The tone may be a bit harsh but it’s muuuuch better than how he used to be during his most toxic days. This is how he used to talk: https://www.networkworld.com/article/706908/security-torvalds-to-bad-security-devs-kill-yourself-now.html
Linus definitely got much better at handling his anger since his public apology in 2018.
[I]f you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace ‘my kids’ with ‘sales people on the road’ if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place,” he wrote.
Hah love it
I can’t believe linus did a “KILL YOURSELF, NOW” before it was cool
reads the article
considers the triggers prompting the outburst
He’s… not wrong.
Not right, but definitely not wrong. There is a big difference between effective security and total security. He was dumping on total security, which in many ways is worse than no security at all.
Indeed, I think he just wanted to get the point across that it is a dangerous approach.
It was never a question of being technically right or wrong. Linus’ realization was that his inflammatory language was viewed as permission by other people in the Linux community to be verbally abusive to their peers. People who had been valuable contributors to Linux projects explained to Linus how they had been berated by colleagues, and when challenged those colleagues cited Linus’ own language.
What Linus wants is working code, and you don’t get working code by giving tacit permission to your most aggressive & abrasive community members to attack others.
That’s why I was particularly clear about him being “not right”.
Because being abusive is definitely “not right”.
But sometimes you have to make a point and you just have no other way of doing so, because the deed is already done, and anything less shocking is just gonna get ignored wholesale. That foot-stomp has to be loud enough and clear enough to be heard even by the people in the back. And there are only so many (frequently limited!) ways of grabbing everyone’s attention by the nuts.
I don’t agree with how Linus handled it. But I can understand it.
sometimes you have to make a point and you just have no other way of doing so
Well, that’s just an excuse for bad leadership.
Well, that’s just an excuse for bad leadership.
You can’t be a leader to people who have no desire to follow you in the first place. And you can’t force anyone to accept you as a leader.
The world is not as black and white as you make it out to be. Sometimes you need to throw your weight around for the overall good of the community. It’s why law enforcement exists within every functional community - there will be people who intentionally ignore “leadership” and break rules for their own selfish purposes regardless of how good said leadership is, and the only thing that will make them behave is the threat of social censure or outright punishment.
And Linus has no ability to directly correct or punish, so social censure is the next best functional tool.
That’s not even his worst stuff. That seems pretty tame imo.
I mean, telling someone to kill themselves is something that I’ve heard a lot, it usually never means “go and literally do it”, it’s more of an expression… But the fact that it was used in that context is just disturbing.
Doesn’t mean it’s ever the right thing to say.
Especially among professionals
I remember telling someone to go kill themselves was a generic insult in school. Same as “fuck off”.
exactly. This was normal years ago, probably at the same time he used it. I’m not sure if kids are still saying these things in high school, but in the workplace this is 100% out of place.
I could write another rant on the whole American ‘I take offense with that’ mentality. It’s political correctness of the worst kind, and as far as I’m concerned. Jokes are often offensive. If you get offended, the problem is solidly at your end. Think about it for a while,…
He has a point there though IMO, things are way out if control with political correctness.
Have you noticed how almost every meme here on Lemmy goes in shitposts? My guess is, it’s a safe bet, almost anything goes there, so I won’t be downvoted to oblivion just because I wrote female instead of woman. Hell, I know I do it for that very reason.
You should do one of these a day.
A whole calendar with classics such as:
Who the f*ck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?"
Damn, you know, that’s a pretty good idea, a callendar with Linus quotes 😂.
You could make the memes manually, or like a true programmer spend several hours if not days making a script that make them for you.
Yeah, I’ve seen the type… had a colleague in uni like that. And it’s not like he’s gonna need it for something else, but why spend an hour making them when he could spend 5 hours making the script to generate them in 1 second.
If this is how true programmers think, I’m sorry, I’m not a true programmer then 🤷.
I meant it as a joke, but the way I see it is as a “fast” and fun exercise where their’s no pressure and the only judge is yourself. It’s more about coding something for the fun of it.
I understand the logic, but this really seems like a complete waste of time. I’d rather spend that time coding something really useful than coding that.
It’s not a waste of time if you enjoyed making it. See it as like reading a book or watching a show.
When you have to do something once, do it manually, when you need to do it more often, script/code it.
Oh, and coding is much more fun then manual labour.
Depends for who… I also enjoy welding and woodworking. It’s not always about the end product, it’s about the journey.
And 12 times is not that much. I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna make another one next year.
I’ve been guilty of this… I justify it in my head by saying:
it took me 5 hours to automate a 1-hr manual task, but hey, with this practice maybe next time I’ll get it done in 4 hours, then 3, and so on until I can do it in less time than the manual task would take.
That is true though, I agree. If I do see it as practice, then yes, I would do it regardless.
Honestly Id buy it
I’d pirate it and donate directly to the dev.
The Daily Torvalds
Agreed
Also, someone should make a dedicated community to Linus Torvalds quotes.
Not mine stole it.
I’ve made like… probably 50 or 60 memes, but they’re not that good.
The follow-up discussion was informative and the original commiter learned something. We all learned something when we read the discussion.
Like I really don’t know anything about kernel coding.
You know that you can make people very upset if you do it wrong. That’s something.
Yes, that much I know 😂.
And it’s completely fair to be honest, a lot of shit depend on that kernel and code. If nothing else, it’s not nice if you screw up.
Dude, the first aircraft to fly on a distant planet runs Linux.
You want to not crash, lest you … crash . And fixing it would be so hard, that it may as well be on Mars.
I’d be so happy if he was yelling at me directly
Notice me, senpai.
At least someone cares for me enough to yell at me, right… RIGHT!?
YOUR CODE IS SHIT AND YOU ARE SHIT
Omfg I love this guy
(laughs at that guy)
(Also secretly hoping I’m not next)
“we only criticize people we care about. If you’re messing up, and no one’s saying anything anymore, you’re in a bad spot”
– Randy Pausch, “Last Lecture”
“It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.” - William Carlos Williams
To be honest, yes, this is very true. Politicans use this all the time… and I just hate it when they talk for like 30 minutes and basically say nothing.
“hurrr durrrr beaners!” – Carlos Mencia
That’s what I tell myself nearly every day.
I literally just wrapped a web app I’ve been working on for a few months. I’m so proud of myself. I take a deserved break and see this.
I hate everybody.
lol 🤣🤣🤣
Linux “Based” Torvalds
I want this man along with Richard Stallman and the creator of Slackware to be immortal
Patrick Volkerding. It’s amazing he’s still managing his own Linux distro after all of these years. And I’m eternal grateful for him refusing to adopt systemd and pulseaudio when they were both not mature and stable enough and most other distros didn’t care.
Most users actually have enjoyed both systemd and pulseaudio for many years now. They are both some of the best technology we have in the Linux world.
Yes, they are mature and stable now. But they weren’t when they were first introduced into Ubuntu, for example.
pipewire is certainly much better than pulseaudio tho.
Yeah it’s even better, I agree. :)
[citation needed] on pulseaudio being among the best technology.
Always a pain, pulsesudio. Pipewire works better in my opinion
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I love everything about Slackware except for the occasional weirdness and the absolute lack of package management from the distro itself (discounting third-party tools)
Meeh… Stallman, no, but Linus, yes, most definitely. I love his sense of humor to be honest, watch his AMAs from time to time, they’re like standup to me 😂.
My favorite anecdote about Stallman is how some women at MIT kept massive amounts of plants in their office to ward him off.
Lol 🤣, he doesn’t like plants? Didn’t know that 😂.
Both. Period.
Stallman has done more than anyone for free software. Just because you don’t like how he talks doesn’t take away the talent and the sheer will of the man. Linux should have never entertained snowflakes
I’m more opposed to what he eats
He has, no doubt there, but he’s completely unflexible. The FSF would be better off without him. Other than the GNU tools, there really isn’t much else that the FSF has done regarding free software. Like where are they now with the RH debacle. That thing is a dead on court case and they’re nowhere to be found.
I’d hate to think what other projects needed their legal help and they were hiding under or a rock or something.
Also, one of the main reasons why many projects nowadays are under MIT or BSD licenses is because of Stallman. The lingo he uses is sort of faschist. The only good license is the GPL license, nothing else. That’s no way to present something… anything really.
Stop idolizing people and especially stop idolizing RMS
You try achieving what they have achieved then
It’s possible to recognize technical brilliance while understanding that someone is a deeply flawed human in their personal life. I am appreciative of his contributions to the open source ecosystem while also recognizing there is a cult of personality built around an abusive egomaniac here.
Separately from RMS, idolizing anyone insulates them from criticism. In my opinion it’s elitism and socially unhealthy
Linus needs to make no corrections to his behaviour. His apology was needless.
He only flames those who make dumb mistakes, should know better, keep doing it, and don’t respect the gravity of the situation. Linux is used on MARS. Pretend to care.
There is a pattern to the people who get upset when they’ve earned a rebuke from Linus. Those people could get over themselves.
Well, kind of.
Linus needs to call out bad code, it’s an important part of Linux’s quality control. He doesn’t need to tell people to kill themselves.
Also, humiliating someone in front of the whole LKML list by calling their code garbage isn’t constructive. It’s the reason why a lot of people take one look at that toxic cesspit and walk the other way.
Especially when people look at him talk like this and then emulate that. Thinking that it’s no big deal.
Yea anger issues is no joke
That happened in 2012 and a lot has changed with Linus since then.
This reply ^
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it stands for Mars (A Remote Satellite (of the sun))
MARS stands for WAR!
There is no problem with reusing code, as long as you take some time to understand it.
that is the i-didn’t-invent-linux way to put it
The only thing worse than code I don’t understand is code I do understand that’s literally been copied and pasted sixteen times in the same file.
Literally encapsulation, its the first fucking thing they teach you in Dev 101, my fucking god people please I’m begging you!
I went to school for actuarial sciences but im basically an overpaid python programmer. If an actual dev evee see my code, they would shot in the face for sure (at least my boss thinks im a magician because I do in half an hour in poorly optimized python code processes it took him days to do on excel). I don’t even know what encapsulation even means lmao.
Basically if you need the same logic in two places instead of copying it to the second place you make it into a function and use that function in both places.
That way if you need that logic to change you only need to make that edit once regardless of whether you use it one time or one thousand times.
I don’t even know what encapsulation even means lmao.
It’s basically a fancy way to reuse code.
Samir! You’re breaking the build!
‘Shut up’
Dev 101 is not followed in real life… Sadly, caring about code quality is difficult or impossible when you work with others.
Then you’re working with the wrong others.
I didn’t pick them. :)
Dude, you don’t have to be a dev to write code. There are many self-taught coders out there. I do agree that they should read a book or two regarding coding pracices, but hey, you don’t like it, rewrite it 🤷.
Me, personally, if someone else made it, I need it and I don’t have time to meddle (I usually don’t), I just use it. With all do respect, fuck coding practices, I got more important things in my life to worry about.
Meh, maintainability is king. Sticking to the letter of the style law is probably not necessary, but ignoring badly structured code now is going to bite you in the ass when it comes time to change any of it.
It’s like a metaphor for Linux itself
Are you allowed to make changes to the kernel? Sure, go ahead.
But FAFO applies. If you come at the king, you’d best not miss.
Why didn’t he use any swear words? I am confused.
Insulting without using swear words requires more skill.
Idk Gordon Ramsay is very creative
He’s been working on being more creative in his social conflict resolving skills.
At this point he’s to coding what Gordon Ramsay is to fine dining.
