An oldie, but a goodie
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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What a toxic ass message. If he was my boss I would not tolerate this. It's weird how many dickriders here are defending him here
Jose1234, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Fix your fucking comment and don't ever blame OP.
Whoa WhoaWhoa, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
It's a mistake alright - by the boss. How long have you been an employee? And you still haven't learned the first rule of employment?
We never EVER blame the employee. How hard can this be to understand?
So Linus should have sided with someone who in regression report of KDE using 100% CPU starts blaming pulseaudio and opensuse and double down on blaming pulseaudio? Instead of fixing syscall returning completely unrelated error code. It's like if your router crashed with message "there is no milk in your fridge".
uis, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
There's a difference between disagreeing with someone and insulting and attacking someone, and if you can't tell that there's a difference you can go fuck yourself with a cactus, you cumdrowned dicksphincter.
if only this were true.
fingers will always be pointed at us developers even as management takes full credits for the success every other time. :(
Well, he isn't anyone's boss here. I agree, and so would linus nowadays, that this is toxic and should be avoided, but the anger I fully understand.
Attempting to shift blame away from yourself after making a change which breaks a large portion of user space is cause for termination at any company I've worked at. It's cowardice. This action goes against one of the most important, core philosophies, of the kernal. Do not break userspace. Also, this person should know better. They are not some odd newbie who may not grasp the ideas yet.
In a world where termination is not an option harsh criticism is required. This though, I agree, was anger driven unprofessionalism
There is a way to say all of that and not be a dick about it. Angry responses are seldom needed.
He did it seldomly
I think there may also be a cultural angle here. Anglo-Saxon culture really places a much higher emphasis on "not causing offense", whereas other cultures place a higher emphasis on speaking truthfully, even if harshly.
So Linus, who grew up in Finland, may have thought of his message as harsh but fair, whereas to native English speakers it comes across as incredibly rude.
It doesn't come across as particularly rude given what the offense here is. Someone blamed other projects for their mistake after getting called out. That deserves harsh criticism.
I think you are talking about American ideals. Not ideals in the English speaking world. Nothing here is remotely toxic by British standards. Swearing isn't a big deal here, people regularly call each other swear words as a sign of affection. If someone does something stupid you can say they are acting like an idiot and hopefully they will listen. If you didn't they might not think you are serious.
For sure. It's funny in a way, but this is not a great way to treat folks that are trying to contribute, often on their own time. This could have been rephrased in so many other ways where Linus doesn't come off as a total jerk, and still be "right" with the same message.
This is a message to an @redhat address, as you might notice. Mauro gets paid to work on the kernel and is not a noob who doesn't know better, either, he's a maintainer who fucked up basic maintenance.
Neat.
Linus could also be kinder.
I just wish for all of us to become more accustomed to working on ourselves instead of projecting the need to develop virtue on others. Linus actually did it, doesn't mean that he was an asshole before. Brash, sure, crass, yes, but actual assholes don't calm down as easily.
I kindly disagree with most of what you said. Linus is brilliant, and I appreciate his contributions not just to technology and freedom but also to society. However, this does not pardon the hardships he has also brought upon others.
It's important to be honest in code reviews, but his language, while also honest, goes far and beyond that. We're doing ourselves a disservice defending this behavior as if it's a standard of communication quality that people should strive for, or learn how to behave like.
Current-day Linus wouldn't react much differently. Cut the "shut the fuck up", the one or other "fuck" (but not all, some need to be there for emphasis), done. It's the real personal shit, the "should be aborted retroactively" stuff, that he cut out. "Obvious garbage and idiocy" is a technical term, programmers apply it to their own work all the time. Compilers are more technical in their language but we know what they mean.
And was this mail, seen in its total impact, a hardship? He went down hard, yes, and thousands upon thousands of Linux users breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that Mauro's attitude towards userland doesn't fly.
The hardest-hitting sentence in that mail is actually "You have shown yourself to not be competent in this issue". Absolutely devastating. Taking context into account it's the equivalent of telling a professional cook that their ingredients suck, what they did with them sucks, and most of all that the gall which which they claimed that the customer is wrong about their dinner sucking is completely, and utterly, unprofessional.
Of course that's hard on Mauro. There's no way to tell someone about such an epic cock-up without being hard. But not going that far, avoiding that hardship for some notion of civility, now that would be right-out cruel.
Please defend these statements for me. I'm having a hard time understanding how this is language we should strive for in a code review, even with your explanation.
Additionally, if you can give me any pointers on how I can communicate this way, I'm all ears and would appreciate the help.
It's not a code review. Mauro was gaslighting userspace devs, pretending that kernel bugs he introduced were their fault, and at the end of it all he agrees with Linus.
As to tone: How is "this is not up for discussion" and "obvious mistakes and thoughtlessness" any better? As a reader I'd be inclined to think that you think of me as having the emotional maturity of a toddler.
I believe that excellent communication can be had without engineers swearing at each other, and I don't think there are is any good rationale that warrants such behavior. You believe that there is a time and purpose for the style of conversation that Linus portrayed, and it is warranted and effective behavior.
I'm going to agree to disagree from here. Thanks for the conversation.
For one, the boss setting the tone as to include "shut up" means that you won't get written up for responding in a similar register. It allows for emotionality, instead of burdening the recipient of the dress-down not just with addressing their own behaviour, but also the emotional labour to respond in a way the tone police deems acceptable. Maybe paradoxically (for people lacking emotional intelligence), that makes emotional responses less likely as the recipient isn't as emotionally boxed in, doesn't see walls in every direction.
The line that you shouldn't cross is making things personal -- talking about what someone (presumably) is, instead of what they did. But that applies to any register, "Please come to HR to discuss your identity" isn't someone anyone should ever hear. Persons can be demeaned and belittled, but not behaviour: Behaviour doesn't have emotions, dignity, whatever.
No one is arguing that Linus isnt a total jerk.
Just like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and even Ol Musky...
We can be better. We can both be a community that is extremely direct with our core values and code it well, but we can also treat people right.
It's a reality in many places. And it's thanks to the many many many assholes that I listed above that brought this change.
Not sure those three names belong in the same list.
So glad he got therapy (after this post or very probably because of it).
That said, fuck Nvidia.
He did? Couldn't tell based off of this message
you should always check the date of anything you see online before forming any thoughts about it.
This is from 2012
Calling a bunch of people 'dickriders' is just as toxic as the Linus-message. Do what you want, but you are not an inch better than Linus.
But yes, the mail is toxic and unacceptable.
This has some real "don't be intolerant towards the intolerant" energy.
Yes, sometimes insults are justified. No, when an employee/volunteer helper doesn't share your view is not one of those times. Yes, when you're confronted with a toxic fuck and those defending his toxic behavior is one of those times.
Exactly.
There's a hell of a difference between calling random commenters "dickriders" and having your boss, whom you have a very unequal relationship with, berate you like this.
Oh the irony...
You're exactly proving my point
how does he?
He is the dickrider I'm talking about. Being contrarian for their beloved Linus.
Me saying one derisive word on an online forum is not exactly the same as a business environment where your for the lack of a better word boss is publicly cussing you out and humiliating you. There are a million other ways to get the point across without being an ass about it.
What does one's practice of riding dicks have to do with anything?
If only there was a way for you to get your point accross, without insulting others.
It only proves your hypocrisy as you’re being toxic yourself.
Honestly, if such incompetent developers weren't as arrogant as to argue how their bullshit is the right way to go, I would agree with you. But instead their bullshit philosophy is the expected way to work in many places, and it's the cancer of computer development, so the anger is deserved IMO.
I mean he went ballistic, but how long did he tell Mauro? I would have fired Mauro instead.
Nah, if you were spouting bullshit your boss won't tolerate you.
Linus never mails random contributers working on their own time. There are different maintainers for that.
Linus sends mail to people working under him directly.
Prolly cause your boss doesn't have half the responsibilities Linus did or had to deal with as many retards.
Weak ass excuse