* Sarah Sharp <sarah.a.sharp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 03:12:45PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > I react very strongly when somebody argues against fixing regressions. > > Let's just say that there's too many years of baggage that I carry > > around on that issue.. > > > > So that is definitely one of the things that make me go ballistic. > > Buggy code isn't actually one of them. Bugs happen. Even really stupid > > bugs happen, and happen to good people. They had a bad day, or it was > > just a brainfart. Not that I will be _polite_ about bad code, mind > > you, and there might be some bad words in there, but it doesn't make > > me blow up. > > > > Being cavalier about known regressions is definitely the primary > > trigger. I suspect there are others, but I can't seem to recall any > > other particular hot-button issues right now. Maybe Sarah can post a > > few more pointers.. > > Hmm... The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that you > tend to hate it when someone puts the needs of their particular > architecture or distro at a higher priority than the needs of the kernel > community. If they start to push crap code late in the merge window to > further their personal goals, you tend to blow up at them. See the > 'deep throat' comment on the PE binary signing thread, for instance. > > The timing of when incidents happen also seems to effect whether you get > triggered. I suspect most of the incidents of you "blowing up" at > people happen during the merge window. Of course timing matters: - there are times when a bad pull request can have worse effects, such as shortly before -rc1 or shortly before -final - when many people will be exposed to a new kernel for the first time. - timing can also sometimes show a certain level of dishonesty on the developer's side: trying to slip in a bad tree near the end of the merge window, before people can complain it ... - there are times when Linus naturally more vulnerable to not having enough time to think things through: such as when he is pulling a dozen trees per day, during the merge window. Dishonesty, bad timing, running a bad Git flow and making irreversible ABI mistakes [of which refusing to fix app regressions is one sort] are all hot button issues for Linus, and it's a pretty natural list I think: because they are the least actionable, most persistent and thus riskiest "meta" problems possible in a kernel project. Some of Linus's "worst" flames had two or more of these hot button issues mixed together. Sometimes a maintainer can get away with a mistake (most likely Linus does not notice the mistake) but in general it's all pretty consistent. All in one, with all due respect, I don't think your complaints voiced so far against Linus have much merit :-/ I think you'll experience it first hand once you become a top level maintainer. Having said that, I do share your concern that women are more offput by the widespread 'manly' talk on lkml: LKML is filled with testosterone. I think your solution to create a separate culture is a good one - and eventually the two cultures will counter-balance each other in a good way and will maybe merge. I cannot think of a better solution either, and I fully support your efforts: it's one of the big unsolved problems of Linux kernel development. Thanks, Ingo -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html