Comment by e40

People should read it:

"... I come at this from the perspective of having worked on Linux since around December of 1991. I first met you and Tove in 1995 at the Free Software Conference at MIT that Stallman sponsored. ...

Probably the last technical contribution of my career is leading an initiative to provide the Linux community a generic security modeling architecture. Not to supplant or replace anything currently being done, but to provide a flexible alternative to the development of alternate and/or customized workload models, particularly in this era of machine learning and modeling.

Four patch series over two years, as of yesterday, not a single line of code ever reviewed. ...

We were meticulous in our submissions to avoid wasting maintainers time. We even waited two months without hearing a word before we sent an inquiry as to the status of one of the submissions. We were told, rather curtly, that anything we sent would likely be ignored if we ever inquired about them.

We tried to engage, perhaps to excess, in technical discussions attempting to explain why and how we chose to implement what we were proposing. ...

There were never any relevant technical exchanges. The discussion consisted of, we have decided to do things a certain way, no discussion, if you don't like that you should really consider doing something other than submitting to upstream Linux."

The short of his rant is that he wants a "Code Of Standards for maintainers" in addition to a CoC, in order to witch hunt people he feels "gets in the way."

Yikes, this is EXACTLY what Linus was talking about except an order of magnitude worse!

There are easy and good answers, just none that every single one would agree with, and that is the problem.

The current management model is based on consensus in some parts, and a dictatorship in others. Its not clear which parts are which because of sprawl, and non-responsiveness.

This is a core communication people issue. The problems arise because in consensus models, people are expected to adopt archetypical roles based somewhat on preference, but mostly on the needs of the group, towards productivity.

If no one else is doing that type of role, someone will be forced into doing it, and will adopt characteristics of that role, regardless of their personal opinions about it.

When they get punished for fulfilling the role, you lose people.

> doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and consider things "unfixable" either.

The given structure is unfixable, because it sets the stage for a trauma loop where actions can't take place without people who are expected to fulfill a role to meet consensus, but in doing so they get punished for volunteering.

There is no way around this structure so long as you use a consensus model in whole or part, in dysfunctional groups the people involved either fail to communicate or worse there are members that impose coercive cost by assuming the unproductive roles so no action happens while resources are wasted.

This really is basic stuff covered in your college level intro to communications coursework.

For those wanting to know more about this, you can read more about the roles at the link below.

https://pressbooks.pub/smallgroup/chapter/roles/

I think "Code of Civility" is what Dr. G was describing. Conduct presupposes civility, but acceptable online discourse has changed amongst new internet natives raised in the era of moral totalitarianism, aggression as a service, and popular outrage incubators.

Looks like Dr Greg (not Greg KH) is just piling his own personal grievance on top of the drama. Saying "Jim are you listening?" makes me wonder who he's sniping at.

Speaking as an actual People Manager, his ideas sound pretty shallow.

This part is wild. Some people get in so deep they cannot see the forest from the trees.

    > there is the tangible risk of stifling innovation and Linux is the only place that innovation can occur in the operating system space.

One thing I know: HN loves drama, and this stuff reads like first class drama.

[dead]

[dead]

Yikes, at great example of how not all thoughts that pop into your head should be publicised.

Greg replied and explained that this is a mischaracterization https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/2025013030-gummy-cosm...

I'm not sure this is fundamentally different from e.g. a complex filesystem implementation relying on a specific MM or VFS or whatever API, and a "C developer" wanting to change that API. Just because the callers are in C doesn't necessarily make the global change easy.

Threatening with social media seems to me like a professional suicide, especially when it's followed by a doubling down and a complete lack of anything resembling an apology.

I'm amazed that Hector is doing this fully in public using his real name.

It’s true though? I don’t see anyone picking C/C++ over Rust/Go in my immediate environment.

That might reflect my environment, but all of the things I’d consider C variations for I’d use Rust for as well…

The dirty laundry of the entire kernel community not immediately knuckling under and implementing a rather long list of technical changes in the preferred way of one specific individual? That's an unreasonable take. It would be disastrous for all of us if the project ever went that way, considering the importance of Linux today. It's not like I disagree with some of the points that Marcan raised, but others have equally valid concerns as well. However, he wants to get discussion and compromise out the window and go straight to social media drama. That's never okay.

And please, stop using the concept of ad hominems to selectively justify blatant abuse. That's not what the term is about.

.. or it could just be that 'the public' has little to add to kernel development other than social landmines that the kernel teams have to navigate in order to achieve technical work..