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The main problem for me is the old "fish rots from the head down" effect -- when the rude and entitled behavior comes directly from the top, it's no surprise wh

by zxzax 5y ago

The main problem for me is the old "fish rots from the head down" effect -- when the rude and entitled behavior comes directly from the top, it's no surprise when everyone else starts acting like that and gets at each other's throats. It should be obvious by now where this weird sense of entitlement and refusal to understand other people's culture is coming from. >feel free to fork it and start up a parallel project without the problems you see Most Linux distros are basically already doing this. They all have their own patchsets. It's well beyond correctness and hygiene at this point, if you actually look at the changes that are being disputed, it already falls a lot more in the "cultural differences" category.

Y_Y 5y ago
I think the kernel developers got on pretty well for all those years and managed to put a pretty good product together, despite the big rotten head. And Linux distro maintain patchsets, but they're against mainline, that's a very salient difference here. They still start from whatever upstream publishes, they're not so upset by swearwords that they took a snapshot at Linux 2.4 and only add their own code on top of that.
- zxzax 5y ago
  The point there is, while some negative attitudes may not be preventing other projects from using the code, they do prevent the project from growing, and it leads to fragmentation, which I believe they are seeking to minimize. So something has to give.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    That's fair and I don't disagree. Personally I never tell anyone to fuck off, but humility prevents me from assuming Linus is wrong for doing it.
ertian 5y ago
So the LKML has been rotting from the head down for...30 years? If the result of that is Linux, maybe the rot isn't as bad as you fear. The cultural differences that cause distro forks are debates over free-vs-libre, what belongs in the kernel vs userspace, and standardization issues, not (afaik) "we won't submit this to the upstream kernel because we don't approve of the way they talk to each other there". And I think it's very important for the core kernel devs to hold the line on those issues.

by zxzax 5y ago

Y_Y 5y ago

I think the kernel developers got on pretty well for all those years and managed to put a pretty good product together, despite the big rotten head. And Linux distro maintain patchsets, but they're against mainline, that's a very salient difference here. They still start from whatever upstream publishes, they're not so upset by swearwords that they took a snapshot at Linux 2.4 and only add their own code on top of that.

zxzax 5y ago
The point there is, while some negative attitudes may not be preventing other projects from using the code, they do prevent the project from growing, and it leads to fragmentation, which I believe they are seeking to minimize. So something has to give.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  That's fair and I don't disagree. Personally I never tell anyone to fuck off, but humility prevents me from assuming Linus is wrong for doing it.

ertian 5y ago

So the LKML has been rotting from the head down for...30 years? If the result of that is Linux, maybe the rot isn't as bad as you fear. The cultural differences that cause distro forks are debates over free-vs-libre, what belongs in the kernel vs userspace, and standardization issues, not (afaik) "we won't submit this to the upstream kernel because we don't approve of the way they talk to each other there". And I think it's very important for the core kernel devs to hold the line on those issues.