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HN meta point > The old saying still holds true: one should not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence. This is exactly t

HN meta point > The old saying still holds true: one should not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence. This is exactly the comment I left on the original HN thread, which was downvoted [0]. I can understand the kernel maintainers being overwhelmed by the situation and jumping to the worst case interpretation, but interesting to see HN commenters doing the same, too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26890520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26890520

tester756 5y ago
HN went really emotional about this particular matter
- waiseristy 5y ago
  HN also often suffers the same fate as other social networking sites, where comments that don't align with masses get downvoted
raegis 5y ago
If I dropped by a UMN researcher's office and asked for 30 minutes of their time for something they consider unimportant, they could reasonably reply, "no, I'm too busy with research". Likewise, a kernel developer should not be forced to unwittingly waste their time. The "malice" here is that the researchers may consider their time more valuable than others. Incompetence is a separate thing. Lastly, kernel developers are naturally going to trust computer scientists at major universities. The researchers know this (subconsciously or not) and took advantage of it. Patches from smith@joeschmoe.com will automatically get more scrutiny.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  But that is not what happened. In the bug submission experiment they used Gmail addresses not their UMN addresses. The whole thing came up when one of the students (I think he was a graduate student working in the research group) submitted patches from his over eager static analysis tool using his uni address. So if anything the work from the uni adress received more scrutiny than the other patches.
  - raegis 5y ago
    OK, agreed, I was wrong on my second point.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- seoaeu 5y ago
  If the original headline had been "graduate student submits auto-generated patches wasting several hours of kernel developer time," I sincerely doubt there would have been any outrage. Certainly no one would be calling it proportionate to ban the many tens of thousands of people at their university and to revert every patch they had ever submitted. Unfortunately for the graduate student, their lab had previously written a paper about sending buggy patches. One thing leads to another and we have "the UMN Affair"
cycomanic 5y ago
I read your comment and felt the same way. I also thought you didn't deserve the down votes (I think I even gave you an upvote to counteract, even though I hardly ever vote).

tester756 5y ago

HN went really emotional about this particular matter

waiseristy 5y ago
HN also often suffers the same fate as other social networking sites, where comments that don't align with masses get downvoted

raegis 5y ago

If I dropped by a UMN researcher's office and asked for 30 minutes of their time for something they consider unimportant, they could reasonably reply, "no, I'm too busy with research". Likewise, a kernel developer should not be forced to unwittingly waste their time. The "malice" here is that the researchers may consider their time more valuable than others. Incompetence is a separate thing. Lastly, kernel developers are naturally going to trust computer scientists at major universities. The researchers know this (subconsciously or not) and took advantage of it. Patches from smith@joeschmoe.com will automatically get more scrutiny.

cycomanic 5y ago
But that is not what happened. In the bug submission experiment they used Gmail addresses not their UMN addresses. The whole thing came up when one of the students (I think he was a graduate student working in the research group) submitted patches from his over eager static analysis tool using his uni address. So if anything the work from the uni adress received more scrutiny than the other patches.
- raegis 5y ago
  OK, agreed, I was wrong on my second point.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
seoaeu 5y ago
If the original headline had been "graduate student submits auto-generated patches wasting several hours of kernel developer time," I sincerely doubt there would have been any outrage. Certainly no one would be calling it proportionate to ban the many tens of thousands of people at their university and to revert every patch they had ever submitted. Unfortunately for the graduate student, their lab had previously written a paper about sending buggy patches. One thing leads to another and we have "the UMN Affair"

cycomanic 5y ago

I read your comment and felt the same way. I also thought you didn't deserve the down votes (I think I even gave you an upvote to counteract, even though I hardly ever vote).