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Linus Torvalds says something thread on HN. Prediction before clicking: Half of the thread, or more, will not be about what he says, but about his tone and "pr

Linus Torvalds says something thread on HN. Prediction before clicking: Half of the thread, or more, will not be about what he says, but about his tone and "professionalism." Never change HN. Never change.

aeberbach 12y ago
Linus has earned the right to that tone, care about Linux or not. Now when some unknown emulates it, that's the time to take note (and ignore that person ever after).
- currysausage 12y ago
  Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.
  - themartorana 12y ago
    Well quoted. It's always fascinated (and worried) me how the human brain allows for the elevation of certain people to God-like status, and then excuses behavior they would normally find abhorrent.
    - michaelcampbell 12y ago
      Erik Naggum and Tom Christiansen come to mind.
      - hollerith 12y ago
        The important thing to note about Erik's behavior is that occurred on Usenet, and unlike the mailing list or places like HN, on Usenet, there were (I have not looked closely at Usenet for about 12 years) no "owners" or moderators for a newsgroup and no way for the newsgroup considered as a "community" or a "collective" to enforce behavioral norms (e.g., around politeness) on individual posters. Individuals regularly complained about Erik's nastiness, saying (correctly, IMHO) that he was scaring people away from Lisp. Also, I never saw any of the intense admiration for Erik on comp.lang.lisp when Erik was alive that I have seen on Hacker News. The quality of his Lisp code and the insightfulness of his posts won him respect from many on comp.lang.lisp (specifically, those who accepted that there were almost no limits on speech on Usenet), but he would definitely not have been tolerated for long in most places on the internet where technical subjects are seriously discussed today (particularly HN, which has higher politeness bars than most such places) if he were posting with the same hostility that he did on comp.lang.lisp.
        michaelcampbell 12y ago
        All good points, but I would debate about whether newsgroups would not be considered a "community". A few I'd been involved in in (lord, so many...) years past certainly had all the hallmarks of one. c.l.l was large enough to have perhaps diluted that, but the lack of an owner I don't think is necessary. But yes, those were different days in different contexts.
  - wging 12y ago
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bovi http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bo... for others who, like me, don't speak Latin
- PakG1 12y ago
  You know what, here's a thought. HN is a place that emphasizes civility. Would Linus be allowed to act like that here, or would we say that he's earned the right to act like that here? Double standards suck because something has to break to accommodate them, and often the things that break are the things that everyone else likes when the world is a nicer and more innocent place.
- jburwell 12y ago
  This attitude is breeding the jerks and aholes in this industry. It is far too common to encounter teams and communities where in professionalism is accepted on a sliding scale of "accomplishment". If you accept this type of disrespectful/demeaning behavior from one "special" person then you will get it from everyone. Eventually, people tire of this type of nonsense and leave. You may be able to backfill their talent, but regular churn per mantle inhibits the creativity and velocity of the group. Linus is extremely fortunate that folks are paid very well to take it, and many very large companies (e.g. IBM, Red Hat, Intel, etc) have a significant portion of their long term livilihoods dependent on Linux.
  - btilly 12y ago
    Specifically the issue is that if offensiveness is considered a perk of being amazing, then people who think of themselves as amazing are more likely to be offensive to demonstrate that they are amazing. Sounds silly, right? But that is what leads to prima donnas.
1ris 12y ago
Seriously. If a community/somebodey cares more about how something is said more than what is said, said community/person lacks the allegedly so important professionalism.
- Goopplesoft 12y ago
  Would this have really made the top of HN if it wasn't for the tone though?
  - oldmanjay 12y ago
    is Linus cursing a bit really anything new? at least the conversation around it is amusing. I may never enjoy anything as much as the convoluted logic of people who want the world to work hard to not personally offend their sensibilities
  - Silhouette 12y ago
    FWIW, I unflagged this submission again, because amongst the comments there was some interesting discussion, specifically about automatic reduction of test cases and the kinds of tool that are used to do it today. (I did flag the submission at first, though. Someone being rude isn't particularly interesting, and usually isn't worth bothering to read either since any underlying point worth exploring will invariably be made more concisely and politely elsewhere.)
mzwartbol 12y ago
shots fired
Pacabel 12y ago
The most striking thing is the number of downvoted gray comments. Probably 10% of them are like that, at the moment! It kind of gets distracting when so many are like that. With that many being grayed out, I know a lot of them aren't obvious commercial spam or anything like that. So I end up trying to read them all, which of course is awkward because of how they've been grayed out.
nabla9 12y ago
I'm really baffled about this. Maybe I'm from older hacker generation (and I'm also a Finn). I just did not see personal insults going on. I would like to see more neutral discussion about cultural differences (between hackers and nations) and not opinions and own cultural biases stated as normative. Here is my personal cultural bias: 1. Insulting people personally is not same thing as insulting their ideas or their actions. If someone insults my actions or my ideas, I may get emotional, but I don't take it as an insult. For me it means that I'm being challenged. 2. Cursing is not unprofessional or insulting in itself. Cursing is to be used for emphasis and to get people involved emotionally (good thing). Cursing has its place to signal frustration and get trough people. Too much cursing is like underlining everything. 3. (Anglo American) business culture is not necessarily something to be emulated. Being overly polite invites all kinds of side stepping, passive aggressive behavior and ineffectiveness. I feel that "being professional" is used here as thought terminating cliche. 4. Some hacker cultures can be both fiercely competitive and cooperative at the same time. Being heavily criticized and challenged is part of that process. Kernel hackers compete to get their ideas incorporated into the same codebase. Javascript hackers borrow snippets from each other and do their own things (no need to be as competitive as forking is easier). This might lead to different hacker cultures. What is accepted in one culture is not accepted in other. 5. Management by perkele[1] is management strategy that can be very effective with the 'Shut Up and Show Them the Code' hacker culture. 6. Pacabel may have a point. Younger generations may no be used to their work or behavior being harshly criticized and take it as personal insult. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8089706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8089706 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_perkele#Examples_in_free_software_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_perkele#Examples...
- kghose 12y ago
  I think that the overly critical culture of many European nations prevents younger people from trying out or voicing ideas because humans are human and don't like being humiliated , especially in public. This is something I think we should not emulate.
  - nabla9 12y ago
danford 12y ago
It's like people don't think the same stuff is happening behind closed doors at other large tech companies. Forget to turn off a mic at a political conference? You get worse stuff than this.
peterwwillis 12y ago
My theory about this is that Linus treats his mailing list like a semi-public IRC chatroom (I mean, it is his mailing list for his kernel, so it makes sense) and HNers are not accustomed to that kind of cross-over if they've even ever idled on an irc channel run by hackers. It usually gets much more crass in there, so in that context these kind of comments make sense. But when you consider Linus is responsible for, I dunno, billions? trillions? in spending on technology based on his OS, it's also easy to understand people getting nervous or offended by IRC-style banter. It's like seeing the CEO of a large company make jokes about retards. Pretty off-putting. (And no, of course Linus is not a "CEO of Linux" and he doesn't owe anybody anything, i'm just saying I get how people could feel shocked or offended by his behavior)
dang 12y ago
This comment has added far more off-topic gunk to the thread than anyone else's. Please don't.

aeberbach 12y ago

Linus has earned the right to that tone, care about Linux or not. Now when some unknown emulates it, that's the time to take note (and ignore that person ever after).

currysausage 12y ago
Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.
- themartorana 12y ago
  Well quoted. It's always fascinated (and worried) me how the human brain allows for the elevation of certain people to God-like status, and then excuses behavior they would normally find abhorrent.
  - michaelcampbell 12y ago
    Erik Naggum and Tom Christiansen come to mind.
    - hollerith 12y ago
      The important thing to note about Erik's behavior is that occurred on Usenet, and unlike the mailing list or places like HN, on Usenet, there were (I have not looked closely at Usenet for about 12 years) no "owners" or moderators for a newsgroup and no way for the newsgroup considered as a "community" or a "collective" to enforce behavioral norms (e.g., around politeness) on individual posters. Individuals regularly complained about Erik's nastiness, saying (correctly, IMHO) that he was scaring people away from Lisp. Also, I never saw any of the intense admiration for Erik on comp.lang.lisp when Erik was alive that I have seen on Hacker News. The quality of his Lisp code and the insightfulness of his posts won him respect from many on comp.lang.lisp (specifically, those who accepted that there were almost no limits on speech on Usenet), but he would definitely not have been tolerated for long in most places on the internet where technical subjects are seriously discussed today (particularly HN, which has higher politeness bars than most such places) if he were posting with the same hostility that he did on comp.lang.lisp.
      - michaelcampbell 12y ago
        All good points, but I would debate about whether newsgroups would not be considered a "community". A few I'd been involved in in (lord, so many...) years past certainly had all the hallmarks of one. c.l.l was large enough to have perhaps diluted that, but the lack of an owner I don't think is necessary. But yes, those were different days in different contexts.
- wging 12y ago
  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bovi http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bo... for others who, like me, don't speak Latin
PakG1 12y ago
You know what, here's a thought. HN is a place that emphasizes civility. Would Linus be allowed to act like that here, or would we say that he's earned the right to act like that here? Double standards suck because something has to break to accommodate them, and often the things that break are the things that everyone else likes when the world is a nicer and more innocent place.
jburwell 12y ago
This attitude is breeding the jerks and aholes in this industry. It is far too common to encounter teams and communities where in professionalism is accepted on a sliding scale of "accomplishment". If you accept this type of disrespectful/demeaning behavior from one "special" person then you will get it from everyone. Eventually, people tire of this type of nonsense and leave. You may be able to backfill their talent, but regular churn per mantle inhibits the creativity and velocity of the group. Linus is extremely fortunate that folks are paid very well to take it, and many very large companies (e.g. IBM, Red Hat, Intel, etc) have a significant portion of their long term livilihoods dependent on Linux.
- btilly 12y ago
  Specifically the issue is that if offensiveness is considered a perk of being amazing, then people who think of themselves as amazing are more likely to be offensive to demonstrate that they are amazing. Sounds silly, right? But that is what leads to prima donnas.

1ris 12y ago

Seriously. If a community/somebodey cares more about how something is said more than what is said, said community/person lacks the allegedly so important professionalism.

Goopplesoft 12y ago
Would this have really made the top of HN if it wasn't for the tone though?
- oldmanjay 12y ago
  is Linus cursing a bit really anything new? at least the conversation around it is amusing. I may never enjoy anything as much as the convoluted logic of people who want the world to work hard to not personally offend their sensibilities
- Silhouette 12y ago
  FWIW, I unflagged this submission again, because amongst the comments there was some interesting discussion, specifically about automatic reduction of test cases and the kinds of tool that are used to do it today. (I did flag the submission at first, though. Someone being rude isn't particularly interesting, and usually isn't worth bothering to read either since any underlying point worth exploring will invariably be made more concisely and politely elsewhere.)

mzwartbol 12y ago

shots fired

Pacabel 12y ago

The most striking thing is the number of downvoted gray comments. Probably 10% of them are like that, at the moment! It kind of gets distracting when so many are like that. With that many being grayed out, I know a lot of them aren't obvious commercial spam or anything like that. So I end up trying to read them all, which of course is awkward because of how they've been grayed out.

nabla9 12y ago

I'm really baffled about this. Maybe I'm from older hacker generation (and I'm also a Finn). I just did not see personal insults going on. I would like to see more neutral discussion about cultural differences (between hackers and nations) and not opinions and own cultural biases stated as normative. Here is my personal cultural bias: 1. Insulting people personally is not same thing as insulting their ideas or their actions. If someone insults my actions or my ideas, I may get emotional, but I don't take it as an insult. For me it means that I'm being challenged. 2. Cursing is not unprofessional or insulting in itself. Cursing is to be used for emphasis and to get people involved emotionally (good thing). Cursing has its place to signal frustration and get trough people. Too much cursing is like underlining everything. 3. (Anglo American) business culture is not necessarily something to be emulated. Being overly polite invites all kinds of side stepping, passive aggressive behavior and ineffectiveness. I feel that "being professional" is used here as thought terminating cliche. 4. Some hacker cultures can be both fiercely competitive and cooperative at the same time. Being heavily criticized and challenged is part of that process. Kernel hackers compete to get their ideas incorporated into the same codebase. Javascript hackers borrow snippets from each other and do their own things (no need to be as competitive as forking is easier). This might lead to different hacker cultures. What is accepted in one culture is not accepted in other. 5. Management by perkele[1] is management strategy that can be very effective with the 'Shut Up and Show Them the Code' hacker culture. 6. Pacabel may have a point. Younger generations may no be used to their work or behavior being harshly criticized and take it as personal insult. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8089706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8089706 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_perkele#Examples_in_free_software_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_perkele#Examples...

kghose 12y ago
I think that the overly critical culture of many European nations prevents younger people from trying out or voicing ideas because humans are human and don't like being humiliated , especially in public. This is something I think we should not emulate.
- nabla9 12y ago

danford 12y ago

It's like people don't think the same stuff is happening behind closed doors at other large tech companies. Forget to turn off a mic at a political conference? You get worse stuff than this.

peterwwillis 12y ago

My theory about this is that Linus treats his mailing list like a semi-public IRC chatroom (I mean, it is his mailing list for his kernel, so it makes sense) and HNers are not accustomed to that kind of cross-over if they've even ever idled on an irc channel run by hackers. It usually gets much more crass in there, so in that context these kind of comments make sense. But when you consider Linus is responsible for, I dunno, billions? trillions? in spending on technology based on his OS, it's also easy to understand people getting nervous or offended by IRC-style banter. It's like seeing the CEO of a large company make jokes about retards. Pretty off-putting. (And no, of course Linus is not a "CEO of Linux" and he doesn't owe anybody anything, i'm just saying I get how people could feel shocked or offended by his behavior)

dang 12y ago

This comment has added far more off-topic gunk to the thread than anyone else's. Please don't.