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Sun, 27 Oct 2024 06:27:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: MessagingEngine.com Webmail Interface Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2024 10:26:47 +0000 From: "Jiaxun Yang" To: "Theodore Ts'o" Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, "Linus Torvalds" , "Greg Kroah-Hartman" , shuah@kernel.org, lee@kernel.org, sashal@kernel.org, "Jonathan Corbet" Message-Id: <480c8a05-d73b-4cd8-8470-2ac7b4574cec@app.fastmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20241027011422.GA3842351@mit.edu> References: <73b8017b-fce9-4cb1-be48-fc8085f1c276@app.fastmail.com> <20241026145640.GA4029861@mit.edu> <522bd817-339a-45b0-84c2-2b1a4a87980a@app.fastmail.com> <20241027011422.GA3842351@mit.edu> Subject: Re: Concerns over transparency of informal kernel groups Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =E5=9C=A82024=E5=B9=B410=E6=9C=8827=E6=97=A5=E5=8D=81=E6=9C=88 =E4=B8=8A= =E5=8D=881:14=EF=BC=8CTheodore Ts'o=E5=86=99=E9=81=93=EF=BC=9A > On Sat, Oct 26, 2024 at 05:33:16PM +0100, Jiaxun Yang wrote: >> That being said, I'll try to improve the documentation on these things >> based on my observations. My background perhaps makes me particularly >> sensitive to some ambiguous language, especially where "constructive >> ambiguity" might be involved. Recent events make me started to look >> into those aspects in border community. > > Well, make no mistake, there *is* a lot of ambiguity, because we don't > really have a centralized governance structure other than Linus has > the benvelent dictator. The general philosophy is to have just as > much structure as necessary, but no more. We do need to have a legal > organization to sign contracts with hotels, caterers, etc., for the > purposes of organizing conferences. That is one of the roles of the > Linux Foundation. But just because the Linux Foundation organizes > conferences, and accepts corporate donations, and pays Linus's salary, > *doesn't* mean that they get to dictate to Linus what he does, or > anything about what code does or doesn't get accepted into the Linux > kernel. As Jim Zemlin, the Executive Director of the Linux Foundation > has been known to have said, he works for Linus, and not the other way > around. Thanks Theodore for making all those comments. I perfectly understand why we don't have any "binding rules". However, I see the problem from a different perspective. As someone who's a bit of a Linux advocate in real life, the recent even= ts have led to quite a few questions coming my way from outsiders: things l= ike, "What happens if someone uses inappropriate language in the Linux commun= ity?" "How do you make sure no one slips in a backdoor in the same manner?" and "How do you prevent security issues from being swept under the rug?" I tried to answer by referencing kernel documents, but honestly, I found= a lot of ambiguity, some of it even felt like it was left vague on purpose. So my answer was always "Oh I trust Linus and other folks out there, the= y are all decent people." and point them to some stories like Linus vs NSA [1]. While I believe this is the real answer to those questions, I found this is not really convincing to outsiders. It's easy for people to judge our leadership based on one-hot behaviour because they didn't experience the process where our mutual trust was built. That got me wondering, "What if we wrote down some of these unspoken stu= ff?", but found myself not really qualified to make those documentations chang= es. I reached some kernel maintainer personal friends and found we are at a = similar position, thus the post. Maybe I should rephrase my original post to sound less forceful. My inte= nsion was never "changing the system" but to improve the transparency so people (o= utsiders and maybe some community members) can gain more confidence to Linux. Perhaps we are far beyond the stage that attracting users based on ideol= ogy is necessary to spend people's bandwidth .... I don't know... I'm very l= ost recent days... > > This is not the only way to organize an open source project, of > course. For example, the Rust community has a lot more structure > process. I will note that this has not reduced the amount of > organizational drama and contrversy. In fact, some might argue that > their governance structures may have caused some of the more recent > drama that lead to some people stepping down from official leadership > roles.... > > Or you can take a look at some of the BSD projects, which early on had > a lot of drama and some of the BSD forks based on who was officiallty > part of the core team, and who wasn't (or who was thrown off of the > core team). It's perhaps because of that drama in the early 90's that > some of us who were around during that era rather consciously rejected > the formation of anything like the BSD formal core team model, because > we saw the dysfunction that could result from it. > > There are limits to the informal model, of course. One of the ways > that we have tried to make it scale is that there is great value in > making sure that the kernel developers have face time with each other. > It's one of the reasons why I organized the Linux Kernel Summit, which > later morphed into the Maintainer's Summit. It's why there are many > people who spend a huge amount of time organizing the Linux Plumbers > Conference and other workshops, whether it's the Linux Security > Symposium, or the Linux Storage, File Systems, and MM workshop, or > Netconf. The ability for us to see each other face to face, and break > bread together, makes the human relationships real in a way that > avoids e-mail conversations alone can turning into flame wars. > > More recently, some subsystem teams have started regular video chats. > They aren't a substitute for in-person meetings, but they still are > valuable in terms of having that higher bandwidth conversation where > the non-verbal cues can humanize the personal connection. > I'm a bit too young to know the old BSD stories first-hand, but I've seen plenty of drama in other projects and have read The Cathedral and the Ba= zaar more times than I can count. Maybe it's not my place to comment, but I h= ave to say, our current model seems to be working well for its purpose. >From my experience at a few Kernel events, I've also found that a bit of= beer often serves as the perfect development lubricant :-) > Of course, like all things, there are tradeoff and limitations. > Attendance at in-person meetings can be hampered by real-world > considerations such as the cost of travel, or the need to get travel > visas, or for people for whom English is not their primary language, > they might be able to use Google Translate for e-mail, but that > doesn't work that well for in-person meetings or video conferences. > Some of these can be mitigated; the Linux Foundation has a travel > scholarship fund for people who can't get corporate sponsorship for > their travel, and many conferences now have a hybrid option for people > who can't attend in person for whatever reason. But the language > barrier can still be an issue for some. Maybe someday we will have > something like Star Trek's universal translator... As a non-native speaker living in an English-speaking country, I want to say that the kernel community is one of the most inclusive spaces I've encountered. People here are remarkably patient with non-native speakers, far more so than average people I met in my life. When misunderstandings arise due to language or cultural differences, everyone makes a genuine effort to reach a mutual understanding. I truly appreciate everyone's open-mindedness here. I really hope recent events don't signal a turning point for this inclus= ive culture, though I'm starting to notice some worrying signs. > > The bottom line, though, that any organization is made up of *people*, > and so there is no substitute for personal relationships and trust. > If you don't have that, I doubt any amount of organizational structure > can save you, and in fact, to the extent that some people might try to > game the formal rules/structure, it might actually make things worse. Well said, I believe none of us is looking for bureaucratic here. Even if there are formal rules being setted, it's still people doing judgemen= ts. That's why I believe it's always important to know the people behind thi= ngs. People Makes /* Glasgow */ Linux! > > Cheers, > > - Ted Thanks [1]: https://www.theregister.com/2013/09/19/linux_backdoor_intrigue/ --=20 - Jiaxun