On kernel mailing list behavior
What was said
The setting was an extensive discussion on policies for the management of the stable kernel series and, in particular, the selection of patches for stable updates. It was an interesting discussion in its own right (which will be covered here separately), and it was generally polite. Even so, there came a point where Sarah Sharp couldn't take it anymore:
Not *fucking* cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists.
For the record, she was responding to this note from Linus:
You may need to learn to shout at people.
Ingo's contribution was:
Whether these messages constitute "advocating for physical intimidation and violence" or even "advocating for verbal abuse" will be left for the reader to decide. But Sarah's point was clearly not that these specific messages were out of line; she is concerned with the environment on the linux-kernel mailing list in general. She has since taken the discussion to other forums (with more examples) and, in general, seems intent on changing the nature of the community's discourse.
Needless to say, responses on the list were mixed, though they were generally polite and restrained. A number of people, Linus included, pointed out that the number of personal attacks on the list is actually quite small, and that Linus tends to reserve his strongest language for high-level maintainers who (1) are able to take it, and (2) "should know better" than to do whatever it was that set Linus off. Opinions differ on whether that is a good thing. Jens Axboe said:
On the other hand, Neil Brown echoed the
feelings of a number of participants who worry that the tone of the
discussion tends to discourage people from joining the community: "He
is scolding people senior developers in front of newcomers. That is not
likely to encourage people to want to become senior developers.
"
Being flamed can be hard on the recipient, but it can also affect the
community by deterring other developers from participating.
For his part, Linus has made it clear that he feels little need to change his tone on the list:
And I definitely am not willing to string people along, either. I've had that happen too - not telling people clearly enough that I don't like their approach, they go on to re-architect something, and get really upset when I am then not willing to take their work.
Sarah responded that one can be clear
without being abusive; she also suggested that Linus use his power directly
(by threatening not to pull patches from the offending maintainer) rather
than using strong words.
For what it's worth, Linus did acknowledge,
later in the
discussion, that one of his more famous rants was "Not my proudest
moment.
"
Unsurprisingly, there were few concrete outcomes from the discussion (which
is still in progress as of this writing). Sarah has called for the creation of a document (written
by "a trusted third party
") describing acceptable conduct in
the kernel community. There will almost certainly be a Kernel Summit
discussion on this topic; as Linus pointed out, this kind of process-oriented
discussion is the reason why the Kernel Summit exists in the first place.
Some analysis
There are, it seems, some simple statements that should not be overly controversial in the context of a discussion like this. Most people prefer an environment where people are pleasant to one another to an environment where people are harsh or abusive. An abusive community can certainly deter some potential contributors from joining; consider, for example, whether OpenBSD might have more developers if its communications were more congenial. Various development communities have set out to improve the quality of their communications, sometimes with clear success.
How do these thoughts apply in the kernel context?
It is worth pointing out that this is not the first time people have expressed concerns about how the kernel community works; it was, for example, a topic of discussion at the 2007 Kernel Summit. Numerous developers have pushed for improvements in how kernel people communicate; these efforts have happened both publicly and in private. Even Linus has said, at times, that he wished the discussion on linux-kernel were more constructive.
Your editor will assert that, in fact, the situation has improved considerably over the years. Much of that improvement is certainly due to the above-mentioned efforts. Abusive personalities have been confronted, managers have occasionally been contacted, trolls have been ignored, and more. The improvement is also certainly a result of changes in the kernel development community. We are as a whole older (and thus more restrained); the community is also much more widely paid to do its work, with the result that image-conscious companies have an incentive to step in when their developers go overboard. The tone is far more "professional," and true personal attacks are rare (though examples can certainly be found if one looks).
Over the years, the kernel development community has continued to grow. One might argue that it would have grown much more rapidly with a different culture in its mailing lists, but that is hard to verify. It is true, though, that much of that growth has come from parts of the world where people are said to be especially sensitive to direct criticism. For all its troubles, the kernel community is still sufficiently approachable that over 3,000 people per year are able to get their work reviewed and merged.
That said, the kernel is still viewed as one of the harshest communities in the free software world. It seems fairly clear that the tone of the discussion could bear some improvement, and that the current state of affairs repels some people who could otherwise be valuable contributors. So efforts like Sarah's to make things better should be welcomed; they deserve full consideration on the part of the community's leaders. But this kind of effort will be working against some constraints that make this kind of social engineering harder.
One of them is that the kernel absolutely depends on the community's unwillingness to accept substandard code. The kernel has to work in a huge variety of settings for an unbelievable number of use cases. It must integrate the work of thousands of developers and grow rapidly while staying maintainable over the long term. It is a rare software project indeed that has attained the size of the kernel and sustained its rate of change without collapsing under its own weight. If we want to still have a viable kernel a decade from now, we must pay close attention to the code that we merge now.
So it must be possible for developers to speak out against code that they see as being unsuitable for merging into the kernel. And the sad fact is that, sometimes, this message must be conveyed forcefully. Some developers are either unwilling to listen or they fail to receive the full message; as Rusty Russell put it:
The size of the community, the fact that some developers are unwilling to toss aside code they have put a lot of time into, and pressure from employers can all lead to a refusal to hear the message and, as a consequence, the need to be explicit. Any attempt to make it harder for developers to express their thoughts on the code could damage the community and, more to the point, is almost certain to fail.
That said, Rusty concluded the above message with this advice: "But
be gentle with people. You've already called their baby ugly.
"
There are certainly times when the community could be gentler with people
without compromising on their code. That, of course, is exactly what
people like Sarah are asking for.
Whether a documented code of conduct would push things in that direction is hard to say, though. Simply obtaining a consensus on the contents of such a document is likely to be a difficult process, though the discussion itself could be helpful in its ability to produce counterexamples. But, even if such a document were to be created, it would run a real risk of languishing under Documentation/ unheeded. Communities that have tried to establish codes of conduct have also typically included enforcement mechanisms in the mix. Groups like Fedora's "hall monitors" or Gentoo's "proctors" typically have the ability to ban users from lists and IRC channels when abuses are seen. Mozilla's community participation guidelines describe a number of escalation mechanisms. It is not at all clear that the kernel is amenable to any such enforcement mechanism, and, indeed, Sarah does not call for one; instead, she suggests:
It is far from clear, though, that a document calling for any sort of substantive change would acquire signatures from a critical mass of kernel developers, or that developers who are unwilling to sign the document would be willing (or able) to avoid dealings with those who have.
So proponents of more polite discourse on linux-kernel are almost certainly
left with tools
like calling out undesirable behavior and leading by example — precisely
the methods that have been applied thus far. Those methods have proved to
be frustratingly slow at best, but, helped by the overall changes in the
development community, they have proved effective. It was probably about
time for another campaign for more civility to push the community subtly in
the right direction. Previous efforts have managed to make things better
without wrecking the community's ability to function efficiently; indeed,
we have only gotten better at kernel development over time. With luck and
some support from the community, we should see similar results this time.
| Index entries for this article | |
|---|---|
| Kernel | Development model/Developer conduct |
Posted Jul 17, 2013 17:17 UTC (Wed)
by geofft (subscriber, #59789)
[Link] (12 responses)
I don't participate in LKML, but I've noticed from other development communities that I have a thick skin. I hate having to have a thick skin (partly because I get defensive and end up continuing the aggressive tenor of conversations, partly because it's not enjoyable even if it's sufferable), and I also know folks who would be great contributors who simply don't.
I think those of us with thick skins should stop excusing abusive behavior simply because we can take it, and that we should definitely stop implying to new folks that a thick skin is effectively required to join the community.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:05 UTC (Wed)
by BradReed (subscriber, #5917)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:09 UTC (Wed)
by geofft (subscriber, #59789)
[Link]
Then again, I _have_ given up on LKML, so.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:03 UTC (Wed)
by aliguori (subscriber, #30636)
[Link] (3 responses)
But there is a difference between say, "This approach is completely wrong" and saying "YOU ARE F*CKING STUPID".
The later is being abusive. That's not a question of thick skin, it's a question of willingness to tolerate being abused.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:36 UTC (Wed)
by geofft (subscriber, #59789)
[Link] (1 responses)
I've been told, and told people, "This approach is completely wrong" couched inside "I value and appreciate the time you spent on it, and don't think that you are dumb." I've been in productive communities where you don't need a thick skin, because people value each other and their happiness in that community, and out of that, productivity and good technical decisions naturally happen.
When I'm lucky, instead of directly being told "This approach is completely wrong" (or telling people that, conversely), I'm simply asked enough questions to realize that for myself, and nobody is hurt. This approach requires patience and trust, and a general feeling that others in the project value you as well as the project. So it's understandable that in volunteer communities, people don't tend to go for that approach. But it's worth the long-term investment, where possible, and we should acknowledge that we're hurting people when we don't.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 3:05 UTC (Thu)
by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 16:37 UTC (Thu)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 2:13 UTC (Thu)
by axboe (subscriber, #904)
[Link] (5 responses)
I am not "excusing abusive behavior" because _I/_ can take it. I don't find Linus' behavior abusive at all, that was my point. I speculate that it is _perhaps_ because I have thick skin, or perhaps it's because I'm used to it. Or maybe it's a cultural thing. I don't know.
Fact is, sometimes you do need thick skin to survive. And sometimes you should not take things at face value at all.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 6:21 UTC (Thu)
by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935)
[Link]
But I was just now skimming the "recent patches" on LWN and found this:
> So you try to sell that qrwlock as a replacement for ticket spinlocks,
The rest of the message contains many reasonable and insightful observations, but is it really necessary to talk about "guess based drivel" and accuse the poster of faking/withholding experimental data?
I call *this* lack of professionalism (and also the ARM example linked to in the article). I'd take a million swear words, it doesn't matter if English or Italian or Finnish, over this.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 23:21 UTC (Thu)
by brianomahoney (guest, #6206)
[Link] (3 responses)
This silly woman should STFU and stop working on the kernel and go back to sandal knitting.
I for one am sick and tired of special case identity politics and PC. from women. They want to play, then play don't start asking to change the rules
Posted Jul 18, 2013 23:36 UTC (Thu)
by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562)
[Link]
*Plonk*
FWIW, there are loads of discussions on -lk where I find the tone inappropriate, but usually it's not the ones where Linus got fed-up but longer standing personal things between people.
Posted Jul 20, 2013 14:08 UTC (Sat)
by lemmings (guest, #53618)
[Link]
Also, Sarah's message had absolutely nothing to do with her gender anyway so your comments are even further off the mark.
Decent human beings are sick and tired of putting up with jerks like you.
Posted Dec 19, 2013 11:32 UTC (Thu)
by edeloget (subscriber, #88392)
[Link]
"It is known that every single woman in the world does sandal knitting and can't program."
It's also known that every stupid man in the world think that every woman in the world does sandal knitting.
You have to understand that women doesn't threaten your manhood. In a (technical) world were women are often degraded and seen as subplayers, they have a clear right to advocate for rule changing. Just like they did in the past when they campaigned to get the right to vote. Like they did in the past to recclaim their own body. You may not like this but you're fooling yourself if you think it will not happen.
Getting your old fashionned sexist comment is just unneeded anymore. It's not women who have to adapt to a sexist world. It's the sexist world that must disapear - and hopefully, it will. Your comment just make you look like a dinosaurus who does not realize he's already out of time.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 17:39 UTC (Wed)
by marduk (subscriber, #3831)
[Link] (13 responses)
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:53 UTC (Wed)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link] (12 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 13:46 UTC (Thu)
by alankila (guest, #47141)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 14:08 UTC (Thu)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link] (10 responses)
Being occasionally rude:
Being always polite:
And a few facts:
- The LKML is one of the busiest in the world.
Feel free to add your own opinions.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 21:43 UTC (Thu)
by diederich (subscriber, #26007)
[Link] (2 responses)
'Being always polite' is a worse state, by far, than where LKML is right now.
It goes a long ways when people say, "I will make some effort to make my tone more pleasant."
Posted Jul 18, 2013 21:59 UTC (Thu)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link] (1 responses)
I think that's exactly how the people on the LKML behave today, unless you can bring proof that people are nasty all (or most of) the time.
The LKML is archived. Just start at any random point and count messages until you find some cursing or nasty behavior. Repeat a few times. You can call it Guerrero's metric if you want. Is the average is less than 2?
Posted Jul 19, 2013 3:35 UTC (Fri)
by diederich (subscriber, #26007)
[Link]
Linus is a fantastic leader in many ways. By his own admission, he's a bit of a technical hot-head, more so in the past than now. In my mind, it's such a tiny delta to say, "I am a hot-head, and I'll make some effort to tone things down." Rather than justifying (very rare) unpleasant behaviour.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 23:28 UTC (Thu)
by brianomahoney (guest, #6206)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 13:36 UTC (Fri)
by emunson (subscriber, #44357)
[Link] (3 responses)
I have contributed, I have been flamed by both Peter Z and Linus, neither really bothered me because I felt that (in my case) they were attacking the admittedly poor code quality. But your statement is far different and is of the type being discussed. You seem incapable of engaging with the idea so you attack the person. Sad, really.
Posted Jul 21, 2013 18:55 UTC (Sun)
by hirnbrot (guest, #89469)
[Link] (2 responses)
Where was the actual _sexism_ in that? They just mentioned her gender - replace "silly woman" with "silly person" and the message is the same.
Posted Jul 21, 2013 18:59 UTC (Sun)
by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 21, 2013 19:42 UTC (Sun)
by hirnbrot (guest, #89469)
[Link]
However, I was just talking about that one particular comment, and having read the other comments by that particular person in this thread, it's very clearly a case of sex- and/or troll-ism.
Posted Jul 25, 2013 22:52 UTC (Thu)
by stevenb (guest, #11536)
[Link]
As for your comment: Silly is as silly does...
Posted Jul 19, 2013 11:43 UTC (Fri)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link]
Being always 'polite':
Posted Jul 17, 2013 17:54 UTC (Wed)
by b7j0c (guest, #27559)
[Link] (27 responses)
should linus try to be more diplomatic? i suppose. telling people their volunteer contribution sucks in a diplomatic way will always be challenging, and the single response from linus doesn't seem to indicate that he is interested in behavior modification.
everyone has the freedom to unsubscribe. there are no employment contracts, w2s, employer-employee relationships between linus and those who volunteer patch submissions. everyone is free to exit the process at any time, or just take the code and start anew. the captain of the boat won't get far if all the rowers abandon ship.
it would be nice if everyone on the list would consent to some basic ground rules, and in short order, as i presume there will be a major backlash against any trend that seeks to take the lkml too far off-topic.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:14 UTC (Wed)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (2 responses)
I do have a major problem with people telling me that *I* did that when I wrote my code, much less insinuating that I do it habitually.
The line can be blurry at times. It certainly depends on the recipient's cultural background. Professional courtesy requires erring on the side of caution.
I stopped participating in Debian discussions umpteen years ago, not because I couldn't take it, but because I didn't want to subject myself to the kind of abrasive language that was then common there. (Things have since improved, though I refuse to quantify.)
The bottom line is that the kernel community (a) does get older and (b) is not especially diverse. IMHO, if we don't want to have major problems in ten years because maintainers are leaving for age and/or burn-out reasons, we need to increase the appeal of participating *now*.
Of course, a Code of Conduct by itself will not by itself increase the appeal of kernel programming to people who are not western, white, and male. But it cannot exactly hurt either.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:00 UTC (Wed)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (1 responses)
I actually think that this is a corollary to the main point, the abusive behavior is what is in question and it is not something that is discriminatorily directed at non-western, non-white, non-male developers on LKML. A scaling back of the abuse will make LKML more welcoming to all professional developers, including those who are not western, white and male, but especially those who don't feel the need to tolerate others abusive bullshit.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 3:44 UTC (Thu)
by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385)
[Link]
Some western, white, male, professional, etc. people have to subscribe to LKML and interact with developers there in order to be verbally abused. Other people get their quota of abuse from non-LKML sources without making any special effort to receive it.
Abuse is not discriminatorily directed at these various groups, but is discriminatorily received by them.
There also seems to be some warped social status exchange going on. In a group it's usually a privilege to have an elite's attention at all, and if that attention leads to a response in public so much the better. Getting an emotional and memorable response (i.e. an abusive one) from an elite elevates the recipient's status among members of the group--but only members of the group that understand the structure of this interaction will see it this way. Outsiders see only one stranger hurling public abuse at another for no apparent reason.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:42 UTC (Wed)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link]
It's actually well worth taking the time to go ane read. (although since it's still going on, you may want to wait a bit or you will end up tracking new posts to several different subthreads)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 8:34 UTC (Thu)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (21 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 14:06 UTC (Thu)
by viro (subscriber, #7872)
[Link] (20 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 20:24 UTC (Thu)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (19 responses)
Let's get something else clear. Cleaning up HTree is not my job, nobody pays me for that. My job was inventing it, thus handing Ext2/3/4 a new lease on life, and making it work well (many thanks to Ted for supplying the nasty telldir bit). Don't get me wrong, I find the HTree code style as cringe worthy as anyone else. And for the record, I often cringe when I read your code, think about that one please.
Cleaning up HTree is something I might have become interested in, if the environment were less toxic. Without monetary reward, what is my reward? The abuse stops? Sorry, not enough in itself. Ted is the Ext4 maintainer, he gets paid full time for that. If you want HTree cleaned up, talk to him. You might start by asking why Andreas's cleanup/generalization patches from Lustre still aren't merged.
Or instruct a kernel newbie on how to clean up HTree stylistically, that accomplishes the dual purpose of instructing the newbie (and perhaps bringing in some new blood, goodness knows we need it) and reshaping it to your taste.
Finally, you should read about Shardmap, which will obsolete HTree except for legacy volumes. See, you actually *want* me spending my time on stuff like Shardmap as opposed to rolling around in the mud and the blood and the beer, as you try to bite off a piece of my ear.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 2:19 UTC (Fri)
by jimparis (guest, #38647)
[Link] (1 responses)
> However you are doing an excellent job right now of demonstrating classic toxic style. Sit back and look at your post. Did you attack a) the HTree code or b) me? Right. You attacked me.
I find this really interesting because it shows that there can be a huge difference in how a message is interpreted.
I know nothing about you or HTree or previous disagreements. When I read Al's message, what I got out of it was:
1) htree code is unreadable
My thought after reading it was "wow, sounds like htree code was really crappy", _not_ "wow, sounds like this daniel guy is terrible".
Posted Jul 19, 2013 6:14 UTC (Fri)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link]
Also: "did not start toxic", which clearly implies that the discourse did turn toxic. To tell the truth, I don't remember anything about it, except for not feeling in any way compelled to "work for the kernel" when not being paid to do so, after I had already made a major contribution. In the event, I think Ted went in and made some cosmetic changes to it. Good. He was getting paid to do that, I wasn't. See, everything was working fine except for one thing: the toxic behaviour on the sidelines.
Also, how do you know HTree code is actually crappy? Because Al said so? Did you read it? Did you see the part where I think Al's code is ugly? I mean it. Cosmetic beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And honestly, beauty is secondary to the code being good.
And the code is good in spite of Al smearing it (and by implication smearing me). It is in fact the fastest directory indexing code in the known universe, with something like one bug turning up over the last ten years, that being a year or so after going into service. For the record, I did "come out of retirement" and help fix that. It mattered, you see.
Anyway, I told Al it wasn't him and I meant it. I never expected him to act visibly defensive about whatever he was thinking of, which I have long since forgotten.
But here we have another point: certain people feel justified in attacking contributors who are strictly volunteers. My lord. Where on earth does that come from? In the Tux3 project I have gotten some great contributions from really talented people, and of course I want more. I don't browbeat them to get more. See? Basic principle of decency.
Now here you are, jumping on the side of toxic entitlement. Try this: say thank you for that crucial piece of the Linux tapestry I provided. And think hard about whether the kernel would have gotten more like that from me and others if the culture was a little less toxic.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 12:14 UTC (Fri)
by tytso (subscriber, #9993)
[Link] (16 responses)
It is *not* the maintainer's responsibility to clean up, rewrite, and merge in every single code submission. That just doesn't scale. There have been features that have never made it into ext4 simply because the submitter couldn't get the code cleaned up enough.
Also, for the record, I am not paid to the ext4 maintainer. Google is kind enough to let me spend a certain amount of my time on it --- but it's not what pays my salary. And my hats are off to many of the other ext4 contributors who go above and beyond what is strictly needed "for their company", but who then make their code contributions clean enough and general enough that it is fit for the upstream kernel.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 18:57 UTC (Fri)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (15 responses)
Thanks for "cleaning up" HTree to your taste. Bear in mind that it might not have been to my taste. And indeed, I have issues with the taste in that code myself, but curiously, my issues seem to be completely different ones than your issues. Moral of the story: taste is a subjective thing.
One thing is abundantly clear, and we should get this straight: maintainers should not be assigning make-work projects to active contributors. It is a most excellent way to turn an active contributor into an ex-contributor. Instead, try to use other means at your disposal. For example, put an intern on it. I know you can.
Ted, you may not realize it but you are perpetuating the toxic culture in several ways right now:
1) You should not have been harassing me about cosmetic changes at any time, and you should not be justifying it now. If a polite suggestion results in me going in and making a series of cosmetic changes to bring the code up to "kernel standard" (whatever that is, the kernel is full of ugly code written by the same people who complain about ugliness in the code of others) then fine. Everybody happy. But harassment - and that is exactly what it was - is way over the top.
2) You should politely let this particular matter drop instead of dragging it on forever and confirming to the world that the rumoured toxic culture does in fact exist.
3) You should avoid fomenting tension in public amongst community members who are supposed to be setting an example. Please email me privately if you want to continue this thread, otherwise, beer is on me at the next meet up.
4) Mobbing. That is the technical term for it. Recognize and actively defuse, whether it happens in your own thread or somebody else's.
By the way, what about those patches from Andreas? As I understand it, they do clean up some substantive issues, such as the arbitrary limitation to two level trees.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 20:12 UTC (Fri)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (12 responses)
one person's "make-work" project is another persons "critical for long term maintainability" project.
It's _very_ common for people to some to an open-source project and hand over a bunch of code to be implemented.
It's almost unheard of for the same person to be involved a decade later to fix or clarify that same code.
As a result, the maintainers (many of who _have_ been around for a long time) are FAR more concerned about maintainability issues than new contributers.
Sometimes the maintainer will do the work to convert a contribution to be more maintainable, but as Ted notes, that doesn't scale. What the maintainer needs to do is to push back on the contributer to get them to improve the submission.
In most cases, the contributer does so, and their next contribution is better (requiring less change).
Sometimes, the maintainer will ask the contributer to fix something else that the contributer sees as related to the contribution. sometimes the contributer does so and the result is much better, sometimes the contributer doesn't do so and their change goes in anyway, and other times the contributer refuses and goes away, and their change doesn't go in. All of these are acceptable results
Posted Jul 20, 2013 7:52 UTC (Sat)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (11 responses)
I will give you this: Ted's legendary hack to make telldir/seekdir work was if fact critical for long term usage of HTree, or even short term usage. But I have always said that, haven't I. Now maybe you should go read Ted's telldir code, then come here and tell me more of your theories about long term maintainability. Dare you.
By the way, did you see the rule 4 above, no mobbing? Please think about how you might have worded your comment so that it does not come across as a defence of the right to abuse/harass/whatever toxic behavior LKML has earned a reputation for.
Posted Jul 20, 2013 8:20 UTC (Sat)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (9 responses)
By your definition, anyone who argues with you is now guilty of 'mobbing' and violating the rules. This is exactly the type of rules gamesmanship that makes people very reluctant to allow any formal rules to be defined.
As for maintainability, where there is disagreement between contributors and existing long-term maintainers (especially when there are multiple maintainers talking), the maintainers get the benefit of the doubt. They have earned it over time.
In programming and system administration, people come into existing situations and always blame the prior person for the problems they see, and for that person being short-sighted.
When a person stays in a job long enough, they look at something and have the same reaction, but then realize that they were the one responsible, and they can remember why they did things that way. After a few times of this, they get MUCH more careful about what they are willing to accept, because they realize that they will have to maintain it over the long term.
Until you've been on something long enough to be in the position of replacing your original work with the next generation (and seeing the next generation of co-workers and their reaction to your prior work), youreally don't think about maintainability in the same way.
In my case, it's system and network administration and design, for Linus and his Lieutenants, it's maintainability of the kernel code. There are a LOT of things that they did 15 years ago that they would not accept from anyone today
Posted Jul 20, 2013 8:32 UTC (Sat)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (8 responses)
Your post is full of fallacies but we already wasted enough bandwidth on this, you find them please.
Posted Jul 20, 2013 8:39 UTC (Sat)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (7 responses)
i also expect that you will dismiss anything that Ted says.
After all, anyone who doesn't agree with you must be blindly in favour of abusing people.
Posted Jul 20, 2013 8:53 UTC (Sat)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Jul 20, 2013 13:47 UTC (Sat)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link] (4 responses)
Have you ever hear of that wonderful technical invention called : 'The mirror'.
Posted Jul 20, 2013 20:35 UTC (Sat)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Jul 20, 2013 20:39 UTC (Sat)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (2 responses)
By the way, what is your real name? Are you a kernel developer? Posted Jul 22, 2013 20:05 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link]
It was aimed at me, a couple years ago, in a thread also prominent for pointing me to Derailing For Dummies to acquire an education in how not to do ... something I wasn't doing in the first place.
Old timers will remember the thread; *EVERYONE* is invited not to, um, derail *this* thread into that one.
Posted Jul 20, 2013 13:44 UTC (Sat)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link]
"your comment so that it does not come across as a defence of the right to abuse/harass/whatever toxic behavior LKML "
Posted Jul 20, 2013 18:25 UTC (Sat)
by tytso (subscriber, #9993)
[Link] (1 responses)
People who are curious what the difference might be are invited to look at the your original code submission, and compare and contrast that to with is in ext3 and ext4 today.
Posted Jul 21, 2013 20:26 UTC (Sun)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link]
Maybe I am wrong about that. However if you want to see a lot of long functions, go read the FreeBSD code. Same type of subsystem. Multi-hundred like functions everywhere you look. They like it that way. I like it either way: I am generally more concerned about the substance.
Taste is very much subjective. If you want to exercise yours in the subsystem you maintain, then by all means do so. That is your business, not mine. If you do exercise your taste, you can do so in a polite way.
Anyway, it is clear that we differ. I am saying, clearly cosmetic, you are saying fundamental. Well, the great thing is, you were able to change it so you were happy. Why you were berating me then, and still are now, is beyond me. Now we as a community have put a word to such behaviour: toxic. And you are not by any means a prominent offender. This is a great time to sit back, take a deep breath, and ask yourself why you felt compelled to act that way, and why you feel compelled to defend it now. I am telling you it is harmful and hurtful, you respond by doing it more. It is not even the real you, this is something more akin to road rage, the main difference being "behind a keyboard" as opposed to "behind a steering wheel".
Posted Jul 18, 2013 22:30 UTC (Thu)
by nyc (guest, #91222)
[Link]
> everyone has the freedom to unsubscribe. there are no employment
This putative "freedom" is preposterous. A number of the industrial contributors' job performance is judged at least partially on community acceptance of their work. And it's not that easy to jump ship, especially not in this economy.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:05 UTC (Wed)
by mylogic (guest, #75038)
[Link] (19 responses)
First of all, "violent and threatening"? Really? Being told to "SHUT UP" by the world's biggest nerd over the Internet is *hardly* a violent and threatening situation. Do they really feel threatened, or did someone's feelings get hurt? Secondly, one doesn't like how the maintainer of a project maintains, they should maintain their own project. Thirdly, from the examples provided, it seems like they needed to be yapped at.
Sometimes certain systems, that are complex and perform a crucial function, *require* hard-nosed leaders. I'm sure military officers don't apologize for hurting feelings...
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:20 UTC (Wed)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (16 responses)
There's a difference between telling people, in strong words if necessary(!), that their code requires improvement before it can be merged -- and writing a put-down that discourages them from ever trying again. IMHO, long-term the kernel cannot afford the latter.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:31 UTC (Wed)
by b7j0c (guest, #27559)
[Link] (3 responses)
private organizations in the US can absolutely discriminate in ways you might find reprehensible. see: the boy scouts. see: any country club that prohibits women members. all legal, as long as the group is private and membership voluntary
Posted Jul 18, 2013 8:22 UTC (Thu)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 18:26 UTC (Thu)
by b7j0c (guest, #27559)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 15:28 UTC (Fri)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link]
In any case, civil laws are supposed to codify what should be generally-accepted polite and/or reasonable behavior. Thus reasonable and polite conduct cannot require the existence, much less content, of any laws; that would be as circular as requiring a running Linux kernel to boot Linux from.
Nevertheless, having a code (legal code, code of conduct) as a reminder for, and if required as a basis for the punishment of, misbehaving people, is a good idea.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 23:10 UTC (Wed)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link] (11 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 10:38 UTC (Thu)
by simosx (guest, #24338)
[Link] (3 responses)
> Please do tell which 'civil right' afford you the 'right not to be offended'
He said that participants do not abdicate their civil rights [in general] when they join the Linux kernel development.
And then you twist the message by asking not to go to specifics on which civil rights. ?!?!?! From point to pointless.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 19:01 UTC (Thu)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link] (2 responses)
Note: I auto-corrected s/not// in the above otherwise that would not have made any sense.
Certainly... unless that point was pure irrelevant drivel, the author intended it to be relevant to the discussion at hand... hence the question: what 'civil right' does one has to 'abdicate' to be on LKML and/or join the Kernel dev ?
Posted Jul 19, 2013 14:43 UTC (Fri)
by cloose (guest, #5066)
[Link] (1 responses)
http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html
Insult
The offense is punishable with imprisonment up to one year or a fine and, if the insult is committed by means of an assault, punishable by up to two years or a fine.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 17:16 UTC (Fri)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link]
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-05-23/news/19941430...
Can wait for that level of absurdity to be enforced on LKML....
Posted Jul 18, 2013 17:59 UTC (Thu)
by jmorris42 (guest, #2203)
[Link] (6 responses)
This gets right to the heart of it. This argument is the tip of the spear, let the busybody do-gooders ever get a foot in the door and watch how fast things bog down in endless committees (complete with their own mailing lists and wikis) conferences, forums and plans to 'make the Linux and Free Software world a better, more welcoming and diverse[1] place.' Until all actual work stops.
[1] Diverse in the PC sense of course. Where everyone of every race, color, gender identity and (approved) religion comes together in perfect harmony to utterly stamp out any dissenting opinion. Because the one diversity that is forbidden is diversity of thought.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 21:57 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (3 responses)
In not one was this implemented via 'endless committees', nor was it true that 'everyone of every race, color, gender identity and (approved) religion [came] together in perfect harmony to utterly stamp out any dissenting opinion. Because the one diversity that is forbidden is diversity of thought'.
I find it astonishing that you believe that being asked to not be horrible to people is equivalent to some sort of police state!
Posted Jul 19, 2013 0:00 UTC (Fri)
by Tobu (subscriber, #24111)
[Link] (1 responses)
Being offended is entirely up to the person being offended, and doesn't have to be motivated by actual insults. It shouldn't be surprising that being offended and making a spectacle of it has become way more popular than insulting people; it's just as nasty to interpersonal relationships, and way less risky.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 0:17 UTC (Fri)
by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
[Link]
[Citation Needed]
I've certainly seen a lot more nasty insults from LKML- the arena under discussion- than claims of being offended.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 2:51 UTC (Fri)
by ajf (guest, #10844)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 23:50 UTC (Thu)
by brianomahoney (guest, #6206)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 0:25 UTC (Fri)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link]
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:24 UTC (Wed)
by b7j0c (guest, #27559)
[Link]
that might be a sane first step, write down a code of conduct for the lkml. writing down a code of conduct does not necessarily imply politeness, it simply gives everyone a point of reference and a guage of expectations.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 10:06 UTC (Fri)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
[Link]
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:09 UTC (Wed)
by mikov (guest, #33179)
[Link] (2 responses)
We have enough professional incompetence to deal with in other places; don't let it overtake the kernel by enforcing a fake code of conduct.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:44 UTC (Wed)
by GhePeU (subscriber, #56133)
[Link] (1 responses)
Not saying that this is the case, but there are a lot of assumptions behind "if it ain't broken."
Posted Jul 18, 2013 10:45 UTC (Thu)
by simosx (guest, #24338)
[Link]
Firstly, because the Linux kernel development sets the tone for other free software projects. And in other free software projects they are struggling to get contributors. And because they are struggling, those that manage to somewhat make it, are those that respect their contributors.
Secondly, the current brutal attitude forces to have hierarchies. And if for some reason those on the top go away, then there will be no technically mature replacements. If you look back in history and the empires, there was a successful emperor/leader that would conquer the world, and then chaos because no good replacement was there to lead for the next generation.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 18:58 UTC (Wed)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (22 responses)
Subject: open conflicts vs. hidden conflicts (was: [ 00/19] 3.10.1-stable review)
<snip>
In short: you are wrong on many levels.
1)
Your notion that conflicts and insults somehow hurt group cooperation is wrong. It is a scientific fact that open conflict _helps_ cooperation while hidden conflict hurts it.
There's a famous psychological study that examined the cooperation patterns within string quartets playing music (Murnighan & Conlon, 1991): it evaluated different string quartets, examining their internal 'politics' and their conflict resolution techniques.
Effective, successful string quartets embraced open conflict: they honestly told each other when they messed up, not avoiding confrontation. Open conflict allowed them to eventually play music as a team, incorporating the concerns of all the musicians.
'Polite' string quartets on the other hand generally played poorer music, because each musician played individually, not as a team. The conflicts were never really resolved.
With a quick search I have not found the original study on the open web, but here's a citation of it:
> " Murnighan 84 Conlon (1991) found that effective string quartets accepted conflict as positive, and incorporated one another's concerns into the final product, whereas less successful quartets typically avoided conflict."
> http://www.delta.gatech.edu/papers/maximizing.pdf
[ I think this study might explain in part why the high tech industry is so strong in northern Europe: honesty pays off. ]
2)
Your notion that insults are harmful because they 'hurt' is misleading to such a level that it's almost wrong.
Insults do hurt of course, but that argument misses the full context: in real life the typical substitute for an avoided open conflict is not singing kumbaya around the camp fire, but _hidden_ conflict.
Hidden, suppressed conflicts, office politics and passive-aggressive behavior are _far_ more harmful than the occasional four letter word:
There was a recent study that showed that 'giving the cold shoulder', 'the silent treatment' and other forms of passive-aggressive violence activate exactly the same brain regions as being physically injured. (!)
The difference between Linus's chiding of maintainers who messed up and 'hidden' conflicts is significant:
1) passive-aggressive violence can go on essentially forever, without outsiders noticing it. You won't notice it even on lkml, and yes, it occurs all the time ...
2) passive-aggressive violence _thrives_ in 'polite', 'professional' environments that supress open conflict. Hidden violence also occurs in a lot of 'polite' open source projects that I know.
3) so the net duration of the conflict is _far_ shorter in the Linus case.
I will pick an honest, colorful Linus flame over workplace mobbing or other forms of substitute passive-aggressive violence any time of the day.
3)
I couldn't cite a single example where Linus flamed me unprovoked, unjustified, just for the sake of letting off steam or any other petty reason. I've not seen Linus flame newbies and I've not seen him micro-manage people over unimportant details.
In the large majority of colorful flames the flame was over something that _matters to the kernel_ - and heck do I prefer a top level maintainer who cares and who is honest, over someone who is indifferent or sloppy ...
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:13 UTC (Wed)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 8:18 UTC (Thu)
by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 10:10 UTC (Thu)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link]
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:30 UTC (Wed)
by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
[Link] (4 responses)
Example:
Posted Jul 17, 2013 21:11 UTC (Wed)
by rbuchmann (guest, #52862)
[Link] (1 responses)
It's almost impossible to communicate unambigously, no matter wich words are used.
I don't know if the four-sides model of communication is well non outside Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-sides_model.
"Ok, what kind of ass-hat idiotic thing is this?" and "The following is a bad idea" don't tell the same story and they are both ambigous.
I think that somethink like "Greg, you really disappointed me because I know you know better" would be more clear and polite (my interpretation comes from the Linus' explanations regarding his swearing referenced elsewhere).
Posted Jul 17, 2013 21:37 UTC (Wed)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
Are you really sure? To me Linus version translates to "Greg, you are really slow today and you are doing something really stupid, please stop and we'll be able to work from there" while your version translates to "Greg, you've disappointed me so much I can no longer even express it, I don't even have any swear words left and thus I don't know how I can continue to work with you". I will expect to see something like "I remove you from list maintainers and will no longer pull patches from you. This is the end." in the next line. P.S. And this not just my opinion as you can see.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 23:16 UTC (Wed)
by tao (subscriber, #17563)
[Link] (1 responses)
If he'd written something along the lines of "Ok, what kind of ass-hat idiot wrote this thing?" it would have been abusive though.
I don't mind having my work criticized as long as it's justified. And for Linus to use such words the critique probably is... What I do mind is people calling me stupid if I'd do a bad job (though if I'd keep doing the same kind of bad job over and over it'd be nice to be told that maybe I should look for a different project to work on).
And at least in my case a harsh reaction against shitty code is far more effective to get my attention than something like "This code isn't what I'd expect", "I won't pull this", or similar.
In my opinion the lack of explanation of *why* something is crap is the big problem here, not the use of harsh language. Telling someone that they're doing it wrong, but not telling them what the right way is usually quite unhelpful, unless there's only one other way it could be done or if the proper way of doing things is already documented and part of things that you're expected to have read before submitting code.
So, for instance something like "The coding style here is fucked up beyond repair, go fix!" is enough (since there's a CodingStyle document that everyone who writes kernel code is expected to follow), but "This code is a total clusterfuck, I won't pull this" isn't, since it doesn't convey *why* the code sucks.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 6:00 UTC (Thu)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
This is latter case. If you want to write driver for the hardware then you need to know how said hardware works. And in today's world of level-triggered IRQs devices must be explicitly silenced in IRQ handler before interrupts are enabled again. The code in question violates this fundamental principle. Worse: there are no way to write said code without violating this principle. I don't even know what to compare it to... well, I think "you are supposed to not just hang up wheel on the axis, it must be fastened up with screws, too, or lives will be in danger". Only here screws are not just not attached - bolts are used for fancy ribbons which means that can not ever fasten these screws and make car safe again! I remember how my brother-in-law talked to guys who did that after minor fix in his car - Linus message looked nice in comparison. And I fully understand why: car which loses it's wheels on the highway because someone "honestly forgot" to use screws is not something which should ever happen. Dead machine is less of a problem then dead person I guess which explains why Linus used relatively mild curses here. What lack of details? Linus explained quite well why such design can not be ever implemented correctly. Note: problem here is not even code of this concrete function, but with the fact that offered design requires such function - which in turn guarantees that there will be deadlocks on some systems.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:43 UTC (Wed)
by jensend (guest, #1385)
[Link] (8 responses)
Yes, of course honest and open disagreement is vital. And even if you're honest and open, if you're insufficiently blunt the communication can be inefficient.
But that can be done better without abuse. Throwing in a bunch of f-bombs and calling the other person names doesn't make the conflict more open and honest or even more blunt. Sarah isn't advocating that core developers stop telling others that their patch is awful, that their approach won't work at all, or that they've completely misunderstood the kernel development process. She's saying that all of these things can be said without telling people "SHUT THE **** UP!" and calling them idiots.
It's quite trivial to change a couple lines of either of the emails Sarah linked in a way that makes them no less blunt but considerably less abusive.
It's conceivable that someone could still try to make a case for abuse- something along the lines of "Linus does this so as to be sufficiently awful and repulsive to scare off people who would waste his time; if he stated his disagreements more simply we'd have more development process scaling issues." But I don't really buy it.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 20:11 UTC (Wed)
by biehl (subscriber, #14636)
[Link] (7 responses)
That is my pet theory. I think swearing is Linuses "No brown M&Ms".
Posted Jul 17, 2013 20:29 UTC (Wed)
by Tobu (subscriber, #24111)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Jul 17, 2013 21:36 UTC (Wed)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link] (3 responses)
I'm surely not the only person who has had to maintain bad code that was committed because everyone was being too polite.
I can completely understand his point about not having that many tools at hand.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 9:43 UTC (Thu)
by willnewton (guest, #68395)
[Link] (1 responses)
I'm not sure I do. Ultimately he can choose not to pull your changes, what could be a stronger tool than that? I don't see why that would have to be accompanied by verbal abuse (not that it usually is of course).
To be perfectly honest I think a bigger issue for new contributors is apathy and indifference. Most new contributors if Linus were to flame them would go out and get a framed copy!
Posted Jul 18, 2013 10:24 UTC (Thu)
by Tobu (subscriber, #24111)
[Link]
Pulling or not pulling is binary. If most of the work in a pull request is useful or necessary, there's pressure to accept the pull request. For someone who has to take hundreds of pull requests, they need to shape the work that gets sent to them by documenting their expectations very clearly, being even more clear when those expectations fail to be met, and if warranted, flaming publicly so others may learn. Documentation/ManagementStyle also mentions ways to diminish the personal impact of flames which is their obvious downside (make them humorous and over the top, reserve them to people who should know better, don't be sanctimonious, spread the love and learn to apologise).
The initial topic of the linux-stable thread was expectations and policy for -stable and late -rcs. The policy was strict in both cases, but people were sending a rather higher volume of insufficiently tested non-regression work to Greg; at which point something to the effect of will I need to shout at people? came up.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 16:46 UTC (Thu)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
I certainly would not argue for passive-aggressive behavior; be clear, but don't be rude.
Perfectly reasonable, unambiguous responses to bad code or even bad patterns of behavior from a contributor:
"I don't want to see code like this ever again."
Posted Jul 22, 2013 20:45 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (1 responses)
In his autobiography _Crazy From The Heat_, David Lee Roth explains why the touring rider for Van Halen's first big 24-semitrailer stadium tour included, buried down around item 126 or so, something like "a bowl of M&M's in the dressing room reception area, with no brown M&Ms".
The *reason* for this item, which looked pretty goofy, and of which much light and fuss was made when it leaked to the public -- and which the band never admitted to at the time, *because it would then stop working* -- was that theirs was the first tour with lots of really heavy equipment rigged way up over top of tens of thousands of audience members, and they were thoughtful enough to realize that if they killed a substantial number of those because someone had not done their job properly, no one would ever do that kind of tour again -- quite aside from it ending their careers and possibly putting them up for manslaughter charges.
So they put the Brown M&M rule in the rider, and that gave them an easy way to check whether the promoter had properly read the rider, and implemented everything on it. They did, in fact, once come in and find brown M&Ms in the bowl, and they stopped everything and did a full inspection of the rig... and as I remember it, did find some dangerous practices, which they had corrected before showtime.
So things like that may in fact have non-obvious but desirable side effects, which drive why they exist. If you need more on this, go watch GI Jane, and find out how hard it is to become a SEAL. And why. And think about how many places the Linux kernel is now. And how many places it's going. )
Posted Jul 27, 2013 21:55 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Sorry, not really seeing the connection here.
[1] which has never happened anywhere I have ever worked to the degree it happens on lkml, and I worked in the City of London, a famously vicious place
Posted Jul 18, 2013 16:58 UTC (Thu)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (3 responses)
None of that requires flaming people to a crisp.
Code, sure; people, no. Even if you need to call someone out on a pattern of bad code to stop more from happening in the future, that still doesn't require flaming them.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 22:07 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 12:05 UTC (Fri)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link]
So is the 100% PC-US-Coprporate-style, all-day, every day, crap.
"I for one could not possibly participate in any development process that was 'intentionally adversarial'. How many others are there like me? "
I for one could not possibly participate in a 'every opinion is valid' kumbaya development process, how many others are there like me? (yes me too can make an Appeal to the masses argument)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 14:38 UTC (Fri)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
> It's also unnecessarily stressful. I for one could not possibly participate in any development process that was 'intentionally adversarial'. How many others are there like me?
"Intentionally adversarial" here just means the same as it does in "adversarial legal system": one in which different people argue different ideas or points of view, and those ideas or points of view may get argued against as appropriate, necessitating active advocacy, support, and defense.
Every time a patch submitter is required to say not just what they've changed but *why*, or a reviewer asks for benchmarks proving that the patch helps, or a reviewer says the code isn't clean enough and offers a list of proposed changes, that's what I mean by "adversarial". It doesn't mean the interactions need to be uncivil; it just means ideas are not automatically accepted and untouchable by others. It's OK to say "this is not acceptable".
By contrast, if you completely disallow negative feedback, how can you reject patches to preserve the quality of the project you're maintaining?
Posted Jul 22, 2013 20:36 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link]
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:06 UTC (Wed)
by david.a.wheeler (subscriber, #72896)
[Link]
That said, I don't think these messages by Linus and others constitute "advocating for physical intimidation and violence" or even "advocating for verbal abuse". Not at all.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:12 UTC (Wed)
by Tobu (subscriber, #24111)
[Link] (18 responses)
I have had rather positive experiences interacting with kernel maintainers; my only want is for more of it, which must be the common case for contributions at the periphery. And whenever Linus pops into some discussion I'm reading, he communicates clearly and well and brings something to the discussion. So I'm trusting the kernel community, and Linus particularly.
Since Sarah posted her thread, which broke off from the recent stable discussion, the opinion I've made is that she's working really hard at getting offended. The “What was said” paragraph in this article is clear enough, but I've noticed another striking example on her blog comments.
As far as diplomacy and communication skills are concerned, I'd rather interact with a Linus than a Sarah, and I'll look up to the former and not the latter.
Maybe the flip side of a passionate advocate is someone who's at least a little bit self-righteous and prone to black and white thinking. Anyway, I'd prefer good examples to opinion leaders, from what I've seen so far.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 21:21 UTC (Wed)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (11 responses)
I believe this is the proper link. And yes, it really sad that people like Sarah who tend to thwart honest discussion (because noone is allowed to talk honestly near them because they can easily be offended) are valued more in today's world then people who actually do honest work. Note that both examples which blog post points to (this one and that one) are so awful I don't know how people can blame Linus for strong words. Try an experiment: I bet you'll hear a lot of similar words - and for similar reason.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 21:34 UTC (Wed)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 17, 2013 21:51 UTC (Wed)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
Sure - and both sides apologized in the end. Rafael apologized for his "but it's a fix" explanation (which is quite obviously is not a justification for regressions) and Linus apologized for his rant. But Linus reacted on the facts he had at the time and it surely looked to him like a totally crazy idea: we don't tolerate regressions is pretty well-established rule of kernel development and only few very serious things can affect it. "But there is ready-to-use-exploit in the wild" may qualify while "but it's a fix" does not - and Rafael should know that, he's not a newbie at this point!
Posted Jul 17, 2013 23:24 UTC (Wed)
by tbird20d (subscriber, #1901)
[Link] (8 responses)
Frankly, if it were an the option I'd much rather submit code to Sarah than to Linus - not because I think she'd be easier on my code, but because I think she'd be more constructive with her criticism.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 1:46 UTC (Thu)
by Tara_Li (guest, #26706)
[Link] (5 responses)
Heck, we've had plenty of cases in the past where it became obvious that Linus doesn't scale well, and where it showed that his interest in the Kernel per se have faded. If Sarah asked, Linus would probably be *glad* to hand ultimate control over the kernel community to her - except that he can't.
Linus controls, in a sense, everything about the community *except* one detail - the fact that he's the one in control. That is decided by the community itself, based on his track record. And complaints about his civility are hardly new. But when all is said and done, people trust Linus, most likely because they know what he says is what he considers the unvarnished truth. He has proven able to admit when he's wrong, but he's also been proven right an insane amount of the time.
Perhaps Sarah should be discussing her opinion of Linus' civility with Ms. Amanda McPherson, Ms. Angela Brown, Ms. Jennifer Cloer, or Ms Karen Copenhaver. They're part of the Management Team that actually pays Linus at the Linux Foundation - so you could say they're his enablers.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:09 UTC (Thu)
by simosx (guest, #24338)
[Link] (1 responses)
Have a look at his mystifying talk at http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/185-jennifer-clo...
He looks surprised that even if things are done /wrongly/ at the Linux development, the Linux kernel appears to come out OK.
What Jim is missing is that the Linux kernel is used in almost all devices. No matter what deficiencies exist in the development, at the moment there will be people around to replace the disaffected.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 22:12 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
(This is true of major contributors to other projects too. You think someone could order the GCC developers to do something seriously stupid? No, they'd jump ship if it came down to it, and they'd even know where to go: one of the other companies employing GCC hackers. To know what those are, they only need to be able to read the bit after the @ on the development mailing list they follow every day.)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:10 UTC (Thu)
by simosx (guest, #24338)
[Link] (2 responses)
I think this is called 'being patronizing'.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 16:48 UTC (Thu)
by Tara_Li (guest, #26706)
[Link] (1 responses)
Though in truth, I don't think that would happen.
I'm of two minds on the civility bit...
It eases things along, lubricating where people's egos rub together, but it also seems to reduce bandwidth, increase latency, and all too often fail integrity tests, requiring resending of the message and all too often slipping around integrity tests, contaminating the communications with falsehoods.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 20:13 UTC (Fri)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 3:28 UTC (Thu)
by nevets (subscriber, #11875)
[Link] (1 responses)
I've never worked with Sarah because I don't do USB work, so I can't comment on what it's like to work with/for her. But I've have worked with Linus, and I have been on the receiving end of his rants. Most of that was actually in private emails and it was more misunderstanding between the two of us.
That said, when Linus has commented on my work, I have found it to be actually very constructive. More constructive than pretty much any other developer I worked with. There has been times that I have disagreed with him (on minor things), but he definitely knows how to run the Linux community, and I really believe he's the main reason for most of the Linux kernel success.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 10:17 UTC (Fri)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link]
Well... except Linus was a bit of a git with the Bitkeeper thing, which was hugely and unnecessarily divisive for the community. Then there was the IDE thing. And a few other things, just a few isolated smudges on an otherwise legendary record.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 14:28 UTC (Fri)
by kh (subscriber, #19413)
[Link] (5 responses)
I really agree. I am not even sure what Sarah is complaining about, at first I thought it was salty language, but there are many examples of her using the same. Then I thought she was complaining about threats of violence, but I don't see how anything Linus said could be taken as a serious threat. On the other hand, I definitely would be afraid to say /anything/ to Sarah after this, between her equating Linus's emails to real threats and misogyny on her personal blog (where there is no real connection), and the threatening behavior of her supporters who seem to wish to shout anyone down who says anything positive about Linus, or public calls to employers to muzzle Linus and his supporters.
It seems to me like this was something Sarah had planned in her head for quite some time, and she got impatient waiting for Linus to really explode, so decided to jump on any little statement, blowing it out of proportion as necessary. (I also think equating this to sexual violence in the military really belittles the terrible things that some have gone through while serving their country.)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 18:49 UTC (Fri)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (4 responses)
I believe you that you are coming by your confusion honestly as many people are confused the same way.
The complaint by Sarah is abusive behavior by Linus against others, not herself, abusive behavior including being personally insulting, calling people names and other public berating and shaming of contributors.
> On the other hand, I definitely would be afraid to say /anything/ to Sarah
Sarah is not a shrinking violet and is certainly capable of speaking her mind and interacting with the LKML community, however she would seem to be a poor target for abusive comments or threats. Were you intending to make abusive comments to others online? Even on LWN that really isn't permitted, Editor #1 will step in for people who get too far out of line.
> threatening behavior of her supporters
I haven't seen any threatening behavior by supporters so I don't know what you are talking about, or maybe we have different ideas of what we find to be a threat, but I should point out that supporters are independent actors, such as yourself or myself and their behavior is their own responsibility.
> wish to shout anyone down who says anything positive about Linus, or public calls to employers to muzzle Linus and his supporters
I would ascribe that behavior to those who argue that Sarah shouldn't be allowed to express her opinion and should keep quiet, not those who argue for professional, adult discourse when speaking in a public mailing list professionally, to other professionals. The only shouting and calls for muzzling I have seen are towards Sarah, not Linus.
> It seems to me like this was something Sarah had planned in her head for quite some time
I wouldn't presume some Machivellian malevolent intent, I would start by presuming that Sarah is a human being and is motivated by much the same things that any other person. She saw some behavior that she thought was BS and instead of letting it slide this time, called Linus out on it.
This is a worthwhile discussion to have and we are now having it.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 19:03 UTC (Fri)
by kh (subscriber, #19413)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 19:30 UTC (Fri)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link]
Posted Jul 19, 2013 19:31 UTC (Fri)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 20:23 UTC (Fri)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link]
Posted Jul 17, 2013 19:54 UTC (Wed)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (1 responses)
I've been plenty of places were being polite to somebody is actually a insult. It's a sign of friendship and trust that you can call somebody a "fucking piece of shit" and call you out strongly when they think you are doing something stupid. Being polite in these situations is actually a sign that they are probably really pissed off with you and/or are suspicious of you.
A lot of people come from a very privileged and polite society and can't understand why everybody can't be nice like them. When they go out of their wall to call people out on their behavior publicly and try to force changes in behavior to match what they are used to in their specific cultural context they are actually being the ones being offensive and intolerant.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 22:01 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Such minefields are probably best avoided in any transnational endeavour.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 21:50 UTC (Wed)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (21 responses)
> Not *fucking* cool.
An interesting juxtaposition.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 22:06 UTC (Wed)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (19 responses)
Posted Jul 17, 2013 22:22 UTC (Wed)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (15 responses)
> Not *fucking* cool.... Keep it professional on the mailing lists.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 23:13 UTC (Wed)
by raghavadesai (subscriber, #86327)
[Link]
Should you feel offended?
Posted Jul 18, 2013 0:06 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (13 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 3:25 UTC (Thu)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (12 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 4:13 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (11 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 16:52 UTC (Thu)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (10 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 17:05 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 17:22 UTC (Thu)
by mgalgs (subscriber, #85461)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 17:28 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
Posted Jul 19, 2013 9:31 UTC (Fri)
by micka (subscriber, #38720)
[Link]
I do.
(We actually don't use F-words because we don't speak english)
Posted Jul 26, 2013 9:52 UTC (Fri)
by k8to (guest, #15413)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 27, 2013 22:02 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (1 responses)
So it's all contextual.
Posted Jul 29, 2013 13:13 UTC (Mon)
by k8to (guest, #15413)
[Link]
Many many words can be used in ways that are workplace-unacceptable. Or even human-being-unacceptable.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 20:33 UTC (Thu)
by tjc (guest, #137)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 20:42 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
Posted Jul 19, 2013 12:19 UTC (Fri)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link]
Why slice off the support of the existing group 'A' when you don't have to ?
This whole line of argument is predicated on the postulate that a puritan-hypocritical form of communication is 'better' and would be universally accepted.
Posted Jul 17, 2013 23:43 UTC (Wed)
by jubal (subscriber, #67202)
[Link] (2 responses)
Eris, how incredibly annoying are the misogynists…
Posted Jul 19, 2013 16:02 UTC (Fri)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (1 responses)
I'd compare this to a policeman who repeatedly watches somebody run a red light, and then that same policeman gives me a citation because my bike's back light blinks (this is not allowed in Germany).
I would not have much respect for this policeman and, if this pattern persists, for the police in general -- no matter what other good/necessary stuff they do for society otherwise.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 22:04 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
I don't think that this is a great analogy. In the LKML case, there's a "straw that broke the camel's back" effect whereas the police officer is closer to cherry picking their citations. Should Sarah have waited for a "Top 10" rant to raise the issue? Replied to one of the older "Top 10" rants? I don't think either of those options are necessarily better.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 1:00 UTC (Mon)
by fuhchee (guest, #40059)
[Link]
Posted Jul 17, 2013 23:36 UTC (Wed)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (30 responses)
Second, there is no doubt that many of high level Linux contributors practice the cult of Linus. It doesn't matter what he says or does, they will always try to defend it - no matter how silly. Of course, Linus is an absolutely brilliant guy. Nevertheless...
The abusive behaviour that happens in all those forums would normally get people fired in any half decent western corporation. And for a good reason. There is _always_ a way to say want you want without abuse.
I find Linus' comments about non-belief in politeness really hilarious. Being polite is not a religion - you don't have to believe in it. We do it in civilised societies because it works. Not having manners is not any particular culture - it's a lack of one. We even have laws that enforce "manners" (e.g. noise). These are purely practical - nobody's freedom is more important. So, we "turn down" a notch what everyone is allowed to do, so that we can all live in peace.
Ingo seems to be confusing conflict (actually, standing up for you own beliefs, opinions, solutions etc.) and abuse. Totally unrelated. In fact, offending people as a way of getting what you want can (and many times does) result in getting the opposite.
Most of the abuse that happens on the Internet is due to the fact that the person you are about to abuse is not standing in front of you. Somehow, many people turn into high school kids when they are about to post online. It is pathetic. Yours truly included at times.
We should just stop with that nonsense.
PS. I wonder if Linus is telling his kids to behave in life (e.g. towards the teachers) like he sometimes does on the mailing list. I would think not, but then again - who knows.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 0:03 UTC (Thu)
by hummassa (guest, #307)
[Link] (13 responses)
Do you have any idea how much does your "it works" contradict "is not a religion - you don't have to believe in it"?
The point -- oh, yeah, subscribe me to the cult of Linus (NOT) -- is that, at least for some people, it does NOT work. As Linus himself explained, being polite, at least for him, undermines the way his words convey his emotions relative to some technical topic, and he thinks that said emotions are important in the decision-making process for his project.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 0:16 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (12 responses)
I do. There is no contradiction. It is the same as saying that one does not believe in science - it is not a matter of belief. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
> As Linus himself explained, being polite, at least for him, undermines the way his words
That is the kind of excuse that many abusers make. For instance, we heard many times: "I have to hit my wife - she provokes me". And some such crap.
PS. Yes, I used a physical abuse example.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 0:21 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (1 responses)
OOPS - part of it fell out. Should be:
"I have to hit my wife - she provokes me - if I don't hit her, she won't get the message not to do it next time."
Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:14 UTC (Thu)
by simosx (guest, #24338)
[Link]
I think these are the analogies that need to be put forward to show how moronic are the attitudes of Linus, Greg and others.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 2:30 UTC (Thu)
by hummassa (guest, #307)
[Link] (9 responses)
Nope. I'm sorry, but your "it works" affirmative is not akin to saying "science" but "the effectiveness and safety in the use of anlodipin as a medication for arterial hypertension". Yes, some social constructs are based on politeness. Some professional social constructs are based on politeness. And they work. But you are making the statement that *only* they work, and that they work *because* of the politeness.
Guess what? Being impolite also works. There are lots of social constructs that are based in being impolite as the de facto etiquette. And they don't fall apart. Do you know why? Because it's even more efficient in avoiding social mistakes than being polite all the time. So, if my best friend says to me "you are an imbecile" and I reply "at least I am not as ugly as you", when one of us is *really* upset with the other and calls him an idiot, it may even pass as the "normal banter". And gives time for both to calm down before someone takes offense. But if we refer to each other as "best buddy" and "smart man", the stress situation could escalate more easily.
I suspect the politeness-based social constructs work in spite of the politeness, but I can't prove *that*.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 3:05 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (8 responses)
Second, the human history directly contradicts your proposition that being abusive (impolite) works. It doesn't and as a race humans are rejecting it more every day. You don't have to go back much to find proof. Be it racial, sexual, religious, child or any other kind of abuse is not accepted any more in modern, civilised societies.
So, absolutely, "politeness" (i.e. being considerate and not abusive) is absolutely the underpinning of every civilised society.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 14:31 UTC (Thu)
by nevets (subscriber, #11875)
[Link] (5 responses)
That is basically how Linus does it.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 23:55 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (4 responses)
Abuse is never OK. There is a difference between aggressive and assertive. Google it if you don't believe me.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 1:25 UTC (Fri)
by nevets (subscriber, #11875)
[Link] (2 responses)
Yes? No?
There's a huge difference between yelling face to face and on email. The problem with text is that it's much harder to tell the degree the person is upset with you, or disagrees with you.
When Linus disagrees with me, I take his level of emotion as a gauge of how much he disagrees with me. If he says "you shouldn't do it that way", it sounds like he doesn't like it, but he doesn't really care that much about it, and may still let me do it if I really want to. If he says "Only a f*cking idiot would do it that way", it's clear that I screwed up and need to change the way it was done. It's about communication, that's all.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 2:01 UTC (Fri)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (1 responses)
> Yes? No?
All I can tell is that you are shouting. Now, depending you what you are saying, it may be yes or it may be know. Compare:
WE WON THE GAME! YAY!
with
YOU STUPID MORON!
Pretty easy to figure out, really.
> If he says "Only a f*cking idiot would do it that way", it's clear that I screwed up and need to change the way it was done. It's about communication, that's all.
Well, maybe you are are a buddy of Linus and you guys have exchanges like this in private. If that is the case and you are both cool with that, that's fine.
However, if you are not buddies, this kind of exchange may be considered abuse by you. Also, there is the problem of a the list being _public_. Other people may take offence to that kind of exchange, as it may sound intimidating to them. For instance, Sarah did - which then makes it inappropriate.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 2:02 UTC (Fri)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link]
Er, sorry. Should be "may be no", of course.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 12:23 UTC (Fri)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link]
Nonetheless, it does.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 3:10 UTC (Fri)
by Tara_Li (guest, #26706)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 15:52 UTC (Fri)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 6:27 UTC (Thu)
by b7j0c (guest, #27559)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 0:10 UTC (Fri)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (4 responses)
Really curious - why do you think so? Here is a direct quote for NSW POEO Act (which is the state law where I live): Obviously, there is the harm/regulations bit, but the rest is really about being considerate.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 18:19 UTC (Fri)
by b7j0c (guest, #27559)
[Link] (3 responses)
i can't blare my music at 1am but i can most certainly (for example):
(1) create a private club that bans women
(2) start a camping troop for children that bans gays
(3) refuse to offer even trivial assistance to someone in life-threatening danger near me
all of these examples have been validated by the supreme court, and oddly enough no one suggested that noise ordinances were relevant
Posted Jul 21, 2013 12:45 UTC (Sun)
by renox (guest, #23785)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 21, 2013 14:18 UTC (Sun)
by Tobu (subscriber, #24111)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 23, 2013 14:52 UTC (Tue)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link]
Really ? there is no women-only gyms ? or do you mean they are 'illegal' ?
" As far as most scouting activities splitting children by gender, local organisations do accept both genders and give them equal treatment."
Separate but equals... hum.. where did I heard that before ... ? ah! yes.. "Plessy v. Ferguson"
Posted Jul 18, 2013 9:07 UTC (Thu)
by niner (subscriber, #26151)
[Link] (5 responses)
This would have been less imposing on the rest of the world:
Posted Jul 18, 2013 10:29 UTC (Thu)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 23:52 UTC (Thu)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 1:43 UTC (Fri)
by bloopletech (guest, #71203)
[Link] (2 responses)
I'm not saying that's good or bad, but the presence of policies does not imply that (a) the policies are good or (b) that people respect the policies.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 2:10 UTC (Fri)
by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
[Link] (1 responses)
For instance, examples of hitting children and women were mentioned in the comments. So, I guess it would be OK for me to then smack women and younger people in the office around to get what I want, right? Absolutely not.
Nobody ever claimed that no work needs to be done to reduce the amount of abuse in general society and workplace. In fact, this whole discussion started because there is more work to be done.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 7:51 UTC (Fri)
by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
[Link]
The pretence that "We have a policy forbidding X, so X doesn't happen" is a terrible sort of delusion because those too far from the action to see X continue anyway might believe you and act as though it's true.
For example, the current _policy_ here says that track workers will all interrupt what they're doing, stand up and walk off the tracks into a place of safety before any train passes. No doubt in the imagination of whoever wrote this rule there was only one "road" and it was mere "common sense" that track workers would want to get out of the way. But in reality a lot of work happens at complex multi-road sites. The workers can see (or think they can see, or even just guess from experience) that a particular train won't pass near to them, and they wave it through but remain on the railway and thus in danger. Approaching trains are loud and (at night) heavily lit, masking any danger from other trains nearby so that even when they're correct about the train they can see, they may be wrong about whether they're actually safe.
People who don't understand why policies don't work usually insist that workers who disobey the policy should be disciplined. That ought to work, right? But it won't, it just creates the impression that management are capricious, arbitrarily punishing some workers whose behaviour was fine, for a merely technical violation of a rule that makes no sense. Even showing the workers why their current practices are dangerous through the video reconstruction of accidents (including fatal accidents) turns out not to make a dent. Humans are largely oblivious to their mortality and will take small temporary gains for a significant risk of death without qualms. The only way to fix the problem is to come up with a policy that the workers are _willing_ to obey but which is also safe.
Posted Jul 21, 2013 0:40 UTC (Sun)
by krakensden (subscriber, #72039)
[Link] (3 responses)
It's not a useful distinction. All conflict is abuse when it's somebody saying no to you. There's no endgame where people won't take it personally.
Posted Jul 21, 2013 3:57 UTC (Sun)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (2 responses)
No. Do you feel that way? If someone contradicts you in any way do you feel personally slighted and abused? I don't feel that way, I'm happy to take constructive criticism, unless the other party goes out of their way to be personal and insulting. I would think it the same in most professional environments, do you have a different experience?
Posted Jul 21, 2013 15:36 UTC (Sun)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (1 responses)
Ah, so now my POV suddenly matters? But when supposed "victims" Sarah raises on her flag come and say that they don't feel insulted and abused it somehow does not matter? And yes, I've seen people who've felt slighted and insulted when people pointed out that they may be wrong (if you want an example the look for the yet-another-tempest-in-a-teapot right here).
And some people are not happy to take "constructive criticism" at all. There are cultures where you are not supposed to criticize anything publicly - at least not directly. Should we all stop using word "no" on mailing lists to not offend such people? First we need to define what "professional environments" even means. Because there different viewpoints. For example there are this video which explains that professionals are guys who never ship shit, who are always ready do deliver, who don't slow down when project ages, who can easily adapt to changes in requirement, etc. Like all the real professionals: good carpenters, good janitors, good cooks. And not like all these amateurs who develop spaceships and cars, mobile phones and large bridges, skyscrapers and yes, software, too. By this measure I never worked in real professional environment thus I wouldn't know how such work is done. But I've participated in different kinds of projects and I'm ready to admit: as you go from amateurs to professionals (from more challenging work to less demanding and stable one) the more environment represents Sarah's ideal.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 14:46 UTC (Mon)
by bfields (subscriber, #19510)
[Link]
There is a lot of middle ground between "people should shout as loud as they like and nobody should complain about it", and "nobody should say anything that might offend anyone".
I can say "no" in this case while also believing Sarah's request is reasonable. I don't see any contradiction.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 4:48 UTC (Thu)
by ras (subscriber, #33059)
[Link] (1 responses)
In fact it is the way most projects end up doing it. In the end they have a gut full of the abuse and trolls, so they take advantage of their position of power and appoint themselves as the projects censors. In the some cases, this ends up meaning some people are thrown out of the project by the ruling cabal.
As others here have pointed out, Linus doesn't appoint himself head of anything beyond his own tree, so he is unlikely to take that approach. As far as I can tell, he takes only the other way that works: nominate some principles and defend them with all the vigor you can muster, and encourage everyone to ignore anything else. People who agree with your principles tend to follow. Anybody who doesn't spend their time focusing on them is ignored, withering into obscurity.
There is no doubt in my mind the second approach produces the best projects, technically. But as I said, most projects end up taking the first approach. The difficulty of the second approach is it requires someone with outstanding technical ability and social skills without an ego to match. A rare bird indeed.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 6:23 UTC (Thu)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
Do you mean to imply that Linus does not have a huge ego? He does. But he also knows when to admit his own mistakes - and this is rare quality. Usually people either have "outstanding technical ability" or they are ready to admit their errors, guys like Linus are rare, indeed, but it's not because he lacks in an ego department.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 6:25 UTC (Thu)
by Seegras (guest, #20463)
[Link] (1 responses)
We don't have any of those problems with swear words those puritan pukes in the USA managed to push into the mainstream. We don't know any seven words you can't say in TV, and we write "fuck" as "fuck" (unless influenced by above culture of puritan miffies; as sadly happens ever more often).
It's also a question of being explicit, of saying what you mean. And the misdirected self-censorship of avoiding certain words is just adding ambiguity and hypocrisy to the language.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 9:10 UTC (Thu)
by jubal (subscriber, #67202)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 8:30 UTC (Thu)
by jsorensen (guest, #83220)
[Link] (6 responses)
The big problem here is that the strong advocates of pushing out rules for lkml behaviour are thinking in terms of their own standards and rules and expect those to be what should be applied to everybody.
Linus hit it spot on in his reply here:
"The thing is, the "victim card" is exactly about trying to enforce
The kernel community doesn't respect country borders, we cover close to every culture. What is considered beyond rude in the US may be considered normal in Scandinavia, while some things considered normal in the US would be considered beyond acceptable elsewhere.
Off-list polite discussions when something gets out of hand are likely to work well. On the other hand, formalizing things too much has a high risk of leading us much closer to the nannystate.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 10:58 UTC (Thu)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:08 UTC (Thu)
by jsorensen (guest, #83220)
[Link] (1 responses)
The point is that there is no universal set of rules that are applicable across the set of cultures we are covering and Sarah is pushing for her set of rules and playing the victim card as Linus correctly pointed out!
Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:34 UTC (Thu)
by simosx (guest, #24338)
[Link]
You twist rsid's reference to 'sexism' which is not fine. His point is not about 'sexism' and I think it is evident enough.
> The point is that there is no universal set of rules that are applicable across the set of cultures we are covering and Sarah is pushing for her set of rules and playing the victim card as Linus correctly pointed out!
There is a fallacy here. It's the one that you set the goals so high as a way to accept no action to be taken.
Being civil is something that many people can achieve, and there are smaller free software projects that can do this, and they thrive. Actually, for smaller project, if they can be civil is the only way for success. Linux is so big that collateral damage is not a problem yet.
Think about disciplining children. Many people would still consider smacking a child is the most cost-effective method of discipline. There are other ways, parents simply do not know them and they suffer [just to be preemptive, I am NOT conflating that the Linux kernel issue is a father-child issue].
Posted Jul 19, 2013 10:19 UTC (Fri)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link] (2 responses)
Linus intentionally missed the point.
Posted Jul 20, 2013 7:54 UTC (Sat)
by deepfire (guest, #26138)
[Link]
Posted Jul 20, 2013 7:55 UTC (Sat)
by deepfire (guest, #26138)
[Link]
Judgements vary.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 14:41 UTC (Thu)
by mgross (guest, #38112)
[Link]
Social norms are "social" until they are codified into law. CoC's are basically laws (with limited government enforcement) They limit freedoms and expression in the name of "protecting the children".
I think its more than enough to have anyone periodically ask if it was really necessary to be a huge ass in that case or could the same message been given a bit less personally?
Strong messages defining priories in real time are critical in hierarchical yet loosely coupled organization of strong personalities with high IQ's to get the people working with common priorities/values. Especially for Sr helpers. If they don't line up behind the leader then the leader can't trust them and the work can't scale. Delivering strong messages is an effective way of removing ambiguity, getting the message across and building trust that the helpers are working coherently with the directions, priorities and expectations set by a leader.
Sure, you can argue that what is the different between that and a CoC. CoC's are written down is the difference. Priorities and values are more dynamic.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 15:38 UTC (Thu)
by PlayDough (guest, #91822)
[Link] (3 responses)
While I don't find the particular examples in the article particularly offensive, the LKML (and the RT list and the linux-ppc list, and probably others) is far from a friendly place. And it certainly discourages input from people. Within our company, I have become the "go to" guy when dealing with kernel issues because I seem to have the skin tough enough to weather the responses (if any) because nobody else wants to deal with people on the list.
In my experience, when posting on the LMKL, whether patches, questions, or general commentary the initial response to newcomers is usually either to be ignored or told to come back when they know more. This type of initial response turns people off. I'm an old internet fart and remember the days of usenet flamewars (both a flamer and a flamee), so perhaps I'm conditioned to this type of culture. But this isn't the usenet days, and the internet isn't limited to well educated and connected university folk.
Two communities I find very easy to work with are the #kernelnewbies and #ubuntu (and unrelated to the kernel, the postgres folk are great as well). In my experience, these groups show patience with newcomers, and then become much more direct and forceful if advice given is ignored.
While certainly the kernel community (and leadership) is recognized as a gathering of brilliant, dedicated individuals, I think it is also looked upon as some sort of nobility. And that nobility sometimes treats others like commoners.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 23:20 UTC (Thu)
by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562)
[Link] (2 responses)
I can definitely see where you're coming from. Although I think that's partially caused by trying to keep the volume of the list on the "nearly" side of "nearly unhandleable". If LKML would cater to the general audience it would have a multitude of the current traffic.
So stuff like kernelnewbies or distro specific channels exist to fill that ,rather big, niche.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 14:44 UTC (Fri)
by PlayDough (guest, #91822)
[Link] (1 responses)
Sure, I get it. To keep LKML relevant, it helps to keep the clueless and the chatty off of the list.
> So stuff like kernelnewbies or distro specific channels exist to fill that ,rather big, niche.
I guess the issue is that area in between newbies and experts. Sorta where I fall. I've been tangentially involved with kernel drivers since the 0.99 days, but never waded in more than knee deep. I can figure out most of the issues that come up with our drivers. But when I have trouble figuring things out, #kernelnewbies is too basic (typical response is "Hmmm, try LKML") and LKML is to advanced ("Come back when you have more data.").
Perhaps a #kernelundergraduates? :)
Posted Jul 20, 2013 14:25 UTC (Sat)
by Tobu (subscriber, #24111)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 17:00 UTC (Thu)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (9 responses)
That's not to say LWN shouldn't report on such responses as appropriate when they form part of a discussion, and I trust LWN's reporting to make the situation clear, but the quotes page should definitely avoid glorifying the most offensive messages as entertainment. It's like the Open Source equivalent of TMZ reporting on celebrities. Let's not.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 17:22 UTC (Thu)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 18:14 UTC (Thu)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (7 responses)
That said, a few examples from a quick skim (and I've likely missed some, especially since I only checked recent kernel quote pages).
https://lwn.net/Articles/530215/
https://lwn.net/Articles/507109/
https://lwn.net/Articles/501768/
https://lwn.net/Articles/486377/
https://lwn.net/Articles/453967/
One from outside the quotes page:
And, to get meta for a moment:
(Understandable sentiment, but there's an obvious difference in target between "review code in public" and "embarass people in public".)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 20:08 UTC (Thu)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (6 responses)
The Russell King quote was definitely marginal. The point was that many developers don't see much reason to work on documentation because they don't think it will be read. There was a better quote in that conversation that I could have used, though, granted. It's not like this was even an amusing flame.
For this one, Linus was having fun with the code, yes. Was it really that bad? (I'll note that we're now a year in the past, incidentally).
In this one, Steve was expressing his frustration with users who want a problematic (and arguably nonsensical) system configuration to work. It was not aimed at anybody in particular. Who was offended by this one?
Here is really just a restatement of the no regressions policy, along with an expression of frustration with people who ignore that policy. It communicates a clear point.
This one talks about the evils of rebasing in the context of a particular problematic pull request. Among other things, it seems like a proper service to LWN readers, who have a relatively high chance of being the authors of pull requests, to let them know how Linus feels about rebasing of trees.
This one, you said, is "a good example of the kind of thing not to encourage". I don't think that Linus is amenable to encouragement from me in any direction. In this case, we had the definitive end to an ongoing disagreement that had been documented here; I felt the need to document that as well. Should I pretend that Linus's involvement didn't happen? I thought that Linus's disinterest in the alleged bypassing of normal kernel procedures was an important part of the story.
The last one was from a G+ post; it was already highly visible. If nothing else, it documents how Linus claims to feel on this topic. You're not the first to call that one out, though; perhaps it would have been best skipped over.
In other words, most of those quotes were chosen for a specific reason that was not "it's a creative flame." Doubtless some of the choices could have been done better. But I have to ask what you think should be done differently in general; should LWN pretend that these discussions don't exist? Is it really your position that we should not have quoted any of those seven messages?
You seem to have looked at about two years worth of history, during which, I would guess, LWN has posted probably 5-10,000 messages from the kernel mailing lists. Even if all seven examples were a mistake, it's still a pretty low rate, I would think.
Anyway, I will try to be more careful in the choice of quotes. But not, I don't think, to a point of presenting a distorted picture of how specific conversations go. I'm not sure that would help anybody.
Thanks for pointing these out, it really does help to know what readers think.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 0:45 UTC (Fri)
by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
[Link]
That quote was also paired with one that shows the exact opposite tendency; Matthew Garrett changed a magic number from a submitter because it spelled out something offensive in leetspeak.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 1:35 UTC (Fri)
by bloopletech (guest, #71203)
[Link]
I understand what you are trying to accomplish, and I empathise (though not necessarily agree) with the goal of raising standard of behaviour.
However, the Quotes page is there to report on what _actually happened_, and I think that editorialising it in such a way that quotes are rejected, not because they are uninteresting or unamusing or have limited impact, but because they represent actions people might not agree with, is manipulative.
I don't want to brew a storm in a teacup, but I think it's important to delineate the boundary between reporting and editorialising.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 10:27 UTC (Fri)
by daniel (guest, #3181)
[Link]
Posted Jul 19, 2013 12:41 UTC (Fri)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link]
OH! wait a minute... who electing him reader-representative...
Please do _not_ change a things.. these quotes, and especially the one selected here, are a nice part of my weekly LWN entertainment.
I know I'm going to find insightful and educative article, but I am also looking forward to the 'quotes' section, hoping for a good chuckle or two
Posted Jul 29, 2013 8:59 UTC (Mon)
by fb (guest, #53265)
[Link]
I'd like to add a +1 to that comment asking LWN to be careful in its quotes section to avoid glorifying or celebrating abusive and or rude behavior. While each and every one of those quotes had somehow a reason behind them (at least in the author's mind), giving prominence to those quotes helps IMHO reinforce the notion that such a behavior is acceptable.
I'm taking the time to mention this because LWN is great and I enjoy it a lot. It is due to LWN that I get to be pointed to quite a few excellent emails such as the one from the first quote here https://lwn.net/Articles/515867/.
Posted Aug 6, 2013 9:38 UTC (Tue)
by jschrod (subscriber, #1646)
[Link]
Please, don't.
I'm late to the discussion since I was on holidays -- but, as a paid subscriber (and a quite early one, at that), I want to add my voice that "josh" is not a representative of my view. Your quotes shows what happens "in the scene" and you should not start to filter them (and thus, your report on the reality that happens) for some perceived standard of politeness of some readers.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 17:01 UTC (Thu)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (22 responses)
>Whether these messages constitute "advocating for physical intimidation and violence" or even "advocating for verbal abuse" will be left for the reader to decide.
really bothered me, as though the article was intentionally trying to make Sarah's mail seem absurd.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 19:38 UTC (Thu)
by mylogic (guest, #75038)
[Link] (19 responses)
Posted Jul 18, 2013 22:26 UTC (Thu)
by price (guest, #59790)
[Link] (18 responses)
I'm sure the omission is unintentional. I hope our esteemed editor will correct it.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 22:49 UTC (Thu)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (16 responses)
As you might imagine, I spent a lot of time on this article, trying to make it as fair and correct as I could. One thing I could not do was take Linus's joke about Greg's size seriously, and I cannot believe anybody else would either. Do you honestly believe anybody was suggesting that Greg should go and physically attack people? I restricted the quotes to what the people involved were actually advocating for.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 15:46 UTC (Fri)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (2 responses)
Or, in other words, yell and rant more so people don't see you as friendly. Be intimidating.
I have the same reaction to that notion that Sarah did: seriously, is *that* how we're going to put it?
Now, the problem the original thread wanted to solve made sense: patches shouldn't go into stable in preference to later -rc kernels. However, that doesn't seem like a problem best solved via ranting and raving.
So, while I didn't take Linus's joke about Greg's size as anything but a joke, in the long-standing tradition of "ha ha only serious", I do think the parallel between physical intimidation and verbal/written intimidation was entirely serious, and I think *that's* what made Sarah's mail reasonable.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 17:26 UTC (Fri)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link] (1 responses)
and yet that same thread illustrate that Linux does not have the same problem than Greg, and an offender even explicitly said why: Linus would shout him down if he tried. Whereas Greg would not...
Posted Jul 22, 2013 14:47 UTC (Mon)
by bfields (subscriber, #19510)
[Link]
Posted Jul 19, 2013 15:57 UTC (Fri)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
As an aside, regardless of my comments about the article, I *do* agree entirely with this policy, and I applaud you for not hiding mistakes. Apart from typos, I don't generally think published articles should be changed without very visible indications of the change.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 18:19 UTC (Fri)
by jonabbey (guest, #2736)
[Link]
Posted Jul 19, 2013 18:44 UTC (Fri)
by price (guest, #59790)
[Link] (10 responses)
As for the substance of this particular mistake, I think josh's detailed sibling comment explains it well. I think Linus was clearly joking too, but there's a difference between "complained about a joke" and "invented talk of physical violence that just wasn't there". You've invited readers to infer that Sarah did the latter (and several comments show that readers have), and that's not accurate or fair.
Even if you disagree on the substance here, I hope you'll consider correcting mistakes (transparently, of course!) in the future.
Thanks again for this article and LWN's excellent coverage in general.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 22:10 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (6 responses)
For the record, Price, I drew that inference, and it was from the clear text of the message, not because anyone invited me to.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 22:50 UTC (Mon)
by price (guest, #59790)
[Link] (5 responses)
But, in fact, she quoted Linus saying that Greg "*should* scare [people]", because he is "a freakish giant" who "might squish you". Now, I think this is clearly a joke, and you might argue any number of other claims to the effect that it is obviously a joke, or all in good fun, or the violence it jokes about is relatively mild, or that the other messages in the thread were strictly about words, etc. But no matter how you feel about jokes about physical violence, it doesn't make them not about physical violence.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 23:17 UTC (Mon)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 23, 2013 16:10 UTC (Tue)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 27, 2013 21:56 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
(But then the sky outside my window isn't blue. It's black.)
Posted Jul 22, 2013 23:45 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (1 responses)
But the continuum above and below "reasonable threat" is so well established that it's established *in US Law*: "assault" is what happens when someone makes a threat against you which a reasonable man would construe as a valid threat.
If that midget who punched people's crotches on Scrubs threatened Arnold Schwarzenegger, that wouldn't be an assault, legally. The reverse would. It's what the Russians call "objective circumstances".
A "reasonable person" as the law defines that, and as case law from judges and juries illustrates it, would not construe the comments made about Greg KH as reasonable threats, even in the abstract (as opposed to their being aimed at a particular person *by* Greg), absent a pretty clear indication that Greg has a violent nature and is prone to go about "squishing" people.
So, out here in the Real World, no, it is not in fact reasonable to construe that entire conversation as violence, discussions of or incitement to violence, or anything near it, and the law -- and the reasonable man -- will construe you as a crank if you do.
If Greg KH *said that to Sarah*, *as a total stranger*, it would of course be a completely different situation. But the situation which pertains here would, I think, get an DA yelled at for even filing it, assuming her boss would allow her to. (See, there's no way in English for me to make the boss female too, to complete my point.)
Finally: by going off on a rant about this particular issue in this particular context, Ms Sharp is doing no favors to the people who *are* on the reasonable-person side of the divide; viz all the convention-harassment issues that are presently big topics for discussion on the Net.
Alas, I fear, this conversation -- the whole page of it -- will ultimately prove mostly fruitless as -- as with so many such arguments -- the two sides can't even agree on what the topic is.
Posted Jul 23, 2013 4:42 UTC (Tue)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
We're talking about the suggestion that a kernel developer should flame people more to become more intimidating, by analogy with physical intimidation. *That's* what kicked this whole thing off.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 22:11 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 23, 2013 15:27 UTC (Tue)
by shmget (guest, #58347)
[Link] (1 responses)
"I also got some really awful hate mail that tried to drag my gender in. But I don’t think this is a gendered topic..."
I find it fascinating how some people seems to be perfectly able to apply logic when they write code, and yet seemingly oblivious to it in their real life...
Posted Jul 27, 2013 21:57 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Posted Jul 19, 2013 15:30 UTC (Fri)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
Thank you, that's exactly the point I was getting at.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 20:00 UTC (Thu)
by dpquigl (guest, #52852)
[Link]
Posted Jul 18, 2013 22:45 UTC (Thu)
by Tobu (subscriber, #24111)
[Link]
The linked email really is a bit absurd, extra lines don't change that:
If you're worried about fair representation, you should consider that her starting point, “Linus is advocating for physical intimidation and violence”, is a rather extreme misrepresentation. Really the most sympathetic thing to do is to gloss over it and refrain from making any hypothesis on how someone could, in a single bound, leap to such an unfair, distorting, and insulting characterisation.
LKML people are forgiving and didn't make the discussion about that, and so does the interesting LWN article. Some other outlets did rise to the bait and give anxiogenic outrage-generating caricatures rather than space for discussion.
Posted Jul 18, 2013 21:03 UTC (Thu)
by dougg (guest, #1894)
[Link] (2 responses)
Hopefully the past tense for Alan is only temporary.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 10:30 UTC (Fri)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 19, 2013 18:23 UTC (Fri)
by jonabbey (guest, #2736)
[Link]
I didn't see Linus flaming Alan in any kind of abusive way, but he was certainly being demanding. Alan decided he had had enough of that, and went away, and he had every right to, but I didn't see anything abusive.
Posted Jul 19, 2013 14:37 UTC (Fri)
by petkan (subscriber, #54713)
[Link] (3 responses)
Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. First there was an "issue" with not enough women in the kernel development. Now i should not be calling my fellow bloody idiot if i deem fit, because some weak-hearted people can't take it.
WTF? Being overly polite isn't much different from being a hypocrite. A good short curse in the right moment is much more effective than thousands of polite words. The same way a punch in the nose in the right moment is better (and more effective) than thousand words. I know, most Americans doesn't like this sort of thinking, but there is a lot more world beside America and i don't really care.
Some skirt is trying to impose stupid rules on something that works just fine for most of us and all of a sudden the levy of idiocy breaks. What is wrong with men these days?..
Posted Jul 19, 2013 14:45 UTC (Fri)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jul 20, 2013 11:21 UTC (Sat)
by petkan (subscriber, #54713)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 22, 2013 0:09 UTC (Mon)
by lacos (guest, #70616)
[Link]
Reasoning for basic human dignity is clearly an uphill battle when not even
USB XHCI DRIVER
suffices for people like you not to call another person "some skirt".
> something that works just fine for most of us
Y'all simply don't know about most of those for whom this attitude doesn't work. Of course you don't care, but that doesn't make this argument any less invalid. You're only saying "people who put up with the abuse (or don't perceive it as such) put up with it (or don't perceive it as such)".
Posted Jul 20, 2013 10:44 UTC (Sat)
by lab (guest, #51153)
[Link]
Here's why:
First of all, this is actually one of the most civil, intelligent and enlightening discussions I've read on the Internet for a long time. Compared to the absolute shit commenting, around this discussion, which takes place on most (all?) other places on the net, this is actually a shining example, of how grownups can have a fruitful conversation about difficult matters. It really sets the bar quite high, which in this case is *particularly* relevant, since this discussion is about setting the bar in the first place.
Secondly, since this discussion touches several hotbutton issues, it is very easy to make up one's mind far to quickly, and bottomline the whole thing into easy to digest absolutes, or black and white statements. I would like to submit that there is nothing black or white, and no quick absolutes or obvious right/wrong's to be derived from this. This is difficult adult stuff folks. This is worldcitizen level issues being discussed. It cuts across gender issues, cultural issues, psychological factors, personality issues, management issues, ... in short - everything humanity struggles with on a daily basis all over the place. All of this in probably *the* most highprofile collaborative project in the history of the human race, filled with passionate, opinionated and intelligent people, from all walks and denominations of life. It's *not* easy.
Whatever comes out of this discussion will be read as "wrong" or "right" by some and not by others. That is inevitable, because there *is* no absolute outcome that can result from it. And that is Ok. The only thing that can come out of it, is the project itself, deliberating whether some adjustments to it's process should take place or not, and what the nature of those adjustments should be, and why. That's how it should be.
I must say, after reading the whole thread, I have the highest respect for all the key players involved, and have no doubts about their intentions, or their ability to reach an "as good as can be obtained" outcome. It will never be perfect, and that is both to be expected and quite Ok, for the simple fact that being human means being imperfect, and on a continuous learning journey. The only troublesome thing that could happen IMO, is if the Linux collective project would show itself unable to learn from it's mistakes, and not continue to improve, So far I see nothing like that happening, and I believe it's a key factor to it's enormous sucess.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 17:32 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (6 responses)
> You may need to learn to shout at people.
Really?
*THIS* is what set Sarah Sharp off? Then the problem is even worse than I'd imagined from the fact-free Wired article I read earlier.
The kernel is big. Really big. I mean, you might think it's a long way from one end of the PHP sources to the other, but that's just peanuts to the kernel.
And there are *lots* of people working on it.
I'm going to assume Sarah has never been in management. If she had, she would realize that there is an absolute limit to the size of a team you can manage without having to become somewhat -- or more than somewhat -- of a hardass about people and their habits and what you will allow and what exceptions you will make... and that's all we're seeing here.
Linus, having been at this for 25 years, simply doesn't sugar coat things, and since the management's all being done in public, you *see* that. I guarantee you, 2nd and 3rd tier management in traditional corporations, overseeing hundreds of professionals, is this raw, or worse, it's just that its in private, and you don't get to see it.
But no, this *particular* incident is an overreaction.
Perhaps it's a straw, and Sarah is a camel, but -- while I don't follow LKML in realtime -- I do look in on it occasionally for various reasons, and I can't say I've ever seen anything that qualifies as *abuse*.
I've myself gotten into it with Linus on that list once, and his reply didn't constitute abuse, either.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 17:52 UTC (Mon)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (5 responses)
I don't know Sarah but I wouldn't assume that.
> ... hardass about people and their habits and what you will allow and what exceptions you will make
I don't believe anyone, including Sarah, is advocating for reducing the quality standards of the kernel.
> ... management's all being done in public ...
While this surely happens I don't think this is as common, required or ideal. Companies with management who abuse and berate employees often end up with high turnover and stories on thedailywtf.com, not with high-quailty output. As Sarah pointed out, over 80% of kernel developers are employed in a professional capacity to do kernel development, so while everyone wants to retain the frank exchange of ideas that fosters quality, we can probably have some minimum standard of behavior that most corporations are able to maintain.
Acting decent toward your fellow human beings and co-workers shouldn't be a significant burden.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 18:08 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (4 responses)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and all workplaces have standards and practices. If you walk in cold, and say "y'all are doing it wrong", you need a) a much better sales pitch and b) much better evidence than I have seen so far.
This is nothing more than the standards that kept Usenet useful for over 2 decades: be a grownup, and if you're gonna say dumb stuff, make sure your Nomex undies are zipped up first.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 18:36 UTC (Mon)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (3 responses)
We can certainly have an honest difference of opinion on that subject, I don't follow LKML so take my opinion for what it's worth, I'm just going by what I've read, but she did provide some examples of what she thought was unnecessary behavior, calling other kernel developers incompetent and stupid, telling them to SHUT THE F**K UP, etc. The tenor used between close friends may not be appropriate when used publicly with what are effectively subordinates, co-workers and strangers. The community on LKML are not just people shooting the breeze, they are largely paid professionals whose livelihood depends on their successful participation, which changes the standard a little bit. Since she did make a statement about this behavior I would extend her the respect of taking her statement at face value unless it is shown to be false.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 19:22 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (2 responses)
"Most of the people on LKML are abusive assholes", which is the substance of her complaint as I -- and a lot of other people, apparently -- are interpreting it, is an extraordinary claim.
In other news: Linus and the, oh, top 10 or 12 guys on that list *are*, plus or minus 10%, the close friends between whom you believe such a tone might be justified.
There is, as you suggest, room for difference of opinion on whether the behaviour perceived on LMKL a) is common, b) actually is abusive, and c) is thereby *inherently* inclined to scare off people with useful contributions to make at that level (which is *really* far up in the stratosphere; think about the literally billions of devices the Linux kernel presently runs).
The opinion seems to be (from this thread, anyway) close enough to 50/50 that I'd have to sit down and actually tally it. But it also seems to me that the people alleging it's not abuse are backing up their position with more data and less emotion.
I *am* pleased to hear that, with one or two small exceptions, no one seems to be reacting to Sarah a) on the grounds of her sex, or b) on the grounds of her technical competence -- only, like my response, on the grounds of her management competence, which is *clearly* (to me, anyway) in-scope for this discussion.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 20:27 UTC (Mon)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link] (1 responses)
That would be an extraordinary claim but I don't think that is not how I interpreted it and so I don't think that is the claim which was made. I understood the claim to be that Linus will sometimes, not often, go over a line with publicly dressing down contributions that he doesn't like. It is not clear to me what the relationship between Linus and the people being publicly berated is but it can set a tone on the list where that kind of behavior is considered acceptable. There are many maintainers on LKML and elsewhere in the professional sphere who are able to manage people, provide constructive feedback and maintain high quality standards without resorting to name calling and rude behavior.
I dunno, I think that the act of just talking about it probably will make the various actors think a little bit more about what they say and what the audience is when they say it which might move the conversation a few notches over in civility which would be mission accomplished from Sarah's perspective.
Posted Jul 22, 2013 20:32 UTC (Mon)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link]
> I understood the claim to be that Linus will sometimes, not often, go over a line with publicly dressing down contributions that he doesn't like.
You understood her complaint to be specific to Linus? Cause I didn't. It sounded to *me* like she was asserting that the LKML in general was a "hostile work environment".
Posted Jul 24, 2013 10:17 UTC (Wed)
by nocturem (guest, #92005)
[Link] (4 responses)
As a follow up point; I can also say with some confidence that this behaviour would not occur in a professional environment in *most* businesses, not without significant consequences. Can anyone remember a time when they were allowed to call their co-workers a useless cunt? No and neither can I and it doesn’t matter how badly they have messed up. Workplaces have liability if their senior staff abuse their junior staff or vice versa (at least in any way that can be proven) and there are many, many lawsuits that have been filed for those reasons and Human Resources in any company you can think of will have policies regarding conduct between employees.
Secondly to all those who have made the most tragically weak apology for Linus’s behaviour that it preserves the delicate quality of Kernel code or even weaker that it reduces redundant traffic in the mailing list that ladies and gentlemen is a horrific fallacy with no supporting evidence.
Thirdly Linux is a free project the people submitting patches do not get paid for their work and hence it is the proverbial gift horse, you shouldn’t look it in the mouth and even if you don’t think it is a stallion you would ride at best you might turn the gift away and suggest that you would rather walk insulting the man or woman who has made this offer only increases the chance that it will not be offered in the future. Yes some companies are paying staff to develop for Linux but not a lot and most of them only have devoted small amounts of their resources to this effort since the gain in market share is tiny.
For the TLDR summary:
Posted Jul 25, 2013 3:54 UTC (Thu)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (3 responses)
Then you imply that language like calling her "a useless cunt" is part f what's going on, and may even be common.
I have never seen language like that on the kernel list in the 16+ years that I've been reading it, and it's definantly not the time tof thing that's being discussed.
Please go and read the examples of the "bad behavior" and then look at the context before you make any comments
Posted Jul 25, 2013 5:32 UTC (Thu)
by nocturem (guest, #92005)
[Link] (2 responses)
Linus admitted that his blast at Mauro was not his proudest moment and more tragically its one of the mmoments the Internet collectivly remembers the best.
If you are uncertain what I am getting at have a look at this: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/lin...
It doesn't have the full story and it doesn't have to point is that from a PR perspective the damage is done. I don't make a habit of reading the mailing list and my perspective is that of an outsider.
There are potentially thousands of programming students and Linux hobbiests (not sure if that is the correct plural :S) who may have seen this as their only insight into the Kernel development community and further there are untold hardware manufacturers whose executive team need only to read one article like this to discourage any interest in associaing with Linux they will just stick to Microsoft cause its safe.
There is grander damage being done to the image of Linux as a whole when this gets dragged out onto the wider internet. And if you read the comments being generated on other sites regarding Linus they are not flattering or accurate but they dont have to be to tarnish the image of Linix as a whole or to scare off potential talent.
So to reiterate I am all for a code of conduct preferably with a nice fluff article in other news pages alluding to it so that instead of the perception of Linux Kernel development being an amateur project filled with flaming and hostile to newcomers it might leave this event with the image of having "cleaned up its act" regardless of its accuracy.
I was open and honest prefacing my opinion as not being intimately informed and would not claim to have years of experience with the community however I have read related articles on several other sites and I am not alone in my position which I feel validates it to a degree.
Posted Jul 26, 2013 22:26 UTC (Fri)
by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
[Link]
"hobbyists" (though most-hobby-like wouldn't be the worst addition to the dictionary).
I think you've done a much better job than I could have done at getting across my thoughts on the issue (at least the ramifications; the solution is less clear since a code of conduct is useless if it is either not enforced or an LKML-thickskins list pops up as a replacement).
Posted Jul 27, 2013 21:59 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
The two are not the same.
Thick skins
Thick skins
Thick skins
Thick skins
Thick skins
Thick skins
Thick skins
Thick skins
Thick skins
> while at the same time you omit the fact that we have an even better
> implementation (except for the last test case) already in the
> kernel. What's the point of this exercise?
>
> ...
>
> We really need proper explanations and not some guess based drivel to
> assess that.
Thick skins, and women
Thick skins, and women
Thick skins, and women
Thick skins, and women
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- is easy and natural
- relieves stress
- keeps crappy code out of the kernel (sometimes)
- keeps crappy people out of LKML (sometimes)
- _may_ be keeping good people out of LKLM (unverifiable)
- is unnatural and sometimes hard
- increases stress
- _may_ allow some shy people to contribute
- Linux is the software project with the greatest number of contributors in the world.
- The number of contributors to Linux has been steadily growing over the years.
- The LKLM has a reputation of abusive language.
- There is really no measure as to how much abusive the LKML is.
- "Abusive" is a subjective term.
- It's not clear that the LKML reputation is actually a bad thing.
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- _may_ be keeping good people out of LKLM (just as unquantifiable)
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Indeed.
On skin thickness
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should linus try to be more diplomatic?
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The real problem is not Linus's well known antics. I can take the bad with the good in Linus's case, because Linus is Linus. You know, the Linus. Broke the mould after they made him and all that.
The real problem is people who are not Linus, but feel entitled or even obligated to act just as antisocial as Linus. These are the people who are primarily responsible for turning LKML toxic. If it was just Linus acting up from time to time and everybody else carrying on in a civilized adult manner, LKML would never have earned the reputation it now has.
Let me add my own data point. A major reason I dropped out of the kernel community for three years and did other things was the toxic environment. I could name names, but I won't. (You know who you are.)
To be sure, this was not the major reason I dropped out... the actual major reason was, when I joined a hedge fund one of the conditions was that I stop contributing to open source. Of course that was not forever, but it is telling that after I came up for air from the even more caustic financial world, I did not choose to go back to LKML. I went and did something fun for a year instead, where contributors are actually respectful to each other. (Computational geometry if you want to know.) The only reason I came back to the kernel community is because somebody I respect (Hirofumi) asked me to. Now I am glad to be back, but I sure was not coming back on my own. And I still feel terrible about the toxic environment on LKML, and the people who make it that way. I do believe that Hirofumi would agree with me.
Just my personal data point. Carry on.
Regards,
Daniel
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2) you thought it was fine
3) htree code seems to work
4) htree code is huge spaghetti code
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you should try it one day, dear kettle.
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Now who's being presumptuous ?
Nice begging the question fallacy... but the point has not being conceded, no matter how much creative you choose to be with your vocabulary to try to pain a favorable picture of your position.
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> contracts, w2s, employer-employee relationships between linus and
> those who volunteer patch submissions. everyone is free to exit the
> process at any time, or just take the code and start anew. the
> captain of the boat won't get far if all the rowers abandon ship.
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Please do tell which 'civil right' afford you the 'right not to be offended'
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And in particular, since when the 'right not to be offended' is a 'civil _right_' ?
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It shouldn't be surprising that being offended and making a spectacle of it has become way more popular than insulting people
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I find it astonishing that you believe that being asked to not be horrible to people is equivalent to some sort of police state!
Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!
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I will say this once only. Desist immediately. You are the one without anything to add to the conversation, and this kind of comment is not welcome here.
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Do they really feel threatened, or did someone's feelings get hurt?
I love this recent quote from Reg Braithwaite:
Hey! If you need to"Tell it like it is without worrying about people's feelings," how come you try so hard to hurt their feelings?
It summarizes the attitude towards "feelings" in many toxic communities.
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Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
Ingo's message came in after the article was written; that's the hazard of writing about ongoing conversations. Here it is for those wanting to see it in original form.
Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
The same red herring as always.
http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0612.1/172...
How does the phrase "Ok, what kind of ass-hat idiotic thing is this?" help? He should have written "The following is a bad idea:". How is "No way will I pull this kind of crap" useful? He should have said: "I am never going to pull code that handles IRQs in user-space". There is simply *no way* anybody could misunderstand my reformulations, and it has *nothing at all* to do with political correctness or subtlety, but simply with good breeding.
The same red herring as always.
But at least here it's probably part of every communication training (in companies etc.)
What is he trying to say?
- fact: code is bad/suboptimal/whatever?
- self reveal: I don't like it/I'm really upset/I take only perfect code?
- appeal: Change it/Go away?
- relationship: I usually trust you/I know you can do better/I think you are dumb?
The same red herring as always.
I think that somethink like "Greg, you really disappointed me because I know you know better" would be more clear and polite
The same red herring as always.
The same red herring as always.
Telling someone that they're doing it wrong, but not telling them what the right way is usually quite unhelpful, unless there's only one other way it could be done or if the proper way of doing things is already documented and part of things that you're expected to have read before submitting code.
In my opinion the lack of explanation of *why* something is crap is the big problem here.
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
It's part of the argument (emphasis mine):
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
From this message
Yes. And I do it partly (mostly) because it's who I am, and partly
because I honestly despise being subtle or "nice".
The fact is, people need to know what my position on things are. And I
can't just say "please don't do that", because people won't listen. I
say "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle", and I mean
it.
And I definitely am not willing to string people along, either. I've
had that happen too - not telling people clearly enough that I don't
like their approach, they go on to re-architect something, and get
really upset when I am then not willing to take their work.
Sarah, first off, I don't have that many tools at hand. Secondly, I
simply don't believe in being polite or politically correct. And you
can point at all those cultural factors where some cultures are not
happy with confrontation (and feel free to make it about gender too -
I think that's almost entirely cultural too). And please bring up
"cultural sensitivity" while at it. And I'll give you back that same
"cultural sensitivity". Please be sensitive to _my_ culture too.
[…]
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
"Don't ever break userspace. Ever. It's never OK."
"I'm seeing the same set of mistakes in many pieces of code from you; please understand the problem better before sending any more patches."
"You should know better than this."
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
Not so interesting- fallacious irrelevancy
Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
An intentionally adversarial environment requiring active support and defense of ideas does indeed produce far better results than one completely averse to negative feedback.
It's also unnecessarily stressful. I for one could not possibly participate in any development process that was 'intentionally adversarial'. How many others are there like me?
Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
Ingo posted a very interesting message on this thread
Focus on the code, yes, but...
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The “What was said” paragraph in this article is clear enough, but I've noticed another striking example on her blog comments.
1. Pick any busy interstate highway.
2. Drive to place near police booth.
3. Turn the rear speed and go back for awhile.
4. Hear polite speech from policeman with nice explanation for why what you are doing is wrong.
5. Compare it to what Linus have said.
A lot of folks will think it's not relevant, but it's still amusing to consider that the second of Linus's rants (the one toward Rafael) was a complete mistake on his part. The regression he was cursing about did not exist...
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And yes, it really sad that people like Sarah who tend to thwart honest discussion (because noone is allowed to talk honestly near them because they can easily be offended) are valued more in today's world then people who actually do honest work.
Careful there. You're implying that Sarah thwarts honest discussion and doesn't do honest work. Are you familiar with Sarah's work in the kernel?
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His last point was *Don't be nice*, and he was referring to this exact issue we are discussing here. Jim, as an executive director, seems unable to reign or influence the core kernel developers.
The Linux kernel development sets the tone to other projects, and you can see how it works with other projects were they lack the contributors.
This immature attitude in the Linux kernel development makes most core development to happen by paid developers and the volunteers are doing peripheral work.
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Our dear leader #1 mostly steps in to kick sexist trolls. And whatever Linus is, he's definitely not a sexist idiot.
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Linus/or any one else they are missing the bigger picture of what he/they are trying to convey in the review.
It's left to one's sensitiveness to swear words and one's culture. But, don't miss the opportunity to learn on what they tried to convey in between those swear words.
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Perhaps a venn diagram will help:
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------- -------
| | | |
| A | | B |
| | | |
------- -------
Group 'A' are those who think coarse language is fine. Group 'B' are those who think it is boorish. Why slice off the support of group 'B' when you don't have to, especially when there is nothing to be gained in return?
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Most of my coworkers do.
My direct (one or two levels) managers will. I don't have enough contacts with higher-up so I don't know if they do.
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I've never worked anywhere that saying 'fuck' was off limits.
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especially since group 'A' is what you have gained, and they seems to be doing a pretty good job at developing a very successful kernel.
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‘Offensive noise’ is defined in the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 as being noise:
(a) that, by reason of its level, nature, character or quality, or the time at which it is made or any other circumstances:
(i) is harmful to (or is likely to be harmful to) a person who is outside the premises from which it is emitted, or
(ii) interferes unreasonably with (or is likely to interfere unreasonably with) the comfort or repose of a person who is outside the premises from which it is emitted, or
(b) that is of a level, nature, character or quality prescribed by the regulations or that is made at a time, or in any other circumstances prescribed by the regulations.
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(2) isn't legal in France either, and gets taken seriously. You'll probably be able to find examples of (1); but the “private club” defence wouldn't hold for commercial operations and is just there to discourage complaints. As far as most scouting activities splitting children by gender, local organisations do accept both genders and give them equal treatment. This is unlike the US situation where there are gender-specific institutions.
</sidebar>
discriminations
discriminations
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"Being polite is not a religion - you don't have to believe in it. We do it in the US because it works for us. Not having our manners is not any particular culture - it's just not the US one."
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Policies must be voluntarily obeyed to be effective
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If someone contradicts you in any way do you feel personally slighted and abused?
I don't feel that way, I'm happy to take constructive criticism, unless the other party goes out of their way to be personal and insulting.
I would think it the same in most professional environments, do you have a different experience?
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There are cultures where you are not supposed to criticize anything publicly - at least not directly. Should we all stop using word "no" on mailing lists to not offend such people?
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The difficulty of the second approach is it requires someone with outstanding technical ability and social skills without an ego to match.
Cultural differences
Cultural differences
There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.stable/58317
your particular expectations on others, and trying to do so in a very
particular way. It's the old "think of the children" argument. And
it's bogus. Calling things "professional" is just more of the same -
trying to enforce some kind of convention on others by trying to claim
that it's the only acceptable way."
Linus totally missed the point because Sarah was not playing the "victim card". Just because she's a woman making this point doesn't mean she's complaining about sexism. The point she's making is that there is a difference between saying "this patch is unacceptable" (or even "this is an idiotic idea") and shouting "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" and she was complaining about the latter, not the former. And it's not the f-word she's objecting to either.
There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.
There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.
There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.
There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.
There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.
There is unfortunately a fundamental point missing in this article.
A plea against COC's
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#kernelnewbies is also good for the undergraduate stuff. You're still learning, but you can also contribute some educated help. Some of the people who hang in there will probably like interacting with skilled learners.
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Could you give some examples, please, as to where you think that we have inappropriately glorified such behavior? It would be good to know where we are perceived to have gone over the line.
Propogation and glorification
Propogation and glorification
> The problem is that driver authors _ARE_ stupid, lazy morons who don't bother to read documentation.
The full mail from Linus containing that quote is a good example of how profanity is not required for an over-the-top flame. Yes, the code was terrible; was that level of response *really* necessary, though? The clear explanation of why the C code didn't make sense, and the behavior of C, was useful, but LWN wasn't quoting the mail for that, it was quoting the mail because of the associated elaborate way of calling someone an idiot over a style issue.
Borderline.
Again, at least LWN was appropriately selective.
This one at least includes a disclaimer. :)
https://lwn.net/Articles/528107/
The mail from Linus linked from that article seems like a good example of the kind of thing not to encourage. At least LWN's quote left out the more offensive bits.
https://lwn.net/Articles/490383/
> Publicly making fun of people is half the fun of open source programming.
> In fact, the real reason to eschew programming in closed environments is that you can't embarrass people in public.
OK, so...
Propogation and glorification
Propogation and glorification
For this one, Linus was having fun with the code, yes. Was it really that bad? (I'll note that we're now a year in the past, incidentally).
Propogation and glorification
Propogation and glorification
Propogation and glorification
Propogation and glorification
Propogation and glorification
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I'll not make substantive changes to the published article, no. That is not, IMO, the right way to do things, even if I thought changes were warranted. We don't try to hide our mistakes.
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So 'that' does seems indeed to be quite effective to achieve the desired result.
The problem wasn't that Greg didn't "rant and rave" before, but rather (as far as I can tell) that he didn't say anything at all.
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" I think that my perspective is somewhat colored by both my gender and my age. A lot of the kernel maintainers came into Linux at the very beginning when there weren’t a lot of women in there."
"So I think they picked up a little bit of the brogrammer culture"
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On Fri, 12 Jul 2013 18:17:08 +0200, Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> wrote:
> * Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 8:47 AM, Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> I tend to hold things off after -rc4 because you scare me more than Greg
>>> does ;-)
>>
>> Have you guys *seen* Greg? The guy is a freakish giant. He *should*
>> scare you. He might squish you without ever even noticing.
>
> Greg might be a giant and he might squish people without ever even
> noticing, but that's just a grave, deadly physical threat no real kernel
> hacker ever feels threatened by. (Not much can hurt us deep in our dark
> basements after all, except maybe earthquakes, gamma ray eruptions and Mom
> trying to clean up around the computers.)
>
> So Greg, if you want it all to change, create some _real_ threat: be frank
> with contributors and sometimes swear a bit. That will cut your mailqueue
> in half, promise!
On Fri, 12 Jul 2013 08:22:27 -0700, Linus wrote:
> Greg, the reason you get a lot of stable patches seems to be that you
> make it easy to act as a door-mat. Clearly at least some people say "I
> know this patch isn't important enough to send to Linus, but I know Greg
> will silently accept it after the fact, so I'll just wait and mark it
> for stable".
>
> You may need to learn to shout at people.
Seriously, guys? Is this what we need in order to get improve -stable?
Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence.
Ingo Molnar and Linus are advocating for verbal abuse.
Not *fucking* cool. Violence, whether it be physical intimidation,
verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional
on the mailing lists.
Alan Cox
Very good example. LWN's report from 2009 is here. It shows that it's not just a problem for newbies: even the most senior developers (Alan was once seen as second only to Linus) can take only so much of Linus's flaming.
Alan Cox
Alan Cox
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I must say this comment demonstrates what's wrong with some men, certainly. One can disagree with Sarah's point of view without pulling in a bunch of sexist nonsense. No more of that here, please.
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M: Sarah Sharp <sarah.a.sharp@linux.intel.com>
L: linux-usb@vger.kernel.org
S: Supported
F: drivers/usb/host/xhci*
F: drivers/usb/host/pci-quirks*
Read the whole thread, please
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> ... management in traditional corporations ... is this raw, or worse, ...
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I should probably get this out of the way here.
I am not a regular reader of the Kernel Mailing List and I don’t develop for the Linux Kernel in a professional or amateur role and I couldn’t imagine wanting to it looks more like a religious self flagellating kind of thing, spending hours coding a patch submitting it and getting ragged on because someone else doesn’t like it. However I have an interest in Linux as an admin and I take an enthusiast view towards watching its development. But seeing this kind of public behaviour makes me ashamed of the code in my PC in the same way I would feel bad knowing that my clothes were made by children in a sweatshop.
I personally have to say the most fascinating part of this entire fight has not been Sarah or Linus, it would be the bizarre arguments expressed supporting or rebutting the claim of whether there should be a code of conduct within the Kernel Mailing List.
The first observation I would make is that these interactions would probably not occur in real life ie somewhere away from the safety of a keyboard.
I sincerely doubt Linus would start disparaging the ancestry of a guy twice his size in a pub that spilt his pint. If he did; well Linux may not have a benevolent dictator maintaining the Kernel by the end of the interaction :P
Oh I am sure there are exceptions and being the internet someone will no doubt cite them so let me head off the few I can think of:
Perhaps in the armed forces where lives are at stake you might be able to carelessly toss around the abuse but in context you are employed to kill people there so perhaps that might be an exception to a generalize rule of civility.
Yes in an impoverished 3rd world nation where much of the population is starving I am sure your manager can say whatever he likes about the quality of the shoes you are manufacturing and possibly even beat you if they are not up to Nike standard but again not a very good apples to apples comparison to the world of free and open source software development.
There is no historical proof that abusive and ultimately childish behaviour and an inability to control your emotional state when talking to volunteers on a project improves the quality of the results. None, no I don’t care about that one time you observed it helped in one case that is anecdotal not empirical and not submissible as evidence.
I am of the opinion that if there is an issue of low quality patches being pushed through still after several years of Linus and others casting aspersions upon others intellect, breeding and bedroom preferences threatening them with beatings that they could never hope to carry out then I think the evidence would be closer to suggesting these practices haven’t worked as a code quality improver at all.
I can see no reason that you could not be direct in telling someone that their code doesn’t meet a standard that you are willing to accept but telling them that it is shit or stupid or that they themselves are morons not only insults them but has insulted their work too. Work that they may have put time into and further you should not make assumptions about the reasons as to why they have produced code not up so standard but you can ask if they are willing to re-write the code to a level you would accept.
A little reality check; there is a very good reason that many hardware vendors don’t play with Linux, it has a tiny market share and can’t justify subjecting their staff to the poor attitude within the Kernel development community. There is no business case in saying: “because it is a better developed and maintained kernel than the abomination that Redmond has vomited into the world” The market has never cared about quality of code and businesses largely don’t either. Linux needs a much larger market share to swing its weight around and largely thanks to Android it is beginning to gain that. But it is still a drop in the ocean compared to Microsoft and hardware vendors still treat it accordingly.
It may help if the Kernel community was extending the olive branch towards hardware vendors and asking nicely for them to produce drivers or at least make available the documentation required for the community to take an informed stab at it ie ATI but if the attitude of the top Kernel developers is still aggressive, confrontational and generally insulting then I can’t exactly hold it against hardware vendors that they don’t feel compelled to try and get their drivers into the Kernel.
Linux is shooting itself in the foot with this childish attitude, its an operating system not a tree house and the only people who are hurt by a lack of vendor support and interest is the users. I am all for a code of conduct that requires Kernel maintainers to try playing nice with the patch developers.
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I Have read the thread and I found several positions expressed ranging from the belligerent to the conciliatory and I would suspect that the resulting talk at the next Kernel Summit will be very interesting.
I notice that you surmised and interpreted my second point regarding communication in a professional setting as being an allagation that such language was being deployed directly against Sarah and others.
This was not my intended statement I was using a a deliberately extreme statement as a clear and unambiguous example of language that would be considered unacceptable in a professional environment. There are other examples of bad behavior as you have suggested and most of them would have the author facing a meeting with Human Resources in their workplace.
At no point was I directly or indirectly attempting to imply that this language was common within the Kernel development community who's discussion of their own tone has been (perhaps with some irony) cleaner than external discussions on other sites. I apologize if I had left this somewhat ambiguous my point if you did not read the tldr has been mentioned in the thread itself and that is that the tone of discussion, and this is not the overall tone or the regular day to day language used on the mailing list that I am referring to but the few odd examples that make it out into wider public circulation that should be stopped.
It should be more concerning for that very reason.
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So just to be clear; are you are stating that I am not entitled to comment on the matter or hold an an opinion based on not having a broader experience with the Kernel mailing list?
You are not qualified to comment because you're clearly not paying enough attention to discern which behaviours Sarah was trying to get changed, and which ones *off-list* she pointed at as examples of what she was going through as a direct result of her attempt to get those behaviours changed.