Bcachefs may be headed out of the kernel

(lwn.net)

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criticalfault ◴[04 Jul 25 17:57 UTC] No.44466573[source]▶

I've been following this for a while now.

Kent is in the wrong. Having a lead position in development I would kick Kent of the team.

One thing is to challenge things. What Kent is doing is something completely different. It is obvious he introduced a feature, not only a Bugfix.

If the rules are set in a way that rc1+ gets only Bugfixes, then this is absolutely clear what happens with the feature. Tolerating this once or twice is ok, but Kent is doing this all the time, testing Linus.

Linus is absolutely in the right to kick this out and it's Kent's fault if he does so.

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1. Pet_Ant ◴[04 Jul 25 18:07 UTC] No.44466668[source]▶

>>44466573 #

Why take it out of the kernel? Why not just make someone responsible the maintainer so they can say "no, next release" to his shenanigans? It can't be the license.

replies(3): >>44466729 #>>44466794 #>>44467109 #

2. nolist_policy ◴[04 Jul 25 18:15 UTC] No.44466729[source]▶

>>44466668 (TP) #

Kent can appoint a suitable maintainer if he wishes. That's his job, not Linus'.

3. criticalfault ◴[04 Jul 25 18:26 UTC] No.44466794[source]▶

>>44466668 (TP) #

This is for me unclear as well, but I'm saying I wouldn't hold it against Linus if he did this. And based on Kent's behavior he has full right to do so.

A way to handle this would be with one person (or more) in between Kent and Linus. And maybe a separate tree only for changes and fixes from bcachefs that those people in between would forward to Linus. A staging of sorts.

4. tliltocatl ◴[04 Jul 25 19:14 UTC] No.44467109[source]▶

>>44466668 (TP) #

Maintainers aren't getting paid and so cannot be "appointed". Someone must volunteer - and most people qualified and motivated enough are already doing something else.

replies(1): >>44467301 #

5. timewizard ◴[04 Jul 25 19:43 UTC] No.44467301[source]▶

>>44467109 #

Presumably there would be an open call where people would nominate themselves for consideration. These are problems that have come up and been solved in human organizations for hundreds of years before the kernel even existed.

replies(1): >>44467788 #

6. xorcist ◴[04 Jul 25 20:49 UTC] No.44467788{3}[source]▶

>>44467301 #

There is no call. Anyone can volunteer at any time.

Software take up no space and there is no scarcity. Theoretically there could be any number of maintainers and what gets uptake is the de facto upstream. That's what people refer to when they talk about free software development in terms of meritocracy.

replies(1): >>44469688 #

7. timewizard ◴[05 Jul 25 02:33 UTC] No.44469688{4}[source]▶

>>44467788 #

How would they know to volunteer? Are you saying I can perform a hostile volunteering to take over for a maintainer who does not want to give up the project? I don't think you understood what was meant.

replies(1): >>44471083 #

8. cwillu ◴[05 Jul 25 08:29 UTC] No.44471083{5}[source]▶

>>44469688 #

Anyone remotely suitable would be active on the lkml.

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