Linus: People take me much too seriously, I can't say stupid crap anymore
zdnet.com
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What was "innocent" a few years ago is now grounds for doxxing, shutting down of accounts, getting people fired, you name it. It seems that "tolerance" is only tolerated if it is agreed with. Voltaire comes to mind here.
I never thought Linus was in bad form. His project, his rules. Ditto Theo de Raadt, who I think is a great project leader. I've heard him speak more than once, and he is a very nice guy. Like most leaders of tough projects, these guys endure massive amounts of BS from BS artists, and they need to be able to trounce the idiots and expose them. I have a feeling the majority of people would disagree with me anymore, but then again, my mindset and attitude were largely set by the military long ago, so I like strong leaders who don't brook BS.
I think this is a problematic way to view things.
Linus was usually right on the technical aspects, but he often made personal insults that were really just irrelevant. There's no need to attack people personally to get your point across. Honestly, his attitude in many of those famous comments strikes me as immature — he presents himself as someone who would rather spend time berating a person who tried to make a contribution and didn't do a good job than simply explaining why their contribution isn't good enough.
Sure, "his project, his rules", but that doesn't give him carte blanche to be a dick to people without any repercussions. Just as he is entitled to speak his mind, so too are the people who felt that his comments were out of line.
The problem with successful open source projects like Linux is not lack of good people, it's too many people wanting to contribute and push their ideas. Increasing the emotional stakes for committing, commenting or contributing helps. If your heart starts pounding before you press send, and you decide to read and think it again, the quality of communication and contributions increases.
Insulting someone is not as bad as politely not engaging. "Than you for participating." There is very popular and extremely PC open source project where the leadership politely avoids conflict. You try to push new ideas, corrections and features and the leaders never explains what is wrong with them or where they stand on things. People waste years before they realize that there is invincible barrier and passive-aggressive culture.
ps. I think SJW's have their place when the insults become gender based and diverge from the technical aspects. Linus-type leadership can evoke copycat behaviour that is not called for.
Was it often?
I was never an ardent follower of his -- I primarily work in another field -- so I certainly haven't read or listened to all he's said. I did catch those handful of instances where he rocked the boat, but I don't recall the personal insults. Obviously that isn't to say it never occurred, but I'm wondering if he personally insulted people as often as you state.
I don't store old mailing lists, but the thing I generally point to is his statements towards the security community and, back then, specifically PaX team. I've stumbled on tons of personal attacks from him, either escalating an already negative conversation, or starting it himself.
I also challenge the "usually right". To my knowledge, Linus is quite often wrong. And that's fine, really, everyone is wrong a lot of the time. But hero worship, or feeling the need to excuse his behavior even somewhat due to a false sense that it's helping things, is not a good idea.
There's nothing saying that he must listen to them, but it's pragmatically probably a good idea.
Why does that have you, to use a Linus-ism, so hot under the T-shirt?
Its odd, that people keep saying this. He is the leader of one of the largest most successful projects mankind has seen. He has the most diverse portfolio from around the world. But yet, some how what he has done has not worked, and is not working...
And the rest of your post blows my mind--the idea that something can work and yet be imperfect, can work and yet can be better, is so foreign to you?
Me, I'm always trying to improve. Why shouldn't he?
I never said it was perfect, I just commented on what he was doing was worked well considering the goals of the project.
> can work and yet can be better, is so foreign to you?
Absolutely not, I just think the methods being used to achieve the "better" in question is actively making it worse.
Which I find kind of interesting, you know? He might just actually know what's going on in his own head.
This is already happening. People already choose not to contribute to Linux and Fuschia isn't just some hobby project.
He clearly has added value. He has run one of the MOST successful projects EVER. Most CEOs are never this successful, to so say he is not doing something mostly right is weird to say.
He has done a lot of things right! But that doesn't mean that he needs to continue with personal attacks during patch reviews and feature discussions in a public forum.
Does it seem possible that the quality of the project could have remained the way it was without things like this being said to contributors (no matter how misguided they are):
> 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?
Yes, reading anything one byte at a time is generally a bad idea. That patch should not be accepted. But... saying things like that probably isn't necessary to get the point across. People have been telling him that for a long time, and he's finally sat back, reflected on it, and decided to change.
I don't think anyone's suggesting that the project hasn't been wildly successful, nor that it hasn't generally been a great project to contribute to. But over the years there's been some pretty wild things said to nominally-valued contributors, and some of them have left over it.
In 1991 as a college student. The situation has changed drastically. I'd guess his primary source of income matters greatly if it were to disappear or drastically shrink.
That's a hot take, indeed. Me, I think one should be constantly reevaluating what one believes and making sure one's actions are congruent with the life one wants to lead, but--you do you, I guess.
He should, only if he is truly care about that.
Doesn't that level of cynicism...hurt? Like, personally hurt? It's not good, dude.
Hm.
For example, someone want to just work on project according what his style and if other people feeling get hurt by this, as long as this project owner happy and fine by the situation then the logical action he should take is to just ignore the them.
Some other people who do care about other people feeling then sure, they should listen to them.
These 2 people are different so too differ on what life they want and what makes them happy.
There are no right or wrong from any this.
"That hurts me and you should stop" need not be "logical" to be deserving of respect.
"You claiming women should be treated equally to men hurts me, you should stop."
Do you care or respect this view? What if you consider the fact that there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people that would completely genuinely state and agree with the above? Does that somehow make it a more legitimate claim? Obviously not. This is precisely why logic is what matters. Appeals to emotion can be used to argue for great or awful things using the exact same language which ultimately makes the entire notion completely pointless. This is likely the reason the word pathetic has the etymology that it does. At the point one is appealing to emotion, they've long since lost the thread.
I'd also add here that behind nearly all great travesties in history there was some charismatic leader who likely thought he was in the right, swaying people largely through appeals to emotion to his cause. And this is because emotion sidesteps the necessity of actually having to show that e.g. the people you are demonizing are actually bad.
Not empowering shitheads is more valuable to me than Emerson's foolish consistency.
When the situation on the ground changes--and it hasn't yet, don't @ me--I will reevaluate my position, because my brain works and I do not feel tethered to immutable positions (on topics like this, at least).
The only thing I'm critiquing is how you came to your view. It's a rationale that, as illustrated, leads to views you'd obviously never endorse. So should the views of masses of people mean something? Of course my opinion on this is clear, but I think if you want to argue that it does surely you must be able to find some form of logic or evidence to support the view. Alternatively, you might even focus on how Linus' behavior is likely harmful to himself. I think it's extremely likely that he changed his views not because he changed his actual view, but because he got tired of years of harassment because of his behavior. But of course such harassment is to be fully expected when you act like a dick. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and all that. I don't really agree with these notions, but they are at least reasonable and mostly logical.
They did. Enough people said "hey if you keep behaving this way we will no longer want to interact with you or the things you work with" that Linus stopped acting that way.
It went no further than that.
If you then give out keys to dozens/hundreds/thousands of other people to come over whenever they want and tell them "Make yourselves at home", you can't be surprised when they start calling you out for shitting in plastic bags in the living room and leaving them there for guests to find.
You can try to kick them out, but you'll find it difficult at this point, and you'll lose a lot of your friends in the process.
Choices have to be made: do you stick to your guns, or do you choose to reevaluate how you're living your life?
regarding the situation at hand, linus is effectively a project lead for linux. though I understand the need to create a certain persona or quality-barrier for maintaining quality of linux, I feel his personality & the name calling attitude is actually hurting the kernel community and hindering more active participation.
If I invited you over to help me work on a car in my garage do I now not own my car?
Linux is much more than just the code. And the fact that it simply was not forked to remove Linus shows you this. It is his project, he is the gate keeper.
This is inconsistent. Even if you believe OS projects are like “homes” and bullies have the right to treat people however they like in their homes... By the same logic everyone, typing on keyboards in their own homes, has the right to criticize bullies and express their opinions. By proclaiming “it should go no further” that keeping quiet you are implicitly placing restrictions on what they can do in their homes. Heck, they can even do it in your home if they want, until you uninvite them.
Think of it more like a company instead of a house. The founder doesn't have free reign to do whatever he wants to his employees. Everyone deserves to be treated respectfully, regardless of the situation.
People are saying that "we will not work with you unless you stop being an asshole". It's just happening at the organizational level.
Linus is more than free to say whatever he likes, and people are also free to tell him to buzz off. That's how the rest of the world works.
Memory overcommit. OOM killer. "Security is just a bunch of masturbating monkeys"
Linus is frequently extremely wrong on the technical aspects, in addition to being a huge jerk
You're imagining shadows on the wall coming to get you if you think that there are people literally waiting for you to say something to take your job away. Meanwhile the people who are picked on do have people doxxing them, emailing them grotesque photos and death threats, showing up at their houses, etc. I would bet a good sum of money that you've never had to deal with any of that.
Maybe you should check yourself. Learn some non-violent communication. Empathize with other people. If we're all kind to one another what is it we need to be afraid of exactly?
I wish people would just relax, but I don't think mass-communication works this way. In a small group, people negotiate the morals and the social values of a group. (and then, of course, push those boundaries and re-negotiate values, etc) I've often felt that this process breaks down in larger groups. Moral values are seldom "settled," since the group is too large and disperse for any given values to really propagate. The outrage and accusations don't stop, they simply aren't resolved. There's more to it than this, but it's a bit like getting angry at someone in a road rage incident. You're never going to meet that person again. Even if you "won" the debate and "taught" them a lesson, you won't ever encounter them again. It's possible you've modified their behavior, but you'll never be able to notice a difference in the environment. The scale is too big for your anger to have been useful.
Of course, even this poor example is pretty optimistic. Often the conflict makes things worse, and not better, whether or not you could measure the difference of your singular action.
You are intentionally misinterpreting the GP's comment or at least seem to be from my interpretation. Nobody is annoyed that they can't sprinkle legitimate criticism with personal attacks. That was never considered normal or ok though it may have been tolerated in some contexts. People are annoyed that any direct criticism can be construed as a personal attack.
The people most upset about being called out by “SJWs” are the ones whose behaviour is most problematic and exclusionary.
Except they always had a voice, and acting like they did not does not help. They also had the choice to not listen.
> You're imagining shadows on the wall coming to get you if you think that there are people literally waiting for you to say something to take your job away.
I am not sure you have been keeping up with things. That is exactly what is happening. Say the wrong words, end your job.
> Meanwhile the people who are picked on do have people doxxing them, emailing them grotesque photos and death threats, showing up at their houses, etc. I would bet a good sum of money that you've never had to deal with any of that.
While I am sure this has happens to people, and has to many people on all sorts of sides of any conversation. This is not a "them us" issue. If things like this have happened to you I am very sorry that you had to experience that. But that has nothing to do with all peoples who are 'loud-mouth' and all peoples who are 'anti-sjw'. The actions described belong solely to the individuals who did them.
Please stop grouping people based on different attributes, it leads to racism and bigotry. Each one of us are individuals and should be judged as so. Doing any thing other is outright nonsense. I will not let you take my or any other persons individuality and water it down to some group you define.
We are all individual and and can only be held accountable for your actions good or bad.
> Learn some non-violent communication.
Words are never violent. Words are not physical. (I am with you if somebody starts throwing wood cutouts of words at people, yeah that is probably bad)
> Empathize with other people.
It seems those who find words "violent" are the ones that are not capable of empathizing with the society around them, thus wanting everybody to conform to their subjective views.
> Maybe you should check yourself.
Just because some people do bad things does not mean everybody needs to change their behavior because it reminds you of the things bad people have done in the past.
I am not sure you have been keeping up with things. That is exactly what is happening. Say the wrong words, end your job.
Sure it happens. Does it happen a tenth as often as the times a woman gets sexually harassed in an office and is expected to ignore it as normal? That any rebalancing of power will involve some problems, doesn't mean that rebalancing is entirely bad and should be avoided, and that the people on the lower side of the power scale should be quiet and stop being uppity because the people on the high side don't like it.
> I will not let you take my or any other persons individuality and water it down to some group you define.
You just grouped a huge number of people from disparate backgrounds into "they always had a voice" to bulk-dismiss their speaking up. Why aren't you taking their situations as invidual situations with their own merits? Why aren't you willing to admit that any of them at all might have a valid point?
> Words are never violent.
Words are not physical, but that's not enough to say they aren't violent. Look at a definition of "violent" and its synonyms, many of them apply to words: synonyms: harsh, rough, aggressive, bullying, threatening, terrorizing, fierce, hot-tempered, frenzied, inhuman, heartless, callous, ruthless, merciless, pitiless, cruel, destructive, damaging, painful; 2. (especially of an emotion or a destructive natural force) very strong or powerful. "violent dislike", synonyms: intense, extreme, strong, powerful, forceful, raging"
If you can have "violent dislike" you can sure have "pitiless cruel intense extreme terrorizing callous bullying" words..
If people are not allowed to offend, being offended becomes a weapon.
Further, polite language does not prevent oppression or racism etc.. It only makes it secret.
Well said. That just went in my permanent quotes file.
My handwriting was once so terrible as to be illegible, and I refused to change it. My teacher called me out by holding up my writing for the class to see. Instead of crying about it, I changed my handwriting, and it changed the way I was able to organise my work. This is so much better the alternative of diplomatically letting crap work slide.
Something bad happening to some people does not justify doing it to others. By all means, dox the doxxers, but don't go full human flesh search engine over some bs someone said.
There is a big disconnect where SJWs see it as life and death survival because they are aware of all the incidences of people getting beaten or killed because of their identity, and the other side sees it as politically correct pedantry because of the blowups over people saying things like "fork his repo". I agree that both sides need more empathy.
It's cultural too. I find the politically correct culture stifling because my culture is endless shit talking to friends and being physical. That is completely unacceptable where I work, and I understand why, but at the same time it's a total drag.
At the end of your post you tell people to be kind, but yet here you’re calling people names and using very strong language like “despise”.
And recent history shows that plenty on your side are doing the things you claim they aren’t / only the other side is doing.
> If we're all kind to one another what is it we need to be afraid of exactly?
Define “kind”. Your argument amounts to “if you’ve done nothing wrong what do you have to hide”. Well, define “wrong”. There are tons of people who legitimately have conniptions at the slightest of “microaggressions”. Thank God for the anti-SJWs otherwise we’d be living in hell.
Regarding the third, some of Linus's rants were out and out vitriol. Like Linus, I don't hesitate to call BS when I smell BS (as is, perhaps, obvious), but I usually manage to do it in a civil manner.
We can mourn the loss of an understanding environment in which to speak impulsively, but there's a segment of people who react to this change by embracing their offensiveness and raging against the "SJWs", which is equally bad.
The reality is that one's online words impact a massively larger segment of people than they used to, and typically without context. This has bred constant reactionism and irritation in our society, which is a bad thing. I think the solution is to scale your "carefulness" to the scope of your media channel. Treat Twitter posts like you're speaking on live TV in front of millions. Because you effectively are. HackerNews tends to be a little more homogenous so you can get away with a little more. Private group chats with friends are all the way on the other end of the spectrum and allow you to say whatever you want. Simply don't expect the entire internet to be empathetic and give you the benefit of the doubt. Nuance doesn't scale that far.
All that said, I think Linus' words were referring to his fame and the scale of the Linux project, not the internet in general. His project has gone from a small, tight-knit group to one of the largest software projects in the world. So yeah, some adjustment in decorum is necessary.
I don't understand this.
Essentially, your comment comes down to "I don't care how other people feel. I want to say what makes me happy, and to hell with anyone who doesn't like it."
And that's fine, I guess, if that's how you want to live your life. But offense is both taken and given — it's a two-way street. If you say something and someone says "Hey, that upset me", then you now have a choice of whether to say similar things in the future. If you choose to say those things that you have been told are offensive to this person, then you get to deal with the repercussions of that choice. After all: "If you cannot handle the heat, leave the kitchen."
A couple of years ago, I worked with a large team and there was a gay man on the team who was constantly yapping on about gay this and gay that, almost like he was looking for disapproval among the ranks. He then decided to do a legal union with his boyfriend and invited everyone. Those who did not attend were berated, verbally accused of this and that. I counseled everyone to simply ignore him and not take the bait, which ended up being sound judgement, because he took his leave shortly thereafter. I never engaged in ad-hominem attacks or retaliated against this man. I just refused to play his childish game of attacking people for some imagined reasons.
Linus, Theo, and other large project leaders deal with actual idiots all the time. Serial idiots. Sometimes in the real world you have to step on toes to get someone's attention. It can often be done in "nicer" ways, but sometimes you have to "nuke them from orbit" just to be sure.
Recently, my British uncle told me of a story about a woman in England who went apoplectic about a new tissue range having the marketing slogan "man-sized" tissues. Who cares? It's marketing. The company actually caved to please this woman. I would not have done so. My tissues, my slogan. Don't buy them if you're offended.
Why not just say, “this must be a big issue to them”? Why do you feel the need to prove that these things don’t offend you, and that thus they shouldn’t offend others?
EG, offending somebody -- because it is so subjective -- should simply be that, they are offended. END OF STORY.
But right now being offended is as if you walked up to somebody and spit in their face, or worse punched them. And the actions being taken by those who "offend" are on par with actions you would take had somebody physically attacked another person.
It's come to a place now in society where even silence can be taken the wrong way. I've been accused of being politically incorrect over the years because I refuse to cotton to certain things the mainstream embraces, but I refuse to budge. My convictions are mine and mine alone. I don't try and change other people's convictions. But... if you stand for nothing, you fall for anything.
This is like a gay person saying "I'm not 'offended'. I'm sick and tired of anti-gay sentiment invading every aspect of life."
Your lack of introspection is showing through. You want to be able to say and act however you feel is appropriate — which is fine —, but you don't want other people to be able to call you out for what you say and do. This makes no sense, because those people are just saying and acting however they feel is appropriate — by calling you out.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
People will judge you for what you say, the same way that you judge others for what they say.
What it seems here is that, while you judge others, you demand for the right to not be judged by others.
Isn't it a near perfect sleight-of-hand to subvert societies into celebrating weakness as the ultimate virtue, turning it into straight up a currency for power used to nuke a narrowly defined "anyone" from orbit?
Edit: Added 'narrowly defined' to the last sentence.
What people want is for the grievance hunters to go away and/or toughen up.
I don't want to say that I don't believe these people exist (because I'm sure they do), but rather I don't think their presence is something you need to be overly concerned with because I think there are so shockingly few of them that it really isn't overly consequential. I think their existence is overhyped by people on the internet, because I've never met anyone in my life who has brought this up in the real world.
Just handle things like that on a case-by-case basis. If all the people you interact with don't care... then you probably don't need to worry about it. But if there's someone who says "Hey, I don't like it when you say that", then perhaps take their opinion under consideration and determine what you want to do about it.
The notion that you need to constantly be on guard about everything you say is completely absurd, unless you're a raging asshole whose comments regularly spark resentment in your conversational counterparts.
If you cannot handle the heat, leave the kitchen.
It turns out that people who have only been on the receiving end of bullying do not, in fact, like being bullied.
You're not doing an especially good job of defending Linus on this thread. I don't think he'd find your arguments especially useful as a tool for persuading people that his previous behavior was acceptable. Your comparison between him and Theo de Raadt, by the way, was especially cringe-y.
Compared to the military, where you are "kept" using a state's monopoly of deadly force, hence any bullyig situation is way much harder to resolve because you're unable to leave.
Is everyone entitled to partake in communities like the kernel org if they so choose, even against it's founder's wishes?
(Edited spelling)
- Linus Torvalds
If you think offence is only taken, you would reject the idea that your words are polite or offensive. Instead you accept that some choice of words is offensive, argue that it’s right to be offensive in some situations, then try to disclaim that by saying “you shouldn’t be offended, I wouldn’t be because i have a tough skin”.
If offence is only taken, not given, you wouldn’t need a tough skin because there wouldn’t be anything to bounce off it.
On the flip side, there are also people that are looking to be outraged about "political correctness" and inserting their own biases into a situation that doesn't require it.
But maybe take a step back from all of that, and try to look at things in a different way.
You say "his project, his rules." But that's not the same as not being in "bad form". Plenty of "nice guys" are also abusive to their subordinates. Linus was verbally abusive to contributors, and it happened over and over again. Sure, he has to put up with a lot and has a ton of pressure on him. But profanity laced rants are not the only way to "trounce the idiots".
Lots of people could deal with Linus's behavior. But it also drove a lot more people away. Talented, dedicated workers who could have contributed to Linux but stopped because of the culture around kernel development. Even if you personally think he's a nice guy and was never "in bad form", the actual impact of his behavior on the kernel community was a negative thing. It was bad for Linux. So I'm glad he stepped away and got some help, and that he's come back a little more thoughtful about how his own behavior impacts others. It was necessary for the continued success of Linux.
Ultimately that's what this is about. It's possible to say the same thing and send the same message in ways that are hurtful to other people and in ways that aren't. Sometimes in anger or impatience or fear we lash out in a hurtful way. But part of growing up and being a good leader is finding better ways to express ourselves to avoid being hurtful if we can help it.
Taking time to be thoughtful and constructive in your communication is part of being a good leader. Insults and profanity do not add clarity--they are a needless distraction. It's not "political correctness" to take a moment and not give into your first instinct to lash out and insult others. It's not an "SJW mindset" to be clear and direct and avoid being needlessly hurtful.
So how do you reconcile this opinion with the fact that Linus thinks this new approach makes him a better leader?
Indeed
> "So I'll still call out people (and particularly companies) for doing dumb things, but now I have to do it knowing that it's news, and me giving some company the finger will be remembered for a decade afterwards. Whether deserved or not, it might not be worth it."
"it might not be worth it" is pretty damning. That approach you admire doesn't necessarily have the effects you want it to.
I'm sorry that you feel offended! But clearly Linus thought that his behavior towards other project participants had some scope for improvement, and that's his prerogative. There can be plenty of value in being diplomatic, especially when people might misunderstand your attitude otherwise - and politeness can be a part of that, as well.
If you want your words to be taken seriously, you can't simultaneously expect people to always intuit when you do not mean your words seriously. Since humor often carries some grain of truth, you have to be careful that your people don't interpret the wrong grain of truth. I've seen this several times where a CEO cracks a joke and the employees take it the wrong way, then culture changes weirdly and nobody realizes that it was a miscommunication over a joke.
"Watch your thoughts; They become words. Watch your words; They become deeds. Watch your deeds; They become habits. Watch your habits; They become character. Character is everything." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I won't comment on the second half but it only toxifies conversation to assume the worst in others.
Isn't that what the parent comment did? That's the only reason I commented - i.e. implying that not being serious equals being childish. Quote or not.
I'm typically not one to quote Scripture in a professional setting, but in this case I'd like to do so because I feel that it illustrates an important point that is secular in nature. Note that I am in no way attempting to proselytize with this, so please don't take it in that way.
Here's 1 Corinthians 13 in its entirety:
> If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
> Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
> Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
> When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
> Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
What I take from this is that you should be aware of the limits of your own perspective. No matter how strongly held your views on an issue and no matter how important they are to you, someone else may not share them - or may directly oppose them. If your views are right they will win out in the end and there is no need for you to attack or harm others (emotionally or physically) over them.
At the end of the day, whether you were right or wrong in the views you held, how you treat others is how your life is measured.
In fact, the context for 1 Corinthians 13 is the previous chapter: 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul writes about the church arguing over spiritual gifts, and he humbles them by saying something even simpler is more important than all of that, because they are arguing about the wrong things, basically who does the most works or miracles, but it's all worthless if you can't even love one another. Anytime I try to make an opinion about a Bible verse or chapter I go back and read the previous verse or chapter for context, it clarifies things a lot.
I'm not disagreeing with you btw, the point still remains, you can have really strong views on something, but they may not matter, you may find out (from a Christian viewpoint) in the end that they were partially right, or fully wrong and all the arguments were a waste of your life when you had better things to do.
I used to really get into theological arguments on Facebook Christian / Bible groups, but it's kind of a waste of time, most people reading what I have to say likely already made up their minds.
Yes you can. He has been BDFL for the "most popular" OS for the vast majority of its lifetime while occasionally saying "stupid crap". Who is to say it hurt Linux in any significant way?
Frankly, if you're one of these tone-policing developers (not gonna name names) then I don't want you on the Linux project. Linux is too important to be engulfed in this anglo-centric culture war that is going on right now.
Real leadership is expressed through relationships, not rules. Linus apologized because he cared about those relationships. He changed his behavior to enhance those relationships and encourage new ones.