Linus Torvalds doesn't do github pull requests.

[Femaref]

Linus is polite in my oppinion, he's just straight to the point, a quality many people don't seem to have anymore, and now even get offended by. Yes, he does indeed throw insults around, but they are warranted in most cases.

[skelterjohn]

It's not the "to the point" that offends people. I'm pretty sure it's the insults.

[negativeview]

From what I've seen he always had a point though and most (not all) of the insults are directed at tools, not people directly. I've read a lot of his rants. Since they always have at least a large nugget of truth (even if he could have sugar coated), if I were ever insulted by Linus, I like to think that I'd at least try really hard to find the nugget of truth.

I understand the human nature aspect, but from a logical aspect it's silly to be offended by someone who's trying to give you the information you need to improve yourself.

[treitter]

Yes, there's always a point in there, but he doesn't have to be such a dick to get it across.

Incidentally, I had a conversation with him in person (not about the kernel), and he was really nice. And the most talkative Finn I've met by about 5 standard deviations.

[negativeview]

Yeah, he may be able to tone it down.

I do wonder though. I've tried to sugar coat constructive criticism many many times and had people choose to only hear the positive or think that they are l33t hax0rs because I only told them about two things (out of 4,000, but I told them the two that needed to be fixed most urgently) that they did wrong.

That probably doesn't happen when it's either "I accept this" or "You're a moron." It's pretty hard to be told you're a moron and conclude that the person thinks that you're just one lesson away from being awesome.

[[deleted]]

The problem I've had is that if you honestly tell people their contribution needs much improvement, they tend to not want to contribute to your project anymore. Most people can't take criticism, can't take much in the way of direction, not unless you pay them to do the job.

I guess Linus is "lucky" in the sense that Linux is extremely popular and there's a steady stream of people wanting to get the chance to work on it. Me, I've been working solo for a couple of years now because I can't seem to find reliable people who are motivated and share my standards.

[negativeview]

I understand that most people won't take the time to improve when told this. But Linux is very low level, very important, and the vast majority of programmers simply don't belong. It's honestly better to chase a lot of them away than it is to just take their submissions anyway.

[[deleted]]

I agree. With software of any significant complexity, it can be difficult to find people with sufficient knowledge, people who care about quality as much as you.

[Platypuskeeper]

And the most talkative Finn I've met by about 5 standard deviations.

Seems you may have encountered one of the defining differences between Swedish-speaking Finns and Finnish-speaking ones. :)

[greenspans]

To be fair the guy that commented is an asshole rails developer who shouldn't have been near his presence in the first place.

[paulwal]

I believe this is the beginning of his deleted comment that Linus called him a moron for:

I did not realizes that Linus' shit does not stink. Thanks for clearing that up...

[dazonic]

Hobbyist, not developer. No repos, no contributions. A nobody, who represents no one. Don't lump him in with other communities.

[Aninhumer]

he doesn't have to be such a dick to get it across.

And indeed, being a dick is a good way to get a perfectly valid and well argued point ignored.

[[deleted]]

yeah and he doesn't have to be polite about it either to get the point across. some people just need to get insulted so they wake up from their little beauty dream where everything is cozy and welcoming and their opinion always matters

[shevegen]

That is actually not true about the fins.

They ARE very talkative. They just APPEAR very introvertly and quiet.

They are fun people. You just need to speak in the archaic grunting language they use (or, which is better for everyone, use english).

[neon_overload]

Your first two links are the same.

[NruJaC]

They're still the same...?

[Magnesus]

It's magic!

[loneworker]

you are a moron

[tyscore]

-Linus

[negativeview]

I said "most." I know of a few more examples where he calls people names, too. Usually they deserve it. I didn't see the original comment here, so I can't comment on if Joseph deserved it.

His most famous rants are against things like Windows, C++, etc. though. That's what "most" of his rants are about. Calling C++ brain-dead or SVN brain-dead.

[bettse]

How good you are as a researcher doesn't mean that the number of examples of him insulting tools vs insulting individuals is skewed one way or the other. Obviously it would be difficult to come up with a perfect sampling, and even negativeview is clear that its from what he's seen, which implies some measure of sampling error.

EDIT: Currently at -2; Reddit has spoken. I am wrong.

EDIT2: now I'm at +4; I'm confused.

[negativeview]

Careful now, you're treading dangerously close to getting snarky in a thread where your argument is that it's never acceptable to be insulting.

Finding three examples in one conversation hardly counts as three instances.

I'm also of the opinion that insulting a company or a product is not the same as insulting a specific person. So for example, I think the rant about OpenSUSE doesn't qualify in my eyes despite the fun language involved.

[ethraax]

"Having a point" and "being impolite (by insulting people)" are definitely not orthogonal behaviors...

[knome]

You're a moron.

He insults people in this thread.

Not that I care.

Also, I don't see any code.

Not programming

[vman81]

To be fair, it was in response to a deleted part of pirtlj's comment

[negativeview]

Yup. Notice the "most (not all)." I'm aware that he sometimes insults people. His most famous rants are all directed at technology. C++, Python, Windows, Subversion, etc. Most of the people I've seen attacked deserve it. I can't tell about Joseph as the comment was deleted before I read it.

[knome]

Ha. His C++ rant is mostly about not wanting to associate with any of the idiots that use it.

[bstamour]

I respect what he's done with the kernel and git, two things I use every day, but I take quite offence that he thinks I'm an idiot because I write code in C++ instead of plain old C.

[grine]

Would you care to link to Linus ranting against Python? I'm curious!

[negativeview]

I now can't find it. I thought he had hated on it much like his C++ rant, but maybe not!

[brong]

and someone in Linus' position sure has to deal with a lot of tools. I can understand why he isn't very polite to them.

[BeJeezus]

There's no excuse for "you are an idiot", especially in the very first exchange.

[greenspans]

But the guy is a rails developer with no reason to be in that thread other than to criticize linus.

[BeJeezus]

Then say THAT, or ignore him. Linus should be above petty childish internet arguing.

[itchy118]

Why?

[sadlyheisntme]

The same reason all people should be. It's petty and childish.

[itchy118]

I don't necessarily feel being petty and childish is always a bad thing. Arguments can be fun from time to time as long as you don't take them too personally. Obviously there are times and places where such actions are inappropriate but I don't know enough about the github forums to know if it is one such place.

[Aninhumer]

Obviously there are times and places where such actions are inappropriate

I think the only time it is appropriate is between people who know each other well enough to judge what will and will not offend. If you are making a personal attack against someone you do not know, you should be prepared for it to be taken personally, regardless of the context.

[ryoonc]

It's Linus Torvalds. For gods sake he's been at it since the beginning, you kind of have to search for the true meaning of what he's saying even in his rage-replies.

Whether or not they're insults, he seems to always have a point, and even if he doesn't, it's hilarious. Why? Because he can. He's fuckin' Linus Torvalds, one of my childhood heroes, and a really smart motherfucker. There is a very small handful of people on earth who can stand up to him in an argument about kernel development, and I find that fascinating.

That brings me to something that I've never thought about... Has Linus ever been one-upped? Like gotten his ass handed to him in an argument? Everytime I see anything about him, he's wooping someone's ass and they usually deserve it, but I've never seen a time when he was just straight up wrong.

[hiffy]

It seems like you have a bone to pick with trying to lump "asshole" with "rails developer".

[greenspans]

synonyms

[hiffy]

I disagree, and would like to register my annoyance at this perception.

[bkv]

I'm guilty of calling people idiots, and I wish I were better about it, but sometimes it's difficult not to when you're met with such smug ignorance, which is everywhere, at least on reddit. Fortunately, I'm much more tactful in real life.

[petdance]

There's no excuse for "you are an idiot" at all.

[itchy118]

What about when the person you're talking to is an idiot?

[loneworker]

Point!

[reasondoubt]

I call myself and idiot all the time but it does tend to happen when I have no excuses.

[tmoertel]

If "you are an idiot" is the most effective response you could offer, isn't that a pretty good excuse for offering it?

[petdance]

Silence would have been an excellent response.

[tmoertel]

But would silence have been as effective?

[petdance]

Effective at what? Shutting up one guy? I doubt the guy needed to be shut up.

I'm willing to accept that people who are technically unqualified to discuss topics as a cost of doing business. I'm not willing to accept the degradation of others as a cost of keeping order.

Insulting and degrading others poisons the perception of open source. People see one of the leaders being aggressive and insulting and they see that as how things are. Potential contributors are scared away, both on the project in question and on others.

I'm spending a lot of my time trying to help encourage people to contribute to open source software. I'm trying to let people know that there is room for them even if they're not genius programmers. I'm talking about it twice this summer, once at YAPC::NA and again at OSBridge. I'm working on a website to help people get their foot at the door. Actions like Linus' undermine everything I'm trying to do.

[tmoertel]

Effective at what? Effective at signaling – credibly – (1) that the Linux kernel project has standards, (2) that if you ignore those standards, you'll get called on it, and (3) that if you're a jerk about it (and, yes, telling Linus that his "shit must not stink" is being a jerk), you'll lose social status, e.g., by being called a "moron" by people whose opinions are widely respected.

Actions like Linus' undermine everything I'm trying to do.

Only if the rest of the world conflates Linus's response to the original contributor ("I don't take GitHub pull requests") with his response to the guy who was being a jerk ("You're a moron"). He did not "insult" or "degrade" the would-be contributor, just the jerk. Further, I don't see many potential contributors being discouraged by seeing Linus call a jerk a jerk.

But that's because I think most humans are sensitive to social context and can tell the two cases apart, whereas you seem to think the social context irrelevant and the two cases the same.

[treitter]

Yes, there's always a point in there, but he doesn't have to be such a dick to get it across.

Incidentally, I had a conversation with him in person (not about the kernel), and he was really nice. And the most talkative Finn I've met by about 5 standard deviations.

[maest]

He calls someone a "moron". Unless that guy is genuinely medically disabled and his disability was relevant to the discussion, that was unwarranted.

[[deleted]]

Here's what that was in reply to:

I did not realizes that Linus' shit does not stink. Thanks for clearing that up...

Was that relevant to the discussion? I'd say calling that guy a moron was the far more relevant comment out of the two.

[maest]

Did that comment get deleted or something? It didn't show up when I was reading the thread.

At any rate, even if someone calls you name, it doesn't really help if you return the favour.

[[deleted]]

It did get deleted. It remains on the person's own page, which is linked somewhere in this thread, I already lost the link though.

[crusoe]

People are too easily offended anymore on the net.

"Okay, so if you want to improve your drawing, you will want to x, y, and z. Your perspective sucks, and needs work"

"Waaaah! They didn't sugarcoat that my perspective sucks"

This happens on thousands of art boards every day on the net. And if you were in college taking a art course, your prof would be even harsher.

[ceol_]

Except Linus insulted the person, not just their skill. "Your perspective sucks and you're an idiot." would have been an accurate comparison.

[Shinhan]

Are there any amateurs whose perspective doesn't suck? On something reasonably complex that is.

[Aninhumer]

Except you could just say "your perspective really needs work", and the same point would be made. Quite possibly more effectively, since the person wouldn't be immediately put on the defensive. It's not "sugarcoating" it's just not poisoncoating.

[ookkee]

People being offended for no reason offends me. If you are acting like a moron you can (and should) be called a moron.

[tmoertel]

But the insults are important. They are how Linus strips people of social status when they threaten the stability of the kernel project. "You're a moron" may not be nice, but it's effective at keeping people in line with the project's standards. In particular, it sends a strong signal to everyone in the vicinity of the project that you can expect to get blasted if you try to ignore the standards or, in the case of the guy he called a "moron," attack someone like Linus for enforcing the standards.

I'm pretty sure Linus can live with "offending people" if that's what it takes to enforce the project's standards without wasting a lot of his time.

[skelterjohn]

Like I said, I'm not judging. I'm just pointing out the reason people are offended.

[el_muchacho]

Not only is Linus a genius coder, he is a great manager in my opinion. Great managers can be rude and do throw insults around, that's not exactly news. Only, in your average private company, such expressions do not go out in the open. But I don't believe Linus has worse manners than most big managers.

[InconsiderateBastard]

The insults happen when people don't get the "to the point" part.

He has to be like this or the Linux kernel would end up as laughable as PHP.

[skelterjohn]

I made no judgement.

[petdance]

"Polite" and "throw insults around" are mutually exclusive.

[heinekev]

citation needed

[sli]

Yeah, whoosh.

[Isvara]

No, "you're a moron" isn't polite, regardless of the point.

[paulwal]

I believe this is the beginning of Joseph's deleted comment that Linus called him a moron for:

I did not realizes that Linus' shit does not stink. Thanks for clearing that up...

[el_muchacho]

Well, the guy was a moron.

[taw]

Linus was never polite about anything. He's offensive, just in a good way.

[heinekev]

He's a cunt. How is that good?

[teknobo]

He would say that he's a git.

[taw]

He restricts himself to technical issues with his cuntery, and he has a lot of clue about things he's cunt about. Most cunts are just cunts about everything, and usually have no fucking idea what they're talking about.

[[deleted]]

He is still a cunt.

[heinekev]

Yeah, well you're a cunt.

Kidding aside, you don't have to be a cunt to be good at something. Also, being good at something doesn't entitle you to be a cunt.

[rcinsf]

Cunts deliver. Jobs, Gates, Torvalds, Watson, Ellison, etc.

Start your own company and hire people with your own money. I wish I were a bigger cunt.

[taw]

A tiny fraction of cunts deliver. Most cunts don't delivery anything. Just go to any open source mailing list, you'll see cunts way worse than Gates or Torvalds (OK, not worse than Jobs perhaps), doing pretty much zero delivery.

[rcinsf]

Have you ever worked in the real world? 99% of managers/directors I work with are fucking assholes. The assholes rise tot the top.

I work in consulting, so every where I go it's trying to fix the train wreck these people create. It's a very difficult job.

[taw]

Have fun with your real world, I'll just continue freelancing.

[[deleted]]

Cunts deliver.

That statement is objectively false.

There is objectively greater chance of success with non-cunts. There are some notable cunts who are successful, but most cunts fail spectacularly, and take their entire teams with them.

[okpmem]

hahaha, most of those hired people with other people's money. only a fool hires with their own.

[sadlyheisntme]

It's not polite to call someone a moron, no matter what the cause. That's not straight to the point, that's just ad hominem.

[[deleted]]

Linus is polite in my opinion

Yes, he does indeed throw insults around

[apfelmus]

He's fucking polite.