Linus should have stepped in long before a maintainer blew their stack and started throwing out ultimatums. Once that happened, Linus could have still stopped everything with one sentence -- "Let me look into this.", but he did not.
Linus only got an opinion once things blew up on social media which proves that social media works which is the exact opposite of what he says he wants (and will just encourage more of the same).
That is really an apt point. You can't condition people one way, and tell them to do the opposite.
10 years back, Linus _was_ "that guy". And it worked, extremely effectively, if you measure success by the ability to stamp on someone else's technical contribution by ridiculing them in public instead of making a convincing technical defense of his position in the discussion.
Going to have to disagree on that one.
You can certainly imagine ways an authority figure could have defused a situation of a maintainer blowing their stack, but your framing kinda absolves the maintainer of any accountability for their actions.
A team member who needs a lot of defusing is doing something wrong, and needs to learn how to defuse themselves.
Not in the sense of "he wants the mailing lists private", but in the sense that "he doesn't want public complaint about private discussions", which feels like an evolution of "technical merit should win", as a position.
That shouldn't be too surprising - I mean, its an old project with a whole lot of technical baggage. Projects tend to slow down over time. And that is legitimately really frustrating when you want to shake things up or push for change. I would be rubbish as a linux kernel developer. I have the wrong temperament for it.
There's a reason why some tech companies interview for both technical skill and culture fit. Sounds like he's got the technical chops, but he's not a good fit for linux.
And when you're in a situation like that, your choices are essentially Voice or Exit. Voice is to do what he's tried to do - kick up a fuss about the problems to try and get them fixed. Thats a skill on its own - and it sounds like he's not been super effective at that. The other option is Exit. Which of course - sensibly, he's now done.
> he has gotta Stop Posting and keep those kinds of thoughts away from his keyboard.
Nah. Bottling this stuff up is a bad long term play. You end up getting bitter, cynical and resentful. I think we've all worked with people like that, and its miserable - both for the person and for their coworkers. I think its better to shoot your shot. Even if you miss - as he has here - you learn a lot about yourself and the world. And there's no shortage of interesting projects out there to work on. Pick something that matches your speed.
You're right.
To fit with historical "linux culture" he needs to be much more aggressive and rude.
He needed to lead with something more inline with linux project leadership's examples, perhaps something like: Christoph " ... should be retroactively aborted. Who the f*ck 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?"