On kernel mailing list behavior [LWN.net]

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 17, 2013 23:24 UTC (Wed) by tbird20d (subscriber, #1901)
In reply to: On kernel mailing list behavior by khim
Parent article: On kernel mailing list behavior

And yes, it really sad that people like Sarah who tend to thwart honest discussion (because noone is allowed to talk honestly near them because they can easily be offended) are valued more in today's world then people who actually do honest work.

Careful there. You're implying that Sarah thwarts honest discussion and doesn't do honest work. Are you familiar with Sarah's work in the kernel?

Frankly, if it were an the option I'd much rather submit code to Sarah than to Linus - not because I think she'd be easier on my code, but because I think she'd be more constructive with her criticism.

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On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 18, 2013 1:46 UTC (Thu) by Tara_Li (guest, #26706) [Link] (5 responses)

*shrugs* Then encourage Sarah to start her own fork of the Linux Kernel.

Heck, we've had plenty of cases in the past where it became obvious that Linus doesn't scale well, and where it showed that his interest in the Kernel per se have faded. If Sarah asked, Linus would probably be *glad* to hand ultimate control over the kernel community to her - except that he can't.

Linus controls, in a sense, everything about the community *except* one detail - the fact that he's the one in control. That is decided by the community itself, based on his track record. And complaints about his civility are hardly new. But when all is said and done, people trust Linus, most likely because they know what he says is what he considers the unvarnished truth. He has proven able to admit when he's wrong, but he's also been proven right an insane amount of the time.

Perhaps Sarah should be discussing her opinion of Linus' civility with Ms. Amanda McPherson, Ms. Angela Brown, Ms. Jennifer Cloer, or Ms Karen Copenhaver. They're part of the Management Team that actually pays Linus at the Linux Foundation - so you could say they're his enablers.

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:09 UTC (Thu) by simosx (guest, #24338) [Link] (1 responses)

It is actually Jim Zemlin who is at fault here.

Have a look at his mystifying talk at http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/185-jennifer-clo...

He looks surprised that even if things are done /wrongly/ at the Linux development, the Linux kernel appears to come out OK.
His last point was *Don't be nice*, and he was referring to this exact issue we are discussing here. Jim, as an executive director, seems unable to reign or influence the core kernel developers.

What Jim is missing is that the Linux kernel is used in almost all devices. No matter what deficiencies exist in the development, at the moment there will be people around to replace the disaffected.
The Linux kernel development sets the tone to other projects, and you can see how it works with other projects were they lack the contributors.
This immature attitude in the Linux kernel development makes most core development to happen by paid developers and the volunteers are doing peripheral work.

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 18, 2013 22:12 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

You appear to have no understanding of how kernel development works. Jim Zemlin is not a king. He does not 'reign'. He is not even Linus's boss in any real sense: he pays Linus, but if he tries to tell Linus what to do, and Linus disagrees with it, Linus could jump ship somewhere else in a microsecond. Linus has so much bargaining power in this relationship that in a very real sense he is *Jim's* boss -- Jim's job, like the organization he heads, wouldn't exist without the kernel Linus has spent the last 22 years on, after all.

(This is true of major contributors to other projects too. You think someone could order the GCC developers to do something seriously stupid? No, they'd jump ship if it came down to it, and they'd even know where to go: one of the other companies employing GCC hackers. To know what those are, they only need to be able to read the bit after the @ on the development mailing list they follow every day.)

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 18, 2013 11:10 UTC (Thu) by simosx (guest, #24338) [Link] (2 responses)

> *shrugs* Then encourage Sarah to start her own fork of the Linux Kernel.

I think this is called 'being patronizing'.

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 18, 2013 16:48 UTC (Thu) by Tara_Li (guest, #26706) [Link] (1 responses)

No, it's the whole point of open-source licensing. If you don't like *ANYTHING* about the code, the process, whatever - you are free to take it and do something else. In the case of the GPL2, you can fork the project, keep on building from that base, and cherry pick things you find useful from the other guy's tree. Of course, they're cherry picking things they find useful in return - again, go back to RMS who started this whole mess. If, as Sarah says, civility in the environment is so important - her branch will take off and fairly quickly overshadow the Linus-lead branch.

Though in truth, I don't think that would happen.

I'm of two minds on the civility bit...

It eases things along, lubricating where people's egos rub together, but it also seems to reduce bandwidth, increase latency, and all too often fail integrity tests, requiring resending of the message and all too often slipping around integrity tests, contaminating the communications with falsehoods.

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 19, 2013 20:13 UTC (Fri) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link]

No, it's "being patronizing" just as GP said.

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 18, 2013 3:28 UTC (Thu) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (1 responses)

> Frankly, if it were an the option I'd much rather submit code to Sarah than to Linus - not because I think she'd be easier on my code, but because I think she'd be more constructive with her criticism.

I've never worked with Sarah because I don't do USB work, so I can't comment on what it's like to work with/for her. But I've have worked with Linus, and I have been on the receiving end of his rants. Most of that was actually in private emails and it was more misunderstanding between the two of us.

That said, when Linus has commented on my work, I have found it to be actually very constructive. More constructive than pretty much any other developer I worked with. There has been times that I have disagreed with him (on minor things), but he definitely knows how to run the Linux community, and I really believe he's the main reason for most of the Linux kernel success.

On kernel mailing list behavior

Posted Jul 19, 2013 10:17 UTC (Fri) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link]

"he definitely knows how to run the Linux community"

Well... except Linus was a bit of a git with the Bitkeeper thing, which was hugely and unnecessarily divisive for the community. Then there was the IDE thing. And a few other things, just a few isolated smudges on an otherwise legendary record.