Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 12:17 PM, Willy Tarreau <w@xxxxxx> wrote: >> >> BTW, I was amazed that you managed to get him have a much softer tone inr >> his last e-mail, you probably found a weakness here in his management >> process :-) > > Hey, I _like_ arguing, and "cursing" and "arguing" are actually not at > all the same thing. > > And I really don't tend to curse unless people are doing something > stupid and annoying. If people have concerns and questions that I feel > are valid, I'm more than happy to talk about it. > > I curse when there isn't any argument. The cursing happens for the > "you're so f*cking wrong that it's not even worth trying to make > logical arguments about it, because you have no possible excuse" case. > > .. and sometimes people surprise me and come back with a valid excuse > after all. "My whole family died in a tragic freak accident and my > pony got cancer, and I was distracted". > > And then I might even tell them I'm sorry. > > No. Not really. You have to be harsh with code: People mistake politeness for uncertainty. Whenever I said 'I prefer if you XYZ' some proportion didn't realize I meant 'Don't argue unless you have new facts: do XYZ or go away.' This wastes my time, so I started being explicit. But be gentle with people. You've already called their baby ugly. Cheers, Rusty. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html