11 ms·

A sad post, but not an unexpected one given the tone on the kernel mailing list - I'm sure many others have left without saying anything.

by EwanToo 11y ago

hapless 11y ago
It takes courage to speak at all.
deelowe 11y ago
I don't get it. Why are so many OK with the personal attacks, unprofessional language, and generally toxic communications within the Linux kernel development community? Is it because Linus himself is one of the worst? While I appreciate the technical talent of the kernel devs, I have lost nearly all respect for these developers. This issue needs to be resolved before it gets worse.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Linus. Groups, packs, tribes, mobs, will emulate the behavior of the leader. For the members it is a sign that they respect the leader and a sign of loyalty. The problem is that Linus isn't really a dick head, among the times I've interacted with him (few) he was pleasant and respectful. Except the high 'hits' if you search for him are generally him being brutally critical, both technically and personally. And that is a challenge. People emulate their leader, and so their leader has to project the kind of leadership they want, all the time. And worse, only the gross strokes are really picked up, the subtley it always lost. So an outburst from a leader that might have had specific triggers, is read as simply an outburst. The triggers never surface by themselves to the consciousness of the folks following. People who want Linus' respect in the kernel community, act as they perceive he acts. The result is suboptimal for community harmony. That is my observation anyway.
  - debacle 11y ago
    Most of the hits for Linus being brutal on Google are him dressing down someone doing something arrogant and/or stupid. Generally he seems relatively pragmatic but gruff.
    - ChuckMcM 11y ago
      And that is the problem in a nutshell. Imagine you want to be part of that group, so you google the leader of the group and all the top hits are him dressing down idiots. You say to yourself, "Ok then I see how this ship is run." and you take on the same modus operandi. It doesn't matter if 90% of the interactions are civil and supportive, those top links "set the tone". The only way to fix it is to have Linus disavow the behavior, call it out as bad in forums, and have the top 10 links when you Google him be him dressing down kernel maintainers who treat others like children to be scolded and shamed. The behavior of his followers will change to mimic that instead.
    - deelowe 11y ago
      And the only reason he can act like that without consequence is because he's Linus. Anyone else who tries to mimic him (and they do, often) will see the conversation quickly spiral into hateful comments and insults. There's never a good reason to not be civil with someone (stupid or not). While we are on the topic of stupidity... Do people really believe there are that many "stupid" and "arrogant" people contributing to Linux? Seriously? Because, ya know, FreeBSD doesn't seem to have that issue. Odd... Maybe there's something else going on. No?
  - taco_emoji 11y ago
    IME (with groups in general) it's as much about policing as it is emulation. When people act like jerks--whether to emulate a leader, or just because--and no one says "hey, that's not cool", it becomes the norm.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  > This issue needs to be resolved before it gets worse. Is this an issue though? If the Linux Kernel project can get all the talent it needs with current attitude, then there is no good reason to change. If the culture delivers, let it be, just not join. I don't mind rough language and hostility. And if I am greeted and cannot prove that I am meaner and more hostile, just move on.
  - pron 11y ago
    > then there is no good reason to change I can think of two: 1. The project might get even better. 2. Ethics.
    - mpdehaan2 11y ago
      While civil conversation is generally important, trying to be overly nice in some ways can make it worse. The trick is to detect the point of the message and not get offended. The larger a project gets, the quicker it is needed to root out some things. Good projects are not democracies. A leader isn't going to get everything right, but accepting everything is probably worse. I think in many environments people DO want to be more blunt, but because they are representing an employer, they feel they cannot. And this sometimes leads to compromise and less desirable results. When everything is communicated in exactly the same "business professional" tone, you have effectively reduced the bit depth. The way you deal with things is by being logical and having supporting evidence, but I don't believe communities have to be for everyone and work for everyone. They should accept all groups of people, but if some people take energy out of the project, the project should get to decide where it wants to go. While I like being nice, I think if you are not occasionally very blunt. So there's a spectrum. It's a spectrum I think you can understand better if you've run a project with a couple hundred or more contributors. You have to preserve your energy. Still, I'd prefer to see language limited and highly offensive things shouldn't be said. But it's a spectrum. Quality is most important relative to making everyone feel like they 'have a voice'. Linus is doing extremely well for containing it. If some maintainers are doing worse things, that needs to be addressed. Problems come up when there are choke points where a lot of people want to contribute to the same thing, and that is naturally going to cause conflict -- or something like OpenStack, where it just says yes to everything and gets all confused :) We've become a society that gets offended a bit too much. A nd as such, we say less offensive things, and read subtexts into small things, to the point where everything sounds offensive. It's a downward spiral to where all communication has no bit depth.
- fareesh 11y ago
  I'm okay with personal attacks because my first instinct is to presume that the people writing them are not really upset at me personally, just with the work. They may choose to call me stupid, mentally challenged, wish I were retroactively aborted, etc. but they don't even know me so I genuinely can't reconcile why I would assume that intelligent people are being serious about that. If that's true, then there are three cases with regard to my code patch/submission: a) I am wrong and they are right, I've learned something and correct my code. b) I am right and they are wrong, I type up a reply and start an academic discussion on the issue itself. This is a good thing too. c) It's opinionated, in which case I defer to the people who are more invested in the kernel and correct my code, since it's better that things stay consistent with their opinions. In all three cases, after I'm done I go do something fun. Taking things personally would be a really sub-optimal use of my mortality. If I were interested in becoming friends with Linus and gang, I could see why this is a problem.
  - deelowe 11y ago
    This ignores the long term affects of building and maintaining such a culture. I guess it's great this doesn't affect you, but I'm sure it affects others.
  - emmelaich 11y ago
    > I'm okay with personal attacks ... I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. - Margaret Thatcher I agree with you and her mostly but as others say, there is a limit.
- omouse 11y ago
  I don't get it. Why are so many OK with the personal attacks, unprofessional language, and generally toxic communications This is going to be off-topic but...why are so many OK with that in the workplace? I've seen far more unprofessional language and toxic environment in a workplace by executives and managers and yet people fail to report it and fail to publicly complain. " I did not want to work professionally with people who were allowed to get away with subtle sexist or homophobic jokes. I feel powerless in a community that had a “Code of Conflict” without a specific list of behaviors to avoid and a community with no teeth to enforce it." Welcome to the typical office environment. And yet we're more likely to complain about this in the free/open source community than we are for the workplace. Why is that? Back on topic: I'm in agreement with you and there are ways of getting people to behave correctly and to have technically high quality work without acting like jerks. Those avenues should be investigated and implemented. I get it, for volunteer-based efforts it can be hard to enforce some standards because sometimes you're just happy to get any contribution, but there really needs to be a higher lower-bound placed on decency.
  - jfb 11y ago
    Why is that? Because nobody gets fired from their paying job for criticizing puerile bullying on a mailing list.
  - nommm-nommm 11y ago
    Thats not at all off topic. My thoughts? Its all in-group bonding and enforcement of the social norms of the group. Even if some aren't comfortable with it personally and wouldn't do it otherwise. The older I get the more I can agree that the (software) workplace needs to get much more professional than it is. Maybe I am off base on this one though...
  - deirdres 11y ago
    Sexist, homophobic, etc. speech or behavior is less and less tolerated in most serious office environments, not least because it opens up a company to harassment lawsuits. That being the case, I wonder what all the very big serious companies that sponsor the Linux Foundation think about the level of harassment that is apparently tolerated in the communities they sponsor.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  Many kernel developers are not OK with it. But what alternative do we have? No one person, or dozen people, could improve the development culture around the Linux kernel when various maintainers don't want it to change. Sarah has done more than anyone else I can think of to improve that culture, and I have more respect for her than any ten kernel developers who only know how to hack on code and not on culture. And while the kernel culture remains far from decent, it has improved somewhat, if only through the inclusion of many more people who don't find the current culture acceptable. I'm a kernel developer. I find the current kernel development culture toxic and draining to deal with; many other communities are much more fun to work in, and I feel energized working in those communities rather than in the kernel. I put up with it because I want to affect the direction of the kernel as well as the culture of the kernel, and because the main long-term way to affect either of those is from within that culture. I also help mentor people who want to join the kernel community. I can only hope that enough people with similar feelings participate in the community and rise to prominent roles within it, which will help change the culture for the better. I would also point out that, in addition to the people directly perpetuating this kind of toxic culture (both the massive attacks and the "background radiation"), such a culture also thrives on a large body of people who don't think it's a problem, or who chuckle at quotes of the latest nastiness. Just look at this comment page and you'll find several comments demonstrating what makes this culture hard to change.
  - lolo_ 11y ago
    Well I hope I am not one of the ones who've been unhelpful here :) I am sorry to hear that you've experienced this and it's frustrating for me from my position especially. I am fascinated by the kernel and determined to become a regular contributor (I'm working on a driver atm), but also would obviously vastly prefer a positive and helpful community. As an outsider looking at how hard it is to move from trivial patches to non-trivial it seems like even getting there is a real challenge, let alone to come in with an attitude that I'm going to stand up to cultural issues, so I wouldn't presume on the latter, but not because I think being abusive or toxic is ok. I am enthusiastic about becoming a part of the community and always try my best to treat others with respect, so hopefully if I am successful at becoming a regular contributor I can help even in some small way to improve things :) and hopefully as you say there are others who feel the same way.
- kawera 11y ago
  I don't know if Linus is the worst but he sets the overall tonne for sure. Not everybody can take it - I for one have left more than 10 years ago with no regrets. A little politeness goes a long way.
- gambler 11y ago
  I don't think people are OK with it. It's more of a case that they realize this is a problem that might not have a good solution. Currently, Linux kernel works. The process for changing it, overall, works too. Currently, some people are driven off by abrasive language and personal comments. You might be surprised to find out that attempts to enforce language and behavior rules will also drive people off. And not just assholes. Very often such attempts lead to replacement of open rudeness with more subtle, but equally (or more) hostile tone-policing and emotional reasoning. It creates politics. Open rudeness is often easier to ignore, because it's obvious and isn't backed up by "official" code of conduct. I'm not saying that nothing could/should be done here. It's just that simplistic solutions like creating a strict code of conduct and kicking out the "bad" people are likely to do more harm than good.
  - jleader 11y ago
    Sure, the kernel development process "works", but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? The trouble is, the nastiness drives away people not based on their level of competence, but based on their willingness to put up with nastiness. So you end up with fewer good developers, and people talking about how the senior kernel maintainers are so overworked that they "have" to be nasty, because they don't have time to be nice. Do you really think that widespread open nastiness means there are no politics now?
    - wpietri 11y ago
      > Sure, the kernel development process "works", but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? So much agreed. I find it deeply weird that technical people suddenly be against improving something on the grounds that it appears to work now. Look at Linux itself. Did the world really need another OS? Does it need all those features, all those patches? Thank goodness nobody worried too much about that. If they had, Linux wouldn't exist. Hell, computers wouldn't exist.
    - msandford 11y ago
      > but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? Yes, so simply prove that having an official code of conduct and that enforcing it wouldn't cause more harm than good. Show me a big-corp that's more agile and effective and gets things done better than a startup and I'll totally believe in the power of a fully staffed HR slash police department in promoting effective work. I don't think that happens very often (if at all) but being able to point out that it works for dozens or hundreds of big companies would be pretty convincing. I'd love to be wrong about this actually! The other problem is that it's a volunteer "organization" and as such there's not much you can do to kick people out. They're mostly hired by outside companies and those companies would have to choose to fire them for failing to adhere to a standard that they themselves don't set, so they'd be outsourcing the management of their own people to a certain extent. I suspect they wouldn't be keen to agree to this. > Do you really think that widespread open nastiness means there are no politics now? I would venture to guess that at least the nastiness now means that the politics are mostly out in the open and that it's easier to navigate. It's possible to eke out tremendous performance gains making small changes inside hot loops with computers these days because processors don't expose their characteristics very well. The CPU is happy to execute some kind of awful loop that causes it to wait hundreds or thousands of cycles per iteration because you're column indexing instead of row indexing. This might be in some ways analogous to what happens when everyone has to be polite; nobody can tell you what you did wrong lest they get yelled at by the be-nice-police and things slow way down as people have to hint and guess as to what the problems are. I don't think there is anything such as a free lunch; unintended consequences are rife in the world. Suggesting that the linux kernel could work better, free of unintended consequences seems to be a bold claim. But the great thing about hackers, geeks and nerds is that solid evidence trumps politics and preference.

A sad post, but not an unexpected one given the tone on the kernel mailing list - I'm sure many others have left without saying anything.

by EwanToo 11y ago

A sad post, but not an unexpected one given the tone on the kernel mailing list - I'm sure many others have left without saying anything.

hapless 11y ago

It takes courage to speak at all.

deelowe 11y ago

I don't get it. Why are so many OK with the personal attacks, unprofessional language, and generally toxic communications within the Linux kernel development community? Is it because Linus himself is one of the worst? While I appreciate the technical talent of the kernel devs, I have lost nearly all respect for these developers. This issue needs to be resolved before it gets worse.

ChuckMcM 11y ago
Linus. Groups, packs, tribes, mobs, will emulate the behavior of the leader. For the members it is a sign that they respect the leader and a sign of loyalty. The problem is that Linus isn't really a dick head, among the times I've interacted with him (few) he was pleasant and respectful. Except the high 'hits' if you search for him are generally him being brutally critical, both technically and personally. And that is a challenge. People emulate their leader, and so their leader has to project the kind of leadership they want, all the time. And worse, only the gross strokes are really picked up, the subtley it always lost. So an outburst from a leader that might have had specific triggers, is read as simply an outburst. The triggers never surface by themselves to the consciousness of the folks following. People who want Linus' respect in the kernel community, act as they perceive he acts. The result is suboptimal for community harmony. That is my observation anyway.
- debacle 11y ago
  Most of the hits for Linus being brutal on Google are him dressing down someone doing something arrogant and/or stupid. Generally he seems relatively pragmatic but gruff.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    And that is the problem in a nutshell. Imagine you want to be part of that group, so you google the leader of the group and all the top hits are him dressing down idiots. You say to yourself, "Ok then I see how this ship is run." and you take on the same modus operandi. It doesn't matter if 90% of the interactions are civil and supportive, those top links "set the tone". The only way to fix it is to have Linus disavow the behavior, call it out as bad in forums, and have the top 10 links when you Google him be him dressing down kernel maintainers who treat others like children to be scolded and shamed. The behavior of his followers will change to mimic that instead.
  - deelowe 11y ago
    And the only reason he can act like that without consequence is because he's Linus. Anyone else who tries to mimic him (and they do, often) will see the conversation quickly spiral into hateful comments and insults. There's never a good reason to not be civil with someone (stupid or not). While we are on the topic of stupidity... Do people really believe there are that many "stupid" and "arrogant" people contributing to Linux? Seriously? Because, ya know, FreeBSD doesn't seem to have that issue. Odd... Maybe there's something else going on. No?
- taco_emoji 11y ago
  IME (with groups in general) it's as much about policing as it is emulation. When people act like jerks--whether to emulate a leader, or just because--and no one says "hey, that's not cool", it becomes the norm.
venomsnake 11y ago
> This issue needs to be resolved before it gets worse. Is this an issue though? If the Linux Kernel project can get all the talent it needs with current attitude, then there is no good reason to change. If the culture delivers, let it be, just not join. I don't mind rough language and hostility. And if I am greeted and cannot prove that I am meaner and more hostile, just move on.
- pron 11y ago
  > then there is no good reason to change I can think of two: 1. The project might get even better. 2. Ethics.
  - mpdehaan2 11y ago
    While civil conversation is generally important, trying to be overly nice in some ways can make it worse. The trick is to detect the point of the message and not get offended. The larger a project gets, the quicker it is needed to root out some things. Good projects are not democracies. A leader isn't going to get everything right, but accepting everything is probably worse. I think in many environments people DO want to be more blunt, but because they are representing an employer, they feel they cannot. And this sometimes leads to compromise and less desirable results. When everything is communicated in exactly the same "business professional" tone, you have effectively reduced the bit depth. The way you deal with things is by being logical and having supporting evidence, but I don't believe communities have to be for everyone and work for everyone. They should accept all groups of people, but if some people take energy out of the project, the project should get to decide where it wants to go. While I like being nice, I think if you are not occasionally very blunt. So there's a spectrum. It's a spectrum I think you can understand better if you've run a project with a couple hundred or more contributors. You have to preserve your energy. Still, I'd prefer to see language limited and highly offensive things shouldn't be said. But it's a spectrum. Quality is most important relative to making everyone feel like they 'have a voice'. Linus is doing extremely well for containing it. If some maintainers are doing worse things, that needs to be addressed. Problems come up when there are choke points where a lot of people want to contribute to the same thing, and that is naturally going to cause conflict -- or something like OpenStack, where it just says yes to everything and gets all confused :) We've become a society that gets offended a bit too much. A nd as such, we say less offensive things, and read subtexts into small things, to the point where everything sounds offensive. It's a downward spiral to where all communication has no bit depth.
fareesh 11y ago
I'm okay with personal attacks because my first instinct is to presume that the people writing them are not really upset at me personally, just with the work. They may choose to call me stupid, mentally challenged, wish I were retroactively aborted, etc. but they don't even know me so I genuinely can't reconcile why I would assume that intelligent people are being serious about that. If that's true, then there are three cases with regard to my code patch/submission: a) I am wrong and they are right, I've learned something and correct my code. b) I am right and they are wrong, I type up a reply and start an academic discussion on the issue itself. This is a good thing too. c) It's opinionated, in which case I defer to the people who are more invested in the kernel and correct my code, since it's better that things stay consistent with their opinions. In all three cases, after I'm done I go do something fun. Taking things personally would be a really sub-optimal use of my mortality. If I were interested in becoming friends with Linus and gang, I could see why this is a problem.
- deelowe 11y ago
  This ignores the long term affects of building and maintaining such a culture. I guess it's great this doesn't affect you, but I'm sure it affects others.
- emmelaich 11y ago
  > I'm okay with personal attacks ... I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. - Margaret Thatcher I agree with you and her mostly but as others say, there is a limit.
omouse 11y ago
I don't get it. Why are so many OK with the personal attacks, unprofessional language, and generally toxic communications This is going to be off-topic but...why are so many OK with that in the workplace? I've seen far more unprofessional language and toxic environment in a workplace by executives and managers and yet people fail to report it and fail to publicly complain. " I did not want to work professionally with people who were allowed to get away with subtle sexist or homophobic jokes. I feel powerless in a community that had a “Code of Conflict” without a specific list of behaviors to avoid and a community with no teeth to enforce it." Welcome to the typical office environment. And yet we're more likely to complain about this in the free/open source community than we are for the workplace. Why is that? Back on topic: I'm in agreement with you and there are ways of getting people to behave correctly and to have technically high quality work without acting like jerks. Those avenues should be investigated and implemented. I get it, for volunteer-based efforts it can be hard to enforce some standards because sometimes you're just happy to get any contribution, but there really needs to be a higher lower-bound placed on decency.
- jfb 11y ago
  Why is that? Because nobody gets fired from their paying job for criticizing puerile bullying on a mailing list.
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  Thats not at all off topic. My thoughts? Its all in-group bonding and enforcement of the social norms of the group. Even if some aren't comfortable with it personally and wouldn't do it otherwise. The older I get the more I can agree that the (software) workplace needs to get much more professional than it is. Maybe I am off base on this one though...
- deirdres 11y ago
  Sexist, homophobic, etc. speech or behavior is less and less tolerated in most serious office environments, not least because it opens up a company to harassment lawsuits. That being the case, I wonder what all the very big serious companies that sponsor the Linux Foundation think about the level of harassment that is apparently tolerated in the communities they sponsor.
JoshTriplett 11y ago
Many kernel developers are not OK with it. But what alternative do we have? No one person, or dozen people, could improve the development culture around the Linux kernel when various maintainers don't want it to change. Sarah has done more than anyone else I can think of to improve that culture, and I have more respect for her than any ten kernel developers who only know how to hack on code and not on culture. And while the kernel culture remains far from decent, it has improved somewhat, if only through the inclusion of many more people who don't find the current culture acceptable. I'm a kernel developer. I find the current kernel development culture toxic and draining to deal with; many other communities are much more fun to work in, and I feel energized working in those communities rather than in the kernel. I put up with it because I want to affect the direction of the kernel as well as the culture of the kernel, and because the main long-term way to affect either of those is from within that culture. I also help mentor people who want to join the kernel community. I can only hope that enough people with similar feelings participate in the community and rise to prominent roles within it, which will help change the culture for the better. I would also point out that, in addition to the people directly perpetuating this kind of toxic culture (both the massive attacks and the "background radiation"), such a culture also thrives on a large body of people who don't think it's a problem, or who chuckle at quotes of the latest nastiness. Just look at this comment page and you'll find several comments demonstrating what makes this culture hard to change.
- lolo_ 11y ago
  Well I hope I am not one of the ones who've been unhelpful here :) I am sorry to hear that you've experienced this and it's frustrating for me from my position especially. I am fascinated by the kernel and determined to become a regular contributor (I'm working on a driver atm), but also would obviously vastly prefer a positive and helpful community. As an outsider looking at how hard it is to move from trivial patches to non-trivial it seems like even getting there is a real challenge, let alone to come in with an attitude that I'm going to stand up to cultural issues, so I wouldn't presume on the latter, but not because I think being abusive or toxic is ok. I am enthusiastic about becoming a part of the community and always try my best to treat others with respect, so hopefully if I am successful at becoming a regular contributor I can help even in some small way to improve things :) and hopefully as you say there are others who feel the same way.
kawera 11y ago
I don't know if Linus is the worst but he sets the overall tonne for sure. Not everybody can take it - I for one have left more than 10 years ago with no regrets. A little politeness goes a long way.
gambler 11y ago
I don't think people are OK with it. It's more of a case that they realize this is a problem that might not have a good solution. Currently, Linux kernel works. The process for changing it, overall, works too. Currently, some people are driven off by abrasive language and personal comments. You might be surprised to find out that attempts to enforce language and behavior rules will also drive people off. And not just assholes. Very often such attempts lead to replacement of open rudeness with more subtle, but equally (or more) hostile tone-policing and emotional reasoning. It creates politics. Open rudeness is often easier to ignore, because it's obvious and isn't backed up by "official" code of conduct. I'm not saying that nothing could/should be done here. It's just that simplistic solutions like creating a strict code of conduct and kicking out the "bad" people are likely to do more harm than good.
- jleader 11y ago
  Sure, the kernel development process "works", but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? The trouble is, the nastiness drives away people not based on their level of competence, but based on their willingness to put up with nastiness. So you end up with fewer good developers, and people talking about how the senior kernel maintainers are so overworked that they "have" to be nasty, because they don't have time to be nice. Do you really think that widespread open nastiness means there are no politics now?
  - wpietri 11y ago
    > Sure, the kernel development process "works", but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? So much agreed. I find it deeply weird that technical people suddenly be against improving something on the grounds that it appears to work now. Look at Linux itself. Did the world really need another OS? Does it need all those features, all those patches? Thank goodness nobody worried too much about that. If they had, Linux wouldn't exist. Hell, computers wouldn't exist.
  - msandford 11y ago
    > but wouldn't it be nice if it worked better? Yes, so simply prove that having an official code of conduct and that enforcing it wouldn't cause more harm than good. Show me a big-corp that's more agile and effective and gets things done better than a startup and I'll totally believe in the power of a fully staffed HR slash police department in promoting effective work. I don't think that happens very often (if at all) but being able to point out that it works for dozens or hundreds of big companies would be pretty convincing. I'd love to be wrong about this actually! The other problem is that it's a volunteer "organization" and as such there's not much you can do to kick people out. They're mostly hired by outside companies and those companies would have to choose to fire them for failing to adhere to a standard that they themselves don't set, so they'd be outsourcing the management of their own people to a certain extent. I suspect they wouldn't be keen to agree to this. > Do you really think that widespread open nastiness means there are no politics now? I would venture to guess that at least the nastiness now means that the politics are mostly out in the open and that it's easier to navigate. It's possible to eke out tremendous performance gains making small changes inside hot loops with computers these days because processors don't expose their characteristics very well. The CPU is happy to execute some kind of awful loop that causes it to wait hundreds or thousands of cycles per iteration because you're column indexing instead of row indexing. This might be in some ways analogous to what happens when everyone has to be polite; nobody can tell you what you did wrong lest they get yelled at by the be-nice-police and things slow way down as people have to hint and guess as to what the problems are. I don't think there is anything such as a free lunch; unintended consequences are rife in the world. Suggesting that the linux kernel could work better, free of unintended consequences seems to be a bold claim. But the great thing about hackers, geeks and nerds is that solid evidence trumps politics and preference.