Re: [Ksummit-2013-discuss] [ATTEND] How to act on LKML

From: David Lang
Date: Wed Jul 17 2013 - 15:08:02 EST


On Wed, 17 Jul 2013, Sarah Sharp wrote:

On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 11:09:31AM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
On Wed, 2013-07-17 at 07:48 -0700, Sarah Sharp wrote:

Does that sound like there are not going to have enough direct/thick skin
new kernel developers around to maintain the future Linux community? Maybe
just need a better pipeline for people comfortable for this culture?

No, we don't need a better pipeline for people who can "put up with
shit". We need a better pipeline for people who can work together
civilly, and still get shit done.

I'm working on getting a pipeline of women into kernel development,
through the FOSS Outreach Program for Women. They slowly get introduced
to Linux development culture, starting with a very friendly separate
mailing list and IRC channel, and finally moving to work with a kernel
mentor on a bigger project on the main Linux kernel development lists.
We have seven women participating this round, and I suspect we'll have
even more the next round.

So deal with it. You're going to have a lot more women in the kernel
community, and not all of them will be willing to put up with verbal
abuse. If you want to attract top talent that also happen to be women
or racial minorities, the verbal abuse needs to stop.


I have to ask. How much verbal abuse have you received in LKML? And I
don't mean in this thread.

I assume you also want me to exclude the verbal abuse and personal
threats I've received via email and my blog because of this thread.
But, just for reference, I'll post them here as well.

Not that I am in any way defending these posts, but does the behavior of outsiders like this in other forums really reflect the LKML attitude? Or does it reflect the fact that there are a lot of people out there who you really do not want to deal with (no matter what the topic)

Just about any topic that you take a firm stand on (anything other than pure status-quo), and your stand gets out to as many people as have heard about this thread, is going to generate a LOT of offensive and irrational hate messages. Linus talked about the ongoing abuse he receives earlier in the thread, so it's not just people attacking you.

David Lang
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