Re: Code of Conduct: Is it time? - Mailing list pgsql-general

On 10/01/16 22:55, John R Pierce wrote:
> On 1/9/2016 11:57 PM, Gavin Flower wrote:
>> I was at the 2015 Australian Linux Conference (held in Auckland, NZ),
>> when Sarah Sharp harangued Linus Torvalds for over 20 minutes. Linus
>> remained calm and polite throughout, yet most people would have been
>> obviously annoyed within the first 5 minutes.
>
> (total outsider here, looking in)
>
> some people are just toxic.   psychic vampires.  They can suck all the
> energy out of something while contributing little or nothing.
>
> OTOH, she seems to have done some seriously good work, hard stuff like
> pioneering the linux framework for USB 3.0.
>
> The more I read, the more I'm at least somewhat on her side, Linus
> does not need to be as much of an a**hole as he comes off as. For sure
> dealing with an environment like that you need to be really thick
> skinned.    At times when I read about Linus and the whole kernel
> environment I think he's a vampire, but he's taking the power he's
> sucking up and building something, so maybe thats excusable... does he
> really need to be /that/ big of an ahole?  I dunno.
>
>
> entirely on the other hand, I note that FreeBSD development has a
> whole lot less drama, and at least in my opinion, the kernel is a
> whole lot more stable.   hmmmmmmmm.
>
>
I sometimes look at the kernel mailing list:
      https://lkml.org
Linus is normally very mild tempered, rarely do I see him lash out, but
I've only seen that against people who are competent, but doing/saying
something Linus strongly disagrees with.  Most times he disagrees in an
almost boringly mild way.

I would be quiet chuffed if Linus was rude to me - as that would mean
that I'd met a fairly high standard.  If I sent in a really stupid
patch, it would simply be ignored.  Though I must say, I've not, and
almost certainly never going to, send in a kernel patch!

In the early days, Linus would quite readily admit to doing something
stupid & suggest that he should wear a brown paper bag in shame!  He has
a wonderful sense of humour, especially apparent in the early days of
Linux - but his kernel release comments now appear far too professional!

Linus had said that one time he was too polite, and a developer
persisted wasting a lot of effort before Linus could get through to
him.  So Linus is now a lot more direct.

Sarah is an extremely brilliant and very productive kernel programmer,
out classes me many times over in all programming metrics of any value -
it is a grave pity that she takes comments as personal attacks.

I have immense respect for Linus, and I understand where he is coming from.

I unexpectedly had about a ten minute one-to-one conversation with him
at the 2015 conference.  He is aware that he is far from perfect.  I
would be very happy if I was at least 1% as he is, in terms of effective
ability and contributions.

I suspect that Linux is more capable and growing a lot faster than any
of the BSD's!!!  Though the BSD's may be more stable.


Cheers,
Gavin