Many business failures i've witnessed happened ultimately because nobody had the energy to cut down the bullshit forest that constantly regrows around a company.
It also requires the social capital necessary for the calls to be taken seriously.
I don't worry about Linus being silenced by prevailing culture; I worry that there won't be another Linus after him.
I wonder if something like FreeBSD is better suited for sustainability - from what I can tell, there's no "dictator" figure there, no critical single point of failure.
Consider an organization that would rather cease to exist or be relevant, than to allow itself all the freedoms to pivot and mutate significantly.
Institutions are much harder to set up, they require that you consider that evil people do evil things, so you have to set up rules and processes. The execution of those rules and processes have to span enough people that a conspiracy would be unlikely. It doesn't always work of course, people find ways to subvert institutions (the zero day exploits of their time).
I've worked at a company that had 20 people and a company that's had 5000 and some ones in between.
Going from 2-3 people to 20 is pretty manageable. Everyone knows each other, work gets done, you can call people out on their bullshit, stuff is fixed, because everyone feels responsible and accountable.
Then you go to 100 people and a few of the original 20 leave and the whole culture changes. 1000's of people? Totally different ball game. Incompetence will slip through, no single person has a full grasp on everything, meetings and more meetings and more managers playing broken telephone all day and you got people in different cities and time zones and countries who've never seen each other face-to-face and it's just a nightmare to manage that.
It can be done, but that's when you really need competent managers, and those are extremely hard to come by.
I'm sure there are teams and divisions within Intel that are extremely competent, people at the top of their game who are looking at this debacle and just shaking their heads just as much as Linus.
Now, however, it's nearly worthless. Anyone can do distribution, both of work and of end products, with very little effort thanks to computers and the Internet. Now, the limitations of those corporate structures are starting to cut deeper and not be compensated for. Their assumption of all of the tremendous failings of in-person human communication (that 'broken telephone' you mention is only part of it, there's also the inherent prejudices and irrational means of influence at play which are inescapable) in combination with both voluntarily abandoning essentially every single benefit they ever offered to employees and the inherent limitations in such a centralized structure will result in them falling apart. I mean, if the market has anything to say about it. Back when factories got big people accepted things like limitations in variety of goods, limited to nil personalization, etc because supporting those things was difficult for factories. Such is still difficult for large companies. They have executives who want to impress 'grand visions' upon the company so that they have some excuse (both personal and professional) to collect such absurdly overlarge compensation.
The human brain, by the way, is limited to keeping around 150 people in mind and maintaining stable relationships with them. It's called 'Dunbar's Number' and while there's certainly variation amongst different people with regard to it, I think we can safely presume there is no one with the ability to maintain and consider 1000+ stable relationships. That this is not reflected in our social structures is probably an error.
Which is why FOSS is so important. Can you imagine a world where Linux was closed source? You’d never have any insight into security patches, or these discussions.
FOSS is nice, but it's not a silver bullet. In this case I think Linus is largely to thank. Things will be a lot harder if he decides to retire.
Maybe I'm projecting.
Well if Linus goes too far, Google and a couple other big corporate contributors could team up and fork Linux, and it would be very hard for the open project to compete. I think the fact that Linus is so good is a big part of what makes the whole thing hold together.
I have a suspicion that Satya's rise to CEOdom via Azure's success could be attributed to him too.
1: https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Mic...
Spectre and meltdown are a great example of this. Sure, ARM, Intel, and (to a lesser extent) AMD may want to downplay these things, but Google did not, so it became a big deal anyway.
So what? Nobody said that. This is a strawman.
Of course FOSS is not sufficient. Look at any homework-style GitHub repo. Nobody disputes that.
All that is said is that FOSS is necessary to achieve this level of quality.
That doesn't make any sense. This is a strawman argument.
Nobody ever said that FOSS is a silver bullet, not even FSFE, FSF, or Stallman himself.
Ranting and swearing is part of who he is personally, but those are not generally required for being a good project leader.
I agree that his other skills are likely more important overall, and there are certainly other ways to be memorable, but I don't think you can discount the contribution of the ranting.
Like others said, his language helps drive the point home and leaves more of an impression. It also humanizes Linus as well.
As far as this particular Torvalds screed goes, it strikes me as measured for him. He is very clear about what he wants more of and what he wants less of. It's the code that is garbage, and he doesn't get overly personal other than to chide Woodhouse for glossing over the quality of Woodhouse's own contributions.
edit: ahh right, "mis-designed by morons" which is pretty inflammatory, and he should do better than that. I suspect he is trying to provoke someone at Intel into explaining their intent. Insult their intelligence, and they'll reveal something about their (possibly sinister) motive.
Linux is what allowed Intel to get its biggest foothold into the UNIX server market.
Given enough time, SPARC chips would also become vulnerable to these issues. See what happened to ARM: their later (higher performance) designs are more vulnerable than their older designs.
Solaris, with the exceptions of a few bright stars like DTrace and ZFS, always seemed like a POS to me, compared to linux. Especially as a work-station. Sun went full retard with Java everywhere right before they went under and I have a feeling the Solaris Desktop experience, and by extension the UNIX desktop experience, would be something from my worst nightmares, something to make wish for Windows Vista.
Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and loved FreeBSD back when it was more easy to choose... But I do think the 'free UNIX' movement has had unintended consequences like the demise of Sun, and perhaps now also this exposing of a failure in what was a desktop class chip architecture that was elevated to server usage.
Everything has a cost is all I'm saying.
Honestly, back when Linux started getting momentum, RMS' GNU/Linux argument had merit. Most of the stuff people where running on top of Linux, never mind using to develop Linux, came from the GNU project.
I actually worked at a startup that threw out a working Linux / MySQL solution in favor of a Sun / Oracle one. Because, you know, VC...
> Many business failures i've witnessed happened ultimately because nobody had the energy to cut down the bullshit forest that constantly regrows around a company.
The sad thing is that people have unironically labeled Linus "toxic" for calling out crap very bluntly like this.
While I think you've also been bitten by the "we accept everyone! (who thinks the way we do)" crowd as well, this is not the place or the way to express that frustration.
Not any serious people, so why do we care?
From what I've gathered the findings are based on real data.
Citation? Sounds interesting.
I tend not to take my own mistakes very seriously unless they come with serious consequences. Having someone I respect tear into me would, I think, force me to take greater care and apply more attention to my work than I already do.
I've heard similar anecdotes from people who have contributed. I even recall a female contributor say something positive about it.
If anything you'd have trouble getting code in because maintainer thinks it would add more complexity than is necessary, or would make his job harder in the future, or after writing and testing the code, you'd find out you should have been doing things differently, etc. These are much more probable ways to get discouraged from contributing kernel code.
There's a high bar to getting code in, and that can be frustrating. But it also keeps the mainline attractive to users and developers, because of ever improving code quality.
"What the fuck is this? This came from Satan's butt-hole. Kill whoever did this - kill them immediately, here, I'll go and find this asshole who submitted this patch, and do it for you, you lazy ingrates, why do I have to do everything around here?"
It's clearly putting additional pressure on Intel. How you feel about that depends on how you feel about them furiously trying to sweep everything under the carpet and hoping nobody notices.
Personally I think his humiliation of Intel here is putting necessary pressure on them. If he couched his terms and tried to be "nice" about this they wouldn't feel nearly the same pressure.
I wasn't even saying that his tone on this particular instance was excessive. I was responding to the general accusation that "PC culture will silence him". There's exactly one sentence I have issues with here ("the whole hardware interface is literally mis-designed by morons"). The rest of the email is toeing the line, but manages to be forceful without being outright insulting.
I don't. This is pretty much part of his brand. He's developed a reputation for flipping his lid and lambasting people who have always deserved it using entertainingly colorful language. That's why these rants still get to the top of HN.
>I was responding to the general accusation that "PC culture will silence him".
I mean, that seems to be what you're trying to do by demanding that he water his language down to something that has minimal emotional impact.
It's not like using the word morons is particularly offensive, either - except to the people who actually deserved it (Intel).
>There's exactly one sentence I have issues with here ("the whole hardware interface is literally mis-designed by morons").
Which is the sentence that got this rant on hacker news, which attracted all the attention which is necessary in order to put pressure on Intel to fix their shit.
And yet the title of the submission is "Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons". That's a good suggestion that the moron quote is not "what got this rant on hacker news". Perhaps it's on hacker news not because the form is inflammatory, but because the content is insightful.
Maybe—just maybe—the fact that the Linux project lead publicly accused Intel of not having their shit together is newsworthy and would end up on the front page of Hacker News no matter what tone it was written in, because that is newsworthy enough in and of itself.
Damn you, Wintel!
It's a sad thing to say about the state of the human specie.
The same can be said of free speech.
That directness is generally associated with multicultural environments where subtler context-dependent communication simply does not work. Some of the quotes I am seeing here from him are things I think are unnecessarily harsh, but most are not.
Discussions about something he has said or written seem to inevitably comment on his speaking style and divide up between those who praise it and those who vilify it. I feel it is mostly a positive, but discussions could benefit from a little context and broader perspective of that detail.
However, Finland is culturally quite homogeneous, so I think the reason behind the bluntness is not what you suggest it may be.
For a Finn, I think Linus is on the blunt side, but he's not an extreme case. In fact, I'd argue he's not an extreme case even among non-Finns; it's just that most people only hear about his rants.
Also, I find that Linus is somewhat quick to judge things, and often his reactions are based on a misunderstanding of the facts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context...
Maybe he just is what he is. The differences between individuals are greater than differences between cultures. I'm from Finland and I can assure you that Linus' style of communication is not a norm here.
I've heard this blunt(/direct/honest) argument quite often (and the same about my country, The Netherlands), but I've also seen Americans in IT who can be very blunt. I attribute it not to country_of_origin, but to the [autism] spectrum.
I used to try to be tactful with everything I would say, but that ended up in a 4 hour discussion / argument with someone who was digging in their heels about something they were wrong about. Huge waste of time and energy. It would blow a whole day.
When someone is being blunt with me, I take the time to make sure my response is clear and concise. It certainly has it's advantages. I try to keep the swears to a minimum. I'm not a drill sergeant, but I definitely make my point clearly and forcefully.
FWIW, I save the bluntness for important stuff.
As to Torvalds, but we do not get headlines about his mellow emails accepting a patch.
Anytime someone suggests that my directness means I must be autistic, they are a) making a faux polite personal attack that calls me a social retard and b) looking for an excuse to ignore and dismiss the substance of my points. I don't consider it to be a good faith form of engagement.
What I said, is that I find autism another [plausible] explanation. Because being honest/direct/blunt is a trait people with ASD suffer from (since they have less of the social awareness which puts the brake on the sharp edges). I find it more plausible than country_of_origin (TBH I find that a -perhaps harmless- form of discrimination/racism), but certainly I did neither imply nor argue that it is the only, sole explanation!
Please stop. It's unhealthy to pretend that undesired behaviors in IT are generally the result of autism. It perpetuates an unhealthy culture by essentially saying that guys (because it's only guys who are excused this way) in IT are not responsible for their behavior. It's also insulting to people with autism to lump their legitimate social difficulties in with people who are simply choosing to be assholes.
If a salesperson or marketer or artist or executive is blunt/rude/an asshole, no one assumes it's because they're autistic. It's assumed that this is part of their personality, because they find it more effective to communicate this way (or in some cases, that they're simply bullies).
There is no indication I see that Torvalds is autistic. He's certainly not socially awkward. He manages an organization of thousands of contributors very effectively. If he's blunt or rude, it's because he chooses to be.
Not what I did; no need to start bifurcating. What I asserted (or, what I meant) is that people on the spectrum are more common in IT. I never said that everyone in IT is autistic. I never argued Torvalds has autism.
> It perpetuates an unhealthy culture by essentially saying that guys (because it's only guys who are excused this way)
No idea where you got either of these red herrings from. That's certainly not what I asserted.
I do want to note though that women with autism largely go un(der)diagnosed.
> It's also insulting to people with autism
Hi, I have autism, as I acknowledged in another post throughout this thread. There's a rule on HN that you shouldn't assume the worst explanation from a post. Well, you just did, cause why would I willingly try to insult everyone with autism if I have it myself? How that make any sense whatsoever? I don't see at all why my post can be considered offensive unless you resort to things like bifurcations...
> It's also insulting to people with autism to lump their legitimate social difficulties in with people who are simply choosing to be assholes.
People with autism need to function in a non-autistic society. The current therapy I am getting is focussed on that. Using autism as an excuse isn't acceptable; its considered counter-productive.
> There is no indication I see that Torvalds is autistic. He's certainly not socially awkward. He manages an organization of thousands of contributors very effectively.
I don't find him very strong, socially. Read his body language while he's giving a talk. He's shy, at the very least. Just because someone can express themselves easily via e-mail doesn't mean they're not socially awkward.
Also, what I quoted is not mutually exclusive. More importantly, there is no such thing as a binary autism flag; it is a spectrum.
What Torvalds suffers from is that he expresses his anger with unnecessary cursewords in order to give his arguments strength (a fallacy). To name another example: I've never seen RMS do that, but I have seen TdR do that. I find neither of them particularly strong socially, either.
I know a lot about the topic of autism and related issues. I get tired of seeing social difficulties chalked up to a label of some disability or other. It takes a couple of decades to properly raise a human and prepare them for their role in society. A large part of social skills are learned behavior. This is why we have the term socialization.
Furthermore, different approaches are normal in different contexts. Someone who is not autistic and has no difficulty understanding and navigating social things can have trouble when placed in a new situation, including but not limited to a different culture.
Accusations of being autistic as an explanation for abrasive behavior are almost never sympathetic. They are almost never an attempt to understand why someone is coming across poorly and find a way to better interact with them. They boil down to a suggestion of incompetence and a dismissal of the person's position, as well as any legitimate anger or frustration they may be feeling.
There are cultures, including the American military, where being very blunt is the norm. As others have noted here, when people accuse someone of being rude, it very often means they don't like being disagreed with and are just looking for an excuse to be offended and level accusations. It isn't actually possible to find a way around that. People who are going to hurl accusations and focus on your style of communication as a way to try to avoid dealing with the substance are not acting in good faith. There is no means to be both polite and effective with such people. They will not like being disagreed with and will hate you for that piece of it no matter how you present it.
It seems you are trying to be an advocate for yourself and others with the same diagnosis. This is not the way to go about it. It comes across as simply insulting Linus Torvalds as an excuse to not take his position seriously while at the same time slandering the entire IT profession with a tired and untrue stereotype that everyone in IT has terrible social skills and they are all just aspie.
You keep saying that you have an ASD diagnosis, you don't see the points other people are making and then concluding they must be in the wrong. Let me respectfully suggest that you are missing some contextual cues. Meaning of words does not occur in a vacuum. Context matters.
There are ways to be a representative of your demographic and an advocate for others like you. This is about the worst possible way to try to do that.
Best.
Completely disagree. The OP said "blunt(/direct/honest)" is a common feature of autism and autism is common in the tech world. Just because some people may take issue with others being blunt or overly direct doesn't mean it's a negative thing, nor an insult or an attack on autism.
Acceptance of this trait may be cultural but primarily it seems to me to be a personal preference.
Every person's personality is built on a multitude of positive/negative traits, nobody is perfect and it's not that big of a deal having a few flaws. Flaws are often the the type of thing which makes people interesting. But I'm not even convinced this is even a flaw in the first place.
Some of the smartest people I know are blunt/direct and it's a personality trait that I personally seek out in my friends/partners. I find it makes for the best type of business partner and reduces significant amounts of drama and long-term conflict. But I understand it's not for everyone and lots of people misunderstand their intentions or are uncomfortable with raw honesty. But outside of the person not being rude, talking out of place, having basic social grace, etc... that's on them if they don't like it. It's not a flaw in itself, only if it's used incorrectly.
Of course not all people who are blunt/direct are autistic either. I don't think the OP made the implication either. That's common sense, we all like to make generalizations or identify patterns of behaviour, but that does not mean they believe it applies to all people or that they are implying correlation always equals causation.
This sounds to me like a misguided attempt at protecting people from any type of potential discomfort, while ignoring the context of the use of such language and the situational context. This is a primary issue with this political correctness fad. Not to mention valuing hypothetical/potential feelings over honesty, truth, and reality. Certain words, descriptions, or generalizations such as this are not inherently wrong or insulting or malicious. They may be used wrong or be insulting in certain context, but what the OP said is not one of those situations.
> I know a lot about the topic of autism and related issues.
Me too. I have a diagnosis based on DSM-5, and with ICD numbers (for insurance related reasons I guess). My cousin had an Asperger diagnosis based on DSM-4 when that was still relevant. My partner likely has autism as well (though its difficult to diagnose for females), and I am getting therapy as well; both group therapy and family therapy. My partner received partner group therapy. I suspect its mostly from my father's side, but I see traits in my mother's side as well. Regarding my parents; I believe the spectrum was a non-conscious or perhaps subconscious important reason why they felt attracted to each other. YMMV.
> I get tired of seeing social difficulties chalked up to a label of some disability or other.
As a general note we shouldn't diagnose other people, but that wasn't the intent of my original post at all. I merely noted its a trait people with autism commonly have.
Conclusions such as that all people with autism have this, that all people in IT have this, or refuting such conclusions are all bifurcations from your own conto; not mine.
Why are people with autism often too direct? It is due to a weaker Theory of Mind (ToM) [1].
On HN we need to assume people mean the most positive with their posts. If we apply this on life, then all people want to function in society [even with their disabilities]. They want to have success in their communication. Heck, I do too! A repeating failure to communicate is a red flag of something being wrong with that person. It'd mean that those who are responsible for that person (professionals including in medical field, but also teachers, parents/caretakers, and if they're adult: themselves) should consider to seek professional help. A lot of people in our world end up in (deep) trouble such as addiction or prison while professional help could've helped them, and that very much saddens me (am currently watching series Orange Is The New Black).
> It takes a couple of decades to properly raise a human and prepare them for their role in society. A large part of social skills are learned behavior. This is why we have the term socialization.
For most people, they get to basic social levels during teenager years or young adultery. The problem is that people with autism -more so those without therapy/help- are generally worse at learning this (some are downright terrible).
Its important to note that not everyone has autism has exactly the same issues. Some people don't have much issues with ToM but rather with executive functioning (EF), or central coherence (CC). And even then, the lists for each of these are long. Specific sub-traits might be better or worse within each specimen.
> Furthermore, different approaches are normal in different contexts. Someone who is not autistic and has no difficulty understanding and navigating social things can have trouble when placed in a new situation, including but not limited to a different culture.
Well, that's including someone with undiagnosed autism, or mild autism. I recommend to stop seeing a situation like this as black-and-white (stop bifurcation) and start seeing the shades of grey.
> Accusations of being autistic as an explanation for abrasive behavior are almost never sympathetic. They are almost never an attempt to understand why someone is coming across poorly and find a way to better interact with them. They boil down to a suggestion of incompetence and a dismissal of the person's position, as well as any legitimate anger or frustration they may be feeling.
I don't see it as an accusation. I don't see autism as a negative trait per see. Not at all. I see it like a knife or computer; a tool which can be used for good and evil. That does explain why we're having this discussion in the first place though.
> There are cultures, including the American military, where being very blunt is the norm.
It should be noted this is a top-down hierarchy, and the bluntness is top-down as well; not bottom-up. The arguments used by such cathedral-style hierarchies are comprised of argumentum ad baculum (see hereunder for further discussion).
> As others have noted here, when people accuse someone of being rude, it very often means they don't like being disagreed with and are just looking for an excuse to be offended and level accusations.
That depends on their other arguments. Pointing out a fallacy such as an argumentum ad hominem doesn't mean everything the person said is invalid. It just points out the person is (partly) using a fallacy to make their point. It is, essentially, akin to telling someone to tone down their voice. Yes, it can be frustrating to hear that when you're angry, but that doesn't mean the person who points that out is wrong.
Similarly, someone replying to Torvalds: "could you please make your point without insults and vulgar language" isn't saying Torvalds has no point. As such, painting it as if I am trying to attack Torvalds with an ad hominem here is... frankly ridiculous. I don't always agree with his viewpoints, but I got nothing against the man.
> It seems you are trying to be an advocate for yourself and others with the same diagnosis. This is not the way to go about it. It comes across as simply insulting Linus Torvalds as an excuse to not take his position seriously while at the same time slandering the entire IT profession with a tired and untrue stereotype that everyone in IT has terrible social skills and they are all just aspie.
I'd say that's far-fetched and full with assumptions but if that's your interpretation of my post(s), so be it.
(I can't control myself to not include this so FYI: "Aspie" no longer exists since DSM-5. If someone calls me an Aspie they clearly are using old, outdated terminology.)
I attribute it not to country_of_origin, but to the [autism] spectrum.
And you now say:
As a general note we shouldn't diagnose other people, but that wasn't the intent of my original post at all. I merely noted its a trait people with autism commonly have.
Those two things don't add up. Maybe think about that.
There is a lot of other failed communication happening here that I don't really think is worth trying to talk more about.
You made a blanket diagnosis for an entire industry and for a common human behavior when you stated that you attribute bluntness in IT to autism.
DoreenMichele provided your own quote again for context but you yet again talked to different tangents. I can't tell if this is really a communication breakdown or if you're willfully avoiding the fact that you essentially said "programmers are Aspie" because you don't want to address your own prejudice.
If you believe that bluntness in IT is generally attributable to autism, then let's talk about that some more, because this is an incorrect and unhealthy belief. If you don't believe it, then don't say it, because it perpetuates this unhealthy viewpoint.
Furthermore, you put words in my mouth, and you paraphrase me with words I didn't use and would avoid. I would not describe Torvalds as a programmer, and I would carefully avoid the word "aspie" or "asperger" ever since I learned they're superseded (since my diagnosis, Sept 2017). Because THAT word is stereotypical whereas the spectrum is far more broad. There is no shame in being autistic/ASD/part of spectrum either. I certainly don't feel ashamed about it (I'm not proud about it either btw).
I have no interest in discussing this further with you because I have no interest in getting convinced by you that autistics aren't part of IT while I am getting signals that people within the spectrum are indeed overly represented in certain professions, including IT. But that wasn't my point because if I wanted to draw a caricature of an autist in IT I got far better examples available.
Go spend your time convincing someone else instead, and perhaps consider a worthwhile subject instead of nitpicking on a conclusion you drew and aren't refuting with data either.
TL;DR:
> If you don't believe it, then don't say it, because it perpetuates this unhealthy viewpoint.
You won't censor me. Au revoir.
You directly accuse someone else of racism for saying that Finnish culture is blunt. But you happily attribute bluntness in IT to autism. I cannot believe you are this lacking in introspection and self-criticism.
I'm not sure what you mean by "bifurcating" in this context but this is exactly what you did. You literally said that you see blunt communication in IT and attribute it to autism spectrum disorders.
> What I asserted (or, what I meant) is that people on the spectrum are more common in IT. I never said that everyone in IT is autistic. I never argued Torvalds has autism.
I did not claim that you said everyone in IT is autistic. I'm saying that your assumption that blunt/direct/whatever behavior implies autism is both incorrect and unhealthy. People with autism spectrum disorders may be over-represented in IT (people claim this; I have no idea if it's actually true), but even if so, it's still a small percentage of total people in IT. Attributing entire classes of common behavior to autism is incorrect.
You did not directly claim that Torvalds has autism but you did assert that you assume autism in the face of Torvalds-style behavior.
> Hi, I have autism, as I acknowledged in another post throughout this thread. There's a rule on HN that you shouldn't assume the worst explanation from a post. Well, you just did, cause why would I willingly try to insult everyone with autism if I have it myself? How that make any sense whatsoever?
I didn't say you're trying to insult people with autism. I said you're doing it. It's undoubtedly unintentional, but it's absolutely insulting to take an undesired behavior and associate it with an entire group.
If I say that when I see fat people, I assume they're Americans, that's insulting to Americans. The fact that I happen to be American doesn't change that.
> People with autism need to function in a non-autistic society. The current therapy I am getting is focussed on that. Using autism as an excuse isn't acceptable; its considered counter-productive.
Assholes also need to function in society. Pretending that they're autistic doesn't help anyone. It certainly doesn't help people with autism.
I'm not in any way saying that people with autism spectrum disorders don't need to function in society or that autism should be an "excuse" for anything. I'm actually saying very much the opposite. Rude behavior should not be attributed to autism, partly because that's not a valid excuse but also because most rude behavior does not come from people with autism spectrum disorders.
> I don't find him very strong, socially. Read his body language while he's giving a talk. He's shy, at the very least. Just because someone can express themselves easily via e-mail doesn't mean they're not socially awkward.
I probably overstated when I said he's "certainly not socially awkward". He is a little awkward in talks. However, lots of people (most, probably) are uncomfortable with public speaking in front of large crowds, and I don't think his level of awkwardness seems unusual. And of course shyness is not synonymous with autism. I still don't see any evidence that Torvalds has any form of autistic disorder.
> Also, what I quoted is not mutually exclusive. More importantly, there is no such thing as a binary autism flag; it is a spectrum.
No one said there's a binary "autism" flag.
> What Torvalds suffers from is that he expresses his anger with unnecessary cursewords in order to give his arguments strength (a fallacy).
Torvalds is not generally criticized for "curse words". He's generally criticized for bluntly insulting people and their work. When he says someone is "fucking insane", the problem isn't the fact that he used a curse word. It's that he's insulting someone. The cursing is perhaps another layer on top, but if he dropped the word "fuck" into every email but did it politely, no one would call him an asshole for it.
But I also don't think Torvalds is really "suffering" as a result of his communication style. The only negative I see is that people criticize him for it periodically. But overall it seems to be working and the negative repercussions are minimal to nonexistent. He gets attention on the issues he cares about and HN says he's mean. I doubt he loses sleep over the criticism.
I'm probably still too verbose (ha... "probably"... I flatter myself), but I went through a phase in my late teens and early twenties where I qualified and wrapped in polite circumlocutions everything I wrote. It makes in incomprehensible, honestly, and it doesn't work anyhow. I still got flamed. (Good ol' Usenet.)
There's a time and a place for politeness. That time and place is most times and most places. There's a time and a place for directness, bluntness, and even outright impoliteness; I'd submit "Intel is just going to leave a critical vulnerability in basically every CPU in the world, and throw up an obfuscating cover of flags and workarounds and PR to try to pretend otherwise" is a reasonable time for those things.
(Personally, I don't expect miracles. Intel ought to come out and say "Look, this is going to take some years. Here's some workarounds in the meantime, and here's our plan going forward." I think everyone who understands the situation understands that a true fix is very difficult. But if it looks like they're going to try to skate by on some weak workarounds and a heavy dollop of PR, the industry as a whole really needs to pushback, not just Linus.)
Anyway, this argument comes up again and again. Regardless of the style in his country and language or origin he is writing in English, in public, for an international audience. One expects a different sort of tone.
I don't think I can agree with that statement :) I'm part of the target audience and that tone is _exactly_ what I'd expect instead of polite talk that dances around calling out BS for what it is.
> From what I gather, some of this is cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things.
and my response was
> Regardless of the style in his country and language or origin he is writing in English, in public, for an international audience.
Which parts of what I said seem inconsistent to you?
That's like saying because my mother is now an American citizen, she should obviously no longer have a German accent. You may personally feel she has some obligation to do her best to lose the accent, but regardless of the standards you would like to see imposed on other people, most people remain influenced for life by things they grew up with.
> From what I gather, some of this is cultural. His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things.
I assumed you meant
> His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things and that is sufficient justification for his using a rude tone on a public mailing list
and I was also rather confused because this seemed to be a non-sequitur. I thought you had indended to reply to one of the other comments criticising his tone. On rereading it now seems that you were saying that
> His country of origin is just generally blunt and direct about things and this is why his is good at calling out bullshit when he sees it
Sorry for a double misunderstanding. If I hadn't made the first one I wouldn't have made the second one either.
I agree that this is true, but two points stick out to me:
1. Generally the motive for this convention stems from organizations wanting to sanitize their image.
2. FOSS project communication is overwhelmingly pubic.
If we accept that all organizations need some amount of blunt communication at some point, and if we accept that public bluntness has so far not had a measurable negative perception impact for Linux, then it seems inevitable that the project will be an exception to expectations.
I also see Intel lawyers working overtime, closely interacting with marketing, to somehow ward of lawsuits coming from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, which must be seeking ways out of Intel contracts to turn towards AMD processors for their currently more attractive TCO characteristics.
Could be the end of Intel as we know it.
...but irrespective of that, it ALSO appears that there's no leadership within Intel to actually fix the underlying issue.
I don't care if the PR is BS - that's what I expect. But if the chips are not fixed the right way, I'm taking my business elsewhere, and I'm not alone.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
- ancient rivers of money
- The Return of the Barbarian
- Can Hydras eat unknown unknowns for lunch
There is also a more recent one where he writes about young people and their attitudes about money and property ownership and "life scripts" that was here on HN and metafilter and other places but I don't know the name of it ... was quite good.
No, I don't know how I came to be replying about Ribbonfarm a day late to a comment deep in a thread I haven't read most of.
Qualcomm on the other hand has taken the "fuck security" approach and failed to clean up their code and get it mainlined for nearly all of their common SoCs. Hence why Android phones are often trapped on old versions of Android when launched or shortly thereafter, long term security through the device lifecycle is a bad joke when Qualcomm and most other ARM vendors are involved.
The reason why most android phones don't get upgrades (or only one) to newer android versions has absolutely nothing to do with qualcomm lack of care regarding their cpu's security.
This is partially why Treble is being worked on, to just completely disconnect the actual Linux-based HAL from "the OS", thus trying to negate a lot of the oblate stupidity from vendors like Qualcomm and have a shim in-between your actual phone, and Android itself, in hopes to fix stuff.
We seriously need more phone SoC vendors.
First, of all there are legal obligations known as contracts. If Google was serious about Nexus 5 support from OEMs, it would have had contract in place that would assure the necessary support regardless of what OEMs would decide.
Secondly, Treble is yet another solution that will die, because Google, again, decided to leave to OEMs the task of delivering Treble updates, without any kind of legal obligation.
Additionally Android devices that get upgraded to Oreo aren't obliged to be fully Treble compliant, only the ones released with Oreo.
So, many new devices planned to be released in 2018, are based on Android 7.0.
That kind if snark is unnecessary and degrades the conversation.
> If Google was serious about Nexus 5 support from OEMs, it would have had contract in place that would assure the necessary support regardless of what OEMs would decide.
I'm not sure who you are referring to with "OEM" here, but Google took on the responsibility of maintaining the OS images for the Nexus devices, not the companies they contracted to build them.
May be, but apparently discussions about Android's and OEMs usually leads to hand waving regarding the legal options available to Google, if they really cared about enforcing updates.
> I'm not sure who you are referring to with "OEM" here, but Google took on the responsibility of maintaining the OS images for the Nexus devices, not the companies they contracted to build them.
Like the customers they have abandoned after TI cut down support on their chipsets?
Had Google taken the legal requirements to enforce TI to maintain support or face monetary sanctions for the three years it was supposed to take place, this would not have happened as it did.
It always circles down to how much Google cares.
On the other hand - yes, hammerhead is stuck on Linux kernel 3.4, which is no longer maintained, and current best effort to forward-port to mainline kernel [2] is far from complete.
Among other things this means that there is no workaround for Meltdown on this hardware, which it is likely vulnerable to. [3]
[1] https://download.lineageos.org/hammerhead
[2] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Google_Nexus_5_(lg-hammer...
[3] "11 stage integer pipeline with 3-way decode and 4-way out-of-order speculative issue superscalar execution" - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krait_(CPU)
He lives under the sword. The moment he stops being right, everyone will swiftly turn against them.
What separates them is that they're almost never wrong. Not when they pull out "this is garbage" card.
This is a difficult ability to learn. You need to stay quiet most of the time, then be a complete asshole when it's important.
I really hate that aspect of our industry. But that's just hating on humanity. Apes listen to apes that shout, but only when everyone else is listening too. Otherwise you're just a dick with no influence.
The key is to hate that Linus is a bully while also respecting him when he's right.
It's super frustrating because I feel like any of us could have written that, and no one would care. Literally no one would listen. But Linus says it, so it bubbles to the top of HN and now we're counting our blessings for how lucky we are.
Try to remember this next time someone says something that sounds crazy. Your instinct should be to suppress your skepticism and think whether it has merit. It might piss you off, but is it true? That's the important bit.
And not just for design, but for everything.
(I'm sure whoever came up with the current design isn't too happy about Linus calling it garbage, but they'll just have to deal with it.)
I don’t know how you can believe this after reading even a few of his messages. Read the message which started this thread and count the number of times where he is talking about not just the quality of work but the person who produced it.
It’s possible to be blunt and unforgiving about code without saying that the person who created it is a moron.
That means that if you get offended by the way someone else criticizes the mess you're responsible for you are not accepting the responsibility at all! Well, now that's an interesting insight!
Most people are going to take it personally, especially when it’s public in front of their peers, and since it’s so lazy and unhelpful there’s no benefit from doing that rather than, well, anything constructive
Arguments on the internet are held public most of the time + it's all public record. Personal insults are generally not acceptable. But when is it personal and who decides what's personal and what not? Where is the point when insults are the least important part of the issue? Should the insulted person always take insults personal regardless what issue at hand?
I understand that sometimes an argument about an issue in reality is a battle of egos. But, seriously, Intel trying to wiggle themselves out of the noose with it's not a bug it's a feature PR stunts, I think insults are as appropriate as "thank you" and "have a nice day". So, if anyone says or does something stupid for no apparent reason, questioning the sanity of their decision making by calling them a moron is the way to go, imo.
Not quite. Bullying is continuing targeted agression for the purpose of demeaning another person and getting power over them.
A one-off diatribe, blunt or even mean-spirited statement, by itself, is not bullying. A person can be an ass without being a bully.
But I get the point that there's more to actual bullying than I initially stated, thanks for clarifying that.
>> His attacks and critique are never on the personal basis
This is really not true. Linus takes it way too far from time to time. The person is always in the wrong, but Linus goes well beyond what is necessary.
Again, I get it and I don't mind. But he makes it personal occasionally.
People get angry, it happens (a bit more with Linus than some, it's a personality flaw, but it's not like any of us are perfect). I guess the general thing is more that, for some reason, people are way too overly fascinated with Shouty Linus compared to Linus the general kernel developer. There's a lot of posts on the Linux Kernel list... but the odds of a single post from this list being shared on social media dramatically increases for every Linus swear word included.
Linus is abrasive, but he usually has a good explanation for why the target of his ire is a moron, e.g. everytime some coder without Linus’ experience suggests converting the kernel codebase to C++.
Let’s be honest, most developers are average at best, and knowledge is our status play. Scoring points against Linus’ decisions are one way to get you noticed, which makes him a target. If I had to deal with that shit everyday, I would do my best to discourage point scorers by putting them in their place as well.
This is the only way you can get Linus to really lose his shit. I'm surprised his comments in this Intel thing approach the level of anger he has for C++. It's my barometer for how important something is to him.
I hope you aren't under the impression that Linus stays quietly and waits for the perfect victim.
> (I'm sure whoever came up with the current design isn't too happy about Linus calling it garbage, but they'll just have to deal with it.)
Or maybe whoever came up with the design was aware it was garbage from inception, there's no need to pity them gratuitously.
I totally agree with "they can’t be trusted to be transparent or even take ownership of the problems they create" though. When you play at Intel's level and mess up on that order of magnitude, doing what they did make you loose all trust.
Well, it's the natural outcome of a system based entirely on competition. When the only incentive is "beat everyone else, nothing else matters" then this eventually happens.
However, I fail to see how Sandya's observations are BS. A code review is a place to improve code and oneself, and there's a pretty large distinction between constructive criticism and sarcastic/aggressive comments. Being respectful/mindful of your colleague in that situation is in my opinion the minimal requirement.
That's actually the opposite of what I see in Linus. He seems to reserve these responses for people who should have known better.
So if I suggest fixing the watch by smashing it with a hammer, it probably wouldn't even merit a sideways glance. I'd be ignored like background noise. (or at most, invited to look for something more in tune with my skillset, perhaps hanging wallclocks).
When Intel show up with a hammer, the hammer is only half of the offence.
In an ideal case, the reviewer "should" perhaps consult with the reviewee's therapist and craft the reviews to most benefit the reviewee based on their emotional state - but we don't have an ideal world of infinite resources, and some of these rules go beyond a reasonable "don't be an asshole" line and make code review into an even more mentally taxing task: one where you can't treat the other person as an adult peer, instead having to talk to them as if they were insecure teenagers who could misinterpret anything as rudeness or attacks on them.
- Pointing to a common reference instead of simply stating your opinion in a review will get the improvement you want done faster
- Writing a single comment for a repeated error is faster to do for the reviewer
- Explicit communication instead of emojis and sarcastic comments will bypass the need for further explanation, which will make the whole process faster
Finally, you seem to take issue with only a few of the author's points ('some of these rules go beyond a reasonable "don't be an asshole" line'), could you explain which ones and why? I am interested to know what exactly makes the process too taxing for you.
If I were Lord God of the cosmos, I'd give Linus Torvalds my magic and go farm Yabbies and sleep like a retired God at night, knowing that the world will be even better in the morning.
Sorry, but being "nice" is totally inappropriate and unhelpful.
I agree with you, and though I haven't evaluated your first statement, the fact that I have to think about whether or not you are right at all is good enough.
We don't have to like Linus' communication... methods. I often don't. But no one is perfect, and I'm willing to cut Torvalds some slack for being a dick for past - and future - accomplishments. People think that greatness doesn't excuse demeanor... but it does when the greatness is that far along the SD curve.
That's an unhelpful model. It implies that hitting the gym or studying or putting on make-up will make harm you in equal measures as it helps you.
No, it doesn't, not for anyone who played D&D which is where it is derived from.
Also, your statement is at least partially true, given that you have finite time and resources to pursue skill development in any given area.
Intel & friends have absolutely disgusted me lately, it could be all to easy to settle for less based on their standards, but let’s not let them set the standard - they’ve shown they can’t be trusted with quality and when they fail - they can’t be trusted to be transparent or even take ownership of the problems they create.