Going my own way

[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)

Comments

*sigh*

[(Anonymous)]

Matthew, I don't know you in person but this really seems overreacting just like when I dropped my github account last year for them ignoring Russian law (they changed their mind/stance and came into compliance in a week or so).

If a woman is so silly and/or the society is so hopeless that things like Valerie mentioned (groping and such) actually *happen* at *conferences* without a proper man giving a proper kick into a bastard's face, there's no need to try to defend her cause: it's lost there already.

Thanks for all the fish, anyways.

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Michael Shigorin

Re: *sigh*

[(Anonymous)]

Michael, that is perfect! No woman should go anywhere near Linux without a male bodyguard! Because men are evil woman-abusing bastards who need to be violently assaulted! But then where will women find male bodyguards?? It's so confusing.

Re: *sigh*

[(Anonymous)]

It's not about Linux at all, neither about bodyguards -- it's about being decent enough to protect the better half of the humankind from those who got themselves indecent.

Where? Wherever you go, hopefully. Or wherever I go. That's how we do here in Russia.

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Michael Shigorin