Re: [ 00/19] 3.10.1-stable review

Linus Torvalds
2013-07-15T21:50:55Z

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.

The thing is, the "victim card" is exactly about trying to enforce
your particular expectations on others, and trying to do so in a very
particular way. It's the old "think of the children" argument. And
it's bogus. Calling things "professional" is just more of the same -
trying to enforce some kind of convention on others by trying to claim
that it's the only acceptable way.

[ Since you seem to want to keep this in public, I'll just
cut-and-paste from my reply, so you have already seen this part of my
argument, it's only slightly edited because now I'm no longer typing
on my cellphone ]

The thing is, different people act and react differently. On both
sides. And I think we should recognize that and also *allow* for that.
And sometimes it means, for example, that people interact primarily
with certain people that they like more - because they are a better
"fit".

I think we actually do it very naturally, simply because we are human,
and this is how people interact in real life too. Sometimes we do it
consciously - the way we have people at various companies that act as
go-betweens - but most of the time we do it just because humans are
all about social interactions and we don't even think about what we do
and why.

For example, you work mostly through Greg. I don't think either of you
*planned* it that way, but it's likely because you guys work well
together.

See what I'm saying? People are different. I'm not polite, and I get
upset easily but generally don't hold a grudge - I have these
explosive emails. And that works well for some people. And it probably
doesn't work well with you.

And you know what? That's fine. Not everybody had to get along or work
well with each other. But the fact that it doesn't work with you
doesn't make it "wrong".

This isn't all that different from working around language issues etc
by having certain people work as in-betweens on that front.

And where we differ is in thinking either side has to necessarily
change. You think people need to act "nicer". While I think it's
*natural* that people have different behavior - and different
expectations. We all have issues somewhere and don't all like each
other. There are certain people I refuse to work with, for example.
They may be good engineers, but they just aren't people I can work
with.

And hey, I don't actually think we've personally even had any
problems. And I realize that you may react very strongly and get
nervous about us having problems, but realistically, do you actually
expect to like all the other kernel engineers?

And equally importantly, not everybody has to like you, or necessarily
think they have to be liked by you. OK?

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.

Linus