Hot off the presses of the kernel mailing list Linus Torvalds just issues his first lengthy apology for being so insensitive these last rather unproductive and abusive twenty years. He is quite known for hard flaming people who have screwed up and should know better to the point that its been his main signature move. This has been heavily criticized for at least ten years now and he kept the project strong and made sure only the best coders and the toughest people stuck around.
Do I need to explain how important Linux has been over the last twenty years? Its running almost all of the super computers, most of the web servers, smart phones, refrigerators, etc. Its huge and has been one of the most successful projects ever. Its running satellites and shit!
So now to the email itself.
Alarming key words and clips: introspective, "look yourself in the mirror", ignoring some fairly deep-seated feelings in the community, I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of person, This week people in our community confronted me about my lifetime of not understanding emotions, I know now this was not OK and I am truly sorry, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away, I am going to take time off and get some assistance on how to understand people's emotions and respond appropriately..
Oh no! He apologized. I mean, he really apologized. I'd have really preferred it if he hadn't done so. Especially not for the last twenty years of his conduct. MAN DOWN, MAN DOWN!
Today marks the beginning of a era that everyone close to Linux (not the person) has known was coming for a long time. That is an end to the era of the in-your-face, show-me-the-code mostly male dominated ultra innovative space. The culture around it will now slowly be replaced by the lame suits of HR, the harpy girl-powered programmers overhearing dork jokes at conferences, gender neutral language, prim and proper mailing list language and the whole works.
What to say? Its going to be a process and the forces are already there just chipping away at things.
[edit] Hilariously so far the people with retorts thoughtful or one-liners don't seem to have any noticeable interest in technology according to their posting history. For example if you read my posts you'll see that I'm engaged in computer subjects. Not so for the incredibly fast early retorts.
[edit] Flaired user LowCreddit's comment below is exactly what I would have like to have written but couldn't.
[edit] Potential conspiracy information about Sarah Sharp, Intel and NSA
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