this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
1468 points (91.8% liked)
linuxmemes
21197 readers
300 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack members of the community for any reason.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
- These rules are somewhat loosened when the subject is a public figure. Still, do not attack their person or incite harrassment.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudo
in Windows.
- No porn. Even if you watch it on a Linux machine.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I don't think it's necessarily a celebration of abuse. I agree that he's obviously way out of line sending this email.
I think Linus is (was) a complete asshole who lacks interpersonal skills, and this email exemplifies his character. To me, this post shows the mentality of some developers (and leadership) in FOSS and why some folks find it difficult to contribute to open-source software. This post opens up the discussion on that.
FWIW, I've received zero reports on this post itself. But I've received reports on abusive comments in this post, which I've promptly removed. This community is more/less self-moderating and if the post receives a significant positive vote ratio, I don't think it should be removed by me. It brings an important discussion to the table regarding acceptable behavior in software development.
I've never had a negative experience contributing to open source.
I've also been to scrums where everyone is equal, and we have to be very PC, about explaining "processes" and "best practices" to people that break the build pipeline every single day. Eventually I just coded error handling and guard clauses into everything so no one could screw anything up by not following the documentation being a cowboy. That is a best practice, sure, but you'd be surprised by how people break things even after being warned not to do a very specific thing.
A cowboy that fixes things always 24/7 can be a maverick and talk shit.
But in todays PC world you can also be a cowboy that breaks everything always and spends weeks fixing something they themselves broke...
I wish I could say the things Linus said instead of just putting people on a performance improvement plan.
Sometimes being angry is appropriate. When I am I step back and try to figure out solution where the fuck up can't happen again and no one gets hurt.
I've seen people be VERY angry and even hands on working in jobs where fucking up can kill people.
I'd rather see anger than people dying. Did Linus go too far here? Probably, but there is a time and place for anger and being direct.