[personal profile] mjg59
Reaction to Sarah's post about leaving the kernel community was a mixture of terrible and touching, but it's still one of those things that almost certainly won't end up making any kind of significant difference. Linus has made it pretty clear that he's fine with the way he behaves, and nobody's going to depose him. That's unfortunate, because earlier today I was sitting in a presentation at Linuxcon and remembering how much I love the technical side of kernel development. "Remembering" is a deliberate choice of word - it's been increasingly difficult to remember that, because instead I remember having to deal with interminable arguments over the naming of an interface because Linus has an undying hatred of BSD securelevel, or having my name forever associated with the deepthroating of Microsoft because Linus couldn't be bothered asking questions about the reasoning behind a design before trashing it.

In the end it's a mixture of just being tired of dealing with the crap associated with Linux development and realising that by continuing to put up with it I'm tacitly encouraging its continuation, but I can't be bothered any more. And, thanks to the magic of free software, it turns out that I can avoid putting up with the bullshit in the kernel community and get to work on the things I'm interested in doing. So here's a kernel tree with patches that implement a BSD-style securelevel interface. Over time it'll pick up some of the power management code I'm still working on, and we'll see where it goes from there. But, until there's a significant shift in community norms on LKML, I'll only be there when I'm being paid to be there. And that's improved my mood immeasurably.

(Edited to add a context link for the "deepthroating of Microsoft" reference)

What Sarah was pushing ...

Date: 2015-10-06 08:03 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
... is exactly this: https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=a8ed5fad

Unfortunately, that's a German-only site, but you may find an appropriate translation by one of those web translation services.

Re: What Sarah was pushing ...

Date: 2015-10-07 11:02 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Don't take Fefe as a primary source, he doesn't even follow the LKML, he just repeats what others say (and *then* starts to investigate, but isn't really thorough, but relies on what others tell him).
Also, he's quite anti-feminism, for all the right reasons but in practice putting all events into an "no this isn't a good reason either" context.

So... prejudiced and hearsay-based; it's probably better to go to the LKML archives and read the exchanges directly.
BTW Fefe would approve of doing so, for just that reason. He knows he's biased, tells people he is, and regularly tells people to train their information competence.

Re: What Sarah was pushing ...

Date: 2015-10-07 11:41 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Actually, he linked to a discussion on Slashdot, where they claim to quote the relevant parts of the conversation between Linus, Sarah etc. on lkml with sufficient context. If that's true, then Sara is the person who picked a fight for no good reason, and lost. Deservedly, I might add.

Re: What Sarah was pushing ...

Date: 2015-11-02 08:56 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
So, it was just too much trouble for you to look at the primary sources before forming your opinion, huh?

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Matthew Garrett

About Matthew

Power management, mobile and firmware developer on Linux. Security developer at Aurora. Ex-biologist. [personal profile] mjg59 on Twitter. Content here should not be interpreted as the opinion of my employer. Also on Mastodon.

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