From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754174AbYE1FMl (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2008 01:12:41 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752380AbYE1FMb (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2008 01:12:31 -0400 Received: from 1wt.eu ([62.212.114.60]:1288 "EHLO 1wt.eu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752354AbYE1FMb (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2008 01:12:31 -0400 Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 07:12:00 +0200 From: Willy Tarreau To: Chris Snook Cc: Love Hate , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Love and Hate on LKML Message-ID: <20080528051159.GB5609@1wt.eu> References: <89af77c70805271348y1df96afveb020d0f3f875da1@mail.gmail.com> <483C85EB.7060604@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <483C85EB.7060604@redhat.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 06:06:35PM -0400, 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, your comments make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, I think that you wasted your time trying to educate this one. Judging by his/her pathetic blog made up from carefully selected excerpts from the list, and the fact that he/she has no name to post with, I think he/she's just a kid waiting for his/her parents to discover he/she used dad's computer without authorization. Otherwise, I 100% agree with what you said. Cheers, Willy