I disagree. We always can simply claim 'it's a cultural difference' as an excuse, but that doesn't make it true and it doesn't make the behavior acceptable. Mature people in every culture look to show respect to others. If someone insulted me and said that, I'd think they were irresponsible and a bit slippery.

I've lived in some of the places you mention, and my experiences don't match your descriptions. People, as they are are everywhere, are generally polite and respectful. They may have some different ways of doing it, but those fundamentals are universal in my experience.

People naturally and quickly divine social norms from those around them.When I travel internationally, I learn and respect the social rules of the places I go. On a sports team, perhaps we pat each other on the butt; I don't do that in an office and say 'it's a cultural difference'. I may kiss familiar women on the cheek to greet them in my culture, but I wouldn't presume to do it in others. Travelers who don't learn the local norms are called "ugly", as in 'the Ugly American". Even entering a new work environment, I learn the social norms; those who don't look incompetent and rude.

How long have the people cited in this thread been in the professional IT culture? If they didn't have their positions of authority and instead had a boss in a company, my guess is that they would very quickly find a way to be polite. My guess is that they are polite with their spouses and kids; their in-laws, etc.

My point in the GP was that the claim of 'cultural differences' isn't valid; we all learn and adjust to new cultural norms easily, and very few cultures, if any, have the norm of disrespect.

As far as I can tell you have not successfully argued that Linus / the linux community have no norm of respect. Other commenters have pointed out that the community does in fact have norms of respect, but that those norms include a clause along the lines of "if you bullshit and command a position where you are expected to know better, you may be bluntly called out on it".

> Up one level, you argue that newcomers should adapt to the norms of different cultures

My point was that newcomers can and do adopt norms quickly and easily. Therefore, bad behavior isn't due to 'cultural differences'; those are easily overcome.

> Your arguments are internally inconsistent

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. I'm afraid I am, myself, internally inconsistent. It's glorious. You should try it.

Sure, but making sure your defence of your argument doesn't contradict your argument can hardly be considered to be a foolish consistency.

Furthermore, if you think that bosses of companies are polite, you really need to work at more companies, because there's quite a lot of variance. There's a lot of bosses out there with very rough manners. And hell, in some places it was (still is?) someone standard to take business meetings at strip bars.

Similarly, I once worked support at an agricultural telemetry start-up, and swearing was part of the job. Our clients were mostly farmers, and swearing (if they were swearing) helped put them at ease and let us get on with the job.

I don't understand why there's confusion on that score. He knows what he's doing, he knows it's dickish, he does it anyway because people let him, and legions leap to his defense for it. It flabbergasts me, to be honest.

That's why he's a jerk, and that's why it's unacceptable.

It's also just generally a disrespectful way to treat other human beings, and that is pretty universal, actually.

But to be frank, I think that context was perfectly clear in my post.

"There's a problem with the function you wrote. I need you to fix it tonight." "The function you wrote is non-optimal for our goals. Please reconsider and reevaluate when you get a chance." "You fucked up that function. Fix up your shit NOW."

The first is "standard professionalspeak." It's clear, direct, gets the point across. It isn't rude. The second is worthless corporatespeak. The third is rude and dickish. It's also how Linus tends to communicate.

I agree the second is not great, but would you really prefer the third to the first?

My point is that you can be totally direct and clear about what must be done without being nasty to the person doing the work, and that is the ideal. I don't think there are many cultures that would prioritize being mean over being direct, but if yours does, I'd be curious to understand what advantage you think that confers.

Further, if we're going to embrace different communication styles, then I would say the onus is on people to learn to communicate inoffensively, not to learn to accept offensive communication.

Talking about language without context is meaningless and so I try not to judge Linus off of a few publicly available emails. My Australian friends will refer to each other with language that is shocking to me as an American, but I acknowledge the context aound it and don't write them off as assholes because of it.

It's clear from the very public, recurrent fallout from Linus's behavior that it is not a matter of camaraderie or simple outsider misunderstanding. I agree, context matters. It's precisely because of the context that this language is not tolerable. The LKML is not a private Slack channel for friends.

Absolutely, among friends, such talk is generally tolerated and isn't a sign of rudeness or disrespect. My friends and I do the same thing in private channels. But in public in a professional setting is not at all the place for that.

And this is the funny thing about it. Even the people he "explodes" on usually get a lot of friendly "stop" messages from him well before any inflammatory message comes out. Only real exceptions I can think of is that he will meet an insult with an insult. Which, ironically, can go a decent way to making everyone else feel safer in the environment.

Edit to add: I do want to quickly add that as much praise as I can offer Linus in this regard, Knuth really is on another level. I do not intend to compare them.

> My Australian friends will ...

There's a common thread here: if you already know for sure that someone has respect and/or affection for you, harsh language from them just reinforces that, precisely because talking that way to a stranger or acquaintance is hostile.

To me "fix up your shit NOW" is more open-ended, and if the fix takes me a week then that's perfectly fine.

How about if we modified the first comment to say "I need you to fix it ASAP"? I can't honestly believe that you'd much rather take someone shouting at you and making you feel bad about yourself, than a direct manager who ALSO speaks his mind, but can do so in a controlled, adult manner.

If he/she instead goes "There's a problem with the function you wrote", and in my head I need to go through the gymnastics of "I think he/she's basically saying that I fucked this function up and I need to fix my shit now", that adds a bit more effort to our communication.

Same is true in the reverse example of course.

Which is why people need to work with the right people, and there's no one-size-fits-all, especially when it comes to something as intricate as inter-person communications. Culture fit is real.

The onus is very much on corporate America to accept diversity. Right now, the only persons of color who are hired are ones who have mastered the culture, for example. That doesn't have much to do with technical skills. That's almost the definition of discrimination.

Respect has to do with how you feel towards a person. People can read through the language used, and as unprofessional as "Fix up your shit NOW" may sound, the details of body language, tone of voice, and facial expression can make that disdainful, angry, respectful, or any of many other things, depending on how you read it.

"I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do.

People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system.

And I'm not just saying that. I'm really not a very nice person. I can say "I don't care" with a straight face, and really mean it."

-- Linus Torvalds, 09/06/2000, LKML

"I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended."

-- Linus, 2012.

Linus Torvalds on why he isn't nice: "I don't care about you."

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-wh...

"people who get offended should be offended"

He's saying that if you want to join the team, you should have a thick skin. It's his prerogative as project leader. Maybe in his view there's a correlation between thick skin and the abilities required for a kernel hacker.

"doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system."

The objective to make a solid kernel is above your feelings, his feeling and anybody else's feelings.

"I don't care"

Same as above: the kernel is above you.

Maybe the harsh language is a good filter. I'm sure there's less politics in the organization with a direct language vs. euphemisms for everything. Kernel programing is harsh.

Although IMO self-deprecation is often also self-depreciation, for some liberal interpretation of that word in this context, but I doubt that's what you meant.

Why are we afraid to call people out on the shit they say? Is this some new level of political correctness? Or do we just see these people as something to project onto and dismiss anything counter to that?

No idea, but it seems we live in strange times where a man's own words are ignored for feel-good conclusions that have no merit or basis in reality.

At the other extreme, if you want to join your local flying club, you can expect to be treated courteously. If anyone treats you like an asshole, the problem is with them rather than you. It can be that way, because the group is not trying to achieve anything extreme, its just for enjoyment and largely social.

If you want to join in the white hot stream of activity surrounding one of the world's most important pieces of software, its not going to be like your flying club.

Its not quite the marines either, but it is a place where very complex stuff has to get done, urgently, absolutely correctly, in the face of hundreds or thousands of interjections and "what about" from more or less well-meaning contributors who just don't have or get the big picture in the same way the core of the group does. (Talking about Linus here, not Trump :)

Sometimes, such an environment functions better with a culture of abruptness and "take no shit" is built.

Its very unfortunate for anyone who aspires to join such a group that they have to put up with that. But sometimes we have to acknowledge that that "terrible behaviour" is part of what makes the group work. Not all clubs are suitable for all people.

Politely saying no takes time and effort, especially if communication isn't your strong point. If I'm walking down the street, I'll probably be pretty polite to the first homeless guy that asks me for a dollar. By the time the hundredth flags me down before I'm even halfway to my destination, I'll have boiled that initial polite response down to "Fuck off."

That polite "No, because of X, Y, and Z" rapidly turns into "I have made up my mind, no" and then into "This is not a fucking debate, so no, and fuck you." very quickly, especially if you're dealing with a constant deluge of stupid requests.

I'm not going to judge Linus for his outbursts, as obviously his method seems to work pretty well.

(This is different from Donald Trump, where people have actually complained about being wronged by him, rather than complaining about an interaction between Trump and somebody else where neither party had any complaints. And this is ignoring how offensive it is to equate telling somebody to do their job better with sexual assault and racial discrimination.)

In terms of profanity, if someone says "man, I had a really shitty day today", that's not really harmful and doesn't have significant consequences. But when someone says "you are a real piece of shit", that is harmful, and does have consequences. It doesn't even matter how the recipient felt. The giver had an intent of harm that was driven probably by anger.

It's the verbal equivalent to punching someone in the nose. The aggressor got angry and they wanted to inflict pain, in order to try to affect change to a scenario or thing they wanted to be different (that's what anger is). And regardless of whether the recipient was hurt, we as a society say that letting out your anger at someone in this way is not acceptable, that you are not allowed to try to injure someone, whether they felt it or not. Obviously our laws are a lot more lax about speech than about physicality, but it's the exact same concept just in different mediums.

A woman may receive a sexist comment and not be bothered. But we agree not to tolerate it, whether or not she was bothered by it, because the concept, and the intention, are simply not acceptable in our society. The point is not to tell her what to feel, but to enforce our moral values as a society. If you don't like that, fuck you.

This is a wonderful example of why human communication isn't only based on the semantic meaning of words. Flirting, sarcasm, irony - all would be lost to someone just parsing words, not being able to understand the finer communication on a subconscious level: Body language, rapport, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if people who would call someone out on that language have a higher chance on being diagnosed with autism or sociopathy - which in itself isn't bad at all, but it helpts being aware that communication between humans is apparently perceived completely differently by different groups.

Behavior like that makes me far more angry than rude comments.

If someone told me to mind my language over a casual board game, I'd tell them to fuck off. A friendly jibe is just a friendly jibe, regardless of whether it had the word 'shit' in it or not. Words matter, but far less than intent does - and the intent of telling someone to clean up their act in a casual setting is that they're patronising you.

Err, no we don't. We have a society specifically to co-exist with each other. Proactively policing each other actually reduces our ability to co-exist.

It's much like the classic literary 'harsh father' figure - he may beat you, he may be strict, he may never show love, but he provides for the family and he teaches you to be moral, so everything he did must have been good. The beatings must have had a purpose. It's hard for us to accept that good and bad exist in the same person, and that somebody who does good things may also do very bad things, not just discretely, but often at the same time.

When you see one person who is personally or socially powerful, and that person is a champion of one thing you strongly believe in, you will support that person in order to have that thing come to fruition, as long as the other things that person supports aren't too distateful to you. It's then necessary to defend that person so they can continue to be your champion - either out of ego, or purely to achieve your goals.

But when it's Linus, people don't defend him because they need to achieve something. They defend him mainly because of what he represents to them, and also for the work he does.

When it's Trump, people defend him because he's simply the most extreme choice possible. He makes you feel good, and that combined with anger becomes a positive feedback loop. He could murder someone and people would still find reason to cheer for it, not because they like what he does, but because of what he represents to them: extremism. (and now the thread is going to go down a political spiral... oh jeez, this poor thread)

I would challenge that notion that using an aggressive and diminishing language doesn't imply being a jerk.

Also keep in mind that BSD have legal challenges that GNU/Linux didn't so community is not the only reason why Linux won the popularity contest

It's 100% a cultural difference. While you see it as personally aggressive and grating, a lot of people see "overly polite" language as a sign that you don't care about the topic being discussed and/or are trying to address an issue politically rather than by merits of a strong argument. Neither of these perceptions is really right or wrong, it just has to do with the perspective you have based on where you grew up and who you've interacted with the most.

From an engineering perspective it'd be optimal if everyone had the same universal expectations for how a conversation should be held, just like how it'd be optimal if everyone spoke the same language. People don't really work that way, though, and just like with languages we try to accommodate each other as much as possible and find middle grounds, etc.

For six months I knew that we had a hardware driver problem on the target hardware that was causing the drive to be accessed at PATA speeds (3 MB/s max throughput stuck out from my time spent configuring Linux).

Finally, finally I convinced him to let me sit in on a call to the vendor (VxWorks) and in fifteen minutes we identified the problem and a feasible workaround. Old VxWorks, new bridge controller(?) backward compatible with one they DID support.

All because he couldn't say what needed to be said.

We got a nice 35% jump in the app after the next firmware upgrade.

Not someone who's not able to communicate.

That's not what the parent comment was suggesting. Someone like Knuth isn't accused of valuing politics over technical merit because he simply addresses technical merit in a polite way. I'm not one of the people who cares all that much that Linus is an ass to people on a mailing list, but it's ludicrous to suggest that his being an ass on a mailing list is necessary to convey a technical point.

He's a perfectionist and he seems to get distracted easily.

Like me, he seems to overly inured to the siren song of Force Multipliers (making other people more productive) and really should have spent more time practicing the craft.

If I had it to do over again I probably would have spent a little more time coding and a little less of it thinking in my late 20's to early 30's. It would make a broader group of people understand what I'm about. Especially bosses who don't understand that it would take three people to replace me, even though the majority of the team close more bugs than I do.

In fact, Donald Knuth is so below average from a productivity standpoint that there is an entire book published about books and papers that Donald Knuth published: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cp.html

Aside from Art, the Tex books, his earlier work on computational complexity and the one on AI, isn't most of the rest of that his bound lecture notes?

His extremely long side rail into typography was mostly what I was talking about. Art was left unfinished that entire time.

Linux OTOH was already well-established before the SCO suits.

BSDs legal challenges happened largely before Linux had any popularity, so the narrative that pins the blame for BSD's failure in the marketplace on its legal troubles seems hollow to me. The biggest lawsuit was settled in 1994, when Linux hit version 1.0 and Red Hat released its first version. FreeBSD 1.0 landed the previous year.

I'm also inclined to think that fragmentation was a big part of why BSD didn't win out--not legal issues or licensing.

Being born in New York (City), still living close and working there, I have to smile at the distinction between "American inner city" and "parts of New York". It just reinforces our attitude that there is New York and then there is everywhere else!

Thank you!