Linus Torvalds Returns to Linux Development

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The BBC reports that Linus Torvalds has returned to his position as chief of Linux development. The outspoken developer took a 1 month break to reflect on his own behavior, where he reportedly sought out professional help. In response to complaints, Linus published an essay just before taking the break, and in the meantime, the Linux community has developed a code of conduct to combat toxicity within the community.

Before taking the short sabbatical, Mr Torvalds was known for giving forthright feedback, often in the form of expletive-filled emails, to contributors. Mr Torvalds said he doubted that he would ever be "cuddly" but could improve the way he handled people. The Linux development community has also acquired a reputation for being a rough place to work. Parts of it had become a "morass of nastiness", Mr Torvalds told the BBC.
 
The Mad Atheist said:
"but could improve the way he handled people"......

Here's a econo-sized box of tissues, if you are ever hurt or offended by what I say, please help yourself.
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Normally I would agree, but it's not productive to be a dick. It's like spanking a kid for being bad. Sure, in that moment it fixes the problem but it's not a long term fix to a behavior issue.

If the Kernel community has more people willing to contribute because they are more willing to listen to other ideas, Linux benefits.
 
codes of conduct wont impact the vast majority of contributors or developers of open source projects. As most of the time the only communications being made are code. Nobody knows who you are or what you believe in and they really dont care.

So in that sense, the code of conduct thing is really overblown.

Where it does matter is between well known and established contributors or developers where their personal beliefs and info about themselves are well known and their communication includes more than just code. In this sense, people are worried that Codes of Conduct will become weaponized to shift power in highly visible projects. Since while yes, you could fork it if you're blacklisted and do what you want with your fork, but if you're in the minority opinion (right or wrong), then your future work in your fork will be marginalized or simply not used by anyone but yourself.

I worry about the weaponization of codes of conduct to manipulate open source projects in much the same way as we're seeing the news and social media being weaponized to manipulate short term stock prices. Stocks recover and memory is short. Being outcasted due to codes of conduct violations, will be much harder to undo. Even if such a thing gets corrected, the victim may never want to return to the project.

we just have to hope that the influx of developers who were turned off originally is larger and/or better skilled than the people being ousted. If the codes of conduct are effective, we should see an improvement in development due to the increase in number of programmers

I value quality code over the personal beliefs of the coder. I dont care if they're even nazi's. I'm not accepting their beliefs by accepting their math solutions. In 99.999% of cases, I dont even care if they're human and dont know.
 
Darth Ender said:
codes of conduct wont impact the vast majority of contributors or developers of open source projects. As most of the time the only communications being made are code. Nobody knows who you are or what you believe in and they really dont care.

So in that sense, the code of conduct thing is really overblown.

Where it does matter is between well known and established contributors or developers where their personal beliefs and info about themselves are well known and their communication includes more than just code. In this sense, people are worried that Codes of Conduct will become weaponized to shift power in highly visible projects. Since while yes, you could fork it if you're blacklisted and do what you want with your fork, but if you're in the minority opinion (right or wrong), then your future work in your fork will be marginalized or simply not used by anyone but yourself.

I worry about the weaponization of codes of conduct to manipulate open source projects in much the same way as we're seeing the news and social media being weaponized to manipulate short term stock prices. Stocks recover and memory is short. Being outcasted due to codes of conduct violations, will be much harder to undo. Even if such a thing gets corrected, the victim may never want to return to the project.

we just have to hope that the influx of developers who were turned off originally is larger and/or better skilled than the people being ousted. If the codes of conduct are effective, we should see an improvement in development due to the increase in number of programmers

I value quality code over the personal beliefs of the coder. I dont care if they're even nazi's. I'm not accepting their beliefs by accepting their math solutions. In 99.999% of cases, I dont even care if they're human and dont know.
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I suggest you look into the Code of Conduct that was created for this case. Lots of controversy as it was weaponized a bit, and highly political. The writer of the CoC even tweeted and admitted it was political.

CoC's aren't the problem, the wording with this particular one was the problem.
 
The linux community a rough place to work.

“Work”, Huh, an open source OS pays people to develop it ?

Or do they mean, the linux community is full of cunts who think they are above windows users ?

His one month sabbatical. I bet he just went on holiday for a month.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
The linux community a rough place to work.

“Work”, Huh, an open source OS pays people to develop it ?

Or do they mean, the linux community is full of cunts who think they are above windows users ?

His one month sabbatical. I bet he just went on holiday for a month.
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People who are interested in computers and development dont pick windows by choice. Windows gets developed on out of need (directly required by their employers) or due to money (the market has dictated that you can make more profit on it vs an alternative). It's not in it's market position out of merit, it's there out of business dealings that mixed illegal practices with some legal ones and over time has become entrenched in the corporate world that loaths change.

People tend to have to go out of their way to get involved in linux...so that community is populated almost totally by people interested in development and computers as computers. Windows' community is divided between a massive amount of users who dont care at all about computers, they just need to do a particular task and windows happens to be the default and everyone else.

So does that generally paint a picture of looking down on windows users? Yes. Much like how I look down at Camry drivers because nobody who cares about driving would buy garbage econoboxes. But those are the most popular vehicles sold and there are likely a few drivers out there who are driving one not for any personal reason other than their situation in life forces them to. But when speaking about generalities, you dont base them on the exceptions.
 
Darth Ender said:
codes of conduct wont impact the vast majority of contributors or developers of open source projects. As most of the time the only communications being made are code. Nobody knows who you are or what you believe in and they really dont care.
.
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Like all such CoCs it is vague in definition which means it will have its enforcement cherrypicked. Which means everyone will break it but if you are not in the in-club it will be enforced on you clearing the way for someone from the in-club to take your roll.
 
I resent the supposition that "most" of the Linux community is toxic. It still exists, but it hasn't been the majority for well over a decade now.

Hell, I'm even still trying to do my part to stomp it out whenever I see it. Toxicity isn't productive.
 
But, but, but, he doesn't look anything like Caitlyn Jenner now.

Time to take the Sparc out of storage...
 
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EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
The linux community a rough place to work.

“Work”, Huh, an open source OS pays people to develop it ?

Or do they mean, the linux community is full of cunts who think they are above windows users ?

His one month sabbatical. I bet he just went on holiday for a month.
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Yes, there's paid kernel developers

Not sure why that's surprising
 
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I want the old Linus back :(

torvalds_finger.jpg
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
I suggest you look into the Code of Conduct that was created for this case. Lots of controversy as it was weaponized a bit, and highly political. The writer of the CoC even tweeted and admitted it was political.

CoC's aren't the problem, the wording with this particular one was the problem.
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I read it.

Outside the fact that it used a lot of very specific activist buzzwords like PoC and in regards to trans-folk, which normally would have been treated a bit more generically, this looks like any code of conduct or sexual harassment policy you've had to sign if you want to work in almost any office job in the last 20 years.

I've had to sign them at every job I've worked, along with watching those cheesy "what is sexual harassment" training videos with 80's synth music in the background on some shitty VHS more times than I can remember.

It literally did not stand out to me at all.

Sure it was a little vague, but harassment and conduct policies always are, because it is completely impossible to write them such that they cover every instance of poor behavior.

In my 20 years of working in environments like these with policies like these, not a single person has been walked out the door or forced out, deservedly or not because of harassment. (Maybe this is a sign that policies like this work?) I just don't buy the accusations of this being some sort of tool to go after white men. I've lived it for 20 years. That shit just doesn't happen.

I'd say, lets see how it plays out. If all of a sudden there is a rash of people being forced out based on the policy, then I was wrong, but thus far this does not appear to be the case. The litmus test is probably Ted Ts'o. If he gets forced out after this new policy is put in place, that will cast doubt on the whole thing.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I read it.

Outside the fact that it used a lot of very specific activist buzzwords like PoC and in regards to trans-folk, which normally would have been treated a bit more generically, this looks like any code of conduct or sexual harassment policy you've had to sign if you want to work in almost any office job in the last 20 years.

I've had to sign them at every job I've worked, along with watching those cheesy "what is sexual harassment" training videos with 80's synth music in the background on some shitty VHS more times than I can remember.

It literally did not stand out to me at all.

Sure it was a little vague, but harassment and conduct policies always are, because it is completely impossible to write them such that they cover every instance of poor behavior.

In my 20 years of working in environments like these with policies like these, not a single person has been walked out the door or forced out, deservedly or not because of harassment. (Maybe this is a sign that policies like this work?) I just don't buy the accusations of this being some sort of tool to go after white men. I've lived it for 20 years. That shit just doesn't happen.

I'd say, lets see how it plays out. If all of a sudden there is a rash of people being forced out based on the policy, then I was wrong, but thus far this does not appear to be the case. The litmus test is probably Ted Ts'o. If he gets forced out after this new policy is put in place, that will cast doubt on the whole thing.
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Linux development isn't always in a corporate office environment. The CoC as it was written was a solution looking for a problem. It was written deliberately vague, and they writers immediately weaponized that to kick out developers they didn't like on day 1 of it's implementation. Not only that, with the vague writing, what these people thought was offensive could change day to day. They could dig up shit from years ago and use it to kick out people. If you don't believe that can happen, look no further than recent events in hollywood.

https://lulz.com/linux-devs-threaten-killswitch-coc-controversy-1252/

Does Linux need a CoC? Yes. Not this CoC.
 
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bigdogchris said:
Normally I would agree, but it's not productive to be a dick. It's like spanking a kid for being bad. Sure, in that moment it fixes the problem but it's not a long term fix to a behavior issue.

If the Kernel community has more people willing to contribute because they are more willing to listen to other ideas, Linux benefits.
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Worked well enough for Steve Jobs.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I just don't buy the accusations of this being some sort of tool to go after white men. I've lived it for 20 years. That shit just doesn't happen.
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Something I'd note from watching this: it isn't just the wording of the policy, which is loose, but also the specific people behind it, and that it isn't an HR department that's enforcing it.

An HR department has to walk a thin line, while the people ostensibly pushing the Linux CoC have been made out to be hardcore progressives that bear no such limitations.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
The linux community a rough place to work.

“Work”, Huh, an open source OS pays people to develop it ?

Or do they mean, the linux community is full of cunts who think they are above windows users ?

His one month sabbatical. I bet he just went on holiday for a month.
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98% of the Linux kernel is written by people being paid. Yes.

Not sure how anyone can equate Open Source with free anymore. Every major computer system in the world at this point is running on "free" software or accessing it.

Yes Intel alone commits 10-15% of the code changes for the Kernel every year.

Even MS runs all their major large systems on open source software.

Linux isn't made by a bunch of geeks in their basements no matter what people still want to believe. It is developed by 1,000s of individual comapanies paying their programmers to do their part so they can all reap the rewards. The largest are the obvious Google, Samsung, Intels and facebooks... but there are also 100s of smaller companies engraving comapnies, industrial control manufacturers, enviro system developers, super compuer designers like Cray. The Linux kernel s hardly some home brew project, it is the single largest bit of revenue generating code in the world. Just counting one market a copy of the kernel code is in damn near every first world persons pocket alone. Never mind all the systems its powering that they are accessing with that pocket device. Its running the machines making everything from the cars we are driving to the pants on our backsides.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Hey, I'd rather be a Linux cunt than a Windows cuck.

Oh, our $200 OS just deleted all your user data? That sucks, have you tried Candy Crush?
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Thats why I use Amiga OS.

Candy crush hasn’t yet been ported over to an OS from the mid 1980s.

I will keep my shadow of the beast and you can keep candy crush.

No need to make it that obvious, being a cunt is not a good thing.
 
As usual, the left gets a real problem (people being dicks and racists) and go full retard for their own benefit.

What pisses me off is not the problems they point out - most of the time they do have a point - but the solutions they come up with.

"The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution."
 
ChadD said:
98% of the Linux kernel is written by people being paid. Yes.

Not sure how anyone can equate Open Source with free anymore. Every major computer system in the world at this point is running on "free" software or accessing it.

Yes Intel alone commits 10-15% of the code changes for the Kernel every year.

Even MS runs all their major large systems on open source software.

Linux isn't made by a bunch of geeks in their basements no matter what people still want to believe. It is developed by 1,000s of individual comapanies paying their programmers to do their part so they can all reap the rewards. The largest are the obvious Google, Samsung, Intels and facebooks... but there are also 100s of smaller companies engraving comapnies, industrial control manufacturers, enviro system developers, super compuer designers like Cray. The Linux kernel s hardly some home brew project, it is the single largest bit of revenue generating code in the world. Just counting one market a copy of the kernel code is in damn near every first world persons pocket alone. Never mind all the systems its powering that they are accessing with that pocket device. Its running the machines making everything from the cars we are driving to the pants on our backsides.
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And 99% of non business users got their distro free.

I know behind the scenes money is pumped into it and people get paid to work on it. Similar to windows 10 being free and thousands of people being paid to keep that upto date.

I have been using linux in one form or another for 25+ years and been a member here for 12 years, I’m acutely aware of what it’s used for/in.

What gets to me is the rivalry between windows and linux users. I use both and I don’t feel superior to any windows user or vice versa, it’s just an OS and which both have their uses.

As for the code of conduct, wtf. Trust humans to bring in rules and fuck things up.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
And 99% of non business users got their distro free.

I know behind the scenes money is pumped into it and people get paid to work on it. Similar to windows 10 being free and thousands of people being paid to keep that upto date.

I have been using linux in one form or another for 25+ years and been a member here for 12 years, I’m acutely aware of what it’s used for/in.

What gets to me is the rivalry between windows and linux users. I use both and I don’t feel superior to any windows user or vice versa, it’s just an OS and which both have their uses.

As for the code of conduct, wtf. Trust humans to bring in rules and fuck things up.
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Of course the Linux Kernel development team REQUIRES a code of conduct. To the point I was making 98% of the commits to the Linux kernel are submitted on behalf of peoples employer. Almost all of whom have strict codes of conduct. Linus himself has famously tore strips off Intel coders for not liking the way they formatted their comments. Did those Intel employees shoot back ???? Of course not Intel would have turfed their asses for being unprofessional ass wipes.

Like it or not the Linux kernel is not a basement made home brew for the people bit of code anymore where everyone working on it is doing it for nothing but fun. That hasn't been the case in damn near 20 years now.

In fact not just a small majority but darn near ALL the work being done on the kernel is done by professionals held to their employers codes of conduct, makes the handful of people not being civil even more a problem. If the Kernel team wants to be treated professionally and backed with real $$$$ from companies like Google, Facebook, Intel, AMD, Samsung ect ect ect.... they have to communicate with them in a professional manner. You don't get that simply by saying... "be cool to each other" that is just dumb. No one on these forums that works for a major company of any kind works for a place where the rules are "be cool... that's all"

For Linus himself the other major side effect of his own sometimes jerky nature. Is that ya no one ever really takes him to task... cause they wouldn't put their carers at risk like that. No one is going to say... actually I disagree and F you to, I hate wasting returns because you like /* on its own line. I mean really not every programmer has a name like Linus that means they can collect a check from any major in return for a press release of hey we hired Linus. lol

I hope Linus vacation did him some good... I hope he is still hard on the code. I just hope the second he is about to type something stupid and make something personal or add a few F bombs for emphasis he can do what EVERYONE else has to do in the real world. Think word accordingly, and respectfully get the job done.
 
ChadD said:
Of course the Linux Kernel development team REQUIRES a code of conduct. To the point I was making 98% of the commits to the Linux kernel are submitted on behalf of peoples employer. Almost all of whom have strict codes of conduct. Linus himself has famously tore strips off Intel coders for not liking the way they formatted their comments. Did those Intel employees shoot back ???? Of course not Intel would have turfed their asses for being unprofessional ass wipes.

Like it or not the Linux kernel is not a basement made home brew for the people bit of code anymore where everyone working on it is doing it for nothing but fun. That hasn't been the case in damn near 20 years now.

In fact not just a small majority but darn near ALL the work being done on the kernel is done by professionals held to their employers codes of conduct, makes the handful of people not being civil even more a problem. If the Kernel team wants to be treated professionally and backed with real $$$$ from companies like Google, Facebook, Intel, AMD, Samsung ect ect ect.... they have to communicate with them in a professional manner. You don't get that simply by saying... "be cool to each other" that is just dumb. No one on these forums that works for a major company of any kind works for a place where the rules are "be cool... that's all"

For Linus himself the other major side effect of his own sometimes jerky nature. Is that ya no one ever really takes him to task... cause they wouldn't put their carers at risk like that. No one is going to say... actually I disagree and F you to, I hate wasting returns because you like /* on its own line. I mean really not every programmer has a name like Linus that means they can collect a check from any major in return for a press release of hey we hired Linus. lol

I hope Linus vacation did him some good... I hope he is still hard on the code. I just hope the second he is about to type something stupid and make something personal or add a few F bombs for emphasis he can do what EVERYONE else has to do in the real world. Think word accordingly, and respectfully get the job done.
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Of course the Linux Kernel development team REQUIRES a code of conduct
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Why?
Also, public companies are required by law to have a CoC so saying ...
98% of the commits to the Linux kernel are submitted on behalf of peoples employer. Almost all of whom have strict codes of conduct
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...means little. Actually, it means exactly nothing.

Should they have a CoC? They did.
Should it be the one they have now? Absolutely not.
Are they required to have one? Not really, no. Also, they did.

https://itsfoss.com/linux-code-of-conduct/

DnTTfi7XoAAdk08.jpg


EDIT: Note that she states a meritocracy benefits straight white males. Considering what a meritocracy actually is, she is saying that straight white men are superior, which would make a bunch of nasty labels her ilk likes to throw around applicable to her. This wonderful human being is the one who wrote the CoC Linux uses. I'm sure it was written with the best of intentions and not ideologically driven at all.......
Meritocracy (merit, from Latin mereō, and -cracy, from Ancient Greek κράτος kratos "strength, power") is a political philosophy which holds that certain things, such as economic goods or power, should be vested in individuals on the basis of talent, effort, and achievement, rather than factors such as sexuality, race, gender, or wealth
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"Rewards bad people for writing good code." Who the hell cares if the person is bad or not? It is not the company's job to dictate a person's behavior, especially outside of work. Leave that to the government if they break any laws.

And agreed with Laowai. If only she and her followers can recognize the irony of her words.
 
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