Linus Torvalds, the man behind the code.

L.Jenkins

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-why-he-isnt-nice-i-dont-care-about-you/

A good article on the insights of Linus Torvalds and how little he cares for kernel developers and maintainers. He worries more for technology and the kernel itself. I must say, I respect his brutal honesty.

Aswerty

The more I come across articles regarding him the less regard I hold him in – he seems like a proper bell end. Saying that I'm typing this on an OS running on top of the Linux kernel...

syklops

Afterward, another question from the audience asked for Torvalds' thoughts on diversity in the open source community, an issue emphasized by the lack of minority keynote speakers at the Auckland event

Fecks sake, no wonder he got annoyed.

Question 1: Why are you sometimes not nice?
Question 2: What are your thoughts on there being very few women in Open Source?

Linus: "The hell?"? I thought this was a developer conference?!?"

Johnboy1951

I doubt I could care less what he is like as a person or how he behaves towards others ...... all I really care about is the end result - the kernel.

Neither do his views on diverse matters matter to me.

moc moc a moc

"What are your thoughts on there being very few women in Open Source?"

"I think there are very few women in Open Source. Next?"

jimgoose

Linus is a prick. So am I. Next!!

nibble

I like him - speaks his mind, no bs. Everyone seems to be under such an onus to be PC, accepting and never cause offence now.

L.Jenkins

nibble wrote: »

I like him - speaks his mind, no bs. Everyone seems to be under such an onus to be PC, accepting and never cause offence now.

If I were to create something as widely used as the Linux Kernel, I'd be some what of an ásshole and non PC, if people were to try and shít all over my work. As for minority groups and women working with the Kernel, if it doesn't interest people, you can't exactly twist their arms to do so, but you can make them aware of it and that their input is an option if they so chose.

c_man

He seems like a complete asshole to me tbh. Perhaps re-enforced by the fact that the majority of the time when he comes up in conversation, that it more often than not involves a story about him berating others, or being an outright dick to someone. Get over yourself ffs.

jimgoose

c_man wrote: »

He seems like a complete asshole to me tbh. Perhaps re-enforced by the fact that the majority of the time when he comes up in conversation, that it more often than not involves a story about him berating others, or being an outright dick to someone. Get over yourself ffs.

Yes, oddly enough he'd make a wonderful sysadmin.

CiniO

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I doubt I could care less what he is like as a person or how he behaves towards others ...... all I really care about is the end result - the kernel.

Well Hans Reiser wasn't too nice to his wife, and now who uses ReiserFS anymore?

limnam

CiniO wrote: »

Well Hans Reiser wasn't too nice to his wife, and now who uses ReiserFS anymore?

There was a number of technical reasons that the small amount of systems that moved to Reiser moved away from it.

You're suggesting that calling someone a fcking idiot and murder are much of the same? I think this thread has ran it's course.

syklops

I read a thread between him and a developer on a kernel bug posting a while back. The dev had made a change which broke functionality for a number of users. Linus's mentality was when a kernel change breaks userspace functionality it impacts thousands of users, and so the dev should f%&king fix it. Having been on the end of kernel updates which broke stuff I completely agree with the sentiment. Just because its a volunteer organisation doesn't mean work can be shoddy.

Aswerty

syklops wrote: »

I read a thread between him and a developer on a kernel bug posting a while. The dev had made a change which broke functionality for a number of users. Linus's mentality was when a kernel change breaks userspace functionality it impacts thousands of users, and so the dev should f%&king fix it. Having been on the end of kernel updates which broke stuff I completely agree with the sentiment. Just because its a volunteer organisation doesn't mean work can be shoddy.

Yeah I'd seen that. I think the general gist of it was that people thought criticism should be given without people being dicks about it. Linus seems to be under the impression that not being a dick is being too corporate or some nonsense like that.

Then again that stuff turned into an internet soap opera so I wouldn't really read too much into it.

L.Jenkins

syklops wrote: »

I read a thread between him and a developer on a kernel bug posting a while back. The dev had made a change which broke functionality for a number of users. Linus's mentality was when a kernel change breaks userspace functionality it impacts thousands of users, and so the dev should f%&king fix it. Having been on the end of kernel updates which broke stuff I completely agree with the sentiment. Just because its a volunteer organisation doesn't mean work can be shoddy.

Which in eyes would give reason to why he can be an ásshole at times. If it were a Company he was running, like Microsoft for example, he could give the Developer the boot. Since Linux relies heavily on volunteer developers and admins, I suppose he would have no other choice but to be an ásshole to ensure that the kernel is of acceptable quality and fit for purpose.

Hotblack Desiato

limnam wrote: »

There was a number of technical reasons that the small amount of systems that moved to Reiser moved away from it.

Yes there were, although in retrospect it's often been linked to the criminal charges against Hans Reiser, that wasn't the case at the time. ReiserFS was the default filesystem on new installs of SUSE for several years, and no doubt it wasn't the only distro. Here's a mailing list post explaining the reasons for moving away from it (before Reiser's wife's disappearance was known)

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2006-09/msg00542.html