> I'm leaving the Linux world and Intel for a bit for family reasons. I'm aware that "family reasons" is usually management speak for "I think the boss is an asshole" but I'd like to assure everyone that while I frequently think Linus is an asshole (and therefore very good as kernel dictator) I am departing quite genuinely for family reasons and not because I've fallen out with Linus or Intel or anyone else. Far from it I've had great fun working there.
This is a much more recent incident. The time he abruptly resigned as maintainer of the tty code was clearly a "fuck this, if you don't like the way I'm doing it, fix it yourself" resignation in direct response to some classic (if mild) Linus-in-your-face criticism.
Aren't they the same incident? His G+ posts talks about resigning from tty duties among other things -- but also states there was no beef between him or any other kernel maintainers.
January 2013: "I'm leaving the Linux world and Intel for a bit for family reasons."
July 2009: "I've had enough. If you think that problem is easy to fix you fix it. Have fun. I've zapped the tty merge queue so anyone with patches for the tty layer can send them to the new maintainer."
not being familiar with this case -- but from an outside perspective reading the mailing list now, seems Alan introduced a patch that broke userland code -- which is the biggest No-No in kernel hacking, ie. the number 1 rule is don't break userland. Alan appeared to argue userland code was broken and not his patch, which just made Linus mad (as expected). The kernel strives to never break userland, even when userland is relying on legacy and/or broken pieces of kernel code (the idea is to code around the broken parts and provide compatibility until userland changes/fixes their problem -- ie. no kernel change should ever mass-break userland code).
yes that's the idea. in fact, it was only last year (or maybe 2012) that intel 386 (an almost 30 year old cpu) support was finally dropped. This is how binaries from 20 years ago will still run on today's hardware and kernel with zero modifications. That is a good thing, especially for enterprise.
it's not that they leave security vulnerabilities in, it's that they build compatibility for any software that may expect something to work a certain way, while simultaneously fixing the underlying problem. To software, it should not care what kernel it's running on going forward.
It may be a counterpoint, but it is also one of the milder rants from Linux: No expletives; no colourful descriptions.
Yes, it's critical, but is the criticism unwarranted? He is questioning why one of the most senior maintainers is directly contradicting one of the most central "edicts" from Linus on the kernel development: Don't break user-land. In the message, Linus directly quotes Alan as arguing that breaking userland is ok.
Of course Alan was/is free to disagree, but he should have known very well that Linus would never let that fly. Not least because Linus had told him it wouldn't, and he kept pressing for it.
What was the alternative? From the outside, it looks like Alan repeatedly avoided doing what Linus told him needed doing. Linus could not have backed off without sacrificing the guarantee of not breaking userland.
If you read the whole thread Linus was wrong. He was constantly confusing two different bugs (despite Alan pointing this out to him multiple times), and the fixes he was yelling at Alan for not applying would have caused other things to break.
Ooof. If I'm reading that thread correctly, Linus wanted to leave in a bug that would probably allow a local attacker (or maybe even a remote attacker) to execute arbitrary code in the kernel, just to avoid the risk of breaking userland code that did questionable thing that happened to work before by fixing it.
So reading this thread, I keep asking "could Linus have said what he needed to say in nicer terms and gotten better results?" I think so. In every Linus rant I encounter he goes on and on about the problem, then the person causing the problem, and typically attacks the developer. It's one thing to rule with an iron fist, it's another to target individuals and not the behavior.
> I'm leaving the Linux world and Intel for a bit for family reasons. I'm aware that "family reasons" is usually management speak for "I think the boss is an asshole" but I'd like to assure everyone that while I frequently think Linus is an asshole (and therefore very good as kernel dictator) I am departing quite genuinely for family reasons and not because I've fallen out with Linus or Intel or anyone else. Far from it I've had great fun working there.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AlanCoxLinux/posts/KW3TdRYwjr9