It occurs to me that Linus's occasional "smackdowns" can be seen as a necessary and realistic form of discipline. Since Linux is developed in the open, these disciplinary discussions occur before a worldwide audience. One could argue that disciplinary mails should be taken off-list to allow the individuals involved to save face, but it could be counterargued that such mails are relevant and important to the kernel's overall development process and shouldn't be obscured lest other developers make the same mistakes.
The high visibility of Linus's posts expose him to a lot of bleeding heart criticism, but it doesn't really say anything about how useful or important the mails may or may not be; in short, the criticism that Linus is "mean" doesn't say anything about the efficacy of the management style.
When management actually has to happen, when the manager actually has to step in and try to correct someone who isn't doing their job correctly, it's never a popular thing. The political impulse is to rally behind "the little guy". We all respond easily and quickly to the stories of spurned employees who were "totally mistreated" by the Big Bad Employer. Because of this, it's easy to look in and criticize Linus for sending a "mean email", but probably not very fair.
We all want to sympathize with our peers, and no matter how much we may like them on a personal level, it seems there is an almost irrepressible instinct to want to denigrate our bosses. That makes it easy to criticize the calls when we're on the sideline and not bearing the responsibility for the outcome. The actual knowledge of that responsibility and all that comes with it, including the massive flood of disastrously uninformed critics and the need to bite the tongue as they take their swipes, is "the weight" that persons in positions of high responsibility sometimes discuss. While it's easy to acknowledge the hypothetical existence of such a phenomenon, I think it doesn't really crystallize until one finds some measure of "the weight" on his or her own shoulders.
I hope we can all save a bit of empathy for the decision makers on the other side of the coin after getting an earful from and commiserating with our disgruntled contemporaries, even if it's just on LKML.
The high visibility of Linus's posts expose him to a lot of bleeding heart criticism, but it doesn't really say anything about how useful or important the mails may or may not be; in short, the criticism that Linus is "mean" doesn't say anything about the efficacy of the management style.
When management actually has to happen, when the manager actually has to step in and try to correct someone who isn't doing their job correctly, it's never a popular thing. The political impulse is to rally behind "the little guy". We all respond easily and quickly to the stories of spurned employees who were "totally mistreated" by the Big Bad Employer. Because of this, it's easy to look in and criticize Linus for sending a "mean email", but probably not very fair.
We all want to sympathize with our peers, and no matter how much we may like them on a personal level, it seems there is an almost irrepressible instinct to want to denigrate our bosses. That makes it easy to criticize the calls when we're on the sideline and not bearing the responsibility for the outcome. The actual knowledge of that responsibility and all that comes with it, including the massive flood of disastrously uninformed critics and the need to bite the tongue as they take their swipes, is "the weight" that persons in positions of high responsibility sometimes discuss. While it's easy to acknowledge the hypothetical existence of such a phenomenon, I think it doesn't really crystallize until one finds some measure of "the weight" on his or her own shoulders.
I hope we can all save a bit of empathy for the decision makers on the other side of the coin after getting an earful from and commiserating with our disgruntled contemporaries, even if it's just on LKML.