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

Sarah Sharp
2013-07-15T22:36:15Z

On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 06:08:29PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Mon, 2013-07-15 at 14:50 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Sarah Sharp
> > <sarah.a.sharp@linux.intel.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Oh, FFS, I just called out on private email for "playing the victim
> > > card". I will repeat: this is not just about me, or other minorities.
> > > I should not have to ask for professional behavior on the mailing lists.
> > > Professional behavior should be the default.
> >
> > Bullshit.
> >
>
> Can we please make this into a Kernel Summit discussion. I highly doubt
> we would solve anything, but it certainly would be a fun segment to
> watch :-)

I agree, KS is where this conversation should be taking place.
Attendees for this conversation (so far) should be Greg KH, Linus,
Darren Hart, Steve Rostedt, Willy Tarreau, and me.

> > So as far as I'm concerned, the discussion is about "how to work
> > together DESPITE people being different". Not about trying to make
> > everybody please each other. Because I can pretty much guarantee that
> > I'll continue cursing. To me, the discussion would be about how to
> > work together despite these kinds of cultural differences, not about
> > "how do we make everybody nice and sing songs sound the campfire"
> >
> > Do you think you might be interested in *that* kind of discussion
> > instead of the "you are abusing me" kind of discussion?
> >
> > Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm
> > not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearign a bathrobe. The
> > same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to
> > buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and
> > backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because
> > THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all
> > kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their
> > normal urges in unnatural ways.

Yes, let's move this conversation into the "how to work together DESPITE
people being different" realm. I would be happy to have that
discussion. As Linus said, some people work together better than
others. Some people have different expectations of appropriate ways to
interact with co-workers. Sometimes that means that people only work
with certain other co-workers, like Greg and I.

The people who want to work together in a civil manner should get
together and create a "Kernel maintainer's code of conduct" that
outlines what they expect from fellow kernel developers. The people who
want to continue acting "unprofessionally" should document what
behaviors set off their cursing streaks, so that others can avoid that
behavior. Somewhere in the middle is the community behavior all
developers can thrive in.

Some people won't agree with everything in that document. The point is,
they don't have to agree. They can read the document, figure out what
the community expects, and figure out whether they can modify their
behavior to match. If they are unwilling to change, they simply don't
have to work with the developers who have signed it.

Perhaps a trusted third party could take a stab at a first draft of this
document? Greg KH? Steve Rostedt? Darren Hart?

Sarah Sharp