Linus Torvalds Blasts Kernel Dev For 'Making the World Worse' With 'Garbage' Patches (zdnet.com) 29
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: You can't say Linux creator Linus Torvalds didn't give the kernel developers fair warning. He'd told them: "The upcoming merge window for 6.17 is going to be slightly chaotic for me. I have multiple family events this August (a wedding and a big birthday), and with said family being spread not only across the US, but in Finland too, I'm spending about half the month traveling." Therefore, Torvalds continued, "That does not mean I'll be more lenient to late pull requests (probably quite the reverse, since it's just going to add to the potential chaos)." So, when Meta software engineer Palmer Dabbelt pushed through a set of RISC-V patches and admitted "this is very late," he knew he was playing with fire. He just didn't know how badly he'd be burned.
Torvalds fired back on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): "This is garbage and it came in too late. I asked for early pull requests because I'm traveling, and if you can't follow that rule, at least make the pull requests good." It went downhill from there. Torvalds continued: "This adds various garbage that isn't RISC-V specific to generic header files. And by 'garbage," I really mean it. This is stuff that nobody should ever send me, never mind late in a merge window." Specifically, Torvalds hated the "crazy and pointless" way in which one of the patch's helper functions combined two unsigned 16-bit integers into a 32-bit integer. How bad was it? "That thing makes the world actively a worse place to live. It's useless garbage that makes any user incomprehensible, and actively *WORSE* than not using that stupid 'helper.'"
In addition to the quality issues, Torvalds was annoyed that the offending code was added to generic header files rather than the RISC-V tree. He emphasized that such generic changes could negatively impact the broader Linux community, writing: "You just made things WORSE, and you added that 'helper' to a generic non-RISC-V file where people are apparently supposed to use it to make other code worse too... So no. Things like this need to get bent. It does not go into generic header files, and it damn well does not happen late in the merge window. You're on notice: no more late pull requests, and no more garbage outside the RISC-V tree." [...] Dabbelt gets it. He replied, "OK, sorry. I've been dropping the ball lately, and it kind of piled up, taking a bunch of stuff late, but that just leads to me making mistakes. So I'll stop being late, and hopefully that helps with the quality issues."
Torvalds fired back on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML): "This is garbage and it came in too late. I asked for early pull requests because I'm traveling, and if you can't follow that rule, at least make the pull requests good." It went downhill from there. Torvalds continued: "This adds various garbage that isn't RISC-V specific to generic header files. And by 'garbage," I really mean it. This is stuff that nobody should ever send me, never mind late in a merge window." Specifically, Torvalds hated the "crazy and pointless" way in which one of the patch's helper functions combined two unsigned 16-bit integers into a 32-bit integer. How bad was it? "That thing makes the world actively a worse place to live. It's useless garbage that makes any user incomprehensible, and actively *WORSE* than not using that stupid 'helper.'"
In addition to the quality issues, Torvalds was annoyed that the offending code was added to generic header files rather than the RISC-V tree. He emphasized that such generic changes could negatively impact the broader Linux community, writing: "You just made things WORSE, and you added that 'helper' to a generic non-RISC-V file where people are apparently supposed to use it to make other code worse too... So no. Things like this need to get bent. It does not go into generic header files, and it damn well does not happen late in the merge window. You're on notice: no more late pull requests, and no more garbage outside the RISC-V tree." [...] Dabbelt gets it. He replied, "OK, sorry. I've been dropping the ball lately, and it kind of piled up, taking a bunch of stuff late, but that just leads to me making mistakes. So I'll stop being late, and hopefully that helps with the quality issues."
Are dupes also gabage patches? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Inquiring minds want to know.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, it's a good dupe. Some people are telling me it's one of the best dupes.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a dupe. Some people call it the "weave".
Re: Are dupes also gabage patches? (Score:1)
Deja vu? (Score:1)
Linus is still angry (Score:2)
So that justifies the dupe.
Linus must be losing it (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, this is two times this week that he's gone after the same developer for the same issue!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, you're right - the first time it was Linus Van Pelt! Good Grief, Charlie Brown!
Dopey dupe (Score:2)
Last (Score:3)
That would certainly be my last contribution to the project.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Last (Score:4, Insightful)
Linus is brittle , but everyone knows that in advance, and its an approach that has led to the largest, most complicated , and widely used, open source project in existence being widely considered rock solid an dependable in mission critical situations world wide.
If Linus yells at you to stop doing something, you damn well listen, or move aside for someone else who will listen.
Re: (Score:2)
largest, most complicated , and widely used, open source project in existence
Wait, does Linus also work on LLVM?! I thought he only worked on the Linux kernel.
Linus is upset (Score:2)
... because they did not submit their work in duplicate.
I'm trying to imagine Linux without Linus Torvalds (Score:1)
I'm liking Linux, and I'm not liking the thought of Linux without someone as passionate about it as Linus Torvalds leading the project.
I'm trying to think of some parallel for the inevitable. Would it be like Apple without Jobs and Wozniak? Or Microsoft without Gates and Ballmer? I kind of doubt it for all kinds of reasons.
Perhaps I won't have to see that happen. I wish Torvalds good health and a long life.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm liking Linux, and I'm not liking the thought of Linux without someone as passionate about it as Linus Torvalds leading the project.
Linux has a succession plan in place in the case of some unforeseen event happening to Linus. Right now that plan is that GKH will take over the leadership role (GKH shares the same approaches and philosophies as Linus). One might expect an updated succession plan sometime in the early 2030s simply because they will then both be sexagenarians (and it will be time to make sure there is a new generation ready to take on the leadership roles).
Ffs (Score:1)
This guy has been publicly annoyed by someone or something for the past 30 years. How about not writing about him anymore? Let him be annoyed. Who still cares about his linux? It doesn't work anyway. It's gone from a couple of floppies to a couple of terabytes. Next worked from day 1, so did mac and windows and os2 and sunos and aix and beos and...
Re: (Score:2)
Nice try, but way too blatant. 1.2/10 at best.
Re: (Score:2)
Slow down old timer. Its 2025, your wife died 30 years ago , BEOS and OS2 are not a thing anymore, and you need to stop putting up a fight when the nurse gives you your Memantine.
Re: Ffs (Score:2)
So it's 2025 and you people STILL haven't figured it out? Which part of "worked from day 1" are you having trouble with? And I'm the one on meds?
I see all dupe jokes have already been made. (Score:2)
Good job, everyone!
You had one job, Beau...
Linus needs Prozac (Score:1)
Linus needs Prozac
The only question is (Score:2)
Do these duplicate slashdot posts come in big endian or little endian order?