On 11.08.25 20:13, Carl E. Thompson wrote: > I seriously hope none of the kernel developers are foolish enough to be fooled (yet again) by this I'm-a-reasonable-guy-we-can-talk-this-out act. You've been there and done that. > > Kent's perplexing behavior almost makes me want to put on a tinfoil hat. Is it simply mental illness or is it something more? Is he being egged on by backers who *want* to destabilize the leadership of Linux for whatever reason? It's hard to see how any individual could be this far out there without help. > > And I'll point out what's obvious to people who have followed this closely but may not be to people who read an occasional email thread like this one: A very large portion of what Kent says including in this email is just factually wrong. Either he is an unashamed and extremely prolific liar or he is very sick. > > Carl Frankly for me as a user who does probably not know the hole picture you seem to just be spewing paranoid hate into these threads which I do not quite understand. Yes, Kent can be off-putting, but really, that is something I often observe from other people as well, the tone on LKML tends to be pretty harsh. My involvement in bcachefs is that of an early adopter and hence, a tester. I find working with him productive. I give him bug reports, observations and data and he fixes those. If I did something stupid, he will point that out, and very directly so. So what you call a "I'm-a-reasonable-guy-we-can-talk-this-out act" is actually how he can and does behave, at least when interacting on IRC with his users, testers and co-developers. So maybe if we can dial the personal attacks down a few notches (including against btrfs, though I have my reasons why I jumped from it to bcachefs like two years ago) and have a calm discussion it might be possible to build new bridges? /Malte > >> On 2025-08-11 7:26 AM PDT Kent Overstreet <kent.overstreet@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> >> On Mon, Aug 11, 2025 at 12:51:11PM +0300, Konstantin Shelekhin wrote: >>>> Yes, this is accurate. I've been getting entirely too many emails from Linus about >>>> how pissed off everyone is, completely absent of details - or anything engineering >>>> related, for that matter. >>> That's because this is not an engineering problem, it's a communication problem. You just piss >>> people off for no good reason. Then people get tired of dealing with you and now we're here, >>> with Linus thinking about `git rm -rf fs/bcachesfs`. Will your users be happy? Probably not. >>> Will your sponsors be happy? Probably not either. Then why are you keep doing this? >>> >>> If you really want to change the way things work go see a therapist. A competent enough doctor >>> probably can fix all that in a couple of months. >> Konstantin, please tell me what you're basing this on. >> >> The claims I've been hearing have simply lacked any kind of specifics; >> if there's people I'd pissed off for no reason, I would've been happy to >> apologize, but I'm not aware of the incidences you're claiming - not >> within a year or more; I have made real efforts to tone things down. >> >> On the other hand, for the only incidences I can remotely refer to in >> the past year and a half, there has been: >> >> - the mm developer who started outright swearing at me on IRC in a >> discussion about assertions >> - the block layer developer who went on a four email rant where he, >> charitably, misread the spec or the patchset or both; all this over a >> patch to simply bring a warning in line with the actual NVME and SCSI >> specs. >> - and reference to an incident at LSF, but the only noteworthy event >> that I can recall at the last LSF (a year and a half ago) was where a >> filesystem developer chased a Rust developer out of the community. >> >> So: what am I supposed to make of all this? >> >> To an outsider, I don't think any of this looks like a reasonable or >> measured response, or professional behaviour. The problems with toxic >> behaviour have been around long before I was prominent, and they're >> still in evidence. >> >> It is not reasonable or professional to jump from professional criticism >> of code and work to personal attacks: it is our job to be critical of >> our own and each other's code, and while that may bring up strong >> feelings when we feel our work is attacked, that does not mean that it >> is appropriate to lash out. >> >> We have to separate the professional criticism from the personal. >> >> It's also not reasonable or professional to always escelate tensions, >> always look for the upper hand, and never de-escalate. >> >> As a reminder, this all stems from a single patch, purely internal to >> fs/bcachefs/, that was a critical, data integrity hotfix. >> >> There has been a real pattern of hyper reactive, dramatic responses to >> bugfixes in the bcachefs pull requests, all the way up to full blown >> repeated threats of removing it from the kernel, and it's been toxic. >> >> And it's happening again, complete with full blown rants right off the >> bat in the private maintainer thread about not trusting my work (and I >> have provided data and comparisons with btrfs specifically to rebut >> that), all the way to "everyone hates you and you need therapy". That is >> not reasonable or constructive. >> >> This specific thread was in response to Linus saying that bcachefs was >> imminently going to be git rm -rf'd, "or else", again with zero details >> on that or else or anything that would make it actionable. >> >> Look, I'm always happy to sit down, have a beer, talk things out, and >> listen. >> >> If there's people I have legitimately pissed off (and I do not include >> anyone who starts swearing at me in a technical discussion) - let me >> know, I'll listen. I'm not unapproachable, I'm not going to bite your >> head off. >> >> I've mended fences with people in the past; there were people I thought >> I'd be odds with forever, but all it really takes is just talking. Say >> what it is that you feel has affected, be willing to listen and turn, >> and it gets better.
