Treat your volunteers well, or why should they continue volunteering?
Kernel maintainers have plenty of other opportunities.
I don’t know if they are volunteering or being paid. The other person said they are being paid.
Either way, no one deserves being talked down to like that, even if they made a mistake. It’s a matter of respect and self-respect. And as a skilled person like a kernel developer, it should be trivially easy to find other work in a more appropriate environment.
That being said, maybe I’m missing something. Torvalds has been known to be like that for a long time (although that seems to be over now). And still, Linux has been developed over decades. So apparently, skilled people flocked around Torvalds, or maybe rather his project. Not entirely sure why, but I’m taking it as a hint I might be missing something.
Generally speaking: not these days, and not for a long long time. Mauro, for instance, worked for Red Hat at the time. It’s of course possible to be unpaid and work for Linux, but I believe it’s much more likely that one is employed by a big tech corpo and they maintain the kernel as part of their work.
The fact that people here value feelings and pretty expressions more over quality, standards and passion shows exactly how human civilization will decline into mediocrity and sickness.
Your subpar ability to understand that the self fellating anger in that email is in no way something that generates quality and standards says much more about the decline to mediocrity.
Nonsense. It’s simply that that kind of conduct is deeply unprofessional and reflects poorly on Linus. He could have said the exact same things about the issues with that patch without the obscenities and personal attacks.
I’ve worked as a software team lead for nearly 30 years, you do not get the best out of people by belittling and berating them.
I agree. In a leadership role it’s one thing what you say to a person in front of others and a completely different thing what you say when alone with them…
I think he’s being fair and balanced. Also please stop calling mild irritation “toxicity”, it only makes you sound like a whiney douchebag who cries whenever they’re questioned about anything.
So I recently had a conversation with some who though Linus Torvalds (kernel) and Linus Sebastian (Linus Tech Tips) was the same person.
That was a pretty funny and confusing conversation.
The trick is to listen to the pronunciation. Linus of LTT pronounces it as Linus, while Linus of Torvalds uses either Linus or Linus, but he doesn’t mind if people call him Linus.
I thought he branched out to tech tips as a way of making extra money. Never seen the tech tips myself and with the controversy not too long ago probably never will.
As an entertainment show about tech, it’s a pretty decent show to watch, I wouldn’t use it to base my decisions on, but if you want to hear someone talk about tech stuff in a somewhat entertaining way I’d say give them ago, Linus can be a bit much sometimes but the rest of the crew are alright.
I’ve only ever heard of torvalds because of pages like this one and since I don’t watch LTT videos often, I’ve only ever heard his first name connected with the channel.
Yeah, those mailing lists used to have some quite funny stuff; my favorite so far is smth along the lines of “whoever thought this was a good idea should be retroactively aborted”.
But, on the other hand, damn it’s toxic. Should’ve really sucked to work on the kernel back then.
I was curious as I couldn’t help but laugh, but damn dude. That is rough. Hilarious looking at it now, but I feel bad for whomever was at the receiving end.
Of course, I’d also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE FUCKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the fuck does idiotic things like that? How did they not die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?
Someone else pointed out that he actually apologized for being toxic sometimes and took some time off as a kernel maintainer because of that. Nice to see.
You seem eager to pose this “if the product was undamaged” as if you can quantify what might have happened differently, but then in a comment below you ask someone else to prove that maintainers left.
It might shock you to learn that products are developed by people. Actual people stay or leave and work wildly differently based on things like respect, expectations, and being in a hostile environment.
Want proof of that? Go work on an actual project with a team sometime.
edit - And this isn’t even accounting for the ways toxic communication impedes wider adoption of a product
People who could be easily replaced. It’s a non issue.
I do work on software teams, and don’t conduct myself like Linus, because I’m not Linus. That pattern of communication isn’t available to me, an average engineer.
But if someone spoke to me that way (and they have) I took it as a clear signal I need to level up and act right. Not an invitation to feel bad about myself.
Linux has clearly not missed out on wide adoption in any way.
He did hurt the mission. Plenty of kernel maintainers have left, and those were people who had been with the project for years. Losing experienced people to toxicity 1000% harms both the project and the product.
In almost instances of Linus going off on one in public it is because maintainers weren’t doing their jobs (to act as quality gatekeepers), or particular developers thinking they could steam roll road changes through if they kept submitting them, or not listening to what Linus was saying. I remember Linus used to ream out Hans Reiser a lot (the guy who was subsequently imprisoned for murdering his wife) because he constantly tried to get ReiserFS into the kernel despite serious issues Linus had with it.
So generally when you see a rant, there is a history behind it and the rant itself is directed with a point. I also think it’s self evident that the kernel has benefited from this “benevolent dictator” model. I’m sure some people have gotten all precious over their feelings being hurt. The rest raised their game and the result has been a code quality standard you’ll probably never see anywhere else.
I can understand Linus getting frustrated at people who consistently push him (i e. Lennart) and I agree that there’s a reason he’s stayed at the helm of kernel maintenance and development all this time; however, that doesn’t denigrate that this is an unacceptable way to treat someone which Linus himself acknowledges! If this were about ReiserFS going into the kernel, I would understand that. But a poorly made commit should not be met with this vitriol. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be consequences for poor work, but this is not it.
If there’s a surplus of talent (sounds like Mauro was dead weight) then at most he was just rude on Mauro’s way out the door.
I’m not saying it’s cool to be rude, but if it’s Linus’ review then you get what you get. To be butthurt about someone being rude to you should motivate you to learn your code interactions better. (In this case error handling)
You are just going to die on this hill, aren’t you? Even Linus recognized that his attitude was toxic, eventually, and that it was having a negative impact on the kernel development community. Yes, people left. Talented people decided it wasn’t worth the abuse.
No, was the product reduced or damaged, not did people leave. No one cares about individuals, if they can be replaced without blocking the progress of the project.
Those articles are very whiney. They chose to work on that project, with a singular leader. It’s his house, his rules, his standards.
You’re making judgements on people’s utility and ability based on the volatile reactions of man who admits to having issues. That creates toxic environments where people are not encouraged to do better, but any amount of change is due to fear of repercussions. This does not promote growth or new ideas that would genuinely improve something, but rather a fear of failure if they attempt something new. This also isn’t useful programming criticism because the actual useful criticism is buried in an emotional slurry that’s going to make something less receptive to the useful information.
You are a useless peace of dead weight in this community. Your comments suck and you have no idea how people work and how to professionally communicate. I hope you never have a job, let alone one in a management role. You should leave and never come back. Get aborted retroactively! You make the world a worse place by your mere existance!
How do you feel about that? Are you going to change your behavior because of these “stern words”? Or are you going to think “What an idiot” and ignore everything I said?
And we both are just anonymous randos on the internet and while this comment is public, not a lot of people are going to read it and it will have zero impact to either of our lives.
Now imagine I was your boss, both of us are publically known people and I post this on the company social media account together with your full name.
And people still dig this up 10 years later to laugh at it.
You’re making a false equivalency where stern is the same as toxic. There are more professional and clear ways to communicate the issues with code quality. No one is disagreeing that those need to be communicated. The Issue is how.
And because you seem to take stock in what Torvalds says, then consider that if he himself admitted these were harmful and inefficient methods of communication then they probably were. If it was leading to fantastic results in the kernel i don’t see why he would’ve stopped. My guess is that he learned something that it seems you may still have yet to: empathy.
I find it ironic that Linus’s explanation for ENOENT being invalid for an ioctl given its meaning of “No such file or directory”, while simultaneously ioctl can return ENOTTY when using a mismatched device fd despite the error meaning “Not a typewriter.”
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.)
I feel it’s equally important to point ot that Torvalds recognized his toxic behavior, apologized for it, and took steps to rectify it.
In an email to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, which also addresses the kernel update of Linux 4.19-rc4, Torvalds writes: “I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely.”
“I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately.”
So two wrongs make a right? Or could this have been a civil private email instead? And if civil private conversations aren’t working, then it’s time to part ways.
Acceptable, yes. But a good manager knows not to shine a spotlight on the mistakes of the team. There’s nothing to gain keeping it public that you wouldn’t also gain by keeping it private. But your team’s morale is kept high if you sing their praises instead of their shortcomings.
I get what your saying, but i feel like the aggressively public development model means that more could be public here than i would accept on another team.
I’ve heard he’s not perfect but he doesn’t lose his temper anymore and has only gotten better with age. I respect anyone who can self reflect and introspect and come out a better person.
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