The argument put forth in this article is not being entirely fair.
Although there are many people who are instantly dismissive of Davis, I've seen others give him a fair engagement on his ideas. They bend over backwards to give him some credibility. How does Davis respond to this? He stubbornly refuses any and all crticism, no matter how leveled it is.
I've watched him go in circles for pages in forums where people modestly suggest easy improvements to his design. As always, it's a little hard to separate out the mental illness from the person. But to say people don't attempt to engage Davis fairly is flatly disingenuous, and I think the author ought to try it before making that claim.
I'm not trying to rise any polemics about.. just for the sake of the debate...but is there any social skills difference to Linus? I mean, I just admire both of them.. there are very few people that can drive complex projects like Linux and templeOS.. and mental stability is something that doesn't really help much here.
What I want to say is: people are like they are... we just need to love them, give them a chance to be heard.. in the end we all go back to ashes and our ideas stay flying freely...
I've been running a team of about 70 people and it amazes me how different personalities create a dynamic organism... made of just tiny little imperfect pieces..
I feel as if perhaps if you can compare linus and Terry then you perhaps haven't thought the matter all the way through.
In the first place mental and social stability are not only helpful but absolutely essential in any endeavor requiring sustained effort and cooperation from more than one party. A multitude are involved either directly in linux or in projects that depend on same whereas TempleOS is a one man show not just in terms of development but even in terms of usage since if I recall correctly it doesn't do networking. Every user is figuratively an island.
Further it ought to be obvious that there is a substantial difference between Linus sometimes being an asshole and a mental disorder which often leaves the sufferer incapable of meaningfully connecting to reality or the rest of humanity let alone contributing.
Look at Terry he obviously possesses intelligence but it mainly serves to provide a diversion while he wastes his life away between racist paranoid rants on the internet.
If anything his existence is an example of a waste, a waste of everyone else's time and especially a waste of terry who of all people can't get away from himself nor effect his own cure. We do need better ways in the future to help people like terry but we do not need silly equivocation.
Of course, there maybe quite some differences between them. One is obviously the scale (Can anyone imagine the world without Linux ?).
My point was about their personalities.. and I'm not really doing any value analysis.. again for the sake of the debate..
I appreciate the spirit in which you raised this question. There is a large difference between Linus and Terry in organizational effectiveness. Additionally, Linus' putdowns of disliked contributions are reasoned and supported by a lot of other contributors whereas despite respecting what Terry's made, no one supports much of what he writes at all beyond expressing sympathy.
Additionally, though Temple is a legitimate software project, it lacks the aims and design to become widely adopted, meaning it is worth less effort to improve it (and the same can be said for many other projects.) So there is a compounding effect.
I'm not arguing for discrediting his ideas. TempleOS is something that's novel for sure. I'm just saying that it's not fair to say that everyone's been dismissive when in fact plenty of people have tried to engage Davis about his work.
On one hand he has a temper; on the other hand different cultures express disagreement/debate/etc in very different ways. The tendency for many youg americans (particularly from California) to insist that everyone use their "strong statements are bad, please make sure you don't hurt anyone's feelings" style of rhetoric and that anything else is invalid is quite frustrating. It's actually fairly present on HN, where I've seen several times people having perfectly civil (albeit curt by Silicon Valley standards) debates finding themselves chastised by the moderation team.
> I've seen several times people having perfectly civil (albeit curt by Silicon Valley standards) debates finding themselves chastised by the moderation team.
Every time I read something that makes me want to tell someone that they are a blithering idiot whose ideas are only worth writing down if its on paper that is soft enough to use as toilet paper I take a breath and find I can express what is wrong with their ideas without saying so.
Actually having to focus on the ideas as opposed to the party has a tenancy to improve the quality of the analysis.
Although there are many people who are instantly dismissive of Davis, I've seen others give him a fair engagement on his ideas. They bend over backwards to give him some credibility. How does Davis respond to this? He stubbornly refuses any and all crticism, no matter how leveled it is.
I've watched him go in circles for pages in forums where people modestly suggest easy improvements to his design. As always, it's a little hard to separate out the mental illness from the person. But to say people don't attempt to engage Davis fairly is flatly disingenuous, and I think the author ought to try it before making that claim.