Female Linux Dev Calls It Quits Over 'Toxic' Community

It's not just men though. Any large collection of immature people... And that's a major issue with the Linux community. I was at a job interview a few months ago, and it was a woman who interviewed me who had this look of aghast and disgust when I chose to use Visual Studio to solve a coding problem rather than Vim. (It was both a Linux & Windows shop).

Women don't inherently make a community better. Get mature men, and you'll have a good community. Get immature women, and you'll have a terrible community. The Linux community just tends to be immature and comprised mainly of men, but it's not the male part which makes it toxic. It's the immature, arrogant, entitled nature of the community which makes it toxic.

Actually, that makes perfect sense. No argument from me. :)
 
It's not just men though. Any large collection of immature people... And that's a major issue with the Linux community. I was at a job interview a few months ago, and it was a woman who interviewed me who had this look of aghast and disgust when I chose to use Visual Studio to solve a coding problem rather than Vim. (It was both a Linux & Windows shop).

Women don't inherently make a community better. Get mature men, and you'll have a good community. Get immature women, and you'll have a terrible community. The Linux community just tends to be immature and comprised mainly of men, but it's not the male part which makes it toxic. It's the immature, arrogant, entitled nature of the community which makes it toxic.
Anyone who can't appreciate the usage of the right tool at the right time to get the job DONE should not be interviewing people. I can debug a C program on an AS/400, I know the ins and outs of STRDBG, but I am probably also 20x faster finding a non-platform specific issue debugging it in VS. That must've been a pretty bad interviewer.
 
So, if being a man equals being a jerk, then I guess I cannot make it in a "man's world" either. I am extremely good at what I do but the reason for that is I respect the customer and those around me. It is a job, not a competition and the only thing that matters is that the customer is taken care of. If you cannot do that, find another job. Yes, this is directed at you and not her.

No, don't compare apples and oranges here.
You are talking about an open source network of developers and business environment.
The first is totally different than a business environment where they worry about being sued for discrimination and crap like that. You have to "play nice" with everyone and never really speak your mind because it MIGHT offend someone.

My Point that you totally missed if that if you want rules of conduct enforced on something that is driven on a voluntary basis you will kill it.
WHY would you want to be a part of something that you give your time and talents if it isn't free, easy going and fun?


This reminds me of the time I was invited to join a car club. Sounded fun so I went and at the first meeting the self proclaimed "president" of the club stands up and starts reading off a list of rules. One of these was you has to pay dues to the club (which the president pocketed) and the rules were things like no burnouts, you had to volunteer to car pool (meaning give people you didn't know free rides), and a bunch of other crap that had nothing to do with cars or the the car hobby. We all stood around looking at each other and most of us left and got in our cars, some did burnouts leaving the parking lot.
 
We're neither men nor women at work. We're numbers.
We're neither men nor women at home. We're hopeless, smelly, ignorant, opinionated, egocentric, useless consumers.
By the sheer luck of the draw you were born a man. A human with a dick. But you still have to be taught of your expected role in society.

If you were born a woman, you're the same thing. Sans dick. But you are expected to be meek, and quickly find out that the males around you were taught you are their prey. So you don't really care about the world. There's no time between one guy trying to get into your pants and another.

You try to educate yourself in a 'manly' field, but you can't. The males by now are 100% convinced they are their own dick and you as a woman are filler. You can't focus on course work because males are competing over you because that's what men do.
You become pregnant and your life is now destroyed. You enjoy the fake interest, the happy people asking 'how far along?' 'chosen a name?' and then the rest of your life you need to sacrifice.
Meanwhile the man notices he's done what was expected. He got a girl and reproduced.
Now what.
Ethanol, television, better television, car, bigger car, disappointment, cancer, death.

Both of you reach advanced maturity. The woman will not attract anymore, and the man won't have a functioning ... flute.
You become ugly, bald and very, very disappointed because you did what was expected and yet you feel you wasted your time on this Earth.
You are neither men nor women.
Think you are a tough guy, a man's man? A kidney stone, alzheimers and prostate cancer will soon change that.
Look at this fucking mess of a planet and tell me again why the fuck are we even comparing sexes.

Linux? Linux is walking dead. By now it has been sabotaged with bits of proprietary patented code left by corporates and when it becomes dangerously popular among consumers, the patent holders will flip the switch. Yes, on all 46 desktop environments, 23 sound systems and 89 incompatible package managers.

Discussing sexism is in itself proof we're all morons.
 
This is what i hate about the tech community as a whole. When doing my computer degree i had 1 female on my course. The amount of shit she got from other students and lectures was insane, just because she was a girl.

Elaborate please, we don't know what "shit she got" means. Were other students demeaning towards her? The professor? What does that entail? I believe you but I want to know exactly what people are talking about.
 
Men in general...not just Linux, computers, or anything else like that. It's the way things are and it gets worse when there's a higher percentage of men vs women. AAAAND...just so people don't freak out about it, in places where there's a higher percentage of girls (lower socio-economic types are the worst liek nursing homes were there's lots of low wage people) it's just as bad for the few men who are there.

I work in the industrial field, almost all men, probably close to 98%, if not more, the few girls are made fun of, and picked on....Just like all the men. That's how it is, if we didn't accept them we would not pick on them, because at my job, if people don't pick/joke/make fun of you, they probably don't like you.

Should also note, the girls here understand this, and mess around as much as the men.
 
Tumblerinas vs Neckbeards... Quite an interesting confrontation of idiots.
 
I work in the industrial field, almost all men, probably close to 98%, if not more, the few girls are made fun of, and picked on....Just like all the men. That's how it is, if we didn't accept them we would not pick on them, because at my job, if people don't pick/joke/make fun of you, they probably don't like you.

Should also note, the girls here understand this, and mess around as much as the men.

Sounds like really horri-bad poor management and clueless leadership is letting employees run amok to the potential detriment of the firm. It only takes one incident where someone says or does something stupid and then the entire history of those kinds of unacceptable jokes and picking are brought to the surface to show that a workplace had enabled a hostile environment for years and did nothing to fix it. So yeah, playing with fire is a bad idea and it's even worse to use that problem waiting to happen to justify unacceptable male behavior.
 
I just have to wonder what the trigger was for this whole current iteration of womens this, womens that, womens this that n more social justice movement.

I don't remember any of this kind of stuff being discussed even a year ago.

It all smells like a political stunt. Given we're in the ballpark for the elections, i have to wonder presidential candidate started all of this.
 
Sounds like really horri-bad poor management and clueless leadership is letting employees run amok to the potential detriment of the firm. It only takes one incident where someone says or does something stupid and then the entire history of those kinds of unacceptable jokes and picking are brought to the surface to show that a workplace had enabled a hostile environment for years and did nothing to fix it. So yeah, playing with fire is a bad idea and it's even worse to use that problem waiting to happen to justify unacceptable male behavior.

So what you are saying is that you are fully anti social interaction at work. I bet you are a real joy to be around. :rolleyes:
 
It all smells like a political stunt. Given we're in the ballpark for the elections, i have to wonder presidential candidate started all of this.

The Linux developer community is ruined by sexist male programmers. Thanks Obama.

Seriously? I don't think voters would get the context of that or that it's a significant enough issue to be politically motivated.

So what you are saying is that you are fully anti social interaction at work. I bet you are a real joy to be around. :rolleyes:

Hehe, no one has a choice. They have to put up with me if they want a paycheck. :D
 
Sounds like really horri-bad poor management and clueless leadership is letting employees run amok to the potential detriment of the firm. It only takes one incident where someone says or does something stupid and then the entire history of those kinds of unacceptable jokes and picking are brought to the surface to show that a workplace had enabled a hostile environment for years and did nothing to fix it. So yeah, playing with fire is a bad idea and it's even worse to use that problem waiting to happen to justify unacceptable male behavior.

Probably some of the best management I have ever been around, very high stress and demanding environment. Working here without being able to let off steam would be a night mare, as a result, we all get along fine and tell people to their face if they fucked up, and it is not sugar coated, it is not PC in the least, and it works great. I have worked at some places that are like you are speaking of, and no thank you, if your feelings get hurt that easy, you are not going to make it in this job, oil and gas clients can be some of the most rude and demanding people you will come across.
 
Probably some of the best management I have ever been around, very high stress and demanding environment. Working here without being able to let off steam would be a night mare, as a result, we all get along fine and tell people to their face if they fucked up, and it is not sugar coated, it is not PC in the least, and it works great. I have worked at some places that are like you are speaking of, and no thank you, if your feelings get hurt that easy, you are not going to make it in this job, oil and gas clients can be some of the most rude and demanding people you will come across.

You want to see a stressful and demanding environment, go shadow some emergency medicine residents for a couple of days.

If any of them "let off steam" with straight-up sexist and homophobic remarks, they would be out on their ass waiting for the next application cycle in five minutes.

And if you want rude and demanding, let's talk about the patients that come into an ER.

You make excuses, but they're BS. That sort of behavior is juvenile and unacceptable. The fact that you can get away with it some places is irrelevant.
 
I think we have a real problem with gender being viewed as the most effective insults on the internet. Profanity loses a lot of it's impact when you can't hear the inflection in which it's said, and when people are trying to be cruel and really upset someone through text now I think homophobic slurs and sexual threats have become the gold standard. The media talks a lot about how it's motivated by discrimination against the person on the receiving end, when really I think it has more to do with people just trying to be as mean as possible for petty reasons.
 
You want to see a stressful and demanding environment, go shadow some emergency medicine residents for a couple of days.

If any of them "let off steam" with straight-up sexist and homophobic remarks, they would be out on their ass waiting for the next application cycle in five minutes.

And if you want rude and demanding, let's talk about the patients that come into an ER.

You make excuses, but they're BS. That sort of behavior is juvenile and unacceptable. The fact that you can get away with it some places is irrelevant.

A number of years back, I stumbled across a hospital documentary. There were a couple male medical students (interns? residents? not sure) and a female med student. The guys were harassing the female with this x-ray of the black patient's lower torso region talking about how much he "likes" her. This went on until she mentioned that they were harassing her on national tv, and all of a sudden, they were dead silent. It was pretty hilarious.
 
A number of years back, I stumbled across a hospital documentary. There were a couple male medical students (interns? residents? not sure) and a female med student. The guys were harassing the female with this x-ray of the black patient's lower torso region talking about how much he "likes" her. This went on until she mentioned that they were harassing her on national tv, and all of a sudden, they were dead silent. It was pretty hilarious.

Scrubs? :D
 
The Linux community has some of the biggest power-tripping virgin male vampires you'll ever see.

Linus is the biggest woman of them all.
 
Not enough actual examples of problems here...

How about this exchange she had a problem with:
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137390362508794&w=2

FWIW here is Linus's responce:
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2

Quite honestly? After reading both I'm not even sure what either side has their nose out of joint over. I mean her reaction was unwarranted given what she was replying too, but even then her reaction was far from bad. I've seen WAY WAY worse than that. As a result of that, Linus's email just seems to babble on about nothing really important.

What a bunch of children..the whole lot of them.
 
Not enough actual examples of problems here...

How about this exchange she had a problem with:
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137390362508794&w=2

FWIW here is Linus's responce:
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2

Wait...

In the first email Linus is telling Greg that he needs to stop acting like a doormat and learn to shout at people. In other words, grow some balls. Sarah's response to this is whining about violence? ffs.

Sorry, not every workplace environment is happy fluffy vegan funtime. That has nothing to do with being a man or woman, either. There are plenty of women in the office that I work who talk just as much crap as any of the guys, been at it for years, and have sent plenty of pajama-boy "men" on their way to some other place of employment while the company has continued to grow.
 
Quite honestly? After reading both I'm not even sure what either side has their nose out of joint over. I mean her reaction was unwarranted given what she was replying too, but even then her reaction was far from bad. I've seen WAY WAY worse than that. As a result of that, Linus's email just seems to babble on about nothing really important.

What a bunch of children..the whole lot of them.

Yeah this whole tempest in a teapot is over ... posts on a mailing list. First world problems, yo!
 
You want to see a stressful and demanding environment, go shadow some emergency medicine residents for a couple of days.

If any of them "let off steam" with straight-up sexist and homophobic remarks, they would be out on their ass waiting for the next application cycle in five minutes.

And if you want rude and demanding, let's talk about the patients that come into an ER.

You make excuses, but they're BS. That sort of behavior is juvenile and unacceptable. The fact that you can get away with it some places is irrelevant.

Yep, another person who can't take a joke.
 
Wait...

In the first email Linus is telling Greg that he needs to stop acting like a doormat and learn to shout at people. In other words, grow some balls. Sarah's response to this is whining about violence? ffs.

Sorry, not every workplace environment is happy fluffy vegan funtime. That has nothing to do with being a man or woman, either. There are plenty of women in the office that I work who talk just as much crap as any of the guys, been at it for years, and have sent plenty of pajama-boy "men" on their way to some other place of employment while the company has continued to grow.

I read it less literally. Linus was advocating tolerance, and Sarah was advocating respect.

In an organization built on personality, you can get work from people through bullying and displaying and tolerating bad behavior, but it's not sustainable. Some people will work well in such an environment. Some will persist driven by a passion for the work and respect for the project but would may be capable of better work. Others will burn out or get offended and leave. Ironically, I see parallels with Apple and wonder what will happen when there is no longer a Linus Torvalds at the helm. At times I've found Linus' honesty refreshing but what sticks out in my memory are moments like him throwing the finger to nVidia or speaking negatively about others like KDE, Gnome, etc.

I can't fault her the desire to create a better, more welcoming community and share her passion with others any more than I could fault Linus for doing the same with the kernel he created and shared.

I've got to say it would be interesting trying to work with Linux if the kernel treated the user as Linus might. Do something stupid and the system berates you, tells you your horrible at what you're doing (that you suck at coding), and turns off.
 
I have a manager in a different department that is about 4-5 levels above me, his people have poached my ideas and in a few cases patented them without giving me any acknowledgement while the manager runs around and tries to deride my credibility with innuendo about my competency in his department's field and in mine. The level mismatch makes it nigh impossible to response to his bs because by the time it filters to me its stale. I would need to respond to it in the meetings when its said, and I'll never be in those meetings.

Work world is filled with assholes. What's new?
 
Ironically, I see parallels with Apple and wonder what will happen when there is no longer a Linus Torvalds at the helm. At times I've found Linus' honesty refreshing but what sticks out in my memory are moments like him throwing the finger to nVidia or speaking negatively about others like KDE, Gnome, etc.

I can't fault her the desire to create a better, more welcoming community and share her passion with others any more than I could fault Linus for doing the same with the kernel he created and shared.

I've got to say it would be interesting trying to work with Linux if the kernel treated the user as Linus might. Do something stupid and the system berates you, tells you your horrible at what you're doing (that you suck at coding), and turns off.


Ya know, Apple under Jobs came to mind also as I was reading through this.
You can characterize Linus as tough but fair. You could not say the same for Jobs.
Jobs was a cruel, vindictive, egomaniac that surrounded himself with sycophants. Early on he was so disliked at Apple they fired him even though he and the Woz founded the company.

I read a lot of the "controversial " things Linus posted concerning plain sloppy work on the parts of developers (like with systemd) and it was no tolerance for it. And you can understand why; you can't like buggy code become part of the Linux kernel and he wouldn't stand for it. Well that is what you call leadership like it or not. It wasn't personal, it wasn't vindictive, it was "do your job and do it right!"
 
His's last paragraph, couldn't agree more.

"Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm
not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearign a bathrobe. The
same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to
buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and
backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because
THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all
kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their
normal urges in unnatural ways."
 
The fact that he has to "fake" politeness says a lot about what kind of human being he is.
 
You obviously didn't even read the comment, :faceplam:

Well he's not polite, so he's really not faking anything. My point is that he should be polite because he respects other people and isn't a jerk. But he doesn't and he is.
 
Funny how she's talking about raising the level of respect and decorum on the mailing list while dropping f-bombs left and right to show that she's "just one of the guys".
 
Funny how she's talking about raising the level of respect and decorum on the mailing list while dropping f-bombs left and right to show that she's "just one of the guys".


LOL, yeah.

No such thing as a normal sane low level kernel developer. Part of the reason why the Linux kernel is so good, Linus demands a higher level of work.
 
If it was legitimate to question someone's credibility because they use profanity, them most of the working class people on the planet wouldn't be credible and even a few of the people who are above them and run in my circles wouldn't be very legitimate.
 
Cursing is not a big deal IMO. Even just being rude isn't that big a deal either. Being sexist and homophobic is not.
 
Cursing is not a big deal IMO. Even just being rude isn't that big a deal either. Being sexist and homophobic is not.

There are different levels of being rude. Maybe it was in this post, or somewhere else which was discussing this, but you can be direct about a problem without berating a person.

As other people have already mentioned in this post, the atmosphere of what's acceptable comes from the top-down, in this case, Linus Torvalds. And it doesn't just affect the kernel developers who make mistakes. The smug attitude permeates the entire community to which why many of us see Linux users as arrogant brats.

In that mail, he stated he didn't like baggage that came with being professional. But I don't see that as being professional, I see that as being corporate. Regardless, fake politeness, lying, backstabbing, passive aggressiveness, buzzwords, etc. all exist outside the professional world, and are already in the Linux community. It's human nature. Do you think anyone would really call out Linus on some of his idiotic decisions? And if they do, do the majority of Linux zealots say, hey, maybe Linus is wrong, or do they defend him?

The fact is, the bigger your organization becomes, the more tolerant you need to become. By tolerant, I guess in this situation, I mean professional-tolerant, not accept-everyone tolerant. There's a reason we hold our politicians, athletes, and other public figures to a higher standard than is realistic for humans.
 
I just have to wonder what the trigger was for this whole current iteration of womens this, womens that, womens this that n more social justice movement.

I don't remember any of this kind of stuff being discussed even a year ago.

It all smells like a political stunt. Given we're in the ballpark for the elections, i have to wonder presidential candidate started all of this.

It isn't even woman, it is all things. In the past few years we have taken a major step backwards.

Black man steals a car, gets stopped by police and opens fire. they fire back, police are racist against black.

Gay student is held to the same rules and non gay students, school is antigay.

student brings what looks like a homemade bomb too school, school calls the cops, they are anti Muslim.

state decides to actually enforce the separation of church and state, state is anti Christian.

It doesn't matter what you say or do, you are being anti <insert group here>. Everyone is always looking for a way that their group is being shit on or done wrong in some way. Every fucking day it is so and so apologizes for some action. Everyone wants to be offended by something in this world. And we are just encouraging that type of behavior.
 
There's a reason we hold our politicians, athletes, and other public figures to a higher standard than is realistic for humans.

We hold them to a higher standard? Since when? If you are one of those three and cheat, get caught driving while drunk or on drugs, do anything illegal... that is fine we understand that not everyone is perfect.

You go do half the shit that any NFL player does and see how long before you end up in jail.
 
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