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Linux Kernel developer and maintainer
#standwithukraine 🇵🇱 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 🇨🇭
IRC: krzk
Kernel work related account. Other accounts of mine: @krzk@mastodon.social
GitHub: https://github.com/krzk/
Traveling Instagram / Wanderquak: https://www.instagram.com/wanderquak/
Home brewery: https://brewalot.ch
Our gardening (and worm farm!): https://growalot.ch

Krzysztof Kozlowski

In a week, I will be presenting on the Open Source Summit India 2026 in Mumbai. I have two talks:

1. Semi-BoF titled "Guide to Becoming a Linux Kernel Maintainer" (https://sched.co/2KNFb) where I would be happy to have bigger discussion. I don't have many slides on that, so please come to the session and participate in the talk.

2. My standard Devicetree speech for beginners (DTS101, https://sched.co/2KNF4).

If you are going to attend OSS India, please come say hi. If you are already a Linux kernel maintainer, I can also sign GPG keys (I need printed `gpg --fingerprint` though!).
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Krzysztof Kozlowski

Edited 2 days ago
@monsieuricon I knew making "Reply All" the default button was the right choice! :)
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K. Ryabitsev-Prime 🍁

This one shows just people responding, deliberately not patch submissions (because Greg's and Sasha's stable patchbombs just dwarf everyone).

So, these are the people who are hitting "Reply All", and it's not even the full picture, because it only includes the LKML.
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Embedded Recipes 2026 has officially kicked off!
It's fantastic to see so many talented engineers and developers gathered in one place to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and push the boundaries of embedded systems. Looking forward to two days of insightful talks and meaningful connections.

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@jann @kernellogger @ffmancera @vbabka Considering how poor developers are at expressing WHY they are doing that change/commit, I don't have big hopes on them being able to express that something is a fix.
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@jann There are maintainers who don't fully get Git basics, e.g. rebasing effects or branches (that merging a branch does not rebase anything), so if I was Linus T., I would not give them access to my tree...

Proficiency in Git is as needed as proficiency in English and programming language. And many of us are not proficient in these... which is fine, btw.
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Krzysztof Kozlowski

Edited 15 days ago
@trini Being always suspicious is not necessarily good, don't take grumpy me as an example :), but in principle I agree that AI slop world is difficult for open source maintainers.
And in that particular case, sending a patch with a bunch of AI-generated assembly is moderately easy, but reviewing it by a human is consuming much more effort. That disproportion sucks.
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@ljs You have already an entire conference for MM (Storage+FS+MM+BPF) so might be tricky to justify another one, but maybe the more the merrier!
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Krzysztof Kozlowski

[ANNOUNCEMENT / CFP] LPC 2026 Devicetree MC CFP

There will be a dedicated Devicetree Microconference on Linux Plumbers
2026 in October in Prague. Call For Papers is currently open.

https://lpc.events/event/20/contributions/2317/

Topics suggested for discussion are mentioned in "Ongoing problems" in
session description (link above), but of course are not limited to
these. Topics should obviously follow standard Microconference
expectation, that is to be discussion oriented.

Allocated time per slot will be between 15 to 30 minutes (20 minutes
last year).

Proposals can be submitted here:
https://lpc.events/event/20/abstracts/

Please remember to choose "Devicetree MC" as the track.
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@geert It is, looks exactly like that. Also AI agrees with that, quoting one LLM analysis:
"Several characteristics are consistent with LLM-generated technical email:
- Repetitive structure and over-explanation:...
- Highly polished corporate tone:...
- Excessive explicit enumeration:...
- Defensive balancing language:
- Commit message rewrite is unusually verbose:..."

Native speakers don't write like that. Non-native even less.

But to be fair, LLM judged that it looks still like technically valid answer, not AI slop:

"That combination often means one of:
- Written by a knowledgeable engineer using AI for drafting/polishing.
- AI-generated from detailed technical notes.
- Human-written but heavily edited with AI assistance."
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@geert For example (but that is not the only one) look at this reply:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/56f5e73b-5f40-4bfb-9796-dadfcb4f9085@oss.qualcomm.com/
which is too long LLM junk "you are right".

And also consider this:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/01578e6a-d10a-46df-bb32-fd45ecb365d7@oss.qualcomm.com/
which is not even touching the subject and not answering my actual comments. It's a perfect LLM answer which is not solving anything, just wasting my time and ticking a box "I need to answer whatever to the reviewer".
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@geert Sashiko is different, because it states it is LLM. I can read or ignore its output.

If I comment on a patch and then receive long answer to my comment from a human email address, I don't know if I am wasting my cycles on talking with LLM.
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Krzysztof Kozlowski

Edited 26 days ago
AI slop in Open Source is not only about receiving poor quality LLM generated junk patches. It is also about receiving replies generated by LLM to reviewer's comments. Such replies are overly long, overly polite, unnecessarily "You are right, <here goes very long explanation>".

Reading an LLM generated answer to my review comment on the mailing list is a waste of my time.

If you are a contributor to an open source project, understand that maintainer has absolutely ZERO interest in talking to your LLM through you.
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@monsieuricon It's: you wash by hands and the washing machine acts as part of scrap-botnet scrapping git.kernel.org and other resources through your residential internet.
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@uecker It's easy to make statements, when you do not want to back them with any sort of argument. Just make a statement and put final stop. Product Foo is insecure. Some car manufactured by Baz is not reliable. This argument is unconvincing. I can express that as well...
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@gregkh @uecker @Viss @icing @joshbressers @wdormann Heh, that's @uecker style of raising FUD, without actual arguments why it supposed to be unconvincing.
Here https://social.kernel.org/notice/B5gj02TzcQaDMcTpc8 supposedly individual (hobbyist) contributors have somehow obstacles from contributing just because some big companies are implementing changes matching their needs.

No facts or arguments why it would be more difficult for the hobbyist just statement "makes it more costly for others to contribute".

No facts why inability to create such list is unconvincing. It is just "unconvincing".

It's easy to discuss like that - object to anything, even to actual arguments, but without providing anything backing up one's statement.
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I could not find a place on the conference website to share the slides and that's a bit pity, because I understood that all my references and links won't be useful.
I am sharing then the slides via Github repo:
https://github.com/krzk/docs/blob/main/speeches-and-conferences/2026/Peculiarities%20of%20Linux%20Kernel%20Development%20-%20Krzysztof%20Kozlowski%2C%20Qualcomm%20-%20Sesja%20Linuksowa%202026.pdf

Recording of the individual session will be available later, so currently only stream is there:
https://www.youtube.com/live/ZeS7QtMYXyw?si=6vJBG2eploh85KdF&t=3957
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Krzysztof Kozlowski

Edited 1 month ago
@uecker so we made circle... You repeated earlier thought. There's no shaping by American tech interests in this matter. Just American tech does not pay for these drivers and no one else paid, either. Paid as with money or their time. It's not the American interests who decided to drop these drivers.
And it's really not that difficult to maintain all of removed stuff. One doesn't have to be even skilled... I was doing it, e.g. NFC. It requires only one, the most scarce resource: time.
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@uecker @kernellogger @klausman There was no such question when concerns of removal of the drivers were raised. Complains about dropped drivers did not come with "I wanted to devote my time, but I was rejected". No one was rejected, because no one volunteered to handle all this.
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