[Diederich]

Note: this is a lot tamer than a lot of the stuff I've seen him post in lwn.net comments.

I have a lot of respect for their work. It's just a shame that their toxic communications will make the good things they do so much less likely to be widely adopted.

[qb45]

> It's just a shame that their toxic communications will make the good things they do so much less likely to be widely adopted.

You are talking as if they wanted it to be upstreamed in the first place, which isn't quite obvious from this email.

[hitekker]

/u/mikemol in the reddit thread has a theory behind the contradiction:

> I've no doubt Brad is smart, but the play reads like an attempt at a Xanatos Gambits where he technically makes his fixes public, but deliberately keeps them tough to use, so his competitors get horrid press if they don't use the fixes, but have to expend more resources than necessary in order to use them, furthering his market posture.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/6j7saq/linus_torvald...

[babyrainbow]

> their toxic communications

If you can't handle the truth, then every truhful communication can be "toxic" to you.

[fosco]

Excuse typos from phone...A quote from Randy pausch (0) last lecture(1)

"And he put his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it’s such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word “you’re being a jerk.” [laughter] Right? He doesn’t say you’re a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish.

(0)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

  (1)http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/

[quickben]

Now imagine Randy continuing with his behaviour and you having that chat with him once every x months. After few of these, what would you tell Randy?

Imagine Randy worked for you, or under you on a project.

I've been on teams where people left quietly or loudly because of "Randies", going through the pains to change jobs.

Will you still have the same response for Randy?

[fosco]

the situation here is a mentor told this to Randy. In that context, this conversation probably has more of an effect. in any situation I think the lesson still applies, a person will be limited if they continue their behavior no matter how much success they have, they could have accomplished more if they had dropped the attitude problem.

[qb45]

You know, one can be a jerk when others don't actually deserve his accomplishments.

Also, jerk-circlejerk is a construct sometimes used as a protection from overly emotional people to actually get things done.

[babyrainbow]

Have no idea who the guy is but..

> it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life...

Sure. But the counter point is that it is also going to limit what you can learn (and hence achieve) if you are only willing to take lessons wrapped in fancy paper..

[davidgerard]

I'm sure Linus has a lot to learn that grsecurity could teach him. No, hold on.

[fosco]

the last lecture is a good lecture Randy Pausch gave after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at Carnegie Mellon University, check the video out, I first watched it while in college and found it inspirational

what my point was here, is in this situation I think it is difficult to argue if Linus (And our IT community at large) had more of an attitude like the 'Lucky Ten Thousand' [0] not only would I think that have a much more positive effect on our code, it would in all aspects of technology and culture. yes you can easily have success with arrogance (I certainly have the problem every once in awhile albeit I usually vent when alone not at others unless it was started by someone else) that is not the point, the success could have been bigger and better if people worked together. personally I would like to see true open source GNU/source-phone(pardon the name) installation on smartphones so we stop having to sell our souls to apple/google/other major player and see solutions like that could be obtained with more cooperation and well reasoned and calm debate rather than inflammatory remarks.

[0] https://www.xkcd.com/1053/

##this part is a rant and can be safely ignored. just to add one more note, compare reddit and HN. I think you will find people solving more complex issues and having more elegant solutions and discussion on here rather than Reddit... I find it is unfortunate that we sitll need to censor ourselves here because there are some topics that generate very emotional responses (my opinion) rather than being able to have constructive conversations, in order to keep the beauty we have here we have had to self sensor some topics and that makes me sad, I love this community and the discussions we have here, but if we cannot figure out a framework to have healthy debates about taboo topics, how can we expect others? I realize that is an elitest comment but there are a lot of smart people here and we still struggle.

[weego]

If you speak the truth like an asshole all anyone will take away from it is that you're an asshole.

[babyrainbow]

Sure. But sometime, you can take away only that. but the loss will be all yours.

I mean, somebody can give you a block on gold unpolished and unwrapped. Sure, you can say, "How dare you give me that gold unwrapped! There is no way I am taking it. I demand you give that wrapped up property in fancy paper and tied with a ribbon." Sure you can say that. But the loss will be all yours. You got the shit anyway and gained no gold...

So the point is, if it the speaker who has to gain something by getting their point across, sure. They will have to be diplomatic. But when someone, halfway across the world is teaching you something from their ridiculously singular experience, seemingly in a rude way...

You shut up and listen.

[breakingcups]

I'm not sure gold is the right analogy in this case.. I think that is holding grsecurity's work in higher esteem than is necessary. Don't forget, the code is just part of the work. Ones attitude in contributing that code is another large part of what makes the work "gold".

A better analogy might person A be handing person B back an improvement on person B's own recipe. However, the improvement is written on a piece of paper drenched in piss.

Don't forget, the entire reason grsecurity is able to exist at all is because the Linux kernel is open source and because countless of volunteers and companies have dedicated their time and energy doing exactly what grsecurity fails to do, contributing back in a manner which makes live livable for the maintainers. Each and every one of them could've decided to not bother properly splitting up patches, to not bother documenting their changes properly, and they personally wouldn't have been worse off in a lot of cases. However, because they decided to use proper communication skills (eg. not be a dick), everyone wins.

[notdonspaulding]

I think the gold in the parent's analogy is Linus's criticism. And people want it wrapped up in kinder words.

> Ones attitude in contributing that code is another large part of what makes the work "gold".

Even if the analogy meant we were talking about the code being the gold, this wouldn't make sense. The machine only executes code, regardless of the attitude of who wrote it.

[breakingcups]

I don't think so. If you read uhhfcuvv's post it is about "the other guy", to which Diederich replies and speaks about the "toxic communication", to which babyrainbow seems to take offense.

[watwut]

There is not factual statement argument in that mail, so it can hardly be "the truth". Except the truth about Linus emotions (strongly negative).

It is an emotional outburst, not learning material.

[babyrainbow]

The comment I was replying was about the general "toxic communication" from these people..Not about this specific mail...