5 ms·

If someone, or in this case a set of affiliated someones, have proven to do malicious or ethically questionable things, trust has to be earned. The risk of lett

by genmud 5y ago

If someone, or in this case a set of affiliated someones, have proven to do malicious or ethically questionable things, trust has to be earned. The risk of letting things stay without extensive verification is not worth it and I definitely don't consider this a kneejerk reaction given the potential perception risks.

nuclearnice1 5y ago
Hypocrite patches came from Gmail. Banned umn mail. Because that’s going to reduce risk?
- tmp538394722 5y ago
  It’s not so much that they banned umn email, as it is they banned the university of Minnesota. This particular act is about avoiding the risk of researchers wasting kernel developers time. As evinced by the response, it seems really unlikely that other institutions would think it’s a good idea to perform experiments on the kernel devs in the future.
  - x3__ 5y ago
    You do know that one can contribute without having to use their institution email address ?
    - tmp538394722 5y ago
      Yes, I do know that. The policy is not about them being physically prevented from emailing from not-a-umn-researcher@yahoo.com. It’s a symbolic policy, but I would be extremely surprised if a university flouted a clear and explicit ban on their participation.
  - nuclearnice1 5y ago
    Most of the reverted commits are fine by inspection and the researched insist there were 3 hypocrite submissions that didn’t get merged. So the idea is to collectively punish the mostly innocent people who wrote the 190 good commits, spending a huge amount of developer time checking them or losing the fixes to prevent other institutions from doing this? Does reverting nearly 200 good patches seem out of proportion relative to 3 unmerged hypocrite commits?
    - tmp538394722 5y ago
      That’s a fair question about proportionality. I don’t have any special insight into the kernel team, but I think the response is as much about making an example of the university as it is about removing any plausibly contaminated commits, in which case it makes sense to be somewhat extreme. Others are saying the entire research team should be fired. It’s interesting that the former (reverting the commits) is something the kernel devs can do to publish the university, while the latter (firing researchers) is something the university can do to punish the researchers. Who messed up? The researchers or the university who approved their research? Probably enough blame to go around.
      - nuclearnice1 5y ago
        Proportionality is one aspect. Punishing the right people is another. If you’re an UMN patch submitter who has just seen your work thrown away because of the actions of some researchers you don’t know and some kernel maintainer you don’t know, you’d be rightly upset. Punishing the entire university for the actions of a few. I think it’s a bad idea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment
        rincebrain 5y ago
        FWIW, there are no patches committed that I can find since 2013 that are not by people who are or were in the relevant lab at UMN. Maybe my research is flawed, but I don't think the bulk revert is currently hitting anyone but them. [1] - https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/log/?h=v5.11.16&qt=author&q=umn.edu https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux...
        nuclearnice1 5y ago
        It’s a good observation. So for example we have a 2019 commit by Wenwen Wang being reverted. Wenwen is now at UGA. The commit is “ALSA: usx2y fix a double free bug” review by Takashi Iwai confirms it’s a good fix. I don’t agree with Greg K-H threatening to trash Wenwen’s work, his reputation, and add bugs to the Linux kernel out of spite toward researchers than Wenwen hasn’t worked with in years. Note that Aditya Pakki denies being a part of the hypocrite commits on email, maintains his denial in the apology, and has written papers on static analysis. Also, vast majority of those commits are being re-reviewed and found good. Greg Kroah-Hartman accused him of intentionally submitting bad commits. That accusation appears false. Greg should apologize to Wenwen and Aditaya. This is a broad brush. It’s hitting a bunch of good commits and we know the 3 hypocrite commits aren’t there .

by genmud 5y ago

nuclearnice1 5y ago

Hypocrite patches came from Gmail. Banned umn mail. Because that’s going to reduce risk?

tmp538394722 5y ago
It’s not so much that they banned umn email, as it is they banned the university of Minnesota. This particular act is about avoiding the risk of researchers wasting kernel developers time. As evinced by the response, it seems really unlikely that other institutions would think it’s a good idea to perform experiments on the kernel devs in the future.
- x3__ 5y ago
  You do know that one can contribute without having to use their institution email address ?
  - tmp538394722 5y ago
    Yes, I do know that. The policy is not about them being physically prevented from emailing from not-a-umn-researcher@yahoo.com. It’s a symbolic policy, but I would be extremely surprised if a university flouted a clear and explicit ban on their participation.
- nuclearnice1 5y ago
  Most of the reverted commits are fine by inspection and the researched insist there were 3 hypocrite submissions that didn’t get merged. So the idea is to collectively punish the mostly innocent people who wrote the 190 good commits, spending a huge amount of developer time checking them or losing the fixes to prevent other institutions from doing this? Does reverting nearly 200 good patches seem out of proportion relative to 3 unmerged hypocrite commits?
  - tmp538394722 5y ago
    That’s a fair question about proportionality. I don’t have any special insight into the kernel team, but I think the response is as much about making an example of the university as it is about removing any plausibly contaminated commits, in which case it makes sense to be somewhat extreme. Others are saying the entire research team should be fired. It’s interesting that the former (reverting the commits) is something the kernel devs can do to publish the university, while the latter (firing researchers) is something the university can do to punish the researchers. Who messed up? The researchers or the university who approved their research? Probably enough blame to go around.
    - nuclearnice1 5y ago
      Proportionality is one aspect. Punishing the right people is another. If you’re an UMN patch submitter who has just seen your work thrown away because of the actions of some researchers you don’t know and some kernel maintainer you don’t know, you’d be rightly upset. Punishing the entire university for the actions of a few. I think it’s a bad idea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment
      - rincebrain 5y ago
        FWIW, there are no patches committed that I can find since 2013 that are not by people who are or were in the relevant lab at UMN. Maybe my research is flawed, but I don't think the bulk revert is currently hitting anyone but them. [1] - https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/log/?h=v5.11.16&qt=author&q=umn.edu https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux...
        nuclearnice1 5y ago
        It’s a good observation. So for example we have a 2019 commit by Wenwen Wang being reverted. Wenwen is now at UGA. The commit is “ALSA: usx2y fix a double free bug” review by Takashi Iwai confirms it’s a good fix. I don’t agree with Greg K-H threatening to trash Wenwen’s work, his reputation, and add bugs to the Linux kernel out of spite toward researchers than Wenwen hasn’t worked with in years. Note that Aditya Pakki denies being a part of the hypocrite commits on email, maintains his denial in the apology, and has written papers on static analysis. Also, vast majority of those commits are being re-reviewed and found good. Greg Kroah-Hartman accused him of intentionally submitting bad commits. That accusation appears false. Greg should apologize to Wenwen and Aditaya. This is a broad brush. It’s hitting a bunch of good commits and we know the 3 hypocrite commits aren’t there .