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A lot of these maintainers are already overworked and don't have time to tutor every single person that wants to put kernel contributor on their resume. A lot o

A lot of these maintainers are already overworked and don't have time to tutor every single person that wants to put kernel contributor on their resume. A lot of people have this extremely idealistic view of open source but the reality is that the vast majority of patches you receive will be atrocious and you shouldn't have to tutor every single "potential" contributor. This case is even worse since this issue was posted to a security mailing list which means time to resolution is important.

ChildOfEru 3y ago
Who knows how long this would have been unaddressed without Ariel Miculas initial input. Part of the job of a maintainer is to curate and foster input so the project has a robust community in the future. The maintainer in this case did a miserable job of that.
a_t48 3y ago
On the other hand, to dig yourself out of the hole of “I’m too busy and there’s nobody around to help”, you have to slow down and do this, sometimes.
- bhouston 3y ago
  > to dig yourself out of the hole of “I’m too busy and there’s nobody around to help”, you have to slow down and do this Exactly! If you treat new contributors as crap because you are overworked, you will push away potential long-term collaborators who could share the load thus ensuring you will be working alone far into the future. This is a failure state and if I had a manager doing that to those he was managing, he wouldn't be a manager for long.
caconym_ 3y ago
> A lot of these maintainers are already overworked and don't have time to tutor every single person that wants to put kernel contributor on their resume. This seems like a very cynical view of what happened here, and completely unfounded. Obviously these big open-source projects need gatekeepers, but if the gatekeepers often make aspiring contributors feel violated and humiliated rather than offering feedback to get their initial contributions across the finish line, general interest and enthusiasm for contributing are going to dry up. Maybe that's by design, but it doesn't feel sustainable in the long term.
- fsdjkflsjfsoij 3y ago
  > feel violated and humiliated A lot of contributors are going to feel like this if their patch doesn't get accepted immediately and the maintainer in this case was extremely respectful even though the offered patch had multiple major issues. Contributors shouldn't feel entitled to free tutoring.
  - caconym_ 3y ago
    > multiple major issues Seems debatable and debated, reading through the rest of this thread. Regardless, I'll reiterate my point more straightforwardly: it's the maintainers' prerogative to treat aspiring contributors however they like, but actions have consequences, and some of those consequences may be deleterious to a project's health.
    - fsdjkflsjfsoij 3y ago
      > Seems debatable and debated, reading through the rest of this thread. Most of the people commenting in this thread haven't looked at the code and anyone saying the two patches are equivalent can be safely ignored. Out of the issues kazinator pointed out, 1 and 2 are definitely major issues and 3 is debatable although it is definitely suboptimal. > some of those consequences may be deleterious to a project's health Of course, but I think it might not be in the way the "everyone can be a valued contributor" crowd thinks.
      - caconym_ 3y ago
        > the "everyone can be a valued contributor" crowd Of course! Who will keep the hordes of dimwits and dilettantes and LinkedIn jockeys at bay, if not those whose merit has already been proven?
        fsdjkflsjfsoij 3y ago
        > Who will keep the hordes of dimwits and dilettantes and LinkedIn jockeys at bay This is unironically a very serious problem and why most of the best open source projects are basically corporate FAANG projects that are really only open source for optics.

ChildOfEru 3y ago

Who knows how long this would have been unaddressed without Ariel Miculas initial input. Part of the job of a maintainer is to curate and foster input so the project has a robust community in the future. The maintainer in this case did a miserable job of that.

a_t48 3y ago

On the other hand, to dig yourself out of the hole of “I’m too busy and there’s nobody around to help”, you have to slow down and do this, sometimes.

bhouston 3y ago
> to dig yourself out of the hole of “I’m too busy and there’s nobody around to help”, you have to slow down and do this Exactly! If you treat new contributors as crap because you are overworked, you will push away potential long-term collaborators who could share the load thus ensuring you will be working alone far into the future. This is a failure state and if I had a manager doing that to those he was managing, he wouldn't be a manager for long.

caconym_ 3y ago

> A lot of these maintainers are already overworked and don't have time to tutor every single person that wants to put kernel contributor on their resume. This seems like a very cynical view of what happened here, and completely unfounded. Obviously these big open-source projects need gatekeepers, but if the gatekeepers often make aspiring contributors feel violated and humiliated rather than offering feedback to get their initial contributions across the finish line, general interest and enthusiasm for contributing are going to dry up. Maybe that's by design, but it doesn't feel sustainable in the long term.

fsdjkflsjfsoij 3y ago
> feel violated and humiliated A lot of contributors are going to feel like this if their patch doesn't get accepted immediately and the maintainer in this case was extremely respectful even though the offered patch had multiple major issues. Contributors shouldn't feel entitled to free tutoring.
- caconym_ 3y ago
  > multiple major issues Seems debatable and debated, reading through the rest of this thread. Regardless, I'll reiterate my point more straightforwardly: it's the maintainers' prerogative to treat aspiring contributors however they like, but actions have consequences, and some of those consequences may be deleterious to a project's health.
  - fsdjkflsjfsoij 3y ago
    > Seems debatable and debated, reading through the rest of this thread. Most of the people commenting in this thread haven't looked at the code and anyone saying the two patches are equivalent can be safely ignored. Out of the issues kazinator pointed out, 1 and 2 are definitely major issues and 3 is debatable although it is definitely suboptimal. > some of those consequences may be deleterious to a project's health Of course, but I think it might not be in the way the "everyone can be a valued contributor" crowd thinks.
    - caconym_ 3y ago
      > the "everyone can be a valued contributor" crowd Of course! Who will keep the hordes of dimwits and dilettantes and LinkedIn jockeys at bay, if not those whose merit has already been proven?
      - fsdjkflsjfsoij 3y ago
        > Who will keep the hordes of dimwits and dilettantes and LinkedIn jockeys at bay This is unironically a very serious problem and why most of the best open source projects are basically corporate FAANG projects that are really only open source for optics.