Quoting: damarrinThere is a difference between saying "this code is crap because a b c, please fix this and it will be considered again" and the things Linus has been saying. They will be equally effective as regards the quality of code in Linux if in both cases the code is simply not accepted.

No-one is born perfect and fully formed and the expectation that someone who is just starting with kernel development will be immediately able to satisfy the code maintainer's expectations is nonsensical.

I do not find any sense on the argument about the hypothetical kernel development who is just starting. There is an established hierarchy and there are only a few people that Linus does care about. The rest will have to go through that road and that means no contact with Linus at all anyway. So all this makes no sense.

Also there are many cases (maybe most of the time) that you just do not want to accept the code. You do not want the developer to spend any time in any kind of fix because you are not going to accept no matter what. The sooner to clearly stop him the better.

Quoting: lucinosAlso there are many cases (maybe most of the time) that you just do not want to accept the code. You do not want the developer to spend any time in any kind of fix because you are not going to accept no matter what. The sooner to clearly stop him the better.

I fail to see how this has anything to do with the matter at hand.

Also, are only a select few allowed to submit code to the kernel?

Quoting: damarrinAlso, are only a select few allowed to submit code to the kernel?

Actually there is only one guy who is "really" submitting code to the kernel and that is Linus. Now that he left for a while he said who is in charge (I think Greg, I am not checking if I am wrong). So at any moment one guy and only one is accountable. That makes a clear hierarchy. Of course the code is GPL so anyone can patch and distribute but then it would be a fork. (many distros actually do that to the kernel but so far there has been no real fork in the sense that they keep getting the realises from Linus and do their little modifications. only google with android was close to really be a fork but to maintain a real fork would be too expensive.)

But we are not in the 90s. You do not send a patch directly to Linus. You contact with the people that are more closely related with what the patch does and the code reach Linus through a network of trust. There are only very few people Linus trust and will get code (probably without even checking that code most of the times).

Quoting: lucifertdarkthis is a show of weakness on his part & they're never going to let it go now, I'd say he's done for good.

Yeah, surely this is the beginning of the end for Linus the Gorilla.... It's only a matter of time now, that a younger male from the troop will step up to take his place. Such is the way of the jungle.

Quoting: GuestI'm also pragmatic; that Linus is taking this break and that a code of conduct (which I've read, and is not unreasonable at all) is being formally introduced is precisely because it's apparent that something _isn't_ working and there are attempts to rectify the situation.

This is what baffles me regarding people crying about SJWs and the death of the kernel. The new code of conduct essentially boils down to "don't discriminate or attack others while on our plaftorm or representing our community." That's like... basic civility that should apply anywhere. Assuming the people there were already civilized and humane, there's no reason anything should even change in the day-to-day. Evidently, Linus himself was lacking in that department so he's taking time off to reorient himself. It shouldn't stop him or anyone else from being just as critical and preserving high standards; he might just be less of a prick about it.

Quoting: SalvatosThis is what baffles me regarding people crying about SJWs and the death of the kernel. The new code of conduct essentially boils down to "don't discriminate or attack others while on our plaftorm or representing our community." That's like... basic civility that should apply anywhere. Assuming the people there were already civilized and humane, there's no reason anything should even change in the day-to-day.

Have you carefully read it? Please take a look at the [Scope section](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f/Documentation/process/code-of-conduct.rst#scope). This is a clearly stated witch hunt intent. I'll quote:

This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community. Examples of representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event. Representation of a project may be further defined and clarified by project maintainers.

It's not just about mailing list. Wherever you might post anything irrelevant to the project but using your e-mail or any other account, you'll be called out for that. And it's not a rare thing to happen even for your past messages from years ago. You'll need to watch your mouth (or fingers) each second if you don't want to be kicked out of the project and use that "inclusive genderless language" everywhere. Good luck with that.

And yeah, "when an individual is representing the project or its community" is intentionally very vague, it can be used basically anywhere if needed. And it will be.

Quoting: rkfg

This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community. Examples of representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event. Representation of a project may be further defined and clarified by project maintainers.

It's not just about mailing list. Wherever you might post anything irrelevant to the project but using your e-mail or any other account, you'll be called out for that.

But that's wrong. It specifically says that it applies only when you are officially representing the project (or interact within project spaces in any capacity). i.e. say you're posting on Twitter, you can say whatever you like on your private account, but not from the official account of your project. That's exactly the kind of protection many companies give themselves to avoid their employees giving them a bad name, if not more lenient.

And as mirv already pointed out, you added the bit about "genderless" - it only asks to be welcoming and inclusive, which frankly is subjective enough that I don't see it being enforced for anything short of telling newcomers to fuck off, unless the people in charge are trigger-happy SJWs themselves. In which case I'd say, write it off and fork it.

Quoting: Guest@jarhead_h:

There's a difference between being a harsh taskmaster, and being insulting. There's absolutely no reason to insult and put people down for mistakes. There's no reason why telling people trying to do improper things means you have to berate them. It's just as easy to keep it technical, keep it professional, and make decisions without insulting or being derogatory.

Put another way, if I disagreed with you, should I then verbally abuse you? I think you would be quick to take offense.

Why Linus has been good at leading Linux development has nothing to do with abuse. It has everything to do with making competent decisions and keeping development direction in check - something I've seen others do just as well without the insults. Linus seems to now realise this and is taking steps to address it. Which is really responsible of him to do, and if he can come back and keep up managerial role of leading kernel development, then things will probably be twice as good as they are now.

That's not to say that people can never be, well, frustrated, or can never make the odd obscenity. But there are limits.

Thank you, exactly.
There is a huge difference between "your code is crap" and "you (as a person) are crap". Saying the latter is not OK, no matter the circumstances.

We're a charming bunch, aren't we? :S:

Quoting: GuestThere's nothing in there regarding "inclusive genderless language". At all. So all you're doing is spreading a bit of FUD here.

There's nothing in there YET. The Code of Conduct will be ignored by the people that wanted it until they get a chance to use it against someone that they want to get rid of, then it will be applied to that person with a vengeance. Just remember that when it happens, not IF, but when, the Code of Conduct is working as designed when it chases off the productive members of the project. As others have stated, it already happened to FreeBSD. We already know how this goes because we can chart it in real-time over there.

This is classic Linus, the horrors of an idiot being told off(again):
https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75

This is my the most relative part:

It's a bug alright - in the kernel. How long have you been a
maintainer? And you *still* haven't learnt the first rule of kernel
maintenance?

If a change results in user programs breaking, it's a bug in the
kernel. We never EVER blame the user programs. How hard can this be to
understand?

And Linus is completely pissed off that he continually refers to everything that was working as broken, because his patch made working programs stop working. He swears at him, tells him to shut the f^&K up, calls him a idiot, and in general belittles the hell out of him. And he earned every bit of it. He didn't just own up, he blamed everybody else for why his patch broke everything. And then he agrees with Linus a lot in the resulting back and forth.

Oh, no. He had to READ harsh words. What a horror. How awful. Linus didn't even really yell at him.

I don't know, maybe it's my Marine Corps background, but this is pretty normal to me. You get it done, you might get yelled at a whole bunch with lots of bad words, and there's nobody on the other end shinning up a participation trophy for you, but you got the job done. Or you get out of the way so that someone else can.

Quoting: jarhead_hI don't know, maybe it's my Marine Corps background, but this is pretty normal to me. You get it done, you might get yelled at a whole bunch with lots of bad words, and there's nobody on the other end shinning up a participation trophy for you, but you got the job done. Or you get out of the way so that someone else can.

Maybe the command style of yelling at someone and calling them names works when you are under fire and need to force someone to do something. But as someone who has also been on the receiving end of army-style yelling, I can tell you that when someone lead me like that I did the absolute minimum that was necessary and didn't go out of my way to do a good job. I was also lead by people who gave decent feedback and under the command of those people I put effort into what I was doing and strived to do a good job and be efficient. Because, you see, if you expect to be yelled at there's no point in using any initiative, just do your thing quickly and hope you can get out before the yelling starts. On the other hand if you get good feedback and even the occasional word of encouragement you have a reason to do well.

I think some of the comments here show the damage that's already been done to the Linux community. When aggressive disrespect is equated to honesty that indicates a problem imo. This isn't how a boss, or a leader, should act in any job. If my boss shouted at me in such a manner, even if it was my mistake, I'm gonna be more resentful than productive. I've had the good fortune to work under some great people, and I've found that produces it's own morale. Someone who gets things done, but still supports their team, generates a good atmosphere that drives people to want to be useful to the team; they don't want to disappoint the boss. As opposed to doing things because you don't want to get berated. And just because dedicated workers remain that doesn't mean it's because of Linus's attitude; it's more likely because they love Linux.

All this nonsense about SJW culture just sounds extreme and paranoid. Life isn't black and white, that's just not reality. To me it sounds like a lot of this anger comes from people who are unwilling to accept this; unwilling to improve because they want to stick to old solutions. There's no magic bullet for rules of civility and ethics, there's no definitive 'SJW culture' out there. It's just humans trying there darnedest to communicate better with other humans. I have a deep seated resentment of 'corporate culture', but just because they create standards doesn't mean those standards are bad. They tend to be fairly humane because that's what corporations pretend to be: Human.

Lastly, it's ironic that the people who hold Linus infallible are also contending that's he's wrong about his own introspection; the fucking gall. As someone whose overcome, and still overcoming, emotional and behavioral problems, I'm really happy for Linus. Regardless of the kernel, this is probably a positive step for Linus's life and relationships. If that means he decided to quit (which he isn't), c'est la vie. Linux has been bigger than Linus for a while now.

And if people leave because they preferred working in a toxic work environment (or these paranoid fantasies), all I can say is good riddance to bad rubbish :P

Quoting: HadBabitsI think some of the comments here show the damage that's already been done to the Linux community. When aggressive disrespect is equated to honesty that indicates a problem imo. This isn't how a boss, or a leader, should act in any job. If my boss shouted at me in such a manner, even if it was my mistake, I'm gonna be more resentful than productive. I've had the good fortune to work under some great people, and I've found that produces it's own morale. Someone who gets things done, but still supports their team, generates a good atmosphere that drives people to want to be useful to the team; they don't want to disappoint the boss. As opposed to doing things because you don't want to get berated. And just because dedicated workers remain that doesn't mean it's because of Linus's attitude; it's more likely because they love Linux.

All this nonsense about SJW culture just sounds extreme and paranoid. Life isn't black and white, that's just not reality. To me it sounds like a lot of this anger comes from people who are unwilling to accept this; unwilling to improve because they want to stick to old solutions. There's no magic bullet for rules of civility and ethics, there's no definitive 'SJW culture' out there. It's just humans trying there darnedest to communicate better with other humans. I have a deep seated resentment of 'corporate culture', but just because they create standards doesn't mean those standards are bad. They tend to be fairly humane because that's what corporations pretend to be: Human.

Lastly, it's ironic that the people who hold Linus infallible are also contending that's he's wrong about his own introspection; the fucking gall. As someone whose overcome, and still overcoming, emotional and behavioral problems, I'm really happy for Linus. Regardless of the kernel, this is probably a positive step for Linus's life and relationships. If that means he decided to quit (which he isn't), c'est la vie. Linux has been bigger than Linus for a while now.

And if people leave because they preferred working in a toxic work environment (or these paranoid fantasies), all I can say is good riddance to bad rubbish :P

For good things to come out of this CoC, it will have to become more specific about everything that it just glosses over. And it should have sufficient checks against misuse. You may deny the SJW culture, but it is real. While it should mean acceptance irrespective of your skin deep characteristics, it has come to mean acceptance because of your identities. People who are speaking against this CoC have some very strong arguments which the CoC proponents have no answer for.
The potential for misuse is very real because it seems to be built for misuse. [From the github page](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/8a104f8b5867c682d994ffa7a74093c54469c11f#commitcomment-30587569):

Haha yeah it's not like the creator of the given CoC would instantly attempt to abuse it the moment it was accepted to go after Ted Ts'o, one of the most important members of the community, over his comments on something irrelevant a bunch of years ago
No, this CoC is definitely here to help the community be more tolerant, and in no way a cancerous tumor :)
No, that would just be intolerant of me to say that

[Archive of Sharp's comments](https://archive.is/H6Azs)

I am sorry but people here have not comprehended the misuse potential of this harmless sounding Code of Conduct.

Good on Linus for finally acknowledging his complete lack of empathy.

But honestly having a "Code of Conduct" beyond just "don't be an asshole" is just inviting doom at the hands of the SJW "community". If it has not already begun you will soon see a storm of snowflakes that's never written a line of code or head of Linux before that will be starting a mixed media shit storm over this in trying to out-SJW each other and destroy who and what they can along the way so they can climb the imaginary ladder of the SJW "community"

ps. I case you don't know what "SJW" means, you are blessed. DON'T google it, just stick your fingers in your ears for the next 6-12 months and be happier for it.

Quoting: baccilusI am sorry but people here have not comprehended the misuse potential of this harmless sounding Code of Conduct.

I understand your perspective on the whole, but where I have trouble getting real worried about it is that the kernel project adopting a code of conduct doesn't give power to people outside the project. It's still up to the TAB to enforce it and revise it as necessary. That's why I'm more neutral about it and consider that if the TAB means it to be as fair and level-headed as it is written, there isn't much cause for concern -- and if the TAB has been taken over by unreasonable SJWs, they're going to make trouble with or without a code of conduct.

Quoting: baccilus

Haha yeah it's not like the creator of the given CoC would instantly attempt to abuse it the moment it was accepted to go after Ted Ts'o, one of the most important members of the community, over his comments on something irrelevant a bunch of years ago
No, this CoC is definitely here to help the community be more tolerant, and in no way a cancerous tumor :)
No, that would just be intolerant of me to say that

[Archive of Sharp's comments](https://archive.is/H6Azs)

I am sorry but people here have not comprehended the misuse potential of this harmless sounding Code of Conduct.

Rape apologist is a strong accusation, but after reading about the incident I can't really argue with it. For those not in the know, Mark Pesce had a keynote at linux.conf.au 2011 where he included some weirdly sexual images, most notably a prostrate man in his underwear being dominated by a woman in lingerie, and a woman being choked by another woman from behind with a small length of rope (you can download the the key note slides at the bottom of [this](https://web.archive.org/web/20110220101351/http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/2011/01/28/smoke-signals/) page). This understandably put people off at this technical conference and the conference and the Linux Australia Council apologized for a presentation they said violated their guidelines.

A discussion followed in a mailing list where people discussed how the key note could upset people who've been the victims of sexual abuse. That's when Ted T'so went into detail as to why he thinks rape statistics are [exaggerated](http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0037.html) (For some reason he dismisses the sexual assault of children, as well as victims assaulted by a partner from his numbers) and dismissing the idea of [sexual coercion](http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0038.html) in what I'd call a critical misunderstanding of sexual abuse, ending with a "it's their own fault" narrative:

Personally, it's not an issue for me because I strongly don't believe in going to parties where
a lot of one-night stands are negotiated, nor do I like situations where a lot of alcohol is
consumed. So I'm also predisposed to not have a lot of sympathy for both parties --- male
or female, attacker or victim --- who put themselves in such situations.

Now, I've had several close friends, including one male, who were victims of sexual assault. Most of them were assaulted by a relative sometime in their youth and I can tell you with a heavy heart that it affects every single one of them to this day; which is why I'm baffled that T'so would consider child cases irrelevant when discussing how people could be bothered by such imagery. And not one of these were reported because the victims were ashamed or they couldn't get their own family to accept it (because it's easier to brush things under the rug then prosecute a relative). All because we live in a culture where the victims are looked at with intense suspicion by default; due to a paranoia that vindictive women will go out of their way to ruin people's lives, which is apparently more important than the lives of the victims which get ruined.

So basically, I have very little sympathy for this guy. Sharp's concern is that there's no guidelines for reporting inappropriate comments, no guarantee of anonymity, and that people like T'so could be handling these proceedings; which could understandably discourage people from using it at all. The CoC gives broad power to the maintainers. Ironically, you and Sharp have the same base argument: that the CoC isn't defined well enough and has the potential to be misused. But instead of just trashing it, she wants to improve it.

If you have any similarly framed cases just spare me; I'm not doing another 1+ hour of research to get the proper context because you deemed it 'irrelevant'.

A discussion followed in a mailing list where people discussed how the key note could upset people who've been the victims of sexual abuse. That's when Ted T'so went into detail as to why he thinks rape statistics are exaggerated (For some reason he dismisses the sexual assault of children, as well as victims assaulted by a partner from his numbers) and dismissing the idea of sexual coercion in what I'd call a critical misunderstanding of sexual abuse, ending with a "it's their own fault" narrative:

Have you tried to read just two posts before that when someone was using statistics to prove their point?

It feels to me that you are assuming a bad intent and trying to create narrative around that (such as saying that what he meant by this is "its their own fault")

Quoting: ColomboHave you tried to read just two posts before that when someone was using statistics to prove their point?

Of course, I linked to it in my comment, both of his posts (that 'someone' you mention is T'so, in case you weren't aware). Have you read the statistics and their sources? Because the more I looked into it the more arbitrary and irrelevant it seemed.

But first, let's get the context for his argument. The mailing list began with one person [talking](http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0009.html) about how they're very nervous about the proposed changes to harassment policy after David's key note controversy. From there the conversation is basically people debating these changes and whether women in the community have been given an inclusive environment, and how to implement one. It loses focus when people really start going at each other, but that's the basic discussion.

This is why T'so's comment seems to come out of left field; the only thread is that it is related to violence against women. However, he focuses on strangely specific kind of violence: forcible rape of women who were 18+ at the time. His argument is that the statistics regarding rape against women are exaggerated and dishonest. He mentions 2 studies, the National
Violence Against Women Survey (2000) and the Sexual Experiences Survey (1987); his '1 in 6' and '1 and 4' numbers respectively.

Now, we're already off the rails from the original discussion, but T'so goes further by juxtaposing to figures that aren't comparable. The 2000 study involved automated calls to adult women, amongst other queries it asked if the woman had been raped and at what age. 54% of the victims were raped when they were 17 or younger, but T'so only counts victims who were 18+ for no given reason:

Quoting: TedTsoIf you look at percentage of women reporting rape since age 18 (taking out the child abuse and statutory rape cases, which they also treat in detail), it becomes 1 in 10

He then goes on to point out that %61 the victims said the perpetrator didn't verbally threaten them with violence, for some reason. And then he makes this baffling statement:

Quoting: TedTso(Which makes it no less a crime, of course, but people may have images of rape which involves a other physical injuries, by a stranger, in some dark and deserted place. The statistics simply don't bear that out.)

This is where he really loses me. The studies never claimed to be focused on back-alley stranger rape, so this makes no sense. He already strayed from the matter at hand, but goes further by saying that the studies don't represent this specific scenario that only he brought into the picture.

Again, the matter at hand was about victims of sexual assault being made uncomfortable by the sexual imagery used in a tech conference. Does T'so believe people who were raped as a minor are immune to this? And women who weren't directly threatened with physical violence? I don't know because he doesn't say, in fact he doesn't say anything that relates it to the main discussion. What's more, since the study didn't have victims who were currently minors it implies that the number is already a conservative one, not exaggerated; but of course T'so did not count them anyway. For. Some. Reason.

Then there's the 1 and 4 study, the SES, which questioned college women, and only recorded rapes that occurred at the age of 14+. So this study's scope is even more narrow in terms of victim demographics, but it had a broader definition of rape, which included things like fingering instead of strictly penis-vagina intercourse. This why it's dishonest, or at least ill-informed, to hold these numbers side by side without any additional context, even if it was on topic.

I'll only briefly touch on the articles he links because they don't really contribute much to his argument and it will only distract from the actual argument. The first article,Researching the 'Rape Culture' of America An Investigation of Feminist Claims about Rape (1995), does contain some reasonable criticism of the methods used in the SES study; as well as more debatable and speculative point. But at least sources are cited, even if they don't seem to support all of her opinions. The other article is so light on facts and heavy on baseless conjecture (and length) that T'so leaves a disclaimer of sorts:

This is a more popularized treatment of the issue. There is quite a bit of anti-feminist ranting in the article, which you should try to ignore while looking at the arguments, which is that some of these rape statistics don't seem to hold much in the way of water.

But I won't ignore it because the author let their ideology bleed through any objective arguments they could've made; after all, would you take the article seriously if it was feminist ranting? And that's all I have to say on that.

In conclusion, T'so made misleading statements about a strange 'issue' that was barely relevant to what was being discussed. He had statistics, but he misrepresented them to make a poor argument. He acted like an ass, and I have little sympathy if his words come back to haunt him. Now are you actually going to contribute to this discussion or are you going to try and dismiss me with a couple sentences and make assumptions about my assumptions? Lemme know how "It feels to [you]", as you put it :)

Not only you didn't read the post, you didn't read my post. I asked if you did read two posts before the one you linked. And no, you didn't.
[TIL, Jacinta is called Ted](http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0027.html)

Whole your posts is just big strawman. To me it seems that Ted used the statistic "out of the blue" after someone else used statistics to prove their point (as I said in my post, but I was totally misunderstood).

To me, it seems that Ted's argument is that there is much more fine detail that is not being mentioned, like the fact that he mentioned that most rapes are coming from people that know victims and often from partners and not from anonymous people. That was mentioned right after the person before him said that 6% of people on said conference might be sex predators.

Sorry, but you are trying to push some narrative that is just not true. Please, stop it.

The last few post seems to be a bit unrelated.
To return on Linux, his Tourette syndrome is known for ages it has to cause problem one day but the timing makes me wory for Linux future with all the craps at Linux foundation (which works by giving power proportionally to what peoples pay). The community right now has pretty much no voice on Linux Foundation direction whereas Microsoft, Google and so forth nominate the board and makes all the decision. Linus is not someone that can be ordered to do something, but with Linus away the corporate world has its hand free on Linux.
So I will follow closely the next actions of the Linux Foundation.