I feel it's equally important to point ot that Torvalds recognized his toxic behavior, apologized for it, and took steps to rectify it.

In an email to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, which also addresses the kernel update of Linux 4.19-rc4, Torvalds writes: "I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely."

"I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately."

Not going to touch the general toxicity as it's something Linus has already apologized and worked through with professional help, but I love the attitude when it comes to responsibility.
Far too often it's easier to blame someone else for error.

"No this is our problem, and I'm ashamed you're trying to blame someone else for it" is respectable take

So I recently had a conversation with some who though Linus Torvalds (kernel) and Linus Sebastian (Linus Tech Tips) was the same person.
That was a pretty funny and confusing conversation.

Yeah, those mailing lists used to have some quite funny stuff; my favorite so far is smth along the lines of "whoever thought this was a good idea should be retroactively aborted".

But, on the other hand, damn it's toxic. Should've really sucked to work on the kernel back then.

Like, I get how it's funny, but I would hate to get this kind of shit from someone I respect. Would really mess me up, personally

Absolutely awful shit and I would be ashamed for decades if I acted like this to another person.

Really shows the worst of him here. It's rare that he becomes this toxic and humiliating.

Honestly, I maybe get why some people are too sensitive to work in such conditions, but from my professional experience, I’d much rather prefer getting angry mail explaining why my actions are stupid, than everyone being nice to one another but the codebase is utter garbage and everything falls apart, which happens a lot in private companies.

Ugh, having been on the receiving end, this type of belittlement is the worst, and breeds resentment, factionalism, and a host of other toxic elements in the workplace.

Irrespective of the validity of his critique, prima donna developers are the worst and I would start looking for jobs elsewhere because programming is already stressful enough, don't want to start worrying about the people.

He's the Gordon Ramsey of programming. THE KERNEL IS FUCKING RAAAWWWW!!!!

I like the discussion this has generated around toxicity and professionalism, but I'm still very amused by the fact that he censored himself in the last line after not doing so for the rest of the message.

What a toxic ass message. If he was my boss I would not tolerate this. It's weird how many dickriders here are defending him here

I like that Linus is so strict on not breaking user space because this obviously aids with compatibility and it's probably a big part of why rolling releases work.

But I sure hope Linus' eventual successor won't be toxic and...cringe. It's hard to take someone serious when he's raging this much.

First of all, this is horrible and no one should talk like that.

But it's funny that he censored the word "fucking" as if that crossed some line

It's disgusting that this post has not been removed, has a 96% postive vote ratio, has over 1K upvotes and is sitting at the top of All after almost a day.

This isn't a Linux meme. It's a celebration of abuse, abusive behaviour and abusive people.

All the people ITT condoning or making even the slightest accommodations for this behaviour ought to be ashamed and need to take a good, long look in a mirror.

What are the moderators of this community thinking? Are you reading this stuff? Do some of you agree with any of it?

Of all the things to celebrate about Linus and Linux this is not one of them.

There is no value in leaving this post up. There is nothing to be learned or gained by revealing just how gross some supposed Linux supporters may be.

Does anyone ITT seriously think this is how Linus or Linux developers want to be remembered and celebrated for their dedication and decades of toil?

Do you think anyone that's been on the receiving end of this kind of abuse on the job or in the home wants to jump onto Lemmy today to see this celebration of abusive and awful behaviour.

There are no excuses to be made. It doesn't matter that this happened many years ago and that Linus has managed to overcome behaving like this. The post itself is now the issue.

The many comments that have made even the slightest excuse for this kind of behaviour are awful and damaging to the reputations of Linus, Linux and the Linux community.

This is hilarious to read from outside, but I am definitely not speaking like this to my colleagues

Damn that was probably very hard to read for Mauro. This is something you never want to receive as Mail in your job. On the other hand it is good that Linux priorities fixing the kernel instead of letting other developers fix your code.

This email should have stayed in Draft for a few hours and then come back to remove all the expletives. At least Mauro has something to hang on the wall of his crapper.

looks like every day is a great day to not work on the linux kernel

This is why Finland is most happy nation in the world

As many seem to have overlooked itb this is from more than a decade ago.

And to those setting "not being toxic" == "being vague":

Suggestion if you're in a situation: separate the subject discussed from the person and, to the contrary to what is said in some other posts, be very specific!

Improvised example:

Hey all,

patch xyzz and its aftermath communication is unacceptable.

It's content is not to the standards we have set here (explain).

Even worse, in the communication aftermath we blamed behavior of user space applications for bugs that are within our domain instead of owning up.

The bugs within the kernel will be focused on with highest priority by a, b and myself.

For the communication: (consequences). As explained the patterns shown here are unacceptable.

I have decided to no longer have x as a kernel maintainer on our team/enforce pairing for all communication/set up stricter consequence catalogue. Any specific action,really...

Not perfect as it's very early here, I haven't slept well and I'm not deep into the topic.

Just remember to separate subject to be discussed from person(s) acting please.

And always remember: bad communication is really easy and a lot of managers trained that their whole life! ♥