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Comment by digi_owl | Hacker News Reader

Linus Torvalds have gotten an undeserved reputation because it is oh so easy for the online tech media to take emails out of context.

Whenever he brings out the harsh words, it is because someone has been stalling and deflecting about breaking some core rule for kernel development.

Torvalds never pounce on someone out on tail end of the patch chain. He comes down hard on those that have been in charge of maintaining major sections of the kernel for years, and should know what is expected of them.

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I don't think that's necessarily good enough. Even if he is personally restrained in whom he acts like a jerk towards, his behaviour establishes norms within the project and contributes to how other people behave.

Project leaders need to set good examples.

> I don't think that's necessarily good enough. Even if he is personally restrained in whom he acts like a jerk towards, his behaviour establishes norms within the project and contributes to how other people behave.

I'd really like to see some examples of these "norms". His outbursts really are few and far between - hence why they always make the "news" when they happen. He posts several emails a day to the LKML and virtually all of them are perfectly nice and helpful.

I might not defend how exactly he goes about telling people they're doing something wrong, but it's not like he sits there chewing people out everyday, and it's not at all clear to me how you make the claim that his outbursts contribute to how other people behave on the LKML when people behave perfectly fine on the LKML.

> Project leaders need to set good examples

Why? Are we Puritans now?

It has nothing to do with puritanism. If project leaders don't set good examples, people "lower down" in the hierarchy will also act like jerks, and the project will lose potential contributors as a result.

> people "lower down" in the hierarchy will also act like jerk

It's not clear to me he is a jerk. If LT only shouts when things are important, people without important tasks have no reason to shout.

Important to whom?

Anyone who depends on, or is invested in, the security/stability of the Linux kernel, or cares about such a reputation. Which should include core devs.

This is such a passive attitude. I don't think the passive, judging members of tech organizations will ever take responsibility for how they are dragging their orgs down. Because, by definition, they are passive and take responsibility for nothing.

But the truth is that organizations fail more often because of their passive, "why won't anyone lead me properly" attitudes. And this smacks of it.

Not really. In what context is saying that someone should be 'retroactively aborted' a perfectly fine thing to say?

I've known Linus for a long time and don't believe him to be malicious. Do you have context for that statement?

Linus has a sly sense of humor, I bet it was either directed at some code or it was in jest.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495

Here's the email. Jest may be hard to discern via text, but I if I had made that contribution (directly or indirectly) and was met by this response by the maintainer, I think it would be my last.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495

Actually, after reading it a few more times, I can't find any jest in it tbh

He’s essentially saying “this userland code is beyond stupid, but we don’t break userland so here’s how we can keep it working.”

The comment is neither aimed at the contributor (who works on kernel code) nor the reporter (who did not write the code). In fact if you read the rest of the thread you can see them concur and joke about it.

Are the people joking about it equals or can Linus decide who gets fired?

Both. The reporter is an equal, and the contributor is a subordinate (in a sense).

What ramchip said. If Linus had said that to a specific person it's unreasonable. Kernel people can be pretty salty, this is a little more salty that normal but not that much.

He's legitimately saying "yeah, we have to support this but you'd have to be bat shit crazy to think this is a good idea". And he's correct, going into the kernel for one byte at a time I/O is stupid.

"Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE FCKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the fck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?"

Saying stuff like is just poor leadership and being as ass. This is like saying racist comments and brushing it off as a joke.

No, it was neither of those things. It was him being a jerk to someone who had the audacity to do something in a different way.

In a humorous context, of course. I mean think about it.

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