DRM/FreeDesktop Code of Conduct Submitted To Linux 4.12

[muncrief]

I'm sorry to be so blunt but Linus Torvalds is an unrepentant prick. I was going to try and get into kernel development but when I saw this abusive monster spitting his vile venom at people just trying to help, for free, I simply couldn't do it. I would never allow someone to be so disrespectful and ungrateful. Really, I'm sure if he'd just retire there would be many more kernel developers.

[L_A_G]

It's not just "pressure". It is just being in an environment of being rejected or taunted and never getting chances vs being in a forgiving environment that is pleasant to be in. Where would you rather work/contribute to?

You really shouldn't think of this as it's being sold to people because it's merely a pretense. You can achieve the same thing by being much more specific and that isn't a blank check for getting rid of people simply because you disagree with them on something unrelated to the project outside of the context of the project.

If you want to see how it's done properly, just have a look at what Ruby wrote up when they tried to shove the exact same code of conduct down their throats. It's essentially what this claims to do minus the blank check aspect of it.

I'm sorry to be so blunt but Linus Torvalds is an unrepentant prick. I was going to try and get into kernel development but when I saw this abusive monster spitting his vile venom at people just trying to help, for free, I simply couldn't do it. I would never allow someone to be so disrespectful and ungrateful. Really, I'm sure if he'd just retire there would be many more kernel developers.

I'd say it's pretty clear that you've either fallen victim to scaremongers or then you're just making up excuses to not put in the effort...

Linus is actually very specific about who he directs his rants towards. The only people at risk of getting an earful from him are senior maintainers like the person who's trying to push this to mainline. He expects junior developers to make mistakes so he won't go after them, however he does expect senior developers to catch those mistakes and considers people more responsible for those mistakes the higher up the totem pole they are. What this means is that the real responsibility for the mistakes of junior developers sits not with those who actually made the mistakes, but with the senior maintainer who failed to pick up on it and pushed it up the totem pole to him.

[DanL]

Normally, I wouldn't care too much about this or maybe even be wary of it, but when people start crawling out of the woodwork and crying about the evil, evil "SJW's" conspiring to take over the world, it makes me want to support it.

[davykrocket]

So why is a Code of Conduct needed? Wouldn't that just make it more inclusive when they can just ignore people and point at the very vague Code of Conduct? When did peoples feelings become more important than the quality of work they put in? I respect those who have skill and can create things for everyone more so than those who only care for themselves and how they feel.

[L_A_G]

Normally, I wouldn't care too much about this or maybe even be wary of it, but when people start crawling out of the woodwork and crying about the evil, evil "SJW's" conspiring to take over the world, it makes me want to support it.

Supporting one thing because you don't like something else has never really been a good way to decide what to support. Just look at the last presidential election in the U.S and what happens when people do it on the large scale.

[muncrief]

"I'd say it's pretty clear that you've either fallen victim to scaremongers or then you're just making up excuses to not put in the effort..."

Look, I'm a retired embedded systems designer with decades of experience developing hardware, firmware, and software. And much of that time was spent managing other engineers, both senior and junior, and I've run into a few vile people like Mr. Torvalds. When they worked for me they got one warning and then they were fired. But thankfully despicable people like Mr. Torvalds are rare and I've only had to fire 3 people for abusive behavior in my career.

There is no excuse for the vile behavior of Mr. Torvalds, and he has directed it at many people, not just senior developers. In fact his abusiveness is legendary, and he himself has proudly stated multiple times that he's "not a nice person". In any case, it wouldn't matter if it was "only" senior developers. He simply relishes being cruel and vindictive, and again there's no excuse for it, and it's counterproductive.

I've had to deal with many different personalities in my job, and almost always found a way to guide and motivate them in a civil and positive manner. There will always be a few that don't respond or simply aren't up to the job but it's very, very, rare. In fact good managers pride themselves on getting many diverse, and often ego driven, technical people to work together productively.

Mr. Torvalds is simply a proud 12 year old school yard bully in an adult body, gleefully trouncing on anyone he wishes given the day and his mood. And he's attracted other like minded developers, who defend him to no end. This is not, and has never been, good for any project.

[L_A_G]

Look, I'm a retired embedded systems designer with decades of experience developing hardware, firmware, and software. And much of that time was spent managing other engineers, both senior and junior, and I've run into a few vile people like Mr. Torvalds. When they worked for me they got one warning and then they were fired. But thankfully despicable people like Mr. Torvalds are rare and I've only had to fire 3 people for abusive behavior in my career.

There is no excuse for the vile behavior of Mr. Torvalds, and he has directed it at many people, not just senior developers. In fact his abusiveness is legendary, and he himself has proudly stated multiple times that he's "not a nice person". In any case, it wouldn't matter if it was "only" senior developers. He simply relishes being cruel and vindictive, and again there's no excuse for it, and it's counterproductive.

I've had to deal with many different personalities in my job, and almost always found a way to guide and motivate them in a civil and positive manner. There will always be a few that don't respond or simply aren't up to the job but it's very, very, rare. In fact good managers pride themselves on getting many diverse, and often ego driven, technical people to work together productively.

Mr. Torvalds is simply a proud 12 year old school yard bully in an adult body, gleefully trouncing on anyone he wishes given the day and his mood. And he's attracted other like minded developers, who defend him to no end. This is not, and has never been, good for any project.

I'm going to say that this seems to be a combination of falling victim to scaremongers and you not understanding the self deprecating style of humor Linus uses. Because he genuinely makes a point of the fact that he only chews out very senior people and leaves junior people, who he expects to make mistakes, alone. Trying to frame his rants as if it's something he directs towards everyone is a pretty common tactic among scaremongers who don't like the fact that Linus runs the project in a pretty meritocratic way where unnecessary office politics is eliminated as much as possible. He's been specifically scornful of type of office politics where people aren't honest or direct when communicating with each other in an attempt to not hurt each others' egos.

The way Linus deals with ego driven people is essentially to force them to drop their ego completely rather just trying to maneuver around the issue using office politics. He often jokes about how the only one allowed to actually have an over-inflated ego in the Linux kernel development community is him.

[DanL]

Supporting one thing because you don't like something else has never really been a good way to decide what to support.

If it's the sole factor you use, yes. I was just trying to make people realize how ridiculous they sound when they start talking about "SJW" conspiracies and dystopian futures over a CoC on a software project.

Just look at the last presidential election in the U.S and what happens when people do it on the large scale.

I voted for a third party candidate

[microcode]

I'm sorry to be so blunt but Linus Torvalds is an unrepentant prick. I was going to try and get into kernel development but when I saw this abusive monster spitting his vile venom at people just trying to help, for free, I simply couldn't do it. I would never allow someone to be so disrespectful and ungrateful. Really, I'm sure if he'd just retire there would be many more kernel developers.

Nobody is forced to use Linus's tree. The reason Linus's tree is the upstream, is that it is consistently good quality. If Linus is a prick, keep your patches.

I'd wager, and many people make themselves welcome to disagree, that if Linus were higher in agreeableness then his tree would deteriorate in quality.

[microcode]

As for this change, though, I don't see why a code of conduct belongs inside the repository. If you want to put this code of conduct on the mailinglist, send it to people who seem to be violating it, otherwise what's the point of having a file somewhere on the filesystem?

The fact is, this is a sinister effort by sinister people. These people don't really care about any of the people supposedly "protected" by this CoC; they just want to tell you how to speak, because they are insecure and guilty. They're insecure and guilty largely because they are the exact people these codes of conduct aim to police. They are the exact people who have malice of intent when they speak to you. They want to present themselves as the heroes of this conflict because they know that they are the villains.

Any amount of capitulation to this nonsense will be followed up by more demands.

And the worst part is, it will probably hurt the inclusion of minorities in these communities, by making it downright dangerous to even speak to them.