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Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes August 2013 - Less Wrong
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Actually, that depends.
Mostly that depends on what the intent (and context) of calling me an idiot in public is. If the intent is, basically, power play -- the goal is to belittle me and elevate himself, reassert his alpha-ness, shift blame, provide an outlet for his desire to inflict pain on somebody -- then no, I'm not going to put up with it.
On the other hand, if this is all a part of a culturally normal back-and-forth, if all the boss wants is for me to sit up and take notice, if I can without repercussions reply to him in public pointing out that it's his fat head that gets into his way of understanding basic things like X, Y, and Z and that he's wrong -- I'm fine with that.
The microcultures of joking-around-with-insults exist for good reasons. Nobody forces you to like them, but you want to shut them down and that seems rather excessive to me.
I think it's pretty clear that Linus is more on the power-play end of the spectrum. Notice his comment above about the Android developer; that's not someone who is part of his microculture (the person in question was a developer on the Android email client, not a kernel hacker). And again, the shouting-as-punishment thing shows that Linus understands the effect that he has, but doesn't care.
Also, Linus, as the person in the position of power, isn't in a position to judge whether his culture is fun. Of course it's fun for him, because he's at the top. "I was just joking around" is always what bullies say when they get called out. The real question is whether it's fun for others. The recent discussion (that presumably sparked the quotes in this thread) was started by someone who didn't find it fun. So even if there are some "good reasons" (none of which you have named), they don't necessarily outweigh the reasons not to have such a culture.
That's not clear to me at all.
Note that management of any kind involves creating incentives for your employees/subordinates/those-who-listen-to-you. The incentives include both carrots and sticks and sticks are punishments and are meant to be so. If you want to talk about carrots-only management styles, well, that's a different discussion.
I disagree. You treat fun and enjoyment of working at some place as the ultimate, terminal value. It is not. The goal of working is to produce, to create, to make. Whether it's "fun" is subordinate to that. Sure, there are feedback loops, but organizations which exist for the benefit of their employees (to make their life comfortable and "fun") are not a good thing.
For what it's worth, I've never worked at a place that successfully used aversive stimulus. And, since the job market for programmers is so hot, I can't imagine that anyone would willingly do so (outside the games industry, which is a weird case). This is especially true of kernel hackers, who are all highly qualified developers who could find work easily.
I would point out that Linus Torvalds's autobiography is called "Just for Fun". Also, Linus doesn't have employees. Yes, he does manage Linux, but he doesn't employ anyone. I also pointed out a number of ways in which Linus's style was harmful to productivity.
Ahem. I think you mean to say that you never touched the electric fence. Doesn't mean the fence is not there.
Imagine that someone at your workplace decided not to come to work for a week or so, 'cause he didn't feel like it. What would be the consequences? Are there any, err... "aversive stimuli" in play here?
No need for imagination. The empirical reality is that a lot of kernel hackers successfully work with Linus and have been doing this for years and years.
Which means that anyone who doesn't like his style is free to leave at any time without any consequences in the sense of salary, health insurance, etc. The fact that kernel development goes on and goes on pretty successfully is evidence that your concerns are overblown.
As of 2012-04-16, 75% of kernel development is paid. I would assume those developers would find their jobs in jeopardy if Linus removed them from development.
Um, Linux kernel doesn't work like that. Linus doesn't "add" anyone to development or "remove" anyone. And I don't know if companies who pay the developers would be likely to fire them if the developers' patches start to get rejected on a regular basis.
Oh, and you misquoted your source. It's not 75% of developers, it's 75% of the share of kernel development and, of course, some developers are much more prolific than others.
Certainly he and his team are less likely to accept patches from people who they've had trouble with in the past? And people who have trouble getting patches accepted (for whatever reason) are probably not going to be paid to continue doing kernel development?
It would surprise me if he's never outright banned anyone.
Thanks for the correction, edited my comment above.
You are describing a (dubious) difference in word use, not a difference in how the world works.
I don' t think so -- it is a difference in how the world works. Anyone in the world can submit kernel patches. The filtering does not occur at the people level, it occurs at the piece-of-code level.
Linus does not say "I pronounce you a kernel developer" or "You're no longer a kernel developer" -- he says "I accept this patch" or "I do not accept this patch".
No, I mean that touching the electric fence did not make me a more productive worker.
I'm not saying that Linus's style will inevitably lead to instant doom. That would be silly. I'm saying that it's not optimal. Linux hasn't exactly taken over the world yet, so there's definitely room for improvement.
It's important to distinguish between Linux the operating system kernel, and the complete system of GNU+Linux+various graphical interfaces sometimes called "Linux".
The Linux kernel can also be used with other userspaces, eg. Busybox or Android, and it's very popular in these combinations on embedded systems and phones/tablets respectively. GNU+Linux is popular on servers. The only area where Linux is unsuccessful is desktops, so it's unfortunate that desktop use is so salient when people talk about "Linux".
Linus only works on the kernel itself, and that's making great progress towards taking over the world.
Yes, I used to work for RMS; I am well aware of the difference. I should also note that most of the systems you mention use proprietary kernel modules; it would be better if they didn't, and perhaps if Linus's attitude were different, there would be more interest in fixing the problem.
Also, desktops are where I spend most of my time, so I think they still matter a lot.
I use GNU+Linux on the desktop myself, and I share RMS's goals, although I'm willing to make bigger compromises for the sake of practicality than him. Linus does not share RMS's goals, so my point is that from Linus's point of view his management techniques are highly effective.
Pure hypothesis: Linux being unsuccessful on desktops is not a coincidence, because Linux is written in a low-empathy environment, but writing UI for the general public means that you don't get to blame users when they don't like your software.
Possible test: Firefox is fairly good open source software for the general public. What's the culture at Mozilla/Firefox like for the programmers?
Um. The claim by novalis is that the Linux kernel is written in a "low-empathy" environment. The kernel has nothing to do with UI which, along with most applications, is quite separate. Linus has no influence over UI design or user-friendliness in general.
There are two main GUI environments on Linux -- Gnome and KDE. I don't know what the atmosphere is for developers inside these organizations. I think there is a fair amount of infighting and office politics, but I have no clue if they are polite and tactful about it.
You know what Ubuntu is named after, BTW?
Well Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have similar reputations.
Bill Gates failed to create an organization that would thrive in his absence. We'll see how Steve Jobs did in a few more years (it seems likely that he did better, but he also had the famous "reality distortion field", which Linus doesn't). Steve Jobs also got kicked out of his own company for a bunch of years.
During which time the company tanked.
In any case, your argument was that Linus might have better succeeded in "taking over the world" if he had used a less confrontational style. My point is that the people who did "take over the world" used the same style.
How do you know?
How do you know? (other than in a trivial sense that anything in real life is not going to be optimal)
You're making naked assertions without providing evidence.
Well, I can tell you that afterwards, I felt like shit and didn't get much done for a while. Or I started looking for a new job (whether or not I ended up taking one, this takes time and mental energy away from my current job). And getting yelled at has never seemed to me to correlate with me actually being wrong, so I'm not clear on how it would have changed my behavior.
Upthread, you linked to an article which quotes someone saying, "Thanks for standing up for politeness/respect. If it works, I'll start doing Linux kernel dev. It's been too scary for years." I also pointed out, in my discussion of the rdrand thread, that Linus wastes a bunch of time by being cantankerous. And speaking of the rdrand thread (which I swear I didn't choose as my example for this reason; I really did just stumble across it a few weeks ago), your linked article also quoted Matt Mackall, whom Linus yelled at in that thread: he's no longer a kernel hacker. Is Linus's attitude why? Well, he's complained about Linus's attitude before, and shortly after that thread, he ceased posting on LKML. And he's probably pretty smart -- he wrote Mercurial -- so it's a shame for the kernel to lose him.
I can tell you that I, personally, would be uninterested in working under Linus, although kernel development isn't really my area of expertise, so maybe I don't count.
I hope you didn't take my position to be that yelling at people is always the right thing to do. There certainly is lots of yelling which is stupid, unjustified, and not useful in any sense.
The issue is whether yelling can ever be useful. You are saying that no, it can never be. I disagree.
The secondary issue is whether Linus runs kernel development in a good/proper/desirable/productive way. The major question here is the metric -- how do we decide what is a "good/... way". From your point of view, if you define a good way as "fun" for developers, then sure, it probably is possible to run the kernel in a more fun way.
From my point of view, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Is the kernel a good piece of software? I would argue that it is, and that it is a remarkably successful piece of software. More, I would argue that Linus deserves a lot of credit for making it so. Given this, I'm suspicious of claims that Linus' way is "non-optimal", especially if there is the strong underlying current of "I, personally, don't like it".
No, the issue is whether Linus's yelling is useful, or, whether yelling is generally useful enough in free/open source projects that it outweighs the costs. Specifically, whether "Let’s drive away people unwilling to adopt that “git’r'done” attitude with withering scorn, rather than waste our time pacifying tender-minded ninnies and grievance collectors. That way we might continue to actually, you know, get stuff done." is good or bad advice.
You should be even more suspicious, then, of Linus saying that it's necessary and proper, given that he's said that he, personally, does like it.
The issue is whether the person in question would have been a productive contributor.
Punishments seem to have rapidly decreasing returns, especially given the availability of alternatives that are less abusive. Otherwise we'd threaten to people when we wanted to make them more productive, rather than rewarding them - which most of the time we don't above a low level of performance.
I don't understand the point that you are arguing.
Basically all human groups -- workplaces, societies, countries, knitting circles -- have punishments for members who do unacceptable things. The punishments range from a stern talking to, ostracism, or ejection from the group to imprisonment, torture, and killing.
In which real-life work setting you will not be punished for arbitrarily not coming to work, for consistently turning in shoddy/unacceptable results, for maliciously disrupting the workplace?
Of course all societies have punishments, but that doesn't address the point you were responding to which was that Linus was more on the power-play end of the spectrum. The ratio of reward to punishment, your leverage as determined by the availability of viable alternatives, matters in determining which end of that spectrum you're on.
And that has implications for the quality of work you can get from people - while you may be punished for blatantly shoddy work, you're not going to be punished for not doing your best if people don't know what that is. The threat of being fired can only make people work so hard.
Um. How do you determine the ratio of reward to punishment for Linux kernel developers?
Also whether you engage in power play is determined by your intent, not by ratio or leverage. Those determine the consequences (accept/revolt/escape) but not whether the original critique was legitimate or purely status-gaining.
You bring up some good points. I would go so far as to say that given a) the amount of subjective interpretation from the observers, b) the limited number of first-hand witnesses, and c) the difficulty of comparing the small number of sample societies for which we have observers, that in the absence of evidence roughly the strength of a formal study, this thread may not be able to reach an agreeable conclusion for lack of data.
This is a shift of topic-- heaping scorn is one particular sort of punishment. Firing someone who isn't working after having given them several warnings is a punishment, but it isn't the same as a high-flame environment.
The claim, as I understand it, is that the culture trades off fun for productivity. A common example given is Apple, where Steve Jobs was a hawk that excoriated his underlings, and thus induced them to create beautiful, world-conquering products.
Also that the culture selects for the people who find being productive fun.