…was really all it needed. The wall of text is more offensive than the insulting tone.
> First off, the simple stuff: the commit messages are worthless. Having
check seal for mmap(2)
But it's also not Torvald's job to tutor here or be a mentor. He has limited time in the day. And the company doing the proposal here is Google. They probably should have come in with a more-better-finished product.
The consequences to design errors in kernel syscalls are rather intense.
So he spends it dunking on a proposal with snarky prose instead of a concise review without bashing the person trying to contribute. How efficient.
Would you rather get a code review that is full of vague euphemisms and tries not to hurt your feelings, and then spend months wasting time on a dead end approach because you thought minor tweaks would work?
I'd much rather get one message that says where the bar for merging is so I could fix my code and get it merged. I absolutely wouldn't care if the latter was a bit sweary. I've worked at a place where all communication must be in professional tone and polite, and you cannot give valid technical feedback that might hurt someone's feelings.
The verbal communications standards were weaponized by sycophants, who dominated middle management. It was the most passive-aggressive and hostile work environment (as in legal liability) I've ever encountered.
> Mark Twain who is often connected to this saying did not use it according to the best available research, but one of his tangentially related quotations is given later for your entertainment.
> In 1871 Mark Twain wrote a letter to a friend that included a remark about the length of his note. Twain’s comment did not really match the quotation under investigation but it is related to the general theme:[ref] 1871 June 15, Letter from Mark Twain to James Redpath, Elmira, New York, UCCL 00617 (Union Catalog of Clemens Letters), Mark Twain Project Online. (Accessed marktwainproject.org on 2012 April 24) link[/ref]
quoting Twain:
>> You’ll have to excuse my lengthiness—the reason I dread writing letters is because I am so apt to get to slinging wisdom & forget to let up. Thus much precious time is lost.
rm "probably"
The PR submitter represents a software giant, love 'em or hate 'em.
It is an understatement to say that the Linux kernel is an important, global-scale software project. A small number of busy people maintain the kernel's design. This is one project where crap should not be submitted.
Whether or not we like the company, a software giant like Google should a) understand the scale of the project and the importance of software design, and b) manifestly understand the rudiments of code quality.
You can see it in the translations of having 3 flags for the same data. Somewhere, the distinction was made between what the user is asking for, and what the system works with. It is considered a good thing to have that level of abstraction in many large companies. Heck, many small companies go for that.
That invites pointless discussion when most of the points in Linus review are a clear "hell no". Quite sure the last thing someone in Linus position wants is never ending discussions of already rejected ideas, it only wastes time on both sides.