> One thing to not take from Linus’s point: the tone and general rudeness.
Yeah, beat me to it. I've seen him have other outbursts in the past, and frankly it's disappointing. I'm not involved with the Linux project, but if I was, I'd be sure to avoid him because of behavior like this.
>I'd be sure to avoid him because of behavior like this.
I think that's the intended effect. The cost of being nicer is that it both takes more time to word things tactfully since you need to think more deeply about how your words will be interpreted, and also, you'll encourage people to ask for your time more.
Now for most of us, our time and experience isn't actually so valuable that we need to be so careful about protecting our time, so there's really no excuse to be rude. However, I think it actually makes sense to make an exception for Linus because his time is incredibly valuable, and him being rude means people will think twice next time they ask for his time, and spend more of their own time making sure they're presenting him something high quality when asking for his time.
That's not saying that anyone else should act like him. If you ask yourself if your expertise and time is anywhere near as valuable as Linus Torvalds the answer is going to be no 99.999% of the time. But, I think there's a valid argument for him specifically to act this way to protect his time.
I never liked the vibe of "this person is so important that they get to play by different rules". In the immortal words of the philosopher Carlin: "Let's not have a double standard, one standard will do just fine".
There are plenty of ways to say "no" without belittling the other person or making them feel unwelcome. Because when we do such things, it isn't just the recipient that sees them, it's countless others. And that burns goodwill.
It only takes a second to paste your rude draft into an LLM and ask for a more polite version. If someone is rude nowadays it’s because they mean to be rude.
Have you ever stopped to consider what led to this? When you build the world's most effective kernel, you encounter unbelievable amounts of challenges and when you do it in the open, many people are contributing. From your perspective it may not "cost" anything to be nice, but being nice about it means that it WILL happen again from other contributors. The amount of contributors to the Linux kernel is. Over 20,000 individual contributors have made changes to the Linux kernel. While it's not "polite" the fact that this is being shared as a monetized story means that it's getting passed around. A lot of people will see it, and rethink their notions about abstractions. If he just said "You need to remove these abstractions because they are creating too much cognitive load to determine what the word order is, the feedback would go largely unnoticed by the community at large. The IS plenty of code that is garbage, and we've all seen it.
Further, you cannot work on the Linux project and "avoid" Linus. It's his project. He's been overseeing it for over 30 years, and he takes a very active role in reviewing and merging. His leadership and oversight have led to this being one of the most successful software projects in the history of mankind. It will be talked about for the next hundred years. He hasn't been the "nicest" guy but also, many of those "nicest guy" types would be unable to manage such a project. Being the "nice guy" here means suffering through more of the same issue again and again, like groundhog day.
The Linux project is his own, Linus' project. If you want to get involved in his project you play by his rules, and his rules include being publicly berated for bad commits like Linus Torvalds does it. I believe he does it like that for a good reason - he prevents low code quality by incurring high cost (penalizing) of commiting bad code to his project.
Sad to say, but I agree on this one. The Linux project is possibly the most successful open source project in software History, where everybody would be proud to participate, even if only to fix a typo. I don't see alternatives, unfortunately.
> One thing to not take from Linus’s point: the tone and general rudeness.
Yeah, beat me to it. I've seen him have other outbursts in the past, and frankly it's disappointing. I'm not involved with the Linux project, but if I was, I'd be sure to avoid him because of behavior like this.
Dude needs to be kind and rewind.
>I'd be sure to avoid him because of behavior like this.
I think that's the intended effect. The cost of being nicer is that it both takes more time to word things tactfully since you need to think more deeply about how your words will be interpreted, and also, you'll encourage people to ask for your time more.
Now for most of us, our time and experience isn't actually so valuable that we need to be so careful about protecting our time, so there's really no excuse to be rude. However, I think it actually makes sense to make an exception for Linus because his time is incredibly valuable, and him being rude means people will think twice next time they ask for his time, and spend more of their own time making sure they're presenting him something high quality when asking for his time.
That's not saying that anyone else should act like him. If you ask yourself if your expertise and time is anywhere near as valuable as Linus Torvalds the answer is going to be no 99.999% of the time. But, I think there's a valid argument for him specifically to act this way to protect his time.
I never liked the vibe of "this person is so important that they get to play by different rules". In the immortal words of the philosopher Carlin: "Let's not have a double standard, one standard will do just fine".
There are plenty of ways to say "no" without belittling the other person or making them feel unwelcome. Because when we do such things, it isn't just the recipient that sees them, it's countless others. And that burns goodwill.
It only takes a second to paste your rude draft into an LLM and ask for a more polite version. If someone is rude nowadays it’s because they mean to be rude.
You’re talking about someone who created an operating system because the existing ones didn’t meet his needs.
Within 25 or 30 years, his system became the standard that keeps the internet running.
I think that, when it comes to code, he can respond to anyone however he wants.
The only possible reply from the other person is: “thank you.”
"Rules for thee but not for me" is a really bad take.
Who publicized this PR? Does anyone know?
You don't need to actively call other people's code garbage. He took time out of his day to write that reply so clearly his time isn't that valuable.
Have you ever stopped to consider what led to this? When you build the world's most effective kernel, you encounter unbelievable amounts of challenges and when you do it in the open, many people are contributing. From your perspective it may not "cost" anything to be nice, but being nice about it means that it WILL happen again from other contributors. The amount of contributors to the Linux kernel is. Over 20,000 individual contributors have made changes to the Linux kernel. While it's not "polite" the fact that this is being shared as a monetized story means that it's getting passed around. A lot of people will see it, and rethink their notions about abstractions. If he just said "You need to remove these abstractions because they are creating too much cognitive load to determine what the word order is, the feedback would go largely unnoticed by the community at large. The IS plenty of code that is garbage, and we've all seen it.
Further, you cannot work on the Linux project and "avoid" Linus. It's his project. He's been overseeing it for over 30 years, and he takes a very active role in reviewing and merging. His leadership and oversight have led to this being one of the most successful software projects in the history of mankind. It will be talked about for the next hundred years. He hasn't been the "nicest" guy but also, many of those "nicest guy" types would be unable to manage such a project. Being the "nice guy" here means suffering through more of the same issue again and again, like groundhog day.
There are plenty of nice ways to say "no" and "not happening" without yelling profanities at people.
I love the Linux kernel, but the world would be a better place if it were worse and he were better.
Disagree. "Nice" men never make history.
Disagree.
Gandhi, Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. changed the course of humanity through empathy, not ego.
Being nice doesn’t mean being weak - it means being strong enough to stay kind when power tempts you otherwise.
The Linux project is his own, Linus' project. If you want to get involved in his project you play by his rules, and his rules include being publicly berated for bad commits like Linus Torvalds does it. I believe he does it like that for a good reason - he prevents low code quality by incurring high cost (penalizing) of commiting bad code to his project.
Sad to say, but I agree on this one. The Linux project is possibly the most successful open source project in software History, where everybody would be proud to participate, even if only to fix a typo. I don't see alternatives, unfortunately.