
Verbal abuse on LKML - psibi
https://plus.google.com/u/0/116960357493251979546/posts/KPLcrKLtcGo
======
miles
Wow - on a rare visit to Slashdot, stumbled across this incredibly insightful
comment by Charliemopps[1]:

 _Ironically his argument about fake politeness is EXACTLY what he 's getting.
People are pretending that his horrible behavior is acceptable just because
they don't want to get on his bad side. Acting professionally is not about
politeness, it's about not muddying up the conversation with information
that's not useful._

[1]
[http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442916...](http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=44291653)

EDIT: Had to add one more gem from the Slashdot discussion, this one by
Culture20[2]:

 _It 's not "fake politeness" to stop using abusive language, it's normal
politeness._

[2]
[http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442909...](http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=44290909)

~~~
markdown
> People are pretending that his horrible behavior is acceptable just because
> they don't want to get on his bad side.

Or maybe they're just willing to accept the occasional insult from a guy they
respect, admire, and who has done so much good for them. _Kinda_ like how
people forgive Bill Clinton for lying to them about his private shenanigans
because he was a damn good president overall.

~~~
Ygg2
Or maybe, just maybe you can be a smart, contributing person without being a
raging douche bag.

~~~
neya
Wait, you accuse him for impoliteness but excuse yourself for calling him a
'douchebag'?

~~~
Ygg2
No, I call him a douchebag or to be more precise a low grade raging douchebag.
High grade douchebags use their words to push correct buttons. I'm not sure
what does his brand (i.e. attacking one of his contributors) does other than
make people more defensive and close minded. He could have said "This commit
is utter shit, because A, and B test it and do it again" and I'd be fine. What
he said was "This commit and you are utter shit. Don't do it again."

I don't excuse myself for calling him that. I'm neither smart nor polite.

------
davidw
I like Rusty Russell's point of view:

[http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1525480](http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1525480)

" You have to be harsh with code: People mistake politeness for uncertainty.
Whenever I said 'I prefer if you XYZ' some proportion didn't realize I meant
'Don't argue unless you have new facts: do XYZ or go away.' This wastes my
time, so I started being explicit.

But be gentle with people. You've already called their baby ugly."

~~~
kingkilr
This is a false dichotomy. I do a lot of code review, both in my day job and
for many open source projects. I've never had to verbally abuse someone to
explain the changes I wanted to see in a patch.

(OSS projects I've done code review on include: Django, PyPy, Topaz, CPython,
Twisted, and OpenStack)

~~~
mercurial
Absolutely. There is a place for "I would prefer that XYZ". It often means
"you have a convention slightly different than mine, I'd rather you change
your code to fit my style but that's not a big issue". However, you can be
very explicit by saying "It's a bad idea to do XYZ and here is why, this is
what I suggest instead".

Bonus point if your code review system can flag a comment as "Defect" to make
it more explicit. It does not need to involve four-letter words or cussing in
Finnish.

~~~
davidw
I can understand not always having time to explain why something is a bad idea
when you're working on very high profile code.

I think Rusty's right: you can be unequivocally harsh with the code, but not
swear at or call people morons.

~~~
mercurial
Even if you don't have time to explain, "This is a bad/dangerous idea" is
enough to get the point across, without resorting to swear words (on the other
hand "I would prefer that" is clearly not much of an incentive to change
things) or being rude ("or go away" is definitely rude in my book).

~~~
mercurial
Actually, now that I think of it, every time code reviews have been the
occasion of heated comments (often my own, I have to say), this has been
resulted in pointless drama dragging over for some time, instead of reasonable
agreeing there is a problem and either sorting out the best solution between
themselves or resorting to a third party to make the choice.

Angry words are a waste of time!

------
izietto
This is my position:

Words are just a way to express something we want to communicate, and their
meaning must be considered within the context they are expressed.

When Linus says something like "This piece-of-shit commit is marked for
stable, but you clearly never even test-compiled it, did you?"
[https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132](https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132) ,
he clearly has an insane reaction to something that at the end isn't nothing
more than a normal human mistake.

But what his exaggerated reactions want to really express is "I INSANELY care
about kernel quality, so I have INSANE reactions to actions that lower its
value", and in this way he subliminally transmits its kernel care to the
subject of the rant.

What do you think about my interpretation?

~~~
PavlovsCat
Considering the he "despises being nice" because "that's just how he is", and
can't express what he _actually_ wants to say even though he was able to
fucking create Linux, then I think he simply fulfills the cliché of the one-
sided nerd: good with machines, bad with people, to the point of wanting
people to be like machines. I can sympathize with that to a degree, but not
really. Just because I share the sickness doesn't mean it's not a sickness.

~~~
izietto
I think he _succeeds_ to express what he actually wants to say, he just
doesn't talk with your conscience, IMHO rightly: the emotions towards
something is not a conscience matter, so it is worthless to communicate them
to your conscience; it's better to talk with the part of your brain involved
with emotions.

About "despises being nice" this seem to me just a trait of an egocentric
personality, which is fairly common in our individualist society between
overachiever people (Steve Jobs is a classic example). I don't mean it is a
pleasant behaviour, but frankly as citizen of a west country I'm used to it.

------
acqq
Sarah according to those who know more than me wrote "the entire USB3 stack"
and then in one discussion

[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus=1525074)

thus reacted on Linus claims:

 _On Fri, 12 Jul 2013 08:22:27 -0700, Linus wrote: "Greg, the reason you get a
lot of stable patches seems to be that you make it easy to act as a door-mat.
Clearly at least some people say 'I know this patch isn't important enough to
send to Linus, but I know Greg will silently accept it after the fact, so I'll
just wait and mark it for stable'.

You may need to learn to shout at people."

Seriously, guys? Is this what we need in order to get improve -stable? Linus
Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence. Ingo Molnar and
Linus are advocating for verbal abuse.

Not _fucking_ cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal
threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing
lists.

Let's discuss this at Kernel Summit where we can at least yell at each other
in person. Yeah, just try yelling at me about this. I'll roar right back,
louder, for all the people who lose their voice when they get yelled at by top
maintainers. I won't be the nice girl anymore._

I think she's definitely right. Keep it professional. The implementation of
any piece of something can be stupid. It's often not because we want to make
it that way, or because it's stupid as it is, it's stupid _in a given
context._ Somebody like Linus is somebody who must handle at that level. There
bluntness can help. Still it's about the context, not about what people who
produce work are or aren't.

Just don't call people stupid, don't intimidate, threat or abuse them
personally.

~~~
icebraining
Linus' reply:

    
    
      Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm
      not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearign a bathrobe. The
      same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, 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.
    

[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus=58317)

~~~
kingkilr
Everyone should wear a tie from time to time, it's fun!

In all seriousness, this line of reasoning is pretty fallacious, Linus has
somehow jumped from "not actively abusing anyone" to the conclusion that this
inevitably leads to backstabbing and passive aggressiveness.

He provides no evidence to support this claim, and I think many of us who work
in reasonable office environments know that this is just simply not the case.
Don't let Linus's stature cloud the fact that he's making unsubstantiated
claims and just expecting you to go along with them.

~~~
chriscool
Linus just says that he doesn't want to "act professional". Remember that he
may still feel that it is a hobby for him to work on Linux. He started it in
his spare time and, even if he is technically payed to work on it by the Linux
Foundation, he has the right to do whatever he wants with this project,
including still considering it is a hobby. Would you like someone to tell you
how you should speek with your friends outside work? By the way, people
sending him patches are not his coworkers, except perhaps Greg KH. He can see
them as friends or strangers or even as business people wanting to sell him
stuff. You cannot compare his situation with the situation of people who "work
in reasonable office environments".

~~~
kingkilr
Until my current job almost all my open source work was in my volunteer free
time as well. Whether his fellow contributors are coworkers, friends, or just
strangers who happen to know how to program, the abuse isn't acceptable.

~~~
chriscool
Almost all my open source work was in my volunteer free time as well. And I
try to be very polite and nice to others in my open source work as well as in
my regular work and on forums.

But I don't try to impose my standards, or any work place standard, upon
others.

Why do you think there is any abuse?

If you see 2 guys in the street, one insulting the other one, how do you know
there is any abuse?

Couldn't they be very good friends that have been talking to each other like
that since years? In this case, is there any abuse?

------
psibi
Complete discussion here:
[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus%3D58062)

~~~
jabiko
Start of the verbal abuse discussion:
[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focu...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58049/focus=1525074)

~~~
shib71
I'm not familiar with LKML or any of the developers, but Sarah is very
impressive in this thread. Every time someone else tries to shift the topic,
she brings the conversation back on course. She's right about a minimum
standard of civility being crucial in email. Even if no one on the list is
personally affected by the language (a big if for a large list), a single
vitriolic email can poison the atmosphere for days.

------
icebraining
It's interesting that this story has just been heavily flagged. Into sank from
3rd position to 45th in five minutes:
[http://hnrankings.info/6050443/](http://hnrankings.info/6050443/)

------
ddalex_ro
Wtf, now we fight the way Linus is dictating things around ?

Next, we'll be down to having respect for colleagues and maintain civility in
all cases.

~~~
DannyBee
In some ways, Linus is not wrong. Fake civility and fake respect do not
usually help anyone.

This does not mean you run around screaming at people, usually, that gets you
fired.

However, these folks have formed their own community, and set the rules of
conduct for it. If she wants to try to change those, great. But this should be
a discussion for members of that community, not one of trying to get the world
writ large to come down on them. (At least from where I sit, she is trying to
do the latter, rather than the former. Maybe i'm misreading it though)

Essentially, she wants the community to change not because the community wants
to, but because everyone else outside the community wants them to.

This seems, without thinking very hard, quite wrong.

She always retains the option of starting her own community, etc.

Note that even the law recognizes the issues here in the US. Generally, small
non-governmental groups can't be forced to open up membership or to avoid
discrimination. So the local old boys club generally can't be forced to accept
women, for example.

~~~
PavlovsCat
_In some ways, Linus is not wrong. Fake civility and fake respect do not
usually help anyone._

That's still a strawman, and not a valid response to anything she actually
said.

 _But this should be a discussion for members of that community, not one of
trying to get the world writ large to come down on them. (At least from where
I sit, she is trying to do the latter, rather than the former. Maybe i 'm
misreading it though)_

Have you read the actual mailing list discussion? She's rather patient, polite
and constructive, while Linus spouts mostly BS like the above strawman. So how
do you come up with that "agenda" of hers?

If you can't talk _with_ some people, the next best thing is to find people
with brains to talk _about_ those people. There is nothing wrong with that, it
should be encouraged.

 _Essentially, she wants the community to change not because the community
wants to, but because everyone else outside the community wants them to.

This seems, without thinking very hard, quite wrong._

Then try thinking, it could go a little something like this: maybe, just
maybe, she's the first mentally grown up person to stroll deep enough into
that mailing list to ever raise the point. This is not wrong, just awkward,
and "that's just the way I am" is a response fit for a 5 year old.

~~~
DannyBee
"That's still a strawman, and not a valid response to anything she actually
said."

Actually, this was Linus's response to what she said, and as I said, he's not
wrong. She wanted people to stop spouting verbal abuse and treat everyone
civilly. Linus's response was that this is essentially fake civility and fake
professionalism, and as I said, he's not wrong.

"Have you read the actual mailing list discussion? She's rather patient,
polite and constructive, while Linus spouts mostly BS like the above strawman.
So how do you come up with that "agenda" of hers?"

1\. Yes, I have.

2\. Because she posted on G+ asking for the support of others outside of the
community to support her?

The very first line of the post says:

    
    
      Please speak up, either here on Google+ by resharing this 
      post, or commenting on this post with words of support.  If 
      you dare, you can also reply to my lkml email.
    

I'm not sure how you read it another way? It deliberately tries to invoke
people who _do not participate in LKML_

"Then try thinking, it could go a little something like this: maybe, just
maybe, she's the first mentally grown up person to stroll deep enough into
that mailing list to ever raise the point. This is not wrong, just awkward,
and "that's just the way I am" is a response fit for a 5 year old."

No, actually, she isn't. I've been on various versions of LKML since 1998, and
she is definitely not the first mentally grown up person to complain. Posting
to G+ to get the general support of others not on LKML to go yell at LKML
seems, as I said, quite wrong.

Maybe you'd care to explain why you believe Linus is wrong, rather than saying
it's a response for a 5 year old? People have the right to build and associate
with the communities they like. She doesn't like his community. How is trying
to get random people on G+ to complain about it anything but the response of a
5 year old?

BTW, your tone does not come across as very civil or professional.

~~~
PavlovsCat
_2\. Because she posted on G+ asking for the support of others outside of the
community to support her? [..] I 'm not sure how you read it another way? It
deliberately tries to invoke people who do not participate in LKML_

As I said, after she tried to reason _with_ them, _on_ that list. You know,
opposed to copying and pasting lots of flamewars she just came across and
blogging about it.

 _No, actually, she isn 't. I've been on various versions of LKML since 1998,
and she is definitely not the first mentally grown up person to complain. _

That just makes it worse, you know. So they're a lost cause then.

 _Maybe you 'd care to explain why you believe Linus is wrong, rather than
saying it's a response for a 5 year old?_

"That's just how I am" is shallow unreflected bullshit no matter the context.
In context, he's deluded if he thinks he couldn't be just as blunt and firm
without making such an ass of himself. He talks about "playing the victim
card" right after playing the "that's just how I am card", I'm sorry, but this
is _so_ fucking stupid that I'd rather just laugh at it, and anyone defending
it. You can make up your narrative for that and think it proves whatever; I
just can't be arsed.

 _BTW, your tone does not come across as very civil or professional._

Because I implied brainlessness? Aww. Well, that last line comes across as
passive-aggressive and vague, and I suggest if you want to say something or
think you have a point there, just make it. Did I claim I am better? To the
contrary, that's why I don't buy the antics of Linus. Even if I did claim I
was very civil and professional while not actually being that, it would
detract zero from what I said.

~~~
DannyBee
"As I said, after she tried to reason with them, on that list. You know,
opposed to copying and pasting lots of flamewars she just came across and
blogging about it. "

This doesn't really change my point that it's honestly, nobody else's business
what a given community decides to set for it's rules, unless that community is
somehow impinging on other people's rights.

Here, it isn't. They keep to themselves. So yes, in some sense, if she can't
get people in the community to agree, she should take her ball and go home.
Appealing to mass authority in an attempt to generate pressure is not cool.

If i want to form a group of assholes that write software, that's on me. If
you want to participate in my group of assholes, that's on you.

Asking random people on G+ to whine at me for being an asshole in that group
is just childish.

------
ohwp
It's all about "constructive criticism".

We all know Linus is right most of the time. But I think his abusive tone
isn't constructive and won't motivate people to do a better job.

Edit:

 _" Adopting the most effective style of criticism should be tempered by the
cultural context, the recipient's personality, and nature of the relationship
between provider and recipient."_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_criticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_criticism)

------
andyhmltn
I don't agree with verbal abuse, but correct me if I'm wrong is this really
classified as that? [http://marc.info/?l=linux-
acpi&m=136157944603147&w=2](http://marc.info/?l=linux-
acpi&m=136157944603147&w=2)

The only reason I can see that being abuse is swearing. Swearing shouldn't be
seen as offensive. It's just a good way of expressing certain points.

------
xentronium
I've been wondering, when Linus expresses his anger at different people on
mailing lists, does he mean it? When he calls someone a fucking idiot and
tells them to shut the fuck up, does he really want to offend the _person_ or
his _actions /code_? I feel like it's the latter, i.e. when you are called a
moron, you probably did something stupid. On the other hand, once you
understand this, doesn't it devalue all the harsh words, i.e. "moron is new
horrible"? For words to be insulting they have to be used sparingly, right?

I am not a subscriber of LKML, so I am not sure, but I think that Linus
understands this and doesn't abuse/insult anyone too often, or it will not be
too effective. Otherwise, everyone would consider him a dick instead of a
blunt and straightforward person, wouldn't they?

------
neya
I share Lucas De Marchi's perspective:

    
    
        I see lots of strong words in LKML. So much that in some other lists there's the say "hey, this isn't LKML and this behavior is not appreciated here".
    
        However in this case I don't see it. Linus and Greg were in no way calling out for violence, but instead making joke about it.
    
        What I am seeing more often than I'd like is people losing the ability to joke at ourselves. For me over reaction is as disturbing as the strong words.  Go to the link you pointed out here, read it again. Knowing the people who wrote them can't you imagine their troll face?﻿
    

Honestly, she's just stirring the community into aggression mode and I'm not
overly fond of what may follow.

~~~
acqq
Can you please explain how is a pledge for not using personal abuses "stirring
into aggression mode?"

------
venomsnake
We should be allowed to insult each other. In general. But here is the thing -
if should be non discriminatory. The bullshit and idiocy should be called on
spot without taking into consideration the race, gender,age, color and
attitude towards my little pony of the offender.

So as long as Linus treats everyone as a inferior retard until proven
otherwise it is ok with me.

I think racism and sexism (and lots of other isms that split people on us and
the others) don't have place in a society but I will fight very hard for the
right of the people to express misanthropy.

TL DR: As long as Linus insults everybody it is ok.

~~~
PavlovsCat
In the words of Linus, that's bullshit, and you're stupid for even suggesting
it. If hating a subset of something is bad, then how is hating the whole
better? Because it's more "fair"? It's also a lot more destructive, and
misanthropy could be argued to include all -isms you could name, and then
some.

Here's a thought, misanthropy is always projected self-hate, delusions of
grandeur are just inferiority complexes, and Linus could use a shrink. Who
doesn't, right? So I'm not judging. But if you're for calling a spade a spade,
let's call a spade a spade.

~~~
aclevernickname
> But if you're for calling a spade a spade, let's call a spade a spade.

it's bad enough with the sexist comments in here, perhaps we could avoid the
racist ones as well?

See what I did there? how is that different from what Sarah Sharp did?

------
beachstartup
this issue comes up every couple of years - these guys write linux, you can't
make them do anything. they are untouchable and will do/say whatever the hell
they want. linus especially - is a grown ass man and does this _in person_
too, as is his prerogative. anyone see his github speech? he stands up in
front of 300 people and calls them all idiots.

~~~
icebraining
Sarah Sharp is part of the people who "write linux" \- she's the xHCI driver
maintainer at Intel.

~~~
beachstartup
if alan cox couldn't get linus to change, how the hell does she think she
will?

i honestly don't get it.

~~~
maqr
I'm not sure how many people it would take for Linus to change his ways, but
I'd guess that it'd take some kind of intervention, and that seems
exceptionally unlikely.

When Linus refuses to change, which he has and will continue to do, I'm not
sure what the next step is to squash his sometimes impolite manner. Surely you
can't ban Linus from the LKML or convince the Linux Foundation to remove him.
For better or worse, Linus and his rants are here to stay. This #kernelhackers
#abuse thing is entertaining to watch, but nobody should seriously expect a
change here.

I suppose it's FOSS, so people who agree with Sarah's position could form
their own separate fork and mailing list. More likely though is that every
time Linus posts another rant about how poor of a job somebody did, they'll
reply with some kind of shaming of his impoliteness, which Linus will simply
ignore and nothing will change.

------
bsaul
<offtopic> The mailing list threads she mentions both speak about a fix that
creates regression and linus getting angry at it. Which makes me wonder : with
that philosophy, i'm pretty sure the linux kernel code is filled with hooks to
keep the old behavior in some cases and use the new one in new cases (you
sometimes have to break things).

Is there any plan of having a non-backward compatible linux kernel one day, or
just to start deprecating features ?

------
rabino
Can't really understand the discussion. Is Linus going to change they way he
talks because some people vote for it? Yeah... don't think so.

------
whalenow
Does she read Hacker News?! Why on Earth would she like LKML to be some kind
of politically correct cesspool like this forum?

~~~
cyphax
What is it with people and binary arguments? She isn't asking for LKML to be
turned into a politically correct cesspool.

Not being an asshole does NOT have to equal being politically correct. She's
advocating clarity WITHOUT verbal abuse. That's SO easy to do: if you filter
out the f-bombs that are directed at people as well as the STFU's and you're
there.

There is so much in between verbal abuse and killing each other with kindness,
it's not even funny. I find it sad that even Torvalds thinks in black and
white like that. And then he hides behind "that's just who I am". Whatever.
Very mature. I wouldn't even consider becoming a Linux kernel maintainer, much
like I would quit my job the day my boss decides to treat his employees this
way.

------
smoyer
I don't appreciate the language he uses and, in general, I can't condone
verbal abuse. If you hear a "but" coming, there are a couple questions that I
can't answer, since I don't know Linus (personally) and I don't know what the
relationship between Linus and the maintainers in the two examples are. These
may be unpopular questions, but perhaps someone who knows can answer.

1) I hear plenty of foul and seemingly abusive language happen between
friends. Are the examples given seem more abusive because we assume the
parties are merely acquaintances? I also didn't take the time to follow the
e-mail threads to see how the conversation started.

2) I remember once when I was 17 or 18, I heard someone swearing through a
sentence (that should have been a good point in the conversation) and
immediately thought they were a dullard. Then I realized that people might
have the same perception of me and I quit swearing almost immediately. It
doesn't really matter whether you find the curse words acceptable, the reality
is that I can still verbally abuse someone using perfect grammar and
"tenpenny" words. If the banter is not good-natured banter, how do you define
verbal abuse?

3) Are Linus' responses to these e-mails simply indicative of the passion
that's also let him lead the creation and fostering of Linux over the last 20
years? Would someone without that passion (whether using foul language or not)
have succeeded in such a broad endeavor?

4) Are the supposed victims of the described abuse speaking out about this? I
would assume that if they were truly offended, they would have told at least a
few people, but I haven't seen any indication that they were offended. Linux
isn't some dictatorial regime - have people "left the empire" (quit kernel
development) because of this behavior?

5) Are the threads containing harsh criticisms balanced by e-mails pointing
out how brilliantly someone solved an issue? It's more acceptable to rant
about a mistake if you also rave over something extraordinary.

6) Has Linus ever lambasted himself publicly over his own mistakes? I tend to
think any code I wrote over six months ago is pretty crappy (it's a
perfectionist thing).

I can't condone verbal abuse, though I've seen similar abuse in person and in
a professional environment, but I also can't say this is abuse without knowing
the complete context. I tend to think personal attacks are out of place, but
commentary on the technology can be as pleasant or harsh as necessary.

Linus: If you happen to read this, first I'd like to thank you for the work
you've done. In some ways, I've grown my career as a side-effect of your work.
Second, I'd like to say that following the mailing list _would_ in fact be
more pleasurable if the place didn't feel like walking through a ghetto.

------
aclevernickname
So, can anyone tell me what Sarah Sharp has contributed to the kernel?

~~~
RyanZAG

      What role do you play in the community and/or what
      subsystem(s) do you work on?
    

_I 'm the Linux kernel xHCI driver maintainer. I own Linux USB 3.0 support,
and I send my patches up to Greg Kroah-Hartman, who is the USB subsystem
maintainer._

    
    
      Where do you get your paycheck?
    

_I work in Intel 's Open Source Technology Center, along with a bunch of other
cool Linux kernel developers._

\-- Sourced from [https://www.linux.com/news/special-feature/linux-
developers/...](https://www.linux.com/news/special-feature/linux-
developers/593966-30-linux-kernel-developers-in-30-weeks-sarah-sharp)

~~~
aclevernickname
Well, in the meritocracy that is LKML, she has a leg to stand on. I'll make
sure to send her a "thank-you" for USB 3.0 support. Thanks for answering my
question, btw. :)

------
bjourne
Oh the dhhraaaama!

------
_sabe_
I would think Linus has some form of light asperger, and when he calls someone
"dick head" thats not aggression against a physical person but in this case to
the fact that someone pushed code that does not build. He's to rational to mix
up personal feelings against somebody and the quality of the code. The only
way to get offended when Linus goes of in a rant is to think that he does.

Also maybe it's the fact that I'm Finnish too, but the best teachers from
school I remember where those that valued perfection, and I don't think they
raised their voice to abuse one, but to make a point...

I can still remember a computer teacher who went bananas every time someone
used the carriage return in the middle of a paragraph, and physically broke of
the key from the keyboard, just to show that It wasn't supposed to be used
that way. Maybe some people got offended or scared, but to me it stuck, the
importance between separating visual appearance and semantics...

~~~
Ygg2
And maybe, all of his swearing is a form of Tourette's syndrome. Let's not
rationalize it here, I doubt either one of us holds a PhD in psychology.

~~~
aclevernickname
Those of us that actually have Tourette's syndrome really get pissed when
people confuse it with Coprolalia [1]. Seeing as we're having a nice "lets-
all-be-PC" hug-fest in this thread, perhaps we can stop being insensitive to
people in this case as well?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprolalia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprolalia)

~~~
Ygg2
It was a joke. Tourette's/Coprolalia refers to having a tick like behavior
that might cause swearing. It is laughable that his writing is caused by
Tourette'ssyndrome /Coprolalia.

------
nawitus
She could've presented her critique without turning it into a gender issue:

>I won't be the nice girl anymore.

~~~
bru
I fail to see how she turned it into a gender issue with those words. She's a
woman and she's entitled to the use of the correct pronoun. Do you wish she
had written "I won't be the nice guy anymore"? That would have sounded
ridiculous.

Please note that when she points out Linus' behaviour, it is not because she
got flamed. She did not get yelled at. The whole issue has nothing to do with
her sex.

 _You_ are trying to turn it into a gender issue, which it is not - regardless
of Sarah's stances on that matter.

~~~
nawitus
I don't wish that. I guess this depends on the context. Since she refers to
feminism later on in the thread, it increased my confidence that gender was
relevant (she commented that she is not a _crazy feminist_ ).

