From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751446Ab3GPFoZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 16 Jul 2013 01:44:25 -0400 Received: from ozlabs.org ([203.10.76.45]:41958 "EHLO ozlabs.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751270Ab3GPFoX (ORCPT ); Tue, 16 Jul 2013 01:44:23 -0400 From: Rusty Russell To: Linus Torvalds , Willy Tarreau Cc: Sarah Sharp , Ingo Molnar , Guenter Roeck , Greg Kroah-Hartman , Steven Rostedt , Dave Jones , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Andrew Morton , stable , Darren Hart Subject: Re: [ 00/19] 3.10.1-stable review In-Reply-To: References: <20130715155202.GC29526@xanatos> <20130715174659.GC15531@xanatos> <20130715180403.GD15531@xanatos> <20130715184642.GE15531@xanatos> <20130715191727.GC10157@1wt.eu> User-Agent: Notmuch/0.15.2+81~gd2c8818 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/23.4.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 14:22:14 +0930 Message-ID: <8738rf14zl.fsf@rustcorp.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Linus Torvalds writes: > On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 12:17 PM, Willy Tarreau 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.