Maybe practically this doesn’t prevent most students or faculty from doing anything, but it is a huge reputation problem. How many universities (or organizations in general) are banned from contributing to the Linux kernel? When people search for why, they’ll find a research group basically screwing over their collaborators and anyone else who uses Linux. That that exists at UMN could be viewed as a serious cultural problem at the university and dissuade prospective students and collaborators from contact with UMN. That in real terms costs the university prestige and money.

I feel you're overvaluing the ability to contribute to the linux kernel - this is definitely a bad thing and the university should work to correct the situation. But when I was looking at colleges and universties (for undergrad - I didn't pursue a grad degree) I didn't ever ask if the university was blacklisted by any open source organizations.

I don't think anyone would notice this ban - it'd just be an odd curiosity and impediment to any student that tried to submit a patch... that is assuming it doesn't hit the main news circuit.... But, if I hear about this on Colbert tonight I'll be amazed.

The fact that the FBI raided Steve Jackson Games[1] over GURPS: Cyberpunk is, I think, completely absent from general public knowledge at this point - even though that incident[2] led to the creation of the EFF which most folks on HN will certainly be familiar with. Notoriety is a fickle thing and no matter how negative the incident is it'll usually either fade into nothingness or give a positive boost to the organization - this is where the concept of "there's no such thing as bad press" comes from. I, at least, am far more aware of UMN now than I was this morning.

1. http://www.sjgames.com/SS/

2. There's some disagreement over how central this incident was to the EFF's foundation, but from what I've read it was pretty darn central.

> I feel you're overvaluing the ability to contribute to the linux kernel - this is definitely a bad thing and the university should work to correct the situation. But when I was looking at colleges and universties (for undergrad - I didn't pursue a grad degree) I didn't ever ask if the university was blacklisted by any open source organizations.

You are not looking at it the right way. This is an issue for the President and the Provost because of alumni donations.

When the choice is between firing an adjunct/assistant and not getting a 100k from alumni the adjunct/assistant has no chance.

> I feel you're overvaluing the ability to contribute to the linux kernel

The CS department care the ability to publish paper about the Linux kernel.

The question isn't whether they need to be able to commit to the Linux kernel. Probably they don't. But the question is, what reputation does a CS department (and consequently a university) have, that has been banned from submitting patches to one of the most prolific open source projects around?

I think you underestimate the shade this puts on the UMN name. I've never even heard of UMN before, but I doubt I'll ever forget hearing about this university fraudulently trying to sabotage the Linux project, and will probably treat anything and anyone with an UMN background with great suspicion in the future.

You will treat anyone educated at the same university with `great suspicion`? Really? That is hardly rational or appropriate.

Very appropriate. Until yesterday I was happy to have a CS degree from the UMN. Now that is tainted and I want to hide who gave me the degree. I have to wonder if they taught me some things that were unethical that I'm not doing without knowing better. I wouldn't hire a UMN grad because of their reputation.

For now I'm assuming that my degree was more than 20 years ago, and things change in that time (most of the professors I remember best are dead...). However this is doubt in my mind.

Ouch.

I'm not the GP. I agree with you, but I feel for you.

The fact that you are worried is a good sign, though!

If this was just one patch and it was caught early, it could be excused as a rogue solo stunt. But papers have been published. IRB board granted exemptions. A whole team worked on it. Too many people conspiring on pissing in the pool and wasting kernel maintainers time and casting doubt on 190+ commits indicates a complete institutional failure. No colleagues, co-students or supervisors stopped to ask if this behavior was appropriate? It taints the entire UMN.

What if a car or medical device running linux turns out to have buggy mutex locking either due to a malicious commit or a now-hastily reverted commit? As a Linux user of both computers, appliances and vehicles, I am not impressed.