The main repository's README has essentially a somewhat skeevy general undertone of "we accept all contributions from all kinds of people, but anyone who disagrees with me is clearly an evil paid corporate shill out to get me." At the time I read it, I didn't know or care who it was.
Then someone mentioned that this was the guy who got Torvalds to tell him GTFO off the kernel mailing lists, and when reading the article about it, I saw the name of the individual. Just seeing that name immediately reminded me of some interactions I've personally had with him a decade ago which eventually resulted (IIRC) in him being told to GTFO of that project. And the catalyst for this fork is being told to GTFO of Xorg thanks to his interactions with the rest of the people.
This is someone who is constantly grating on peoples' nerves to the point that they're kicked out of open source projects for being net negative contributors to the project. And given the repeat nature of it, they also lack the perspicacity to realize the commonality of these incidents. Now a thorough description of their behavior is perhaps superior to just calling them a "reactionary nutjob," but their reputation does proceed them and is justly earned.
You'd expect that the changes would've been reverted sooner if that was all there was to it, no? How come they're suddenly a problem?
that was my first thought too. if these commits were a problem they should not have been accepted in the first place.
was there no review process in place? and if there was no review, isn't that a sign that the project is dead? and if the project is dead what's with the sudden activity?
AFAICT they were reviewed, but too leniently in light of his "improve the codebase" rhetoric. His recent drama and stirring has brought eyes from more senior members of the team, which realized his work was shotty and several changes being made were outright wrong or caused new bugs.
His recent drama and stirring has brought eyes from more senior members of the team
that's what's bothering me. because someone misbehaves suddenly everything this person does receives more scrutiny. it should have received that scrutiny from the beginning. as should every other PR. the behavior or the character of a person should not affect how critical i review their code. that's discrimination. if this was a woman this reaction would be considered sexist.
if the reason was that people actually reported issues and those issues would point to one persons submissions so that a track record of bad submissions builds up then it would be reasonable to wonder what else did this person do wrong. but drama and stirring is not a good reason to suddenly question someones ability as a coder.
Realistically, any significant project can't do what you want. Linus cannot review every bit of code that enters the kernel, he delegates that task to trusted people. And they may themselves delegate further.
If something breaks or some external force appears, Linus may review the work of the delegates more closely than normal. And that's often when we get his most memorable rants, when he tells people he's putting trust in to stop disappointing him because they know better.
> The behavior or the character of a person should not affect how critical i review their code. that's discrimination. if this was a woman this reaction would be considered sexist.
What are you even talking about? That's not what happened.
Different reviewers, with higher standards for their project, who understand the code better are now looking. Their conclusion was "this code is awful and caused breaks".
They aren't reviewing it any different than other code.
Also, weird to bring up sexism. It is absolutely not the same to say I would refuse code from a Nazi apologist as to say I would refuse code from a woman.
> The behavior or the character of a person should not affect how critical i review their code.
What are you even talking about? That's not what happened.
you said:
His recent drama and stirring has brought eyes from more senior members of the team
and that's my interpretation of that. did you mean something else? if i misunderstood you then i apologize.
It is absolutely not the same to say I would refuse code from a Nazi apologist as to say I would refuse code from a woman.
i disagree. especially if it is code that has already been accepted. besides, that's not what's happening here. the code is not summarily rejected. it is more critically scrutinized. and doing that is absolutely the same thing as more critically scrutinizing someones code because of their gender. so the nazi excuse doesn't work.
Go read the discussions on the PRs. The maintainers responsible for the merges admit their mistake in approving them. This is all out in the open if you actually care.
If a new startup comes up, and someone points out "they've taken funding from Philip Morris / Altria", that is completely on topic, and will affect how some people evaluate the company. This is comparable.
Calling someone a "reactionary nutjob" isn't really informative. You can put someome's biases on display without insults, just as other commenters have done.
