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

[(Anonymous)]

I disagree. There are many issues where the "technical" argument is not at all clear. Ever heard of "4 generation languages" or "3-tier client/server"? Well, there was a time when most people thought there was a clear "technical" argument in favor of these technologies, while some (a minority) disagreed. Who was right? The minority who, by the way, was often unable to explain why exaclty they did not like these technologies. They just had a bad gut feeling.

Linus is someone with a proven track record of correct gut feelings. We should respect that. If Linus says "No" maybe just 3 times, we should accept his decision. Yes it is "arbitrary" but it is the way things work. Having a strong and opinionated leader is the only way to keep a technological project from going overboard with science-fiction crap. Look at NASA. While Von Brown was alive, things worked because he was, like Linus, quite conservative in his technical choices. When he left, people went overboard with the fucking space-shuttle and we know how it ended. It killed more astrnoauts than all other launchers put together. Is this the way you want the Linux Kernel to go ?