this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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There's been some Friday night kernel drama on the Linux kernel mailing list... Linus Torvalds has expressed regrets for merging the Bcachefs file-system and an ensuing back-and-forth between the file-system maintainer.

On Friday a set of fixes were submitted for merging into the current Linux 6.11 cycle. There were little fixes plus two big "fixes" around an rhashtable conversion and a new data structure for managing free lists in the BTree key cache. That later one eliminates the BTree key cache lock and avoids some locking contention that can appear in some multi-threaded workloads.

But this "fixes" pull request touches more than one thousand lines of code and we're now more than half-way through the Linux 6.11 cycle. This is far from the first time that big "fixes" pulls for Bcachefs have been submitted post merge window and not the first time that it's not strictly bug fixes but also heavier more feature-like additions being made via fixes pull requests. Linus Torvalds had enough and responded to the pull request.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

"You guys are freaked out because I'm moving quickly and you don't have visibility into my own internal process, that's all."

Uh, yeah?! Maybe add on "and you refuse to see why that's a problem"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I was amazed to read that, too. At least, they seem to keep it polite and professional. Kent even agrees that Linus is acting because of the responsibility of the maintainer, not on a whim or out of spite

[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 months ago

The arrogance of Kent is ridiculous and he sounds like a man-child throwing a neck beard flavored tantrum whenever someone questions the bullshit reality that doesn't actually exist. This isn't some dumb application you can run into the ground because you can't play well with others. This is the fucking linux kernel, and if you can't fathom how bad it is to throw random "fixes" at the last minute instead of waiting for the next development cycle, you are the problem. I see that shit all the damn time in corporate environments and I am sick of arrogant programmers who can't understand processes, why they exist, and why they need to be followed.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 months ago

These are all factors that let me say, with confidence, that there really aren't any bugs in this this pull request.

That kind of thinking from Kent sounds like act one of a Greek tragedy.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is a poor posture from Kent

It's fine to have something buggy but pissing off Linus Torvalds is probably not the best idea, perhaps a bit of introspection might be the best course of action before sending another hasty message

From the wise words of Jack Stauber:
But it feels better to check than to reflect~

[–] possiblylinux127 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm waiting for Torvalds to start with the bad language.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Nah, he changed since the creation of Linux code of conduct

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, I find it great that Linus still manages the Kernel after all this time.

[–] Maven 25 points 2 months ago

Actually it's GNU/Linus that manages the kernel (also known as GNU + Linus)

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago

Just went through the newer messages of the thread. Really interesting to see this kind of exchange out in the open. Getting my popcorn to see if any feelings will be hurt. And perfectly understandable, that this is not the right way or process to do things. Merging something like this in the middle of a release says a lot for the current state of bcachefs.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I don't know what bcachefs does exactly, but Overstreet seems to perceive Torvalds as some personal tutor or tester, almost as if Overstreet doesn't understand the merits of division of labour.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I don't understand any of this on a technical level but it is interesting to see play out nonetheless.