Better tools for kernel developers

Enabling easier contributions from relative newbies is laudable, but if that requires you to kneecap your most productive folks by making their highly refined workflows unworkable, they're going to resist you, and for good reason.

I mean, one could make a decent argument about how if you're not capable of hooking up git-send-email, you probably aren't going to be able to handle the much greater technical challenges of landing actual changes to the kernel itself. Call it a basic weedout task if you will.

Another way of looking at it is that if you want to develop Linux kernel code, you need to use Linux kernel tools and workflows. This is hardly controversial; after all, if you want to develop an iOS app, you are forced to use Xcode on a Mac. Or Android Studio for Android apps, or Visual Studio (on Windows) for Windows applications. Or Vivado for wrangling Xilinx FPGAs. Or.. Or.. Or. Each of those embodies not just a different workflow, but the culture and mentality necessary to be truly productive.

So by all means, let's make things better. But it behoves us to listen to those who have been slogging away in the trenches and see what they come up with, lest we end up with the workflow equivalent of the Chauchat rifle.