this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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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.
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.