Linus Torvalds Got Confused About 'When and Where' Maintainer's Summit Is Going To be Held, So Organizers Moved the Entire Conference (linuxfoundation.org) 118
From The Linux Foundation's mailing list: Last Friday (just before Labor Day) I learned that Linus had gotten confused about when and where the Maintainer's Summit was going to be held this year. And most unfortunately, he has already scheduled a family vacation overlapping with the week of the Maintainer's Summit. Over the weekend, I've been conferring with folks from the Linux Foundation, Linus, and the Maintainer's / Kernel Summit program committee. We explored a lot of options, but ultimately there were only two choices that were workable:
1) Have the Maintainer's Summit in Vancouver, without Linus.
2) Move the Maintainer's Summit to Edinburgh, with Linus.
Curiously enough, Linus suggested option #1. And while holding the Maintainer's Summit without Linus might be an interesting experiment, ultimately, the Program Committee had a strong consensus that moving it Summit to Edinburgh was the better option.
This means that the Maintainer's Summit will take place in Edinburgh, on Monday afternoon, October 22nd. As a reminder, the Maintainer's Summit is an invite-only workshop, with ~30 people attending. The focus of the Maintainer's Summit is process and development issues, *not* technical issues. The Kernel Summit track will still be held in Vancouver alongside Plumber's. Technical discussions will take place there; we simply won't have the time, or necessarily, the right people, to have technical discussions at the Maintainer's Summit.
1) Have the Maintainer's Summit in Vancouver, without Linus.
2) Move the Maintainer's Summit to Edinburgh, with Linus.
Curiously enough, Linus suggested option #1. And while holding the Maintainer's Summit without Linus might be an interesting experiment, ultimately, the Program Committee had a strong consensus that moving it Summit to Edinburgh was the better option.
This means that the Maintainer's Summit will take place in Edinburgh, on Monday afternoon, October 22nd. As a reminder, the Maintainer's Summit is an invite-only workshop, with ~30 people attending. The focus of the Maintainer's Summit is process and development issues, *not* technical issues. The Kernel Summit track will still be held in Vancouver alongside Plumber's. Technical discussions will take place there; we simply won't have the time, or necessarily, the right people, to have technical discussions at the Maintainer's Summit.
Makes sense to me (Score:5, Funny)
If you scheduled an Infinity Gem convention over Thanos' personal time off, seems like you would move that convention too.
Is this a cult behavior? (Score:3, Funny)
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A major sign that Linux needs to grow up. It has a Bus Factor problem. I mean the guy can't even go on vacation without causing upheaval.
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Yes it is.
... Other Barry. Yes it is.
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I'm a little confused as to why moving the date instead of location was not an option.
Linus Torvalds Never Got A First Post (Score:1, Interesting)
systemD~~ won't allow it
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Unlike you people he have a job - and a life.
Edinburgh? (Score:3)
Why would someone vacation in Edinburgh in October? Isn't it rather cold there?
Re: Edinburgh? (Score:2)
You think that Vancouver would be warmer?
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You think that Vancouver would be warmer?
Yes.
Re: Edinburgh? (Score:2, Funny)
Correct! Average temperature Vancouver in October is 10.1 degC c.f. Edinburgh 9.5 degC. Although very little in it given the uncertainty. Sources:
https://en.climate-data.org/location/963/
https://en.climate-data.org/location/48/
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See the løveli lakes The wøndërful telephøne system And mäni interesting furry animals
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Is it ever not cold there? There's still a lot to see.
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News at... (Score:4, Funny)
Meeting moved due to scheduling conflicts.
News at 11.
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Trump's travel ban, US Customs going through all of your electronics, ubiquitous surveillance during your stay, should I go on?
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ubiquitous surveillance during your stay
because *that* doesn't exist in the UK
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First they came for the Muslim developers, and I did not speak out, because I wasn't on the Ban list
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Wow, I had no idea that customs didn't exist in other countries. It's weird, I could swear I had suspicious guys checking me out when I entered other countries. My bad, USA evil, got it.
Re: Why not the USA (Score:2, Insightful)
A bit like asking "why not Germany?" in the late 30s
Re: Why not the USA (Score:5, Interesting)
> USA is the bastion of freedom and democracy in the world
Bullshit [youtu.be]
(Clip from HBO's "The Newsroom")
It used it be. And can be again.
Wake me up when:
* music, home economics, shop, and finance are mandatory classes in school again,
*we stop teaching math by rote [maa.org] which kills all curiosity in the subject,
* we stop idolizing sport stars and actors who make millions -- who will be forgotten in a few decades and instead have more and better Teachers who struggle to make a decent wage
* we stop spending Billions fighting another man's rich war
* we stop the insanity of Imaginary Property and the obnoxious duration
* we stop corporations hijacking culture for the sake of profit
* we stop the visual pollution of advertising
* we stop tracking everything fucking thing a person does and selling the data to the highest bidder
* we take security breaches serious and enforce fines for when personal information is hacked / stolen
* we stop censoring people who think different
* etc.
--
Main St. built America,
Walls St. destroyed America.
Re: Why not the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
The Right Wing in America stands for exactly what the nazis stood for.
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Except it doesn't. Burden of proof lies with you. Please show your logical chain.
It's just as easy to say "The Left Wing in America stands for exactly what Stalin stood for", which is just as bad an accusation.
The truth is that there are extremes, and they need watching. Most are just people.
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The Right Wing in America stands for exactly what the nazis stood for.
That you actually believe that is what is frightening,
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A computer conference in the US?
Are you high?
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Linus Torvalds won't be in the USA in October, he'll be in Scotland. Moving from one place where Linus isn't to another place where Linus isn't doesn't solve the problem.
Memory issues... (Score:1)
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You know the kernel is fucking huge now, right?
Lets see you 'remember' a few millions of lines of code.
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How many of the 15 million or so lines of code do you have memorized?
Really, that seems like a strange critique to make on a project that is explicitly known for having a ton of contributors.
Re:Memory issues... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, move a workshop that's invite only for 30 people, and not to do with the technical side. Linus says don't bother, you're fine without me. The rest basically vote "Nah, we'd like to come see you", and people complain?
Sounds like great cameraderie on that committee, and I really hope they enjoy themselves. Edinburgh is a lovely city, and the Scots are great people.. They'll be shown a warm welcome, and have the chance to wander around the area if they choose to. Which is a great way to go sightseeing, and throw in a little business on the side.
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"we dont break userland!!" shouts furious old man as he hurtles coffee at blue-screened airport flight departures display.
Well a kernel shouldn't break userland unless there's a very good reason to do so. As for the hurling of coffee, I cannot condone that behavior.
He gave them two hints ... (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) I got my dates mixed up and I cannot attend due to prior commitments.
(2) Don't reschedule, just carry on without me.
Don't you guys get it? He may want the community to be less dependent, more able to stand on its own, not need the hand holding.
Re:He gave them two hints ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with this assessment - and I think summit organizers made a mistake here. Linus isn't going to live forever, and if Linux is going to survive without him, the kernel maintainers need to learn to work without Linus.
Maybe next year he should just tell them, "I'm delegating decisions to these persons and taking a three week hiatus, have at."
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Maybe he wants a new hobby, perhaps give microkernels a try.
Re:He gave them two hints ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite a lot of people fail to appreciate just how bad, and how sudden, burnout can be. How you can go from something you love one month, and the next month, you suddenly start feeling physically ill while doing it. You lose what spark drove you and everything starts to become by rote. You start to only care about getting it done, no matter how, instead of getting it done right/safe, for example.
Note, I'm not talking about Linus here, but in general. A colleague of mine went from loving what he was doing, to noticing that he was just starting the trend of going through the motions, so he quickly decided that either he could continue working in the field, with a diminishing spark, or he could keep coding as a hobby, and perhaps, in the long run, retain the spark. He chose to keep it as a hobby, and is now switching career.
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Maybe next year he should just tell them, "I'm delegating decisions to these persons and taking a three week hiatus, have at."
And that's what you call proper management of change... well better management of change anyway. Just scheduling a conflict for a meeting you normally attend to try and foster independence would just be a dumb way of going about it.
More likely, he was trying to be polite. After all, no swearing was to be heard.
Re:He gave them two hints ... (Score:5, Funny)
As usual, Linus' hints were too subtle. Will he ever learn to speak his mind in no uncertain terms?
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As usual, Linus' hints were too subtle. Will he ever learn to speak his mind in no uncertain terms?
Well perhaps a third hint is forthcoming: "Stop fucking following me around you needy clingy bastards!"
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Don't you guys get it? He may want the community to be less dependent, more able to stand on its own, not need the hand holding.
He didn't swear. Maybe he's just trying out what it's like to be polite. :-)
The real Conversation (Score:2)
Organizers: Is this the fam?
Linus: You understand, don't you? There's no other solution. You won't go away.
Organizers: I will.
Linus: No, you won't. You're just *saying* you will! But then, after I don't kill you, you'll show up again. And you'll do something else to make everyone in my life think you are wonderful and I'm a schmuck. But I'm not a schmuck, Bob, and I'm not going to let you breeze into town and take my family away from me,
A missed opportunity to use blockchain (Score:2)
Because 1% of $500 billion is a lot (Score:2)
Suppose that having the core team meet face to face, relaxing over drinks together while discussing things, only results in a 1% improvement in Linux. That's a very small improvement, percentage wise.
The economic impact of all the world's servers running Linux and all the IoT and everything is more than $500 billion. 1% of that is $5 billion, so 1% improvement is worth perhaps $5 billion.
30 people are attending the meeting. If it costs $2,000/person, that's $60,000 cost for a $5 billion impact.
BTW same reason the best CEOs are worth so much (Score:2)
By the way, this is basically the same reason having the best CEO is worth so much to very large company. If having Carly Fiorina at the helm means you make $40 billion, while having Ray Morris means you make 5% more, that's $42 billion. Only a 5% difference means Morris is worth $2 billion more than Fiorina.
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Umm... not really, it's a bit like TV. Just because you don't see the show continue after you switch off doesn't mean that it doesn't.
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They could easily have had the conference without him. I think they just like the guy, wanted him included if possible, and really thought they may just enjoy a trip to Scotland to sample the local wares!
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. I wholeheartedly approve of the cameradierie they're showing.
Reminds me of a joke (Score:1)
"I was once on a US military ship, having breakfast in the wardroom (officers lounge) when the Operations Officer (OPS) walks in. This guy was the definition of NOT a morning person; he's still half asleep, bleary eyed... basically a zombie with a bagel. He sits down across from me to eat his bagel and is just barely conscious. My back is to the outboard side of the ship, and the morning sun is blazing in one of the portholes putting a big bright-ass circle of light right on his barely conscious face. He's
related question... (Score:3)
seems relevant somehow..
"confused" (Score:2)
Yeah, right, Linus got "confused". Sounds more like Linus got sick of being in charge.
No big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously. The lead has an appointment clash. Whatever the reason.
Of course the crew adjusts. This is SOP in every team.
On top of that, Linus isn't just some mid-range lead in a kinda so so software team.
This is the kernel and he basically has demigod status and for good reasons too, so I presume the crew is happy to adjust.
What a fucking premadonna (Score:1)
ntr
Best video on Linus (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]