matter.
Having worked in tech for two and a half decades, and in places that were this direct - no thanks. There’s a fine line between being clear and direct, and being toxic - what Torvalds did here was toxic, and in many workplaces of today would be classed as bullying. Being subjected to this ‘directness’ for any given amount of time will do a number on most people’s personality and self-esteem. People don’t improve themselves if all you do is shit on them.
Agreed. I think it’s amusing to observe. Being around it yourself is quite difficult. Being the target of it sucks and having your peer go off the deep end and finding a way to reel them in sucks too.
Fair. I’ve worked in tech for just over a decade now, and I’ve only been in the polar opposite environment, and found it sorta suffocating. Everybody knows this guy is pumping out crap, and every bug in the system comes from his part of the code, but well…if anybody says it, or even hints it, they’re being unnecessarily confrontational, and nobody ever gives anything but positive feedback in peer reviews.
I feel, from my limited experience, like the 90s might have been peak machismo rock star hacker work culture, and the pendulum has now swung to the very far side.
It’s perfectly possible to say “this is unacceptable, we never break userspace. Mauro, your change is obviously what is breaking userspace because …” without adding “SHUT THE FUCK UP” or “[all of this is] TOTAL CRAP”, i.e. being direct without being derogatory.
I mean, that’s fair, and as was pointed out elsewhere Linus has sought help for his temper.
On the other hand, for all the talk of how “unprofessional” it was for him to behave this way, he did shepherd an OS kernel from a hobby project to the most popular OS on the planet (with the possible exception of Minix, apparently…)
I agree that polite directness might be better, bu IMHO the more common polite indirectness and avoidance of any hint of conflict is clearly worse.
I read a lot of frustration in that post. I don’t know if that frustration was warranted, but I’ve been in (non-tech) leadership where you almost just have to scream like this to get the point across.
“This is incorrect. Here’s why. 1. 2. 3.” no need to be disrespectful, no need to make it even call it a fuck up. either the individual has the maturity to grow or …not. but then… I certainly understand the frustration. There’s just some people… that definitely struck a nerve of the ‘you don’t get it, do you?’ variety. like the guy who told me (working contract security), that it was illegal for us to make them go outside in winter, because below-freezing is too dangerous. (yeah. We, uh, provided them with some fairly good parkas, and had hats and gloves available. with ‘if you need more’ accommodation already mentioned.)(Oh, and he was only needing to be outside for about ten, or so minutes.)
Damn that was probably very hard to read for Mauro. This is something you never want to receive as Mail in your job. On the other hand it is good that Linux priorities fixing the kernel instead of letting other developers fix your code.
Actually yeah. i’ll guarantee that was it. 14 days ago I was making fun of hexbear users defending russia’s war crimes in the memes /c/ of all places… which is weird that they defend it considering russia is very not-communist anymore.
still sucks since many of the largest communities around things like linux and tech are on .ml
I’m kinda not surprised the FOSS community would end up on a communist instance, I’m actually considering just blocking the entire .ML instance at this point.
I’m so sick of seeing them having a tantrum every time YouTube tries to make them either pay for the service, or watch ads.
I have a feeling it was more of “that was the biggest instance when we all got started here so we all just stayed here”. The prime-mover advantage for lemmy.world and lemmy.ml is pretty severe and it still shows in user counts/activity. It’s just gotten more obvious over time what lemmy.ml admins (and by extension the developers of the platform) really support.
I’m pretty sure if xi Jinping asked dandelions or whatever his name is to chow down on his rice noodle he’ll do it without any hesitation taking one for the team
Okay can someone please point me to a real, physical, existing example of this happening? I’ve got multiple accounts on multiple instances from when the servers I used were less stable and not once on any of them have I ever seen a single person defended Russia or China politically.
Not trying to be divisive it just comes up a lot and at this point feels like a red scare tactic
I haven’t seen it personally, maybe I just run in different circles but I’ve asked to be directed to an example on 3 occasions now and never once has one been provided.
Not saying it isn’t happening, would just like some proof that it’s not just a band wagon
I had about 6 in my inbox at one time, but they’ve all been lost to the winds of fediverse moderation at this point.
A vast majority of instances have defederated from hexbear/lemmygrad/etc by now. So you dont see nearly as much of them outside of the main lemmy.ml communities, and those that do end up outside them ususally get moderated out by local admins.
If you really are curious. Take a scroll through some of the comments on hexbears “dunk tank” like so. See how long you can read before closing the tab out of disgust. Most of them are commenting completely unironically… (That thread is not Russia specific yes but I couldn’t stomach to scroll down that community any farther. It gives you an idea.)
As many seem to have overlooked itb this is from more than a decade ago.
And to those setting “not being toxic” == “being vague”:
Suggestion if you’re in a situation: separate the subject discussed from the person and, to the contrary to what is said in some other posts, be very specific!
Improvised example:
Hey all,
patch xyzz and its aftermath communication is unacceptable.
It’s content is not to the standards we have set here (explain).
Even worse, in the communication aftermath we blamed behavior of user space applications for bugs that are within our domain instead of owning up.
The bugs within the kernel will be focused on with highest priority by a, b and myself.
For the communication: (consequences). As explained the patterns shown here are unacceptable.
I have decided to no longer have x as a kernel maintainer on our team/enforce pairing for all communication/set up stricter consequence catalogue. Any specific action,really…
Not perfect as it’s very early here, I haven’t slept well and I’m not deep into the topic.
Just remember to separate subject to be discussed from person(s) acting please.
And always remember: bad communication is really easy and a lot of managers trained that their whole life! ♥
Reading this version I wouldn’t know the writer is deeply disappointed, frustrated and angry. It’s good you’re trying to improve the letter but this is exactly what many people don’t like about it: it changes the meaning. Perhaps you could include a paragraph which conveys this, such that the reader understands the gravity of the situation better.
I think removing someone’s maintainer status does communicate disappointment in their performance quite well.
And as for anger and frustration, these things really don’t matter in this circumstance. Work is not therapy. If you need to vent anger and frustration, get a therapist. Employees are employed to do their job, not to be the emotional punching bag for a manager who can’t control their temper.
If an employee doesn’t perform to expectations repeatedly and even after you had a few constructive one-on-ones, then demote them or fire them. No need to vent your anger on them and lose your professionalism.
Tbh, the first time a boss of mine loses their temper and verbally attacks a colleague like Linus did here, they have also lost all of my respect for them. And at that moment I will start to look for another job.
I am not and was not advocating for venting - just for communicating emotion. This can be as simple as:
“Your actions have deeply frustrated me and caused great anger on top of [technical reasons]. I would ask that you be more careful in the future.”
This ensures the reader not only understands they hurt Linux with their actions but also another human being. Many people will be more careful if they know they caused personal pain to an actual human being and not just to an abstract technical object such as a codebase.
I know I am going against established cultural norms in western business context - please don’t disregard my proposal just because it contradicts established culture.
I would disagree just because the success of the product (be it closed or open source) shouldn’t be dependent on the feelings of one person. You can be frustrated and angry, but it’s more useful to explain why you feel that way and what can be done to address it. Including your feelings only makes the person not want to do what specifically hurts you, not what is best for the project.
I do understand what you mean, and it makes much more sense than advocating for venting.
But I still feel that putting emotions into a discussion about work performance isn’t the right way, especially when done in public.
In a situation like that where something caused a lot of negative emotions (that go beyond your work performance is bad), I think you should have two separate talks. One about the factual things where one is boss and the other is employee, and one about the hurt/emotions the behaviour caused and in this talk, both are just people resolving their personal problems.
Something like the issue in the OP really shouldn’t cause anger on Linus’ side, since it’s a totally factual issue. A propper response would have been to decline/revert the change while publically saying “This change validates that rule of the project” and then privately contacting the maintainer in question and tell him, “We talked about this repeatedly, if you don’t stop, we need to take consequences.”
Emotions should really only enter the picture when personal offenses where comitted before or maybe if the employee did something with the intent to hurt the project/company/manager.
But if you get really angry because your employee did something wrong, then that’s a problem on the side of the manager and not on the side of the employee.
That said, I think it’s totally ok to tell the employee about the consequences of their actions (“We lost X amount of money” or “It took Y amount of time to correct it” or something like that).
But if you get really angry because your employee did something wrong, then that’s a problem on the side of the manager and not on the side of the employee.
This is probably taught in manager courses in order to protect their subordinates from managerial outbursts, which is a good cause, but they’re not quite right.
The Linux kernel is Torvalds life work. He literally spent most of the time he has on this planet on it, as did thousands others. Instead of watching his children grow, he made sure the planet gets a great operating system. It takes immeasurable effort to keep a vast software project in a good state - most large organisations with many times the resources fail to do so.
The maintainers behaviour represents a complete disregard for this sacrifice. They are showing through their actions that they don’t care that Torvalds and many others spent the little time they have on this planet on this software project instead of more fulfilling and joyful activities. I cannot imagine many more hurtful or disrespectful insults than this. It’s not far from saying their efforts are null and thus their life wasted.
I am saying all of this because I feel that you are speaking as a leader in a company, where you make sure other people’s money is spent productively. This not at all the same thing as what Torvalds is doing, because it’s not just a job, it is his literal life or life’s work.
This doesn’t excuse the behaviour, obviously - but it makes it very human. It’s good that he changed. I just hope we can find a middle ground between forced business speak and emotional outbreaks.
I’m not a manager (used to be team lead, but managing is not for me), but I’ve worked under a few coleric managers and some that where able to communicate in a sensible way.
One of my bosses, for example (that was the job where I was team lead) had a pretty similar style of communication as Linus.
Sure, the company was his life work. But I also started there shortly after the company was founded and I too spent a lot of time and was very emotionally invested in the company and the products. And my boss was just human (and on top didn’t know a lot about the subject), so he made mistakes. And his judgement was often wrong.
But he was never able to accept that he made any mistakes. He’d offload all his mistakes onto some employee, while claiming that every idea that worked out was his, and not the idea of the employee who actually had the idea and had to convince him first. And every time something went wrong, he’d slam the door of some employee open and shouted and swore at that employee.
Turns out, that’s not a great way to encourage people working there. Most of the good people quit after one especially bad explosion of his.
Back to Linus: is it human to be angry that someone disagrees with you? Maybe.
Is it in any way helpful to anyone? Clearly not.
I am pretty sure that anyone who gets to be a maintainer on the Linux kernel is heavily invested and has sacrificed a lot to get there. Attacking them like Linus did, that really renders their life work worthless.
The maintainer did nothing with the purpose to harm the Linux kernel project. He just accepted a change that he thought would improve Linux. Disagreeing on a factual topic with your boss should never trigger an explosion like that.
Oh that was in purpose! It shouldn’t matter that I personally am angry. My employees should never NEVER try to prevent me from being angry but focus on doing the best job they can.
That’s what I admire about Linus: he realized the negative impact his anger had on the performance of others - and fixed it!
To be clear: I can be angry - but my anger isn’t the reason I want things to change. Being angry is MY FAILURE as manager!
Think about it in another way: do you want your colleagues do things they thin prevent you from being disappointed, frustrated or angry - xor do you want then to move your collective goal forward no matter what you’d think.
Another example: if I’d be the one to have caused this communication mess I’d want my employees to call me out - even though I will get angry the moment I realize I’ve fucked up big time!
Ignoring emotions is very unhealthy. I understand that it is seen as desirable in a business context, but it is very unhealthy and detrimental in the long run.
I agree! Making someone aware of your feelings doesn’t mean exploding. You can just tell them. “I am very sad, frustrated and angry due to your actions. Please don’t do this again.” Is very clear and hurts no one.
I apologize - it wasn’t my intention to imply that at all! Emotional self management is a critical skill for managers - and that shouldn’t mean “go away, emotions!”. A trainer and coach I highly respect phrased it simply: “emotions are. They exist if we like them or not.”.
What I intended to convey was “do not use a public platform to channel your emotions.”
If this would’ve been a private conversation I would integrate an explanation of my current situation, feelings and context for my reaction. And also this sounds abstract it can totally be a “dude I’m absolutely pissed. I need you to work with me through this.” (this works btw in both meanings of “pissed” ;)).
I think whoever recieved this would be completely fine to report Linus to HR or something. The fact somebody thought to circulate it is suggestive that it crossed a line. I do appreciate he does seem to really care about the kernel. He could maybe tone down the hysterics a little.
I think if there’s a lesson here its “Never hit send while you’re angry” always wait until your hormones to subside before sending an email because emails are records and people don’t have good judgement while angry, so an email sent in anger is just a record of your poor judgement.
Does the Linux Foundation even have HR? Even if they did, does an employee of a separate company even have the ability to make a complaint about Linus with them?
For the first part, no clue, but for the second, absolutely
Just because you work for someone else doesn’t give them the right to treat you badly and that sort of behavior can and should be reported to a person’s employer.
I think whoever recieved this would be completely fine to report Linus to HR or something.
As unnecessary as the tone was, if your first reaction to such a form of address is to run to HR, you’re contributing to a toxic workplace. The first and foremost way to address etiquette problems (I am not including criminal behavior in this) is to talk directly to the person who offended you. Everyone has a bad day once in a while, and some people may even shout. If the first reaction is to get them into legal trouble with the employer, most people will rightfully avoid you like you just stepped into dogshit.
If this kind of behavior - despite having addressed it face to face - keeps occurring, that’s a different issue, then HR may be necessary.
An individual misbehaving does not constitute a toxic workplace. If you can’t tell people that you think their tone is inappropriate, then take it to your manager, but going straight to HR is about the dumbest way to deal with this. Some people don’t even realize they overstepped but might be able to empathize once informed.
Oh yeah, when your boss has anger issues and curses you in email, you really want to politely talk to him and ask him to stop. That will show them that you’re a little spineless sucker and can be shat on indefinitely.
Yes, even to your boss you can say that you feel something could have been communicated in a more friendly way. “Anger issues” implies the repeated occurrence for which I already stated before that is a different situation.
The term is “hostile work environment”. HR doesn’t just respond because of strict liability. Just one occurance of something like this can lead to an otherwise solid worker to spiral from discomfort of the situation, both feeling like a prisoner at their job and producing far less value for their employers.
The latter is why HR cares, but the former is why it’s OKay to go straight to HR. If HR is well-trained, things like this shouldn’t escalate just because you went to HR. They should be able to diffuse it productively.
You have obviously never dealt with a real-world scenario. Going straight to HR for someone being verbally(!) out of line, without even using insults, means you are the bigger problem.
Actually, I’ve watched two GREAT workers and good people end up losing their jobs because a easily resolved situation turned toxic. The person who felt uncomfortable tried to take care of it 1-on-1 but had too passive aggressive a nature to really be clear when she confronted the guy.
So 6 months or a year later, she was on the verge of quitting and went to HR. He was terminated because it had gone too far. She left soon after because she still wasn’t comfortable at work after the cause of that ended.
…look. I “obviously never dealt” with anything because nobody is allowed differing opinions here, but I have 20+ years experience at businesses where the existence or lack of good HR has been a deciding factor of the work-culture and comfort level of team members. I work 1-on-1 with my company’s Directors of HR on a regular basis to make sure my team is happy and because I am involved with other teams at my job who have their own interpersonal conflicts. One of HR’s responsibilities in a good company is to involve themselves in interpersonal conflicts BEFORE decisive action has to be taken.
The problem is that face-to-face confrontations without a mediator don’t always end well. And I would rather not have HR decide “we have to fire our Rockstar senior dev or this random guy”. But if you address it earlier, HR deals with it earlier (yes, because the paper trail m eans HR can’t just fire “this random guy” later over the Rockstar senior dev). It’s win-win for all parties INCLUDING the Linus Torvalds in this explanation.
But I’ve “obviously never dealt with a real-world scenario” and my experience doesn’t count. So you can ignore everything I said.
You are under the very relevant misassumption that HR is less likely to be handling a situation inappropriately than two people speaking with each other directly. I stand by my original comment. A simple verbal overstep, on the first occurrence, should definitely be addressed without involving HR
Hard disagree. This letter is what happens when direct communications have failed.
Realistically, somebody near Linus probably told him to chill out and that he’s damaging his own reputation and his project’s by sending out this temper tantrum bullshit. In no world would the target of this letter be the person who successfully sits him down and lectures him on not being an asshole.
But honestly if he had a habit of sending out this kind of stuff it would be a liability/legal problem.
This is far from the first (or last) time he wrote something like this. This was just a regular thing in the kernel world for a long time (until Linus matured a little).
Whether or not it was a good thing is up for debate I think. Yeah, it’s very rude and unprofessional (and discourages new contributors who don’t want to risk getting chewed out), but considering the importance of the Linux kernel, it’s good to know the lead maintainer is doing too much of the right thing than not enough (i.e. being lax with bad code in order to be respectful). I’m fine knowing that a few tech workers got their egos smashed if it gives me confidence that the code powering civilization is high quality.
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