I don't read it as celebrating abuse. clearly there are better ways to correct peoples mistakes. As adults I think we all recognize that. I assumed the upvotes were because Linus is setting the high expectation that we don't see from Paid OS and Paid software. He is defending the philosophy of the next kernel should not destroy all the downstream work people put in. I'm currently working at a place that sells 3rd party software. It is an expensive product and touted as backward compatibility for 40+ years, and their newer versions have taken a F@©k Y0U approach to users. People with decades of files are now getting screwed and the software company turns down regression and bug reports and wants them submitted as feature enhancements. LOL WTF. I wish I could share this letter with their developers and management.

While Linus went overboard (as he has a history of doing, and as has also caused negativity to the community), this post is still very well liked because it appears to be a strong example of someone calling out the BS that a lot of developers like to throw around. No one's going to join in a circle celebrating Linus picking on some first time contributor who didn't know any better, but that's how it sounds like you're interpreting the post.

To add some context, there's a toxic superiority complex that many developers have where they jump to blame others for issues that actually relate to their code. You can see this anywhere from developers who immediately blame users without investigating to software developers within companies who are quick to pass off issues as not their team's problem.

So, in this example Linus is actually calling one of these developers out, which is why the post is very well-received.

I don't think it's necessarily a celebration of abuse. I agree that he's obviously way out of line sending this email.

I think Linus is (was) a complete asshole who lacks interpersonal skills, and this email exemplifies his character. To me, this post shows the mentality of some developers (and leadership) in FOSS and why some folks find it difficult to contribute to open-source software. This post opens up the discussion on that.

FWIW, I've received zero reports on this post itself. But I've received reports on abusive comments in this post, which I've promptly removed. This community is more/less self-moderating and if the post receives a significant positive vote ratio, I don't think it should be removed by me. It brings an important discussion to the table regarding acceptable behavior in software development.

I respectfully, and fully disagree with you.

Well, yeah. Gaslighting is kinda abusive. Don't worry, after Linus' explaination Mauro understood it.

Do some of you agree with any of it?

Mauro does. Here's proof:

I'll copy and paste what I wrote elsewhere:

To add context:

Linus only reacted this way to people who really should have known better. This isn't a "here is my first ever patch, I read all the rules and I hope I didn't break any" situation. The person he is chewing out is a kernel maintainer. They are someone who is experienced and trusted and Linus was rightly angry that this poor quality work was submitted.

However... Linus has also worked a lot on himself in the past few years, fully acknowledging that he shouldn't behave this harshly when someone fucks up. If the same situation was to present itself today, he would be much more professional, but would probably still be a bit angry and you'd know about it.

Linus is a flawed human being, but credit where it is due, he has worked on some of his character flaws.

And I'll add: This is the internet. There is no "taking down" of this. In fact, you're getting angry over a screenshot of the original. Once it's out there, it's never getting removed.

I couldn't disagree more with you, and I truly feel that the lack of being direct is why we have an overwhelming amount of mediocrity in the "professional" corporate world. When everyone is just nice and we go the passive aggressive route, or have constructive feedback in the vein of "I can see you worked sooooo hard on this", we get garbage.

If you want people to do their minimums, "act your wage" and all that shit, put your efforts accordingly. If you're trying to be a part of something excellent and eschew mediocrity, then give your best or fuck off.

It's useful to note that there exists Lemmy servers where down votes are not processed. So the high up vote to down vote ratio isn't necessarily a reflection of people not down voting, it's potentially a reflection of the servers that allow down votes along with all other servers (generally they all allow up votes).

History must be shared so it's not repeated. The email is dated 2012 so there's context of this being some old school bullying. Asking people to Not share the past because it's ugly is like asking people to not talk about slavery cause it'll make white people feel bad that they thought it was okay to own people. Small minds will remain small and less you expand their visibility.

I think what you've said is brilliantly put.

If I didn't know anything else about him my takeaway from this post would be "Linus Torvalds is an abusive asshole"

Most of the top comments are negative about the post. You upvote to bring something bad to attention, not because you agree with it.

Even those responding to you and trying to justify this, he sets a high bar yeesh. I don't care who the person is saying it, I don't care how much the guy he's responding to deserves it, this is worst boss behavior that I would nope so far away from.

I'm glad we don't work together

Damn, I really hate social snowflakes such as you. Linus was right and he got his point across quickly and without bulshit. The Kernel Maintainer should have known better. Why exactly is this "abuse", because he used a few "naughty" words? Grow up. If you want censorship go back to reddit.