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Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

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Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#52
post #50
post #3

Martin has worked hard on Asahi, but comes of as looking for drama and virtue signalling oftentimes. I'd give this to Linus.

[flagged]

...As opposed to kernel developers? Or even Linus himself 5 years ago?

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#53
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's rather silly to have some subsystem maintainers do everything in their power to sabotage the improvement projects by subsystem and even high level maintainers in the kernel. It was a fine position to take back when introduction of Rust into the kernel was still very much a discussion point. However, the discussion is over, Rust has been accepted into the kernel. This entire struggle has been kernel devel…

> This infighting is only going to hurt the kernel in the long run. Every time this "discussion" comes up, I walk away with the feeling that Linux kernel developers are unreasonably hostile and impossible to work with. It makes me wonder why new people would ever bother trying to contribute anything. Well, this is your take, as you explicitly wrote "I walk away with the feeling". My take is: The kernel developers are…

The kernel is doing fine today, but I don't think that's sustainable. The average age of the maintainers seems to be rising, and plenty of skilled people completely avoid kernel development explicitly because of the hostility and, frankly, assholish behavior that comes from the folks on these mailing lists.

Eventually a lot of these people are going to age out, retire, or otherwise move on. I do think there will be a crisis moment at some point in the future.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#54
I haven’t read the entire thread but based on the except I did, while I won’t claim that Hector isn’t entirely in the right there’s also major longstanding issues with the process that the kernel devs seem to refuse to do anything about.

It seems like big enough of a sticking point that if a forked alternative with a less insular contribution model appeared, it could gain enough steam to keep itself afloat. All it’d take is for someone with deep enough pockets to fund a few founding engineers to be the subject of this kind of frustration.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#55
post #42
post #3

Martin has worked hard on Asahi, but comes of as looking for drama and virtue signalling oftentimes. I'd give this to Linus.

>and virtue signalling I'm not disagreeing as I don't know what exact things you're talking about, but I find "virtue signalling" and "communication" to be very similar terms these days. From statement to statement I'm not sure what anyone means by that phrase anymore.

[flagged]

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#56
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help me out here because I'm not sure how to navigate the submitted link https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/7/9 . Where is this reprimand / can it be seen?

https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/CAHk-=wi=ZmP2=TmHsFSU... Edit: For further context for Linus's reply, there's http://web.archive.org/web/20250206022420/https://social.tre...

Yikes, re that fedi thread.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#57

Marcan certainly can be abrasive (I mean lol, so can Linus), but all the things he points out in the message below are 100% valid - I highly recommend for anyone here to try to contribute something even very small and logical to the Linux kernel or git (which use similar processes), it’s an eye-opening experience that’s incredibly unapproachable, frustrating, and demoralizing. https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/2…

Up until the point that he tried to leverage social media to get his way in a kernel maintainer dispute? That's just fundamentally not acceptable.

Linus was right to reprimand him for the suggestion.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I never submitted a patch personally, I had once conferred with some of the input devs to add a trackpad to the synaptics driver... they were queueing up an update to add other trackpads, and they said they would add mine... 5 years later, it's still not there. It was just a one-liner, and I'm not really sure why it never got added... On the other hand, I once ran into an issue with uboot where a bad update kno…

> 5 years later, it's still not there. It was just a one-liner, and I'm not really sure why it never got added. I think they expect people who want things to advocate harder than just mentioning it once. If no one brings it up again, then they assume that no one cares.

this seems very inefficient and the opposite of what I assumed. repeated requests take up time on both sides and are not a very good measure of how important something is.

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#59
post #27

The Rust drama is an uncommon failure of leadership for Torvalds. Instead of decisively saying "no, never" or "yes, make it so," he has consistently equivocated on the Rust issue. Given the crisis of confidence among a sizeable (and very vocal) contingent of the Linux community, that decision has backfired horribly. And it's quite out of character for Linus not to have a blazingly clear opinion. (We all know his stan…

> Arguably his reprimand of Martin is a clear signal that he will never show Rust any favor His reprimand is a clear signal that he won't tolerate brigading. Marcan was making a pretty blatant attempt at using social pressure to influence decisions.

People using Mastodon to promote pile-ons or brigading?

No, never! That's actually one reason I don't use Mastodon, it's extremely common. Isn't this the guy that blocked HackerNews links to the Asahi Linux homepage because the moderators wouldn't do his bidding?

Re: Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel

#60

Marcan certainly can be abrasive (I mean lol, so can Linus), but all the things he points out in the message below are 100% valid - I highly recommend for anyone here to try to contribute something even very small and logical to the Linux kernel or git (which use similar processes), it’s an eye-opening experience that’s incredibly unapproachable, frustrating, and demoralizing. https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/2…

It's not Wikipedia, right? Getting the maximum number of contributors isn't a stated goal? I'm a C programmer with a fair bit of kernel experience, and they don't want me, I'm pretty sure, and I'm completely fine with that.
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