What's tiresome is that whenever a controversy in the kernel comes up, no matter how justified or not, the same thing happens.

The usual suspects (including people involved in a 'certain' very toxic linux distro) delete all nuance and start touting the same deeply insulting stereotype about kernel maintainers that you tiresomely hear over + over again.

"They're all horrible toxic megalomaniacal dickheads who won't change because they're too old [bit of ageism in there for fun] and stuck in their ways"

People who know nothing about the kernel love this as it fuels the typical us vs. them narrative that people get off on.

No greys, just black and white, shining knights on one side, awful dragon on the other.

And then it fades and quietens down and these same people go quiet.

And then, loop around...

If people would actually engage in a good faith, sensible discussion, listening to each other, we might make some progress.

I get less and less interested, frankly, in bothering to engage on these things because you know. It's not honest is it?

Regardless, I personally support rust in the kernel specifically unless I find TECHNICAL reasons not to going forward.

@ljs you are kind of old tho

@lkundrak yeah, older on monday

@ljs oh happy ttl--

🍷

sir

@lkundrak oh HAIL the packet satan! 🍷

@ljs I agree with you, but it doesn't help that some kernel maintainers insist on using (frankly...) outdated practices and refuse to change.

@craftyguy without getting into specifics it's hard to address that, but it's important to remember with such a huge project there are a lot of things to consider and you can't just change things overnight.

I think there's a lot of lack of charity on that when people bring up the same old obvious comments about e.g. email development.

I mean I've seen discussions where the usual suspects bring that up with the typical hysteria, claiming it is ONLY stick-in-the-mud kernel maintainers who block use of e.g. git forges.

People push back on that with reasonable points about the nuances, and get... ignored.

Then loop on that...

On the other hand, it's important for people to be open-minded and to not let legacy prevent future improvements.

I mean one of my first actions as a newly pro kernel dev is to introduce (userland compilable and executable!!) unit tests in a part of mm that imo should have been there yeeears ago :)

So while I'm not a maintainer, I try to advance things forward in my own way.

@ljs @craftyguy the current outrage has nothing to do with email workflows though. I guess you've seen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiPp9YEBV0Q&t=1529s and read https://vt.social/@lina/113045455229442533 ?

It's not about refusing to "change things overnight", it's really about being entrenched in outdated, costly practices that hurt the Linux project.

@fabrice @craftyguy Be specific.

@ljs @craftyguy Did you read Lina's thread and how the improvements in documentation, lifetime refactorings etc. where not accepted?

@ljs @craftyguy And did you not hear the fs maintainer say "I will not learn Rust" (because learning new things is bad, right...) ?

@fabrice @craftyguy I read it, do you think the DRM subsystem is the entire kernel? Do you think that maintainer speaks for the entire kernel?

Do you understand how huge it is?

Do you understand what an undertaking it is to integrate rust on any level?

Do you understand maintainer workload vs. requirements in their job elsewhere?

Do you think I agree with any of what the maintainer said*?

Do you see the problem with over-generalising?

Subsystems vary, maintainers vary, bad takes are taken sometimes.

It's easy to shit on something huge + act like it's fungible isn't it?

This whole thing is a good example of the point I made in the original post...

(* I don't know that part of the kernel, nor have I read those threads so I am assuming that the complaints are legit)

@fabrice @craftyguy Sigh. Man come on.

Again, do you think 'the fs maintainer', by which you mean Ted Ts'o speaks for the entire kernel?

Do you presume to think I felt that Ted's conduct was acceptable?

Did you put Ted's really rather unacceptable tone aside and examine the details of what he said or did you take the 'tabloid headline' interpretation of it?

What happened with Wedson was unacceptable, and many in the kernel felt so.

This is the issue with over-generalising and jumping on the 'the kernel is terrible' bandwagon.

I note that you very generously ignored the part of my prior toot where I said I personally as a professional kernel developer _took steps_ to improve software development practices almost immediately.

This is my whole point, and why it's so tiresome to engage on this.

@fabrice @craftyguy Oh and I _am_ learning rust, for the record... when I stop being lazy about it... :)

I also support and am optimsitic about rust _at least_ in modules (which includes drivers) and file systems. I'm less convinced in core because of the nature of global state, but am open minded.

I hope at some point I can assist R4L people with mm bindings.

The kernel is a big community, we are not fungible.

A more healthy way to engage on this is, rather than telling a professional kernel developer what they are, which if you think about it Fabrice - is a little rude, you could instead ask what I think about it and engage nicely?

@ljs @craftyguy I don't presume anything. What I see is that Ted seems to still be a maintainer while behaving like he did. It's not an over-generalization, it's a sign that there is no way to know if you will be bullied when working on the kernel, since the community doesn't want to act on such behavior.

@fabrice @craftyguy I'm talking to a brick wall.

Go lecture somebody else.

@fabrice @craftyguy to be briefly charitable, I mean really given you've hijacked the thread, ignored everything I've said, given me zero charity, purposefully misunderstood my point and spoken about something you clearly have no idea about it's not obligatory but.

As to punishing Ted for his outburst - I am really not aware of the processes, other than the existence of the Code of Conduct, which I don't think would be out of place to use here. https://docs.kernel.org/process/code-of-conduct.html

I'm not sure I'd say taking somebody who is one of the most senior and long-standing kernel maintainers out of maintainership is the obvious solution here. But it's not really for me to say, that's actually all up to Linus.

I'd say he certainly should have been strongly spoken to and asked to make amends with Wedson at the absolute least.

But again, I do not get to control this.

As I keep trying to explain to you, it's a disparate set of communities. It's not fungible. It's not a corporate entity.

I abhore bullying in all forms and stand against it. But I don't get to control everything.

I think every large project has issues with this kind of thing, and all are trying to find the best way ahead.

Right, if you give me another 'I didn't read a single word you said and want to keep wagging my finger at you' reply you can get blocked.

@ljs I'm gonna say it: Lina and the whole marcan troupe use dogpile harassment tactics.

They should know better about how awful these tactics are for the targeted person, but maybe that's precisely why they use them.

@CounterPillow marcan yes, absolutely, this is what he does, in my view.

I am not a fan of his, and have said so directly to him. But since I have him blocked I tend not to explicitly mention him as it's unfair.

(he's blocked because he attacked me for inferring things about asahi based on available information, a terrible crime that deserved having a 'famous hacker' go at me I'm sure you'd agree...).

Lina has behaved well afaict, I have no issue or qualms with her or her conduct.

I disagree with some aspects of what she's said, but not others (in fact, most things I agree with I'd say). But I respect her and find her to be a perfectly decent and very, very talented person.

I think _most_ in asahi are earnest and good people, I think marcan, while very talented, is neither of those things.

They'd be better off putting somebody else in charge... anyway my mac runs mac os x exclusively now :)

@ljs my problem with Lina was specifically her calling out an nvidia guy by name, because of something on LWN. There's LWN comments for writing a response, not everything needs to be an open letter on social media imho.

But yes, generally she's a lot less bad about this than marcan.

Sorry to hear about your Mac!

@CounterPillow to be fair to her she replied on thread on LWN to Jason (somebody I know and have met in person and who is generally smart and lovely) so she did both.

I think there is a text comms thing at play on that one also, yes saying toy project is harsh and really a bit much, but his general points are put bluntly rather than meaning I'd say any malice.

I do totally understand her being offended by the 'toy' thing given her by all accounts excellent driver work.

Again, I disagree with certain things she's said, but that's fine.

I don't think she crossed a line with that post.

@CounterPillow Having said that, reading the thread, the over-generalisation about 'all kernel developers' is awful. Ugh. Maybe I'll risk replying there...

@CounterPillow and I did - https://social.kernel.org/notice/AlXGdIqQjbIslK0ipM

Reading that again, that was very unhelpful from her. Though I stand by what I said above. But obviously if I'm going to be critical I want to be directly critical and not behind anybody's back.

@ljs Thanks for the thoughtful response! Ya I didn't want to get specific, don't want to reignite any flamewars 😅

I've seen "loops" like that, they're super frustrating. It's too bad that the loudest folks who want change are also (imho) the most annoying about it. If the kernel folks are serious about attracting new contributors, I think they could take off their kernel hats and spend time looking at what it's like today for new people to work on the kernel.

Nice work on mm! 🎉