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At Open Source Summit Europe in Scotland, Linus Torvalds is meeting with Linux's top 40 or so developers at the Maintainers' Summit. This is his first step back in taking over Linux's reins.
A little over a month ago, Torvalds stepped back from running the Linux development community. In a note to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), Torvalds said, "I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely. I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately."
That time is over. Torvalds is back.
He's a quick study if it only took him a month to learn how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately.
See also: Linus Torvalds is back at Linux while GNU's Stallman unveils a "kindness" policy
Previously: Linus Torvalds Taking a Break From Linux Kernel Maintainership
More on Linus Torvalds Taking a Break From Linux Kernel Maintainership
Eric S. Raymond Speaks in Regards to the Linux Code of Conduct [Updated]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @08:32PM (12 children)
You haven't explained that bit.
Why was it necessary to replace the reasonable technical-excellence-statement with a rambling, fluffy feminists manifesto?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @09:17PM (11 children)
I already did. Paranoia on the part of the finder.
For the other, the tone of your question already reveals that you are not likely to understand the real-world answers. I don't feel obligated to bother to explain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @09:23PM
It's not the case that one person's paranoia caused Linus to do something very uncharacteristic.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @09:23PM (9 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @09:47PM (8 children)
No, the question isn't inconvenient. It's trivial and unworthy of consideration.
But OK. I'll give you one back that's a little better.... Let's assume for the sake of argument say that this is correct - someone else rather than Linus penned the email. (Rather than an equally plausible maybe Linus composed this email this one time on a word processor and C/P'd rather than typing directly into an email client reply form. Considering it is actually a bigger matter than the usual kernel management.) But no, instead he relied on someone else to compose it for him.... What exactly do you think that proves?
Answer: Nothing whatsoever. As much as you might wish for there to be something else there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 22 2018, @11:08PM (7 children)
Also, why would he write it in some other word processor and then copy it? We're talking about Linus Torvalds here. That would be unusual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @12:22AM (6 children)
So you're saying that was a usual message from him? A not usual message might be composed unusually. Welcome to tautology 101. Specially crafted for people who don't understand much, or are deliberately trolling, take your pick.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @01:13AM (5 children)
What circumstances led to the need for unusual composition by the originator of Linux, a man who maintains his own Emacs-like text editor, and who has explicit opinions of taste on such composition, and who is surrounded by people who use Emacs or vim, and who all loathe non-ASCII text in the body of an email?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @02:33AM (4 children)
No, you can go back and answer my question now: What does it matter? The answer is still it doesn't. I've answered that you have paranoia. What's your answer to mine?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @08:34AM (3 children)
It matters because Linus Torvalds matters. You must be from that school that think facts are oppressive. Instead the bad feeling of paranoia must be cured.
What does it matter was answered in your parent post - what circumstances led to such an odd behavior? Oh right, you don't believe that circumstances may lead to something - that's all useless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @10:41AM (2 children)
But the behavior isn't odd at all in the real world. Not in the slightest. Neither the trivia of how the message was composed - and it is trivia - nor even if everything you noted is correct and someone else wrote those words. It Doesn't Matter.
What does matter is that they went out from Linus Torvalds and he has done or said nothing to retract them, contradict them, or shade them. You don't need a grand "his arm was twisted" or "someone's got something on him" conspiracy. Everything that's happened from Linus' end can be explained exactly by what he sent out. Here's another dirt-simple possibility for you: he asked someone for help in composing the message for really obvious reasons. Or he copied/pasted something someone else wrote that expressed what he was trying to say. That also happens in the real world.
As a side note I'd note this: If Linus Torvalds matters *that* much to Linux development - Linux just can't exist without Linus - then Linux is surely doomed. I think what we've seen over the last month is that he doesn't matter quite that much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @01:02PM (1 child)
That's an interesting question you've brought up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23 2018, @03:01PM
No, it's not really an interesting question. Because it doesn't matter.