10 ms·

Linus Torvalds Back in Charge of Linux

Lordarminius 8y ago
Thus restoring the natural order.
carlmr 8y ago
I really wonder what's going to happen to Linux once Linus is gone. I think we've seen now that just a week after he took a break the community started falling apart rapidly.
- lolive 8y ago
  Hopefully natural selection will bring us a profile similar to Linus that will take over the job.
  - Narann 8y ago
    ...or various specialized kernels... Who know...
- ChrisSD 8y ago
  Did it? People actually involved in the Linux community seemed fine. It was just internet people shouting "the sky is falling!"
  - carlmr 8y ago
    What I read about was Kernel contributors having some friction with the CoC. That got blown up by the press a bit, but it wasn't only the press.
    - brazzy 8y ago
      If anything, drama related the CoC was what caused Linus' hiatus (in a "straw the broke the camel's back" sense), not the other way round.
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      That was just because the CoC was updated at the same time that Linus left. There would have been CoC controversy if Linus had never left.
      - navane 8y ago
        You might have hit the nail on the head here. The belgian king once resigned for a single day so the parliament could pass a law on abortion. Could Linus have pulled of a similiar stunt? https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable-to-sign-abortion-law-takes-day-off.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable...
        joshuamorton 8y ago
        I find it unlikely. It came up on the lkml that Linus requested changes to the CoC, and Greg was just the person who ended up managing the changes. If you mean that Linus didn't want the flak for the changes, then that seems like weak leadership on his part, and since iiuc Greg is likely to take over kernel management when Linus ever retires, passing the controversial work to his eventual replacement is bad tactics as well, since it'll undermine Greg's authority in some people's eyes if he takes over.
- ry_ry 8y ago
  Kernel fragments into a dizzying array of forks, TrueLinux, RealKernel, Linux Core, LinuxPlus and DogeKernel fight for supremacy on obscure making lists and github issue trackers. The public remains largely unaware. Huge PR battles over which logo to use erupt, somebody sneaks backdoors into the majority of the kernels. Somebody else backdoors the backdoors. Pretty soon over half the code base consists of backdoors and embedded nVidia graphics drivers. Buzzfeed publish a list of 15 linux kernels you won't believe exist. A week has now passed since Linus left the project, and we have hit Peak Kernel. Linux fades from the cusp of becoming a mainstream desktop OS and eventually settles into a niche server role until the 2038 bug wipes out humanity due to some buggy memory management running on an ICBM launch computer. Chrome OS sees a slight uptick in users.
  - jraph 8y ago
    I really enjoyed reading this comment. I'm still smiling. Thanks. Now I can start working happy. carlmr, you issued a nice writing prompt.
  - neddeadstark 8y ago
    This is perfect.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    I've been keeping a plain text file of quotes for 15 years. I hadn't put anything in it since April this year. Thank you.
- pelario 8y ago
  Git seems to be doing fine after Linus left it...
  - williamdclt 8y ago
    True, but Linus is not the leader of Git since 13ish years. He gave the reins to Junio Hamano before it became such a large and influencial project, and Linux is way larger and way more influencial now. There's way more Linus "baked in" the kernel than in Git, I would say
- dis-sys 8y ago
  Ballmer yelling at people "cancer is cured!"
- tjpnz 8y ago
  Once there are enough moderators, community guidelines and steering committees in place it will just write itself.
- Maakuth 8y ago
  [citation needed]
- PurpleRamen 8y ago
  He left after detonating a bomb. It would have played the same even when he stayed. He probably just left to avoid the shitstorm and his first violation of the CoC. Though, it's true that with "eternal" project-leads like Linus, or recently Guido van Rossum at Python, we never think about what will happen when they are gone. But I think with big projects like Linux they will be fine. There are enough people to replace them, even if things might change, the project moves on. We should think more about important projects from single developers. What about vim? Or all the important plugins/addons? There are so many small important gears around which depends on so few support.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  "Some people on the internet with no involvement whatsoever in kernel development shouting about political correctness gone mad" !== "Falling apart rapidly"
- aasasd 8y ago
  It would probably be for the best if Linus stayed away for a while and saw what happens. That way he and the community could make a better plan for when he retires for real, and start steering in that direction now.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Very first thing? Kernel ABI becomes unstable, thus securing Linux's position as the OS most incompatible with itself.
lolive 8y ago
I am now waiting for a post from Linus entitled: "Behaviour therapists are just bullshitters" ;)
- nabla9 8y ago
  Welcome Linus 1.0.1-000 (first minor revision). Linus debugged his own communication routines after users complained.
  - pulse7 8y ago
    People can change their habits only to a certain extent...
    - rs23296008n1 8y ago
      sudo change behaviour -f linus20.json
      - LeoNatan25 8y ago
        JSON is likely the least efficient container for a behavior type. ;-)
        Ws32ok 8y ago
        sudo change behaviour didn't work. Maybe you used the wrong option?
        rs23296008n1 8y ago
        Not in sudoers file or group more likely.
      - rs23296008n1 8y ago
        Wow. Someone says someone can't change behaviour and I reply with sudo and it gets downvoted?! Wow. Lesson learnt. I need to find a geekier crowd who know what sudo is.
nodesocket 8y ago
Halaula, the great messiah has returned after a few weeks reformed. Next up unconscious biases training at Google HQ.
pandapower2 8y ago
I don't know what I thought would happen exactly but when he said he was taking time away I certainly imagined it would be a lot longer than a month.
- Insanity 8y ago
  Yeah I actually made the same assumption. But, I suppose for someone who's always quite involved with everything and doesn't take long breaks- one month can seem quite long.
- erikb 8y ago
  It was a political move from day one. As you might notice Kernel is not the only environment that adds and modifies their CoC currently. There is a group with political goals driving that effort. He wanted to see where the wind is blowing before making a move himself, as well as be flexible enough to also move into the corresponding direction. That said, I also wonder if he moves too quickly, or if he found an agreement with other FOSS leaders.
  - dsr_ 8y ago
    Can you identify this "group with political goals driving that effort" or is it speculation bordering on conspiracy theory?
    - erikb 8y ago
      Can you check the other comments in the thread and any other post about CoCs in FOSS communities over the recent 4-16 weeks? Check out this discussion for instance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281676 Also note that my previous comment is at -4 already of the time of this writing, which must be done by someone who doesn't like that opinion. You wouldn't go ask 5-7 of your friends to give downvotes to that comment just because you disagree with it, right?
- cesarb 8y ago
  To me on the other hand, it was obvious that he would be back as soon as 4.19 was released and the 4.20 merge window opened (the kernel release cycle has two phases, the merge window where new features and the bulk of the changes come in, and a phase where only bug fixes are supposed to come in). He took advantage of the time when the merge window was closed, since it's a less hectic period, and handed over maintenance to someone who already does something similar (Greg KH maintains the "stable" trees, which also accept only bug fixes).
doener 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18278072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18278072
- merricksb 8y ago
  Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18274192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18274192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273213
AnnoyingSwede 8y ago
Funny that their code of conduct contains all the standard equal rights no matter what XYZ, while this was never Linus problem. He never lashed out on people because of gender, race or sexual preference. It should simply have said "Don't be an elitistic assh*le aginst people just doing their best."
- funkythings 8y ago
  well, the lady who wrote the COC is a communist who believes meritocracy is racist and sexist. That's where the ideas some from.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    > who believes meritocracy is racist and sexist Is it bad that nowadays I've trouble identifying whether this kind of categorization is redpillers bile or an accurate representation of an increasingly dominant extreme left? Would you have a quote from that lady, and if correct, how did she get in the position of writing Linux COC?
    - chroma 8y ago
      Here’s one: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/874642259672801280 https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/874642259672801280 > “Meritocracy” is just thinly veiled misogyny and white supremacy propping up fragile cis het white men’s egos. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029952846492565504 https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029952846492565504 > “Reverse racism” is such a weird phrase for “justice”. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/823064825366360065 https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/823064825366360065 > Why didn’t anyone punch the reporter giving the nazi air time? (Note that the last one is endorsing violence against journalists. Not cool.) Though I think you have the wrong impression. Coraline wasn’t asked to write the Linux CoC. They just used a CoC she wrote: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/ https://www.contributor-covenant.org/
      - m_mueller 8y ago
dboreham 8y ago
That was easy.
finnthehuman 8y ago
>Jon Corbet, kernel developer and editor of LWN, thinks the Linux community will become less of what was once a "Wild West world with dueling developers and more of a professional developer community." Well, that's what all this has always been about right? Power-washing the personality out of open source by subverting the popular movement of the day. A group wants something but there are very few actionable steps to achieve it, and the ones that do exist are long term investments. They're turned into unwitting campaigners for a different goal when someone provides them an easy answer that's really a thin veneer over a different purpose.

Thus restoring the natural order.

I really wonder what's going to happen to Linux once Linus is gone. I think we've seen now that just a week after he took a break the community started falling apart rapidly.

lolive 8y ago
Hopefully natural selection will bring us a profile similar to Linus that will take over the job.
- Narann 8y ago
  ...or various specialized kernels... Who know...
ChrisSD 8y ago
Did it? People actually involved in the Linux community seemed fine. It was just internet people shouting "the sky is falling!"
- carlmr 8y ago
  What I read about was Kernel contributors having some friction with the CoC. That got blown up by the press a bit, but it wasn't only the press.
  - brazzy 8y ago
    If anything, drama related the CoC was what caused Linus' hiatus (in a "straw the broke the camel's back" sense), not the other way round.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    That was just because the CoC was updated at the same time that Linus left. There would have been CoC controversy if Linus had never left.
    - navane 8y ago
      You might have hit the nail on the head here. The belgian king once resigned for a single day so the parliament could pass a law on abortion. Could Linus have pulled of a similiar stunt? https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable-to-sign-abortion-law-takes-day-off.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable...
      - joshuamorton 8y ago
        I find it unlikely. It came up on the lkml that Linus requested changes to the CoC, and Greg was just the person who ended up managing the changes. If you mean that Linus didn't want the flak for the changes, then that seems like weak leadership on his part, and since iiuc Greg is likely to take over kernel management when Linus ever retires, passing the controversial work to his eventual replacement is bad tactics as well, since it'll undermine Greg's authority in some people's eyes if he takes over.
ry_ry 8y ago
Kernel fragments into a dizzying array of forks, TrueLinux, RealKernel, Linux Core, LinuxPlus and DogeKernel fight for supremacy on obscure making lists and github issue trackers. The public remains largely unaware. Huge PR battles over which logo to use erupt, somebody sneaks backdoors into the majority of the kernels. Somebody else backdoors the backdoors. Pretty soon over half the code base consists of backdoors and embedded nVidia graphics drivers. Buzzfeed publish a list of 15 linux kernels you won't believe exist. A week has now passed since Linus left the project, and we have hit Peak Kernel. Linux fades from the cusp of becoming a mainstream desktop OS and eventually settles into a niche server role until the 2038 bug wipes out humanity due to some buggy memory management running on an ICBM launch computer. Chrome OS sees a slight uptick in users.
- jraph 8y ago
  I really enjoyed reading this comment. I'm still smiling. Thanks. Now I can start working happy. carlmr, you issued a nice writing prompt.
- neddeadstark 8y ago
  This is perfect.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  I've been keeping a plain text file of quotes for 15 years. I hadn't put anything in it since April this year. Thank you.
pelario 8y ago
Git seems to be doing fine after Linus left it...
- williamdclt 8y ago
  True, but Linus is not the leader of Git since 13ish years. He gave the reins to Junio Hamano before it became such a large and influencial project, and Linux is way larger and way more influencial now. There's way more Linus "baked in" the kernel than in Git, I would say
dis-sys 8y ago
Ballmer yelling at people "cancer is cured!"
tjpnz 8y ago
Once there are enough moderators, community guidelines and steering committees in place it will just write itself.
Maakuth 8y ago
[citation needed]
PurpleRamen 8y ago
He left after detonating a bomb. It would have played the same even when he stayed. He probably just left to avoid the shitstorm and his first violation of the CoC. Though, it's true that with "eternal" project-leads like Linus, or recently Guido van Rossum at Python, we never think about what will happen when they are gone. But I think with big projects like Linux they will be fine. There are enough people to replace them, even if things might change, the project moves on. We should think more about important projects from single developers. What about vim? Or all the important plugins/addons? There are so many small important gears around which depends on so few support.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
"Some people on the internet with no involvement whatsoever in kernel development shouting about political correctness gone mad" !== "Falling apart rapidly"
aasasd 8y ago
It would probably be for the best if Linus stayed away for a while and saw what happens. That way he and the community could make a better plan for when he retires for real, and start steering in that direction now.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Very first thing? Kernel ABI becomes unstable, thus securing Linux's position as the OS most incompatible with itself.

lolive 8y ago

I am now waiting for a post from Linus entitled: "Behaviour therapists are just bullshitters" ;)

nabla9 8y ago
Welcome Linus 1.0.1-000 (first minor revision). Linus debugged his own communication routines after users complained.
- pulse7 8y ago
  People can change their habits only to a certain extent...
  - rs23296008n1 8y ago
    sudo change behaviour -f linus20.json
    - LeoNatan25 8y ago
      JSON is likely the least efficient container for a behavior type. ;-)
      - Ws32ok 8y ago
        sudo change behaviour didn't work. Maybe you used the wrong option?
        rs23296008n1 8y ago
        Not in sudoers file or group more likely.
    - rs23296008n1 8y ago
      Wow. Someone says someone can't change behaviour and I reply with sudo and it gets downvoted?! Wow. Lesson learnt. I need to find a geekier crowd who know what sudo is.

nodesocket 8y ago

Halaula, the great messiah has returned after a few weeks reformed. Next up unconscious biases training at Google HQ.

pandapower2 8y ago

I don't know what I thought would happen exactly but when he said he was taking time away I certainly imagined it would be a lot longer than a month.

Insanity 8y ago
Yeah I actually made the same assumption. But, I suppose for someone who's always quite involved with everything and doesn't take long breaks- one month can seem quite long.
erikb 8y ago
It was a political move from day one. As you might notice Kernel is not the only environment that adds and modifies their CoC currently. There is a group with political goals driving that effort. He wanted to see where the wind is blowing before making a move himself, as well as be flexible enough to also move into the corresponding direction. That said, I also wonder if he moves too quickly, or if he found an agreement with other FOSS leaders.
- dsr_ 8y ago
  Can you identify this "group with political goals driving that effort" or is it speculation bordering on conspiracy theory?
  - erikb 8y ago
    Can you check the other comments in the thread and any other post about CoCs in FOSS communities over the recent 4-16 weeks? Check out this discussion for instance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281676 Also note that my previous comment is at -4 already of the time of this writing, which must be done by someone who doesn't like that opinion. You wouldn't go ask 5-7 of your friends to give downvotes to that comment just because you disagree with it, right?
cesarb 8y ago
To me on the other hand, it was obvious that he would be back as soon as 4.19 was released and the 4.20 merge window opened (the kernel release cycle has two phases, the merge window where new features and the bulk of the changes come in, and a phase where only bug fixes are supposed to come in). He took advantage of the time when the merge window was closed, since it's a less hectic period, and handed over maintenance to someone who already does something similar (Greg KH maintains the "stable" trees, which also accept only bug fixes).

doener 8y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18278072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18278072

merricksb 8y ago
Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18274192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18274192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18273213

AnnoyingSwede 8y ago

Funny that their code of conduct contains all the standard equal rights no matter what XYZ, while this was never Linus problem. He never lashed out on people because of gender, race or sexual preference. It should simply have said "Don't be an elitistic assh*le aginst people just doing their best."

funkythings 8y ago
well, the lady who wrote the COC is a communist who believes meritocracy is racist and sexist. That's where the ideas some from.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  > who believes meritocracy is racist and sexist Is it bad that nowadays I've trouble identifying whether this kind of categorization is redpillers bile or an accurate representation of an increasingly dominant extreme left? Would you have a quote from that lady, and if correct, how did she get in the position of writing Linux COC?
  - chroma 8y ago
    Here’s one: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/874642259672801280 https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/874642259672801280 > “Meritocracy” is just thinly veiled misogyny and white supremacy propping up fragile cis het white men’s egos. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029952846492565504 https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1029952846492565504 > “Reverse racism” is such a weird phrase for “justice”. Or https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/823064825366360065 https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/823064825366360065 > Why didn’t anyone punch the reporter giving the nazi air time? (Note that the last one is endorsing violence against journalists. Not cool.) Though I think you have the wrong impression. Coraline wasn’t asked to write the Linux CoC. They just used a CoC she wrote: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/ https://www.contributor-covenant.org/
    - m_mueller 8y ago

dboreham 8y ago

That was easy.

finnthehuman 8y ago

>Jon Corbet, kernel developer and editor of LWN, thinks the Linux community will become less of what was once a "Wild West world with dueling developers and more of a professional developer community." Well, that's what all this has always been about right? Power-washing the personality out of open source by subverting the popular movement of the day. A group wants something but there are very few actionable steps to achieve it, and the ones that do exist are long term investments. They're turned into unwitting campaigners for a different goal when someone provides them an easy answer that's really a thin veneer over a different purpose.