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Bcachefs Goes to "Externally Maintained"

(lwn.net)
214 points ksec | 4 comments | 30 Aug 25 13:07 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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sevg ◴[30 Aug 25 17:44 UTC] No.45076556[source]▶
Is it just me or does Kent seem self-destructively glued to his own idea of how kernel development should work?

I don’t doubt that people on all sides have made mis-steps, but from the outside it mostly just seems like Kent doesn’t want to play by the rules (despite having been given years of patience).

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bornfreddy ◴[30 Aug 25 19:49 UTC] No.45077492[source]▶
Being an outsider to this whole scene, the whole thread reads very differently to me.

Kent seems very patient in explaining his position (and frustrations arising from other people introducing bugs to his code) and the kernel & debian folks are performing a smearing campaign instead of replying to what I see are genuine problems in the process. As an example, the quotes that are referenced by user paravoid are, imho, taken out of context (judging by reading the provided links).

There probably is a lot more history to it, but judging from that thread it's not Kent who looks like a bad guy.

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1. johnny22 ◴[30 Aug 25 20:22 UTC] No.45077710[source]▶
it's waaay simpler than that. Some projects have established rules, and kent doesn't want to follow them. It doesn't matter how nice (or not) he is.
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2. bornfreddy ◴[31 Aug 25 06:06 UTC] No.45080746[source]▶
I actually like the idea of the maintainer going out of his way to make sure that my filesystem is safe to use. Even if it goes against the established rules. And I'm saying that as someone who actually likes both Linux and Debian.
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3. rwmj ◴[31 Aug 25 10:02 UTC] No.45081951[source]▶
It's a strawman to imagine that Debian doesn't have a way to ensure filesystems are safe and to respond to critical bugs that might cause data corruption. It's just that you have to follow their rules to do it. (And broadly the same rules apply to the other big distros as well).
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4. rcxdude ◴[01 Sep 25 10:54 UTC] No.45091596{3}[source]▶
And the rules demonstrably create situations where it's easy to introduce bugs or hard to fix them, because they prioritise stability and a consistent set of package versions over the version that the upstream developer has tested. Followed blindly (and without putting in the effort to test to the same level of rigor as upstream), this causes problems, and it's right to point those out. Debian's ways would involve the package maintainer putting in a lot more effort to marry their rules with a package that actually worked, and they were not up for that.

(Debian's rules aren't worthless, it's part of how they can make something that's pretty suitable for 'boring infrastructure' systems because they can keep a system with a known and stable set of behavior up to date with critical security fixes for a long time, but boy do they result in some dumb situations sometimes)