“My disrespectful e-mail attacks were unprofessional and unnecessary, especially when I made personal attacks,” Torvalds writes in the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML). “In my quest for a better patch, that made sense to me. I know now that this was not acceptable, and I’m really sorry.” For years, Torvalds said he did not believe in being polite and sensitive to discussing the Linux kernel. “I’d rather be really hostile, and bad ideas should be overturned aggressively,” he argued in 2015. “I’m not a nice person and I do not care about you; I care about the technology and the kernel.” Sometimes Torvalds was heavy on offenses. Take, for example, this observation from 2012: “I suggest that the genius who thought it was a good idea to read things ONE PATH BY BYTE with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted.” This kind of attitude has been driving away some developers. “I could no longer contribute to a community where I was respected for my technique, but where I could not ask for personal respect,” Sage Sharp wrote in 2015. Torvalds says he was confronted last week and found he needs to change some behavior. “I want to apologize to people who have been harmed by my personal behavior, and I may have completely removed kernel development,” he writes in LKML.
Linux won a code of conduct: “Be respectful”
Why the change of attitude? Torvalds’ aggressiveness may have become a major internal problem. The 30 Linux kernel maintainers struggled to include it in the Linux Maintainer Summit, an annual event to discuss the development process. The summit was scheduled to take place in Vancouver (Canada), but Torvalds accidentally booked a family holiday at the same time in Edinburgh (UK). He preferred not to participate: “I was mostly hopeful not to have to go to the kernel dome, which I went to every year for almost two decades.” However, the other developers decided to move the meeting to Edinburgh. In addition, Linux has gained a code of conduct to ensure an “open and welcoming environment.” Among the principles, we must “be respectful of different points of view and experiences” and “empathize with other members of the community.” Until then, there was only one “conflict code” making it clear that the quality of the code should be above all else. Torvalds says he’ll take a break “and get help on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately.” However, he makes it clear that he will not leave Linux anytime soon: “I want to continue this project that I’ve been working on for almost three decades.” So, what do you think about this? Simply share all your views and thoughts in the comment section below.
