An oldie, but a goodie

  • Synthead@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    11 months ago

    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.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      11 months ago

      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.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          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.

          • Synthead@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            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.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              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.

              • Synthead@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                11 months ago

                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.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      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.