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

NeilBrown
2013-07-16T03:14:46Z

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On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 20:17:30 -0400 Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:

> 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.
>

Surely there is an enormous difference between being required to defend your
position against rational and forceful argument, and being required to defend
it against irrelevant name calling.

NeilBrown

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