Re: […] an apology, and a maintainership note

Martin Steigerwald
2018-09-17T08:53:43Z

Martin Steigerwald - 17.09.18, 09:57:
> Dear Linus.
>
> Linus Torvalds - 16.09.18, 21:22:
> > This is my reality. I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of
> > person and that probably doesn't come as a big surprise to anybody.
> > Least of all me. The fact that I then misread people and don't
> > realize (for years) how badly I've judged a situation and
> > contributed to an unprofessional environment is not good.
> >
> > This week people in our community confronted me about my lifetime of
> > not understanding emotions. My flippant attacks in emails have been
> > both unprofessional and uncalled for. Especially at times when I
> > made it personal. In my quest for a better patch, this made sense
> > to me. I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry.
> >
> > The above is basically a long-winded way to get to the somewhat
> > painful personal admission that hey, 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 applaud you for the courage to go the bold step you have gone with
> this mail. I can imagine coming up with this mail has been challenging
> for you.
>
> Your step provides a big chance for a shift to happen towards a more
> welcoming and friendly Linux kernel community. From what I saw here as
> mostly someone who tests rc kernels and as mostly a by-stander of
> kernel development you may not be the only one here having challenges
> to deal with emotions.

That written: Quite some of the rude mails that contained swearwords I
read from you have been about code, not persons. I think this is an
important distinction. I do not have much of an issue with swearing at
code :), especially when it is in some humorous way.

Code quality indeed is important.

As are human interactions.

--
Martin