Zack's Kernel News

Linus Returns to the Kernel

Linus Torvalds's self-imposed exile from kernel development lasted exactly one week, ending on October 23 when he began to catch up on kernel merges. He had originally decided to take a break to think about his sometimes harsh treatment of Linux developers.

Given the extreme reactions to his departure – or at least to the accompanying "code of conduct" that entered the kernel source tree at the same moment – his return was greeted peacefully. Mostly he addressed the question of whether developers would prefer to receive an email acknowledgement when they submitted merge requests; the responses ranged all over the place, with some saying yes, some saying no, some explaining their own recipes for handling merge requests, and some suggesting various techniques and alternatives for automating various parts of Linus's workflow.

The real debate will come when, for example, someone disingenuously tries to get "security" code into the kernel that could be used to lock users out of controlling their own systems. How will Linus respond when someone refuses to acknowledge the validity of technical objections and continues to push for their particular patch?

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