Re: Maybe it's time to shut this thread down (Was: Re: [ 00/19] 3.10.1-stable review)

Sarah Sharp
2013-07-18T15:54:28Z

On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 09:30:08AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> The reason why I started the kernel summit over ten years ago
> was because there were certain topics that are much better discussed
> in person, and that over time, if we don't have sufficient face to
> face interactions, the quality of e-mail discussions can start to
> become frayed.
>
> One of the reasons is that e-mail is just not as expressive a medium
> as face-to-face conversations. As a result, when people feel that
> they aren't being heard, because they aren't getting those critical
> non-verbal cues, they start escalating. They start using stronger
> words, such as F*CK. They start doing exactly what they claim to
> abhor to their verbal opponents in the debate, which is describing
> their fellow kernel developers using demeaning terms. They start
> using loaded, and over-reaching words, like "abuse", which ultimately
> ends up hurting their own case.
>
> I suspect this is happening because it's easy when a body feels that
> their message of say, "could we please treat each other with more
> respect", isn't getting heard, it's very easy and very tempting to
> resort to "Linus is an AB-UUUUUUUU-SER!".

Let's shift this discussion away from the terms "abuse" and
"professionalism" to "respect" and "civility". I agree that calling
Linus an abuser is not conducive to moving this conversation forward. I
agree not to use f*ck in my emails anymore, and, as Ted suggests, we'll
see how polite requests get handled.

> May I make the polite suggestion (and we'll see how well polite
> requests get honored via e-mail), that we take this discussion
> off-line, and wait to try to discuss this in person at the Kernel
> Summit?

I concur. Let's discuss this at KS.

Sarah Sharp