Comment by Daviey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Daviey | Hacker News Reader

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Back in 2009, I saw something similar was when a user reported a bug to Ubuntu regarding Pulseaudio[0]. Basically the error messages was:

  $ pulseaudio
  W: main.c: D-Bus name org.pulseaudio.Server already taken. Weird shit!

I thought a user facing error message like this is inappropriate, so politely took the issue upstream [1].

Lennart, who I had spent some time with in real life a few months previous, didn't yet have the reputation for being the person he is today. I thought he'd be pretty reasonable about it. Instead he closed the bug as "won't fix" and left the comment, "Sorry, but please don't waste my time, will you?".

I was pretty shocked by his response, I lost a lot of respect for him at this moment and then wrote a long ass blog post about professionalism of developers and appropriate language for user facing error messages.. but still, Lennart tainted himself and showed the person we now know him as. (Also, if you are reading this Lennart, fuck you).

Ubuntu ended up carrying a patch simply to remove this inappropriate language, I never checked if it was eventually cleaned upstream or if other distros also removed it.

EDIT: I just checked, and it was eventually removed in 2011 [2]

[0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/44...

[1] https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-bugs/2009-...

[2] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/-/commi...

Based only on your post I'm confused. You better a person for including "weird shit" in an error message. But the on a pubic forum tell them "fuck you".

On the basis of profanity alone, your action seems far worse than their's?

This is a community, not an end user facing error message for a product for the public used by millions of people.

I can use profanity in my communication, but I would never put foul language in an error.. same as I wouldn't in documentation or a formal letter.

Just imagine a pop-up dialogue box on Windows or OSX showing an error with "Weird Shit!" in it. Could you?

I can, and it'd be pretty funny. Better than "Something went wrong!".

Why does it upset you so?

It wasn't me that raised the original bug, but a user. I didn't say it upsets me, but I do consider it unprofessional for a product.

So tell me, why would it be "funny"? Are you, or have you ever been responsible for content end users might see?

I don't think it's funny , but I do feel it's entirely more palatable than "WOOPS SOMETHING WENT WRONG <cute_dog_picture.jpg>" scheme that Amazon and other dotcoms use.

Regardless, the Lennart tirade added into the anecdote really just convinces me that the anecdote is there purely for axe-grinding.

Because it's practically identical to "Something went wrong!" but different and unexpected, which makes it funny. I don't know. Can you really explain what exactly makes something funny?

> Are you, or have you ever been responsible for content end users might see?

Yes. I don't do such things because of curmudgeons like yourself. But as a user I wouldn't mind at all, and think it's funny.

It would be less scary than "...has performed an illegal operation" was to non-technical users.

What "reputation"? He's disliked by a very loud minority, the rest of us don't care. I will take someone like Poettering who's actively solving decades-long problems over a useless "professional" any day of the week. He's effective because of his bullish personality.

Either you know about his "reputation" or you don't.

Those that have never interacted with him don't care, I agree (I mean, why would they?). But those that have, i'd suggest is a minority that can tolerate him.. but ho-hum, neither of have statistics on this so we'll never know.

When I met and had discussions with him in 2007 he was mild and seemed to be constructive, i'd suggest his "bullish personality" became more prevalent with time.

I met him once in 2012 and ate dinner with him and Kay Sievers. I agree to your observation about "mild" and "constructive", and will extend by saying that he appeared to me as someone fiercely focused on technical challenges. Therefore the "please don't waste my time" bit further up the thread appears to me totally in character for him. Lennart is really similar to Linus pre-2018 in that regard.

There's no correlation between effectiveness and rudeness. Some people are effective _despite_ being assholes.

No, there's a strong correlation between leadership and being bullish. Because in order to get what YOU want done YOU have to advocate for yourself - other people won't advocate for you. Being stubborn is a type of advocacy.

People will claim it's unprofessional, and it is. The problem is that when other's are also unprofessional you can't convince them by being professional.

If you look at who moves up the social ladder fastest and retains their power the longest, they are typically hard-headed people. The have an almost unreasonable amount of confidence in themselves, and in many ways they are delusional.

However, I would argue such a personality is better than being timid. Ultimately, past the computers and the programs we are humans, and human effects come into play. Success is not just measured by correctness; it's measured by perception.

there is no simple way to dissect these inter-related statements, but from my point of view, no. Plenty of people here have dealt with serial abusers, which is being defended as "ends justify the means" above

To be clear there's a far, far gap between being abusive and being bullish. It's quite immature of you to make that leap and use that to paint me as pro-abuse to discredit my argument.

You could instead provide a real argument, not "well what you say is used to defend abusers!"

Yes, and famously Hitler wanted economic strength for his country. I guess wanting economic strength makes you Hitler? ... wait no, definitely not.

I don't have patience for these weak types of arguments. Saying nothing at all is free and easy, I would look into that more if I were you. Seems more your pace.

I find the content of your statements reasonable, but the ad hominem really undercuts the message.

Many years ago, someone replied to me saying, “you’re right, but your comment is so abrasive,” and that really stuck with me.

Humility and grace can go a long way, even in internet conversations.

To be fair, my argument was taken in such a ridiculous and offensive direction I felt it necessary.

It's one thing to think I'm wrong, it's another all together to warp my argument to make me appear crazy. Or pro-abuse. Or whatever. That, to me, isn't in good faith and I quickly lose the motivation to be kind. I work under the assumption the people I talk to aren't stupid, they're aware of what they're doing. I won't extend pity or give people the innocence of a child. In my eyes, that is even more offensive.

> There's no correlation between effectiveness and rudeness.

Ineffective assholes are nonentities. Therefore all assholes worth noticing are effective, and all ineffective people worth noticing are nice.

I believe there's a name for this effect, but what it is escapes me at the moment.

It's Berkson's paradox:

> Berkson's paradox is a false observation of a negative correlation between two desirable traits, i.e., that members of a population which have some desirable trait tend to lack a second. Berkson's paradox occurs when this observation appears true when in reality the two properties are unrelated—or even positively correlated—because members of the population where both are absent are not equally observed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox

> Poettering who's actively solving decades-long problems

He's doing that only because it's his job: his employer has an agenda (i.e. steering Linux fast enough and disruptively enough at a low level, so that serious competitors cannot arise), and he's implementing that agenda without a care in the world.

Would I personally take such a ruthless mercenary over more community-minded folks? No.

The larger WTF here is a developer thinking that Linux having audio problems is weird.

This seems so fragile and prudish. I can't imagine having any other reaction beyond chuckling and moving on

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