Matthew Garrett Forks the Linux Kernel

jones_supa writes: Just like Sarah Sharp, Linux developer Matthew Garrett has gotten fed up with the unprofessional development culture surrounding the kernel. "I remember having to deal with interminable arguments over the naming of an interface because Linus has an undying hatred of BSD securelevel, or having my name forever associated with the deepthroating of Microsoft because Linus couldn't be bothered asking questions about the reasoning behind a design before trashing it," Garrett writes. He has chosen to go his own way, and has forked the Linux kernel and added patches that implement a BSD-style securelevel interface. Over time it is expected to pick up some of the power management code that Garrett is working on, and we shall see where it goes from there.

Comments

Sincerely, good luck

[HalAtWork]

Good on you for putting wotrk in and not just words in. I'm interested to see how many contributors will support the fork.

Re:Benefit to end users?

[HalAtWork]

Choice? Options? These people were going to leave kernel dev anyway, now we get to see them try something new. Maybe it'll work, maybe not, but what's the harm in trying?

Re:securelevel who?

[fahrbot-bot]

Just for the people who don't know what the fuck securelevel is (NetBSD's flavor in this case)

Not going back to Linux, but this really is a worthwhile addition.

Furthermore, should something like this be omitted simply because Linus doesn't like it? Is his opinion the only one that counts? Among other things, securelevel is used to implement "jails" but the functionality can be completely disabled (securelevel = -1) -- so Linus can turn it off if he wants.

Is the direction in which Linux is driven simply the whim of people like Linus and Lennart who dictate "my way or the highway"? They are smart, capable, talented people, but not omniscient Gods - despite what they and some others might think.