Comment by jmull
10 months ago
The drama, though, is due to personalities.
A directive from Linus on the technical roadmap isn't going to solve anything. It could declare someone the "winner" in this particular thread or this particular issue, but lets the personality issue fester.
It's probably best for Linux to work through its technical issues in boring email threads which never get any attention on social media. And its organizational issues and its personality issues, for that matter.
So it's probably good all around that Martin has bowed out. If you reach for the nuclear button whenever the people you're working with don't give you what you want, it's time to go work on your own (nothing wrong with that, BTW). It's not really a question of who's right, but whether people can find a way to work together. That's quite difficult in a big project, so you have to both really want it and be good at it or it's just not the place for you.
Coincidentally there is a very good talk related to this @ FOSDEM 2025 by James Bottomley: https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6540-the-...
Video isn't out yet, hopefully soon.
There is an LWN summary of it out already:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968782
It's definitely a ballpark estimate, but "boring email threads" are 99% of LKML.
There's an average of 1000 messages per day, we get news of a drama-fueled thread like, three times on a bad year?
My ballpark estimate is probably low.
Well, while Hector had a long history of frustrations with working with kernel development, the project of integrating rust drivers in the kernel has reached a cross-roads. Either to take the next steps or effectively close the door of the kernel progressing further with C and all the debt it brings.
From what I saw, the project of writing the graphic drivers for ARM Macs was quite a success, so the door for those projects shouldn't be closed.