Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community

Re:Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community by chubot on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @06:57PM (#14974541)

Linux is one of the few open source projects to with plenty of developers. They don't need or even want your help, especially if your attitude toward tools is rigid, and if you have nothing concrete to contribute.

Linus has said this a few times -- in general they don't actively try to onboard new contributors.

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Re:Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community by pmoriarty on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @07:15PM (#14974655)

"They don't need or even want your help"

There was in fact a talk given by Greg Kroah-Hartman, one Linux's lead maintainers, about development for the Linux kernel which he titled "I Don't Want Your Code".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMeH7wqOwXA

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Re:Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community by chubot on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @10:24PM (#14975797)

Haha, thanks for the video. I watched it, and I was surprised to see that it's about a specific company.

He's at Linaro, specfically taking their developers to task for sending bad patches. And they indeed sound horrible, but he's good natured about it.

I'm just starting to accept patches for my project, and honestly I'm flabberghasted that people will send patches that not only don't run, but don't build. And Greg was saying the same thing.

I guess I got spoiled at my last job, where people generally sent high quality patches / code reviews. Although toward the end, I noticed some sloppiness. It wasn't the main reason I left the company, but it started to feel like the downfall... I don't want to work with people who don't know how to submit code reviews / patches.

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Re:Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community by chungy on Thursday August 10, 2017 @02:37AM (#14977039)

> I'm just starting to accept patches for my project, and honestly I'm flabberghasted that people will send patches that not only don't run, but don't build. And Greg was saying the same thing.

Indeed, I've seen the same thing. I have considered automatically rejecting any patch made with the GitHub online editor (obvious because the committer name is always GitHub). They are pretty much invariably of shit quality.

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Re:Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community by simonh on Thursday August 10, 2017 @11:42AM (#14980783)

That's fair enough. The only times I've submitted patches that way is to update documentation files. I'd never submit code that way.

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Re:Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community by tytso on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @11:58PM (#14976209)

Linaro isn't a company; it's a "collaborative engineering organization". It does employ some number of engineers, funded by donations by their member companies, but they also accept "in-kind" donations where engineers are detailed to work at Linaro for some period of time. So it wasn't really directed at Linaro per se, but more at the member companies of Linaro.

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Re:Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community by Someone on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @07:30PM (#14974756)

So, what's the age distribution of contributors to the main tree, and how does it develop over time?

This _might_ show a long-term risk for Linux.

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Re:Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community by wongarsu on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @08:09PM (#14975028)

80% of the kernel development is done by companies who want their code in the kernel (whether that's because they develop hardware or because that's less work than maintaining their own patchset).

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