

On Tone Policing Linus Torvalds - henrik_w
http://manymachines.tumblr.com/post/108367431489/on-tone-policing-linus-torvalds-or-linus-torvalds

======
robot
The problem is often Linus is right. He wrote the first version of git which
is used by a world of programmers today. I'm sure a ton of smart but subtly
less smart programmers would have had a lot of different opinions on its
design. Had he compromised from his thoughts in this design, git wouldn't be
where it is now. Same can be said for the linux kernel. In a way he is a bit
like Steve Jobs, and if he were to compromise, or tried to be nicer or less
reactive, the results of projects would be technically lesser.

Many people who don't like Linus' personality still use the linux kernel and
git most of the time. They don't realize that the very reasons they disagree
with him were at the roots of how he managed to get out such tools as the
kernel and git.

In the discussion referred, Linus is opposing the fact that Mac OS X
filesystem was "silently" changing uppercase characters in a filename to
lowercase? Behind the back of the user. Now this is a bad design, but if you
are not allergic to it as much as Linus is, then you would probably be OK with
it. Then numerous technical mediocrities would creep in over time. He is
reactive to issues he sees, and this is part of why what he does is at least
technically superior.

------
onion2k
The author seems to think that Linus's aggressive tone only has a single
effect on the community - to dissuade developers from contributing. It's
possible that's true, but it's unlikely[1]. Things rarely have a single
isolated effect on the world. It's entirely possible that the way Linus
interacts with the community makes people stop and really think before they
post lest they be 'flamed'. Or makes people more likely to group together for
support from his 'burns'. Or keeps the community small enough to stop Linux
becoming bloated (hmm..).

It's easy to focus on the downside of the way Linus writes his posts, but that
doesn't mean there isn't an upside.

[1] This is an interesting example of the Principle of Double Effect -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect)
\- The negative effect of writing aggressively is inseparable from the
beneficial effect, consequently making the act good if posting is a good
thing, if Linus is acting with good intentions, and if the downside of
annoying people is less than the upside of being fiercely opinionated about
the way Linux should evolve.

Thomas Aquinas writing 800 years ago about the morality of killing people in
self-defence applied to whether or not flaming people on message boards is
acceptable... This is why I love philosophy.

------
carsongross
Genius computer programmers are often far out on the aspergers continuum. It's
not reasonable to expect them to be polished in their social interactions.

Once I stopped taking life so seriously, I began to find this charming.

------
na85
I'm not really clear on what the point of this article was.

~~~
akie
That Linus' approach to disagreement over technical matters is
counterproductive.

