Comment by g42gregory
4 years ago
Reading this email exchange, I worry about the state of our education system, including computer science departments. Instead of making coherent arguments, this PhD student speaks about "preconceived biases". I loved Greg's response. The spirit of Linus lives within the Kernel! These UMN people should be nowhere near the kernel. I guess they got the answer to their research on what would happen if you keep submitting stealth malicious patches to the kernel: you will get found out and banned. Made my day.
The tone of Pakki's reply made me cringe:
> Attitude that is not only unwelcome but also intimidating to newbies and non experts
Between that and the "Clarifications" document suggesting they handle it by updating their Code of Conduct, they're clearly trying really hard to frame all of this as some kind of toxic culture in kernel development. That's a hideous defense. It's like a bad MMA fight where one fighter refuses to stand up because he insists on keeping it a ground fight. Maybe it works sometimes, but it's shameful.