An oldie, but a goodie
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I feel it’s equally important to point ot that Torvalds recognized his toxic behavior, apologized for it, and took steps to rectify it.
In an email to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, which also addresses the kernel update of Linux 4.19-rc4, Torvalds writes: “I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely.”
“I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately.”
That was seriously admirable. From memory he actually did improve quite a lot after that as well.
I’ve heard he’s not perfect but he doesn’t lose his temper anymore and has only gotten better with age. I respect anyone who can self reflect and introspect and come out a better person.
Yeah, shouting at your subordinates in public is utter bullshit.
So is breaking the userspace
So two wrongs make a right? Or could this have been a civil private email instead? And if civil private conversations aren’t working, then it’s time to part ways.
A civil public email would have been fine.
Acceptable, yes. But a good manager knows not to shine a spotlight on the mistakes of the team. There’s nothing to gain keeping it public that you wouldn’t also gain by keeping it private. But your team’s morale is kept high if you sing their praises instead of their shortcomings.
I’m really glad you added this, that was pretty awful to read.
It’s sad we don’t get this energy anymore. Who will keep the fuckers in line now
Not going to touch the general toxicity as it’s something Linus has already apologized and worked through with professional help, but I love the attitude when it comes to responsibility.
Far too often it’s easier to blame someone else for error.“No this is our problem, and I’m ashamed you’re trying to blame someone else for it” is respectable take
His style of being direct, having a high quality threshold and calling out bullshit immediately and bluntly is why the Linux kernel went from a university project to powering everything from lightbulbs to super computers. I think it kind of ridiculous that this demonstrably effective style got framed as “toxic” just because he hurt a few people’s fee-fees.
You can be direct and call out bullshit without swearing and name calling. While the content of this sounds reasonable, the tone definitely isn’t. If someone talked to me like that I’d tell them to fuck right off.
Yes you could but he didn’t and clearly his style was self evidently effective. And I’d add that if you’ve ever read the LKML archives, that these rants were rare and usually preceded by long chains of discussion before it reached that point.
Doesn’t make it right. Michael Jackson’s dad abused his kids and they became world famous artists, doesn’t mean abusing your kids is acceptable or should be seen as such.
This is a nonsensical comparison
It’s not a comparison, it’s an analogy. Important distinction.
Except it’s not a distinction at all.
analogy (n.) - a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
Yes you could but he didn’t and clearly his style was self evidently effective.
Depends on how you define “effective”. Because by his own admission, it gets shit done, but also alienates people in the project and turns off others from joining it.
So yeah, you’ll get the update pushed, and it’ll work, but down the line you find yourself struggling to keep up without the help of people that don’t want to work with you.
Linus’ mistake is a classic one: really self-sufficient tech person doing fantastic work with a team but not appreciating that there’s a whole social layer to it that is every bit as important as the standards and procedures at keeping everything working.
Oh noes he used bad wordsies? My fee-fees!
Sure you can. But the evidence i see in my immediate vicinity is that informations go in through one ear and straight out through the other without holding on to anything if presented in in a none swearing or name calling manner. It hurts but it works.
I went to LKML for context, so I return with context.
When 3.8-rc1 was released, “Rafael J. Wysocki” reported 100% CPU usage by knotify4(part of KDE) on OpenSUSE Thubleweed with pulseaudio as audio server.
At which Mauro Carvalho Chehab replies starting with blaming pulseaudio(why? Srsly, why? I don’t like it, but this is just troll behaviour) and saying pulseaudio(which is NOT knotify4) should not try to use V4L2.
This shitty behaviour ignites Linus’ back and he replies with mentioned in post message.
I’m glad I don’t live in your immediate vicinity.
Way to infantalize the people calling him out while excusing his childish tantrums.
Way to infantalize … his childish tantrums.
Come on dude. Either there’s a standard here or there isn’t.
Randomly blaming pulseaudio when talking about 100% CPU usage by KDE. I don’t like pulseaudio, but this is childish indeed.
There is a difference between a rant and a tantrum. If you read the post, you could see very clearly he makes a point very forcefully.
Demonstrably effective
Where’s the logic in looking at something successful and picking a singular thing to be responsible? What seems more likely is you are looking for an idea you are attached to that exists adjacent to something successful. It’s like a Mormon looking for successful Mormon CEOs to then claim the company’s success is due to the Mormon work ethic. It’s like how in Whiplash the Charlie Parker story is venerated and seen as explanatory by the characters.
The logic is simple. This is s his style and it demonstrably worked. I’m sure you could point to someone else’s style that also works in another context but that’s irrelevant.
But did it work because of the style or in spite of it? No reason to believe it wouldn’t be even more successful if he had been less abrasive like he is now.
I think too many people get upset about swearing. It brings a strong emphasis, it’s not disrespect imo. Knowing how Linus is, I’d take that response in stride. I appreciate his direct approach especially to the brazen arrogance of someone too full of themselves to see themselves as wrong. It wouldn’t be a great way to start a conversation, but as an ender it’s terribly effective. He called a fucking idiot a fucking idiot. That shouldn’t be toxic. Not everything that hurts someone’s tender feels is toxic. The intent should be taken into consideration.
I totally agree. I have mad respect for Linus for the work he’s done and the immense amount of retardation he’s had to sift and fight his way through.
I have very little respect for the people critiquing his behavior while contributing nothing of value themselves.
I agree on the first part. However this is from 2012 and in the meantime Linus himself realized and admitted that he was not proud of behaving like that and took real measures and seeked help in order to improve himself.
Hell yeah. But it’s not considered good anymore, everyone has to be very nice and whatnot. Too bad imo but I guess less hurt feelings.
It’s easier to label other people toxic rather than finding flaws in themselves. More people will agree with someone being toxic, because deflection as a tactic got so ingrained in people that they don’t know better.
Torvalds got professional help for that. Even he acknowledged that it was a problem.
Exactly. It might not be good to be on the receiving end, but the chain of discussion that went before these rants should have given people the clue they needed to stop while they were ahead.
Tough love isn’t toxicity, even if Linus had to grovel a bit to divert the Karens elsewhere.
Shut the fuck up.
Stop breaking user space
Getting angry = tOxiCK i cry evertem
Everyone gets angry, but this is not a constructive way to communicate what someone else needs to do. You can express all of this without belittling and swearing at someone. Being angry is fine, taking it out on other people is rude and unnecessary.
How to communicate with someone who in conversation about KDE randomly blames pulseaudio and opensuse?
He basically has one rule and one rule only… we don’t break user space… IMO, if you break that one rule, I believe he has the right to be angry. It’s not constructive, but I wouldn’t hold it against him.
If he was my boss and he treated me like this I would absolutely hold it against him! Honestly I don’t care how much an employee fucks up, there is no excuse for abusing them.
Even more so because Torvalds is not his boss and the guy is a volunteer that is not being paid for his contribution.
I’m glad Torvalds was the bigger man and got help for his temper.Red Hat email, not a volunteer.
Where is abuse part? More like victimblaming from Mauro.
Yeah, I completely agree, the guy’s a duche, blaiming others for his mistake (assumption, that leads to a shitty PR, which is a mistake).
As I said, if I did that, I would gladly take the heat from Linus. Own up to your mistake. Yes, you do deserve to be called names. You’re a maintainer for the most wide spread kernel in the world. “But I don’t get paid…”. You can quit at any time pal, no one is forcing you to do it.
Own up to your mistake.
To be fair he did it after Linus’ speech.
I posted 3 screenshots in comments here.
The virgin IT tech tears in here are real.
So I recently had a conversation with some who though Linus Torvalds (kernel) and Linus Sebastian (Linus Tech Tips) was the same person.
That was a pretty funny and confusing conversation.Imagine Torwalds doing reviews of old CPU coolers and completely losing his shit 🤣🤣🤣
Yes, please! 🍿
you know… that could be YT gold right there.
Fuck it’s me.
I am Spartacus!
I thought he branched out to tech tips as a way of making extra money. Never seen the tech tips myself and with the controversy not too long ago probably never will.
No, I am Spartacus!
I’ve only ever heard of torvalds because of pages like this one and since I don’t watch LTT videos often, I’ve only ever heard his first name connected with the channel.
As an entertainment show about tech, it’s a pretty decent show to watch, I wouldn’t use it to base my decisions on, but if you want to hear someone talk about tech stuff in a somewhat entertaining way I’d say give them ago, Linus can be a bit much sometimes but the rest of the crew are alright.
But LTT-Linus is 17 years younger and Canadian. O_O
Time to merge both Linus branches together into a Linus Hivemind.
I was a couple weeks into using Linux before this was made clear to me and the world made a lot more sense.
Yeah, those mailing lists used to have some quite funny stuff; my favorite so far is smth along the lines of “whoever thought this was a good idea should be retroactively aborted”.
But, on the other hand, damn it’s toxic. Should’ve really sucked to work on the kernel back then.
I was curious as I couldn’t help but laugh, but damn dude. That is rough. Hilarious looking at it now, but I feel bad for whomever was at the receiving end.
Of course, I’d also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE FUCKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted. Who the fuck does idiotic things like that? How did they not die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?
That’s some quality venom.
Gold
Someone else pointed out that he actually apologized for being toxic sometimes and took some time off as a kernel maintainer because of that. Nice to see.
This happened on kernel 3.8, he stepped down on 4.18. That’s plenty of time time for as lot more fuckups.
It’s not really a fuckup it’s like a fucksideways.
The kernel was safe, only feelings were hurt
I meant Linus’ behavior was a fuckup. And he probably fucked up a lot between this example and his stepping down.
Was the product impacted? Did Mauro get his commit together?
If the product was undamaged he was just rude. A fuckup means he hurt the mission, he hurt his goals
He did hurt the mission. Plenty of kernel maintainers have left, and those were people who had been with the project for years. Losing experienced people to toxicity 1000% harms both the project and the product.
In almost instances of Linus going off on one in public it is because maintainers weren’t doing their jobs (to act as quality gatekeepers), or particular developers thinking they could steam roll road changes through if they kept submitting them, or not listening to what Linus was saying. I remember Linus used to ream out Hans Reiser a lot (the guy who was subsequently imprisoned for murdering his wife) because he constantly tried to get ReiserFS into the kernel despite serious issues Linus had with it.
So generally when you see a rant, there is a history behind it and the rant itself is directed with a point. I also think it’s self evident that the kernel has benefited from this “benevolent dictator” model. I’m sure some people have gotten all precious over their feelings being hurt. The rest raised their game and the result has been a code quality standard you’ll probably never see anywhere else.
Did that demonstrably happen?
If there’s a surplus of talent (sounds like Mauro was dead weight) then at most he was just rude on Mauro’s way out the door.
I’m not saying it’s cool to be rude, but if it’s Linus’ review then you get what you get. To be butthurt about someone being rude to you should motivate you to learn your code interactions better. (In this case error handling)
You seem eager to pose this “if the product was undamaged” as if you can quantify what might have happened differently, but then in a comment below you ask someone else to prove that maintainers left.
It might shock you to learn that products are developed by people. Actual people stay or leave and work wildly differently based on things like respect, expectations, and being in a hostile environment.
Want proof of that? Go work on an actual project with a team sometime.
edit - And this isn’t even accounting for the ways toxic communication impedes wider adoption of a product
People who could be easily replaced. It’s a non issue.
I do work on software teams, and don’t conduct myself like Linus, because I’m not Linus. That pattern of communication isn’t available to me, an average engineer.
But if someone spoke to me that way (and they have) I took it as a clear signal I need to level up and act right. Not an invitation to feel bad about myself.
Linux has clearly not missed out on wide adoption in any way.
Absolutely awful shit and I would be ashamed for decades if I acted like this to another person.
Really shows the worst of him here. It’s rare that he becomes this toxic and humiliating.
To his credit he undertook sensitivity training and is a much, much, better communicator now.
He used to channel the whole juvenile angry-but-gifted programmer crap, accepted (eventually) the criticisms and did the right thing: changed.
I agree. In a leadership role it’s one thing what you say to a person in front of others and a completely different thing what you say when alone with them…
To be fair, if he said what he wrote here in private, it’d still be extremely bad leadership.
Obviously he should correct them and point out why, but maybe not trash on them entierly.
Lmao he is often celebrated for his put downs
I think he’s being fair and balanced. Also please stop calling mild irritation “toxicity”, it only makes you sound like a whiney douchebag who cries whenever they’re questioned about anything.
If this is not toxic, what is? Where do you draw the line? Would you call this email professional?
Fair and balanced in the same way as Fox News. :)
This was anything but “mild irritation”. Makes me wonder what does a great irritation look like for you
Please don’t ever have kids.
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Like, I get how it’s funny, but I would hate to get this kind of shit from someone I respect. Would really mess me up, personally
So publicly, too. People have quit over it.
If someone whom I respected shat a bit in email about my work product, I’d be sad for a bit. Then I’d read it again and understand it’s my work product and I am not my work. I can make mistakes and I can fix them, and fixing mistakes is how we get awesome.
I have received negative feedback. And I did feel just a little butthurt about it. But it was in NJ and I was new, and didn’t see from the first read that Buddy was expressing frank and honest concerns about my work product and not me. I’m embarrassed to say how long it took me to clue in, but I did. And we worked through my mistakes and I was the better for it. And I learned.
And when he said my work didn’t suck as much, I knew I was improving, because I could trust him.
You need to learn honest from asshole.
I get what you mean, but there are ways to say you fucked up, without calling you expletives. Some days, you get angry and scream at someone, but it doesn’t really make it feel amazing for the party being screamed at.
I didn’t mean it was mean from him to give him feedback or correct him, but the way he said it was a bit overblown.
As already stated it’s less about the facts being communicated and more about the way they’re being communicated.
I would posit that the mismatch in the style of communication lead to you needing more time to clue in. And in that way, the initial feedback might have been an inefficient way to relay the point.
However it’s also entirely possible that trying to package it in a better way, the point of the feedback-giver would have gotten lost, leading you not to clue in at all.
Communication is hard, especially tailoring it to the expected audience. That being said I don’t think being an asshole is ever ok, unless it directly saves lives or something. 😅
That’s why you should never put people on a pedestal. There are a lot of people I admire, but I always try to imagine them being stupid assholes most of the time to balance things out in my head.
It’s nice to have an idol to aspire to, but they don’t say “don’t meet your heroes” for no reason…
Not me, I’d just take a closer look at what I’ve done and see where my mistakes are.
It’s not like we’re married or something, I don’t live with him. It’s just an email, get over it.
I don’t think having tough skin should be a prerequisite in IT.
You can tell a person they made a mistake or are wrong without being a cunt about it.
When the person doesn’t see anything wrong with what they did, yes I belive I have the right to be a cunt about it.
I’d give as good as I got and we’d be fine. Not everyone is a spineless crybaby who melts down at the first hint of disapproval. Are you all little children?
Edit: Stupid question, apparently. Good thing it was rhetorical.
Wow, you are sooooooo tough, guy!!!
So strong and manly!!!
I’m sure you have so many girlfriends!!!
They might even smoke weed
NO WAY!!!
THE DEVILS LETTUCE?!!??!
That’s so toxic. You may need therapy
Guy called me spineless crybaby. It’s fair to hit back.
I hope I never meet you. You really don’t know how to human.
This is way beyond a first hint of disapproval.
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What a toxic ass message. If he was my boss I would not tolerate this. It’s weird how many dickriders here are defending him here
Jose1234, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Fix your fucking comment and don’t ever blame OP.
Whoa WhoaWhoa, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
It’s a mistake alright - by the boss. How long have you been an employee? And you still haven’t learned the first rule of employment?
We never EVER blame the employee. How hard can this be to understand?
So Linus should have sided with someone who in regression report of KDE using 100% CPU starts blaming pulseaudio and opensuse and double down on blaming pulseaudio? Instead of fixing syscall returning completely unrelated error code. It’s like if your router crashed with message “there is no milk in your fridge”.
uis, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
There’s a difference between disagreeing with someone and insulting and attacking someone, and if you can’t tell that there’s a difference you can go fuck yourself with a cactus, you cumdrowned dicksphincter.
if only this were true.
fingers will always be pointed at us developers even as management takes full credits for the success every other time. :(
Well, he isn’t anyone’s boss here. I agree, and so would linus nowadays, that this is toxic and should be avoided, but the anger I fully understand.
Attempting to shift blame away from yourself after making a change which breaks a large portion of user space is cause for termination at any company I’ve worked at. It’s cowardice. This action goes against one of the most important, core philosophies, of the kernal. Do not break userspace. Also, this person should know better. They are not some odd newbie who may not grasp the ideas yet.
In a world where termination is not an option harsh criticism is required. This though, I agree, was anger driven unprofessionalism
There is a way to say all of that and not be a dick about it. Angry responses are seldom needed.
He did it seldomly
I think there may also be a cultural angle here. Anglo-Saxon culture really places a much higher emphasis on “not causing offense”, whereas other cultures place a higher emphasis on speaking truthfully, even if harshly.
So Linus, who grew up in Finland, may have thought of his message as harsh but fair, whereas to native English speakers it comes across as incredibly rude.
For sure. It’s funny in a way, but this is not a great way to treat folks that are trying to contribute, often on their own time. This could have been rephrased in so many other ways where Linus doesn’t come off as a total jerk, and still be “right” with the same message.
This is a message to an @redhat address, as you might notice. Mauro gets paid to work on the kernel and is not a noob who doesn’t know better, either, he’s a maintainer who fucked up basic maintenance.
No one is arguing that Linus isnt a total jerk.
Just like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and even Ol Musky…
We can be better. We can both be a community that is extremely direct with our core values and code it well, but we can also treat people right.
It’s a reality in many places. And it’s thanks to the many many many assholes that I listed above that brought this change.
Not sure those three names belong in the same list.
So glad he got therapy.
That said, fuck Nvidia.He did? Couldn’t tell based off of this message
you should always check the date of anything you see online before forming any thoughts about it.
This is from 2012
Calling a bunch of people ‘dickriders’ is just as toxic as the Linus-message. Do what you want, but you are not an inch better than Linus.
But yes, the mail is toxic and unacceptable.
This has some real “don’t be intolerant towards the intolerant” energy.
Yes, sometimes insults are justified. No, when an employee/volunteer helper doesn’t share your view is not one of those times. Yes, when you’re confronted with a toxic fuck and those defending his toxic behavior is one of those times.
Exactly.
There’s a hell of a difference between calling random commenters “dickriders” and having your boss, whom you have a very unequal relationship with, berate you like this.
What a toxic ass message
dickriders
Oh the irony…
You’re exactly proving my point
how does he?
He is the dickrider I’m talking about. Being contrarian for their beloved Linus.
Me saying one derisive word on an online forum is not exactly the same as a business environment where your for the lack of a better word boss is publicly cussing you out and humiliating you. There are a million other ways to get the point across without being an ass about it.
What does one’s practice of riding dicks have to do with anything?
If only there was a way for you to get your point accross, without insulting others.
It only proves your hypocrisy as you’re being toxic yourself.
Honestly, if such incompetent developers weren’t as arrogant as to argue how their bullshit is the right way to go, I would agree with you. But instead their bullshit philosophy is the expected way to work in many places, and it’s the cancer of computer development, so the anger is deserved IMO.
I mean he went ballistic, but how long did he tell Mauro? I would have fired Mauro instead.
Nah, if you were spouting bullshit your boss won’t tolerate you.
Linus never mails random contributers working on their own time. There are different maintainers for that.
Linus sends mail to people working under him directly.
Prolly cause your boss doesn’t have half the responsibilities Linus did or had to deal with as many retards.
Weak ass excuse
Honestly, I maybe get why some people are too sensitive to work in such conditions, but from my professional experience, I’d much rather prefer getting angry mail explaining why my actions are stupid, than everyone being nice to one another but the codebase is utter garbage and everything falls apart, which happens a lot in private companies.
What if I told you that you can have constructive discussions without being verbally abusive?
You can be angry without being rude. I’d much prefer passive aggressiveness than egregious blame-shifting and accusations.
You don’t need to be passive agressive either, you can just be polite and factual.
I don’t think anyone ever accused Linus of being “passive”
Well put. My boss had been polite and factual when she gets “angry”.
Exactly. I’ve worked under terrible managers and some great ones. Great ones get pissed off but they never, ever try and let emotions out. They were all to the point and knew what worked for every guy.
Is she impolite when she is not angry?
No, not at all. I appreciate that of her. She doesn’t even look scary when I’m being told off. Which is why I put the word angry in quotation marks. She tries to sound angry and look scary but we kind of brush it off. Not that I didn’t respect her authority.
But don’t be too factual or you will be Linus
I hate passive-aggressiveness, because I want to know what people really think of me. How can you feel secure if you know that somebody might secretly hate you and is just waiting for the right time to put a knife in your back?
Both are bad IMO. Sometimes when morale is low, you don’t need constant berating to break your spirit.
Being polite doesn’t mean being passive-aggressive. I can tell you that I completely disagree with your opinion without calling you “a brainless ape that should’ve fucking stayed in school because your dumb ass cannot comprehend the simplest matters”.
THIS SO MANY TIMES.
Hard disagree. Passive aggressive solves nothing. Being direct actually gets issues fixed.
Yeah, that’s a hard pass on passive aggressiveness, constructive criticism isn’t either of those things nor rude and angry ranting. Love Linus, but he really did need to chill out a bit more with these things. He could have gotten the same point across without coming across as yelling at the guy, just firmly pointing out that it was caused by the patch, the patch did things it shouldn’t ever do, and don’t break userspace or blame userspace programs
Yeah this kind of attitude is never a productive strategy unless you want to surround yourself only with assholes. It also demonstrates a complete lack of ability to manage humans and keep your values straight when you become upset and stressed out, which is a massive red flag to hold up as someone running a project.
In general it seems like a lot of people get into computers because they think it is a magic fantasy land where you don’t have to practice people skills and interact with other humans… when like every other industry after a certain seniority in a project it always, always, always comes down to managing humans and human interaction skills. The idea of the tech wizard programmer who can be an asshole because they are a genius at coding is just so tired at this point.
You can be polite or just straightforward and still get your message across.
“We don’t blame bugs on user programs”, “This is not an error code that should be used here”, “Your coding standards may have relaxed over your tenure, be sure to maintain quality code.”, etc. I get the annoyance, but you can be firm without yelling, especially in a professional environment.
Edit: Seeing the full context of Mauro’s message (posted below), I can see why Linus took this tone. Mauro was being pretty condescending to a dev.
I’m betting this isn’t the first time, or the second, and probably not third time this guy has fucked up.
There’s a time for the kid gloves to come off.
You don’t need to tell each other to shut the fuck up in all caps and call each other idiots to get the point across. It’s possible to instruct your peers in a much more professional manner.
Programmers are sensitive enough. All you have to do is raise your voice slightly, and they’ll think you’re yelling. You could probably make one cry just by saying their patch isn’t good, without having to resort to aggressive language.*
I don’t know the whole history, but this seems highly unnecessary, and typical Linus. Didn’t he resolve to be better a few years ago?
Ah found it.
*Source: am programmur
I like the discussion this has generated around toxicity and professionalism, but I’m still very amused by the fact that he censored himself in the last line after not doing so for the rest of the message.
It’s typical of a venting boss, he vented now he’s calming down
Just like a toddler!
I like that Linus is so strict on not breaking user space because this obviously aids with compatibility and it’s probably a big part of why rolling releases work.
But I sure hope Linus’ eventual successor won’t be toxic and…cringe. It’s hard to take someone serious when he’s raging this much.
The good news is Linus did eventually learn this isn’t okay and took some time off to reflect on how to approach these things better.
He still doesn’t tolerate things like he was responding to here, still responds to them firmly and directly, but doesn’t rant, yell, or hurtle insults
I like that Linus is so strict on not breaking user space because this obviously aids with compatibility and it’s probably a big part of why rolling releases work.
I think kernel still has compatibility with paleolithic glibc enabled by default
Why cringe? I find it fun.
Well you’re broken and hurting inside.
What a nasty response
This is hilarious to read from outside, but I am definitely not speaking like this to my colleagues
Damn that was probably very hard to read for Mauro. This is something you never want to receive as Mail in your job. On the other hand it is good that Linux priorities fixing the kernel instead of letting other developers fix your code.
As many seem to have overlooked itb this is from more than a decade ago.
And to those setting “not being toxic” == “being vague”:
Suggestion if you’re in a situation: separate the subject discussed from the person and, to the contrary to what is said in some other posts, be very specific!
Improvised example:
Hey all,
patch xyzz and its aftermath communication is unacceptable.
It’s content is not to the standards we have set here (explain).
Even worse, in the communication aftermath we blamed behavior of user space applications for bugs that are within our domain instead of owning up.
The bugs within the kernel will be focused on with highest priority by a, b and myself.
For the communication: (consequences). As explained the patterns shown here are unacceptable.
I have decided to no longer have x as a kernel maintainer on our team/enforce pairing for all communication/set up stricter consequence catalogue. Any specific action,really…
Not perfect as it’s very early here, I haven’t slept well and I’m not deep into the topic.
Just remember to separate subject to be discussed from person(s) acting please.
And always remember: bad communication is really easy and a lot of managers trained that their whole life! ♥
Reading this version I wouldn’t know the writer is deeply disappointed, frustrated and angry. It’s good you’re trying to improve the letter but this is exactly what many people don’t like about it: it changes the meaning. Perhaps you could include a paragraph which conveys this, such that the reader understands the gravity of the situation better.
Oh that was in purpose! It shouldn’t matter that I personally am angry. My employees should never NEVER try to prevent me from being angry but focus on doing the best job they can.
That’s what I admire about Linus: he realized the negative impact his anger had on the performance of others - and fixed it!
To be clear: I can be angry - but my anger isn’t the reason I want things to change. Being angry is MY FAILURE as manager!
Think about it in another way: do you want your colleagues do things they thin prevent you from being disappointed, frustrated or angry - xor do you want then to move your collective goal forward no matter what you’d think.
Another example: if I’d be the one to have caused this communication mess I’d want my employees to call me out - even though I will get angry the moment I realize I’ve fucked up big time!
Ignoring emotions is very unhealthy. I understand that it is seen as desirable in a business context, but it is very unhealthy and detrimental in the long run.
I apologize - it wasn’t my intention to imply that at all! Emotional self management is a critical skill for managers - and that shouldn’t mean “go away, emotions!”. A trainer and coach I highly respect phrased it simply: “emotions are. They exist if we like them or not.”.
What I intended to convey was “do not use a public platform to channel your emotions.”
If this would’ve been a private conversation I would integrate an explanation of my current situation, feelings and context for my reaction. And also this sounds abstract it can totally be a “dude I’m absolutely pissed. I need you to work with me through this.” (this works btw in both meanings of “pissed” ;)).
I wouldn’t necessarily call it ignoring, if you just… don’t explode on someone in a “professional” letter, if we can call it that.
I agree! Making someone aware of your feelings doesn’t mean exploding. You can just tell them. “I am very sad, frustrated and angry due to your actions. Please don’t do this again.” Is very clear and hurts no one.
I think removing someone’s maintainer status does communicate disappointment in their performance quite well.
And as for anger and frustration, these things really don’t matter in this circumstance. Work is not therapy. If you need to vent anger and frustration, get a therapist. Employees are employed to do their job, not to be the emotional punching bag for a manager who can’t control their temper.
If an employee doesn’t perform to expectations repeatedly and even after you had a few constructive one-on-ones, then demote them or fire them. No need to vent your anger on them and lose your professionalism.
Tbh, the first time a boss of mine loses their temper and verbally attacks a colleague like Linus did here, they have also lost all of my respect for them. And at that moment I will start to look for another job.
I am not and was not advocating for venting - just for communicating emotion. This can be as simple as:
“Your actions have deeply frustrated me and caused great anger on top of [technical reasons]. I would ask that you be more careful in the future.”
This ensures the reader not only understands they hurt Linux with their actions but also another human being. Many people will be more careful if they know they caused personal pain to an actual human being and not just to an abstract technical object such as a codebase.
I know I am going against established cultural norms in western business context - please don’t disregard my proposal just because it contradicts established culture.
I do understand what you mean, and it makes much more sense than advocating for venting.
But I still feel that putting emotions into a discussion about work performance isn’t the right way, especially when done in public.
In a situation like that where something caused a lot of negative emotions (that go beyond your work performance is bad), I think you should have two separate talks. One about the factual things where one is boss and the other is employee, and one about the hurt/emotions the behaviour caused and in this talk, both are just people resolving their personal problems.
Something like the issue in the OP really shouldn’t cause anger on Linus’ side, since it’s a totally factual issue. A propper response would have been to decline/revert the change while publically saying “This change validates that rule of the project” and then privately contacting the maintainer in question and tell him, “We talked about this repeatedly, if you don’t stop, we need to take consequences.”
Emotions should really only enter the picture when personal offenses where comitted before or maybe if the employee did something with the intent to hurt the project/company/manager.
But if you get really angry because your employee did something wrong, then that’s a problem on the side of the manager and not on the side of the employee.
That said, I think it’s totally ok to tell the employee about the consequences of their actions (“We lost X amount of money” or “It took Y amount of time to correct it” or something like that).
I agree with what you said in general.
But if you get really angry because your employee did something wrong, then that’s a problem on the side of the manager and not on the side of the employee.
This is probably taught in manager courses in order to protect their subordinates from managerial outbursts, which is a good cause, but they’re not quite right.
The Linux kernel is Torvalds life work. He literally spent most of the time he has on this planet on it, as did thousands others. Instead of watching his children grow, he made sure the planet gets a great operating system. It takes immeasurable effort to keep a vast software project in a good state - most large organisations with many times the resources fail to do so.
The maintainers behaviour represents a complete disregard for this sacrifice. They are showing through their actions that they don’t care that Torvalds and many others spent the little time they have on this planet on this software project instead of more fulfilling and joyful activities. I cannot imagine many more hurtful or disrespectful insults than this. It’s not far from saying their efforts are null and thus their life wasted.
I am saying all of this because I feel that you are speaking as a leader in a company, where you make sure other people’s money is spent productively. This not at all the same thing as what Torvalds is doing, because it’s not just a job, it is his literal life or life’s work.
This doesn’t excuse the behaviour, obviously - but it makes it very human. It’s good that he changed. I just hope we can find a middle ground between forced business speak and emotional outbreaks.
I’m not a manager (used to be team lead, but managing is not for me), but I’ve worked under a few coleric managers and some that where able to communicate in a sensible way.
One of my bosses, for example (that was the job where I was team lead) had a pretty similar style of communication as Linus.
Sure, the company was his life work. But I also started there shortly after the company was founded and I too spent a lot of time and was very emotionally invested in the company and the products. And my boss was just human (and on top didn’t know a lot about the subject), so he made mistakes. And his judgement was often wrong.
But he was never able to accept that he made any mistakes. He’d offload all his mistakes onto some employee, while claiming that every idea that worked out was his, and not the idea of the employee who actually had the idea and had to convince him first. And every time something went wrong, he’d slam the door of some employee open and shouted and swore at that employee.
Turns out, that’s not a great way to encourage people working there. Most of the good people quit after one especially bad explosion of his.
Back to Linus: is it human to be angry that someone disagrees with you? Maybe.
Is it in any way helpful to anyone? Clearly not.
I am pretty sure that anyone who gets to be a maintainer on the Linux kernel is heavily invested and has sacrificed a lot to get there. Attacking them like Linus did, that really renders their life work worthless.
The maintainer did nothing with the purpose to harm the Linux kernel project. He just accepted a change that he thought would improve Linux. Disagreeing on a factual topic with your boss should never trigger an explosion like that.
I would disagree just because the success of the product (be it closed or open source) shouldn’t be dependent on the feelings of one person. You can be frustrated and angry, but it’s more useful to explain why you feel that way and what can be done to address it. Including your feelings only makes the person not want to do what specifically hurts you, not what is best for the project.
Why not both?
This email should have stayed in Draft for a few hours and then come back to remove all the expletives. At least Mauro has something to hang on the wall of his crapper.
Fucking Mauro.
Randomly blaming pulseaudio and opensuse when talking about 100% CPU usage by KDE. It seems yes.
Seeing the rest of the thread really contextualizes Linus’ anger.
Only seeing the message from Linus makes him look like a dick. But when you see that he’s responding to someone deflecting blame and being a shithead to the guy trying to report a problem and provide a suggested fix, the aggressive response seems more justifiable.
Yes. I did not include patch from first person in screenshot because I thought it would make it too boring to read. But it kinda adds even more to context.
Replying to “I get this regression with KDE on this system caused by this commit and here how I fixed it” with “lol, pulseaudio sucks, opensuse sucks” of course will make Linus angry and he will reply not only “no u”, but also “and here’s why”.
Upd: looked at future conversation. Mauro got it.
Okay, I agree that this is a really dickish way to respond to a dev, and I can see Torvald’s message being as much an olive branch to app devs as it was a thorough humbling of the maintainer. Still wouldn’t call it professional, but… I get it.
Honestly, with this response although I think he didn’t deserve all of that from Linus, he did deserve quite a bit of it. So condescending and smug to application developers that actually make the user experience of Linux a good thing.
