Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 28 May 2008 08:02:48 -0400 | From | Scott Lovenberg <> | Subject | Re: Love and Hate on LKML |
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Chris Snook wrote: > Love Hate wrote: >> Dear Developers, >> >> At the outset I would like to thank you for your great work - IMHO >> Linux is the >> best OS in the Solar System. >> >> Unfortunately, your relationships with certain people are not the >> best. I do not >> like how some people are treated on LKML. I will publish further episodes >> of "Love and Hate on LKML" until you change the climate around Linux >> development. >> >> http://loveandhateonlkml.wordpress.com/ >> >> If your speech is found in some of the episodes, this means that it has >> been considered very offensive. >> >> Kind regards > > This is a classic example of a problem-seeking idea. Quite a lot of > people post to this list with some idea that they think will make a > large impact on the community at large, certainly far larger than a > lowly patch in a subsystem it would take weeks to understand. Typically > the proximal cause is sleep deprivation, a condition that afflicts many > kernel developers and enthusiasts, with the result being a decreased > inhibition against ideation of reference and ideation of grandeur. This > causes the believe that you have "discovered" something which is really > quite well understood and is being addressed with the priority it is > due, and that as a result of your discovery you are uniquely qualified > to guide the community to its resolution. > > I don't mean to throw stones here. If you dig through the archives, you > can find examples of some grandiose ideas I've posted that never > resulted in a single line of code, or turned out to be impractical > generalizations of more specific optimizations that have already been > implemented. Invariably these were posted while sleep-deprived, and > I've been quite embarrassed by them the next morning, and relieved that > for the most part they were ignored. > > If not for the importance of addressing this issue, I would leave this > post ignored as well. I have no qualms with the goal of improving > civility on LKML, but it's not something that's going to be solved by > anonymously shaming people on a blog. The goal of your blog appears to > be to chastise kernel developers, which is at best a needless escalation > of hostilities. > > If you want to improve the quality of discourse here, then get involved > and make good posts. Email makes filtering very easy, so if someone is > a troll or is posting on technical matters they don't understand, we can > simply ignore them. If you want to rebuke people for particular conduct, > do it on the list, so the people who read and post to this list can > engage in a discussion of what is acceptable here. The only people who > will read a blog such as yours are malcontents looking for reasons to > dismiss those who have criticized or ignored them. > > My suggestion to you, and to everyone else who wants to improve the > quality of this community, is to become a part of it. Learn a > subsystem. Post patches that fix problems people care about. Listen to > criticism and respond to it constructively. This will make your posts > relevant to the list, and give you far more influence than a blog about > a technical mailing list that has no technical objective. Convincing > other people to be nice is not a technical problem that can be resolved > by one person analyzing it and implementing a solution in a late-night > hacking/blogging session. Quite the contrary, late-night > hacking/blogging sessions tend to be detrimental to this goal. > > -- Chris
I'm just a software development major in college who follows kernel development (it's kind of like following a sport that's played 24/7, and I can participate in!) fairly closely. But, for what it's worth, Chris, I really appreciated your comment. It's really refreshing to actually see a positive outlook with a call to action these days (especially where thousands of introverts are concerned). Thank you for a humble, well thought out reply to a slightly hostile post.
I've always wished the list would have a slashdot style moderation system, because great comments like this probably get skipped over too much.
OK, I'm actually punchy (like I'm the only one who cuts a few hours off of the nights sleep to get up early and write some code... which, after a good nights sleep, I'm going to imprint my forehead in my desk and replace with five lines of good code that actually work correctly... but I digress) and I'm sure that I didn't word any of this as I would have liked to, but I really do appreciate the time you took to write up this reply.
I really think I'm going to print it out and keep it around for the next time I want to light up a troll. Especially when I'm shooting off my mouth on topics I know nothing about. I'll admit I really appreciated this post because it was a double-bladed sword to me.
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