Linus does not fuck around
Linus does not fuck around
An oldie, but a goodie
508 comments
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I feel it's equally important to point ot that Torvalds recognized his toxic behavior, apologized for it, and took steps to rectify it.
In an email to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, which also addresses the kernel update of Linux 4.19-rc4, Torvalds writes: "I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely."
"I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately."
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That was seriously admirable. From memory he actually did improve quite a lot after that as well.
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I've heard he's not perfect but he doesn't lose his temper anymore and has only gotten better with age. I respect anyone who can self reflect and introspect and come out a better person.
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I'm really glad you added this, that was pretty awful to read.
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It's sad we don't get this energy anymore. Who will keep the fuckers in line now
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Not going to touch the general toxicity as it's something Linus has already apologized and worked through with professional help, but I love the attitude when it comes to responsibility.
Far too often it's easier to blame someone else for error."No this is our problem, and I'm ashamed you're trying to blame someone else for it" is respectable take
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His style of being direct, having a high quality threshold and calling out bullshit immediately and bluntly is why the Linux kernel went from a university project to powering everything from lightbulbs to super computers. I think it kind of ridiculous that this demonstrably effective style got framed as "toxic" just because he hurt a few people's fee-fees.
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Demonstrably effective
Where's the logic in looking at something successful and picking a singular thing to be responsible? What seems more likely is you are looking for an idea you are attached to that exists adjacent to something successful. It's like a Mormon looking for successful Mormon CEOs to then claim the company's success is due to the Mormon work ethic. It's like how in Whiplash the Charlie Parker story is venerated and seen as explanatory by the characters.
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I think too many people get upset about swearing. It brings a strong emphasis, it's not disrespect imo. Knowing how Linus is, I'd take that response in stride. I appreciate his direct approach especially to the brazen arrogance of someone too full of themselves to see themselves as wrong. It wouldn't be a great way to start a conversation, but as an ender it's terribly effective. He called a fucking idiot a fucking idiot. That shouldn't be toxic. Not everything that hurts someone's tender feels is toxic. The intent should be taken into consideration.
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I agree on the first part. However this is from 2012 and in the meantime Linus himself realized and admitted that he was not proud of behaving like that and took real measures and seeked help in order to improve himself.
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I totally agree. I have mad respect for Linus for the work he's done and the immense amount of removedation he's had to sift and fight his way through.
I have very little respect for the people critiquing his behavior while contributing nothing of value themselves.
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Hell yeah. But it's not considered good anymore, everyone has to be very nice and whatnot. Too bad imo but I guess less hurt feelings.
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Getting angry = tOxiCK i cry evertem
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So I recently had a conversation with some who though Linus Torvalds (kernel) and Linus Sebastian (Linus Tech Tips) was the same person.
That was a pretty funny and confusing conversation.-
Imagine Torwalds doing reviews of old CPU coolers and completely losing his shit 🤣🤣🤣
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Yes, please! 🍿
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you know... that could be YT gold right there.
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But LTT-Linus is 17 years younger and Canadian. O_O
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Time to merge both Linus branches together into a Linus Hivemind.
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I was a couple weeks into using Linux before this was made clear to me and the world made a lot more sense.
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The trick is to listen to the pronunciation. Linus of LTT pronounces it as Linus, while Linus of Torvalds uses either Linus or Linus, but he doesn't mind if people call him Linus.
/s
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"You are HIV aladeen"
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Yeah, those mailing lists used to have some quite funny stuff; my favorite so far is smth along the lines of "whoever thought this was a good idea should be retroactively aborted".
But, on the other hand, damn it's toxic. Should've really sucked to work on the kernel back then.
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I was curious as I couldn't help but laugh, but damn dude. That is rough. Hilarious looking at it now, but I feel bad for whomever was at the receiving end.
Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE FUCKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the fuck 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?
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That's some quality venom.
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Gold
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Like, I get how it's funny, but I would hate to get this kind of shit from someone I respect. Would really mess me up, personally
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So publicly, too. People have quit over it.
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If someone whom I respected shat a bit in email about my work product, I'd be sad for a bit. Then I'd read it again and understand it's my work product and I am not my work. I can make mistakes and I can fix them, and fixing mistakes is how we get awesome.
I have received negative feedback. And I did feel just a little butthurt about it. But it was in NJ and I was new, and didn't see from the first read that Buddy was expressing frank and honest concerns about my work product and not me. I'm embarrassed to say how long it took me to clue in, but I did. And we worked through my mistakes and I was the better for it. And I learned.
And when he said my work didn't suck as much, I knew I was improving, because I could trust him.
You need to learn honest from asshole.
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I get what you mean, but there are ways to say you fucked up, without calling you expletives. Some days, you get angry and scream at someone, but it doesn't really make it feel amazing for the party being screamed at.
I didn't mean it was mean from him to give him feedback or correct him, but the way he said it was a bit overblown.
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As already stated it's less about the facts being communicated and more about the way they're being communicated.
I would posit that the mismatch in the style of communication lead to you needing more time to clue in. And in that way, the initial feedback might have been an inefficient way to relay the point.
However it's also entirely possible that trying to package it in a better way, the point of the feedback-giver would have gotten lost, leading you not to clue in at all.
Communication is hard, especially tailoring it to the expected audience. That being said I don't think being an asshole is ever ok, unless it directly saves lives or something. 😅
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That's why you should never put people on a pedestal. There are a lot of people I admire, but I always try to imagine them being stupid assholes most of the time to balance things out in my head.
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It's nice to have an idol to aspire to, but they don't say "don't meet your heroes" for no reason..
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Not me, I'd just take a closer look at what I've done and see where my mistakes are.
It's not like we're married or something, I don't live with him. It's just an email, get over it.
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I'd give as good as I got and we'd be fine. Not everyone is a spineless crybaby who melts down at the first hint of disapproval. Are you all little children?
Edit: Stupid question, apparently. Good thing it was rhetorical.
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Absolutely awful shit and I would be ashamed for decades if I acted like this to another person.
Really shows the worst of him here. It's rare that he becomes this toxic and humiliating.
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To his credit he undertook sensitivity training and is a much, much, better communicator now.
He used to channel the whole juvenile angry-but-gifted programmer crap, accepted (eventually) the criticisms and did the right thing: changed.
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I agree. In a leadership role it's one thing what you say to a person in front of others and a completely different thing what you say when alone with them....
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To be fair, if he said what he wrote here in private, it'd still be extremely bad leadership.
Obviously he should correct them and point out why, but maybe not trash on them entierly.
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Lmao he is often celebrated for his put downs
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I think he's being fair and balanced. Also please stop calling mild irritation "toxicity", it only makes you sound like a whiney douchebag who cries whenever they're questioned about anything.
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Honestly, I maybe get why some people are too sensitive to work in such conditions, but from my professional experience, I’d much rather prefer getting angry mail explaining why my actions are stupid, than everyone being nice to one another but the codebase is utter garbage and everything falls apart, which happens a lot in private companies.
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What if I told you that you can have constructive discussions without being verbally abusive?
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What if I told you to shut the fu... oh... Oh.. okay...yeah, that wasn't constructive...
Okay, I see your point.
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I would verbally abuse you
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You can be polite or just straightforward and still get your message across.
"We don't blame bugs on user programs", "This is not an error code that should be used here", "Your coding standards may have relaxed over your tenure, be sure to maintain quality code.", etc. I get the annoyance, but you can be firm without yelling, especially in a professional environment.
Edit: Seeing the full context of Mauro's message (posted below), I can see why Linus took this tone. Mauro was being pretty condescending to a dev.
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"We don't blame bugs on user programs"
Linus says extra clear that the bug is not in user space, it's in kernel.
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You can be angry without being rude. I'd much prefer passive aggressiveness than egregious blame-shifting and accusations.
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Yeah, that's a hard pass on passive aggressiveness, constructive criticism isn't either of those things nor rude and angry ranting. Love Linus, but he really did need to chill out a bit more with these things. He could have gotten the same point across without coming across as yelling at the guy, just firmly pointing out that it was caused by the patch, the patch did things it shouldn't ever do, and don't break userspace or blame userspace programs
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I won't down vote you for your opinion but I do disagree with you.
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you seem to have created a false dichotomy where it's impossible to fix bad code without being abusive. would you like me to call you "dumb motherfucker" or is this explanation enough?
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I think you've missed what the sin was, as well as the context of the players.
The sin was not the bad code. Let me say it one more time for clarity: the issue was not the code
The issue was that, when presented with the defect (inevitable outcome of any software project: not intrinsically sinful) Mauro started blaming other people on a public mailing list
Mauro, being a maintainer, was in a position of authority. Like a police officer, their bad behaviour reflected poorly on the organization*as a whole.
If a cop was abusing their power (publicly or not), I expect the chief of police to come down on that abuser; to make clear that this abuse is absolutely unacceptable, not only within the accute instance, but within the greater context of the expectation of the behaviour of the whole organization.
Mauro chose the context of his abusive behaviour as the public mailing list.
Him getting slapped down in that same forum is the direct result of his own choices.
In the same way that I would be upset with the chief of police not publicly and harshy denouncing an abusive police officer, so would I be upset with the absence of such a response in this situation
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You don’t need to tell each other to shut the fuck up in all caps and call each other idiots to get the point across. It’s possible to instruct your peers in a much more professional manner.
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I don’t know the full context, but that message doesn’t sound like it was his first reaction to a first patch he got from that guy. I’m not implying anything, but I’m also no stranger to people resilient to reasoning. I’m not a fan of this tone or language, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal either
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Maybe you do if it's a volunteer position that you want the other person to rage quit.
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I'm betting this isn't the first time, or the second, and probably not third time this guy has fucked up.
There's a time for the kid gloves to come off.
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Programmers are sensitive enough. All you have to do is raise your voice slightly, and they'll think you're yelling. You could probably make one cry just by saying their patch isn't good, without having to resort to aggressive language.*
I don't know the whole history, but this seems highly unnecessary, and typical Linus. Didn't he resolve to be better a few years ago?
Ah found it.
*Source: am programmur
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It's all fun and games till the baby blows up when it really really shouldn't blow up. And I personally, would rather have people learn that pain an email than learn that a million people are in pain because of their ignorance/bad work.
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Or nice in person, then all the toxic bakstabbing behind the scenes.
This reads like the Sh*t My Dad says book. The author said it seemed harsh to some people, but the bonus was there was never any passive agressiveness, and you always knew exactly where you stood.
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Ugh, having been on the receiving end, this type of belittlement is the worst, and breeds resentment, factionalism, and a host of other toxic elements in the workplace.
Irrespective of the validity of his critique, prima donna developers are the worst and I would start looking for jobs elsewhere because programming is already stressful enough, don't want to start worrying about the people.
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The initial belittlement was from Mauro though, just more concealed.
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He's the Gordon Ramsey of programming. THE KERNEL IS FUCKING RAAAWWWW!!!!
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This patch has so many bugs in it, Microsoft added it to Windows 11 and called it a feature.
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Ouch
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Wheres the lamb source?!
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Gordon Ramsay is terrible scumbag and the fact he's a star instead of hated freak speaks a lot about society
Happy Linus took a more constructive path and worked out his anger issues
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I like the discussion this has generated around toxicity and professionalism, but I'm still very amused by the fact that he censored himself in the last line after not doing so for the rest of the message.
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It's typical of a venting boss, he vented now he's calming down
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Just like a toddler!
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What a toxic ass message. If he was my boss I would not tolerate this. It's weird how many dickriders here are defending him here
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Jose1234, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
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Well, he isn't anyone's boss here. I agree, and so would linus nowadays, that this is toxic and should be avoided, but the anger I fully understand.
Attempting to shift blame away from yourself after making a change which breaks a large portion of user space is cause for termination at any company I've worked at. It's cowardice. This action goes against one of the most important, core philosophies, of the kernal. Do not break userspace. Also, this person should know better. They are not some odd newbie who may not grasp the ideas yet.
In a world where termination is not an option harsh criticism is required. This though, I agree, was anger driven unprofessionalism
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I think there may also be a cultural angle here. Anglo-Saxon culture really places a much higher emphasis on "not causing offense", whereas other cultures place a higher emphasis on speaking truthfully, even if harshly.
So Linus, who grew up in Finland, may have thought of his message as harsh but fair, whereas to native English speakers it comes across as incredibly rude.
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For sure. It's funny in a way, but this is not a great way to treat folks that are trying to contribute, often on their own time. This could have been rephrased in so many other ways where Linus doesn't come off as a total jerk, and still be "right" with the same message.
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No one is arguing that Linus isnt a total jerk.
Just like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and even Ol Musky...
We can be better. We can both be a community that is extremely direct with our core values and code it well, but we can also treat people right.
It's a reality in many places. And it's thanks to the many many many assholes that I listed above that brought this change.
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Calling a bunch of people 'dickriders' is just as toxic as the Linus-message. Do what you want, but you are not an inch better than Linus.
But yes, the mail is toxic and unacceptable.
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This has some real "don't be intolerant towards the intolerant" energy.
Yes, sometimes insults are justified. No, when an employee/volunteer helper doesn't share your view is not one of those times. Yes, when you're confronted with a toxic fuck and those defending his toxic behavior is one of those times.
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There's a hell of a difference between calling random commenters "dickriders" and having your boss, whom you have a very unequal relationship with, berate you like this.
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Honestly, if such incompetent developers weren't as arrogant as to argue how their bullshit is the right way to go, I would agree with you. But instead their bullshit philosophy is the expected way to work in many places, and it's the cancer of computer development, so the anger is deserved IMO.
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I mean he went ballistic, but how long did he tell Mauro? I would have fired Mauro instead.
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Nah, if you were spouting bullshit your boss won't tolerate you.
Linus never mails random contributers working on their own time. There are different maintainers for that.
Linus sends mail to people working under him directly.
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Prolly cause your boss doesn't have half the responsibilities Linus did or had to deal with as many removed.
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Weak ass excuse
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First of all, this is horrible and no one should talk like that.
But it's funny that he censored the word "fucking" as if that crossed some line
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To add context:
Linus only reacted this way to people who really should have known better. This isn't a "here is my first ever patch, I read all the rules and I hope I didn't break any" situation. The person he is chewing out is a kernel maintainer. They are someone who is experienced and trusted and Linus was rightly angry that this poor quality work was submitted.
However... Linus has also worked a lot on himself in the past few years, fully acknowledging that he shouldn't behave this harshly when someone fucks up. If the same situation was to present itself today, he would be much more professional, but would probably still be a bit angry and you'd know about it.
Linus is a flawed human being, but credit where it is due, he has worked on some of his character flaws.
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Sure but this is still horrible and should not have been sent.
But I agree with you.
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As i understand it Linus has at least acknowledged that his tone has been very problematic and has been working on the way he expresses himself.
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No, it's for emphasis
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I like that Linus is so strict on not breaking user space because this obviously aids with compatibility and it's probably a big part of why rolling releases work.
But I sure hope Linus' eventual successor won't be toxic and...cringe. It's hard to take someone serious when he's raging this much.
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The good news is Linus did eventually learn this isn't okay and took some time off to reflect on how to approach these things better.
He still doesn't tolerate things like he was responding to here, still responds to them firmly and directly, but doesn't rant, yell, or hurtle insults
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Good point, didn't even realize this was from 2012.
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I like that Linus is so strict on not breaking user space because this obviously aids with compatibility and it's probably a big part of why rolling releases work.
I think kernel still has compatibility with paleolithic glibc enabled by default
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It's disgusting that this post has not been removed, has a 96% postive vote ratio, has over 1K upvotes and is sitting at the top of All after almost a day.
This isn't a Linux meme. It's a celebration of abuse, abusive behaviour and abusive people.
All the people ITT condoning or making even the slightest accommodations for this behaviour ought to be ashamed and need to take a good, long look in a mirror.
What are the moderators of this community thinking? Are you reading this stuff? Do some of you agree with any of it?
Of all the things to celebrate about Linus and Linux this is not one of them.
There is no value in leaving this post up. There is nothing to be learned or gained by revealing just how gross some supposed Linux supporters may be.
Does anyone ITT seriously think this is how Linus or Linux developers want to be remembered and celebrated for their dedication and decades of toil?
Do you think anyone that's been on the receiving end of this kind of abuse on the job or in the home wants to jump onto Lemmy today to see this celebration of abusive and awful behaviour.
There are no excuses to be made. It doesn't matter that this happened many years ago and that Linus has managed to overcome behaving like this. The post itself is now the issue.
The many comments that have made even the slightest excuse for this kind of behaviour are awful and damaging to the reputations of Linus, Linux and the Linux community.
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I don't read it as celebrating abuse. clearly there are better ways to correct peoples mistakes. As adults I think we all recognize that. I assumed the upvotes were because Linus is setting the high expectation that we don't see from Paid OS and Paid software. He is defending the philosophy of the next kernel should not destroy all the downstream work people put in. I'm currently working at a place that sells 3rd party software. It is an expensive product and touted as backward compatibility for 40+ years, and their newer versions have taken a F@©k Y0U approach to users. People with decades of files are now getting screwed and the software company turns down regression and bug reports and wants them submitted as feature enhancements. LOL WTF. I wish I could share this letter with their developers and management.
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The point
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While Linus went overboard (as he has a history of doing, and as has also caused negativity to the community), this post is still very well liked because it appears to be a strong example of someone calling out the BS that a lot of developers like to throw around. No one's going to join in a circle celebrating Linus picking on some first time contributor who didn't know any better, but that's how it sounds like you're interpreting the post.
To add some context, there's a toxic superiority complex that many developers have where they jump to blame others for issues that actually relate to their code. You can see this anywhere from developers who immediately blame users without investigating to software developers within companies who are quick to pass off issues as not their team's problem.
So, in this example Linus is actually calling one of these developers out, which is why the post is very well-received.
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I don't think it's necessarily a celebration of abuse. I agree that he's obviously way out of line sending this email.
I think Linus is (was) a complete asshole who lacks interpersonal skills, and this email exemplifies his character. To me, this post shows the mentality of some developers (and leadership) in FOSS and why some folks find it difficult to contribute to open-source software. This post opens up the discussion on that.
FWIW, I've received zero reports on this post itself. But I've received reports on abusive comments in this post, which I've promptly removed. This community is more/less self-moderating and if the post receives a significant positive vote ratio, I don't think it should be removed by me. It brings an important discussion to the table regarding acceptable behavior in software development.
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I've never had a negative experience contributing to open source.
I've also been to scrums where everyone is equal, and we have to be very PC, about explaining "processes" and "best practices" to people that break the build pipeline every single day. Eventually I just coded error handling and guard clauses into everything so no one could screw anything up by not following the documentation being a cowboy. That is a best practice, sure, but you'd be surprised by how people break things even after being warned not to do a very specific thing.
A cowboy that fixes things always 24/7 can be a maverick and talk shit.
But in todays PC world you can also be a cowboy that breaks everything always and spends weeks fixing something they themselves broke...
I wish I could say the things Linus said instead of just putting people on a performance improvement plan.
Sometimes being angry is appropriate. When I am I step back and try to figure out solution where the fuck up can't happen again and no one gets hurt.
I've seen people be VERY angry and even hands on working in jobs where fucking up can kill people.
I'd rather see anger than people dying. Did Linus go too far here? Probably, but there is a time and place for anger and being direct.
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I respectfully, and fully disagree with you.
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I'll copy and paste what I wrote elsewhere:
To add context:
Linus only reacted this way to people who really should have known better. This isn't a "here is my first ever patch, I read all the rules and I hope I didn't break any" situation. The person he is chewing out is a kernel maintainer. They are someone who is experienced and trusted and Linus was rightly angry that this poor quality work was submitted.
However... Linus has also worked a lot on himself in the past few years, fully acknowledging that he shouldn't behave this harshly when someone fucks up. If the same situation was to present itself today, he would be much more professional, but would probably still be a bit angry and you'd know about it.
Linus is a flawed human being, but credit where it is due, he has worked on some of his character flaws.
And I'll add: This is the internet. There is no "taking down" of this. In fact, you're getting angry over a screenshot of the original. Once it's out there, it's never getting removed.
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The first point of your comment I completely disagree with; the second point acknowledges why the the first point is bullshit to begin with. Yes, someone can be incompetent and require corrective action. This was not it and completely, grossly unacceptable. That he had to adjust his behavior is an acknowledgement to this. We are all flawed humans; but some are more flawed than others. That being said, if it's true he has reflected and taken corrective action on his own negative behaviors, kudos to him.
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Well, yeah. Gaslighting is kinda abusive. Don't worry, after Linus' explaination Mauro understood it.
Do some of you agree with any of it?
Mauro does. Here's proof:
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So, actual locker room talk then?
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I couldn't disagree more with you, and I truly feel that the lack of being direct is why we have an overwhelming amount of mediocrity in the "professional" corporate world. When everyone is just nice and we go the passive aggressive route, or have constructive feedback in the vein of "I can see you worked sooooo hard on this", we get garbage.
If you want people to do their minimums, "act your wage" and all that shit, put your efforts accordingly. If you're trying to be a part of something excellent and eschew mediocrity, then give your best or fuck off.
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I can see you worked sooooo hard on this
No Mauro obviously didn't which is the fucking problem.
If you don't want to use swear words fine, but usually the tone police doesn't just want to tone down valuable emphasis, they also want to mess with the semantics of the message until it is insulting by means of assuming that the recipient is a toddler and completely ignores the actual issue, which is that Mauro has a role and responsibility and he failed in it.
On a construction site, if a foreman catches a worker not securing some area that they're responsible for securing, you can bet your ass that some choice words are going to be heard. That not only saves people's lives it also protects the worker from going to prison for negligent manslaughter or such. To do that, to have the necessary impact on the worker, yes it's going to feel bad.
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"I can see you worked sooooo hard on this"
This isn't constructive, but reflects what people usually asking for.
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Dude, thank you, totally agree. Anyone with skin thin enough to be hurt by this kind of corrective force shouldn't even be in the conversation. Not sure why people are offended by this on here but when you engineer critical systems you damn well should know better by now.
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and I truly feel that the lack of being direct is why we have an overwhelming amount of mediocrity
I think you hit the nail in the head with this. This is probably one of the main reasons why everything is garbage in recent years. Post-modernism reigns supreme, every idea is now a "good idea".
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It's useful to note that there exists Lemmy servers where down votes are not processed. So the high up vote to down vote ratio isn't necessarily a reflection of people not down voting, it's potentially a reflection of the servers that allow down votes along with all other servers (generally they all allow up votes).
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History must be shared so it's not repeated. The email is dated 2012 so there's context of this being some old school bullying. Asking people to Not share the past because it's ugly is like asking people to not talk about slavery cause it'll make white people feel bad that they thought it was okay to own people. Small minds will remain small and less you expand their visibility.
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Honestly, whether or not we agree with the approach of Linus, these kind of disagreements happen in the real world. Tensions run high. Recently I've been on calls where things need to be implemented this month, during a time where most of our resources(engineers) will be on vacation. These kind of conversations can be important to have to make sure this doesn't happen again. The project management team got their ass handed to them for kneeling to the LOBs' ridiculous timeline expectations. And they were told to hold the L if things don't work on the go-live date, there will be no post implementation support until mid January if something doesn't work.
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I think what you've said is brilliantly put.
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E:og of my reply was way too hostile
i think the post is useful in order to highlight the inappropriate behaviour by linus, but the amount of lunatics who champion that email for its "directness" is disturbing -
If I didn't know anything else about him my takeaway from this post would be "Linus Torvalds is an abusive asshole"
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Most of the top comments are negative about the post. You upvote to bring something bad to attention, not because you agree with it.
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Even those responding to you and trying to justify this, he sets a high bar yeesh. I don't care who the person is saying it, I don't care how much the guy he's responding to deserves it, this is worst boss behavior that I would nope so far away from.
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I'm glad we don't work together
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Damn, I really hate social snowflakes such as you. Linus was right and he got his point across quickly and without bulshit. The Kernel Maintainer should have known better. Why exactly is this "abuse", because he used a few "naughty" words? Grow up. If you want censorship go back to reddit.
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This is hilarious to read from outside, but I am definitely not speaking like this to my colleagues
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Damn that was probably very hard to read for Mauro. This is something you never want to receive as Mail in your job. On the other hand it is good that Linux priorities fixing the kernel instead of letting other developers fix your code.
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looks like every day is a great day to not work on the linux kernel
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This is why Finland is most happy nation in the world
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Sorry, I'm American and don't understand, could you elaborate?
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All the anger is in one man and it skews the statistics.
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As many seem to have overlooked itb this is from more than a decade ago.
And to those setting "not being toxic" == "being vague":
Suggestion if you're in a situation: separate the subject discussed from the person and, to the contrary to what is said in some other posts, be very specific!
Improvised example:
Hey all,
patch xyzz and its aftermath communication is unacceptable.
It's content is not to the standards we have set here (explain).
Even worse, in the communication aftermath we blamed behavior of user space applications for bugs that are within our domain instead of owning up.
The bugs within the kernel will be focused on with highest priority by a, b and myself.
For the communication: (consequences). As explained the patterns shown here are unacceptable.
I have decided to no longer have x as a kernel maintainer on our team/enforce pairing for all communication/set up stricter consequence catalogue. Any specific action,really...
Not perfect as it's very early here, I haven't slept well and I'm not deep into the topic.
Just remember to separate subject to be discussed from person(s) acting please.
And always remember: bad communication is really easy and a lot of managers trained that their whole life! ♥
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Reading this version I wouldn't know the writer is deeply disappointed, frustrated and angry. It's good you're trying to improve the letter but this is exactly what many people don't like about it: it changes the meaning. Perhaps you could include a paragraph which conveys this, such that the reader understands the gravity of the situation better.
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Oh that was in purpose! It shouldn't matter that I personally am angry. My employees should never NEVER try to prevent me from being angry but focus on doing the best job they can.
That's what I admire about Linus: he realized the negative impact his anger had on the performance of others - and fixed it!
To be clear: I can be angry - but my anger isn't the reason I want things to change. Being angry is MY FAILURE as manager!
Think about it in another way: do you want your colleagues do things they thin prevent you from being disappointed, frustrated or angry - xor do you want then to move your collective goal forward no matter what you'd think.
Another example: if I'd be the one to have caused this communication mess I'd want my employees to call me out - even though I will get angry the moment I realize I've fucked up big time!
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I think removing someone's maintainer status does communicate disappointment in their performance quite well.
And as for anger and frustration, these things really don't matter in this circumstance. Work is not therapy. If you need to vent anger and frustration, get a therapist. Employees are employed to do their job, not to be the emotional punching bag for a manager who can't control their temper.
If an employee doesn't perform to expectations repeatedly and even after you had a few constructive one-on-ones, then demote them or fire them. No need to vent your anger on them and lose your professionalism.
Tbh, the first time a boss of mine loses their temper and verbally attacks a colleague like Linus did here, they have also lost all of my respect for them. And at that moment I will start to look for another job.
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Man feel bad for the guy getting yelled yet
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"An oldie but a goodie".... What?! This shouldn't be celebrated. What an absolutely unacceptable way to behave. Shame on anyone encouraging this.
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I agree, it's completely unacceptable to introduce a bug and then to instead of taking responsibility for introducing such a bug, you start pointing fingers at everybody else.
It's like when a car hits a cyclist following all the rules and then tries to blame the cyclist for not following some made up rules that only exist in the drivers head "Cyclists should be on the SIDEWALK if they don't wanna get hit!"
Not only were they wrong to hit them, they're DOUBLE wrong for trying to blame them after the fact.
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Nah it's completely fine. I vastly prefer an angry-sounding takedown over a passive aggressive takedown and a takedown Mauro definitely deserved because his code was, in fact, utter shite, and that as a maintainer. This isn't "oh he's a noob he doesn't know how the kernel works" type of territory. Also note that this happened after he had been told what's up in a neutral and factual way: Linus, even in his most management by perkele days, never made those things the first reply to anything. So Mauro got his chance to spot that he fucked up and correct his approach, he didn't, therefore, it has to be said loudly. Simple as that.
Also, no "you should be aborted retroactively" in sight anywhere. Yeah that stuff wasn't necessary even though everyone with an ounce of social intelligence should readily spot that those insults were always so over the top as to be obviously humorous.
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You are missing the forest for the trees. The question is, did Mauro become a better kernel contributor/programmer?
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As of 2017 he still contributes and said "it's fun." I assume he did.
But even Linus has since admitted that his behavior was unacceptable.
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Fucking Mauro.
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Randomly blaming pulseaudio and opensuse when talking about 100% CPU usage by KDE. It seems yes.
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Seeing the rest of the thread really contextualizes Linus' anger.
Only seeing the message from Linus makes him look like a dick. But when you see that he's responding to someone deflecting blame and being a shithead to the guy trying to report a problem and provide a suggested fix, the aggressive response seems more justifiable.
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Okay, I agree that this is a really dickish way to respond to a dev, and I can see Torvald's message being as much an olive branch to app devs as it was a thorough humbling of the maintainer. Still wouldn't call it professional, but... I get it.
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Honestly, with this response although I think he didn't deserve all of that from Linus, he did deserve quite a bit of it. So condescending and smug to application developers that actually make the user experience of Linux a good thing.
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I think whoever recieved this would be completely fine to report Linus to HR or something. The fact somebody thought to circulate it is suggestive that it crossed a line. I do appreciate he does seem to really care about the kernel. He could maybe tone down the hysterics a little.
I think if there's a lesson here its "Never hit send while you're angry" always wait until your hormones to subside before sending an email because emails are records and people don't have good judgement while angry, so an email sent in anger is just a record of your poor judgement.
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They have HR?
thought to circulate it
The kernel mailing list is public. Assuming I didnt misunderstand what you meant here.
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That's even more fucked up tbh. The public shaming aspect sounds like it would fuck up people.
That's the kind of behavior that can destroy communities, its surprising if this kind of garbage was tolerated on a public mailing list.
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This is far from the first (or last) time he wrote something like this. This was just a regular thing in the kernel world for a long time (until Linus matured a little).
Whether or not it was a good thing is up for debate I think. Yeah, it's very rude and unprofessional (and discourages new contributors who don't want to risk getting chewed out), but considering the importance of the Linux kernel, it's good to know the lead maintainer is doing too much of the right thing than not enough (i.e. being lax with bad code in order to be respectful). I'm fine knowing that a few tech workers got their egos smashed if it gives me confidence that the code powering civilization is high quality.
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Does the Linux Foundation even have HR? Even if they did, does an employee of a separate company even have the ability to make a complaint about Linus with them?
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For the first part, no clue, but for the second, absolutely
Just because you work for someone else doesn't give them the right to treat you badly and that sort of behavior can and should be reported to a person's employer.
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I think whoever recieved this would be completely fine to report Linus to HR or something.
As unnecessary as the tone was, if your first reaction to such a form of address is to run to HR, you're contributing to a toxic workplace. The first and foremost way to address etiquette problems (I am not including criminal behavior in this) is to talk directly to the person who offended you. Everyone has a bad day once in a while, and some people may even shout. If the first reaction is to get them into legal trouble with the employer, most people will rightfully avoid you like you just stepped into dogshit.
If this kind of behavior - despite having addressed it face to face - keeps occurring, that's a different issue, then HR may be necessary.
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The term is "hostile work environment". HR doesn't just respond because of strict liability. Just one occurance of something like this can lead to an otherwise solid worker to spiral from discomfort of the situation, both feeling like a prisoner at their job and producing far less value for their employers.
The latter is why HR cares, but the former is why it's OKay to go straight to HR. If HR is well-trained, things like this shouldn't escalate just because you went to HR. They should be able to diffuse it productively.
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Hard disagree. This letter is what happens when direct communications have failed.
Realistically, somebody near Linus probably told him to chill out and that he's damaging his own reputation and his project's by sending out this temper tantrum bullshit. In no world would the target of this letter be the person who successfully sits him down and lectures him on not being an asshole.
But honestly if he had a habit of sending out this kind of stuff it would be a liability/legal problem.
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I’m pretty sure this is on a public mailing list.
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I respectfully disagree with you. Sometimes you get blamed by other people mistakes. I don't think this message is a big deal TBH.
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Its not really a big deal, but there could've been a nicer way of getting the point across
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I don't think HR can deal with a company owner. What could they do?
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To be read in the voice of J K Simmons
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Combustable lemon
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Mauro gets voiced by Stephen Merchant.
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Stuff like this is the reason Linus decided to take a sabbatical back in 2018 to work on controlling his temper.
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One does not simply break userspace. You'll receive more than just angry bug reports. There are restless maintainers who will not sleep. And the great corporations are ever watchful.
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I'll be that guy: I miss the old Linus. If I fucked up that badly I'd want to know I had fucked up that badly.
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But you can be told you fucked up that badly without it being such a public spectacle and without trashing you as a person.
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Yeah, it's kind of invigorating to see somebody speak so plainly. No "There's a couple issues we should maybe discuss", no "Let's loop back on that sometime", no "Hmm, is that really the best approach? Do you have any documentation?" Just a straightforward "Dude, this is shit! Here's some reasons why!""
Having worked for a decade in tech, I would love it of people were this direct.
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Having worked in tech for two and a half decades, and in places that were this direct - no thanks. There's a fine line between being clear and direct, and being toxic - what Torvalds did here was toxic, and in many workplaces of today would be classed as bullying. Being subjected to this 'directness' for any given amount of time will do a number on most people's personality and self-esteem. People don't improve themselves if all you do is shit on them.
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I read a lot of frustration in that post. I don't know if that frustration was warranted, but I've been in (non-tech) leadership where you almost just have to scream like this to get the point across.
"This is incorrect. Here's why. 1. 2. 3." no need to be disrespectful, no need to make it even call it a fuck up. either the individual has the maturity to grow or ...not. but then... I certainly understand the frustration. There's just some people... that definitely struck a nerve of the 'you don't get it, do you?' variety. like the guy who told me (working contract security), that it was illegal for us to make them go outside in winter, because below-freezing is too dangerous. (yeah. We, uh, provided them with some fairly good parkas, and had hats and gloves available. with 'if you need more' accommodation already mentioned.)(Oh, and he was only needing to be outside for about ten, or so minutes.)
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It's a commit that can be rolled back. Not even the worst commit to a development branch can ever be that bad of a fuck up.
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One can sternly address serious mistakes by a subordinate without being outright mean about it. Doing so calmly and seriously is usually more effective anyway.
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Yeah, but like...
He's not wrong though.
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That doesn't mean he should be a jerk about it.
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I mean, the principle is correct, the treatment of the maintainer is not.
The person is volunteering to do hard meticulous work, and then gets yelled at in the most terrible manner.
It's important to get the job done right, yes. It's also important to politely direct to mistakes and respect person's dignity.
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I would not work with or even for someone with such an attitude, not even for money. Ok, do it yourself, bye. Got better places to be.
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Are kernel maintainers not unpaid volunteers?
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Generally speaking: not these days, and not for a long long time. Mauro, for instance, worked for Red Hat at the time. It's of course possible to be unpaid and work for Linux, but I believe it's much more likely that one is employed by a big tech corpo and they maintain the kernel as part of their work.
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That's kind of two of my main points:
- Treat your volunteers well, or why should they continue volunteering?
- Kernel maintainers have plenty of other opportunities.
I don't know if they are volunteering or being paid. The other person said they are being paid.
Either way, no one deserves being talked down to like that, even if they made a mistake. It's a matter of respect and self-respect. And as a skilled person like a kernel developer, it should be trivially easy to find other work in a more appropriate environment.
That being said, maybe I'm missing something. Torvalds has been known to be like that for a long time (although that seems to be over now). And still, Linux has been developed over decades. So apparently, skilled people flocked around Torvalds, or maybe rather his project. Not entirely sure why, but I'm taking it as a hint I might be missing something.
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Poor Mauro: they weren't good at what they loved, they blamed others for their failings, and their community leader was nuts.
Jokes aside, we've already got toxic right there. Linus isn't right, but someone like that would be fired with good cause. It's one thing to make a mistake, it's quite another to blame your co-workers for your own shoddy work.
What's that Reddit phrase? ESH!
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I miss when people had higher standards.
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Linus Torvalds had anger issues right from the beginning. At least he got to a point where he is sorry and wants to work on his behaviour.
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Jesus Christ, telling someone to kill themselves is so beyond just professional considerations -- it is basic human decency to refrain from saying such things. I hope he continues to work on his behavior and finds a more productive way to interact with human beings.
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How sad to be working on a Sunday and two days out before Christmas.
Wouldn't lift a finger for less than triple time.
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Actually one day before Christmas in Finland and other Nordic countries. I don’t know if Linus still celebrates Christmas like that, having resided in the US for a long time already, but the big celebration is here always the 24th of December, and 25th–26th is mostly just resting after it.
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The 23rd is the day before Christmas. We celebrate the eve here in the Nordics. The 25th is the relaxing day after Christmas when you eat leftovers and do fuck all all day.
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In the following responses Mauro was very professional. l haven't heard much about recently but Linus had some high tier anger issues. Most of the cases I was following back then he was right, but desperately needed to cool off.
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How is it nobody else seems to get this
The user is what they blame.first and foremost whenever something happened
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I find it ironic that Linus’s explanation for
ENOENTbeing invalid for an ioctl given its meaning of “No such file or directory”, while simultaneously ioctl can returnENOTTYwhen using a mismatched device fd despite the error meaning “Not a typewriter.”-
But a file handle can be attached to a TTY.
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In 2012?
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Reminds me of Nvidia debacle. Good times
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Telling a company to fuck off is much different than telling a person to fuck off.
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Yeah, but still great reading Linus
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If I was VOLUNTEERING my time on a project I loved and got that kind of response, I would delete everything I had ever contributed and walk away.
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Looks like my trashtalk conversations with my discord friends. But if Linus said it was not acceptable then this propably wasnt a situation like that.
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I feel like people are overlooking the fact that this is typical early internet behavior lol.
I get that its the linux kernel mailing list, but I'm pretty sure Linus was way more wild online than in person because that's how public internet forums and IRC used to be like.
Stallman has also said some equally braindead stuff lol.
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MAURO YOU SUCK!!!!
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He got it. He learned. Proof:
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Why don't he use some platform like Github/Gitlab and alike? The method to send patches via email is just stupid, isn't it?
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Linus wrote git to be used via email as part of its core design, so that was just the way he rolled back then. GitHub and Gitlab and all the cloud platforms and tooling came afterwards and it took time to reach a critical mass, and even then, some folks stick to what they’re used to.
Looking at Linus’ GitHub profile, looks like not much has changed — 100% commits, 0% everything else.
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They are discussing, not sending patches over email. The author of this email is also the creator of git.
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The author of this email is also the creator of git.
I am aware of that. GitHub and alike systems are not just git servers.
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2012, but yeah...
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Yeah, Linus should get right on that and make some kind of system for this...
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I wonder if the guys here who are moaning like the snowflakes they are about Linus' way of conveying the message (not the message itself) are from the US? I sometimes really wonder about the US mindset. The boss is critisizing you justifyably but in an inadequate tone? Hell breaks lose. But as an employee insisting on healthcare, an adequate number of days on paid time off, unionazing or at least have an able workers' representation? Nah, that's unheard of.
How about having some priorities? Grow a pair and chose your battles more wisely. The boss criticizes you? If he's right, own up to your mistakes. Want some rights you are actually entitled to? Yeah, that's what you fight for.
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Damn... we're so lucky to have Linus... I just love him, he's just straight to the point, no bullshit... I love that!
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Linus doesn't love that, he literally got therapy to not be like that. Maybe there's a lesson there for you.
In fact, in a more recent talk he mentioned being horrified at the sort of people who liked how he spoke and the way they assumed he shared their political opinions as a significant motivator.
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yet ppl here mostly dont care about breaking the userspace and use systemd shit that breaks said space. mention it here...get a hated for pointing out lennart poettering is a wanker.
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Linus is best kernel developer and best person
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Yeah, shut up, Mauro.
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The times when Torvalds got things done, he's gotten all soft now kek.
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I know it's partial satire but to be honest man, it's actually a good way to get the message across
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