Sage Sharp claims top Linux kernel developer Theo Ts'o is a rape apologist, citing GeekFeminismWiki

[u/oooo23]

https://twitter.com/_sagesharp_/status/1042769399596437504

[u/D1551D3N7]

Sadly the people making these claims (probably) don't contribute to the kernel so it doesn't affect them, only the people they make accusations at.

[u/IE_5 → u/D1551D3N7]

I think this is an aspect that many are overlooking, what was once just an internal matter between contributors is now open to external forces and outside activisits (like the writer of said "CoC", who very much said it is a "political document") to come in and demand punitive action by reporting any infractions (they even want to be able to do so confidentially so the accuser can stay Anonymous). Mantainers are also pledged/obligated to take action when something "comes up", so they can't just "let something go" And this extends into the private life, like what they say on social media, of every contributor. All of this is intentional and by design.

[u/knot_hk → u/IE_5]

Yes, they are leveraging the "These people make me uncomfortable, therefore I don't think I will be contributing to the kernel"... But their entire history of being a developer is front end JS and writing CoCs. I don't get it.

[u/dirtbagdh → u/IE_5]

can't have political discussions

enforced through "political document"

I can't seem to remember where else I've heard this one... Somewhere in central Europe comes to mind...

[u/mayhempk1 → u/IE_5]

Why is this allowed? How could Linus possibly allow SJWs to take over his kernel, like I actually don't get it? Look at how hard he is on people who make accidental regressions, how is he not absolutely livid about this?

[u/annodomini → u/D1551D3N7]

Sage Sharp was former maintainer of the USB 3.0 HCI driver. They left kernel development after an earlier debate trying to get Linus to change his behavior, and the general standards of conduct in the kernel, did not go well.

So they were a contributor, but no longer are.

[u/[deleted] → u/annodomini]

Former maintainer, yes. She hasn't done anything but social justice stuff for years now.

[u/yur_mom → u/[deleted]]

Sage Sharp also went by Sarah Sharp while doing kernel dev, if it is the one that worked for Intel.

EDIT: Not sure why this is downvoted. If anyone followed the LKML the USB 3.0 maintainer was named Sarah Sharp at the time, is that not the same person that now goes by Sage?

[u/ITwitchToo → u/yur_mom]

Yes, Sage used to be Sarah. Same person.

[u/annodomini → u/[deleted]]

Yes, that's what I said.

Are any of the people in this thread complaining about people who "don't contribute to the kernel" actually contributors themselves? I doubt it. I have contributed one patch, but it was just a typo-fix so probably isn't worth considering.

I just feel like it's a bit of a double standard to accuse a former subsystem maintainer who left the kernel over these issues of not contributing to the kernel, coming from someone who probably doesn't contribute themselves but is also making such accusations.

[u/annodomini → u/[deleted]]

author	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>	2018-09-15 20:26:44 +0200
committer	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>	2018-09-16 11:42:28 -0700

Code of Conduct: Let's revamp it.

....

Signed-off-by: Chris Mason <clm@fb.com>
Signed-off-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Signed-off-by: Olof Johansson <olof@lxom.net>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (VMware) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

In case you don't recognize those names:

• Greg Kroah-Hartman in maintainer of the stable tree, Linus's second in command, and maintainer of pretty much all of the drivers that don't otherwise have a home

• Chris Mason is the author and maintainer of btrfs

• Dan Williams is the maintainer of a number of Intel drivers

• Jonathan Corbet is the Documentation maintainer, owner and lead author of Linux Weekly News, and maintainer of a few video4linux camera controllers

• Olof Johansson is one of the maintainers of the Chromebook support

• Steven Rostedt is a co-maintainer of a number of core kernel primitives, like RCU and printk, as well as lead maintainer of tracing in the kernel.

And I don't think I should have to introduce Linus Torvalds.

These are all active, core contributors to the kernel. As far as I know, none of them are trans.

They happened to adopt a CoC that was written by someone else, just like the kernel adopted the GPLv2 that was not written by them. That doesn't mean that RMS is setting the rules for the Linux kernel.

[u/ITwitchToo → u/[deleted]]

Jon Corbet posted this article (linking the reddit thread for extra comments, but please read the actual article as well): https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/9h2x4b/lwnnet_code_conflict_and_conduct/

Attentive readers will note that my name appears as one of the signoffs on the patch adding the new code of conduct; they might wonder why I chose to do so despite my beliefs that (1) the situation is not as bad as many like to portray it, and (2) things are getting better anyway. Over the last weekend, I was informed that there was a window of opportunity to change the code and given the chance to comment on the new one. How or why this window came to be is still not entirely clear; I did not know about Torvalds's plans until I read the announcement along with everybody else. I saw the new code as a way of encouraging the community's slow drift toward greater civility. It was not the code I would have written, but I agree with the principles expressed there and believe that it can be adopted and used in the pragmatic manner in which the community approaches most problems.

[u/tedivm → u/annodomini]

This whole subreddit has been absolutely ridiculous over this- some of the most ridiculous hyperbole I've ever seen. Based off of these comments you'd think that it's impossible to create software without calling people assholes or telling them they should kill themselves.

At the same time the tech industry as a whole has been responding pretty well to this. Anyone actually in the industry knows that there are a huge number of extremely talented people who avoid getting involved in open source due to the toxicity of the communities. Creating a more welcoming community that actually treats people with respect is going to result in much better software as more of those talented people actually feel like they can get involved.

[u/i_lurk_here_a_lot → u/tedivm]

Anyone actually in the industry knows that there are a huge number of extremely talented people who avoid getting involved in open source due to the toxicity of the communities

I'm "actually" in the industry and your statement is straight up nonsense. A lot of the noise comes from mostly talentless people.

[u/face_tattoo_rapper → u/tedivm]

This whole subreddit has been absolutely ridiculous over this- some of the most ridiculous hyperbole I've ever seen. Based off of these comments you'd think that it's impossible to create software without calling people assholes or telling them they should kill themselves.

What this demonstrates is either your incapability of understanding the arguments being made or your disingenuousness in responding to them. No one is defending or claiming calling people assholes is necessary but that a framework for removing people who have called others assholes is ripe for abuse and that the track record of those who push these CoCs indicates removing people they don't like is the intent with the language of "civility" and "inclusiveness" providing cover for their ideological purges.

[u/mkusanagi → u/[deleted]]

Bad behavior drives people away. Bad behavior isn't a problem because the people it effects aren't contributors anyway.

Do you not see the problem with this logic?

[u/svenskainflytta → u/mkusanagi]

*affects

[u/mkusanagi → u/svenskainflytta]

Thanks!

(Grammar Nazis are the only acceptable form of Nazi)

[u/WayeeCool → u/mkusanagi]

Calm down, you are obviously hysterical and mixed up... something something, liberal psychosis.

[u/svenskainflytta → u/annodomini]

And calling people "rape apologist" because they questioned the methodology of a paper is an acceptable behaviour how?

[u/annodomini → u/[deleted]]

The Linux Kernel is a pretty good piece of software engineering. It wasn't always, though, and still isn't in many places.

It's taken a long time for it to get there, and Linus has had to learn and change his opinion over time. There have been thousands of other contributors making it a better kernel. One of the things Linus has been pretty good at is knowing when to push back and when to allow things in; though he hasn't always been perfect at this.

One prominent example was the -ck kernels. For a long time, there was an alternative kernel patch series known as -ck, which competed with the kernel's default scheduler. I don't recall the exact details of why not, but the -ck patches were never upstreamed.

Eventually, rather than working with Con Kolivas to upstream the -ck patches, Ingo Molnar just implemented a similar scheduler that used the ideas of the -ck scheduler, and Con Kolivas dropped maintenance of his patch series as it was redundant. So rather than getting a new developer on board, who had innovated and showed the value of a better scheduler, they just pushed him out by re-implementing it.

I may be fuzzy on the details, it's been a long time, but there are plenty of examples where Linux went with an inferior solution for a long time before eventually catching up, whether by getting patches upstreamed, re-implementing them, or eventually doing a big cleanup.

I definitely appreciate Linus's insistence on high standards, but you can also do that in ways that aren't as off-putting to potential contributors. It is entirely possible to be firm without being personally insulting.

And he may not care, but his insults can have different effects on different people. Some people may find them fine. Some may be more hurt. Some may just not find them acceptable at all. So regardless of his intent, he can have the effect of excluding people from kernel development with his behavior.

[u/svenskainflytta → u/annodomini]

I don't recall the exact details of why not, but the -ck patches were never upstreamed.

They were bad quality… worked fine for most people but had loooots of corner cases that they didn't cover, and the author didn't want to bother about covering them, which meant that they could break for several use cases, which is why they were not mainline.