What does decentralised means in this context? There are possibly thousands of companies/projects/orgs releasing their own version of the linux kernel.

Plus, as a user, I trust Linus more than any decentralised process I can think of.

>Plus, as a user, I trust Linus more than any decentralised process I can think of.

Can you make a compelling argument for why that is? Is it that you believe Linus has your personal well being in mind or you are unfamiliar with decentralised "processes"?

edit: Questioning why someone trusts a person they never met over transparent processes that mitigate risks should not deserve downvotes. If we control what can be discussed, we also control what can be known...

> Can you make a compelling argument for why that is? Is it that you believe Linus has your personal well being in mind or you are unfamiliar with decentralised "processes"?

Yes, the project is successful, as successful as an open source project can be. It seems to work fine since 1992.

Why would you bring up my personal well being ? Does a decentralised process (whatever that means actually, it's not defined at all yet) take my personal well being in to consideration???

I brought up your personal well being because trust implies that you forgo your own judgement.

There's a truism that states that past performance is not an indication of future behaviour and I tend to not trust unchecked power.

> unchecked power

Linus may have the final say on a lot of things, particularly regarding policy surrounding contributions, but "unchecked" isn't so much an overstatement so much as a joke. Vast numbers of contributors, security auditors, and generally-interested hackers keep close eyes on the Linux kernel.

I agree with you, its the decentralisation of open-source that keeps Linux safe.

You should explain what you mean by decentralization. I think you are mixing concepts here and don't bring much to the discussion. What does "Decentralization of open source" means ? It seems you are saying that having multiple contributors and auditors keeps linux safe, I wouldn't really call this "decentralization", you can have a centralized process that is audited by many persons.

I've tried to explain but the comment was blocked because I was replying too quickly.

Decentralisation has three dimensions: Political, Logical and Architectural. In the case of Linux, I argue that the decentralised nature of open-source software development is what guarantees its safety and usefulness and not the individual merits of any one participant (person or company).

I think I'm not saying anything contentious when I say that Linus' employer has no special treatment in terms of linux development roadmap, and that most contributions are voluntary and no one needs to ask permission to download the code and fork the project and this is logical and political decentralisation.

Here's an article by Vitalik from Ethereum Foundation that I always recommend to those interested in understanding decentralisation: https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentrali...

I believe this quote is appropriate given that some users seem to be unaware of how the kernel development process is decentralised:

"Instead of a roadmap, there are technical guidelines. Instead of a central resource allocation, there are persons an companies who all have a stake in the further development of the Linux kernel, quite independently from one another: People like Linus Torvalds and I don’t plan the kernel evolution. We don’t sit there and think up the roadmap for the next two years, then assign resources to the various new features. That's because we don’t have any resources. The resources are all owned by the various corporations who use and contribute to Linux, as well as by the various independent contributors out there. It's those people who own the resources who decide." - Andrew Morton on the kernel process

If someone has that many problems with Linus they’re free to fork and maintain their own kernel source. If all someone wants is support not offered by the Linux kernel project then there are plenty of options there as well..,RHEL, SuSe, etc.

Absolutely agreed. That's one of the ways that political decentralisation in open-source manifests itself.

I've made the argument elsewhere in this thread that it's the decentralised nature of open-source that makes it safe to use and build on and not the personality or behaviour of any one person. Do you agree?

Can you make a compelling argument for why you would trust a random collection of unverified people on the Internet over someone with a well-known reputation that doesn't include anything bad (aside from being a bit of an arse occasionally, but at least he is honest about that!)?

Yes, it's called game theory and Schelling point and I'm a big fan as you can see: https://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics#game-th...

That's not an argument. You're just naming a game theory concept. A compelling argument would at least explain why and how it applies to this situation.

Ok then, my argument is that decentralisation is a very ancient concept and that game theory exists because people with different world views, interests and goals have to negotiate with each other to survive.

Decentralisation is the process of ensuring there is no SPF and to minimise unbalances in power.

For instance, in my country, decentralisation would mean we would have independent state law (like the US) and that most of our decision making structures aren't physically and politically centred in the nation's capital. In technology, we can take the Linux kernel maintenance process as an example of how decentralisation makes it possible to have China, US and EU companies funding the development process and using the software without (too much) fear.

Your an econ freshman arent you?

No, but I am always trying to learn new topics and ever since I got professionally involved in blockchain I have picked up a couple of econ books but I wouldn't falsely represent myself as an econ expert. Why do you ask?

If you read the kernel mailing lists it's abundantly clear that Linus cares deeply about the quality of the kernel and rejects bullshit and corporate politics. He's exactly the kind of person I want to maintain a piece of technology that I rely on and trust every day.

I trust Linus from the fact that he put the user at a level of priority more important than anything esle in a time when few people did it, and this decision makes userspace solid as a rock to me over the years

Your topic isn’t in any way related to a kernel point release. Further, I suspect your criticism is not actual criticism but is instead malice.

I replied to a comment about trust and decentralisation that are both topics I am very interested in, and I believe you replied to my comment. I fail to see the malice...

There is a fine point beyond which criticism becomes destructive. So much so that all criticism must make clear strides towards positive advice.

I agree with you so I would like it if you could please show me what criticism I made exactly. I can't find one in this thread and don't understand why you've suspected me to be malicious or my intent to be destructive.

It's free (GPLv2) software that you can fork (if you want) and it's developed using a distributed/decentralized version control system.

What more could you want ?

Linus hasn't lost his touch, if this is any indication:

https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/12/22/221

I whole heartedly disagree. Being angry (and making it known) at someone who broke the “first rule of kernel development” and then tried to hide that fact is completely accepted. Attacking said person with personal insults isn’t. I don’t see any of the latter here, compared to Linus’s past reactions to similar situations anyway.

What I meant is this ~ Linus is able to express himself just as well as before, but with different language, without using swearing.

Actually, instead of hot like before, this Linus is cold. Instead of raging, he coldly expresses his disappointment. In some ways, this feels more brutal than his old style.

Criticizing the mistake as "complete garbage" is great. You don't even need to read anything more to sense Linus is annoyed like he always is when shit hits the fan like this.

Ah! Then I rescind my “disagreement” part.

Your other comments around that time seemed to be critical of his current behavior, but I see you are correcting that now.

I agree with your sentiment, but in this case it’s not a personal attack. Linus, the person in charge, has standards for how certain choices should be made. The prevalence of Linux makes any breaking changes dire.

Linus identified that there was an unacceptable action taken and Is being stern so that there can be no ambiguity in the future as to what the accepted action ought to be.

> but in this case it’s not a personal attack

I believe that’s what I said, no? Maybe my phrasing wasn’t clear, but I said “I don’t see any of the latter here” with latter being “personal attacks”.

> Linus identified that there was an unacceptable action taken and is being stern so that there can be no ambiguity in the future as to what the accepted action ought to be.

Completely agree with this sentiment.

I would appreciate this level of candor from my collaborators in an engineering environment.

He seemed more polite than usual.

Most of Linus post are polite, but the one that are shared are the other ones. If you want to trigger him, just break the kernel ABI and then defend your decision, this never fails.

Anyway, it looks too polite, like he is filtering the email using a "polite" version of the "simple" English writer by xkcd https://xkcd.com/simplewriter/

Yet he still makes exactly the same point as when he's screaming profanity at Mauro for the same reasons.

Maybe a CoC and some time off for Linus wasn't all that bad after all...

If I’m understanding you correctly, you are saying the time off allowed him to realize he could get the same point across without being as caustic as he was previously with Mauro. If so, I’m not sure why you are being downvoted.

That's precisely what I mean.

I assume the downvotes are coming from those who disagree with the CoC.

Well, yes.

He was both polite ~ yet criticizing. His expressed his annoyance in a great way.

"Complete garbage" is polite for Linus, compared to his old style. Still brutal, yet effective.

Linus is something of genius when it comes to criticism, whether he's swearing and venting, or coldly and bluntly saying the above to make a point.

He seems just as pissed as he ever has been when trusted maintainers have fucked up.

He's just more choosy about his wording.

Nevertheless, he gets his point across very well:

> Yeah, this is complete garbage.

> Eric, your behavior is entirely out of line

> There are no excuses.

> I will not take any pull requests from you until you have made it clear that you comprehend this very fundamental issue.

Now, Linus may not be explicitly swearing ~ but it comes across in the very same annoyed manner.

Best burn here is him flatly telling Eric that he won't be pulling anything from him until he fixes his attitude.

> Best burn here is him flatly telling Eric that he won't be pulling anything from him until he fixes his attitude.

It's not the contributors personal attitude that's in question here but his attitude towards breaking user space, so it's not even ad hominem or anything.

> Eric, I want to make this 1000% clear: there are no user space bugs.

> If it used to work, then user space was clearly doing the right thing.

> The fact that you tried to several times claim it was buggy user space is a serious breach of trust.

I find Linus' wording remarkably polite. Surely you're not suggesting that Linus should accept breakage of user space out of sheer politeness?

Erm, no. I was never suggesting that. Maybe I expressed myself imprecisely, then.

What I meant by attitude is exactly what you meant ~ the nonchalant attitude towards breaking userspace, and thinking that it's okay if no-one notices.

Which is when Linus gets the most pissed of all.

Linus was polite, yes, but he expressed his anger and disappointment in a great way. Feels more brutal than his old style, actually.

> Linus was polite, yes, but he expressed his anger and disappointment in a great way. Feels more brutal than his old style, actually.

Yea, it's even stronger without the swearwords.

> Linus hasn't lost his touch,

I misread that comment of yours as "Linus is still being too rude".

Yes, before he sounded like a moody hacker you had to appease to get your code accepted into his pet project, now he comes across as the head of a multinational corporation who just ended your career.

Except that he hasn't ended Eric's ability to hack on the kernel, which is a big difference.

Basically, Eric might be forced to go through others, who will examine his work for pulling quality.

If Eric can prove that he's changed for the better, Linus may well start pulling from him again.

Linus isn't some evil dictator ~ he's just trying to make a point that quality matters.