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We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

lore.kernel.org

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Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#171

Post by uecker »

MyOutfitIsVague wrote: post #168
llm_trw wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it means the rust code does impact the C code and the rust people were lying.

That doesn't make sense, and you can look at the patches and see that the Rust code didn't impact the C code. It's not like we have to take anybody's word for it. This is primarily around Rust filesystem drivers. If you want to run a filesystem but it's implemented in Rust, you'd have to use that fork. If another person had the same issue (say a GPU driver that some maintainer decided they didn't like because of the…

"not forking" is much better exactly because a lot of the maintainance and integration work is then distributed on the existing maintainers.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#172

Post by freeopinion »

muamoe wrote: post #75
jemmyw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but the parent has addressed this and you're just talking past them like they didn't comment. If the maintainers don't want it to happen then they need to come to an agreement that it won't happen. If they do want it to happen then they need to stop blocking it for non-technical reasons. If they can't actually decide then that's "no" or up to the project lead to enforce the decision at the risk of losing maintain…

Wow, the entitlement here is absolutely amazing. You are not entitled to any work, or explanation, or "agreement". Show me where it says maintainers owe you any of this at all.

Maintainers are gatekeepers. If parties on either side of the gate aren't accomplishing what they want/need, they naturally look at the gatekeeper. If both sides of the gate agree that the gatekeeper has become problematic, discussions popup to remedy the situation.

So far, I haven't seen discussions from both sides of the wall. But I hear a lot of noise from one side of the wall trying to get the attention of people on the other side of the wall. Now we will see if the people inside the wall think there is an issue with the gate.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#173

Post by oxnrtr »

dang wrote: post #120
quartzic wrote: post #6

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036904

Thanks! Macroexpanded: Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036904 - Feb 2025 (826 comments) Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42972062 - Feb 2025 (1015 comments)

Next resignation:

Me stepping down as a nouveau kernel maintainer – https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2025-February...

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#176

Post by etra0 »

TeeMassive wrote: post #69
dralley wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning Linus himself gives for greenlighting Rust is, among other things, to avoid stagnation. So OP's description seems more apt than yours. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvuEYtkOH88&t=367s

Linus doesn't write much code anymore. The ones who are responsible and doing the heavy lifting and taking the heat when things break are the often unpaid maintainers. You can't say OP is more apt when he probably never done this work before. I have to work with a "kernel a-hole". Sure it sucks but when there's some mutex bug in a chip driver, he's the one we can call and fix the problem and push the fix upstream eve…

> The ones who are responsible and doing the heavy lifting and taking the heat when things break are the often unpaid maintainers.

Only 13.3% of all changesets are from people that are either unemployed or their job is unknown [1].

Even greg k-h said that most of the development is backed by big companies so the argument of 'poor unpaid maintainers' doesn't go too far.

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/1004998/

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#177

Post by anonfordays »

If comments as benign as "thin blue line" causes fragile entryist/activists to flee, I say Ted and the kernel team are doing the right thing. Projects as critical as the Linux kernel shouldn't be battlegrounds for the grievance of the week, nor should they be platforms for proselytizing. Others like him leave long paths of destruction in their wake. Lots of projects have been turned upsidedown by the drama they seem to bring with them everywhere. The salient point is contributors need to be more than "drive by" submitters for their pet projects. This isn't specific to Rust in the kernel, look at how much of an uphill battle bcachefs was/is.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#178

Post by account42 »

lmm wrote: post #116
llm_trw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Noone's asking the maintainers to make the project happen. If you're asking them to accept your code then yes, you' are asking them to support your project forever. If you weren't sending them patches then they couldn't block you. Since you are they can. Again, it's not their job to support this great idea you have that means they have to change how they've done everything for the last 30 years.

> If you're asking them to accept your code then yes, you' are asking them to support your project forever. > If you weren't sending them patches then they couldn't block you. Since you are they can. One of the big turning points of this drama was a maintainer from a different area (who had been CCed on the threads, but was not the person the patch was being submitted to) blocking a patch that they weren't going to h…

He NACKed the patch. Blocking the pack would mean that he is in a position where that NACK is final, which isn't clear at all. If that isn't the case then the NACK is only an opinion that it's a bad idea.

But saying that he is't going to have have any additional maintenance burden just because the rust code using his subsystem is in a different subtree is also not an honest assesment of the situation. That's not how the kernel developent works.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#179

Post by GlacierFox »

posting3fasy wrote: post #90
jdlshore wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like ignorance of the implications, not any desire to a tie themselves to a political stance. I think the “assume positive intent” principle needs to apply here.

[flagged]

It's surreal how some people can go from "thin blue line" to swastika in a micro-second. What the f is going on here? Where are you pulling this crap from? haha.

Re: We are the "thin blue line" that is trying to keep the code high quality

#180

Post by account42 »

spongebobstoes wrote: post #99
pabs3 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rust community does seem to be more focused on non-copyleft licenses, do you have any ideas why that is?

Speaking for myself, I want my code to be usable by everyone, including corporations, for free, with no limits. I even like to drop the attribution clause that things like MIT have. Both copyleft and copyright (to a lesser extent) are in opposition to my beliefs and goals.

Copyleft licenses like the GPL don't place any limits or price on using the software, only on distribution - and the limits there are pretty reasonable and merely ensure the software stays usable for others with the same lack of limits in the future.
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