

Cleaning up software older than me - fcambus
http://blog.anthrobsd.net/043.html

======
guru_meditation
The article author carries the same kind of exuberance I saw in people who
discovered programming in the 1980s.

I also read his amusing presentation on OpenBSD here. I don't really program
in pure C anymore, but I liked learning about strlcat and strlcpy, among other
things [1].

It's amazing that a self-described programming newbie gets his changes
committed into a high-stakes-security distro like OpenBSD. My conjecture is
that this must say something about the OpenBSD developer community culture.

Has anyone reading this commited to both Linux and OpenBSD? It looks to me
like the OpenBSD crowd is a lot friendlier, at least judging by some
relatively recent comments from Linux developers [2] (funny, but ouch.)

[1] [http://www.nycbug.org/event/10343/bcallah-
nycbugjan2014.pdf](http://www.nycbug.org/event/10343/bcallah-
nycbugjan2014.pdf)

[2] [https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495](https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495)

~~~
Fuxy
Being called out on your stupid choices is a good thing.

Now this is Linus pointing it out so it's going to be rude and funny at the
same time.

Does that really make it less friendly of a crowd?

Personally I think not but you might feel like it is if you don't know the
people involved that well.

~~~
stingraycharles
I personally would not feel comfortable in such an environment. It feels
hostile and incredibly authoritive. Personally I prefer to work with projects
that have a more cooperative management style.

~~~
Fuxy
Authoritive? Would it feel different if Linus was just one of the contributors
to the kernel instead of the one in charge?

Because I'm quite certain everybody is treated equally and there is no pecking
order just a chain of trust.

Plus he is cooperative how do you think the bad code / design made in the
kernel in the first place.

It's a chain of trust and he trust the people involved to vet most of the code
for him however he has the right to complain if someone messed up.

Now how he does it is uniquely his way and everybody should know that by now
but ignoring that i don't see a problem.

~~~
forgottenpass
Don't waste your breath. The idea that "Linus makes contributors feel
unwelcome" is a self-fulfilling prophecy and the people who want it to be true
have a stronger social media presence than those who don't.

~~~
stingraycharles
You can also say that it makes for a good pre-selection process of people who
are willing to cope with his attitude. So in that way, your "self-fulfilling
prophecy" just means that there is a selection bias in people who are willing
to contribute to the linux kernel.

~~~
Fuxy
The only pre-selection process happening here is people who take themselves
too seriously and get offended easily are less likely to contribute.

If I would have been the guy who wrote that piece of code and read this I
would have realized 1. I made a mistake and 2. got roasted by Linus for it in
a somewhat funny way.

Wouldn't look much more into it.

Why do we enjoy celebrity roasting shows as comedy but when someone does the
same thing on a mailing list everyone gets offended?

It does take a bit of self confidence to take it though which not all of us
have but this is a good opportunity to work on it.

