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Comment by aaronbrethorst

4 months ago

Meanwhile, here's Linus at the age of 42: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linus-to-opensuse-devs-ki...

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aaronbrethorst

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jart  4 months ago

The world's most successful open source developer didn't converge on that communication style for no reason. I don't think I've seen a single person bring up the classism inherent in dictating gentlemanly manners. Part of what made open source unique is that people from all classes could participate, and working class people are not tuned to pick up on subtle communication the way the upper classes have been. Linus likes to communicate in a way that leaves no ambiguity about he feels, to people of any class background, or any level of English language proficiency. The tradeoff is it offends the sensibilities of highly domesticated elites.

  • yladiz  4 months ago

    This is a weird take. It’s not classist to filter your communication to not call people morons even if you think they are, it shows you have respect for them. You don’t need to be “elite” to find some of the things he said offensive.

    • jart  4 months ago

      Open source doesn't have any kind of filter for participation, like a stringent hiring process, or requirement of academic achievement, which makes them entitled to respect. A lot of people show up who are unqualified, schizo, etc. It's demoralizing if a project treats those people and puts them on the same level as your best guys. Keep in mind, open source has no titles, no job levels, and no salary. So respect is the only thing people can hope to earn by participating, therefore it's totally ridiculous to give that out for free, because then people have nothing to gain and nothing to look forward to earning. These days the solution to this conundrum is to just ban everyone who isn't employed by a big tech company and shut down the comments section. However open source grew up in the 90's / 2000's culture that highly valued free speech and open participation. If you have to take the omegas in, like Linux did, then they have to play the omega role. This is better in some ways, because omegas are still part of the group, and still cared for, and many of them improve and grow past that role.

Aachen  4 months ago

TLDR seems to be like "whatever moron made this is mentally disabled". Not quite the KYS that is popular with the youth (in a game played by mostly teenage boys, we kept needing to moderate and escalate ban durations for a lot of players) but not particularly great to put it mildly indeed