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by phist_mcgee 1933 days ago
Jaded is not an excuse for abuse. That's like a parent saying that their children's bad behaviour is an excuse to abuse them. It is not ok to treat people that way, and no amount of being fed up justifies it.

Also I do not accept the idea that my job exists because of him, so I have to have deference. Again, this is an abusive way to look at things, and puts people on pedestals that they deserve respect, but we do not deserve it in turn.
1 comments
andrewzah 1933 days ago
I said part of the reason, not the sole reason. His projects have had immeasurable impact on computing, and it’s arrogant to dismiss that because you don’t like how he conducts himself.

He can definitely do better regarding his language, that I agree with. But this specific instance isn’t even against the contributor but against GitHub.

“they deserve respect, but we do not deserve it in turn”

Nobody deserves respect. You may be referring to basic decency towards each other. He earned respect with his work and maintainership over the years and decades. Abusive language towards contributors is not appropriate, but that doesn’t mean they -deserve- respect either. The first step to becoming respected is learning to RTFM and submit patches according to how a project expects them. And for basically every rant of his I’ve seen, it was directed at someone who 100% should’ve known better, not random new submitters.

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phist_mcgee 1933 days ago
You are 100% perpetuating the culture of 'deserved abuse' that I spoke about. People DO deserve respect. Everyone does, and I will assume someone is a good person until proven otherwise. People like yourself and linus create toxic communities of insular looking people hurling insults outward to people looking, and feel justified in their behaviour because they have trod the golden path to 'earning the right to not be belittled'.
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andrewzah 1930 days ago
No, people deserve common decency. Respect is earned. I think we're going to disagree on terminology here. I do not think every person is automatically worthy of respect, until proven otherwise.

Linus has already apologized for his past outbursts, and I do not condone abusive language to people.

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