Literally discussing people being potentially offended by code comments.
Yeah. I think he’s realized over the years that he’s upset a lot of people and facing them in person after doing so is… awkward. And he doesn’t like/want to do that.
I think this is less about Linus turning over a new leaf and suddenly wanting to be a nice guy because he’s pissed people off.
I think it is (or at least started out in his psyche) more about Linus doing it to make Linus less uncomfortable when doing these things. Other people’s feelings were incidental to that. And i think THAT made him realize… Hence, him taking a sabbatical to learn how to be more empathetic.
This isn’t some behavioral issue that has only recently developed. Linus has definitely been an asshole since the mid 90s. But it is less acceptable now and the circle of kernel people includes people who are less thick skinned now.
And yes, I’ll put it mostly at the feet of the younger kids currently in their 20s to early 30s. You can agree or not, but i see the same sort of thing in the workplace myself.
Those things weren’t whining about hurt feelings (Vietnam was a little more serious than that?). I’m not saying this particular generation is bad and all others are not. I’m calling out one specific characteristic that seems to define large number of them.
But Steve Jobs was not a fun guy to work for. Musk is not either. That obsessiveness comes with a style. Some could say Linus is not fun to work for as well.
but the big question here is:
is he too abrasive or are there too many wimps out there getting offended?
it seems to me that there is far too much being made out of this whole topic.
lets face it people he’s been at this a long time and deserves a break from it.
if the developers are so thin skinned they get offended by him then its plain to see they are not cut out to be programmers.
some of the crap ive had to deal with would make many go ballistic or in the worst sense postal
You were paid to get shit on, though, correct? Every job has some of that, at every level. Difference is the kernel contributors that left were donating their time for free.
research the responsibilities of automation programming even if you do it for free you can be held responsible for someone’s injury or death due to a code error.
you want stress here you go and its on a silver platter.
does any of them consider that its the same with operating systems code! consider how much the computers are used in the medical field?
If a piece of equipment causes you injury or death of a loved one sure as sh!t you would file lawsuits against the hospital or manufacturer.
the thing im saying is the contributors who left was the code they submitted up to standard or was it going to cause more work to correct?
you can cut and paste blocks of code all day long but if you don’t debug and test every block, you are handing in more work than its worth.
Im not defending the behaviour but giving a valid reason as to why
I’m glad that the Level1Techs community and/or mods had the good sense to create seperate threads for the Code of Conduct adoption, and Linus’ break. Kudos.
As to what Linus actually said, good on him. Personal development is important, and recognizing our flaws is the first step towards doing it.
I hope that his break from the kernel gives him some well-earned rest, and time to reflect on the behaviors that he wants to change. I also hope that this isn’t a front for him being gracefully “resigned” by the Linux Foundation. Losing control of your life’s work before you’re ready to hand it over would be soul crushing, and that would be sad to see.
In any case, I’m appreciative of what he’s already contributed.
Not fun to work with if you are less than competent and thin skinned perhaps.
I reckon working at/for Apple or Next under jobs would have been a blast.
For sure you would need to be ready for brutal tear downs if you weren’t good enough and also if you were victim to one of his famous decision changes.
But people like this get shit done. they have a vision and the are uncompromising. Design by a committee full of sycophants is exactly how you end up with garbage like Windows 8. Or Gnome 3.
As a kernel dev, you are free to fork-off and maintain your own tree. Some people have. And sometimes once the idea is proven the concept is merged back into the official tree.
I’m totally with you here…
While Linus has been known to be a dick, he has done a fantastic job of keeping shitcode and retards away from the linux kernel.
If they adopt some SJW bullshit… well its the end of Linux as we know it.
Onto the worst buggiest most unusable kernel on the face of the earth… because peoples feelings can’t get hurt!
It is good though that he takes some time off… as a developer who runs a company and basically develops the core product on my own; I know that it is almost impossible to have any real vacation.
If that happens and people get annoyed custom kernals will just become more of a thing. Maybe Stallman will roll his own libre OS with a full fork of Linux, or maybe people will start using reactOS
