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Aging Linux Kernel Community Is Looking For Younger Participants

Posted by Soulskill on from the fresh-meat dept.

Lemeowski writes "Time has been good to Linux and the kernel community, with the level of participation and volume of activity reaching unprecedented levels. But as core Linux kernel developers grow older, there's a very real concern about ensuring younger generations are getting involved. In this post, Open Access supporter Luis Ibanez shares some exciting stats about recent releases of the Linux kernel, but also warns that 'Maintaining the vitality of this large community does not happen spontaneously. On the contrary, it requires dedication and attention by community members on how to bring new contributors on board, and how to train them and integrate them alongside the well-established developers.'"

13 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Well, I'll tell you why I'm not interested.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm part of one of these younger generations, and I'm honestly not interested in getting involved because I've seen how much of a raging asshole Linuz can be. He's a great maintainer, but he could be honest and give constructive criticism in less condescending ways. I'm not as experienced as he is, but that doesn't give him the right to be a complete dick in public theater.

    1. Re:Well, I'll tell you why I'm not interested.. by DeBaas · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm part of one of these younger generations, and I'm honestly not interested in getting involved because I've seen how much of a raging asshole Linuz can be. He's a great maintainer, but he could be honest and give constructive criticism in less condescending ways. I'm not as experienced as he is, but that doesn't give him the right to be a complete dick in public theater.

      You've managed to asses that he is 'a raging asshole', but now how to properly spell his name?

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    2. Re:Well, I'll tell you why I'm not interested.. by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Informative

      there's no way in hell I'd ever try to contribute upstream, because I know I'm not an experienced kernel hacker, and frankly I'm not sewn for the sort of macho abuse that dorks like to give each other.

      Sounds like a matter of perception. Linus yells at the people high up in the hierarchy because they are experienced and shouldn't be making dumb mistakes - right or wrong you aren't likely to get on the wrong end of that. As a newbie contributor any work you would do would go through a couple of levels of people vetting it for you. If you make dumb mistakes chances are the person who notices them will be a lot more gentle in pointing them out because dealing with newbies is part of the role in the hierarchy. No system is perfect, I'm sure there are some newbies who have received overly harsh responses, but that's going to be rare.

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      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    3. Re:Well, I'll tell you why I'm not interested.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      in that sort of environment.

      Well clearly you have never once 'been to' the LKML but instead built your opinion on the basis of stories-posted-on-slashdot.
      Otherwise you would know that the LKML receives around 400 mails per day, the vast majority of which are polite, friendly and helpful.
      Compare that with the number of posts offensive enough to make a story on /.

    4. Re:Well, I'll tell you why I'm not interested.. by nctritech · · Score: 5, Informative

      I have contributed some bug reports and fixes to LKML and I have yet to encounter anything other than a terse but helpful and friendly nature amongst those that picked up my reports and directly communicated with me to fix the code. The only people who get reamed on LKML or get a middle finger are the ones that do egregiously foolish things and should know better. Linux is a massive project that spans thousands of cultures and subcultures in the meatspace department, and there is no time at all to address every error with compliment sandwiches and a facade of "bless your heart" pseudo-kindness.

      "Show me the code" is the mantra. If your code is shit and you're new, you'll be politely pointed at a resource such as the coding style guide or KernelNewbies to correct it. If your code is shit and you manage a whole kernel subsystem, you can expect to be told "your code is shit and you know better!" by Linus directly, because....get this: you tried to feed shit code into the kernel (which hurts everyone else because they ALL have to maintain your code down the line) and you're high enough on the food chain that you know better.

    5. Re:Well, I'll tell you why I'm not interested.. by LordNimon · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've been working on the Linux kernel for 10 years with numerous commits upstream, and I've never communicated with Linus.

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      And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
      To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
    6. Re:Well, I'll tell you why I'm not interested.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well clearly you have never once 'been to' the LKML but instead built your opinion on the basis of stories-posted-on-slashdot.
      Otherwise you would know that the LKML receives around 400 mails per day, the vast majority of which are polite, friendly and helpful.
      Compare that with the number of posts offensive enough to make a story on /.

      I *have* posted bugs on LKML, and gotten responses. I have interacted with at least two high level developers, as well as Mr. Torvalds. The one time I got a reply (Len Brown, INTEL senior systems engineer) plus asked to download software to dump the rom from hardware, followed by an analysis and a change to the kernel (which I then applied, re-compiled and tested with reports. About 200,000 people were affected by that bug (and I got email from around the world). I've also gotten several very polite replies from Alan Cox and a few others. The trick is that you have to 1) know about computers, be able to describe the bug fully, what you have tried to fix the bug, and how it affects things. 2) be able to reply to questions / do more testing 3) re-compile a kernel with a fix and see if it fixes the bug. Most people can't do #3.

    7. Re:Well, I'll tell you why I'm not interested.. by Joining+Yet+Again · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And that ^^ is exactly the kind of "alpha male" talk I mean.

      I have no interest in proving "myself" - I just want to contribute good code. If I don't contribute good code, that's fine - reject it and tell me what's wrong with it. I'll try again. You have no good reason to shout me down unless I'm causing you immediate harm. If I'm simply wrong about something, and you have the final say, what exactly motivates the aggression?

      I'm a fairly competent mathematician. I've worked with people who are smarter than I could ever dream to be. My peers are occasionally mocking when I fuck up, and I can take a friendly jibe, but no senior has ever made an insulting, showboating remark to me - not even one to one, let alone in public. This macho culture is something I've only really seen professionally in engineering (software and mechanical).

      It doesn't matter in the slightest how successful Linux is. That's not an excuse for complacency. In fact, if you look at the very topic of this Slashdot post, it's the worry that there's not enough fresh blood. Arguing that the problem must be with everyone else isn't going to get you that new talent, is it?

  2. Get on my Lawn by DeBaas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Get on my Lawn!

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  3. As someone who is taking OS course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This semester, I am taking OS course at UMBC.
    Course is easy, material is easy. Hard part - figuring out how the fuck you should write Linux Kernel code.
    Why there are no good tutorials that on how to write basic kernel code, good guides on its structure (many book sold on Amazon are outdated) ......there should be one, centralized place with all the useful materials for the beginners + it should be constantly updated.

    1. Re:As someone who is taking OS course by DarkOx · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is: http://kernelnewbies.org/

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      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  4. College Outreach by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps a campus tour where the senior kernel devs can personally tell prospective developers that they are retarded and kick them in the balls.

  5. My reason for not getting involved. by hamster_nz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is just too damn big, hard and complex. Why would I want to learn the ins and outs of such a large codebase unless somebody is paying me to?

    It is not like the old days when you could pick up a "... in a nutshell" book, start hacking up a driver, then get it accepted into the kernel. I don't want a three year unpaid intership while I get up to speed and gain respect in the comunity.

    I'll spend my time working on my project on either a microcontroller (AVR, PIC...) or a bare-metal build on ARM.