Re: [ATTEND] How to act on LKML (was: [ 00/19] 3.10.1-stable review)

Steven Rostedt
2013-07-16T00:17:30Z

On Mon, 2013-07-15 at 16:15 -0700, Guenter Roeck wrote:
>
> One thing you should keep in mind in your discussion is what can happen
> if people get too polite with each other.
>
> I have seen this happen at two large companies I worked for. Early on, flames
> are acceptable and expected as response to someone publishing bad code which
> breaks everything for everyone. Then, at some point, it is not acceptable
> anymore to flame, and one is expected to be polite and friendly at all times.
> "Your code breaks the build for every platform. Would you please kindly
> consider fixing it ?"
> Result is that code quality suffers, to the point where images don't even
> build anymore.
>
> I hope the Linux kernel never gets into that stage. To avoid that,
> I am willing to be cursed at by Linus if I am the responsible party.

Didn't Jim Zemlin show some research where there were two groups:

One that did a bunch of brain storming where no idea was a bad idea

The other required you to defend your idea while the others bashed it.

The results always showed that the second group not only did a better
job, but also faster and more efficient.

I'm afraid if we worry too much about politeness, we will fall into that
first group.

-- Steve