Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 0:23 UTC (Fri) by curtis3389 (guest, #127185)
In reply to: Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel by roc
Parent article: Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

> There are plenty of other interesting projects with non-toxic communities.

This struck me.

Is there a consensus that the Linux community is toxic?

Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 0:50 UTC (Fri) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link] (1 responses)

I assume a lot of developers in the kernel community itself would disagree, though selection effects must partially explain that.

But I don't think there are many other open-source projects where Linus' behaviour would be tolerated. In that sense, I think there is a consensus.

Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 9:36 UTC (Fri) by blackwood (guest, #44174) [Link]

Linus and Linux are fairly regularly used in keynotes as _the_ example of a toxic/dysfunctional community. e.g. rust just recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9OFQm8Qf1I&feature=y...

(jumps directly to the right spot)

Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 6:00 UTC (Fri) by seyman (subscriber, #1172) [Link]

> Is there a consensus that the Linux community is toxic?

I believe there's a consensus that a number of former kernel devs are now working on other projects because they did not appreciate the Linux community mindset. There's also consensus that a number of people have chosen to not get involved with kernel development in the first place for the same reason.

As roc said, the kernel community itself probably disagrees and I suspect only legal action will change their minds.

Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 7:21 UTC (Fri) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link] (5 responses)

> Is there a consensus that the Linux community is toxic?

What would justify calling the whole community toxic? Is a couple of individuals who occasionally say something that insults someone else's feelings sufficient?

If so, then any sufficiently large community is guaranteed to get toxic.

Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 8:34 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

It's the tolerance of this behavior that makes it toxic.

Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 12:35 UTC (Fri) by deater (subscriber, #11746) [Link] (1 responses)

I would argue that Linux devel has become toxic, but for the complete opposite reason that you think.

Linux devel used to be fun, exciting, risky, interesting. But the big push has come in to make it corporate. And the more corporate it becomes, it's mostly now indistinguishable for coding for IBM or Microsoft or similar.

So despite years and years of being a committed Linux user and developer, I find myself caring less and less. Because with the limited free time I have to code, why volunteer that time to a project that has become bland and boring.

But anyway, feel free to keep up your push to stamp out what little flame there is left in the community.

Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 13:40 UTC (Fri) by excors (subscriber, #95769) [Link]

Perhaps the issue is that Linux's original culture has become a victim of its own success. Nowadays Linux is so big and so important that it would be irresponsible to leave its development to just a bunch of hackers having fun. Maintaining it and extending it requires thousands of developers working together, because of the sheer amount of work involved, and getting that many people to cooperate productively requires boring management and professional communication etc to minimise interpersonal conflicts - the kind of culture that has helped Microsoft and IBM successfully develop software over decades with thousands of developers. It's not fun or efficient, but it works.

If you want to work in a culture like Linux had when it was small and unimportant, there are plenty of other projects that are small and unimportant that you could work on. And hopefully you will help those to become large and successful and boring, and then can move on to another one.

Trying to get STACKLEAK into the kernel

Posted Sep 14, 2018 11:35 UTC (Fri) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link] (1 responses)

It's disingenuous to refer to Linus as just "an individual" in the community.

As Cyberax says, it's the toleration, defense and even sometimes celebration of this behaviour that is toxic.

individuals, and robustness in the face of extreme diversity thereof

Posted Sep 24, 2018 5:18 UTC (Mon) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link]

It's disingenuous to refer to Linus as just "an individual" in the community.

lkundrak was clearly enough describing a general logical proof involving sets and individuals. Extrapolating the situation to the general, not referring to the specific instance. Thus not disingenuous.

I too think that a significant aspect of this is the 'specialness' of the 'supreme leader'(core trademark holder). At the end of the day, anyone is free to fork linux, call it anything else, and do whatever they want. It's not like anything Linus Torvalds does or does not do interferes with anyone's freedom to do that. Given that dynamic (the core dynamic of FOSS), this doesn't seem very important to me (given the context of billions if not trillions of processors out there running 'linux' and keeping the world turning)