I think the discussion would have gone much smoother if the professor made some effort to get his message across without the unnecessary sniping. He could have simply started with “I understand Torvalds used my book, so I find it interesting—and maybe a little perplexing—that Linux has such a wildly different design from what I presented.”
Way more informative.
I'm always confused by people who defend Linus style because it isn't just blunt but often plain insulting for no apparent reason at all.
There are many problems with this. Apart from antagonizing people as already mentioned, if someone is constantly screaming they lose the ability to modulate how serious they actually are. You can rarely tell whether Linus is legitimately upset because he seems almost always upset. It's better to default to politeness if only because if you're actually upset at least I know that I need to pay attention.
Wut? Some communication styles are just "harassment", including Linus'. One can put up with it, but appreciation? BS. Linus is worse than Kalanick.
Many times i think in my mind about something: this is just stupid. He says it out loud. That is the difference.
If one can see behind the rude attitude, there is plenty to learn.
And these kind of people tends to be more appreciated than those who are politically correct, for example just look at Trump.
Edit: To give him some slack, maybe there was some charm, years ago, in a community project being run like a typical vitriolic usenet board (think an early 90s version of 4chan or reddit). It's quite anachronistic today and in the context of what Linux now is, with professional developers.
It's as unfortunate as you decide it to be. A lot of engineers and scientists love reading Linus (and watching House) because it reassures them that an argument's worth can transcend its delivery. The world is full of successful, socially competent salesmen. It's great that we have role models that aren't that.
In technical discussions, rudeness and informativeness are orthogonal. There is some information that is not polite to convey (such as information about someone else's personal/physical characteristics) but that information isn't relevant to technical discussions. Sometimes there is a choice as to how rudely one wants to convey a particular fact, but that is indeed a choice that reflects more upon one's desire for politeness or rudeness than it does any actual constraint on the transmission of factual information.
You can certainly choose not to converse with Linus, just like I choose not to converse with overtly politically correct people who may take offense / report little thing, I personally don't have time to worry about if what I said "might" come off as a certain way and really I wouldn't want to be in that situation anyways -- It is exhausting to always have to editorialize what you are going to say in today's hyper-sensititve-filter-bubble-one-worldview monocultures.
Not really. When you attack/insult someone, instead of attacking his ideas, it's pretty much universally accepted that you're being an asshole. It's not a matter of debate, interpretation, feelings or political correctness. In his first reply Linus is being an asshole and there is no justification about that. Those who defend him should note that even he realized that and apologized.
That's absolutely not true, and in fact the main issue here is that Linus is very much driven by feelings and not focusing on information. I don't think anyone can seriously argue that adding this to a conversation adds any value:
“Who the f*ck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?“
“If you work in security, and think you have some morals, I think you might want to add the tag-line 'No, really, I'm not a whore. Pinky promise'“
And on and on
Instead of saying "X sucks" or "Whoever thought of X deserves a time-traveller to retroactively induce their abortion", the discussion is better served anyway with something like "X has problem Y; Z is better because of these benchmarks/ tests/ metrics", because then supporters of X have a concrete argument to be convinced by (rather than simply cowed/shamed by) or argue against.
It looks like you're all talking past one other.
This just isn't completely true at all. People can most definitely be intentionally rude to others.
And I think the history of Linux proves him right. It's phenomenal that he has been able to keep it together and thriving for so long. That's a pretty rare achievement.
What you misrepresent as being "rude", which insinuates that it has no positive effect on the outcome, is actually being direct and to the point regarding technical decisions. People whining about rudeness to try to put aside the context, meaning and results, demonstrate that they either miss the point or intentionally run away from it. The fact is that his communication style is a reflection of his leadership strategy which resulted in the world's most successfull operating system project in history.
Trying to downplay the main causes and consequences because they feel their feeling might not be pampered is a tremendous injustice to the man and his achievements.
"How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?"
If you make it your point to intentionally ignore context and cherry-pick the hell out of the man's decades-long archive of public emails... Well, I guess you can find something that twiddles your feelings.
But, again, you need to ignore the context, his work, his achievements, and everything he built, helped build, and continuously work on building.
But hey, let's focus on your feelings.
Does anybody fly rockets with Minix at the end of the day?
So even if you are a Linus Torvalds, it may only be a matter of time before you find yourself sidelined. I will be surprised if Linus's career ends on his own terms.
Edit: Interesting. I initially wrote, "Please note..." but then decided to be blunt and leave off the Please. I guess I was, um, too blunt.
As a piece of advice to young people, try not to be rude and accept criticism with grace, as the Internet has a long memory and you'll probably not be respected enough for your achievements to be tolerated, like Linus is.