https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/a869236a-1d59-4524-a86b-be08a15...
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/a869236a-1d59-4524-a86b-be08a15...
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/a869236a-1d59-4524-a86b-be08a15...
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/a869236a-1d59-4524-a86b-be08a15...
1. I think the the DMA maintainer is correct. Don't intertwine implementation languages, that is bad idea and a maintenance hell.
2. Social media "hall of shame"
3. Torvalds is forced to make a statement because of 2. Not 1.https://archive.is/uLiWX https://archive.is/rESxe
"Behold, a Linux maintainer openly admitting to attempting to sabotage the entire Rust for Linux project (...) Personally, I would consider this grounds for removal of Christoph from the Linux project on Code of Conduct violation grounds, but sadly I doubt much will happen other than draining a lot of people's energy and will to continue the project until Linus says "fuck you" or something. (...)"
"Thinking of literally starting a Linux maintainer hall of shame. Not for public consumption, but to help new kernel contributors know what to expect. Every experienced kernel submitter has this in their head, maybe it should be finally written down."
"Okay I literally just started this privately and the first 3 names involved are all people named variants on "Christ". Maybe there's a pattern here... religion secretly trying to sabotage the Linux kernel behind the scenes??? Edit: /s because apparently some people need it."
Then, the fanatical C developers openly sabotage and work against all the Rust developers efforts. So, the last option for the Rust developers is to take it to social media. Otherwise, the C developers get away with creating a self fulfilling prophecy: Sabotage all Rust efforts, then claim the Rust experiment failed.
Linus didn't seem to ever have the time to actually take a stance, except of course on the social media issue. Fully ignoring all context. It's the equivalent of a school principal suspending the bullied victim for finally snapping and punching their bully.
Even now with Hector out of the picture, there’s still no suitable path forward for rust in Linux. No wonder why people are giving up (exactly what the blockers want).
I only see Danilo doing that in that thread. And admittedly Linus didn't respond (and Greg KH only minimally responded). But even CC probably means a lot of mail for top maintainers, and at that point I don't see anything that would've gotten in the way of "send a PR despite the Nacked-by", which has been done in the past.
Even if there was, I'm not sure I trust the word of such a drama-seeker directly, so it's reasonable to a evidence of on-mailing-list appeals adding CC (as Danilo did), and if that fails mention of contacting Linus off-list in that specific subthread.
The suitable path forward is to submit the patch series like normal to Linus, where it will be merged regardless of CH's NACK. CH isn't able to actually stop this process, he's just being a jerk.
However, I agree with you that it would have been nice to actually publicly clarify the situation rather than ignore it and deal with the whole thing behind closed doors. It shouldn't need to be explained that letting this sort of thing fester is a great way to kill motivation in a project and ensure it's less likely that new people will get involved.
His fellow R4L partners chewed him out for jumping in and spoiling their work. They even quietly but publicly disaffiliated R4L from him.
Social media is an amplifier of interpersonal problems, not a place to seek for a resolution for them - unless your intended "resolution" is to beat down the other side, the people you have to work alongside by necessity, via potshots from random strangers who hardly ever bother to inform themselves fully of the situation. That is never going to be a true resolution, and I think Linus, for all his faults, recognizes that and that's why he draws the line there.
The fact is, you need buy in from other devs and if a dev won't buy in you need to work out a way to avoid them or avoid conflict. It sucks, it slows things down, but frankly making it a "them vs us" is a sure fire way to make them oppose any change you want to make.
Public shaming even more disastrous as there's no better way to entrench someone in a position.
It sounded to me like a list of "friends who want to get more involved, I'll let you know who to avoid". Then, I read the interactions that sparked that post, and I could totally understand the frustration from OP's part.
Linus being unwilling to take a real stand on maintainers blocking Rust just because doesn't really help.
> To back up Sima here, we don't need grandstanding, brigading, playing
> to the crowd, streamer drama creation or any of that in discussions
> around this.
Marcan replied (https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/208e1fc3-cfc3-4a26-98...):
> If shaming on social media does not work, then tell me what does, because I'm out of ideas.
Then Linus replied (https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/CAHk-=wi=ZmP2=TmHsFSU...):
> However, I will say that the social media brigading just makes me not want to have anything at all to do with your approach.
> Because if we have issues in the kernel development model, then social media sure as hell isn't the solution. The same way it sure as hell wasn't the solution to politics.
To me, it sure sounds like Marcan is making the case that they tried other venues, didn't feel like it worked, so they resolved to using their social media following to shame kernel developers if they didn't stop.
However... this is the same man who made a sock puppet V-Tuber account, and acts in every way like they are two people; even though they've accidentally on-stream shared the system username, shared they have exactly the same kernel version, same KDE configuration, same login, same time zone, even (if I recall correctly) accidentally making GitHub commits as the other person once in a while. He also did this on the Linux kernel mailing lists, where he still maintains the charade.
Point out that's weird, or that it's weird for a maintainer to have a fake persona as a walking female stereotype; and you're the one he shreds and mocks - while simultaneously not denying it. For me, I caught on immediately when I saw the supposed "hijacking" of his stream on April Fool's day, which was her first appearance; and stopped donating. I don't pay people to support stereotypes about women in STEM.
That is an entirely different situation from facing inner circles in an open source project while contributing to a major port.
Sock puppets aren't taken seriously while the word of the inner circle is taken as gospel.
I also certainly wouldn't take any of his complaints about cliques or brigading with any seriousness or self-reflection afterwards.
I’ve been supporting Hector since week 1 of the Asahi project and I think it’s a shame he’s thrown in the towel but I can understand why.
I don’t know enough about kernel development to have an opinion about about the Kernel policy of “no aliases” for contributions.
I certainly don’t care that some people think it’s weird for a man to have a female alter ego.
Maybe those things matter to you.
* a brand new account suddenly appears, defending Marcan's behavior (the only comment/post ever of this account) with a very similar writing style
* Marcan immediately "notices" the new comment while doing "random search" (how ? he claims he doesn't browse HN, and even posted a screenshot of news.ycombinator.com being routed to 0.0.0.0 to block his own access to it the day before)
* Marcan highlights the comment in question on his media account [1], praising them "at least [this commenter] gets it"
Only circumstantial stuff, but sure smells very fishy to me.
This subject also gets inexplicably downvoted and flagged every time you bring it up on Hacker News (look at that, it just happened to my original post); but again, nobody can prove otherwise, and Marcan himself has never denied it, only thrown flames.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35234480
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32947939
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33792670
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35251905
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36107998
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238601
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42990443
https://vt.social/@lina/112887550181123672
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W2Vvwg0rwSVb5r4TQ_NmAF8S...
If the C developers make it a "Them vs Us" thing, there IS NO ALTERNATIVE for the Rust developers.
Linus' reaction is quite literally the equivalent of a parent only punishing the loudest child, not the child that's been silently bullying that kid for months.
In particular, the DMA maintainer didn't want rust code in their DMA subsystem. That sucks, but it means you need to relocate your dma bridge code out of their subsystem. It does mean your driver will be a second-class citizen in the kernel tree (which was always going to be the case for rust).
Linus' reaction was to someone who started a public campaign against another kernel developer and tried to use that following to pressure the maintainers of the kernel to bend to the will of the newcommer. I'm sorry, but I'd also have a pretty negative reaction to that.
The workplace equivalent is you publishing a whistle blowing article against a team in your company because they'd not accept a pull request you worked very hard on. You don't do that. You handle things internally and privately and sometimes you tell the boss "sorry, I can't get this done because another team is blocking the change and they are unwilling to work with me".
And do not mistake my post. I'm not siding with the C dev just because I'm critiquing the rust dev. Guy sounds like he's too stuck in his way. The problem is you don't get a big well working and long running project like the kernel without having these sorts of long-term maintainers that make the calls and shots on what to reject.
The workplace equivalent is your CEO making a public statement that your work is to be supported, then not firing people who openly gloat about their intent to sabotage your work.
Not that it even makes sense to call it sabotage considering that most people that were involved in the original debate (in the rust for Linux side) didn't see it like that, that the normal kernel development processes were on their way to actually make the change happen anyways, and that Marcan's actions probably did more to sabotage actual support from other maintainers and Linus himself than the original NACK that started all of this ever did.
(Not that Linus ever even gave a blank check for rust on Linux, so I don't think that disagreements and even NACKs are somehow going against what Linus decided)
> Maintainers like Hellwig who do not want to integrate Rust do not have to. But they also cannot dictate the language or manner of code that touches their area of control but does not alter it. The pull request Hellwig objected to "DID NOT TOUCH THE DMA LAYER AT ALL," Torvalds writes (all-caps emphasis his), and was "literally just another user of it, in a completely separate subdirectory."
> "Honestly, what you have been doing is basically saying 'as a DMA maintainer I control what the DMA code is used for.' And that is not how any of this works," Torvalds writes.
> Torvalds writes Hellwig that "I respect you technically, and I like working with you," and that he likes when Hellwig "call[s] me out on my bullshit," as there "needs to be people who just stand up to me and tell me I'm full of shit." But, Torvalds writes, "Now I'm calling you out on YOURS."
> The leader goes on to state that maintainers who want to be involved in Rust can be, and can influence what Rust bindings look like. Those who "are taking the 'I don't want to deal with Rust' option," Torvalds writes, can do so—later describing it as a "wall of protection"—but also have no say on Rust code that builds on their C interfaces.
> "Put another way: the 'nobody is forced to deal with Rust' does not imply 'everybody is allowed to veto any Rust code.'" Maintainers might also find space in the middle, being aware of Rust bindings and working with Rust developers, but not actively involved, Torvalds writes.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/linux-leaders-pave-a...
The code was never in the DMA subsystem. At no point was there ever any Rust code in the DMA subsystem.
CH didn't even look at the patch before throwing the wall up. When it was pointed out that the patch already was the way he claimed he wanted it, he came up with a 2nd excuse, and then when that avenue was shut down he said he would do anything to stop Rust being put in the kernel, period, he wouldn't work with any Rust developers and he wouldn't accept adding a second maintainer for his subsystem that would do that engagement either.
From that point it's pretty clear that all previous engagement was just in bad faith.
There is always an alternative. Exit the project quietly and gracefully if Linus won't show proper leadership. Don't engage in poor behavior back at the C developers, that is just as wrong.
It's a magnitude more professional than the extremely over the top and public emails that Linus shares, which HN jerks off over. I too would be burnt out if people were picking apart what I said so closely but clapping when Linus says "this code is retarded"
The original message I read (https://lore.kernel.org/rust-for-linux/208e1fc3-cfc3-4a26-98...) they quite explicitly said (verbatim): "If shaming on social media does not work, then tell me what does, because I'm out of ideas."
This message brings up a lot of valid complaints about talented developers being stonewalled and you're honing in on one word that is not being used the way you think. Again, there are dozens of emails from Linus that are vastly more unprofessional than this.
Aha, I thought it was referring to the same "event"/context but it clearly didn't. Thank you for the correction.
If you don't want a maintainer, that's fine, but to claim it has anything to do with professionalism is dumb when this is seen as communication to admire.
> It's a magnitude more professional than the extremely over the top and public emails that Linus shares
Since when do two wrongs make a right? I think it's perfectly fair to say Linus hasn't shown the best leadership here. But that doesn't excuse Marcan's behavior.