Linus Torvalds calls RISC-V code from Google engineer 'garbage' and that it 'makes the world actively a worse place to live' — Linux honcho puts dev on notice for late submissions, too
(www.tomshardware.com)
from throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to tech@programming.dev on 10 Aug 14:15
https://lemmy.nz/post/26671679
from throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to tech@programming.dev on 10 Aug 14:15
https://lemmy.nz/post/26671679
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Ah yes, Linus Torvalds, the man who convinced generations of nerds that it’s okay to treat others like shit as long as you’re “right”.
He’s like the walking epitome of “you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole.”
Edit: and the neckbeards who spring to his defense always screech about how everybody else needs to stop being so thin-skinned.
No, assholes need to stop treating people like shit. Don’t put this on the rest of us
I reckon it would be beneficial to everyone involved if someone else just handled public relations for Linus. Just add a filter.
That goes directly against the open, transparent development model of the Linux Kernel.
When you’re developing in the open, everything becomes “public relations”.
You are right, it was more of a joke suggestion.
It’s possible to acknowledge Torvalds as both a technical leader and overall smart guy, as well as acknowledging his poor treatment of people and generally being an asshole. A person can be both of those things.
Sure, I never said otherwise, but the problem is usually that people are so blinded by his being a tech leader that they excuse his behavior. Seriously, imagine this was literally anybody else, they’d get booted from their position faster than you can say “motherfucker”
Yeah, that’s what I mean. It’s possible to acknowledge his genius as well as call out his shitty behavior. We can and should do both.
He’s just guarding the fort. I’d rather he not be a pushover.
You can guard the fort effectively without being an asshole. I admire Torvalds for his work, but his behavior is still awful.
The world sits on his shoulders and there are people actively trying to dismantle his work. He has every right to me an asshole.
I didn’t see that in the business world. Assholes who were right did fine. Assholes who were wrong got booted. Nice guys that were wrong got promoted to management.
Definitely not to excuse it, but I think this is a not uncommon pattern in tech leaders. I recall hearing stories of profanity-laden rants to employees about their bad code by both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs during their leadership of Microsoft and Apple. It's inexcusable behavior no matter when or where it occurs, but I don't think Linus Torvalds is a unique case for getting a pass.
It’s not a position per se, right? You can do your own development
There is nothing wrong with treating people like he does. It’s not a kindergarten. If you do something stupid (like try to sneak in bad code before the cutoff) you will be called on it and publicly shamed.
You know what is shame for? For people to have incentive to learn on their mistakes.
Cuddling everyone and everywhere is enabling enshittification.
Indeed but you see constant comments condoning or even praising his shitty behaviour, like creating a popular kernel somehow gives him the right to be an arsehole.
I would like to see more “I’m glad he made Linux but I wish he wouldn’t be so constantly abusive” and less “haha he got em again! What a good rant! You’re the best Linus!”.
Turns out Linus stans are also assholes – who would have guessed?
I think "creating a popular kernel" is significantly downplaying his creation. Almost all of the web runs on the Linux kernel and I don't mean just web servers but also DNS servers and routers. Every android phone uses Linux. Most embedded devices run Linux. Anything "smart" is likely to run on Linux. If your car has anything resembling an operating system it's probably running Linux.
He didn't create a popular kernel, he created a kernel that runs the world you live in.
He’s definitely done a huge amount of work and been very successful… But if he hadn’t there’s a strong chance someone else would have. So it’s not like without Torvalds the web would all be running on Windows. We’d probably be using FreeBSD or something.
Or maybe Plan 9! Who knows, we might have ended up in a better state. Or worse. I doubt we wouldn’t have anything though. There are too many nerds who like writing OSes for fun.
This is a terrible take. If Linus didn’t exist, open source would be light years behind its current scope.
There are many sectors that have been completely captured by the “bad guys”. Luckily, operating systems aren’t one of them.
How do you know?
If you want to look in the operating system space, Linux holds the highest share of operating systems that aren’t Windows or MacOS. And that share is maybe 3% if you isolate it to just PC gamers, and much lower when you include general computer usage.
Could one of the BSD variants have ended up in the same position? Maybe, but probably not. Linux is basically a unicorn where circumstances lined up perfectly for it to become as big as it is today.
As much as it sucks to admit, the Linux kernel would not be where it is today without the additional expertise and man-hours donated by companies. That never would have happened if it weren’t open-source, collaborative, and free for commercial use. It also happened to exist in a situation where the cost-benefit analysis meant it was more worthwhile to hire people to improve the Linux kernel, than it would have been to create a kernel in-house or license one from a vendor.
Why not?
It feels like you’re ignoring network effects here. If Linux didn’t exist then something else (e.g. FreeBSD) would be much more popular and would be targeted by companies instead.
I guess I hadn’t seen so many people jumping to his defense on these things. Until reading the comments in this thread. Damn, son.
That being said, I’ve never read too far into the drama around Linus’s behavior, and I don’t care to. I understand he’s overly abrasive, and he has taken steps to remedy it, but I can also understand where you’d end up lacking empathy after years and years of handling PRs (and some have mentioned that he typically only goes off on people who are otherwise themselves being obnoxious–still not a good reason, but I can empathize).
I guess I hope we can treat Linus like a human, neither deifying nor demonizing him. Praise him for his accomplishments, and call him out when he’s unreasonably being a dick. It’s not good for anyone to normalize shitty behavior, least of all for Linus.
It is important to be able to call people out on their incompetence. Now more than ever. Bad people often hide behind incompetence in order to avoid blame for their actions, and it works.
Calling out incompetence and being a fucking dick are not the same thing, and the fact that people (you included) think that you can’t point out mistakes without being a cunt is the entire problem here
Yeah but you just called everyone in the comments who defends him a “neckbeard”
Yes, good job, me shooting my mouth off at Linus stans is exactly the same as Linus publicly humiliating people in what is essentially a professional setting, and therefore me calling people neckbeards invalidates everything I said.
I swear it’s like nothing has changed about Linux users in 30 years.
Kinda invalidates your point, yeah.
How can I take you seriously if you’re over here doing the same thing as him?
They’re not. Linus was being a dick to people who put in time and effort to contribute to a project. This commenter is lashing out after being mobbed.
My bad. Should have clarified. Even though the reasons were different, the actions were the same.
You can always say “hey, your code has so and so issues, therefore, I won’t approve this PR. Please fix and resubmit. Also, please make sure you don’t submit your code late. Thanks”, instead of insulting the person.
I’m a long time Linux user, and I wholeheartedly agree with you. Linus is a dick. He insults people all the time, and people have normalized it. He’s a fucking genius, but not a nice person. What’s wrong with just saying “hey, your code has so and so issues. Please fix and resubmit”???
He cares more about quality than your feelings. Boo fucking hoo.
Being nice doesn’t cost money
Right, and we’re all robots here who need to be whipped into shape? Surely there are no other reasonable ways to treat people who were born with a brain that, despite its marvels, still has a very primitive predisposition to process emotions and social cues.
That said, being a dick is antithetical to collaboration, especially for a project where people donate their time and effort.
Autistic people struggle with certain social expectations. I’m not excusing his behavior, just giving context.
Is he autistic? Sounds like a speculative excuse to me.
There’s a pretty good chance of it.
You really think he does what he does with a neurotypical brain? Haha OK then…
Yes I think it is possible to be really into a hobby and end up doing it professionally for your whole life with a normal brain. Why wouldn’t it be? Plenty of people do that.
Somehow ableism against neurotypical people doesn’t seem like the behaviour of a good person.
I think Linus would have some unkind words for you
This you?
Aren’t we glad I’m not the head of a globally significant OS project who publicly humiliates people?
If you were then you wouldn’t be a hypocrite, at least.
He’s not wrong. He’s just an asshole.
I’m okay with people being an asshole and also technically right.
This guy is just being a hypocrite.
If they want to clutch your pearls at Linus being abrasive and insulting, I can understand that.
They just can’t go into the next sentence being abrasive and insulting without looking like a toolbag.
Not defending him, but him as an entire person is why we have Linux
If he was different we probably wouldn’t have it
question: do you believe it’s as bad now as it has been historically? because the guy went to anger management therapy for like a year after getting called out last time, and i got the impression that things improved after that.
Engineer-types definitely knew that way before Linus.
Thing is, either you’re a straight-up asshole like Linus or you’re a passive-aggressive asshole like every project lead who believes in their strong Code of Conduct. Or your product is a failure.
And yes, people still need to get a thicker skin.
If you actually read his posts you’d see that most rants come when people fuck up, then brag about it or complain about Linus not getting their garbage and then doubling down in it.
Simply putting these things on Linus being a dick is unfair at best.
You also left out the little detail nowhere thanks to him we now have an open source Linux kernel that is used in more places… Not going to make a your mom joke.
I’m sure Linus is not the easiest guy to please but I’ve never seen him go off against some dude who didn’t do anything wrong, who didn’t say anything back, who wasn’t snarky themselves, etc. yeah, Linus is the benevolent dictator for Linux and so far I see him as a hugely positive force and I hope he continues to be for a long time to come.
After him, however, Linux will need democracy to survive, I think.
What Linus says to people is nothing, considering the importance of the Linux kernel in every-ray life. People need to get thicker skin
So if you’re important you can be an arsehole.
It’s not his role to be nice, it his role to be right. If your technical leader is more concerned with keeping people happy than keeping the technology good you are going to end up screwed.
These are not mutually exclusive things.
They both take effort. People act like being nice is free but forget how intensely challenging it is for some neurodivergent people to try to comprehend people’s feelings in a situation. Add to that the layers of language barrier and insanely diverse social structures and attitudes of something as massive as the Linux Kernel.
This guy made a pet project and accidentally became the one non corporate owned backbone of modern society. Maybe he doesn’t owe us niceties. If being nice to contributers is a critical thing you expect of your release repo maintainer you can always go find a different project to contribute to.
You don’t have to be super nice, are you trying to tell me a multi paragraph rant is less effort than:
Rejected
His pet project is huge, no doubt and we owe him at debt. You don’t get to stack up all the good things and all the bad things and say the good pile outweighs the bad, therefore this person doesn’t behave like an ass. Many of the other contributors make significant effort, are not paid for their work and spend their free time doing it. They deserve respect as a bare minimum.
“If you don’t like it, get out” has this ever made anything better?
Some people behave like assholes and hide behind calling everyone else snowflakes and thin skinned when they can’t handle the response.
Whether or not Linus saying this makes him an asshole is completely irrelevant, he was critiquing his code, not the developer himself. His statement about making the world a worse place to live is not even hyperbolic considering how much technology plays a role in our lives. I don’t understand this insane obsession with civility especially when the stakes are so high. As jerakor said, we cannot substitute code quality for being nice.
Bro was late and did poor work and that’s all Linus said. He didn’t insult the guy, he just wasn’t polite. Linus is plenty nice to people not actively making his job harder while he’s on vacation. It’s understandable to be short with someone under those circumstances.
This was my take.
Developer was late. That itself is a trigger.
If you rush me trying to sneak code in, gloves are off.
If I write here to you what he wrote there, my comment will be removed and I might be banned.
doubt
haha
heh to be fair he wasn’t wrong either… There are just nicer ways to go about it.
I didn’t complain about downvotes, you just made that up for upvotes, and again: this is a random forum and not a professional setting, your fucking “gotcha aha you’re just as bad as us!” is pointless and doesn’t mean I was wrong about what I said.
All the neckbeard Linus stans telling me people need thicker skin just proved my point for me.
Lmao is all good bby
I dunno, the lesson I learned from him is it’s ok to get help. He went and got some, and made working with him better for everyone.
Ooof, 105 upvotes vs 105 downvotes over someone calling out shitty behavior looks about right. Here’s a humble upvote to tilt you over to the good side.
But I used the word “neckbeard”, therefore my argument is invalid
Honestly that’s pretty tame given his history
Which is a fairly shocking thing to say really. I thought promised to be less of a dick a while ago. Guess he couldn’t keep it up.
Spicy Linus > mild Linus.
This is 2*
It is much less dickish that what he used to say, so he’s keeping his promise.
As soon as he’s not in charge quality is going to go right to shit though.
That my worry too.
Linus needs to be the first person whose brain is uploaded to a computer. He is simply too precious to lose.
That technology should run Linux. For stability.
He has taken several months-long breaks and things have been fine. There are other trustworthy devs (like Greg Kroah-Hartman) who he leaves in charge who do just fine at holding the line in his absence. They might not publicly shame bad pull requests as elegantly as Torvolds, but the kernel will probably be fine.
What’s stopping you from being him ?? I’m asking genuinely. Learn about Kernel maintenance
From Google? Probably vibe-coded crap.
So can anyone explain this? What are header files in this context and why are unnecessary functions especially problematic for them? Why would it not be up to Linus or not his concern what is included in the “RISC-V parts”? I guess this is all code for a Linux kernel that is built on top of RISC-V which I think is an assembly language, and not a modification to RISC-V itself?
I get the logic about make_u32_from_two_u16() being bad at least.
A header file in the C family of programming languages contains the declarations for each function that gets defined in the accompanying code file. Ideally, the header file should only contain import statements, some basic definitions, and function declarations. It should not contain any actual executable code.
A header file basically exists to tell the compiler “hey, these functions exist in this file, don’t freak out if it gets called before you see its definition.” Without the header file, you’d need to write the declarations at the beginning of the code file (in the header, hence the name).
So why is Linus especially upset about “pollution” of “generic headers” here, but considering it to be up to someone else what’s in the “RISC-V parts”?
Absolute code amateur here, but my guess is “generic headers” are just a copy/paste job from another program (or vibe code), and declare a bunch of really common functions that never actually get utilized in the code.
Sorta like copying the same import statements in Python, whether you’re using numpy or not
I don’t think that’s quite right:
‘generic’ seems to be describing a category of header files that are especially important for some reason, and isn’t being used as a pejorative to describe the rejected code.
The other way around. Headers are
exportcode, so messing it up could result in having one import fit two modules.Because header files are common and used across multiple projects to create a common environment or API between those projects. The headers are a shared space, the code that calls the headers (e.g.: the platform-specific RISC V implementation) is a less shared space and may be outside of Linus’ domain, so to speak. Basically, it’s like if two cities shared a reservoir for drinking water. If one city decides to mix raw sewage in the water at their pump station, that’s a bad idea, but it’s a problem for that city to deal with. If, on the other hand, it dumps the raw sewage into the shared lake, it affects the other city as well
DISCLAIMER: I’m just speculating, I haven’t touched c in decades and have no idea how Linux code works.
Generic headers here could refer to headers declaring common functions whose specific implementation might differ based on CPU architecture.
That is, the .h files would declare certain functions that other parts of the code can call to do CPU related stuff, and when compiling for a certain architecture you’d use different .c files implementing said functions for that specific architecture.
Obviously, since these headers will be common to multiple specific implementations, it’d be very important to have a standard or at least a consensus in regards to which functions they should declare, what they should return, and which parameters they should take.
From Linus’ quote there, I assume the Google “devs” (probably Gemini) must have included RISC-V specific stuff in the headers, which would be an extremely big no-no as it could break other implementations or the code calling these functions.
Holy shit. Torvalds is only 55 and that’s what he looks like now?
Holy fuck.
Palmer Dabbelt took it like a champ though:
Palmer’s pull request - Linus’ response - Palmer’s apology