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Torvalds Gets Tough on Kernel Contributors
ChocLinux writes "Linus Torvalds is cracking down on developers that add last-minute changes to the kernel during the two-week merge window. He says: 'If people miss the merge window or start abusing it with hurried last-minute things that just cause problems for -rc1, I'll just refuse to merge, and laugh in their faces derisively when they whine plaintively at me, and tell them there's going to be a new opening soon enough.'"
While I think that his language is a bit inflammatory, I think that it is something that needs to be done. All the last minute changes must make things very difficult to manage.
My
Torvalds later added, "I am legion. All shall kiss my smoldering hoof."
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
This sort of thing happens in the corporate environment (at least where stability is valued over new features). I don't see why we shouldn't have some of the same process in OSS. I think this is a bold, yet helpful move by Linus and I congratulate him on taking a stand!
Prof. Farnsworth: This will not stand! I'll take you on, you air balling bozos!
Bubblegum: You old man? Ha! Sweet Clive, laugh derisively at him.
Sweet Clive: Ahaha, ahaha, aahahaha.
Linus has a new title:
Not-So-Benevolent (But Exceedingly Pragmatic) Dictator for Life?
Steve Ballmer referred to him as an "amateur" and offered to tutor him in the art of anger.
So you are arguing that Linus shoudlt claim slashdot is all about making unqualified comments and circle jerking them up to +5 insightful,
by making a unqualified comment about linux kernel management and getting modded up for it...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Why not? He was stating an opinion, nothing more.
Controlling a process and stating an opinion are two entirely different things.'
This is simply a manager telling others off that they can not miss deadlines. It happens all the time in any business. Difference is, that Linux development is in the open.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
two weeks sounds like too little time
You don't have to make the code in two weeks, you just have to submit it within that time frame, or wait untill next if you are not ready yet. So you can for example start coding now, and post the code after 10 years, but inside the 2 week time frame (assuming this policy is still used then, and your code still works with the current kernel at that time).
If Linus talks down to other developers that contribute to Linux in such a primitive way, he shouldn't complain about Slashdot, as he did here: http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95. Quote:
Gaah. I don't tend to bother about slashdot, because quite frankly, the whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with people getting together and making their own "insightful" comment on any random topic, whether they know anything about it or not.
Congratulations! We have a winner! The 3rd Annual Slashdot unintentional irony award goes to titwurstman!
He beat all comers this year due to his use of a quote suggesting that people on Slashdot comment on things they know nothing about, to support his Slashdot comment on something he knows nothing about!
The Slashdot editors have now permanently closed the competition, as it is widely agreed that nobody will ever top this year's winner!
If Linus talks down to other developers that contribute to Linux in such a primitive way, he shouldn't complain about Slashdot, as he did here: http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95.
Well said, fellow slashdot user teewurstmann of id 755953! With that post, you certainly took Linus Torvalds to task for daring to belittle the collective intelligentsia that is SLASHDOT! As a mere senior kernel developer, founder of the Linux kernel project and leader of the mainline kernel development process certainly he needs to be shown his place by our community of insightful commentators. From mom's basement I stab at thee!
Well isn't that cute. Nice try at a piece of Troll FUD.
;]
:-)
And you "wisely" drop the following sentence from what your quoting.
Here's the quote in context:
>>>
Gaah. I don't tend to bother about slashdot, because quite frankly, the
whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with
people getting together and making their own "insightful" comment on any
random topic, whether they know anything about it or not.
[ And don't get me wrong - I follow slashdot too, exactly because it's fun
to see people argue. I'm not complaining
And I don't tend to worry about the Inquirer and the Register, because
both of them are all about being rough and saying things in ways that
might not be acceptable in other places, and that's what makes them fun to
read. So when they then write something nasty about Linux (or me), hey, it
goes with the territory.
So much for Linus complaining about slashdot.
You trolling Sucker.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
"If my boss used this tone with me, I would quit the job."
If you were chucking code into a major public release candidate 2 weeks before launch, I'm sure your quitting window would be rather short as you would be fired before too long.
No one involved is a child; suck it up, do some push-ups if required, and make sure you do things right next time.
the quote continues:
;]
[ And don't get me wrong - I follow slashdot too, exactly because it's fun
to see people argue. I'm not complaining
He says he's not complaining. Sounds like he's just making a characterization of how discussions go around here...not too far off the mark.
Stop the use of force!
"Could someone please explain that one to me?"
It appears to be a reference to a really bad comic book.
Developer: Here's my patch. Sorry its late...
Linus: The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee....
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
" If my boss used this tone with me, I would quit the job."
Spoken like a true college Sophomore.
In Torvalds' book, "Just for Fun", he laughs in the reader's face derisively as they look at the printed words plaintively.
Somewhere, there's got to be a "Deep Thought" by Jack Handy about Linus T.
"Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It's a shark riding on an elephant's back, just trampling and eating everything they see." ~ Jack Handy
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
Having just read the thirty or so posts that have been made as I write this, I cannot believe I am the only one who read the "laugh derisively" bit as tongue-in-cheek.
Do you really imagine Linus will start jumping on planes and seeking out kernel contributers to laugh in their faces. Bloody hell, I know geeks have trouble with anything not strictly literal but sheesh.
I read it as "Certain people are repeatedly making changes at the last minute and I'd really rather they didn't".
Go read some of Linus's LKML or Usenet posts. He is conversationally fluent in English. You would have no way to tell he is not from an English-speaking country if you didn't know beforehand.
Sleep is futile.
Think of this: All the reported bugs have been fixed, you're about to make a new release, and a last minute change introduces an awry bug that forces you to make ANOTHER release.
And what happens if in that "another release" another guy makes ONE MORE last minute change and... well you get the idea.
I've seen this happen at sourceforge projects, and this is what gives Open Source such a bad reputation - buggy projects. Sure, 999 bugs have been fixed, but 10 major flaws are introduced with the next version. Just search any SF project's bugs for "crash" or "segfault", and you'll get the idea (and these are reports about RELEASES, not cvs). And why does this happen? Because of devs NOT RESPECTING the timings!
So, please guys, p-l-e-a-s-e, respect the timing! This is Linux we're talking about, not some hobby project.
The best thing that could happen to mankind is the stifling of certain new features and improvements. My modal reaction to "upgrades" from certain other software suppliers is, "how do I disable that?"
Anyway if you miss the window for kernel J.K.L there's always J.K.L+1 coming along. Meanwhile people with a burning desire for your patch can get it from you. It's annoying, but the person you should be annoyed with lives in your mirror.
"My name is legion for we are many" is a quote from the Bible Mark 5, vs. 9. and "smoldering hoof" is from one of the mythical forms of Satan and the notion that Hell is hot.
For all you who don't like how Linus is handling this, hey fork the code, start your own development.
Maybe his phrasing was a bit harsh, but remember that he is not just a developer - he really plays the role of Project Manager here, and sometimes the PM has to send a wakeup call. That's what this sounds like. Not that big a deal.
Think about all the failed FOSS projects where nobody did this - UserLinux and Hurd spring to mind. (Now for some posts telling me that Hurd isn't a failure, even though it's not production-ready after what, 16 years now?) Makes you kind of glad Linus is managing this thing.
Go read some of Linus's LKML or Usenet posts. He is conversationally fluent in English. You would have no way to tell he is not from an English-speaking country if you didn't know beforehand.
You would if you heard him speak - he completely mis-pronounces the word "Linux", for example ;o)
So.. it has come to this
Linus, give in to your hate and anger, feel the power of the Dark Side of the Force.
Throw Penguins damn it..
/. is good for you.
As a manager, I have tried many times to make this same thing stick. This, in a situation where I had influence over promotions, raises, and of course also could put people on written warning and move them out of the company if need be.
But, Linus has discovered the secret of actually making it happen! Just don't pay people in the first place! Genius!
This is why Linux is so successfull.
I have some experience coordinating releases of a software product. A key thing I have come to realize is that developers don't understand that last minute patches cause more problems than they solve. Inevitably something they regard as important creeps in and that's when you need to just say no. Convince me it's critical (stuff breaks down visibly, data is lost, etc.) or wait until the next release. I've seen this go wrong more than once. Some dork commits something 30 minutes before the release and a week later we're handing out patches for bugs that fix introduced. Unlike OSS, delays are usually hard to negotiate in a commercial setting
With a product as complex as a kernel you need lots of time to properly test and integrate stuff. A kernel release needs to be stable & reliable. Last minute changes with unkown impact are unacceptable unless they fix something that absolutely needs to be fixed.
The git scm tool that linus uses actually supports this development style very well. Developers develop and send in patches to a central repository. Linus pulls the important patches and patches his private repository for a few weeks and then locks it down for testing. That's why he can afford to tell developers to wait or adjust to his schedule.
In this respect he is quite ahead of the clearcase/cvs and svn using masses. These tools do not support this kind of development very well. The mental model of the developers is still that they need to get their stuff in the trunk asap. With git the model is get your patch out, have it tested, optimized and when it is mature and ready Linus will merge it when this fits his release schedule. For complicated changes this process should be slow or otherwise Linus ends up doing the work that should have been done before the merge.
This model is way better than freeze trunk, tell everybody to not do anything for a few months and then release.
Jilles