> Marcan links to an email by Ted Tso'o (
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250208204416.GL1130956@mit.ed...) that is interesting to read. Although it starts on a polarising note ("thin blue line")
Can I say that I was immediately put off by the author conflating the "thin blue line" quote from with a political orientation?
The full quote (from the article) being: "Later in that thread, another major maintainer unironically stated “We are the ‘thin blue line’”, and nobody cared, which just further confirmed to me that I don’t want to have anything to do with them."
The way I read it, "thin blue line" is being used as a figure of speech. I get what they are referring to and I don't see an endorsement. It doesn't necessarily means a right-wing affiliation or sympathy.
To me it seems like the author is projecting a right-wing affiliation and a political connotation where there is none (at least not officially, as far as I can see on https://thunk.org/tytso/) in order to discredit Theodore Ts'o. Which is a low point, because attacking Ts'o on a personal level means Martin is out of ammunitions to back their arguments.
But then again, Hector Martin is the same person that though that brigading and shaming on social media is an acceptable approach to collaboration in the open source space:
"If shaming on social media does not work, then tell me what does, because I'm out of ideas."
from
https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/2/6/404To me, from outside, Hector Martin looks like a technically talented but otherwise toxic person that is trying to use public shaming on social media and ranting on his blog as tools and tactics to impose their will and force the otherwise democratic process of development the linux kernel. And the on top of everything it's behaving like a victim.
It's a good thing they are resigning, in my opinion.