Linus Torvalds on his insults: respect should be earned.

What Hacker News said

Recommends yeukhon · 2018-01 · on “Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.””

I do agree his language and tone can be very painful to read. Imagine getting called a moron in front of the whole world, when you could have private conversation first with a smaller group. When I read his reply, I could feel the pain. I imagined I would reply back to him and say "well fuck you too." When I finished reading the email, regardless of who is more right or more wrong, I can understand and feel his frustration. I would absolutely go mad if someone messes with something I care about, and then have the guts to do fact checks. But I still think there is room to offer an olive branch, honestly. But given how busy he is, and how many shitty patches they get, I can understand his frus

Cites mreiland · 2015-04 · on “New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity”

[this video] But I honestly fall into the other camp that believes respect should be given freely. BUT that lasts until you open your mouth and say something stupid. I've had "discussions" with people about whether or not MAtz Ruby had a GIL. You don't get my respect for holding that opinion and I have better things to do with my time than worry about your feelings. There's a clear difference between someone with a differing opinion and someone with a flawed thought process. I'm ok with a person telling me C++ is the most horrible thing since sliced bread despite my love for the language. I'm not ok with someone telling me allocation/deallocation in C++ is slower than C# because some article on t

Cites nickbauman · 2015-11 · on “Software development: do good manners matter?”

People are less creative when they feel disrespected. If you're running a military or places like UPS, where your work value can be boiled down to time and motion studies, it makes a ton of sense to break down people's sense of self: they are being asked to become machines, after all. Torvald's recent screed on Management via perkele , where rudeness is encouraged, interestingly, was born from his time serving in the Finnish military. Could Linux be even better if he dropped this mentality? Maybe. He insists that by being rude you stop tacit political behavior which would undermine technical excellence. But this seems contradictory. Management by perkele is by definition a form of tacit poli

Cites fermienrico · 2018-01 · on “Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.””

Of all replies defending Linus I've read, this one hits home run. Linus himself admits[1] that his outrageous insults are sort of "jokey" and a hyperbole. That's the surface. The underlying tone is to get attention without getting drowned by political correctness. [1] [this video]