Wow. I wonder what made him "get it" after many years of being aware of people's issues with his behavior and not giving a damn. Massive props to him for owning up to it and taking concrete measures to improve.

It's also a bit odd that he puts the emphasis on 'understanding emotions', 'being empathetic', etc. -- no one really asks Linus to 'not upset their emotions', or 'not make them uncomfortable'; what people rightfully do ask of him is to be *respectful*.

A negative response/harsh criticism that's respectful of your dignity can nevertheless be emotionally hard-hitting; *and that's perfectly fine*. What's *not* fine is the accompanying slight at your worth as a human being.

I'm glad he's coming to terms with his poor behaviour at times, he's not always bad, but when he's bad he really does go for it and it doesn't look good.

As I said on Twitter:
You can get a point across easily without being a rude, obnoxious and hostile. It pushes people away, people you might need, people who might do amazing things if given a decent chance.

Quoting: wvstolzingIt's also a bit odd that he puts the emphasis on 'understanding emotions', 'being empathetic', etc. -- no one really asks Linus to 'not upset their emotions', or 'not make them uncomfortable'; what people rightfully do ask of him is to be *respectful*.

I don't know Linus well at all and I don't want to make assumptions about his state of mind, but I've been translating a biographical novel about an autistic person and the fact that he mentioned these specific social skills hit close to home. It's actually a misconception that all autists lack empathy, but it's a challenge that some of them can face and that exists with other conditions. When he says, "In my quest for a better patch, this made sense to me.", I get the sense that he truly did not understand on a fundamental level why people couldn't look beyond his caustic remarks and focus on the, let's say, rational advice or arguments he wrapped them around. Because he interprets social interactions completely differently and isn't personally bothered by the kind of behavior he has been displaying.

Again I don't want to assume too much, but if it's really the case that he genuinely couldn't wrap his head around other people's reactions to what he felt was just a way to get his point across, I find it fascinating that something managed to make it click for him after several decades of seemingly "not caring." A man his age admitting that he has such a fundamental flaw and deciding to work on it is huge, as far as I'm concerned.

Good on Linus, and good on the people who got it to make sense to him.

I found him refreshing in a world that has gone to the dogs with all this Social Justice CRAP! Free speech doesn't end where feelings start & anyone who thinks words hurt hasn't been punched in the face often or hard enough.

Linus should have told them to go pound sand & carry on being himself, this 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.

I found that the things Linus said to people were not necessary to get his point across and had the potential to drive people away from participating in kernel development.

In other words, the filter was not skill or enthusiasm but the ability to withstand abuse. I'd hazard the opinion that it was not beneficial to Linux.

Quoting: lucifertdarkanyone who thinks words hurt hasn't been punched in the face often or hard enough.

I'd say the opposite holds true as well ;)

Quoting: damarrinIn other words, the filter was not skill or enthusiasm but the ability to withstand abuse.

Some might argue that if you were "skilled enough" you wouldn't get berated by him; but on the whole I agree with you. That would set the bar excessively high (who is never wrong?) and there are still much better ways to teach someone, even if it worked for some.

Good for him to finally admit it and do something about it. His rants often were completely inappropriate.

I've read some emails where he called people out rather harshly, with plenty of vulgarity and questioning their inteligence. Lots of belittling the incompetent, and quite frankly, THAT'S THE REASON LINUX IS AS GOOD AS IT IS.

The harsh taskmaster gets better results every time. EVERY TIME.

I don't care what your politics are, the outrage mob culture commonly derided as the SJW or Social Justice Warrior destroys literally everything it touches, and it does so by ratcheting up, not all at once. Code quality has always been the only thing that mattered, and if you're too thin-skinned to deal with a harshly-worded email when you screw up, then go away. If this softening becomes a trend it's step one to the end of Linux. Maybe even Step 2 according to this metric:

https://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-five-stages-of-corporate-convergence.html

Please note that Google is at stage four and Microsoft looks to be at stage three. For an example of Stage five, looks to either Marvel Comics or Starbucks, where a customers politics are put above the fact that they have money to spend and the company openly attacks their now former customers betting on a new surge of correct customers that don't actually exist in the numbers to replace the old base. Or even better, Toys 'R Us donated massive amounts of money to Planned Parenthood in order to fund abortions of the babies that would have been their customers. Because it was correct politics.

Step two is the taskmaster softening up, handing the reigns over to the younger and less capable but correct in their politics. Linus's daughter is an SJW from the looks of things, and she's a code monkey. So this could be very bad long term.

I think that the one thing Linux has going for it to mitigate all of this is that anyone at any time can fork the whole OS and then do they own thing. The problem is, like with systemD - everyone hates it, but everyone uses it because Red Hat - is that a converged corporation becomes the defacto standard, your new fork will be supported by you and only you.