
Abuse is indefensible - AndrewDucker
https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2015/11/04/abuse-is-indefensible/
======
colah3
When I was 17, I was super enthusiastic about Linux. I read a bunch of stuff
about kernel development. Linus' attitude was very well known and presented as
an amusing thing. Glorified even. I remember reading some of his emails with a
great deal of schadenfreude.

Now I'm really glad I never pursued that. I work in a field where all the
leading figures are _absurdly_ nice and respectful. Reading Linus' rant makes
me appreciate that more.

~~~
blowski
I think this is the underlying point. It's difficult to imagine that Linus's
style of criticising attracts people to the industry, or indeed has any
benefits at all. Conversely, it clearly puts off a lot of talented people from
getting involved in Linux, and people use his style as justification for their
own aggression.

Outside of the open source movement, managers using this kind of language
would be reprimanded and even fired, as it could make employees feel stressed
and suffering from constructive dismissal.

There is simply no need for being rude, or any kind of aggression in the
workplace, and we should consider open source contributors as being in the
workplace. Full stop.

~~~
mbrock
"Difficult to imagine" isn't evidence; it's just failure of imagination.

------
nabla9
I thought that finally I can see example of Linus being abusive. This was not
it.

Linus was attacking the work and ideas and cursing them. He was not attacking
the person who wrote the code. Cursing is not abusive by itself. Cursing is
emotional emphasis.

I would not want to work in a environment where strong emotional language used
to criticize your work is considered abusive. If conflict over ideas and work
does not make your blood flow, you don't care.

~~~
Cyph0n
But do you not feel offended when you are the one who came up with the idea?

~~~
x1024
They... should be offended? Because it was a bad idea that ruins the Linux
Kernel. Kernel development isn't for everyone.

~~~
tptacek
Can you (the person who wrote that this code would "ruin" the Linux kernel)
explain in as much detail as you can _how_ it would have ruined the Linux
kernel?

I'm curious about how much people take what Linus says at face value.

~~~
x1024
Code being safe or unsafe is a pretty objective metric of quality, methinks.

~~~
tptacek
I agree. Can you explain how this particular code is "safe" or "unsafe"?
Again: I'm curious as to how much of what Linus says is taken at face value on
HN.

I'm even more interested now, because the fulcrum of Linus's argument isn't
safety.

~~~
x1024
You are committing a logical fallacy. I'm not "the voice of HN", nor am I a
representative sample of "what HN thinks".

This is just my opinion.

Using a builtin operation ("addition and comparison of integers") is always
safer than using a function that may or may not work the same everywhere. I.e.
a nonstandard function.

Also, the proposed code has more levels of indirection, therefore places a
higher cognitive load on the reader. These things tend to result in bugs down
the road.

And it is also true that "an overflow could still happen", which is mentioned
in Linus' critique.

All of these are objective ways to measure how "safe" the code is.

~~~
tptacek
No, that's not what Linus is saying. It's close to the opposite of what he's
saying (overflow_usub wraps a builtin). You obviously can't simply use the
builtin addition and subtraction of unsigned integers in safe code, because in
modern C, integers wrap.

Returning to the thread: why are you so comfortable extrapolating from Linus's
rant to "this code would ruin the Linux kernel"? You don't grok the code he's
talking about.

Is it because "if Linus is arguing against this code with this much ferocity,
the code must be _really_ bad?" Because if that's it, you're starting to see
the issue some people have with the tone he uses.

~~~
x1024
In the discussion Linus is providing his suggested code, which is literally
"just a builtin addition", but your opinion is that "He says that you can't
use builtin addition".

OK, sure.

~~~
tptacek
That is not in fact what Linus is saying. At this point you might want to take
my word for it.

------
adamc
My take on it was that the non-abusive rewrite would be much more useful to
the submitter, as it lays out the issues. The original just make Linus look
like he's lost it. Glad I don't have to work with him.

------
ckozlowski
I thought Mr. Sowa's reply to be a very professional in defending his
decisions to write it as he did, and still remain open and gracious in Linus'
criticism.

[http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1510.3/02919.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1510.3/02919.html)

A worthwhile read in how to handle these situations.

------
shepik
To be honest, Linus' rants is making a better point for me. I really feel his
pain with overflow_usub, and i feel nothing when reading rewritten version.

~~~
adamc
Why on earth do I need to "feel his pain" rather than just understand the
issues at hand?

~~~
raverbashing
Because them some people think it's still ok to go with the broken code

That's cultural differences 101

As a simple example: in Canada one might say "please do not feed the animals"
in a Zoo. In some other places, for the message to have the same effect it
must be as such: "It is expressly forbidden to feed the animals! Those being
caught doing so will be expelled from the zoo!"

~~~
tptacek
Wait. "Broken" code?

~~~
raverbashing
From the original Linus email

"And yes, you still could have overflow issues if the whole "hlen + xyz"
expression overflows, but quite frankly, the "overflow_usub()" code had that
too"

~~~
tptacek
I'm afraid that doesn't clarify, because if the overflow_usub code is broken
in _that_ sense, then so is the code Linus is advocating for. Do you still
think "broken" was the right word to use? Why?

~~~
raverbashing
I think there's also the issue of limited compiler support for that feature

Maybe broken is too strong a word I agree

~~~
tptacek
overflow_usub is the code that gets called when your compiler doesn't support
__builtin_usub_overflow (Linus opposes both the function and the intrinsic, of
course).

~~~
raverbashing
True, however how it is used in this case leads to unnecessary opacity

(I'm referring to the || mtu <= 7 part), which, once you know how
usub_overflow works is obvious what it means, but this might not be evident
and unnecessarily complicating that snipped

Sometimes 'smart code' is not necessarily better

(I'm open to disagreement, though)

~~~
tptacek
Just to be clear: I don't think Linus is _wrong_ (I'm also not qualified to
judge that). From what I can tell, he's like, 52.5% right.

What's more interesting to me is how low-stakes this issue is. Gizmodo wrote
an article about it, but really, if you understand kernel C, do you even give
a shit about this code? Linus could have said "we're not using GCC builtin
overflow intrinics", just like that, one line no punctuation, and the issue
would have been settled.

But look at this thread at the number of people who extrapolated from Linus'
rant that this code was bad, _ruinous_ , unsafe, "one size fits all" (still
scratching my head about that), &c. How many of Linus' defenders actually know
what he's ranting about? It looks to me like: not many.

What's funny is, you actually do seem like you know what he's talking about,
and even you overshot the mark with "broken". :)

------
ZanyProgrammer
Why is it that people who support Linus' tirades and mention freedom of
speech, etc get so incredibly hurt when others exercise their own freedom of
speech and point out how abusive they are?

~~~
thomashabets2
Because one is saying "what you are saying is wrong" and the other is saying
"you should stop talking".

That's a _fundamental_ difference.

If they get hurt (big "if"), then they are still not saying "and that means
you are not allowed to talk".

Are you seeing an inconsistency that I'm not?

~~~
zzalpha
_Because one is saying "what you are saying is wrong" and the other is saying
"you should stop talking"._

No, they're saying stop being a jerk.

The only way that translates to "you should stop talking" is if said person is
incapable of communicating whilst not being a jerk.

~~~
thomashabets2
I'm sorry if my illustration of why there is no hypocrisy was unclear.

There may be jerk behaviour. I'm not saying there isn't. I did not mean to
address that part at all. I'm saying there's no hypocrisy.

------
marrs
As I understand it, the Linux codebase has hundreds of regular contributors
and Torvalds basically spends his entire time reviewing patches to an
operating system kernel that is used in countless mission-critical scenarios
across the world. The implications of introducing a bug or security exploit to
an OS kernel could be as severe as loss of life.

With that in mind, I find myself wondering every time I read a report like
this: the instrument may be blunt and the punishment humiliating, but is it
really unnecessary?

If just one more contributor submits a similar patch, the chances of such an
error making it through code review is doubled. If you don't have a strong
handle on what is being submitted you will quickly lose control.

The purpose of a rant like that is not to provide feedback to a contributor
that he made a mistake, it's to send a clear message to the wider community
that code of that kind must not ever be submitted in the first place. It's a
first line of defence against bad code. And to that end, I'd say it's quite
effective.

I've never written a line of kernel code in my life, and I probably never
will. But if I choose to make a contribution to Linux, even a few years from
now, I will remember what practices to avoid through my memories of this and
previous rants.

~~~
tptacek
"Such an error"? What error?

~~~
marrs
I don't know, I'm not a kernel developer. Whatever error Linus was trying to
avoid.

~~~
tptacek
I don't think "error" was the right word.

------
pervycreeper
I am troubled by this obsession that these activists have with Torvalds. Could
there be anything more minor than these complaints about tone? What harm does
the existence of one software project which permits 'rants' do to others?

Do those who claim to desire civility not understand that by hounding and
inundating him and the community in general with the same talking points ad
infinitum, they are themselves being uncivil? Not only by the unrelenting and
hostile complaining, though. They have gone much further; Eric S. Raymond
alleged yesterday that feminist groups have been repeatedly attempting to
frame him for sexual assault!
[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6907](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6907) The OP post
title is applicable to this situation in my opinion.

~~~
ceejayoz
I'm not sure ESR is the best unbiased source on feminist groups.

[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond#i_am_slowly_goi...](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond#i_am_slowly_going_crazy_one_two_three_four_five_six_switch)

Rational Wiki certainly has its own biases, but they call out a lot of
problematic items with links right back to the blog posts if you care to
verify.

~~~
pervycreeper
I wasn't aware of that crankery, however, that does not discredit these
straightforward allegations (argumentum ad hominem). I should add that this
particular tactic is already being practiced on the bigwigs in the atheist
community, so it's far from implausible.

~~~
comex
The allegations have _absolutely no evidence_ behind them. In that case of
course one should take into account their source's general credibility, or
lack thereof.

As for the atheist community, you will have to provide a source.

~~~
pervycreeper
i) I think there's a difference between being a conspiracy theorist
(allegedly; haven't looked into this), and being a liar. Credibility does not
extend across domains, either. An authority on, say, OS design might be a
complete fool when it comes to politics (for instance).

ii) Allegations have been made against Micheal Schirmer and Lawrence Krauss
(not hard to find if you search for them).

------
jimbokun
Can anyone defend Linus' version as better communication than Eisenberg's?

~~~
x1024
Nobody will try to pull that shit again for quite some time.

The "Constructive" version will be handwaved by submitting the same code again
and giving literally any deflecting excuse like "You're just afraid of using
new technology like this function.

~~~
kristiandupont
>pull that shit

Right, in fact, if I were the developer who wrote that shit, I would probably
think twice about doing any work on the code. Not because I was insulted but
because I would be scared. I don't know about this specific situation and
maybe it's political/religious. But maybe the girl/guy just wrote this code
because they thought it was the best solution. Being screamed at by an
authority like that (even if they don't mention you by name) would be quite
demoralizing to me. But I guess you can argue that I just don't have what it
takes to be a Linux contributor then..

~~~
x1024
I would argue exactly that, yes. If you don't understand basic things about
code clarity and safety, you're not ready.

The Linux Kernel doesn't exist to validate your opinion of yourself, but to
literally support the world's software infrastructure. Which is more
important.

------
snomad
I didn't find this rant abusive. Once worked for a law firm in a high stress
industry - some of those lawyers were abusive, woah nelly. Also, have a
brother who was in army, you can't even imagine the language of he and his
friends.

This is child's play and someone who ultimately cares about delivering a
quality end product who was offended by someone taking away from that mission.
And his point was right, the code was bad and shoehorned into a magical one
size fits all solution.

I'm most curious on the age / background of those in this thread who do find
it hurtful and offensive.

~~~
nabla9
>I'm most curious on the age / background of those in this thread who do find
it hurtful and offensive.

Me too. I feel that there is generational shift.

For me, abusive means that someone picks you as a permanent target and treats
you badly consistently.

I'm completely fine with people calling me with names over some issues when
it's clear that they are fighting against me over some specific issue. I'm
allowed to use strong words as well. When the subjects changes, there is no
hostility. That's how you know you are dealing with emotional person who is
not abusing you.

Picking up text fragments and analyzing one email for triggers that can be
labeled as "abusive" seems so weird. I guess I feel that there is difference
between "abusive language" and abusive and others don't see it.

~~~
marrs
I agree, and I think you're both right that it's generational.

------
zubspace
Linus' version is intimidating. But that's why it is very effective. Case in
point, we people on hacker news would have never even read his rant if the
language was mild. So in some way it sticks better. You really DO NOT WANT to
step on his toes again (and everyone else reading it, too), so in the end
Linus' wins.

Also, it's sad, but after so many years on the internet I don't consider his
language to be abusive. It's aggressive yes, but clearly there went much
though into it. If I'm honest, i find it kind of amusing. But maybe that's
just me.

~~~
jasonlotito
> You really DO NOT WANT to step on his toes again (and everyone else reading
> it, too), so in the end Linus' wins.

And yet it keeps happening, frequent enough that it's something everyone knows
about. If anything, he's not optimizing his own responses based on actual
performance. He's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results. And he's not even being efficient with it.

And, well, pretty sure he ruins his own performance by getting all enraged
like that.

~~~
lagadu
> He's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different
> results. And he's not even being efficient with it.

It seems his results are just fine, why would he expect different results? I
say this supported by the slightly arguable premise that the Linux kernel is a
good example of a big success in software development.

------
boost_
abuse? offensive? haha, what a first world problem, having my code called
“shit” is abuse now.. i wonder what you would say about real world abuse.

just grow a skin, Linus can say and do whatever he wants about his project
(linux). don’t like it? don’t help it then.

seriously kids these days get offended by everything..

------
jsight
"Nonetheless, I’ve seen multiple people defending and even celebrating it.
(One outlet called it an “epic rant”.) "

I don't think calling it an "epic rant" was celebrating it.

[http://www.itworld.com/article/3000564/linux/linus-goes-
on-e...](http://www.itworld.com/article/3000564/linux/linus-goes-on-epic-rant-
about-linux-kernel-code.html)

"Linus loses it in an epic rant about kernel code." isn't exactly a
complimentary line, IMO.

~~~
msbarnett
I read the adjective "epic" as flattering/celebrating. In use its somewhat
similar to "awesome" in North American English.

I'm not clear if the author is from the UK or something, though.

------
mbrock
A person wrote things that some other people find morally objectionable. Some
other people think the thing that person wrote was not morally objectionable.
Now someone "considers" the thing "indefensible" in their "personal opinion."
Hacker News asks for intellectually stimulating topics; this one isn't.

------
metaos
From the team that hounded out Brendan Eich...

May I quote the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive
and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers.

~~~
Kristine1975
Brendan Eich stepping down as Mozilla's CEO was not due to speech:

>His appointment sparked controversy over a $1,000 political donation Eich had
made in 2008 to the successful campaign for California Proposition 8, which
sought to establish that, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or
recognized in California."

~~~
amdavidson
While I don't agree with his personal donation or Citizen's United, that case
held that political donation is a form of protected speech[0].

So in a very literal way, he was pushed out due to the manner in which he
chose to speak.

0: [http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-
united-v...](http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-
federal-election-commission/)

~~~
comex
You don't have to support the Citizens United decision to think that
contributing small amounts to political campaigns is effectively speech -
because the money is used to promulgate speech (ads), as well as in the more
abstract sense that donations are viewed by society as a normal and encouraged
outlet for people to promote their viewpoints.

(Of course the humongous donations the decision enabled are also used to
promulgate speech, which is why I have some sympathy for it, but there's just
a huge difference in practice between giving $1,000 and giving millions.)

------
forgotmypassw
That's simply an expression to emphasise on current feelings and to add tone
to the text. The rewritten text is clearly overly bland and on the edge of
being apologic and doesn't reflect the anger and annoyance that Linus most
likely felt at the time of writing the mail. It seems that people do not
realize anymore that languages exist not only to pass the point along but also
to express yourself (including emotions and feelings).

Further more I think that thanks to Linus being "abusive" it makes
contributors think twice before they submit code and making sure the code is
mostly valid, which in turn, results in higher quality code landing in the
codebase and decreases the risk of potential bugs. Does that make some people
"scared" of contributing? Sure but that's a whole different story.

------
uhny-uftz
Methinks Linus needs to be heeding his own words:

 _As a reviewer of code, please strive to keep things civil and focused on the
technical issues involved. We are all humans, and frustrations can be high on
both sides of the process. Try to keep in mind the immortal words of Bill and
Ted, "Be excellent to each other."_

[https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux....](https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/CodeOfConflict?id=ddbd2b7ad99a418c60397901a0f3c997d030c65e)

------
ekianjo
> I consider this kind of abuse indefensible. Nonetheless, I’ve seen multiple
> people defending and even celebrating it.

And so what? You have never seen bullies in School ? Are you going to go in
the streets and fight for moral righteousness in every corner ? Or are you
just picking on Linus because it's an easy target with no controversy ?

It's not like people who work with Linus don't know how he acts and interacts
with others. I'd rather have someone who is blunt and direct than someone who
smiles to your face and says shit in your back. At least you know where you
stand.

~~~
ceejayoz
> You have never seen bullies in School ?

Of course there are bullies in school.

That doesn't make it a _good thing_. Ideally, there _wouldn 't_ be bullies in
school. And Linus isn't a child.

> I'd rather have someone who is blunt and direct than someone who smiles to
> your face and says shit in your back.

False dichotomy. There are plenty of people who smile to your face _without_
having to say shit about you behind your back.

------
luso_brazilian
Previously discussed here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10492282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10492282)

Wasn't it throughly discussed, dissected, analysed and debated in that very
recent topic?

The only new input this post beings is one more opinion among the many in that
other HN post. Should it be considered a dupe?

~~~
probdist
Yes. The link for this story adds less than the average comment on HN in the
previous discussion to the overall conversation.

------
x1024
Funny how the author "will moderate comments" and the only comments left are
those who uncritically agree with them.

~~~
gpvos
I see at least two comments that are critical of the author. And even if they
were posted after you wrote this, how do you know he has deleted anything at
all?

~~~
x1024
Give it an hour.

~~~
WolfeReader
Two hours later, they're still up. Time to admit you're wrong.

------
anonbanker
A Social Justice Warrior from Mozilla makes a blog post about a project he
doesn't contribute to, in order to comment about tone.

I can't wait until all these people fork the kernel. I bet it'll have
literally _double_ the amount of commits from these javascript programmers,
finally able to peacefully contribute.

------
such_a_casual
This is hilarious. This has to be satirical. When did mail list rants become a
social issue?

------
comex
Personally, I think the suggested rewrite does a good job of defending the
argument _for_ ranting:

[http://catcode.com/comments/2015/cf20151101.html](http://catcode.com/comments/2015/cf20151101.html)

Compared to the actual rant, it's deficient in explaining Linus's viewpoint in
multiple ways:

\- The phrases "The problem as I see it" and "I think", which I imagine
Eisenburg added in an attempt to avoid jumping to conclusions or avoid making
it personal or whatever, to me come off as hesitant or unsure. There is an
authoritative rejection of the patch itself at the end, but still the revised
post sounds like Linus is inviting people to post their opinions over whether
the code is actually problematic or not. By contrast, the original post makes
it clear that he is _highly_ convinced that the code is bad and will need
extremely persuasive evidence to change his mind. Now, you could say that it's
rarely productive to solve problems by shutting down debate, and that he
_should_ invite opinions - but in truth, Linus probably would at least
consider a sufficiently rigorous and detailed counterargument, and him clearly
expressing the force of his opinion gives other people a signal that they
should take the time to write such an argument, rather than being more brief
(because they think Linus is hesitant and that that is sufficient), and then
being promptly overruled, even if, given the chance, they could have persuaded
him.

You might not see Eisenburg's version as hesitant yourself, but that's
precisely the point - all language is ambiguous, but using reserved language
errs on the side of having people think your opinion weaker than it is, while
harsh language is the opposite.

Of course, the flipside is that someone who doesn't know Linus's history might
well conclude that he's so angry as to be beyond reason, discouraging detailed
rebuttals for the opposite reason. In fact, I think that is _likely_ to happen
in this case, and that therefore his post went too far - just because I am
defending harsh language in general doesn't mean I agree exactly with his tone
choices. There are certainly potential midpoints between the actual rant and
Eisenburg's version that would clearly establish his position without being
quite so mean. But hindsight is 20/20, and the problems with Eisenburg's
version show the danger in general of being reserved in online text
communication, given its low bandwidth.

\- The rant also makes it clear that he thinks the whole idea of using such
functions is bad, and that other authors writing somewhat similar code should
also consider themselves warned, whereas Eisenburg's version makes it sound
more like his complaint is specific to the case at hand - e.g. the especially
poor formulation of the line criticized, compared to more elegant ways to use
the overflow arithmetic functions, or the implementations of those functions.

\- Nethercote explicitly noted that the rewritten version is much shorter, but
actually it is missing two important factual details:

1\. The claims that the code is not particularly safe, and inefficient even
with "magical compiler support". (Eisenburg's version just says it's unclear
and inefficient /without/ magic compiler support.)

2\. The reason why Linus is pulling some random line to criticize out of a bug
pull request containing many patches. Issues with pull requests are usually
merge conflicts, so is there an unstated issue with that here? The actual rant
makes it clear that the conflict just happened to make him notice that
particular bit of code, which he found so distasteful that he felt he had to
jump in.

By the way, I think Linus is full of crap: while the line at issue isn't
great, the use of those overflow-arithmetic functions in general is a great
idea, considering how easy it is to screw up a manual overflow check in C, and
how ridiculously frequently this results in real security vulnerabilities
(among other issues), including of course in Linux in the past. But that's
mostly orthogonal to his manner of expression.

~~~
strcat
> By the way, I think Linus is full of crap: while the line at issue isn't
> great, the use of those overflow-arithmetic functions in general is a great
> idea, considering how easy it is to screw up a manual overflow check in C,
> and how ridiculously frequently this results in real security
> vulnerabilities (among other issues), including of course in Linux in the
> past. But that's mostly orthogonal to his manner of expression.

The overflow checking functions are very compelling for unsigned
multiplication and all of the signed operations. It makes sense for unsigned
addition and subtraction if it's already an existing pattern for the difficult
cases, but I don't think it was a good way to introduce the functions. These
are definitely the most optimized way to perform the checks across the board
though, especially for multiplication. Linus is just making incorrect
assumptions based on his lack of faith in compilers.

------
unfamiliar
I've read a few of Linus' rants and been on the fence, but this one does seem
to have crossed some sort of line into being unnecessarily abusive, and to add
to that, unclear communication. The rewritten version really does emphasise a
much better approach. Linus's rant doesn't read like it was written by... a
stable person.

I was in full agreement with the article up until this:

>Of the many things I could say about this, I will say just one: sadly, I am
certain the reaction to this text would be entirely different were it written
by a woman.

What the... where on earth did this come from? Completely irrelevant and not
true in my opinion. This issue is about whether it post was abusive, the
gender of the poster makes no difference. I'm pretty sure that female Linus
(assuming female Linus had accomplished everything real Linus has over her
life) would have had a bunch of loyal followers that defended her no matter
what she said, and a bunch of people who thought she was out of line.

Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story?

~~~
srpablo
> Completely irrelevant and not true in my opinion.

Hardly, when talking about brash/abusive behavior in the context of an
industry where women are underrepresented, I think it's plenty fine to mention
that there might be a connection to be made.

> the gender of the poster makes no difference

Eh, I don't agree. It's well-observed in social sciences that men are given
more leeway to be abusive than women are; one example is how often words like
"abrasive" or "bossy" come up in performance reports:
[http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-
bias...](http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias/)

Or just look at our popular media: how many male antiheroes on TV have enough
audience to support them vs. women antiheroes? For every Walter White or
Doctor House or Tony Soprano, how many unlikeable women are there? Roxane Gay
writes about this pretty well. [http://www.buzzfeed.com/roxanegay/not-here-to-
make-friends-u...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/roxanegay/not-here-to-make-friends-
unlikable#.ineD9MA1A2)

> Does the gender issue really have to be shoehorned into every story?

Per above, I don't think it's "shoehorned." And I think it's fine if we talk
about it more than we currently do, because there's plenty to suggest we don't
talk about it enough or are insufficiently introspective about it.

~~~
mbrock
If women are socially punished for being abrasive or bossy, you could consider
THAT to be a problem. I might consider it a basic human right to use curse
words, get angry, and come off as abrasive, and in fact I truly do.

Somewhat relatedly, the supposition some people have that "women" need to be
especially protected from teh scary curse words pisses me off. THAT is a
gendered prejudice based on Victorian morality or something.

~~~
chasing
> I might consider it a basic human right to use curse words, get angry, and
> come off as abrasive, and in fact I truly do.

This is a common error, but you're mixing up the idea that the government
shouldn't be allowed to penalize you for your free speech and the idea that
_no one at all_ should be able to react to you for using curse words, getting
angry, or coming off as abrasive.

If I think you're an asshole, I'm perfectly within my rights to not hire you,
not befriend you, make fun of you to other people, not invite you out on
camping trips, "accidentally" give you smaller slices of birthday cake at
company parties, write internet comments calling you a doofus, etc.

~~~
mbrock
I don't know why you think I made that error. Is it because I said "human
right" that you think I was making a point about government censorship?

~~~
chasing
I read your comment above as saying this:

"It's a problem that women are socially punished for being abrasive because I
consider being abrasive a basic human right."

It is a basic human right to use curse words, get angry, and come off as
abrasive. That fact does not protect you from social punishment if you behave
in a way that the people around you don't want to tolerate. Nor should it.

~~~
mbrock
I meant to say if women are especially penalized in an unfair way that hinders
them from other basic stuff like career and community. Of course people are
free to dislike abrasive styles of talking. But combined with gender
discrimination, it becomes a problem. I don't think men should be excessively
punished for cursing either, but they generally aren't (in secular societies).

------
arguseyes
If US-Americans could just for a moment stop trying to impose their "culture"
on everyone else, that would be nice.

Oh, right, they can't.

~~~
delinka
Perhaps you could elaborate on how this is even relevant.

------
x1024
So which is it? Does ranting have a huge impact that keeps people out, or does
it "not have the power"? And if it's powerless, why are you so eager to censor
it, then?

Also, why don't you keep in your lane and only oppress the Go community with
your code of conduct? There's no need to also invade Linux.

~~~
enneff
It is both. It means the only people who stick around are those who can
tolerate the childishness. This certainly reduces the number of capable people
that are willing to contribute to the project.

I don't care much how Linus acts since I don't work with him. Some people try
to emulate him and I sometimes come into contact with them; that's not great
for me, but far be it from me to tell Linus how to act on his own mailing
list. All I'm doing here is pointing out the fallacies in your defence of his
silly behaviour.

Do you also prefer his hysterical style? I am hardly "invading Linux" by
commenting on an HN thread.

------
JohnDeHope
I have an idea. What if people who like Linus' style work together. And people
who like Eisenberg's style work together. And then they leave each other
alone?

------
dwb
Linus doesn't deserve to be in his position. Technical merit doesn't excuse
being a horrible manager of people.

~~~
sarciszewski
> Linus doesn't deserve to be in his position.

What exactly do you mean by "in his position"?

It's his project that he started years ago. His participation is likened to a
monarchy, not a democracy. His further involvement is, therefore, not
something that can be decided by an election.

He doesn't deserve to be in his position with respect to a project he started
and owns? That doesn't make any damn sense.

~~~
norea-armozel
Or maybe since he can't communicate without expletives or being overly coarse
he can appoint someone else to the task of explaining the problems with code
contributions?

~~~
sarciszewski
> Or maybe ... he can appoint someone else to the task of explaining the
> problems with code contributions?

Of course he _can_ , but that doesn't mean he _will_.

------
hoopd
Abusive ranting isn't healthy communication but neither are personal attacks
carefully disguised as constructive criticism.

The post raises the question as to whether passive aggression or active
aggression is the worse offender.

------
yAnonymous
Yes, it's harsh, but it gets the point across in a very memorable way.

He knows very well how people perceive it, but code quality and his reputation
as a developer are more important to him than the reputation he gets from his
rants.

~~~
mikeash
I don't find it very memorable, aside from it reinforcing the memory that
Linus is often a jerk. All the insults and general ranting get in the way of
the point, they don't reinforce it.

Compare with some classical technical rants like, say, The UNIX-HATERS
Handbook. It has a wonderful ranty tone to it, but it's also full of pretty
solid technical information and reasoned technical opinions. The tone makes it
memorable without getting in the way of the information. It's far from a
reference book, but it's great material. It's an amazing reminder of how much
the computer industry loves to forget the past and then eventually reinvent
it.

Linus's rant, on the other hand, is about... integer overflow, I guess? And
code readability? And I don't think he actually _explains_ anything about
either one, so I don't know why he prefers one version to the other, but I
know he prefers it _really_ strongly.

Churchill said, "Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such
a way that they ask for directions." Similarly, a _really_ good technical rant
is one where you call the other person a complete and utter idiot in such a
way that they thank you for your help.

------
igsmo
i read this response by linus and it doesn't seem to be abusive to anyone,
he's being critical of the code.

who is this linus guy anyway? he sounds like a typical new yorker.

~~~
such_a_casual
>who is this linus guy anyway?

lol. just the guy who wrote linux and git. He's a fin btw.

~~~
igsmo
ah. the name did sound familiar. in the position he's in, he probably sees too
much b.s. and shenanigans all day, and i imagine there are people and
organizations out there, perhaps even govts that would love to see this little
os project fail.

------
dudul
"I am certain the reaction to this text would be entirely different were it
written by a woman."

Do we really need this garbage at the end of this post? How is it f-ing
relevant? Linus' post was despicable in itself, everybody sees that except a
few zealots. People are condemning it on this very thread, why do we need to
throw this hypothetical gender bias BS?

The rant was written by a man, it is needlessly rude and aggressive, and we
all point it out. Period.

A much more relevant thing to say would have been "I am certain the reaction
to this text would be entirely different were it written by the guy who
created Linux."

~~~
ubdj2
I agree with the parent. This article adds that in, what for? Does it bring
anything interesting to the discussion? Is it even explained?

What a useless article.

