If he’s on the spectrum, the short temper plus how the spectrum messes up your perspective can lead to very socially destructive behavior.
Eh, he’s just not the most adjusted person and can be snarky/abrasive. I wouldn’t say it’s a problem at all.
Honestly, what he really needs is an actual vacation.
Also, you took that quote a bit out of context. If you knew more back story on the Linux Kernel Summit debacle of 2018, you’d know he’s trying to take a vacation from Linux for a while.
The damn guy had a vacation planned for the time of the summit and everyone else moved the summit so he couldn’t get away… I feel bad for him.
I don’t know that I buy the attitude trickling down; many open-source devs are kind of dicks, but that’s just because brilliant IT engineers are often somewhere on the spectrum and they’re working for free and typically being cutting and sarcastic to entitled end-users asking for the moon.
That said, it’s great that Linus is cooling off a bit, if it was actually pushing contributors away.
I think this is because the Linux foundation wouldn’t let the man enjoy his damn family vacation.
Yeah, it likely is.
If it was pushing contributors away, they’re probably not the kind of contributors we want anyways. If you’re so fragile that you can’t handle being yelled at over email by a guy who’s known for being a bit of a dick, you probably aren’t a net positive to the organization.
4 days
Not at all. Some super competent engineers don’t handle confrontation well.
Remember, this is open-source development, they’re contributing for free. Anyone paid by IBM or Oracle or whatever isn’t going to walk away because Linus called them a shitbird.
Also, open-source dev desperately needs documentation and instrumentation, the kind of things hardcore engineers hate doing, and the liberal arts majors doing that soft work often have thinner skins.
Not sure what the spectrum has to do with it, he has enough money to have someone review his stuff for PR or whatever.
Also, I never bought the whole “open source/I.T. guys are dicks, just how it is”. Maybe that’s how it is for some people, because they’ve never been checked. But typically you type something up you have a chance to review it and sit on it. Any one of Linus’s emails can be picked up and seen as grossly inappropriate, f bombs and degrading to the developer in question. Very off putting.
I quoted it directly from the web page. There wasn’t anything else.
Strongly, strongly disagree. I was always one foot out of Linux commitments because of people like him.
Spectrum is lack of empathy, soft skills. He has plenty of money, and certainly someone in the community would have been happy to edit his posts for free, but he likely saw his cantankerous responses as a positive. I used to do the same thing when I was a kid on usenet and you see the same sort of disregard/disrespect for others and competitive trolling in today’s communities like 4chan. Difference is that Linus is a hugely powerful iconic figure and I’m just some guy, so I had to grow the fuck up.
You see that same sort of childish behavior in lots of wealthy, powerful people. Think Elon Musk lately. He’s brilliant, rich beyond the dreams of men, and doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.
That’s a good point. It’s a huge point actually. I don’t remember the numbers exactly, but aren’t the vast majority of kernel contributions done by corporate sponsored employees? Maybe I’m just focusing on the more direct kernel code work though.
Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I understand where you’re coming from, but we need to maintain a level of quality in the code. Linus sure isn’t the nicest when he says code is shit, but I don’t know him to be someone who speaks untruth about the code. I think the abrasiveness is good because it encourages most people to do better.
Damn, you got me there. 
I think he’s probably just passionate about whatever he’s talking about. After all, he has dedicated nearly 3 decades to building the kernel that runs the worlds tech infrastructure. I would probably get mad when people unintentionally “muddy the waters” with poor code too, if Linux were my baby.
I don’t know if it’s the majority off-hand, but corporations are huge contributors to the kernel. That said, they contribute what’s in their best interest-- support for their hardware and services. Google’s android patches aren’t exactly the fountain of innovation.
That’s exactly who I think about in this case, and I have zero respect for that guy. 
I have a ton of respect for Musk. He’s making the world a better place, and on an individual level he’s a brilliant, iconic innovator. A historic figure. But he needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, and stop doing stupid shit like rage tweeting and smoking weed on camera. He isn’t a God-King.
I’ve never accused Google of being good at low-level programming.
I respect his ability to build an Apple-esk fanbase that would probably kill for him if asked.
All true, but his business models are pretty awful and he’s done some seriously dangerous things in what I can only describe as a drunk tweet.
Frankly, I don’t care about the smoking weed on camera thing. It’s actually led to some great memes, so I’m all in on that one.
let’s bring it back around.
anyone who has ever written programs old style can tell you it takes a lot of time and skill.
believe me I used to write in basica, fortran, and c!
it takes a lot of time and careful scrutiny of the code you write to get a finished product that works. when you add the public that wants the world on a platter at the expense of your time, then criticizes your effort because they weren’t precise in explaining what they want you tend to get very testy.
point in case the Nintendo game domino’s pizza noid.
this game was written in c and was a very large amount of code. yet some twit gamer blasted it as so lame it should never have came out.
the game was never designed for teen players in the first place.
I still write programs in the old languages to run some automation, and yes i do get testy when dealing with people who have no clue how much work it is.
add to the fact that many people try to patent your code and sue you for it and you can see why some programmers get a shitty attitude
He runs a publicly traded company, and does business with the military.
You’re a CEO and want to smoke weed? Go for it, just not in public. All comes back to growing up.
Let’s keep this about Linus guys.
Same thing, they are brilliant capricious men who nobody ever swatted with a newspaper and told them “no”. Because they’re smart, and rich, and iconic. Leads to poor behavior.
Sounds like a group sat down and confronted Linus and he was genuinely surprised to hear that his posts weren’t met with grins and aww shucks. And he agreed to change. That’s a great thing.
Ehh… I don’t agree. But we can go on my Musk bashing tirade later 
I think a good example of this was the other day when someone posted their Python program network too on the foruml. It was a cool utility, and he asked for feedback. The first thing I went to was his website which was something along the lines of “My tool, because telnet and netcat are shit!”
Bleh, Major turn off. That’s how I feel about a lot of this stuff, sadly.
Wow, you have a useful tool and are an asset to OSS communities… But you are hostile to the shoulders of giants you’re standing on and those around you. I’ll pass.
I think it’s sad when people are looking to Microsoft for open source solutions instead of actual Linux (it is “actual Linux”, but hopefully you know what I mean). I don’t think Microsoft is the bastion of all evil, looking to corrupt, rape, pillage, burn and destroy. But I also think a company like “Linus and Stuff” could have been a lot better of a representative to open source infrastructure, tooling, and operating systems.
Eh, I’m rambling now. Whatever, it’s my birthday weekend and I’m a little… sauced.
Happy Sunday ya’ll.