Some of Linus's past messages came across as needlessly aggressive and insulting. There really was no practical reason for that and just served to alienate contributors, and it came across as unprofessional.
You can be a strong, opinionated leader and still be kind (or at least neutral) to the people you're working with.
A good leader is someone who can deliver hard messages while still keeping your team inspired. It doesn't do any good if the people working under you feel like trash.
It's the difference between telling a contributor "you're an f**ing idiot" vs "this code isn't up to standards, try again". Same message, but completely different impact on your team.
> A good leader is someone who can deliver hard messages while still keeping your team inspired.
Do you have examples of this? The only "good" leaders that are strong and opinionated I can think of always comes across as leans towards being an asshole.
> Same message, but completely different impact on your team.
Let's change it from "you're a fucking idiot" to "this code is fucking trash". It's not insulting to the specific person, but it definitely gets the point across that the code is no good and much less ambiguous to "it's not up to standards".
A few public ones off the top of my head: Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Ed Catmull (Pixar) are both folks who I consider to be strongly opinionated and effective leaders but who don't come across as jerks.
I'm not sure how "this code is not up to standards, try again" is ambiguous? That seems pretty direct to me.
Ultimately it's about showing empathy. Especially when you're dealing with employees who are struggling with anxiety, impostor syndrome, or burnout - all of which seem to be overrepresented in tech.
Using business-approved language doesn't actually make your message more friendly.
It's not line Linus was prone to using flowery prose against random novices - the rant he's known for were mostly addressed at senior maintainers who really should have known better.
Bad faith arguments like this don't really belong on HN. Please represent the substance of your argument accurately rather than debating this inaccurate strawman argument.
Except you have no authority to call that out, and we're not forced by law to agree with you.
In my opinion Linus was never abusive or disrespectful - just blunt and direct.
Unfortunately, there seems to exist people (like me) that would prefer such individuals instead of nice empty words just in case someone gets offended.
Are you serious? Linus has a long history of being abusive, it is no secret. He has gotten better for sure in recent years, but especially in the earlier days he would fairly regularly insult people, tell them to kill themselves because it would make the world a better place, and more.
Can you explain in simple terms why a person cannot reply abusively (whatever that means) if he so desires? You're not obliged to interact with him, it's a free choice to join or to quit the lkml.
One of the main issues Torvalds says the kernel has is not being able to find maintainers. People don’t want to be abused while volunteering could be part of that.
Another possibility is that he gets paid over a million dollars a year by an employer, who will have some concerns over legal risks, reputation, etc.
Yep, that happened. "Forced to apologize" essentially describes it.
A quick sweep through recent messages in LKML shows that there's a healthy return to form for him, maybe with less curse words, but as succinct and impactful as it should be nonetheless.
Some of Linus's past messages came across as needlessly aggressive and insulting. There really was no practical reason for that and just served to alienate contributors, and it came across as unprofessional.
You can be a strong, opinionated leader and still be kind (or at least neutral) to the people you're working with.
A good leader is someone who can deliver hard messages while still keeping your team inspired. It doesn't do any good if the people working under you feel like trash.
It's the difference between telling a contributor "you're an f**ing idiot" vs "this code isn't up to standards, try again". Same message, but completely different impact on your team.
> A good leader is someone who can deliver hard messages while still keeping your team inspired.
Do you have examples of this? The only "good" leaders that are strong and opinionated I can think of always comes across as leans towards being an asshole.
> Same message, but completely different impact on your team.
Let's change it from "you're a fucking idiot" to "this code is fucking trash". It's not insulting to the specific person, but it definitely gets the point across that the code is no good and much less ambiguous to "it's not up to standards".
A few public ones off the top of my head: Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Ed Catmull (Pixar) are both folks who I consider to be strongly opinionated and effective leaders but who don't come across as jerks.
I'm not sure how "this code is not up to standards, try again" is ambiguous? That seems pretty direct to me.
Ultimately it's about showing empathy. Especially when you're dealing with employees who are struggling with anxiety, impostor syndrome, or burnout - all of which seem to be overrepresented in tech.
Using business-approved language doesn't actually make your message more friendly.
It's not line Linus was prone to using flowery prose against random novices - the rant he's known for were mostly addressed at senior maintainers who really should have known better.
Bad faith arguments like this don't really belong on HN. Please represent the substance of your argument accurately rather than debating this inaccurate strawman argument.
You disagreeing with an argument does not mean it was made in bad faith (or is without merit for that matter).
You seem to be implying that he had nothing to apologise for, and that abusive behavior is an acceptable part of strong leadership.
It’s sad that this even needs to be called out.
Except you have no authority to call that out, and we're not forced by law to agree with you.
In my opinion Linus was never abusive or disrespectful - just blunt and direct.
Unfortunately, there seems to exist people (like me) that would prefer such individuals instead of nice empty words just in case someone gets offended.
Are you serious? Linus has a long history of being abusive, it is no secret. He has gotten better for sure in recent years, but especially in the earlier days he would fairly regularly insult people, tell them to kill themselves because it would make the world a better place, and more.
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> In my opinion Linus was never abusive or disrespectful - just blunt and direct.
The way he spoke with Alan Cox was "not apropiate".
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could you give some examples of "nice empty words"?
Seriously? I’m a huge fan of Linus, but you have to be delusional to not find his rants abusive or disrespectful.
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Can you explain in simple terms why a person cannot reply abusively (whatever that means) if he so desires? You're not obliged to interact with him, it's a free choice to join or to quit the lkml.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/30/hard_to_find_linux_ma...
One of the main issues Torvalds says the kernel has is not being able to find maintainers. People don’t want to be abused while volunteering could be part of that.
Another possibility is that he gets paid over a million dollars a year by an employer, who will have some concerns over legal risks, reputation, etc.
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Yep, that happened. "Forced to apologize" essentially describes it.
A quick sweep through recent messages in LKML shows that there's a healthy return to form for him, maybe with less curse words, but as succinct and impactful as it should be nonetheless.