3 ms·

I get a ton of comments like this. Pointing the finger at the skills I lack and my inability, while ignoring the wider picture, of the kernel burning out maint

I get a ton of comments like this. Pointing the finger at the skills I lack and my inability, while ignoring the wider picture, of the kernel burning out maintainers and not doing well on filesystems. It's wearying.

rastignack 1y ago
How about acknowledging you’ve been too sharp with words, apologizing, and attempting to move forward ? I know other people in the kernel do the same mistake as you frequently do on mailing lists. But two wrongs do not make a right.
mort96 1y ago
You get a ton of comments like this because it's true. There are real problems in the kernel, I've seen how hostile it can be to people who are just trying to do the right thing and upstream their changes etc. But your case isn't that. Your behavior would get you in trouble at any job where you have to follow rules set by other people. Your refusal to treat your part of the kernel as anything other than your personal pet project has destroyed your project's potential. If this was a month or two ago, I would've written something vaguely optimistic here about how you could still turn this around somehow, about what lessons you could learn and move forward with. But that ship has sailed. Your project is no longer the promising next generation filesystem which could replace ext4 as the default choice. Your role is now that of the developer of some small out-of-tree filesystem for a small group of especially interested users. Nobody wanted this for you, including myself. But you have refused to listen to anyone's advice, so now you're here.
- sc68cal 1y ago
  Kent has gotten this same feedback across practically every single platform that has discussed his issues. He is unable to take critique and will instead just continue to argue and be combative, therefore proving yet again why he is in this situation in the first place
- koverstreet 1y ago
  That's because it is my project, and my responsibility. I can't be bowing to the demands of any one person; I have to balance the wants and needs of everyone and prioritize shipping something that works above all else. Repeatedly we've seen that those priorities are not shared, unfortunately. Arguments are just as heated as they ever were, but now instead of arguing over the actual issues - does this work, are we doing this right - people jump to arguing over language and conduct and demanding apologies or calling for people to be expelled. But my core mission is just shipping a reliable trustworthy filesystem, and that's what I'm going to stick to.
  - mort96 1y ago
    > I can't be bowing to the demands of any one person This right here is the core of the issue. When you're working as a part of a larger organizational structure, you have to bow down to your boss. When your software is a part of the kernel, it's not your project anymore; it's just one part of Linus's project. You're a contributor, not a leader. Just like I would not control Bcachefs's development process even if I contributed some small but important part to it, you do not control Linux's development process even though you contributed some small but important part to it. Your core mission is evidently not shipping a reliable trustworthy filesystem. You say that, but your actions speak louder than your words. You know just as well as I do that a filesystem being in-tree rather than out-of-tree makes it significantly more reliable and trustworthy, which is why you chose to get Bcachefs merged into the kernel in the first place. Instead of working within the well-defined boundaries that's necessary to keep Bcachefs in the kernel, you've repeatedly pushed against those boundaries, belittled fellow maintainers, and in general worked hard to make yourself a persona non grata within the kernel community. The predictable outcome is that continued development of Bcachefs will have to happen out-of-tree, and your users won't gain the major reliability and trustworthiness benefits of using an in-tree filesystem. People will warn against using Bcachefs as their root filesystem, since every kernel upgrade will now carry some risk that DKMS or whatever mechanism is used to install the out-of-tree Bcachefs kernel module doesn't work with the new kernel. And, to be honest, it doesn't matter whether or not you're "right" or "wrong" here. Maybe you're completely correct about absolutely everything and Linus, Greg, Ted, Miguel, Sasha, Josef, and everyone else involved are stupid and don't understand what it takes to develop reliable software. So what? They're your colleagues, some of them are your bosses. Everyone on Hacker News could take your side here and think you've been mistreated, it doesn't help. You'd still be thrown out of the kernel. You'd still be failing your users by not maintaining a good enough relationship with your colleagues and bosses to stay in-tree. You could be completely right on every technical matter and it does not matter. If you play your cards right, you could maybe end up in a situation where you run the Bcachefs project entirely out-of-tree, with yourself as the supreme leader who doesn't bow down to the demands of anyone, with your own development and release process; and then someone else takes responsibility for pushing your code into the upstream kernel, following Linus's rules. They would dissect your releases and backport bug fixes while leaving out important features, in accordance with Linus's rules. Time will tell if you can find anyone to do that. And time will tell if you posess the humility necessary to let someone else ultimately control the experience most of your users will have.
p_ing 1y ago
When everyone else is the problem, you're the problem. Consider that when working in teams.

rastignack 1y ago

How about acknowledging you’ve been too sharp with words, apologizing, and attempting to move forward ? I know other people in the kernel do the same mistake as you frequently do on mailing lists. But two wrongs do not make a right.

mort96 1y ago

You get a ton of comments like this because it's true. There are real problems in the kernel, I've seen how hostile it can be to people who are just trying to do the right thing and upstream their changes etc. But your case isn't that. Your behavior would get you in trouble at any job where you have to follow rules set by other people. Your refusal to treat your part of the kernel as anything other than your personal pet project has destroyed your project's potential. If this was a month or two ago, I would've written something vaguely optimistic here about how you could still turn this around somehow, about what lessons you could learn and move forward with. But that ship has sailed. Your project is no longer the promising next generation filesystem which could replace ext4 as the default choice. Your role is now that of the developer of some small out-of-tree filesystem for a small group of especially interested users. Nobody wanted this for you, including myself. But you have refused to listen to anyone's advice, so now you're here.

sc68cal 1y ago
Kent has gotten this same feedback across practically every single platform that has discussed his issues. He is unable to take critique and will instead just continue to argue and be combative, therefore proving yet again why he is in this situation in the first place
koverstreet 1y ago
That's because it is my project, and my responsibility. I can't be bowing to the demands of any one person; I have to balance the wants and needs of everyone and prioritize shipping something that works above all else. Repeatedly we've seen that those priorities are not shared, unfortunately. Arguments are just as heated as they ever were, but now instead of arguing over the actual issues - does this work, are we doing this right - people jump to arguing over language and conduct and demanding apologies or calling for people to be expelled. But my core mission is just shipping a reliable trustworthy filesystem, and that's what I'm going to stick to.
- mort96 1y ago
  > I can't be bowing to the demands of any one person This right here is the core of the issue. When you're working as a part of a larger organizational structure, you have to bow down to your boss. When your software is a part of the kernel, it's not your project anymore; it's just one part of Linus's project. You're a contributor, not a leader. Just like I would not control Bcachefs's development process even if I contributed some small but important part to it, you do not control Linux's development process even though you contributed some small but important part to it. Your core mission is evidently not shipping a reliable trustworthy filesystem. You say that, but your actions speak louder than your words. You know just as well as I do that a filesystem being in-tree rather than out-of-tree makes it significantly more reliable and trustworthy, which is why you chose to get Bcachefs merged into the kernel in the first place. Instead of working within the well-defined boundaries that's necessary to keep Bcachefs in the kernel, you've repeatedly pushed against those boundaries, belittled fellow maintainers, and in general worked hard to make yourself a persona non grata within the kernel community. The predictable outcome is that continued development of Bcachefs will have to happen out-of-tree, and your users won't gain the major reliability and trustworthiness benefits of using an in-tree filesystem. People will warn against using Bcachefs as their root filesystem, since every kernel upgrade will now carry some risk that DKMS or whatever mechanism is used to install the out-of-tree Bcachefs kernel module doesn't work with the new kernel. And, to be honest, it doesn't matter whether or not you're "right" or "wrong" here. Maybe you're completely correct about absolutely everything and Linus, Greg, Ted, Miguel, Sasha, Josef, and everyone else involved are stupid and don't understand what it takes to develop reliable software. So what? They're your colleagues, some of them are your bosses. Everyone on Hacker News could take your side here and think you've been mistreated, it doesn't help. You'd still be thrown out of the kernel. You'd still be failing your users by not maintaining a good enough relationship with your colleagues and bosses to stay in-tree. You could be completely right on every technical matter and it does not matter. If you play your cards right, you could maybe end up in a situation where you run the Bcachefs project entirely out-of-tree, with yourself as the supreme leader who doesn't bow down to the demands of anyone, with your own development and release process; and then someone else takes responsibility for pushing your code into the upstream kernel, following Linus's rules. They would dissect your releases and backport bug fixes while leaving out important features, in accordance with Linus's rules. Time will tell if you can find anyone to do that. And time will tell if you posess the humility necessary to let someone else ultimately control the experience most of your users will have.

p_ing 1y ago

When everyone else is the problem, you're the problem. Consider that when working in teams.