Flamewar Leads to Declining of Bcachefs Pull Requests During Linux 6.13 Kernel Development Cycle

'Get your head examined. And get the fuck out of here with this shit.' That's how Bcachefs developer Kent Overstreet ended a post on the Linux kernel mailing list.
This was followed by 'insufficient action to restore the community's faith in having otherwise productive technical discussions without the fear of personal attacks,' according to an official ruling by committee enforcing the kernel community's code of conduct. After formalizing an updated enforcement process for unacceptable behaviors, it then recommended that during the Linux 6.13 kernel development cycle, Overstreet's participation should be restricted (with his pull requests declined). Phoronix covered their ruling, and ItsFOSS and The Register offer some of the backstory.

Overstreet had already acknowledged that 'Things really went off the rails (and I lost my cool, and earned the ire of the CoC committee)' in a 6,200-word blog post on his Patreon page. But he also emphasized that 'I'm going to keep writing code no matter what. Things may turn into more of a hassle to actually get the code, but people who want to keep running bcachefs will always be able to (that's the beauty of open source, we can always fork), and I will keep supporting my users...'

More excerpts from Overstreet's blog post:

I got an emails from multiple people, including from Linus, to the effect of 'trust me, you don't want to be known as an asshole — you should probably send him an apology'... Linus is a genuinely good guy: I know a lot of people reading this will have also seen our pull request arguments, so I specifically wanted to say that here: I think he and I do get under each other's skin, but those arguments are the kind of arguments you get between people who care deeply about their work and simply have different perspectives on the situation...

[M]y response was to say 'no' to a public apology, for a variety of reasons: because this was the result of an ongoing situation that had now impacted two different teams and projects, and I think that issue needs attention — and I think there's broader issues at stake here, regarding the CoC board. But mostly, because that kind of thing feels like it ought to be kept personal... I'd like a better process that isn't so heavy handed for dealing with situations where tensions rise and communications break down. As for that process: just talk to people... [W]e're a community. We're not interchangeable cogs to be kicked out and replaced when someone is 'causing a problem', we should be watching out for each other...

Another note that I was raising with the CoC is that a culture of dismissiveness, of finding ways to avoid the technical discussions we're supposed to be having, really is toxic, and moreso than mere flamewars... we really do need to be engaging properly with each other in order to do our work well.

After the official response from the committee, Overstreet responded on the kernel mailing list. 'I do want to apologize for things getting this heated the other day, but I need to also tell you why I reacted the way I did... I do take correctness issues very seriously, and I will get frosty or genuinely angry if they're being ignored or brushed aside.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.