Linus Torvalds flames Google kernel contributor over filesystem suggestion Kernel 6.8-rc2 debuts after very robust discussion.jan 29, 2024

Condobloke

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2017
Messages
9,832
Reaction score
7,904
Credits
67,849
Linus Torvalds has dished up one of his most strongly worded Linux kernel mailing list posts in years, lashing a contributor from Google for his suggestions regarding filesystems.
 


Well sometimes you have to be forcefully blunt. I say good for Mr. Torvalds.
 
I have the strong impression that 'Mr Torvalds" is well practised in the art of 'blunt'

"In response to Rostedt's suggestion about unique inode numbers, Torvalds opened: "Stop making things more complicated than they need to be.
Then he got a bit shouty.

"And dammit, STOP COPYING VFS LAYER FUNCTIONS. It was a bad idea last time, it's a horribly bad idea this time too. I'm not taking this kind of crap."

Torvalds's main criticism of Rostedt's approach is that the Google dev didn't fully understand the subject matter – which Rostedt later acknowledged.

By then, however, Torvalds had flamed him as follows:

You copied that function without understanding why it does what it does, and as a result your code IS GARBAGE.
AGAIN.
Debate continued for some time, in a cooler tone, with Torvalds offering suggestions on what he felt would be a better approach to the issues Rostedt hoped to address. The penguin emperor wrote he did not intend to pursue the matter immediately, as "I wasted enough time on this and I'm way behind in my other responsibilities, so this is not something I can work on now."

Just on principle, I would support Linus....if for no other reason than he has probably forgotten more than the rest of them will ever know.
He may be getting 'testy'....which apparently gives the guy from google licence to then say " Ironically, one of the responsibilities that I've been putting off to fix up eventfs was writing that document on a support group for maintainer burnout."

That is cheap comment, and typical of someone who has had his butt handed to him on a platter.
 
That's pretty tame for Linus. He's mellowed with age.
 

Staff online

Members online


Top