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Comment by coffeeaddicted | Hacker News Reader

Third forum where I see this discussed - and same as in the other 2 a lot of the discussion here is again about his choice of his words instead about the content. I don't think that's a good sign.

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> "and same as in the other 2 a lot of the discussion here is again about his choice of his words instead about the content"

Yes, and this is an important lessons to people who underestimate the importance of communicating effectively. If you walked onto the stage at the Oscars wearing assless chaps, you can hardly blame people when they can't remember what your thank-you speech was about.

Similarly, when you throw around ad hominems about your opponent performing fellatio on a competitor, you cannot blame people when the discussion recenters around it.

Definitely true. It's easy to take the "it's the content that matters" approach, but the reality is that delivery always matters. It may not be important to the message, but it's vitally important to how people receive your message: If you fail to deliver it effectively, it's your own fault when people ignore it, miss the point, or otherwise misunderstand/misinterpret your point(s) in whole or in part.

Of course, no one is always going to get that right; we're human. But that's also exactly why it's so important to try hard. You can be certain that as soon as you slip even once your message will not get across in the way you intend it.

Do you really think that the people who actually matter failed to receive the message?

No, spectators on slashdot and HN do not actually matter, despite how hard our ego may make it to internalize that.

It's an embarrassment to our entire industry. It's one of the main reasons people avoid contributing to open source projects. Yes it matters. People who have the maturity and communication skills of 14 year old boys are not the only ones that can make worthwhile contributions.

Torvalds being a meanie is dragging down the entire industry? That seems like quite the leap. Where are all of these people with patches that they have been holding on to for fear of the wrath of Torvalds, and why haven't they banded together and just ignored him?

Unlike bullies in corporations, this guy is incredibly easy to just ignore; the only reason people don't ignore him is because despite being a meanie, he still commands respect. If he didn't, he wouldn't be in the picture.

This isn't about one individual. Offensive, sexist, bigoted communication is standard in the industry. There are mini-Torvalds (and mini-ESRs and mini-DHHs) everywhere who think making derogatory comments about women or otherwise being gratuitously rude is how you prove your worth/"manliness" and a good way to run a project. Bad behaviour filters down, especially when people on HN or slashdot applaud it.

>Where are all of these people with patches that they have been holding on to for feel of the wrath of Torvalds, and why haven't they banded together and just ignored him?

On my hard drive and a million other people like me. Not for the linux kernel in my case, but other open source projects that I don't post my fixes to because it's probable that I'll just get flamed and it isn't worth the stress. If you don't realise how endemic this problem is then I can only presume you don't know any programers who aren't part of the 'boys club'.

Torvalds can get away with it because linux is huge, but there are hundreds of other projects that struggle through lack of contributions.

Next time some software you use crashes or hits some kind of bug, consider that you are probably not the first person to experience it and somebody somewhere probably already fixed it but didn't upload the patch because they didn't want to get abused.

No, Torvalds doesn't get away with it because Linux is huge. In a world where Linux is huge and people didn't value his input, then he wouldn't get away with it. The open source ejects people with bad attitudes who are not worth the trouble, just look at glibc and Drepper's reign of terror.

If there are really millions of developers sitting on patches because they don't want to deal with mini-Torvalds, then you really should start a movement.

It seems like you still don't believe me that people keep patches to themselves because the open source community is so unpleasant to deal with. We had several huge threads about this the last time some alpha jock devs got called out for being assholes. Here are some examples:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5112763

Oh, I believe it happens, I just don't believe that it is as pervasive as you suggest. If it were millions sitting on good patches for no reason other than a few people in the "in crowd" being caustic, then the developer-power represented by that group would rival the developer power of the big meanie "in group". Seriously, if that is actually the case, organize.

Here is my perspective though: for the past week I have been sitting on a few commits for git that I would get flamed for if I aired them publicly. Why am I so sure I would get flamed? Because if I am honest with myself, it is because the change is shit. The change is not backwards compatible, has only hypothetical use-cases, and has questionable support in the UI. Until I resolve those things I know it would be flamed (or worse, and more likely, ignored). Now, I'm not sitting on it because I know it would be flamed, I am sitting on it because I know it is shit. If I fix those things, and I don't conduct myself like an asshole when my baby gets curtly shot down, I am fairly confident that I won't be verbally abused. If I am, who gives a shit?

I suspect most people sitting on patches for fear of being flamed, if they are honest with themselves, are so sure that they will be flamed because they understand why they would be. Are there a few who have good changes that are irrationally afraid of being flamed? Yes, I am certain of it. Are there some projects currently headed by people who flame good patches? Absolutely, glibc a few years ago was such a project... but Linux is not one of those projects today.

It happens in the corporate workplace, too.

http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/10/14/2gb/

I found a problem in production, figured out what was going on, wrote a workaround, mailed out a patch, and ... they hated it. I didn't want to fight forever. So, I took my ball and went home, so to speak.

Months later, a different, nicer, person came to me and asked if I still had it. Fortunately for him, I had kept a copy of the change separate from our SCM in my home directory. I handed it over, he merged it, and that was the end of that problem.

>Seriously, if that is actually the case, organize.

Perhaps this is the case but people who are naturally timid online are also less likely to organize?

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks. Point is that a better choice of words would have prevented this 'event' from ever happening and saved us all precious time

I don't understand this sentiment. The only reason my time is being "wasted" is because I choose to click the link because I have traditionally enjoyed these sorts of controversies. You are under no obligation to participate if you don't find it enjoyable.

Nitpicking delivery is much easier than commenting on content, particularly when the person in question has a reputation of being unrelentingly pragmatic at the expense of artificially polite diplomacy.

Maybe that's also the ultimate proof of him having chosen the wrong words.

The debate about form is about better vs worse, not about right vs wrong. The only way they would be the wrong words is if they deliver the wrong message, but I think pretty much everyone understood the message alright.

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