Linus Chews Up Kernel Maintainer For Introducing Userspace Bug (re PulseAudio)

[menotu]

From   Linus Torvalds
Date   Sun, 23 Dec 2012
Subject: [Regression w/ patch] Media commit causes user space to misbahave (was: Re: Linux 3.8-rc1)

On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 6:08 AM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab
<mchehab@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> Are you saying that pulseaudio is entering on some weird loop if the returned value is not -EINVAL? That seems a bug at pulseaudio.

Mauro, SHUT THE ****  UP!

It's a bug alright - in the kernel. How long have you been a maintainer? And you *still* haven't learnt the first rule of kernel maintenance?

If a change results in user programs breaking, it's a bug in the kernel. We never EVER blame the user programs. How hard can this be to understand?

To make matters worse, commit f0ed2ce840b3 is clearly total and utter CRAP even if it didn't break applications. ENOENT is not a valid error return from an ioctl. Never has been, never will be. ENOENT means "No such file and directory", and is for path operations. ioctl's are done on files that have already been opened, there's no way in hell that ENOENT would ever be valid.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/12/29/018234/linus-chews-up-kernel-maintainer-for-introducing-userspace-bug?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

[Just17]

Yeah, saw that ......  I think Linus is going a bit over the top these days.

I don't see what end this sort of ignorance and bullying serves.

Just as well for him he is not in the same room as the people he abuses .......  he might not like some of the responses!

[YouCanToo]

Good the developer got dressed down. Didn't follow the rules and got called out on it and then tried blaming the other guy for the issue he introduced.  If he doesn't like what happened then he should quite.... Else shut up and put your big boy pants and get over it and fix the problems he introduced.

[Bald Brick]

Linus seems to apply the Gordon Ramsay style of management, in Finland known as "management by perkele". (Where Perkele is an old Finnish deity, turned into a swear word and an alias of the Devil.)

More often than not management by perkele is counter-productive, but I think it is preferable to some more modern alternatives where everything is so warm and fuzzy that you need a dictionary to understand that "most interesting" means "bloody awful" and that "perhaps" means "over my dead body".

Nevertheless I sort of suspect that Linus could be a tad more diplomatic while still expressing himself clearly enough.

[kjpetrie]

It's good to see Linus gets it when it comes to compatibility. A lot of open source developers don't, as the devs here will know very well. Installing a new version of a system component should not break dependants. Every time a package needs to be rebuilt against a newer version of a library the developers of that library have failed to maintain compatibility as they should.

Stability and compatibility are closely related.

[fraxinus]

It's good to see Linus gets it when it comes to compatibility. A lot of open source developers don't, as the devs here will know very well. Installing a new version of a system component should not break dependants. Every time a package needs to be rebuilt against a newer version of a library the developers of that library have failed to maintain compatibility as they should.

Stability and compatibility are closely related.

+1. I'm not sure whether or not Linus's communication style with fellow developers is effective - but his message is a very important one. It is good to see that someone is taking a hard line on things like this at the heart of kernel development.

[Tony]

I suppose he has a bit on his mind.  

Was just browsing Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Kernel#Security

Critics have accused kernel developers of covering up security flaws or at least not announcing them. In response, in 2008, Linus Torvalds replied, "I personally consider security bugs to be just 'normal bugs'. I don't cover them up, but I also don't have any reason what-so-ever to think it's a good idea to track them and announce them as something special...one reason I refuse to bother with the whole security circus is that I think it glorifies—and thus encourages—the wrong behavior. It makes 'heroes' out of security people, as if the people who don't just fix normal bugs aren't as important. In fact, all the boring normal bugs are way more important, just because there's a lot more of them. I don't think some spectacular security hole should be glorified or cared about as being any more 'special' than a random spectacular crash due to bad locking.

I suppose 'Chewing up' a Kernel Maintainer is a minor thing to Linus when it is a simple oversight.

[rastus]

While the management style might seem counter productive, if you read the thread of e-mails in one of the links above the developer in question replies to Torvalds in detail and doesn't seem bothered by the outburst, so I suspect he is used to Torvald's abrasiveness.

[Just17]

While the management style might seem counter productive, if you read the thread of e-mails in one of the links above the developer in question replies to Torvalds in detail and doesn't seem bothered by the outburst, so I suspect he is used to Torvald's abrasiveness.

No doubt he is used to it ....  but that hardly excuses it