Linus Torvalds Suspends Key Linux Developer

alphadogg writes: "An argument between developers of some of the most basic parts of Linux turned heated this week, resulting in a prominent Red Hat employee and code contributor being banned from working on the Linux kernel. Kay Sievers, a well-known open-source software engineer, is a key developer of systemd, a system management framework for Linux-based operating systems. Systemd is currently used by several prominent Linux distributions, including two of the most prominent enterprise distros, Red Hat and SUSE. It was recently announced that Ubuntu would adopt systemd in future versions as well. Sievers was banned by kernel maintainer Linus Torvalds on Wednesday for failing to address an issue that caused systemd to interact with the Linux kernel in negative ways."

Comments

Re:Someone has to be in charge

[bobbied]

Ah come on. He really didn't "Ban the guy" he said he wouldn't accept any patches from him and merge them into the kernel. Torvalds is routinely rough with his contributors. As I figure it, this guy doesn't have enough devotion to satisfy Torvalds, maybe he has a REAL LIFE or something. Makes me glad I'm not a part of *that* or any other Torvalds run project..

Re:First Post

[phantomfive]

Linus was restrained, in response to such a "community contributor". This is the Linux kernel, not Oxford dons, vying for college chairs.

The kernel has changed from the early days, when every contributor was an enthusiast, interested in making the kernel better. Now a lot of the kernel developers (like this guy) are employed by companies, and write code because their company tells them to, which is a completely different motivation.

It's a much different managerial task, and it must be frustrating for Linus to deal with people who don't actually care.

Re:Linus is being Linus.

[squiggleslash]

Agreed. 99% of the time when a headline about Torvalds being in a fight with someone, I think "Here we go again", and my prejudices are confirmed. In this case though, it's a 100% legitimate response to someone who's being a four-letter-word to people suffering a legitimate issue with a bizarre implementation choice.

The only problem I can see is... well, is Kay actually a Linux developer? This sounds a little like me banning Brandon Eich from my house because I don't like his hate campaign donations. It's almost passive-aggressive. Not that there's anything wrong with that.