Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/ <comment><USER3> Linus is stubborn, persistent, and unyielding to what he sees as bullshit. These I believe are all very valuable qualities for the head of a massive software project, and may be part of the reason as to why Linux is where it is today.

However, Linus is also a bit of an asshole, turning technical criticism into personal seemingly personal attacks. I believe those 2 sets of qualities are separable, but I would guess it's uncommon to find many people who are capable of being as tough as Linus without in some way alienating those around them, it's a fine line at times.

Anecdotally, one of the most effective engineers I worked with, who asked penetrating questions during code and design reviews, did come off as a bit of an asshole at times. Whether by genetics or through childhood, I'd bet people tend to cluster onto the line separating "agreeable and lax" and "rude but firm" (as a sweeping generality). We often label people who are all smiles while simultaneously extremely strict as passive agressive. Add to that the fact that many technical people are less socially adjusted than average and I can see why we have so many examples of mean but effective project leads.

<comment><USER4>
        I'd bet people tend to cluster onto the line
        separating "agreeable and lax" and "rude but
        firm" (as a sweeping generality)

Consider this:

A third category of people who are able to accomplish their goals by rallying others to their cause. They are essentially imposing their will on others, but are able to do it in a way that is not "rude." This is called charisma.

\- "Agreeable and lax"... you allow them to paint the fence however they want, even if their work is shoddy. you may wind up doing it yourself because you don't feel comfortable enforcing your will on others. or perhaps you just wind up with a crappy looking fence.

\- "Rude but firm"... you don't care about others' feelings and force them somehow to to paint the fence to your specifications. either by physical force, economic force (you have money they need) or some other means

\- "Charisma"... you convince them that painting the fence the way you want it painted is the best possible thing they could be doing. they willingly paint it for you because they believe it is a good cause and a good use of their time. (note: this does not necessarily imply dishonesty or trickery. arguably, the most charismatic people might be those that are true believers)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=tom+sawyer+fence](https://www.google.com/search?q=tom+sawyer+fence)

Somewhat tangential, somewhat related: Sun Tzu wrote that the most perfect form of victory was adding the enemies' forces to you own by convincing them to support your cause.

<comment><USER5> > people who are able to accomplish their goals by rallying others to their > cause.

Like Linus.

<comment><USER6> Is anyone really rallied to the cause by Linus himself? I think the product is the only real draw. With the exception of a select few that simply want to work with someone as high profile and legendary as Linus.

<comment><USER7> Personally, and maybe I'm in the minority when thinking this, but I can't stand working with polite people.

They not only slow down the progress of a project by often causing unneeded busywork, from simply not halting bad ideas, they often slow my learning progress down by not telling me I'm wrong.

If you see something stupid, call it out. If I'm doing something stupid or say something wrong, call me out!

There's obviously a happy medium somewhere in there, and Linus isn't it, but I would much prefer working with a Linus than someone polite. From the history I've read, he's not holding grudges, or necessarily attacking people, he's attacking dumb approaches and ideas, which happen to be authored by people. At least that's how I've always interpreted his rants.

<comment><USER8> You're in the minority but you're not the only one. You can see the sentiment expressed about Rust community a lot. Super nice - don't ever say anything that may upset someone - kind of atmosphere is off-putting to many. I for one wouldn't want to work in such environment but I would love to work with Linus.

The problem is that people who prefer direct non-bs communication are also usually more emotionally mature and better at adjusting to others. They will keep quiet or look to move somewhere else but will rarely complain. Meanwhile easily upset and less stable people complain more readily and usually louder to force others to adopt their preferred style of communication (which often comes down to "don't criticize me and use the kind of language I prefer")

<comment><USER9> You can be super nice and not upset anybody without compromising on technical rigour.

> The problem is that people who prefer direct non-bs communication are also > usually more emotionally mature and better at adjusting to others.

I would argue this is entirely false. If they can't adjust to others finding their behaviour offensive by not being offensive, they're not "better at adjusting to others". Yes, this is a two-way street, but that doesn't automatically mean everyone has to be comfortable with the guy who swears at you and calls you an idiot for writing a patch they didn't like.

We can have technical discussions without personal attacks, without rude language, without racial or sexist slurs. We manage it at my work all the time, although I for one think I could still do this better.

It's difficult when we grow up in a culture which glorifies violence and "macho" behaviour, where most of us in the field are male and have been told all our lives that we're expected to be strong and independent and assertive.

And honestly, if you can't find a way to explain why an idea is bad on a technical level without offending someone, maybe you don't have a good enough reason to criticise it, or you need to think about it some more to figure out why you don't like it apart from your initial reaction.

<comment><USER10> _You can be super nice and not upset anybody without compromising on technical rigour._

That's the ideal. In practice there are always people, a minority, who can't or won't separate criticism of their work from criticism of themselves regardless of how nicely it's put. And then you have a problem.

Fortunately these people are mostly outside the technical realm, where direct criticism of work is very rare.

<comment><USER11> >Fortunately these people are mostly outside the technical realm, where direct criticism of work is very rare.

I think this sort of special snowflake attitude is part of the problem. There are plenty of other fields where people's work gets directly criticized. Tech is not uniquely (or even unusually) rational or meritocratic.

<comment><USER10> I was thinking in the context of a tech company, where you also have non- technical business people.

Yes, obviously in some fields tough peer review is also common.

<comment><USER11> But non-technical business people in a tech company do get their work criticized.

<comment><USER10> That's extremely rare, in my experience. Nowhere near what developers go through.

It's rare even for basic things like spelling errors or typos to be pointed out, let alone more serious problems like a presentation containing statements that are wrong or vague, meaningless, etc. If people get their work criticised so easily why are there so many spreadsheet errors around, why are there so many vacuous PowerPoints and business processes that go round in circles leaving behind furious customers?

I've witnessed all this first hand. I've also seen what happens when programmers and non-programmers in a tech firm get accidentally mixed together: the programmers start pointing out mistakes in the non-programmers work and cause an "incident" because the others aren't used to being peer reviewed like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like anyone who says "Linus was harsh but fair" never really read much of what Linus said.

Many of his attacks, especially long ago, were quite vitriolic and very much not technical. Oftentimes they weren't rants, just flat out insults, short and mean (I remember, in particular, posts directed towards PaX). They weren't productive, there wasn't a brash technical take buried in them - they were just insults.

Many people seem to just remember snippets of his more popular, more recent rants, which sometimes have some technical take in there at the least, but also, in my opinion, cross well over the line into personal attacks.

Glad he's owning up to the fact that he has some serious social baggage to deal with. I don't foresee the linux kernel community changing much in the near term though.

<comment><USER13> It might be worth noting that the people who do say he's harsh but fair are people who actually comment on his rants.

When I see another on HN I scroll past it, because I'm not interested in the sensation. I can't imagine I'm the only one.

Then there are people who do see his rants as a model, or who do like the sensation and do like the spice. Those people are far more likely to discuss it, repeat it, mimick it or indeed condone it.

<comment><USER14> Steve Jobs did it better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm probably going to be alone in saying so, but I always enjoyed Linus and his attitude.

(to me) it made him appear honest and dedicated to (his own) goals, and I always felt like that was respectable. (mostly) whenever he was proven technically wrong about how to do something he would concede to the technically better solution, and if he didn't do so he gave reasons for his conclusion.

in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality.

<comment><USER16> "in other words : his technical brilliance, in my own opinion, was a far larger boon than the problems stemming from having to deal with his knife-like personality."

One thing that is true in all successful organizations over time is that for any given person, no amount of genius will make up for being an asshole.

It may take time, etc, but eventually, it ends up a significant net negative for the organization.

The sooner folks are forced to deal with it, the better off the organization ends up in the long run.

It also turns out you can be effective at dealing with people _and_ still be brilliant, and it usually doesn't take a lot more than spending more energy in being self aware and trying to see the perspectives of others.

<comment><USER17> > One thing that is true in all successful organizations over time is that for > any given person, no amount of genius will make up for being an asshole.

Wouldn't Steve Jobs be a counterexample to this? And possibly Bill Gates?

<comment><USER16> No, actually (at least, IMHO). Jobs organization failed more than once due to him?

Remember that Apple (etc) have been troubled at many times through their history with him at the helm :)

Gates also eventually left in part because he was doing more harm than good (and has tried to turn himself into a more reasonable person it seems).

Compare that to the organization that MS is now under a leader who isn't an asshole?

I'm certainly not going to claim you can't make a successful company or organization by being a brilliant asshole. I'm only claiming it eventually catches up with you, and over time, ends up a net negative for the organization.

<comment><USER17> So you think Steve Jobs was a net negative to Apple? They'd be better off if e.g. he'd never come back to run it?

<comment><USER16> No, as I said, i think it eventually would have caught up with them and ended up a net negative compared to _not_ being an asshole. It did in the past, why would it not in the future?

To give an example: Elon clearly drives tesla in it's current position. Do you think at some point he will not be a clear net negative to the organization?

(It's also interesting to me that essentially the only counterexamples people have tried to raise are CEO's - i'm curious if this means people believe what i say is true for lower levels but not founders/ceos/etc, or what)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Way to go Linus... this is a great lesson for all of us!

It's easy to get caught-up in the heat of the moment and say and do things that we regret. We've all done it. It's part of being human. The key is to realize it, apologize and do better.

<comment> joatmon-snoo More importantly, many thanks and congratulations to the folks who finally changed his mind.

<comment><USER19> I wonder what that discussion was like. It's not as if no one ever mentioned the subject to him before.

<comment><USER20> You would think and yet.. Did none of John Lasseter's friends call him out and tell him to take the T down a notch over the past 20+ years?

I've pondered over this a bit and have come to the conclusion that a lot of people simply don't have close enough friends exposed to their work behavior, or they simply accept it.. Feedback from randos isn't the most likely to instigate big personal change and reflection.

<comment><USER21> I'm a SIGGRAPH rando who implemented a clone of RenderMan in 1992 or so on Sun Workstations. (It wasn't that great of an implementation (Pat Hanrahan helped me with one bit), but because of the Sun's networking capability - it could parallelize as well as anything else at the time).

I don't every recall seeing Lasseter doing anything inappropriate.

To your point: The company was going through a hard time, and randos would have been the PERFECT feedback to him. The company would have died without their support.

But, who could be there to tell him to take it down a notch[0], when he acted like a professional all day long?

Net-net: I disagree with what you just said.

[0] I generally know who was working on that project at that time, but I don't think it advances this conversation...

<comment><USER22> [https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/8/17443370/pixar-walt- disney...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/8/17443370/pixar-walt-disney- animation-john-lasseter-leaving-company-sexual-harassment)

It's probably relevant that the majority of Siggraph participants are not John Lasseter's subordinates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think one has to be fair about what sort of asshole Linus is. He is not like Steve Jobs, Balmer and Gates who could be vindictive and get personal.

For Linus it is more about being far too blunt. But you can clearly see Linus himself being aware of it and having some humbleness about it. Jobs in contrast would never admit his bad behavior.

As a fellow Nordic (Norwegian) I feel a significant component of this is simply Nordic cultural trait. We are quite blunt. We value honesty and directness. However Finns I believe are farther out on that spectrum.

The second parts is that I think he has probably mild asperger traits. I have that, my wife and oldest son. That does not make you an asshole. I don't talk like Linus but it can mean you often are not able to pick up other people's emotional state.

Keep in mind this is very different from being a psychopath. They can pick up other people's emotions but don't care of they are hurting them. Somebody with asperger don't want to intentionally hurt others but may do so accidentally by not reading the person properly. Somebody with Asperger is willing to admit they have a problem that needs fixing just like Linus.

A psychopath does not think he/she has a problem that needs fixing.

<comment><USER24> I agree, he seemed to only get personal when he knew the developer, and it seemed like it was mainly because he knew that they knew better, but were still submitting bad patches anyway. I still remember seeing an email response to someone who was just starting college and was telling Linus that he thought the way they were using spinlocks in the kernel was wrong. Linus knew they didn't know any better, so he didn't insult them, and went into a lengthy email about why they were doing things the way they did, and how the student's professor had taught them wrong.

Even though Finns can be much more blunt than people are used to, I think he recognized a while ago that he was going beyond being blunt. During a conference in Australia, someone asked him about how people perceived his attitude and it's effect on the kernel community. He told them that he's not a nice person, he doesn't know why people think he would be, and that if people enter the community with that in mind, they'll stop feeling like they're being personally attacked.

<comment><USER25> That sounds like an interesting email. Would you be willing to link to it?

<comment><USER26> Maybe this one: [https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/semaphores.html](https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/semaphores.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Maybe this will finally end the myth that "you can be rude and insulting as long as you're right" that people seem to attribute to Linus's outbursts

<comment><USER28> I have to wonder if Linux would even be remembered other than as a footnote at this time without his forceful personality being in the mix.

Many things fail when they get pecked to death by ducks. His forceful personality carried the day on many occasions.

<comment><USER29> You can be forceful without being an asshole about it.

<comment><USER30> In reality, being 'forceful' will almost always be perceived as being kind of an asshole.

BUT - there's a world of difference between being 'forceful perceived as jerk' and 'demeaning and needlessly insulting or derogatory'.

Never a reason to put people down.

In Linus' 2008 speech at Google talking about Git, he said he created it partly to avoid politics - he can just have people copy his stuff into their own repo and go off yonder and not have to deal with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Take a look at the chart in [https://twitter.com/ErynnBrook/status/1038893975279550465](https://twitter.com/ErynnBrook/status/1038893975279550465)

Many people are so afraid of ending up in the bottom right (just giving in) that they head for the top left (zero-sum competition).

This underlies some of the things people fear about codes of conduct; they're afraid that they're being pushed into that bottom right corner, rather than striving for better collaboration.

Be direct. Be clear. Seek the best solution. Don't be awful to people while doing it.

<comment><USER32> The problem here is that the "Collaborating" sector is the wrong goal for the Linux kernel. Linus Torvalds is uniquely qualified to be concerned about matters concerning the kernel; if his interlocutors "win" too much on their side of the "win/win", every user loses.

The public embarrassment of lazy and dishonest actors, especially those who are paid to collaborate, is an effective tool for maintaining order and standards on behalf of the quality of the product, and provided nobody gets hurt permanently at the end of the day, it is easily justified.

<comment><USER33> > Linus Torvalds is uniquely qualified

Gotta stop you right there. Hero worship should not be considered a good thing in our industry.

The kernel subsystem maintainers, who actually review the code prior to getting it merged, are the ones with the real power and the necessary knowledge, and I'd argue they are more qualified to oversee the project's future than Torvalds.

<comment><USER34> Yeah, just like regular employees are better qualified to run a company than the CEO.

No one is more qualified than Linus to run this project and he's done a damn good job so far. Has he made mistakes? Sure. He's human.

<comment><USER33> I think that when a company reaches a certain size and stability level, as long as the CEO is competent and understands how to balance external and internal issues, the particular CEO doesn't matter that much. The real power over product direction comes from the PMs, VPs, etc. That's my argument -- Linus isn't uniquely qualified to run the Linux kernel project, since he's barely even involved in the direction of the project.

<comment><USER34> > the particular CEO doesn't matter that much

Business history & Jack Welch disagree with you. Individual project success is incredibly nuanced and individuals - even in 10k+ orgs - can have massive impacts. Trying to pretend that outliers don't massively influence company success is naive, and MBA programs study these individuals because they are the exception and not the rule.

There's a reason we have Madison Square Garden, Rockefeller Center and Carnegie Mellon. It's not hero worship to acknowledge the contributions of individuals - recognizing a great general doesn't diminish the accomplishments of his army.

<comment><USER35> Consider how few "genius CEOs'" reputations have survived their attempts to take over failing companies and turn them around.

<comment><USER34> What do "genius CEOs" have to do with anything? Most successful CEOs were only responsible for a single business. Multiple successes don't change what Gates, Ellison, Knight et el. accomplished because they only did it once. Plenty of instances of people that failed plenty before eventually succeeded elsewhere (Ray Kroc).

<comment><USER35> Well, if CEOs didn't have that much bearing on the success of businesses, or don't have much bearing on the success of businesses once they reach a certain size, then seeing a wildly successful CEO completely flop at the next company would make sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Newton was an asshole too. The whole "apple fell on his head" story came about because he was so mean to people.

I won't say that most geniuses are inempathetic, but many are. Einstein wasn't, some say Gauss was. Beethoven was. Linus is. And we'll accept Linus's attitude for being an aversion to bullshit, just the quality that we need in a kernel maintainer.

I'm glad to see that Linus finally realizes that he has a problem, but truth be told I'd selfishly rather that he keep his problem because I doubt that he could steer his ship without it. I hope to be proven wrong.

<comment><USER37> Are we seriously putting Linus in the same category as Newton

<comment><USER38> Its an analogy, not a classification. If you want to go by that logic then no one can be in the same category as Newton as he was the ultimate genius who revoutioned maths and physics singlehandedly.

<comment><USER39> Euler, Al-Khawarzmi, Gauss, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein, von Neumann, Fourier, Laplace, Aristotle, Ampere, Descartes, Kepler, etc.

Linus does not fit in that list.

<comment><USER40> Why not?

<comment><USER41> He's not really a scientist - at least one as theory heavy as the names above.

However, his work with linux and git is at least comparable to that of other big scientific names known more for their engineering impact - like Van Leeuwenhoek. I'd also say the impact of Linus is greater, in part because of his insistence on making Linux GPL early on, rather than the secretive approach taken by someone like Van Leeuwenhoek.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The other huge news here, both for Linux and for numerous other communities trying to make similar changes:

The most recent commit, right before the release, deletes Linux's "Code of Conflict" and replaces it with a real Code of Conduct, the Contributor Covenant.

[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f)

[https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of- condu...](https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/code-of-conduct.html)

Quoting the commit message:

> Explicit guidelines have demonstrated success in other projects and other > areas of the kernel.

> Here is a Code of Conduct statement for the wider kernel. It is based on the > Contributor Covenant as described at www.contributor-covenant.org

> From this point forward, we should abide by these rules in order to help > make the kernel community a welcoming environment to participate in.

Something worth emphasizing here: adopting a code of conduct, and choosing to be welcoming and inclusive, does not mean a project and its developers avoid disagreement, or avoid feeling passionate about their work, or avoid discussing and fixing issues. It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people well.

<comment><USER42> > It just means not letting things turn heated or hateful, and treating people > well.

Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered "heated", "hateful" and "treating well" or not.

<comment><USER43> I don't think the language of the Contributor Covenant [1] contains anything really objectionable by anyone, even people who wouldn't consider themselves left-leaning. "Trolling, insulting/derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks" is arguably the only ambiguous part. That said, I am a bit skeptical of the CC creators' motives and goals.

[1] [https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of- con...](https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct)

<comment> DC-3 The contributor covenant is fairly in-objectionable. Yes, the list of 'privileges' is a bit of a checklist for left-wing soapboxes, but it's not necessarily a bad thing to explicitly list traits commonly targeted by bullies and harassers.

The problem many people have with it, as you imply, is that it's the thin end of a doorstop, at the thick end of which is the Post-Meritocracy Manifesto:

[https://postmeritocracy.org/](https://postmeritocracy.org/)

Written by the same author and often championed by the same people as the Contributor Covenant, it espouses some rather more radical ideas which, while carefully stated to sound superficially agreeable, are not ones I would consider beneficial to the open source community.

<comment><USER44> Just one example from that manifesto: "We have an ethical responsibility to refuse to work on software that will negatively impact the well-being of other people."

This a terrible slippery slope. It eliminates any military, security or even anything useful.

A thief's well-being is meant to be negatively impacted by a security measure. A guidance system in a missile is intended to negatively impact the well-being of the enemy.

I feel negatively impacted by this manifesto. So by definition every signatory is in violation of that manifesto.

<comment><USER45> The Contributor Covenant says nothing of the sort. It is entirely reasonable for developers to believe that the statements in the Covenant are a baseline for professionalism and, at the same time to disagree amongst themselves about whether they should contribute to military projects (or whether they buy into a "post-meritocracy" philosophy).

<comment><USER44> I was referring to [https://postmeritocracy.org/](https://postmeritocracy.org/)

As per the comment to which I was replying.

<comment><USER45> Once again: whatever the "post-meritocracy" philosophy is, it has nothing to do with the kernel Code of Conduct.

<comment><USER43> I wouldn't say it has nothing to do with it. It's not part of the explicit language of the Code of Conduct, but the first few paragraphs of [https://www.contributor-covenant.org](https://www.contributor-covenant.org) talk about the same concepts.

I think these attempts at redefining meritocracy are concerning, and I don't blame anyone for questioning the Contributor Covenant as a result, even if the Code of Conduct itself is reasonable and pretty much common sense.

<comment><USER45> None of those words are in the kernel Code of Conduct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand > people's emotions and respond appropriately.

Wow. Torvalds going to a therapy. I seriously couldn't be more impressed about him, because he always seemed too much of a narcissist to me. I understand how difficult it might be to decide to admit that you have a problem at this stage. And for doing that, he has my deep respect.

Which kind of brings me to the other point - would Torvalds be Torvalds if he was treated before? Is the same piece of his personality that made him a truly unpleasant person also the one that made him super motivated?

That's the second BFDL stepping down (this one claims to go just for a while), after Guido. And note that this is one is also about psychology.

<comment><USER47> > Which kind of brings me to the other point - would Torvalds be Torvalds if > he was treated before?

Some years ago I had to go to therapy for some issues of my own and back then I was afraid that it would fundamentally change who I am in some way. In retrospect that was a foolish thought. It made me wait longer to seek help than I should and in the end I was still like my old self (but better).

<comment><USER48> > Some years ago I had to go to therapy for some issues of my own and back > then I was afraid that it would fundamentally change who I am in some way. > In retrospect that was a foolish thought. It made me wait longer to seek > help than I should and in the end I was still like my old self (but better).

I've been in therapy off and on most of my post-adolescent life. In the beginning, it felt like its only use was to have a place to vent about life to an agent who is largely external to it (i.e., my therapist doesn't know my family or my friends), but who has your back and is interested in helping you succeed. That certainly had value, but it didn't especially change how I lived.

There was a point where my attitude towards therapy changed completely, when I started really listening and paying attention to what my therapist was doing. I might describe to him an incident which made me feel some unusually bad (or good!) emotion, and the therapist would ask just the right questions (and follow-ups) to get at the root cause of why I _really_ felt that way.

Eventually, I started to experience these internal dialogues which resemble a therapy session when I felt angry or sad or upset for some other reason. I might ask myself, "Why is this trivial argument with Person X making me so angry?", then examine my relationship with Person X, and then other recent incidents with this person, etc. etc. These internal "therapy sessions" not only help to calm me down, but also tend to point in the right direction to improve the overall relationship with Person X. I think it's been an amazing turn in how I interact with other people and helps me enjoy life.

So, in conclusion, I think that's one way to really benefit from therapy: deducing, by observation, the _system_ or _process_ your therapist is using to help you, and applying that same system to yourself. In other words, good therapy helps you learn to be your own therapist.

<comment><USER49> That's a really interesting perspective. I wonder if you/we could learn this _without_ going to therapy... Maybe we should/could teach this in school?

<comment><USER50> From what I understood of OP's description of the process, it sounds a lot like the sort of awareness that's cultivated through long-term and consistent practice of meditation (implicitly or explicitly depending on the school of practice).

I noticed after a couple months of initially starting daily zazen practice (just 10-15 minutes every night), that I went from reacting in a way that was originally: event -> (usually 'extreme') reaction, to something more like: event -> stepping back/observing what would've originally been my reaction -> choosing to engage with it or not. After a year of practice, this new pattern of reacting basically became muscle memory and would happen _even when_ I sometimes wanted to strongly react to things (i.e. music/art/social situations with friends/etc __).

After about 4 or 5 years of consistent practice I caved into what I had even read was a common pitfall for most practitioners in thinking that I had "achieved" most of the "benefits" I could from meditation and just stopped practicing all together. It took about a year for most of these benefits to even start decaying, but after about that 2 year mark, my pattern of thought/reacting had almost entirely gone back to how it was before I had ever started practicing.

I'm thinking there has to be some happy medium where you have the ability to observe as well as engage, but I'm not sure what the original philosophies of the practice actually "advocate" for as I never really delved too deep into the literature on this.

 __I think this was actually one of the main reasons I stopped practicing, because I was wondering if my 'artistic side' was being 'dulled' by meditation. This is still a question I want answered and have been wondering if it may be worth doing a deeper dive into the literature/having a teacher guide me through the rest of this journey.

<comment><USER49> Thank you for your perspective!

Yeah, I've thought about meditation myself, but I don't really see how to effectively teach it, especially in a class-room (i.e. 1-to-many) - but maybe that's just because I've learned (well, tried to) meditation by myself, by reading, not from a teacher/mentor.

One other idea that crossed my mind, but it's far from fleshed out, is to teach people the exact same techniques that therapists use (i.e. "asking the right questions" to drill deeper in the direction towards understanding yourself), but with the purpose of using them on themselves. However, I've no idea if that's simply too much to learn, or if maybe "being a good therapist" comes only with "having a lot of life experience".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I remember criticizing Linus' sarcastic comments on here some time ago. I was surprised by the number of people that defended him saying stuff like "Linus is just Linus" or "he needs to be like that to keep Linux moving forward". I personally think his brilliance would be even more appreciated if he were a bit less sarcastic.

<comment><USER52> I feel people confuse being blunt with being rude.

"This patch is crap. Stupid this silly that, and how many times have I said you can't break userland."

vs.

"I won't accept this patch as-is, or possibly at all. It has the following problems [...] and I don't feel you respect userland stability enough."

I really don't see how the second version compromises on the clarity or kernel quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm known at work for being That Guy who will point out the elephant the room and discuss it face-on, but I invested decades into empathy work so that people now respect me for doing so rather than hate me. I'm glad to see Linus considering an investment in empathy, and I don't feel it will negatively impact his forthrightness long-term — the best of all possible outcomes.

<comment><USER54> Have you read the book "Crucial Conversations"? It covers exactly how to have conversations about tough topics.

<comment><USER55> That and "how to win friends and influence people" are solid. Should be taught in highschool imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> > This is more like the time I got out of kernel development for a while > because I needed to write a little tool called "git". I need to take a break > to get help on how to behave differently and fix some issues in my tooling > and workflow.

Oh nice, so he's going to write another ground-breaking piece of software that will change how we do software. :)

Kidding aside, I think his comment is well-thought and I wish him all the best. Btw. I don't think his (sometimes heavily criticized) way of communication is _that_ bad, it's more a clash of different kinds of culture - he is Finnish and used to a very direct way of communication and confrontation (which can be good and bad). That doesn't excuse some of his (admittedly uncalled for) rants, but I don't think he wants to sound as harsh as he often comes across ...

<comment><USER57> The git thing is what I admire about Linus... He saw that existing version control tools don't do what he wanted, so he just sat down and wrote the best (ok, one of the best :) version control tool on the market, from scratch. Just like that. OK, I know I'm simplifying, but still. If he does something like that again, I'll start to think maybe he was sent to us from the future to help us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Great. Everyone needs to work at being a nicer and better person, Linus perhaps a bit more than most.

But equally important is everyone on the other side working to avoid being consumed by emotion, and learn to control their emotions better, when people and things in the world end up being mean or distressing.

This doesn't happen so much with Linus anymore because everyone knows about him and the people most likely to go on tilt when Linus goes on tilt have adapted and avoid communicating with him. That would be a universal solution if you could get a list of all the potentially harsh communicators out there, but doesn't work at all when you don't have such a list, and anyway it would severely constrain your interactions with the world because a fairly large number of people are like that.

People will gain a lot more from, in addition to _calmly_ pointing out how the hostility they're encountering is unwarranted, learning to self-reflect and switch mental states to avoid getting into self-destructive patterns of thought just because someone else or something else is being harsh or mean.

Various kinds of meditation-like practice seem to be a good way to pursue improvement for people on both sides of the problem.

It's not any easier for Linus to always be nice than it is for someone who takes personally one of his outbursts to not take it personally.

<comment><USER59> _But equally important is everyone on the other side working to avoid being consumed by emotion, and learn to control their emotions better_

You just described exactly what Linus needs to do.

 _It 's not any easier for Linus to always be nice_

He doesn't have to be _nice_. He just has to curb the sadistic and unnecessary meanness and maintain some minimal level of professionalism in his communication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Wow. I can't count how many times people have tried to excuse Linus's outbursts by saying he doesn't mean them personally, but here he is explicitly admitting that he has done just that. Then he goes on to say that his behavior needs to change and that he will seek help doing so. Good for him. These are hard things to admit, and he's setting a great example.

> In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me. > I know now this was > not OK

There are _so_ many people in tech who need to read that a hundred times. Including a couple of his top lieutenants.

</comment><comment><USER61> Linus and I draw our paychecks from the same place: The Linux Foundation. I've only been there three and a half years, but the "no brilliant assholes" line in the hiring process has always rung hollow.

Glad to see this is being addressed.

</comment><comment><USER62> There exists a tremendous danger of overcorrection here. Too much agreeableness is inimical to technical progress, which requires placing technical standards over egos.

While it's counter-productive to provoke people unnecessarily, we can't allow someone's claim to have been emotionally hurt to _automatically_ trump technical criticism. We should strive to be as kind as possible, but not to the point where we begin to sacrifice the truth.

There are some people today who are so averse to negativity that merely saying "this code sucks" is enough to get the speaker called a "jerk". This level of sensitivity is not compatible with a pursuit of technical excellence. We have to be able to acknowledge that both bad and good code exist in order to make technical progress.

I hope Linus doesn't end up being guided by the kind of people who go so far toward protecting people's emotions that they demand we accept technical mediocrity.

</comment><comment><USER63> And to prove how important it is to be respectful, empathetic and tolerant, the originator of the new Code of Conduct is gloating on Twitter and mocking those who disagree with this move.

This is not about being respectful to others, it's about forcing others to be respectful to you. Unfortunately respect is earned, not given, and anything else extracted under duress just breeds resentment.

<comment><USER64> link?

<comment><USER65> [http://archive.is/6AyZy](http://archive.is/6AyZy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> A slowgoing development for him, still I sympathize and wish him the best while wondering ironically if personal issues aside what works best.

It brings to mind fundamental organizational and management. Is it better to have a "rude" organization? Calling bullshit early and often instead of polite everything is fine stacks of lies since it would be impolite to point out having O(N!) code just can't work for anything of appreciable size? The optimal approach likely varies on several variables.

<comment><USER67> Can't you blend them? In other words I'd love to work in an organization that can _politely_ call bullshit early and often. It is possible to fundamentally disagree without making it personal.

Really good to see him acknowledge this and tackle it head on. I hope he gains a better perspective. Thank goodness for Linus and Linux!

<comment><USER68> I don't see why you'd ever need to go further than "I strongly believe that your view is incorrect, and here is why". Attacking people is not "calling bullshit"

<comment><USER69> In my experience saying the words "your view" often makes it personal for the other person, which can lead to them defending that view much stronger than if the criticism goes towards "this view", which invites objectivity.

Probably not a huge game changer, but it's definitely a little hack that I think has served me well over the years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> While I am glad this happened, I am surprised. I truly would not have expected Linus to ever write something like this. I am curious how this can happen so suddenly. Have people not tried to convince him that he can be critical without being insulting many times before? What was different this time?

<comment><USER64> He's tired. He's older. He mentioned several times how he's been developing this for decades. Maybe he is making a balance, maybe he thinks that the Kernel does not really need him so badly now, and he can take a time out.

<comment><USER71> Out of interest, what changes could happen if Linus disappears tomorrow?

<comment><USER64> It depends on how stable is the Kernel, the rate of external changes (e.g. new processors), new discovered vulns, and the capacity of the new leader.

If all of those things go in the wrong direction, Linux could lose its reputation. For example, imagine a new vuln discovered and Linux failing to fix it for more than a year, or imagine Linux becoming slower than other alternatives in new processors

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> A bit of unpopular opinion for HN the perception is highly culture specific and the way Linus conducts himself might be very controversial for US PC culture yet might be considered fairly mild by other cultures standards.

<comment><USER73> I don't think you need to add PC. US culture is very different from Nordic countries. The difference I think is that the US is way less tolerant of differing opinions, mostly due to the amount of people willing to disagree with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> IMHO, this reads like an email from someone who finally grew up and regrets the mistakes of his youth ;-)

I think it is a good sign that Linus tries to improve upon his people skills and hope it will end with more than just 'a tool' (as building a tool is probably the wrong way of solving such problems).

Nevertheless, I also hope it won't water down his ability to give _clear_ feedback. I mean, his rants were often too personal causing massive emotional damage to some humans, but for the technical side, it was probably beneficial to have a clear sentence about a given topic.

</comment><comment><USER75> Agreeableness in general is negatively correlated with career success. Have you noticed that Fortune 500 CEOs tend to be extremely disagreeable, to the point of psychopathy in some cases. At the risk of sticking my neck out, it's also one of the many reasons for the gender pay gap, woman are more agreeable than men. And you have to be somewhat disagreeable to stand up for yourself and demand a raise (or quit and seek a better paying job.) But on the average it's a relatively smallish difference and only accounts for a small part of the pay gap. The biggest component of the pay gap is the difference between mothers and non-mothers. I've heard it said that woman who are not mothers earn 95 cents to every dollar a man earns. But I don't have a source on hand, so take that with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER76> What if, and this might blow your mind, we tweak things so that agreeableness is rewarded more?

Society is constructed too adversarially for my tastes. More collaboration would be better.

<comment><USER77> There isn't some function we can feed a different argument here to value agreeableness more highly though. I generally agree, but that more collaboration would be good isn't so much the question - the question is HOW these tweaks can be done.

<comment><USER76> I think getting more women into positions of power will be a start. Testosterone really does affect aggression.

<comment><USER78> Perhaps more importantly, there is lots of evidence that exclusively male environments seriously amplify the effect and make aggression a fundamental part of the culture. Even very aggressive men tend to behave differently in mixed gender groups.

<comment><USER79> Very true.

I think it's worth noting the inverse. That less aggressive men will become more competitive and aggressive over time in all male groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> I hope for the sake of the stability of the ecosystem he doesn't apologise again. It's one thing to just change, and another to make a public gesture to seek out approval on weak terms.

As soon as it becomes about other people forgiving him, they will just pile on because it elevates them.

Good on him for recognizing what got him here isn't the tool to get him and the kernel where he needs to go. But that should be it.

Anything more invites a coup and hyper politicized governance of what is now a core internet technology.

I hope he draws a line under this and moves forward instead of being co-opted by a committee.

"I did that, and now I don't anymore, here is what we're doing next," is far better than, "I am afraid of some consequences of things I did in the past and I want your permission to continue." For a leader, the latter is death.

</comment><comment><USER81> Congratulations to Linus; that's courageous, and posting is wonderful leadership for the Linux community and the IT community in general - <USER2> other leaders could take the hint.

A major challenge of top-level leadership is you have no boss, nobody setting high standards and helping you (including pushing you in a healthy way) to achieve them. Linus' job is leadership but his work product has had these major flaws. If someone subordinate to him turned in such flawed work, Linus would have let them know and wouldn't have accepted the patch. Linus and all leaders need to be equally demanding of the their own work product: it should be up to the highest standards of Linux kernel contributions - in design, implementation, quality, and effectiveness; in the effect on the component and in the ripple effects on the rest of the system; in its immediate impact and in its long-term 'technical'/organizational debt. Does that seem like a lot to take into account? Why should your engineers' work product have highers standards than yours?

The heart of the issue, IMHO, is how to do it. How can a human being, with all the limits we have, realistically maintain that focus and motivation on a day- to-day basis without someone else helping them?

</comment><comment><USER82> This is bad. One of the things that kept all these people in check was fear that Linus will yell at them if they're sloppy or lazy and deliver crap quality. If he mellows his tone, the already low architectural and system engineering quality will drop to dismal levels.

His apology has nothing to do with professionalism, which in this case is system and kernel engineering; resist all attempts at behavioral correction any time someone tries to pass it off as unprofessional, because it is that someone trying to subjugate you with their values and morals. And that's just so inherently wrong: nobody should be attempting to subjugate anybody. We must stop such people from trying to pass their judgment on others as "being uncivil" or "unprofessional"; it's not right, and has nothing to do with how well one writes code or designs hardware: the level of quality is the level of professionalism. As the old adage says: "if you can't take the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen!"

</comment><comment><USER83> This is actually great news. Shows that one of the most important leaders in tech is actually capable of introspection , admitting fault and changing their ways, even after many years, without a massive public scandal.

Massive kudos, Linus. I don't think this was easy.

</comment><comment><USER84> May I say that the whole message seems forced?

A sort of "shape up or ship out" from the Linux Foundation management.

Especially with the concurrent switch to the new, more community acceptable code of conduct.

Will Linux have a new maintainer in a few weeks?

</comment><comment><USER85> I use and love linux, and have read many things about Linus being abusive and what not. I am on the spectrum and wasn't diagnosed til my 40s. Looking back on my earlier adult years, I was described as abrasive, obnoxious, and many others.

I tend not to suffer fools lightly, but somehow, on my own have learned better self-editing skills. Hopefully Linus will figure this out, because it truly will benefit everyone in the community.

</comment><comment><USER86> Thats very mature of him. Hats off.

</comment><comment><USER87> People change over time. If you are the same person today as 10 years ago you're doing something wrong. Good for him

</comment><comment><USER88> Unbelievable. They got to him finally. He really shouldn't have to explain, let even apologize for his behavior, which wasn't wrong in the first place. Pathetic, whoever made him do this, shame on you.

</comment><comment><USER89> _This is more like the time I got out of kernel development for a while because I needed to write a little tool called "git". I need to take a break to get help on how to behave differently and fix some issues in my tooling and workflow.

And yes, some of it might be "just" tooling. Maybe I can get an email filter in place..._

Comes back a month later announcing a revolutionary new email service that ends up displacing every other email service and people start putting it on their resumes because almost every company starts using it and Microsoft integrates it into TFS.

</comment><comment><USER90> I'm generally a supporter, but this is a good step. I can speak from rough personal experience that this type of realization is brutal, and leads to hard work that "attaboys" don't reach because it just leads to you behaving like you should have been doing in the first place, and you know that.

It doesn't have to be either/or, you can be assertive without operating from fear and insecurity (which is usually the place venom like his classics comes from).

You can actually be _more_ assertive when it's not burdened with also protecting your ego.

</comment><comment><USER91> Linus Torvalds has created and led teams that maintain software that has made a better world and has improved my life. I am grateful that he has used his talents in this way. Can you imagine a world without Linux and without Git? I've read the supposedly scandalous emails that Torvalds has sent out, and I fail to see what the big deal is. Whoever convinced him that he needs to take time away from creating software to get training in how to coddle the emotionally delicate has done us a disservice.

<comment><USER78> If you believe him to be a genius, then let me suggest you trust his judgement on this personal decision. I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Site is down, but here's a mirror: [https://www.mail-archive.com/linux- email@example.com/ms...](https://www.mail-archive.com/linux- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg1767002.html)

</comment><comment><USER93> Hopefully this will inspire leaders of other projects to realize that it's not okay to be a toxic jerk just because you're smart and in-charge and confident that you're right.

<comment><USER94> He gets focused on a task at hand, and everything else is sight in the distance. Talented people can't be entirely social 100% of the time. That will burn you out real fast trying to keep a smile on your face all of the time. I'm the same way and I'm up-front with everyone I hire about this. That when I become so focused on a task, that sometimes, you just have to take what I may say "with a grain of salt" and move on. I've lost one person who couldn't handle it. The rest are still with me so far (it's been years).

<comment><USER54> There is never an excuse for being an ass, even less so when it's a known pattern of behavior. When you screw up without bad intentions once that's one thing, when you continue harmful behavior having been told by many that it's harmful then it's intentional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> I hypothesize that this change will make Linux (ie: the quality of the kernel) at least slightly worse in 20 years than it would have been if Linus never changed.

Linus has been a great steward of the Kernel. I have never seen any instance where he has trashed on someone for any other reason than _Linux_. Sometimes he's cringingly brutal, sometimes he offends people. Regardless, he's been immaculately consistent in motive during the time I've been paying attention. That two decades of casual observation has elevated him to the status of philosopher king of the Kingdom of Linux in my mind.

When Linus publicly shames a person or company, he's emitting antibodies to the cybernetic organism that is "linux".

Some folks abuse politeness to press ulterior, self serving motives. It's a lot easier for viruses like that to thrive in scenarios where there's no social cost for rolling the dice.

For a contrived example, imagine there's a person that gets paid every time he convinces a project to change to a specific color of blue. Is this easier to accomplish in project with very strict codes of conduct, or with an asshole BFDL and a hierarchy?

Virus: "I've done research (<link>) that suggests that #006699 provides a superior user experience than what's currently being used. This is a PR to affect that change."

Maintainer: "Uhh, I don't think so."

Virus: "But why not? Here's another whitepaper that shows that it's literally the best UX change you could make. #006699 is inclusive and egalitarian and your current colors are racist."

The virus can press their intent as long as their persistence holds out. Any transparent, clinical mitigation to this will be gamed. However, if the BFDL is an asshole, the Virus thinks twice about social brute-forcing. If you're publicly berated when you cross the BFDL's threshold, you lose social standing. The mere threat of it hamstrings privately pressing your objective at those in the middle of the pyramid!

In addition, when done with _some_ discretion, your lieutenants will learn the implicit contour of your policies and priorities. This provides MUCH greater defense against subterfuge and unity of action than explicit Codes of Conduct.

Over the long haul though it doesn't really matter. Philosopher Kings are rare and they die. It does exasperate me to see how slow we are to develop a consciousness for that category of social attack.

When we finally do, it'll be a subtle compromise between authority and egalitarianism. It'll usher in a golden age with a seemingly endless frontier of optimism. Then, in less than a generation people will lose the plot, take it too far and we'll rot from the other direction.

TLDR; I wish Linus the best.

<comment><USER33> Where exactly is this conspiracy to make the kernel worse through ulterior motives coming from? Literally every large company relies on the kernel working well today, so "corporations" or "shills" aren't rational origin stories.

<comment><USER95> I wouldn't call this a conspiracy, unless I start selling T-shirts. My hypothesis wasn't even that people are _trying_ to make linux worse. Just that it will be.

Intel pushed a half-baked mitigation for meltdown that Linus was real mean about recently. Linus made a remark that stuck out to me.. Something about calling into question the motives of Intel that would even push it. (Conspiracy time) it smelled to me like management pushing for a PR clot before their fix was ready.

Working well for _your_ interests doesn't necessarily mean working well for everyone's. Linus's motives are transparent and for the Kernel.

Linux ran by a commission representing large companies would definitely behave differently...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> A good book about how to be direct without being abusive is Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.

</comment><comment><USER97> How do you think someone like Linus was treated their entire life and work- life before all this ? Why waste time analyzing the consequence of a society that shuns people that have this "lack of empathy". How do you think somebody that's treated their entire life as if they weren't human will behave ? Some people smile and give orders, lie, oppress, harass, and manipulate for their personal gain, this is what is acceptable in our current system. 97% of the workforce I've been around behaves like this. Some people on the other hand just don't give a fuck about you or anybody in the company and just wants to work on something he enjoys, which is why most of these profiles try and start their own projects or work freelance.

</comment><comment><USER98> I got the feeling reading that, that Torvald is burned out and frustrated.

I know as a kid helping father with a project, sometimes he could be a bit frustrated, maybe I wasn't grabbing the correct size tool, or holding the flashlight in the right place. Maybe Linus feels like that?

<comment><USER99> He specifically said he wasn't burned out. I agree that he does sound frustrated, though maybe with himself more than with any particular folks.

<comment><USER98> Yeah maybe I took it from when he said he had been attending a conference for 20 years and was hoping he didn't have to.

He does say he loves the project and wants to continue and compared it to when he developed git

<comment><USER99> Ah good point, yea I can see how you could come to that conclusion. I understood that to mean that perhaps he felt like he wouldn't be missed (i.e. they would be able to manage without him).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> Being combative rarely works out the way you want to, at least in my experience. That being said, it's still important to have standards beyond just empathy. I hope that Linus, and the Linux community can "do both" in some sense.

</comment><comment><USER101> > I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand > people's emotions and respond appropriately.

Glad Linus is finally coming around. Hope he comes back as a more understanding and improved Torvald++

</comment><comment><USER102> Any LKML Insiders know what prompted this?

</comment><comment><USER103> 1\. The Linux kernel is the most successful software project in history. 2\. This is not the same as saying that it can continue to be so successful as it takes over the universe. 3\. Most people including his detractors would say Linus' many good and bad qualities are a big part of why it has succeeded until now. 4\. Linux would be better if as many smart people as possible can work on the project. 5\. His self-admitted abusive email practices (mostly they are in email, he's pretty meek in person IMHO) appear to have alienated a lot of people, and indeed seem to have driven away a decent share of half the brains that can make the kernel better. That's women, in case that is not clear. 6\. If the kernel project wants to continue to succeed and power our cars, and phones and spaceships, key people not just Linus need to consider that it can't scale with the same dynamic it has. There are a gazillion useless contributors, there always will be, and the somewhat closed male community of core developers and reviewers needs to find ways to let in players in a way that does not alienate all the people that are not like them and communicate like them. And those attitudes start at the benevolent dictator level.

</comment><comment><USER104> Every time a person comes out and proclaims they have acted cruelly towards others, and states that they will work on changing their behavior they should be celebrated.

Congrats to Linus.

</comment><comment><USER105> I'm glad. It's been a long time coming.

If the person I considered least capable of not being an asshole has developed self-awareness and has shown a genuine desire to change, then we have so much hope as a wider community.

It is definitely possible to retain the unyeilding attitude that Linus is famous for _without_ being an asshole, and... I really hope he can pull this off.

I'm genuinely a bit emotional: this was wonderful to read.

(VM fixes are welcome, too!)

</comment><comment><USER106> "Hell freezes over"

Honestly this is potentially one of the most monumental events in Open Source. To have Linus himself say it's not okay to treat people like garbage, and seek actual help in correcting his behavior, will set such a wonderful precedent if he follows through properly. I admire someone who can do things one way for nearly thirty years, and then say, Hey guys, I was wrong.

</comment><comment><USER107> Years from now when Linus retires, what will the platinum members of the foundation decide to do with the project? Is it like Apple without Steve Jobs? Him taking time off leads one to wonder about such things

[https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/)

</comment><comment><USER108> With that e-mail, Linus has just leveled up. Hope that he can find the way to separate his firmness and "quest for a better patch" from his somewhat volatile responses.

Yes, reading Linus' e-mails is somewhat fun, like watching a documentary with some satirical, comical moments. On the other hand, being on the receiving end of these conversations are always painful, and yes he possibly kept some people away from kernel development.

Being burnt and roasted and yelled at for your best effort can break your motivation from its foundation if you are new at something, and it's not really fun.

I congratulate him for being honest with himself and us, and congratulate again for trying to change and improve himself. I also believe that if Linus can patch himself up and make the new version work, Linux kernel will also change for the better. At least its development community will work with lower stress levels, and can talk more freely.

Again, congrats Linus. Just go for it!

Edited: Ambigious words and sentences are corrected, effects of late night commenting are masked.

</comment><comment><USER109> For those interested, here is the commit where the code of conduct was included: [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/8a104f8b5867c682d99...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f)

"code of conflict" was rewritten to "code of conduct".

</comment><comment><USER110> Linus is to Linux what Jobs is to Apple. And tho Jobs has passed, his spirit is still alive (tho fading). We should have encapsulated Jobs in an AI. (Using data of his behavior, decisions and fMRI we could have made a model). It's still not too late to make a Linus AI. Why save the minds of these architects? After all, creativity is a uniquely individual endeavor. Giants like these have given us tools have become fulcrums on which millions of humans have pivoted their thinking, their livelihoods, and their behavior. We cannot understand creativity, model it or reproduce it. But the same can be said of strong AI as it is modeled by deep learning. Perhaps we can use a tool too complex for human understanding to recreate a human process that we do not understand. Imagine if we had the genius of gauss, fermat, pascal, newton, liebniz, galileo,and so many others all available at the same time. in the same room. to answer the same question.

Google , are you listening?

I know the question I would ask.

</comment><comment><USER111> Can't stand how people are too sensitive today. Linus is and has been a asshole for decades. But that asshole has given us one of the greatest contributions to computing. If you can't handle his attitude then don't be a part of the community or grow some thicker skin. Life isn't always soft.

</comment><comment><USER112> Seems to me like he's been brainwashed by a bunch of emotional SJWs. I'll certainly miss the old Linus.

<comment><USER113> I can believe that it does seem like that to you, but if you're going to post on Hacker News please say something substantive and please avoid pure inflammation.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> It will be interesting to see what kind of tooling Torvalds ends up with. I suspect that bit may have been a joke but you could imagine a 'professional feedback generator'.

Time out might yield positive benefits. At _some point_ (5 years? 10 years?) he will have to retire / take on a different role.

</comment><comment><USER115> Shame. "Professional" offendees got into Linus' mind at last, to no one's benefit.

Enjoy the break at least.

</comment><comment><USER116> A middle ground solution between the former situation and leaving completely is to have someone [with good editor skills] edit your emails before they go.

1\. Write your usual technical emails with possibly some knee-jerk personal attacks stuffed in.

2\. Click send; which sends the email to the email editor. The editor redacts your email, keeping the technical substance while removing anything personal.

The editor could only remove the problematic stuff, and for instance keep the congrats, personal encouragements and whatever other personal positive remarks. With time, the editor can learn what can of messages make the community thrive, and edit the emails towards this. Some people are naturally good at this; for others, hiring someone to edit emails may end up cheap for the outcomes it may bring your organization.

</comment><comment><USER117> This part of the code is primed for issues:

> or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors > that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful.

So in 2035 if someone submits a security patch and promotes eating steak, we're all in trouble.

</comment><comment><USER118> > I took some time off to write a little tool called "git"

I wonder how many awesome things we'd have if brilliant engineers just took a bit of a time off to build something that fixes an annoying pain point.

I look forward to what he builds in his time off :)

</comment><comment><USER119> I have complained about Linus's behavior before many times, on here and elsewhere - it's in my comment history. I am extremely pleased to see Linus owning up to his behavior. In a weird way, given that I have no personal connection to him whatsoever, I'm proud of him.

I hope he makes good on his word as laid out here, I hope he takes the time he needs and gets some good help, and I hope this sets a strong positive precedent for Linux and the greater open source community going forward. This can't have been an easy choice to make, and I respect him for making it.

</comment><comment><USER120> _The Times They Are a-Changin '._

</comment><comment><USER121> Folks, I understand that some of us have itchy scars, but can't we please take "yes" for an answer?

This is seriously good news for the Linux community, and the wider Open Source industry.

<comment><USER122> The good news being that one of our heroes has demonstrated self awareness? Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER123> > This week people in our community confronted me about my lifetime of not > understanding emotions.

> I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand > people's emotions and respond appropriately.

This is completely disingenuous. It's clear from Linus's persistent and cruel personal attacks that he acutely understands many emotions: anger, fear, shame, etc. He attempts to exploit these when he coarsely insults his maintainers. Framing his actions otherwise is a form of deflection.

</comment><comment><USER124> Words and phrases I hate seeing from a brilliant and competent leader:

1\. "[something] was Not OK"

2\. An apology to "people who were hurt by my behaviour"

3\. "I'm going to get outside help to learn how to be better"

etc etc etc

Basically all the hallmarks of American PC overly sensitive culture that ruin excellent organisations or products because of weak-minded, _mediocre_ nobodies.

Here's hoping Linus comes back fired up. He (and the rest of you lot) cannot let useless people dictate the direction of important projects and organisations.

<comment><USER125> I disagree. It is not really quantifiable whether Linus' (at times erratic) patterns of communication had an positive or negative impact. You can very well be firm and tell people what they need to hear while staying friendly. If they realize you say the truth it will be more effective if you didn't give them an excuse to blame everything on you.

Communication is important in bigger project. This is why leaders have to be both aware and in control of what message gets across, otherwise the whole thing is based on luck and people's good will to read what you might have meant. Linus himself said he wasn't aware and that alone is a bad thing.

Don't get me wrong, you can totally get somewhere while beeing rude and erratic, but in my experience there are more civil ways which will get you there faster, with better morale and less overall friction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> I have a lot of ambivalence about this. On the one hand, inclusiveness and culture that leads to more diverse representation has shown to produce better results. On the other hand, too much hand holding and accommodation will swing the pendulum too far and lead to even worse results.

I've grown a thick skin and taken to respecting people like Linus, even if the ire is directed at me. But that's likely a function of my privilege that I'm able to accept that and function in those conditions.

</comment><comment><USER127> It's interesting because I know a couple of authors of big open source projects who have anger issues and who also profess to have little empathy for others.

I struggle to understand how it's possible for someone who works for free for the benefit of others to also lack empathy; isn't that a contradiction?

That said, I did experience extreme career-damaging betrayal from an open source author who had a similar attitude as described in the article. Some people are just living paradoxes.

</comment><comment><USER128> Is there any actual data on how "being an asshole" is bad for the product?

Because, frankly, Linux is one of the most successful projects in history. I think if Linus telling repeat offenders to stuff it was bad for the project, we ought to be able to measure some bad effects. Note that I'm saying measure. I'm talking about actual, objective effects, not someone complaining.

If "people are complaining" would be bad for business, Comcast and EA would not exist.

</comment><comment><USER129> If this was your typical org,Linus would be a lead developer and architect who is also the CTO.

It is easy for me to criticize his behavior(and I don't agree with his rants) but it is also a difficult thing to be a leader. It would have been better if he got rid of the cult that alienates anyone who criticizes him. He is a perfect fit for the role but he should also be more tolerant of people who criticize his communication style.

<comment><USER78> _It would have been better if he got rid of the cult that alienates anyone who criticizes him_

That's an incredibly tall order.

I've been popular in the past on various forums and, inevitably, any position I took became a polarizing case of "I'm on her side!" versus "I'm against her!" And I never found a good solution to that.

I spent some time making sure that people trying to "side" with me for pecking order bullshit reasons were handed their head publicly while being as civil as I could be to people whose disagreement seemed genuine and not just asshole behavior. It didn't work all that well, though.

I have spent a lot of years trying to sort out how to not wind up tangled up in mess of that sort. One solution that kind of worked: Be a big fat nobody.

Time will tell if I have my crap sorted enough to not wind up mired in that again should I ever gain any real popularity ever again. But I'm 53 and spent a lot of years living quietly and eschewing fame. Torvalds came to fame young and seems to not have the best social skills and that may not be something he can ever really fully sort on his own. It's not an easily resolved issue, from what I have seen of life, the universe and everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER130> It would be funny if we flipped the script and us "normal" people wrote...I have been demonstrating consistently my inability to contribute anything significant to better humanity for my entire career. I'm sorry and I hope I can correct this behavior in the future. I'll be taking some time off now to gather and regroup.

That would be a lot of apologies if that was supposed to be the norm.

</comment><comment><USER131> > And yes, some of it might be "just" tooling. Maybe I can get an email > > filter in place so at when I send email with curse-words, they just > won't > go out. Because hey, I'm a big believer in tools, and at least > _some_ > problems going forward might be improved with simple > automation.

Strictly following the virtues of the programmer, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER132> I wonder if the negative behaviour was essentially knee-jerk lizard-brain reactions against other developers that wasted his time because they don't share his values for Linux.

If he maintained a manifesto of values for linux's kernel, always kept it up to date with the new technological choices and so on, maybe that would've kept the bike shedding away.

</comment><comment><USER133> This seems to be about succession planning. Linus first talked about not attending a regular session, then fully realised its impossibility and the reasons thereof.

Style is less than substance. If there's one person who knows this, it's Linus Torvalds. And the proverbial bus would be all substance, if and when it hit.

</comment><comment><USER134> Good for him, I wonder how this will affect kernel development though.

"Benevolent dictator for life" might not scale. And it might sound horrible; but there are some strengths involved that I feel the Linux project benefits greatly from.

I figure that Linus has insulated himself very well with competent leaders, but, I don't have much insight-

<comment><USER135> Why doesn't BDFLhood scale? Eventually people step down (Python, now Linux) -- but I'd say those projects have been wildly successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER136> It's impossible to make everyone happy. Linus has a tough job. I'm not looking forward to the day he steps down.

</comment><comment><USER137> > Maybe I can get an email filter in place so at when I send email with curse- > words, they just won't go out. Because hey, I'm a big believer in tools, and > at least _some_ problems going forward might be improved with simple > automation.

Linus dealing with his behavior as an engineering problem. Genius.

</comment><comment><USER138> Still waiting for all the people that go around with a smile plastered all over their behavior to apologize.

</comment><comment><USER139> I'm of 2 minds. He goes to bat for the rest of us defending the quality of the kernel and the open source movement, and he wastes no time and he doesn't mince words. But he was doing the same thing 20 years ago and was nicer about it and by being nicer invited more participation.

</comment><comment><USER140> As someone familiar with LBT's mailing list rhetoric since the early days, I'm guessing a big part of what's happening here is that LBT hasn't changed the way he communicates but the rest of the world has moved on. And let's face it, the engineering and programming world has gotten a lot more politically correct—I think the main factor driving this is the increasing presence of women in technology.

What I mean is that it's getting less and less acceptable in tech to make excuses for abusing people either verbally or in writing. Back when engineering was almost totally male-dominated, you were excused for using harsh criticism and vituperation at work. Many people, I think, will be glad that sort of culture is going away.

<comment><USER141> If you look at the tech world of the 80s, 90% of it was very buttoned-up and proper, despite being male-dominated. The rudeness comes from Linux' roots in a youth-dominated hacker subculture. It just doesn't work very well when they aren't teenage hackers anymore, but have gone mainstream and are working at it in a professional capacity.

<comment><USER42> > It just doesn't work very well when they aren't teenage hackers anymore, but > have gone mainstream

What has gone mainstream is in my opinion something very different than what the original hacker ethos was about. See for example [https://aeon.co/essays/how-yuppies-hacked-the-original- hacke...](https://aeon.co/essays/how-yuppies-hacked-the-original-hacker-ethos)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond > appropriately

> like the time ... I needed to write a little tool called "git". I need ... > to fix some issues in my tooling and workflow.

Hopefully we'll get another world-wide revolution out of this.

<comment><USER142> I dunno. I think git's success is less around Torvald's developing it and more about companies like Github finding ways to capitalize on it.

They kinda made a Freshmeat/freecode that included the code repository, without being as shitty as Source Forge.

<comment><USER5> there was great excitement and adoption before github

famous linus talk at google 2007 [https://youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8#](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8#)

github founded 2008 [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub)

git's distributed nature was revolutionary. Although not the first (BitKeeper for one preceded it), it has a mind-numbingly simple design, of distributed data by content addressing (data named by its hash, so it has the same name whereever it is).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER143> > hey, 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 don't care who you are, it takes a lot of courage to say something like this. Respect.

</comment><comment><USER144> How many of the folks commenting on this issue have actually contributed substantially to various FOSS projects.

I keep believing I might have wrong in thinking that most of the commenters have never done so, but so many folks seem to to tip their hand.

<comment><USER54> What is this? "Jessup's defense" (from a few good men) or somesuch? What sort of bad behavior is allowed by FOSS project contributions? Can it be used to get out of parking tickets?

<comment><USER144> I wasn't commenting on bad behaviour or not (at least not in that comment). It just seems like lots of folks are talking about this issue in the abstract rather than from experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER145> "In accomplished leaders, we often mistake vices for virtues.

Steve Jobs succeeded in spite of his cruelty, not because of it.

Every great leader has flaws. What defines a truly good leader is the humility to recognize them and the courage to rise above them."

@AdamMGrant

</comment><comment><USER146> Does everyone really think Linus will change 30 years of past behavior at his age?

The bits about how Git was created, and the mention of automated tools at the end make me believe Linus will come up with a new shiny tool. Or maybe he hopes so.

</comment><comment><USER147> What was once a strength (albeit with a major drawback) is now no longer needed as Linux is in a much different place than it was when Linus had to forge headon. Not many can make this switch. I give him plenty of credit.

</comment><comment><USER148> I kind of liked Linus' rants! However, I always thought he was much more socially aware and empathetic than he admits to being here. He just chooses to express himself that way. Wonder if I gave him too much credit?

</comment><comment><USER149> I don't think anyone, not even Linus himself, really knows whether his abrasive attitude was necessary or not, and whether it was helpful or not. Will be interesting to see what happens.

<comment><USER54> It was not necessary, it was not helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER150> Good on him for doing what's right for his community. It takes a lot to own up to _a_ mistake and work on doing better. It takes more to do that when there's a pile of them.

</comment><comment><USER151> This is a pretty long comment section here, but does anyone have a summary of the immediate context of the discussion that may have lead to his idea to take a bit of time off to reflect?

</comment><comment><USER152> Nice apology. As someone who hasn't been following can someone give a bit of a background. What was the bad behavior exactly?

And why is he needed at every summit? That sounds like a bus factor.

</comment><comment><USER153> It takes a lot of courage to say what Linus said today. Especially in this current climate and in the face of some of the comments I'm seeing here and elsewhere. Respect.

</comment><comment><USER154> I really hope he doesn't change on code quality standards.

</comment><comment><USER155> We should also keep in mind that the fact that he's trying to change his behavior does not mean that it has been counterproductive overall for Linux over the last three decades. It might not be optimal now for leading kernel development, or it might not be optimal for him as a person. However, this introspection really does not mean that Linux would have been more successful if he'd been nicer in the past. Maybe yes, maybe not -- but some commenters seem to imply that this email is somehow a proof that people calling Linus out in the past were somehow right.

<comment><USER156> I don't like the whole "to make an omelette you have to break some eggs" excuse.

If you can't create something without hurting people then don't create it.

Yes everyone calling out LT being an asshat has been right, from day 1.

<comment><USER155> Sorry, I wasn't defending Linus at all, and I would not behave as he did. I was just saying that him changing his behavior doesn't prove anything about successful management techniques. Of course I'm not pro assholes :)

<comment><USER156> I was merely trying to make the point that if one measures the success of a manager by only what is produced and not by how people are managed then one made the same mistake Linus did.

<comment><USER155> This is quite complicated. Primarily, the measurable bit of a manager's performance is what's produced. If you start measuring people's emotions then that's going to be very hard to quantify.

Let's say that your company is trying to revolutionarize transportation by breaking the monopoly of ICE engines and replacing them with electric motors. What's the compromise you can allow yourself if there's a conflict between your employees' life and emotions and your company's success? If hundreds of people get totally burned out working for you but you help millions of children growing up with less pollution, then is that acceptable?

It isn't always true that you can have your cake and eat it as well. I don't know the right solution, but it's definitely not a simple that "produce great output and also make your employees happy" \-- there are countless situations where these conflict. Sadly.

Regarding the case in point -- I think Linus' contribution to the world is so overwhelmingly positive that these rants and hurt feelings don't even compare. It'd be better if he didn't do them but this is his character, and nobody knows how this roughness correlates with his perseverance and care about code. (I'm really not saying it does, but it could.)

<comment><USER156> > If hundreds of people get totally burned out working for you but you help > millions of children growing up with less pollution, then is that > acceptable?

It may be an acceptable tradeoff, but I wouldn't say it makes someone a "good manager".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> For people not really involved, what does it mean?

Is this just an apology out of daily discussions or is anything going to change for Linux development?

</comment><comment><USER157> Linus torvals behavior has spun a bunch of people who think it is perfectly okay to be rude, like the some of the linux folks in intel

</comment><comment><USER158> I never quite got this sort of thing- programmers talking "tough" like they are, dunno, extras in gangster movies or something. We're just a bunch of nerds tapping away at keyboards all day. Were does all this _attitude_ come from?

Collectively, we must think we're a really tough bunch. Don't mess with us or we'll screw up your codebase and rename all your variables "bob". Hah!

I hope we can all learn a lesson from Linus. Those of us who still need it, anyway.

</comment><comment><USER159> Anyone that can't take the criticism for bad work presented to the head of the most successful software project of all time don't deserve to participate. Linus has done an amazing job of keeping all my computers, safe, secure and reliable and anyone that messes with his method should not even be allowed to participate. I don't care about anyone's need to feel like a special and capable snowflake, I need the best software Open Source can provide.

</comment><comment><USER71> What does this mean for the kernel development? Are we going to lose a dictator and things start to drift left and right?

</comment><comment><USER160> The negative thing to come of this is that maybe he won't tell off bad companies any more. _cough_ Nvidia...

</comment><comment><USER161> Last time Linus took time off from kernel development the world got Git. I wonder what we will get this time?

</comment><comment><USER162> I would never work for this asshole. I have not granted any one the privilege of being disrespectful to me. No, no one has my permission to be unprofessional and/or disrespectful towards me, no matter the cost. Everything else is fair game. To be clear, I have had a fair amount of criticism on my work by all kinds of people (and most of them I deeply respect and consider my mentors).

<comment><USER163> You calling Linux here "asshole"... does it tell more about Linus or about you?

<comment><USER162> It says that verbal abuse cannot be a part of a deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER164> This has me curious about what outcomes are desired and what method(s) he is going to use to get results.

</comment><comment><USER165> Words can't describe how happy this makes me!

Linus is very much a Sheldon Cooper: Brilliant, usually right, but lacking in empathy (colloquial: an "asshole").

That he's finally recognizing this deficiency AND taking steps to correct it is the best news ever, because it means Linux development will flourish now that a toxic element is being removed (the behavior, not Linus himself).

Bravo! And good luck to you!

</comment><comment><USER166> Who benefits the most from this? People within protected groups or corporations with strategic aims?

</comment><comment><USER167> The comments are too harsh, you can be a good person and an asshole, since when insults were this much of a problem, a few decades ago people would've just said he's a guy with an attitude, or hot blooded, etc... I prefer people like him to calm always smiling sociopaths who only say the right things and take actions that truly hurt people.

</comment><comment><USER168> This is just sad. Linus was a driving force. His comments were often acerbic but always fair.

<comment><USER169> > His comments were often acerbic but always fair.

No. [https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495](https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/6/495)

<comment><USER170> Uhh, that one is _very_ fair.

Two cross-ring context-switches _per byte_ (!!!), is insanely idiotic at best; any BSCS program worth half its salt will teach you why; and one would certainly hope that a developer of a central/core userspace program would be far more knowledgeable than someone straight out of a BSCS program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER163> Well, kudos to Linus. I still think the man should not change, but hey who am I to say that.

</comment><comment><USER171> That seems sincere and is well formulated. Kudos to him for sharing that publicly.

</comment><comment><USER172> <quote> ... a long-winded way to get to the somewhat painful personal admission that hey, 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</quote>

been a long time coming.

</comment><comment><USER173> i hope he has a good vacation i really like him guido was nice too :/

</comment><comment><USER35> I think this is great. Too many people look at figures like Torvalds or Jobs who have big accomplishments but also acted like jerks and decide they had achievements because they were jerks and so acting like a jerk is the thing to do. I would say that is not the case.

</comment><comment><USER174> I look forward to esr writing the absolute worst take on all of this.

</comment><comment><USER175> The headline sounds like a start of a sci-fi movie (or Onion news).

</comment><comment><USER125> It is very interesting how dichotomic Linus' traits are beeing discussed here. Many seem to think that him beeing an asshole at times correlates with communicating clearly – then the opposite is quickly constructed: kind, polite, but not saying what is needed, robbing everyone of their time, beating around the bush..

As a (film) director I work with both with a technical crew and rather non- technical actors. As you can imagine good communication and leadership is key to make something as complex as a movie work on multiple layers. But you don't necessarily have to be aware of how your communication effects people to be a good leader (as Linus stated he wasn't), but it certainly helps to make your communication more intentional and less erratic. Film directors can pull the strings of their actors while beeing assholes, real friends or a cold professionals – but all of them have to be aware of the effect it is having on the actors – otherwise they are just shooting darts into the fog monte-carlo- style.

You can't just force someone to deliver peak performance. You also can't just convince them rationally, even if they have a huge incentive. It is your job to get them into a place where they A)can deliver their best and B) they also _want_ to deliver their best. If they are mentally stuck it is your job to show them the possibilities, if they are head-in-the-clouds it is you job to ground them back to earth, while still leaving them freedom.

How to achieve effective communication like this depends mostly on the situation, the constellation between sender and receiver and last but not least on the character of the individual.

Someone who overestimates themselves all the time, but can't deliver and destroys work of their team might need a different treatment, than somebody who really gives their best and accidentally fucked up. Psychologically speaking, some might be more receptive to public communication (where there is more than one person listening) and others want/need a one-on-one.

Effective communication is, when you can push everybody over their boundaries, using the language they need and in the end they should feel like they wanted all of this themselves.

This won't give you that infamous aura, but it will get the job done faster, better, using less words and in in an ideal case everybody will thank you, because they learned a lot.

One cannot not communicate. That is why it is important to make communication intentional. Read Paul Watzlawick's Five Axioms of communication, if you didn't already: [http://www.wanterfall.com/Communication- Watzlawick%27s-Axiom...](http://www.wanterfall.com/Communication- Watzlawick%27s-Axioms.htm)

</comment><comment><USER176> Linus would make a great character in a Neal Stephenson book.

</comment><comment><USER177> A certain sort of ruthlessness and lack of empathy, accompanied by having an extraordinarily driven personality, certainly seems to often make things happen (see also: Steve Jobs). The ages-old question is – is it worth it? Do ends justify the means?

<comment><USER178> People can be ruthless without being abusive. Linus had effectively ultimate power over the kernel for quite some time, so he could have said things like:

"I disagree with this patch and I'm not going to merge it. It does these things wrong, and this line of reasoning makes no sense. Change these things and explain the reasoning behind this and I'll look at it again."

Most of his rants that I've read could have been summarized by that without including any personal attacks.

<comment><USER42> > People can be ruthless without being abusive.

Everybody has a different conviction about what is abusive and what is not.

<comment><USER178> One of Linus's more colorful rants:

"Of course, I'd also suggest that whoever was the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE F _CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte 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?"

<comment><USER179> Honestly it's a well-crafted insult, I give him that

<comment><USER180> If this werea Shakespeare play, it would be.

But in real life, we have to worry about being honest. And it's honestly not true that anyone who reads a byte at a time is too dumb to operate a nipple. All it means is that whoever did it doesn't know much about syscalls.

<comment><USER181> It will be remembered as well as Shakespeare play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER182> Linus finally gave in.

</comment><comment><USER183> My question. How does it go when Linus does get out of it?

</comment><comment><USER73> This comes right after Intel got flack from Linus...

</comment><comment><USER184> > I need to take a break to get help on how to behave differently and fix some > issues in my tooling and workflow.

I find it interesting that this is happening _now instead years / decades _earlier.

<comment><USER185> I think it's important to react to people's progress with encouragement rather than, "Why didn't you do this sooner?" We all have issues we should've worked on by now and may not ever work on.

This is, of course, separate from holding him accountable for treating others badly. He can and should have consequences when that happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER186> Good for him. Hopefully it would do him some good.

</comment><comment><USER187> Please don't editorialize titles.

</comment><comment><USER173> i love linus he is an asshole but he is out assshole and he earned it :/

</comment><comment><USER188> Self reflection and redirection are one of the most important traits that lead to personal growth.

Great job Linus

</comment><comment><USER189> Long live Torvalds

</comment><comment><USER190> insmod empathy

</comment><comment><USER186> Good for him.

</comment><comment><USER191> Good for him

</comment><comment><USER192> Finally!

</comment><comment><USER193> [The text part of the post with corrected formatting, rather than 78 chars:]

\---

So this email got a lot longer than I initially thought it would get, but let's start out with the "regular Sunday release" part ]

Another week, another rc.

Nothing particularly odd stands out on the technical side in the kernel updates for last week - rc4 looks fairly average in size for this stage in the release cycle, and all the other statistics look pretty normal too.

We've got roughly two thirds driver fixes (gpu and networking look to be the bulk of it, but there's smaller changes all over in various driver subsystems), with the rest being the usual mix: core networking, perf tooling updates, arch updates, Documentation, some filesystem, vm and minor core kernel fixes.

So it's all fairly small and normal for this stage. As usual, I'm appending the shortlog at the bottom for people who want to get an overview of the details without actually having to go dig in the git tree.

The one change that stands out and merits mention is the code of conduct addition...

[ And here comes the other, much longer, part... ]

Which brings me to the _NOT_ normal part of the last week: the discussions (both in public mainly on the kernel summit discussion lists and then a lot in various private communications) about maintainership and the kernel community. Some of that discussion came about because of me screwing up my scheduling for the maintainer summit where these things are supposed to be discussed.

And don't get me wrong. It's not like that discussion itself is in any way new to this week - we've been discussing maintainership and community for years. We've had lots of discussions both in private and on mailing lists. We have regular talks at conferences - again, both the "public speaking" kind and the "private hallway track" kind.

No, what was new last week is really my reaction to it, and me being perhaps introspective (you be the judge).

There were two parts to that.

One was simply my own reaction to having screwed up my scheduling of the maintainership summit: yes, I was somewhat embarrassed about having screwed up my calendar, but honestly, I was mostly hopeful that I wouldn't have to go to the kernel summit that I have gone to every year for just about the last two decades.

Yes, we got it rescheduled, and no, my "maybe you can just do it without me there" got overruled. But that whole situation then started a whole different kind of discussion. And kind of incidentally to that one, the second part was that I realized that I had completely mis-read some of the people involved.

This is where the "look yourself in the mirror" moment comes in.

So here we are, me finally on the one hand realizing that it wasn't actually funny or a good sign that I was hoping to just skip the yearly kernel summit entirely, and on the other hand realizing that I really had been ignoring some fairly deep-seated feelings in the community.

It's one thing when you can ignore these issues. Usually it's just something I didn't want to deal with.

This is my reality. I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of person and that probably doesn't come as a big surprise to anybody. Least of all me. The fact that I then misread people and don't realize (for years) how badly I've judged a situation and contributed to an unprofessional environment is not good.

This week people in our community confronted me about my lifetime of

not understanding emotions. My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me. I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry.

The above is basically a long-winded way to get to the somewhat painful personal admission that hey, 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.

Put another way: When asked at conferences, I occasionally talk about how the pain-points in kernel development have generally not been about the _technical_ issues, but about the inflection points where development flow and behavior changed.

These pain points have been about managing the flow of patches, and often been associated with big tooling changes - moving from making releases with "patches and tar-balls" (and the _very_ painful discussions about how "Linus doesn't scale" back 15+ years ago) to using BitKeeper, and then to having to write git in order to get past the point of that no longer working for us.

We haven't had that kind of pain-point in about a decade. But this week felt like that kind of pain point to me.

To tie this all back to the actual 4.19-rc4 release (no, really, this _is_ related!) I actually think that 4.19 is looking fairly good, things have gotten to the "calm" period of the release cycle, and I've talked to Greg to ask him if he'd mind finishing up 4.19 for me, so that I can take a break, and try to at least fix my own behavior.

This is not some kind of "I'm burnt out, I need to just go away" break. I'm not feeling like I don't want to continue maintaining Linux. Quite the reverse. I very much _do_ want to continue to do this project that I've been working on for almost three decades.

This is more like the time I got out of kernel development for a while because I needed to write a little tool called "git". I need to take a break to get help on how to behave differently and fix some issues in my tooling and workflow.

And yes, some of it might be "just" tooling. Maybe I can get an email filter in place so at when I send email with curse-words, they just won't go out. Because hey, I'm a big believer in tools, and at least _some_ problems going forward might be improved with simple automation.

I know when I really look "myself in the mirror" it will be clear it's

not the only change that has to happen, but hey... You can send me suggestions in email.

I look forward to seeing you at the Maintainer Summit.

Linus

</comment><comment><USER194> he is getting old

</comment><comment> another-cuppa Oh dear. So they finally got to him. First Guido, now Linus. If some "nice person" would write a better free operating system I'd be all over it. But Linus is one of the people that has made it possible for me to not only run a free operating system, but the best system in the world. The people who criticise and attack Linus are the one who don't understand us. They don't understand what this software means to us.

<comment><USER54> Good deeds don't justify bad behavior. Ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER195> _This week people in our community confronted me about my lifetime of not understanding emotions. My flippant attacks in emails have been both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me.

I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry. The above is basically a long-winded way to get to the somewhat painful personal admission that hey, 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._

Now that's something I never in a million years thought he'd be capable of thinking, never mind admitting in public, without reservations. I sincerely hope that it sticks, and the result is good not just for the community, but Linus himself. Good luck, and I hope people give him the chance to make good on his attempt to grow as a person. It takes a lot of courage to be this vulnerable in public, especially when you know and that you hurt people.

</comment><comment><USER196> Linus's revelation kind of looks like he has been infected with "feels over reals" postmodernism. Not a good omen for engineering where reality needs to come first.

<comment><USER197> That's pretty much the opposite of postmodernism actually is.

<comment><USER198> I was forced to take a unit of postmodernism as part of my studies and came away no wiser as to what postmodernism actually is.

There was a bunch of dense, impenetrable academic word games that seemed to be asserting that all truth is culturally relative.

I don't find gravity or physics to be culturally relative.

<comment><USER199> Modernism is Descartes` "I will find a single indisputable axiom and can prove everything knowable from there." His axiom? "Cogito ergo sum."

Postmodernism is rooted in the notion that there is no indisputable base axiom from which we can build our understanding of the world. It's unprovable assumptions all the way down. The consequences for this, if you accept it (you don't have to, but you're going to have a hell of a time proving you're right), are ENORMOUS and affect virtually every field of human understanding.

In the sciences we tend to start from the assumption that what we measure is real. As a practical matter, that's fine, but there is no sound rational basis for that assumption. It's an unprovable assumption.

All of our value systems (and by extension, our social systems) are founded on unprovable assumptions.

This is the essence of postmodernism, in so many words. There are no sound assumptions. The best we can do is say what follows from one assumption or another, but we can never say which conclusion is right because we can never say which assumption is right.

The implications of this can be particularly disturbing for rule-oriented individuals, but that doesn't make it wrong. It's irrational to claim that some assumptions are better than others without some basis (in which case, they are no longer assumptions).

<comment><USER200> _In the sciences we tend to start from the assumption that what we measure is real. As a practical matter, that 's fine, but there is no sound rational basis for that assumption. It's an unprovable assumption._

Can you show that what we measure is not real? If you can't prove anything one way or the other, who cares? Why even bother with this line of thinking?

<comment><USER201> Why exactly is 1 + 1 = 2?

Yes, postmodernism is in a sense very theoretical and I would also say the word itself has been misused or used too broadly in ways, but the essense of it definitely is a step further from the previous default.

<comment><USER200> Maybe

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principia_Mathematica)

<comment><USER201> Gödel countered this with the incompleteness theorems. If you're interested, have a look here: [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel- incompleteness/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER202> Can you explain what "left-leaning" has to do with it?

<comment><USER203> It's a bit difficult to explain, but I'll try.

In the current political climate, the left and the right have been divided by the public consciousness into the following dichotomy:

The left is overly sensitive and looks for things to be offended by.

The right is concerned with maturity and personal responsibility and anti- political correctness, where those things are defined primarily in contrast to the left's perceived over-sensitivity.

Simultaneously, there have been a lot of trends in various communities (software and otherwise) to formalize rules of conduct and push out people who are more naturally aggressive in tone.

Through that lens, this behavior has been seen as "left-leaning." So in contrast, the right-leaning behavior would be letting everyone behave as they want with the "free market of ideas" being the primary driving force for change rather than any set of enforced community standard. (You can see the parallel with the typically "conservative" economic perspective.)

I hope you can see the general trend.

So what the grandparent is saying is that it's not REALLY about left vs. right, without explicitly contradicting the beliefs of the common social consciousness.

Edit: The comment above that says, "Different people have very different beliefs what is to be considered 'heated', 'hateful' and 'treating well' or not" would be considered "right-leaning" through the common lens because it's implicitly positing that there shouldn't be a common set of community standards (with the implicit supposition that you CAN'T set a common set of community standards because there will always be people who disagree). Not picking on anyone, just using an available example.

<comment><USER204> > _The left is overly sensitive and looks for things to be offended by._

This is total nonsense. In the modern political climate _everyone_ is looking for things to be offended by.

(It just happens that the "left" is offended by people getting beat up, sexually harassed, prevented from exercising their basic rights, etc., whereas the "right" is offended by the phrase "happy holidays", by trans-gender people using one bathroom or another, by football players kneeling to protest police brutality, and so on.)

Or more to the point, media / social media that fixates on why readers should be offended and aggrieved are much more "viral" than other types of messaging. It's hard to blame individuals for this, as they have been under intense psychological attack by a combination of deliberate propaganda and accidental harmful features of modern media. I say we need much stronger education in media literacy, and better cultural/structural systems for keeping media accountable for basic honesty.

<comment><USER49> You can easily find just as, and more, ridiculous examples on the left. Offended by jokes, tshirts, suggestions that unborn children's lives have value, praise of Israel, using biologically and factually correct terms for people, suggestions that people shouldn't be discriminated against, pointing out scientific/genetic facts, ...

<comment><USER119> Who decides what examples are ridiculous and what examples aren't?

<comment><USER49> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER205> It's about fucking time. I personally stay away from software created by people who lack empathy; technical goodness !> creating a good environment and product for actual people. I don't go to restaurants run by douchebags either, no matter how good the food might be.

And Git has the UX of software created by someone with no empathy.

I hope Linus heals from this, and I hope the culture of the Linux community changes as well, but that will take years to get past his past behavior.

<comment><USER99> > And Git has the UX of software created by someone with no empathy.

I would really like to understand what you expect a UX for a command line tool to look like. Maybe instead of throwing an error if you did something wrong, it would apologize to you first? Or perhaps it should preface all output with "dearest Sir/Madam, here is the information you requested:" ?

<comment><USER206> There would be no output. Sometimes you just need your software to _listen_ , not try and solve everything, and it would understand that.

<comment><USER99> How in the world do you have a useful source control tool with no output?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER207> Another great man that fell victim to SJW.

<comment><USER113> Could you please strive to post in a way that's more informative and less inflammatory? We're here to learn.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER208> There goes Linux

</comment><comment><USER209> Linux was named after Linus.

Linus admits that he named "git" after himself too. At least he had some self- awareness of his own "git"-ishness.

Trump, for example, is too far along the narcissistic spectrum to even feign humility.

The software industry is sadly plagued by empathy-free, narcissistic gits.

It's sad - Why?

Empathy is actually essential for creating good software (and good leadership too) - we write software for humans not computers.

Trump is sadly too far gone to show real empathy. Linus may be too ... but at least he's seeking help.

Peace Linus - I hope you find your true empathic self.

More empathy in the development of Linux would be truly _great_ (and not in the Trump sense).

<comment><USER170> > we write software for humans not computers.

The "humans" are in every case either ourselves or our customers. Empathy is certainly not needed when communicating with ourselves; and with the exception of the (rare) type of developer who also owns the company, the latter case has the indirections of Sales, TAM, Services, Tech Support and our managers.

Hence, while the quoted statement is true by itself, it does not support the universal need for empathy for software-development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER210> Ah, all these decades of American culture made him finally cave in...

</comment><comment><USER211> What is the context here? Does anyone know sequence of events that culminated in to this?

<comment><USER142> I suspect there was no one single event. His mailing list rants have been known for a while, and the occasionally make it to the tops of sites like HN/Redit/etc.

I doubt it was less of a "Straw that broke the camel's back" and more of just a "We all know this was coming," thing.

Or maybe it was? ... from the e-mail, it might have been words/things from maintainers, specifically around the meeting/conference he mentioned, that forced him to re-evaluate the way he works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER212> Hopefully this is not the beginning of the end of Linux as we know it today...

<comment><USER212> All software turns to shit eventually (those engineers need something to do even when nothing needs to be done)... I'm really surprised that Linux lasted this long... It will almost definitely turn to shit when Linus T. is no longer around... hope I'm wrong...

</comment></comment><comment><USER213> I wish him best luck, he needs some. This guy is doing a tremendous work and, yes, sometimes he's a certified ass, but we need people like him. If we had a couple more clones of him, say one in the audio subsystem and the other benevolently dictating development in the GUI field, Linux on the desktop for everyone would become reality in no more than six months.

</comment><comment><USER214> I wish he had recognised this six years ago:

[https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75](https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75)

This email alone set the tone for what was acceptable.

It was discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5107495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5107495)

<comment><USER215> > This email alone set the tone for what was acceptable.

Did it really? Did other contributors adopt his "style"? Linus gets a pass because he's Linus, I'm not so sure about other contributors, who presumably have their own reputation to maintain.

<comment><USER214> For what was acceptable from Linus, sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER216> I am very surprised at how many comments this story has gotten on HN. I am even more appalled at how many continue to excuse his actions in the name of "being right" or "technically valid".

This reminds me of the infamous [Wheaton's Law]([https://everything2.com/user/OldMiner/writeups/Wheaton%2527s...](https://everything2.com/user/OldMiner/writeups/Wheaton%2527s+Law)) states: "Don't be a dick." A very sound piece of social expectation.

As comparison if I were to attempt to learn to be better I doubt I would have any luck with a mentor who swears and insults me irregardless of being right or wrong. I'm curious just how as people it is possible to excuse such behaviour. Does the end truly justify the means? And if so can the end be reach effectively with different means? If someone is a really good soldier but was physically abused as a child is the abuse justified?

I only try to illustrate some of the absurdity that (in my opinion) is the justification of the means in this case. I to suffer from social awkwardness. I often find things funny when in fact they are insensitive. I wouldn't claim that anyone is immune to social difficulties. However, I can say that there is evidence that approaching social interactions with some tact can lead to far better results then being bullish or rude.

Here is a quote from ["How to win friends and influence others" by Dale Carnagie]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People)): "Don't criticize, condemn, or complain. Human nature does not like to admit fault. When people are criticized or humiliated, they rarely respond well and will often become defensive and resent their critic. To handle people well, we must never criticize, condemn or complain because it will never result in the behavior we desire."

I'll close with a quote from the [four agreements]([http://www.toltecspirit.com/](http://www.toltecspirit.com/)): "Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love."

<comment><USER122> People who don't exercise self control are those who never grew up. Linus knows that.</comment></comment>