
Linus Torvalds: 'I'll never be cuddly but I can be more polite' - Flenser
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45664640
======
Vinnl
His feelings about two of the "sides" of this argument are so recognisable.
I'm generally in favour of going out of my way e.g. to make minorities feel
more welcome to compensate for the natural tendency to make them feel less
welcome. However, the nastiness of some of the people in "my camp" pushes me
away from it and makes me reluctant to openly support that cause.

In effect, they're really counterproductive, and the only reason Linus is now
openly on "their side" (for lack of a term that better describes what I mean),
is because the "other side" __also __was really nasty, pushing him away from
them.

It took a while for me to realise what privileges I have had that some others
have not. The first step to realising that was being open to that even being
possible, and shouting contests do not encourage that.

I'd love it if Linus' approach here would lead to less-heated discussions and
actual insights on the subject, but the hate and vitriol I've seen spewed in
his direction after his announcement doesn't make me hopeful...

~~~
simias
There will always be garbage people in "your camp", whatever that camp might
be. Hell, for some people in "your camp" you'll be the nasty one.

The big problem with the internet and modern social networks is that they suck
at filtering the noise and getting the interesting bits. In the end if we're
not careful we only hear those who shout the loudest and most provocative
things. A well researched essay on gender studies will have a hard time
getting traction, however a single "I drink white male tears" tweet is sure to
get a ton of attention from people on either of the fence even though it's
effectively void of meaning.

My solution is to spend less time focusing on people and more time focusing on
ideas. You'll find that the vast majority of people are vastly less extreme
than what twitter and reddit would have you believe.

~~~
notacoward
> for some people in "your camp" you'll be the nasty one.

I'll go one further. "The nasty one" is a role that usually begs to be filled,
even in a good cause. Sometimes it's even essential to progress. "Good cop,
bad cop" works. I'm more likely to play "bad cop" myself, though at least I'm
usually aware of it being a situational role. I've definitely said things that
would have violated a CoC if there had been one in those situations, so I do
understand the fear of them, but here's why I chose that particular metaphor:
even the bad cop is usually working within limits. That dynamic can still
exist, and still be effective, even within the limits of a CoC. People can
still be demanding, critical, even abrasive ... and they will. They just can't
be bigots or harassers and expect to keep getting away with it.

~~~
daveFNbuck
The problem with your metaphor is that "good cop, bad cop" is something you do
to someone you're trying to deceive in order to further your own agenda at
their expense. It's a way to behave toward an adversary, not someone who
you're trying to work with.

~~~
notacoward
> "good cop, bad cop" is something you do to someone you're trying to deceive

That's funny, because the goal is often to get at the truth. Is that an agenda
you find objectionable? Do you see something noble in people who are harmed by
the truth becoming known? "Bad cop" is not far from "devil's advocate" and the
tension either creates is often useful to all involved. Is role-playing the
same as deception?

> It's a way to behave toward an adversary

"Adversary" is very situational, and doesn't necessarily imply ill feeling -
certainly not to the game theorists or jurists who often use the term. It's
pretty common to have someone you generally want to work with be an adversary
in a particular context. It's a role, and civil people get over it. In fact,
codes of conduct - formal or otherwise - are often the very thing making that
possible. They keep the adversarial role "in scene" and prevent it from
turning it into permanent antipathy. Again, consider the "adversarial" nature
of our justice system, one of the most formal and rules-bound environments
most of us will ever see, whose participants are often on quite cordial terms
outside the courtroom.

~~~
daveFNbuck
> That's funny, because the goal is often to get at the truth. Is that an
> agenda you find objectionable?

Yes, I think that's the wrong agenda to have when you're collaborating on
software. A pull request shouldn't normally be an interrogation to figure out
whether the person who wrote the code is lying.

~~~
notacoward
Is lying the only alternative you can think of in this context? What about
"truth" meaning the source of a bug or the best solution, with the alternative
being merely ignorance of same? Seems like you're stretching pretty far to
make this point.

~~~
daveFNbuck
How does playing bad cop help you find the best solution to a bug? To me it
seems like you're stretching here, so how about we just assume we're both
operating in good faith?

------
JohnBooty

        > I'm still not exactly the most empathetic person. 
        > But I'm hoping I can at least 'fake it until I 
        > make it'.
    

This is great!

If you ask me, "faking it" is really just as good as "actually" being a more
helpful or empathetic person.

What do you think "actually" being a helpful or empathetic person is like?
It's basically just continually expending the effort to be helpful and
empathetic.

Let's say my brother calls me up on a Saturday morning. He needs help moving
some furniture. Do I really feel like doing that? Fuuuuuuuuuck no. Will I say
"yes" anyway? Probably, because even though I'd rather play tennis or sleep or
play video games I want to help him. So I will consciously expend the effort
to go do the good thing for him.

Am I being "actually" good there or am I just "faking it"? I don't really
think there's a difference. Nobody really wants to spend a day off moving
furniture for free.

Same thing with reviewing a pull request. I am not known as a caustic
reviewer, but that's because I spend the effort to try and make sure I'm not
caustic. What is the difference between me consciously expending the effort
and Linus consciously expending the effort? (I mean, y'know, besides Linus
being 1000x more productive and talented than me) Is one of us more
"authentic?" I would say there's no difference.

~~~
taeric
Depends entirely on how good you are at faking it. That is, if it can be
easily seen that you are faking; then no, it is not as good. Not even close.

Your brother scenario is silly. If someone calls and I don't want to help, but
can. I'll be honest and make my own choice. If they ask if this is what I'd
truly like to be doing, I'll always say no. However, in most cases, I don't
actually care what I'm doing. Could I come up with something more fun? Maybe,
but just being social in any way is typically its own ends.

~~~
thetrumanshow
On the far end of the scale, if you always answer, "Would you like to help us
carry this heavy stuff down these stairs?" with "No, in fact I would loathe
that, but I will comply in order to maintain the social bonds that are
necessary to sustain my chemically-driven life functions for the long
term."... then that will be problematic for your relationships.

I'm like you, I say yes often, and I'm honest about how excited I am to do
it... but it comes at a social cost.

Sometimes its better to fake it and be nice, even when you're bad at faking
it.

~~~
taeric
I think I misrepresented. Most people just ask, "can you come help?" To that
I'll answer how long it would take me to get over there if I can, and start
heading that way. Few people ask "would you like to help me" do anything. The
answers really are different.

That is, you aren't faking it by being nice. You are just not bringing in
extra crap to the discussion. Can you do dinner tonight? Yes or no. Not, I'd
rather go do something with someone else, but if I have to be social with you,
I can.

It is tough, because society is actually highly rewarding on bringing extra
crap to the discussion many times. In humor situations, everyone actually
enjoys it. And for situations where there is a jerk, society actually rewards
it by putting up with it.

Linus has been a tough one. Often the community has relied on his behavior to
help keep other jerks in check. People like to talk about how he is abrasive
to nvidia, but they really are somewhat abusing the spirit of the crowd, as
well. Problem seems to be that it is tough to know when to use a tool in your
disposal.

~~~
JohnBooty

         People like to talk about how he is abrasive to nvidia
    

That's a really good point. Overlooked in this discussion over Linus' manners
are the times when he was abusive toward people who arguably deserved it, like
nVidia who has historically not been a great community member.

------
mike22223333
I'm probably a person with not so great social skills. I'm a person of color.

I do not need SJW's to defend me. Please do not destroy our culture.

All of a sudden this movement to add "diversity" and other crap is just not
right. I agree there is some casual racism/racism for the sake of racism in
the community, but I am personally not even bothered and it has never affected
me (I ignored them and they stopped and some of them now are my close
friends). When I joined the industry, I felt a bit unwelcome, but just in a
months no problem was ever there. I saw that people had a different culture
then me, so I just over few months I adapted the same culture subconsciously.

The maintainers should always value merit over "diversity" or "women in tech"
agendas and other stupid similar things. We're not a playground for your
political agendas.

My personal contributions have been blocked several times, but it never
bothered me. I did what I loved, and my contributions were committed after
trying for a few times.

Instead of wondering why my commits weren't merged and blaming on
xenophobia/racism/fascism/blameism/bla bla bla , I decided to look at the
patterns of commits that were successfully accepted.

Every community has a different culture so if you cannot adopt what everyone
is following, maybe this industry is not right for you.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
>I do not need SJW's to defend me. Please do not destroy our culture.

All the SJW issues are like that, a group of people who feel they need to
defend someone else. Like these people have solved all their own problems and
can move on to "helping" everyone else.

I'm not going to get too fired up about it. But... I really cringe when I read
_" We're trying to change the predominately white face of programming"_. But,
they aren't saying they'll do that by promoting people of color, or by opening
a new distro that designed to be contributed more by people focused on social
justice.

IDK... At some point I wonder why the color of my skin is so important to the
people "trying to help".

 _edit: LOL shy downvotes. Because you can 't tell me my skin color or
physical features are important to my work - but you can't say that's not what
this is all about either. Hackernews is becoming more and more like reddit :(_

~~~
13years
The problem is this entire ideology is paradox.

Improving inclusivity through exclusivity filters.

Being accepting of everyone by closely monitoring all parameters of all
individuals to determine if they should be accepted.

------
notacoward
IMO the most interesting part - especially relative to the discussions I've
seen right here - is near the end.

"But if people at least realise that I'm not part of the disgusting underbelly
of the internet that thinks it's OK to show the kind of behaviour you will
find if you really have been reading up on the 'discussions' about the code of
conduct, then even that will be a really good thing."

Yes indeed, if you look at many of the anti-CoC comments (e.g. in the
"killswitch" thread) you get to see a lot of that underbelly. There are people
who will oppose any kind of general rule restraining behavior, because that
would prevent them from exercising their own more personal and arguably more
subtle kind of coercion against those they don't like for whatever reason. The
other alternative is for an even bigger bully to keep them in line, but I
shouldn't need to explain how "might makes right" is even more problematic.
Linus is deliberately stepping away from that bigger-bully role to give the
alternative a try, but in the above excerpt he makes it pretty clear that he
thinks there's a problem to be addressed. The creeps should consider
themselves on notice, whether there's a CoC or not.

~~~
adamrezich
>There are people who will oppose any kind of general rule restraining
behavior, because that would prevent them from exercising their own more
personal and arguably more subtle kind of coercion against those they don't
like for whatever reason.

Do you really, truly believe this is the reason why so many people are against
Codes of Conduct in open-source projects? Can you point me to this mass of
disillusioned bigots, expressing frustration at their inability to continue to
act bigoted while within proximity to open-source?

Either you've been going to wildly different parts of the Internet than I have
recently, or your understanding of the side of the argument opposite you is
based on a practically-nonexistent strawman, which is causing you to be
completely unable to understand where "the other side" is actually coming
from.

~~~
notacoward
"Do you really, truly believe this is the reason why so many people are
against Codes of Conduct in open-source projects?"

I think there are many reasons. This is certainly not the only one, but it's
one I've run into quite a bit. Keep in mind that people usually don't
_realize_ how their behavior, or their acquiescence to others' behavior, is
harming or excluding others. They feel no need for a CoC to support their side
in any dispute, because the in-group already supports them. If any piling-on
occurs, it's on their side. Thus they see only how a CoC might inhibit them in
some (usually hypothetical) scenario, while remaining blind to how it might
enable others. They oppose it "on principle" but it's a flawed principle.

But the point is not that _I_ believe that. The point is that _Linus_ clearly
does (see quote) and he's willing to do something about it. If a CoC doesn't
work, then I would expect to see him coming down personally on some of the
worst offenders. I've known and worked with a few of them, so I for one would
welcome that.

~~~
whiddershins
I truly believe you are misunderstanding Linus’ email.

He is referring to overt white nationalists and racists. Like storm front
types.

You seem to be referring to subconscious bias, which seems to be literally an
endless accusation.

~~~
notacoward
I truly believe you are misunderstanding my comments. Linus himself might
indeed only be concerned with the extreme "Storm Front types" as you say, but
the topic for the last three comments prior to yours was the people who act
offended by his actions. Subconscious bias is relevant to them, even if it's
not to him.

~~~
whiddershins
You literally wrote an assertion regarding what Linus thinks in the original
comment.

~~~
notacoward
Yes, and that assertion had nothing to do with subconscious bias. You're
conflating statements made in different contexts. Why? What useful outcome do
you expect from that?

------
davidkuhta
Anyone else get a chuckle that out of the myriad of relevant quotes, the
author selected, "He... once [described] an Intel fix as 'complete and utter
garbage'".

Good for Linus, I'm happy that he's not looking to adjust his technical
expectations:

"technically wrong is still technically wrong, and I won't start accepting bad
code just to make people feel better about themselves."

~~~
mcguire
They could have taken a quote from 2012:

" _"...should be retroactively aborted. Who the f+ck 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?"_"

~~~
kyberias
That is just super funny. It always will be.

~~~
mcguire
It is, absolutely.

If you view software development as entertainment.

If you view it asa profession, maybe not.

~~~
kyberias
Not true. The fact that professional software developer sometimes uses profane
language does not mean it is not funny.

I think Linus was actually trying to be funny with those statements. Some of
us understand that humor, some of us don't.

~~~
kthejoker2
I understand the humor, I just don't appreciate or see the value of "being
funny" in a personally insulting way to a code commit.

------
rectang
It's interesting that Torvalds describes himself as "not a people person",
when he's a gifted communicator who has been tremendously successful at
managing the community around Linux over many years. His current refinements
are making a great thing even better.

~~~
asdkhadsj
This is more of a question than a critique on your comment, but:

Couldn't he still not be a people person _(perhaps a poor communicator)_, and
still manage a successful community? I say that because historically it's been
a bit of a meme around how forceful and abrasive Linus is. Yet, he's often
right, or at the very least very informed.

He's a very smart man who has done very smart things. I'm not sure if the
Linux community inherently means he's a gifted communicator. Eg, I don't think
I could behave like Linus and make a Linux-like community - I think his talent
and intelligence carry his lack of communication skills. Which is not a
discredit to him, we're all different.

Thoughts?

~~~
rectang
Torvalds' written communications are incredibly well-composed, full of
information and get his point across well. On the basis of his emails alone,
he's a "gifted communicator" in my view. Not everyone who is as logically
brilliant as him can write like that.

Despite that, I'm sure that when he says he's "not a people person" there's
something to it. Maybe a certain difficulty reading people or anticipating
their responses?

That those two things live together side-by-side, that's what I personally
meant by "interesting".

~~~
blktiger
IMO, the thing that he doesn't seem to understand is the difference between
criticizing the implementation and criticizing the person. Pointing out flaws
in the code is not the same as calling a person stupid. If he could just learn
to explain why the code is bad most of his people problems would disappear.

Not all, since some people take criticism of their code poorly, but if you
aren't committed to the highest quality code possible then you probably
shouldn't be working on something like kernel development. There are some ways
to reduce problems with those kinds of people though. Asking probing questions
to get the person to think through the problems on their own to fix them for
example. Or having a standards document that all kernel code is expected to
conform to so you can just point out parts that don't conform to the standard.

~~~
maxxxxx
"Asking probing questions to get the person to think through the problems on
their own to fix them for example."

My impression that most of his blow ups happen after he has tried this
approach unsuccessfully.

I am just a little tech lead but over the years I have found that with some
people you have to yell at them from time to time because they don't
understand feedback that was given nicely.

------
stemc43
If not for this guy - we wouldn't have Linux. I'd much rather work with honest
person that can tell me how he really feels then nice spoken liars.

~~~
matthewmacleod
That’s essentially a cliché false dichotomy. Wouldn’t it be even nicer to work
with someone who can express how they feel in a constructive and helpful
manner?

~~~
rooam-dev
Sometimes "constructive" requires more effort, which for an engineer could
mean "overhead". Especially if communication is text based (email, chat,
etc.), it's more difficult to express your emotions.

My imho of course.

~~~
simias
As far as I can tell Linus's feedback is almost always constructive in that it
generally points out precisely why he thinks something should or shouldn't
that way. The problem is that he sometimes splices personal attacks and uses
an overly aggressive tone which doesn't really help anything.

I can somewhat justify using a very corrosive tone if you're not in a place of
power and you want to be sure that you're not ignored (I'm not a fan of it but
pragmatically it sometimes gets the job done). However it's clearly not the
case here, he has the power to reject any contribution he doesn't fancy. And
his developer clout is huge enough that he'd still be heard if he criticized
third party projects he doesn't maintain.

From a purely pragmatic point of view I don't see what his corrosive tone gets
him. Actually I can easily see what it cost him, some devs have resigned from
their maintainer position in the Linux kernel and probably many more who gave
up contributing at all because they were worried they were going to be shot in
flight.

~~~
eropple
You are highlighting the false dichotomy that a lot of folks in this thread--
and, if I'm being frank, not for good, decent, or ethical reasons--are piling
in on.

You can do something that makes people upset without being an asshole.

It's really that simple.

"No, I won't merge this pull request because of X, Y, and Z." Somebody's
probably not going to be happy. But you have not needed to _stoop_ to
insulting them. You have not been an asshole. You have done your job, you have
kept whatever level of high technical quality you care about. But you have not
been an asshole.

It is not hard to do both, and if you are but-forring Linus's decision to
maybe be less of an asshole it's probably look-in-the-mirror time.

~~~
matz1
Is it better to train myself to not be affected with insult ? If some one say
to me "No, you stupid pile of sheet, I won't merge this pull request because
of X, Y, and Z." I'll just ignore the insult part or at very least to not let
myself negatively affected and move on.

~~~
eropple
No, it's not.

It is better to respond coolly to assholish behavior. But it is not better to
allow it to remain unchallenged. Not challenging assholish behavior means that
it becomes a community norm and is then incumbent upon everybody else to
"train" themselves, as you say, to ignore the behavior of a minority of
assholes. It hands the responsibility of defining what the culture _is_ to
those assholes.

Letting the assholes normalize the culture is bad. It decreases uptake. It
increases, even if people "train" themselves, the likelihood of burnout and of
departure. And it makes the world, even if incrementally, a worse place.

~~~
matz1
Isn't is easier to change one person namely myself, rather than try to change
one other person, let alone many?

The culture and the world always evolving and changing, it can be worse or
better or whatever, most importantly for me is how can I make myself adapt to
the every situation and make the best of it.

~~~
eropple
I don't care about "easier" and I don't think you should either. Why would
"easier" be even on the radar?

"Changing yourself" and letting rot fester is of little value to anyone. Be so
mildly discomforted as to push back on other people's nasty behaviors and you
make the world a better place.

Do what is right.

~~~
matz1
Because is practical, obviously changing myself to adapt to every situation
has value for me, it makes a world a better place for me. what is right is
relative, this is what I think Right.

------
gambler
_> But if people at least realise that I'm not part of the disgusting
underbelly of the internet that thinks it's OK to show the kind of behaviour
you will find if you really have been reading up on the 'discussions' about
the code of conduct, then even that will be a really good thing._

And here is a perfect example of why so many people are alarmed by his CoC
adoption. This. The idea that community leaders must make _institutional_
changes to signal that they - personally - arent's "the disgusting underbelly
of the internet". Pause and think about it.

~~~
iliketosleep
Actually, is this an example of what they call "virtue signaling"?

~~~
bluntfang
It's not virtue signaling because there's actually action behind the words. If
there was just a statement without change or action, it would be virtue
signaling.

~~~
iliketosleep
Thank you. I get it now. It's one of those terms I'd heard often but never
completely understood.

~~~
whiddershins
Virtue signaling can involve action. I disagree with the above definition.

Actually a really strong signal is an action that is a sacrifice, regardless
of whether it has a real positive impact.

------
alfredmuffin
I question the professional experience of those suggesting that continuing to
be an asshole is the preferable situation here ("but at least he's _HONEST_
"). That would simply not fly at my company.

It is absolutely possible to be kind when giving honest and constructive
feedback and criticism. Empathy is a skill this industry needs to develop.

~~~
iagovar
Are there more Europeans here in HN? Because this hard push for empathy and
stuff it just feels... weird to me. Empathy as the ability to see through your
own biases and understand others POV is good in every setting. Empathy as a
way to not communicate directly is just a waste of time.

Most malicious people I've encountered in my career are the types that comes
with smiles, corporate language and all that stuff.

~~~
fireflash38
'Empathy' in most of these cases mean: don't act like a vitriolic douche.

Don't insult or belittle the person. Learn to critique without being an
asshole about it.

On the other hand: _take_ criticism of your work without taking it personally.
That's arguably a lot harder than the former, but it's gotta be done. It helps
a lot when the person isn't being an asshole about the criticism though :)

~~~
alfredmuffin
It is indeed a two way street.

------
navane
I would like to see a scatter diagram with 'technical contribution' on one
axis and 'CoC contribution' on the other axis, for all people involved.

~~~
tao_oat
If an improved CoC means that more people feel able and encouraged to
contribute, does that then count in favor of the 'technical contribution' axis
for the people who wrote it? If not, your plot isn't all that useful.

------
yosefzeev
I don't need my computer tools to define my political/spiritual beliefs. In
fact, I think Torvalds adopting something like this in relation to Linux is a
deep betrayal of a hacker ethos.

I will be keeping my eyes peeled for alternatives that understand the division
between spiritual beliefs and "forced agreement with an assertion by
participation" that uses religious terminology that has quite a different
meaning to me. So far, hurd and is promising.

~~~
Millennium
It is indeed a deep betrayal of _a_ hacker ethos: in particular, Geek Social
Fallacy #1 (Ostracizers Are Evil). And you know what? That's probably a good
thing.

The radical inclusivity (i.e. exclude no one, for any reason) of the geek
community led to some beautiful things. We took in the people nobody wanted
around, and with their help, we built something special. But in our reluctance
to exclude anyone, we forgot something important. We were all accused of
dragging things down and ruining things for other people -it's part of what
bound us together- but we neglected to address the fact that for some of us,
_that was true_. And we became their enablers, and they _did_ drag us down and
ruin things for everybody, because that's what they _do_ , and we did not
insist that they change or leave. Many people preferred to just leave
themselves, rather than confront the manchildren in our midst: a _de facto_
exclusion, rather than mandated by any sort of rule. We were, in essence,
abused and manipulated by the people we should have kicked to the curb, and
because of this, they took over.

This is ending. And that scares some people to death, and not even
unreasonably so: these are people who were rejected by their societies all
their life before finding geekdom, which they clung to because, in its refusal
to reject anyone, it could never reject them. Anyone who remembers being an
outcast would be scared by the possibility of geeks beginning to cast people
out, because it opens the potential that _they_ might be cast out yet again.
Who wouldn't fear that? Especially after years of growing unused to outcast
status?

And yet, it has to be done. It should have been done a long time ago. Those
who get cast out because of this still have the option that has been facing
them since childhood: they can change. Because sometimes, the ostracizers are
right.

~~~
furgooswft13
Who, or what exactly are you talking about?

~~~
Millennium
People are afraid of being cast out of the community because of the CoC, are
they not?

~~~
furgooswft13
I guess for what they'd consider unjust and bullshity reasons that have
nothing to do with the project, yes. Publicised instances such as donglegate,
opalgate, drupalgate, Brendan Eich all fit that mold.

But really I'm just wondering when you say things like "they did drag us down
and ruin things for everybody", who exactly are you talking about? Examples?
Every group will have its pariahs but I don't see hacker culture as being
"ruined for everyone". Quite the opposite. They do eschew social norms, which
I guess is more of a problem since open-source has been taken over by big
business with the usual endless need for bureaucracy and PR.

~~~
pseudalopex
In the "dongle" incident, both the men who made the jokes and the woman who
tweeted about it were fired. People in the community seem to think it was
badly handled all around. Someone on HN recently mentioned that the jokers
found new jobs right away but the tweeter didn't.

If "Opalgate" means the attempt to remove Elia Schito, it failed.

If "Drupalgate" means the removal of Larry Garfield, he insisted on bringing
elements of his fetish subculture into technical events.

Brendan Eich remained CTO of Mozilla even after his material support for
discrimination became widely known. People opposed his promotion to CEO
because his actions cast doubt on his ability to represent Mozilla's values
and to look out for the interests of LGBT employees. He chose not to distance
himself from his past decisions and eventually to resign. According to
Mozilla, he declined to stay in another C-level role. He's currently the CEO
of another company in the same market.

~~~
furgooswft13
Thanks for the history lesson. Yea, all seems pretty shitty, whether any
incident succeeded or failed, or someone got kicked out or just put in the
basement.

Interesting that all of these seemingly sprung out of some private action
becoming publicly known, rather than the person's behavior on the project/job
itself (as for Drupalgate, you claim he brought his fetish into technical
events, but nothing I've read about it corroborates that).

------
l8again
Here we go normalizing verbal abuses to just "not being polite enough". This
culture is now so pervasive in our industry that people are wearing their
rudeness to their fellow coworkers as a badge of honor. I have seen incredibly
meek guys on the outside turn into monsters as soon as they get into their
roles of lead devs or tech leads. Repeat after me - "Kindness is cool."

~~~
sonnyblarney
There's a huge difference between being 'very frank' and being a true douche.
Both can be perceived as jerkoff but I think only the later really counts as
that.

As far as 'meek guys' turning to jerks with a taste of power - it's very
common for all types.

Without going into my background I had a chance to witness 100's of young
people come into, and go out of power. Almost everyone 'over identifies' with
their power when they first get it. It takes 'coming out of power' to have
self reflection and awareness about it.

Tragically - so many people in their careers just go 'up' the power ladder and
never develop any awareness. It takes going 'down' or 'laterally' a few
notches to really internalize the lessons.

The situation I was in, I witnessed a lot of 'power rotation' i.e. people
taking turns being lead/manager. It was a really, really powerful thing.
Though this was not in high tech and a completely different field, not sure it
would work in tech.

~~~
jlawson
I'd love to read more about what you've seen with power rotation, with any
specifics or stories you could give. It's not something I've heard before.

~~~
rich_ard
It's a feature of Boy Scouts and the patrol method, in which youth are
encouraged to take on leadership positions for six-month periods.

------
wayne_skylar
This is something that has always bothered me about Linus. There are other
extremely gifted programmers out there that don't seem to need to resort to
this kind of persona. I always enjoyed hearing John Carmack speak because he
is extremely smart and knowledgable and he doesn't look like he has a
superiority complex.

But the real problem with Linus is the example he sets. I am not a kernel dev,
so I don't know the validity of his rants but I assume he is mostly right. But
this certainly sends a message to less-talented developers that it's okay to
be a dick when you are right.

Ultimately I feel that the most important thing I have learned as a developer
is to never associate your ego with your code. I've done that in the past and
take great pains to not repeat it. Don't look at your PR as some great work of
art that should be perfect. If both sides of the code review treat it as a
collaborative process then you can both learn something from it.

~~~
ordu
What really bothers me, it when people start to speak about someone who "sends
message", "sets wrong example" and so on.

It bothers me, when people think about others, like they are less intelligent.
If you can see, that Linus's behaviour is wrong and shouldn't be followed, why
do you think, that other could not see it? It is because all others are stupid
children and they need to be led to the right direction, isn't it? You know,
I'm russian, and I see a lot of this thinking around me, all the deeply
patriotic and deeply religious people around me thinks like that. "We should
restrict access to internet, for others do not get information they are too
stupid to understand _properly_ ". I hate it, and probably extra-sensitive for
such a thinking, and it really bothers me when I see it.

I can suggest different way of thinking: if Linus's behaviour is wrong, then
it gives you endless opportunity to illustrate your point with real world
examples. You can compare Carmack with Torvalds because Torvalds exists and
being himself.

------
ritchiea
The idea of faking it until you make it is exactly what Linus needs. Most of
the point of communication is for the other person, especially giving feedback
on patches. We all need to vent but we shouldn't vent at the people below us
in an organization. Venting is for a counselor, and maybe a close peer? And
it's ok if he's frustrated with people, he just shouldn't take it out on them.

Maybe he could find someone to get his own frustrations out to, while only
sharing the productive, practical code related aspects with his developers.

~~~
Nasrudith
Personally I consider fake it until you make it an incredibly dangerous ideal.
That is how you get the Great Leap Forward, Banzai Charges, and Theranos. It
leads to far too many delusions that become the seeds of downfall.

Better to say in the case of Theranos state that the initial idea is proving
non-viable but we have assembled a good talent base in biotech. We technically
could liquidate the existing investment but that wouldn't work well for
recovering the assets. We can pivot to find tests that do work on fingertip
blood other than existing glucose or other areas of research instead would
have kept Holmes out of prison and potentially gotten a success out of it.
Failure happens and an honest postmortem with a way forward is better than
going ponzi.

~~~
ritchiea
It is quite a stretch to compare making yourself be kind to a colleague or
underling despite your own frustrations with defrauding investors.

------
arayh
I feel that Linus makes a good role model in the sense that he has real-world
communication problems that he both recognizes and is attempting to overcome.
This is not an easy thing to do and a lot of people undermine this reality.

------
duxup
"fake it" isn't even necessarily. Just finding new ways to express the same
thing that is received differently and a different approach the sender takes
when sending. It's all about learning skills and how to deploy them best.

That's not to say it is EASY, but it isn't a monumental change IMO. It's just
a personal API change ;)

------
ryandrake
I’m all for civility, but we (tech culture, primarily Silicon Valley) are
starting to move past civility, towards expecting everyone to self-censor and
walk around on eggshells in order to avoid even potentially offending someone.
I’ve worked with my share of unpleasant assholes, and am glad that
professional, civil conversation is back on the menu, but the pendulum is
still swinging. Worried about where it will end up.

------
pytyper2
There are a lot of us like Linus. The easy solution is not emotional
counseling, it's an assistant/editor who can tone down his public comments.
This is not a new problem.

~~~
maxxxxx
True. Have someone do a quick check before sending. "Do you really want to say
it that way?"

------
kristianc
I think this comes across as incredibly nuanced and thoughtful.

Often we only see the outer surface of what people are actually like, and make
judgments on their character based on that.

------
conradfr
To the person who said (since deleted or moderated) that Linus changed because
"they" had dirt on him : his daughter signed the "Post-Meritocracy Manifesto"
and is into "intersectional feminism" so I think a more pragmatic answer is
that she convinced him to change.

~~~
sonnyblarney
There's no need for intersectionalism in this at all.

In fact, I'd argue it's wrong.

Intersectionalism would argue that peoople of different backgrounds must have
special treatment.

There's no need for that whatsoever.

All we need is for people to not personally attack or demean others.

After that ... people should be free to be more 'candid' at the possibly cost
of upsetting someone, or more 'sensitive' at the possibly cost of the message
being lost in sugar coating as they feel suited.

Linus can be harsh as long as it's valid criticism of a subject (or maybe big
corp), not a person.

Beyond that he's fully within his rights to say whatever. He does not need to
treat people different given whatever background they have.

------
matz1
I don't understand, what forced him to have to change his behavior? As far as
i know he has the highest authority of linux kernel. To me he his kind of guy
who can say fuck you, my way or highway. Which i admire that.

~~~
panzagl
Because he knows it's only a matter of time until someone grabs an email of
his from 1998 and uses it as the centerpiece of a twitter shitstorm.

------
luord
As someone who doesn't give a damn about other people so I treat everyone
(except family and the few friends I have) with the same curtness, here's
hoping what Linus said here is just an "extra mile" thing (but even that sets
a not necessarily good example). I never insult anyone, but I'm also never
friendly to anyone, beyond a perfunctory smile when buying something from a
cashier for example.

I'm similarly short on text. Linus saying that he could be more polite tells
me that even that is not "PC" enough and, if so, that's a problem. Nobody is
owed any friendliness or niceness, just acknowledgement, and even that only if
the other person needs us.

In short, I thought he just needed to stop insulting people, but that that
aside, there was no problem with his communication, apparently that's not the
general consensus. Or I'm hoping I'm reading the situation wrong.

------
scott_s
Something I don't think he has internalized yet is that it's not about
"politeness" or "cursing." It's about _abuse_ , which is still possible while
being polite and without cursing.

~~~
kyberias
Have you internalized that cursing is not necessarily abuse? Linus has
basically just being angry to people and cursed.

~~~
scott_s
Insulting people based on the work they produce is abuse.

~~~
kyberias
Dictionary definition for abuse is: "treat with cruelty or violence,
especially regularly or repeatedly."

I don't think Linus has ever treated anyone with cruelty or violence.

Saying to someone "shut up" or that their specific work item is garbage, is
not abuse.

~~~
scott_s
Linus regularly and repeatedly was cruel to people when he perceived they made
mistakes. Examples of his behavior are easy to find, and widely cited in any
discussion on HN about it.

~~~
kyberias
No, he wasn't cruel to people. If someone makes a mistake and one reacts to
that with strong language is not cruel. It's actually love. People make stupid
mistakes. Making them and everyone else understand that certain stuff is not
acceptable is important.

Was it absolutely necessary or optimal to react that strongly? No. But not
cruel.

~~~
scott_s
_Insulting_ people is necessarily cruel. It is done to make the one saying the
insult feel better at the expense of the one insulted. And insulting people is
not necessary when correcting them.

------
HugoDaniel
Adding to the drama, I wonder what Stallman has to say about all this...

~~~
DC-3
He wrote a very brief email.

[https://i.redd.it/1lbta0g910n11.png](https://i.redd.it/1lbta0g910n11.png)

~~~
zellyn
That email is just so Stallman. You have to enjoy his single-mindedness.

~~~
DC-3
The world could descend into apocalypse and he'd still be typing curt
dispatches about terminology from his libreboot thinkpad.

~~~
dleslie
Strangely, that's a comforting thought.

------
nailer
I remember looking at Linux's angrier style maybe 15 years ago (I would have
been 22) and not being bothered. Someone made a stupid mistake and was getting
a bollocking.

Looking at it as a 37 year old last week, I'm surprised a grown man needed to
be so aggressive. You can destroy the opinion or the behavior using reason
without the aggression, which distracts.

I like that Linux is changing this, though I do have concerns about the CoC
being used for political purposes (eg, recent harassment of Ted Tso).

~~~
steve_taylor
> I do have concerns about the CoC being used for political purposes

That's the CoC's entire purpose. Its author (the same person behind the post-
meritocracy manifesto) has said that yes, the CoC _is_ a political document.

~~~
nalllar
Being political isn't a problem. Free Software is political.

mjg59 put this far better than I could:

> A reminder that free software is fundamentally about breaking down barriers
> preventing people from participating in a social endeavour that grants them
> more control over their computers, and anyone who argues against that
> process is not helping the cause of free software

> Some of those barriers are technical (DRM, proprietary software,
> undocumented hardware) and some are social (unwelcoming communities, abusive
> maintainers). You don't get to focus on one category and deny the other.

> Alleged free software advocates who defend abusive individuals aren't
> helping the cause of free software by doing so. Push back.

> "If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution" \- the GNU
> manifesto by Richard Stallman, 1985.

[https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1042709376442687490](https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1042709376442687490)

~~~
nailer
mjg's quote was concerning ethics and abuse, and does not mention politics.

The concern is that the CoC itself may be used to abuse individuals.

Asides from the Tso example, there was someone else harassed because, outside
of a project, they expressed a sexual preference for male dominant/female
submissive roles.

~~~
pseudalopex
Can you explain what you mean about Ted Ts'o? I know there's a story going
around that people are calling him a rape apologist because he didn't endorse
the CoC. People have called him a rape apologist for years because of
arguments he made about rape.

If your other example is Larry Garfield, he's part of a subculture that's
controversial even in BDSM circles, and he insisted on bringing elements of
that subculture into technical events. Also, the official position seems to be
that he didn't actually violate Drupal's code of conduct, but they removed him
anyway.

------
golergka
> That has now been replaced by a more detailed Code of Conduct - which
> retains the acronym, but attempts to be more inclusive and eliminate
> insulting and derogatory comments and behaviour.

To include only this short paragraph about the new CoC and omit any reference
to the huge controversy this have generated in the community is extremely
biased reporting on BBC's part.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_omit any reference to the huge controversy this have generated_

That’s something that hasn’t happened, though. It’s a storm in a teacup, like
all this stuff is.

~~~
eropple
Yes, and this is important to understand for those who happen to be browsing
by: there is a political faction on the internet who really would like people
to believe that there is some Huge Controversy about the Contributor Covenant
or about any of the principals involved or this or that.

But there isn't. Sure, there are some mad people. But they are a rounding
error of give-a-shit and their political position, for it is a political
position--specifically, status quo regressiveness camouflaged as
neutrality[0]--depends on manufacturing consent that does not exist.

[0] - I have yet to see someone claim that they're "not being political"
who...isn't. Or somebody claim that somebody else is "being political" when
that claimant is not advocating for some nasty stuff. The world's political
and somebody trying to frame "politics" as a negative is trying to get you
over a barrel.

------
devit
I think the explanation for Linus' behavior is this: when he looks at works
that he believes are technically wrong, he's probably displeased, frustrated
and afraid that other contributions with the same technical issues might go
through unnoticed.

As a result, he sometimes insults the code and the person, probably because
that relieves those negative emotions, "compensates" for the pain he had to
endure reviewing the technically wrong work and makes his opinion as loud as
possible so that the likelihood that other contributions have the same issues
is minimized.

The solution is for him to be more emotionally accepting of the fact that some
people are technically less skilled and some contributions are not well done
and just accept the negative feelings without having to insult others to
compensate, while also expressing better when he feels that a mistake should
be carefully avoided in the future as it might otherwise happen again.

------
gwbas1c
I'm far from perfect and have made plenty of poor comments.

IMO, these happen when there is an underlying organizational problem. It's not
tolerance of bad behavior that's the problem, tolerance of bad behavior just
means that the organization is unwilling to address the real problems.

In my direct experience, I was part of an organization that didn't train
newcomers in process or define clear divisions of labor. The organization made
no effort to accommodate it's need for uninterrupted programmer time.

As the organization fixed its _management_ problems, I got less feedback about
these kind of remarks. It also helped that when these kinds of remarks happen,
management realized it is not doing its part to direct the organization well.

------
whiddershins
The article literally quotes him out of context, then prints his full email
showing they quoted him out of context, and hopes you won’t notice????

He didn’t call the Linux community “a morass of nastiness" ... he was
referring to Twitter mobs.

How could the article get that so wrong?

------
smoothy2
The only functional change out of this whole drama is that now every project
will eventually come to be run by SJWs.

Looks like the main change that the COC will introduce from previous status
quo is that anyone anytime can be Brendan Eiche'd out of an open source
project whereas previously the understanding was that you could accept code
contribution from Alex Jones himself as long as the code contribution to
project itself was reasonable.

Edit: I should add that I'm a non-white person. Shameful that adding this
piece of information might bring some more credibility to my input.

------
doktrin
Fair enough, honestly. As someone who's broadly sympathetic to his managerial
style, I totally understand the desire to distance himself from those in the
'underbelly of the internet' who use an 'anti PC / SJW' stance to (poorly)
mask their own bigotry.

------
mfrw
tl;dr

> "Will everybody be happy? No. People who don't like my blunt behaviour even
> when I'm not being actively nasty about it will just see that as 'look,
> nothing changed'. I'm trying to get rid of my outbursts, and be more polite
> about things, but technically wrong is still technically wrong, and I won't
> start accepting bad code just to make people feel better about themselves."

------
rick22
Its confusing. Linus is ok to have the post-meritocratic COC at the same time
will not accept the code that is low quality code. So he is saying you can
have all the COC but i will not follow it.

------
tomlock
Does anyone else find it weird how so many people can think Linus is utterly
brilliant and thoughtful, can agree with him on almost everything he's done
and said up to this point, but fall back on the belief that he's been
conspired against and corrupted when he says things like:

> "...I may have my reservations about excessive political correctness, but
> honestly, I absolutely do not want to be seen as being in the same camp as
> the low-life scum on the internet that think it's OK to be a white
> nationalist Nazi, and have some truly nasty misogynistic, homophobic or
> transphobic behaviour. And those people were complaining about too much
> political correctness too, and in the process just making my public stance
> look bad.

> "And don't get me wrong, please - I'm not making excuses for some of my own
> rather strong language. But I do claim that it never ever was any of that
> kind of nastiness. I got upset with bad code, and people who made excuses
> for it, and used some pretty strong language in the process. Not good
> behaviour, but not the racist/etc claptrap some people spout.

> "So in the end, my 'I really don't want to be too PC' stance simply became
> untenable. Partly because you definitely can find some emails from me that
> were simply completely unacceptable, and I need to fix that going forward.
> But to a large degree also because I don't want to be associated with a lot
> of the people who complain about excessive political correctness."

I dunno, maybe if he was being brilliant and thoughtful for all those years,
he's still... being brilliant and thoughtful now?

~~~
krapp
Unfortunately, we've come to the point in online discourse where any form of
self-restraint or politeness is seen by some as excessive political
correctness, and accepting any form of nuance is giving in to SJW propaganda.

------
greenhatman
We couldn't have hoped for a better outcome, I think. This is the perfect
outcome.

------
yashap
His quotes about political correctness are pretty interesting. Basically that
neo-Nazis have tried to brand themselves as “just practical people against
excessive political correctness,” but really that’s just a facade covering
their true hate and racism. But now, if you’re ACTUALLY just someone who’s
against excessive political correctness, you risk being associated with neo-
Nazis.

I’d consider myself pretty left-wing - for compassion towards others, very
strongly against racism, sexism and homophobia, very pro immigration and
multiculturalism. Still, I do often find current levels of political
correctness a bit much - like if someone uses he/she, they’re almost never
intentionally being anti-trans, so who cares? Or simply many on the left
flying into outrage too easily. But it’s hard to express these views now,
because neo-Nazis have been putting up this facade of “just against political
correctness,” when in fact there’s real hate behind it. And now many on the
left take any deviance from political correctness to indicate a neo-Nazi. Not
a great situation, and certainly not one that encourages people to have
productive conversations/disagreements.

~~~
gwbas1c
> Basically that neo-Nazis have tried to brand themselves as “just practical
> people against excessive political correctness,”

Don't conflate the alt-right with neo-nazis. Neo-nazis are people who
explicitly define themselves as such. Other people who have the mindset that
leads to things like nazism don't realize it. They really aren't trying to
hide anything; they just have certain fears and concerns that the left isn't
empathetic enough to address.

~~~
yashap
FWIW, I was referring to actual neo-Nazi types, people with a real hatred for
other races, who try to put it behind a facade of standard conservatism.
Similar to what Linus was talking about here:

> Because I may have my reservations about excessive political correctness,
> but honestly, I absolutely do not want to be seen as being in the same camp
> as the low-life scum on the internet that think it's OK to be a white
> nationalist Nazi, and have some truly nasty misogynistic, homophobic or
> transphobic behaviour. And those people were complaining about too much
> political correctness too, and in the process just making my public stance
> look bad.

------
modzu
damn. we need more linus, not less.

------
another-cuppa
I guarantee this will not increase kernel quality, nor will it increase the
number of contributions from women.

~~~
aembleton
Why not?

------
mishurov
How will Linux ever recover? I want kernel to be based and red-pilled.

------
RVuRnvbM2e
> Because I may have my reservations about excessive political correctness,
> but honestly, I absolutely do not want to be seen as being in the same camp
> as the low-life scum on the internet that think it's OK to be a white
> nationalist Nazi, and have some truly nasty misogynistic, homophobic or
> transphobic behaviour. And those people were complaining about too much
> political correctness too, and in the process just making my public stance
> look bad.

> ...

> But if people at least realise that I'm not part of the disgusting
> underbelly of the internet that thinks it's OK to show the kind of behaviour
> you will find if you really have been reading up on the 'discussions' about
> the code of conduct, then even that will be a really good thing.

So the obnoxious Manosphere who are the most (only?) vocal critics of the new
CoC forced his hand in the first place. How fittingly ironic.

------
pleasecalllater
Some people are true leaders; some people are true bullies. This is a free
world, you can choose your role. I'm choosing to stay away from bullies.

~~~
baud147258
> I'm choosing to stay away from bullies.

Who are the bullies in your opinion? Don't be shy, name and shame!

