Message-ID: <5909824.DvuYhMxLoT@woolf>
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2025 19:42:38 +0700
From: Aquinas Admin <admin@...inas.su>
To: Malte Schröder <malte.schroeder@...ip.de>,
 Kent Overstreet <kent.overstreet@...ux.dev>,
 Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
 "Carl E. Thompson" <list-bcachefs@...lthompson.net>
Cc: linux-bcachefs@...r.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] bcachefs changes for 6.17

Generally, this drama is more like a kindergarten. I honestly don't understand 
why there's such a reaction. It's a management issue, solely a management 
issue. The fact is that there are plenty of administrative possibilities to 
resolve this situation.

Assign a specific person to handle issues with Kent, if Linus is unable to do 
so.
Simply freeze the patch acceptance for a certain period, explaining the 
situation, and ignoring it if the problem is really there. Then resume work. 
This has already been done and it was reasonable.
Explain to the person who is wrong in the discussion, draw conclusions, and 
possibly make some exceptions or changes in the process.
The main task of management is to work with engineers, who are often not 
politically correct or have their own view of the world. If you throw out a 
successful development that has proven its viability into the cold, I have 
questions about your actions. Anyway, I have plenty of questions about the 
Linux Foundation in general. The point is that many remember how the project 
was born and how it developed.

So, tell me, you release a product. You have a well-organized development 
cycle. You find a problem that prevents your product from being used as 
advertised. You already have an RC. The only way to fix the problem is to add 
new functionality to one of the product's subsystems. Will you release a 
product with known issues and later issue an errata, or will you make the 
necessary changes, provided no one is standing behind you with an axe 
threatening to cut your head off for a delay in the release? What's so terrible 
about that?

What's so terrible about fixing a bug in a subsystem marked as experimental, 
which some of your customers use? Especially since it will only affect those 
customers who use this subsystem, as others won't include it in their build 
processes.

This "We don't start adding new features just because you found other bugs" 
sounds absurd. So, if we find bugs, they can't be fixed if we need to extend the 
functionality before the release? Excuse me, what? I clearly understand the 
absurdity of this requirement. Because it effectively means that if we notice 
that ext4 is corrupting data only in RC simply because some code was forgotten 
to be added to a subsystem during the release window, we can't accept the fix 
because it requires adding new functionality and we will release the version 
with the problem. I clearly understand that this is not the exact situation, 
but it was done as a solution to an existing user's problem. Moreover, the 
amount of changes is not that significant. Especially since it's not really a 
fix but a workaround, a useful one that can actually help some real users in 
certain situations.

new USB serial driver device ids 6.12-rc7 is this new functionality or not?
ALSA: hda/realtek: Support mute LED on HP Laptop 14-dq2xxx 6.11-rc7 - new 
functionality?
ALSA: hda/realtek: Enable Mute Led for HP Victus 15-fb1xxx - 6.11-rc7
Octeontx2-pf: ethtool: support multi advertise mode - 6.15-rc5
drm/i915/flipq: Implement Wa_18034343758
drm/i915/display: Add drm_panic support
Is this different? Or are the rules somehow not for everyone?

But no, instead, this is what happened.

Yes, the file system is marked as experimental. However, everyone knows that 
there are users who use this file system in a production environment. It's just 
how it has historically been. Usually, it's SOHO, but that doesn't change 
much. Everyone knows that the file system has a very interesting design and 
some features that make it the most optimal solution. At least now, it is 
already successfully used as a replacement for LVM-Cache, DM-Cache, Bcachefs, 
etc. No existing file system today offers this functionality. Btrfs does not 
offer this functionality on various types of devices. Let's not consider ZFS, 
since it's an Out-Of-Tree project and has a number of problems and 
limitations, and even though such functionality could be implemented, it's not 
SOHO.

Therefore, instead of development, we are getting nonsense in the form of 
freezing the project or, worse, throwing the codebase away entirely. Why? 
Maybe we should switch from development to degradation?

As for the "trust issue," we've seen many examples of malicious code being 
included in the kernel. That's also a trust issue, isn't it? From this 
perspective, you can't use Linux at all. There's no way. You know, You can't 
have it both ways. Either that or nothing at all. Why these half-measures?

I somehow feel that we should start with management, not throwing the project 
into the cold.
> If we're giving our personal opinions I lean the other way.
> 
> I make no statement about the quality of Mr. Overstreet's code or whether it
> is (or isn't) stabilizing. But for me as someone who's made a career out of
> Linux it's not just about code it's about *trust*. For me personally I've
> made the decision to remove bcachefs entirely from my personal workstations
> and lab where I'd been testing and using it extensively for years. It's
> harsh to say it but I simply do not trust Kent's decision making process
> nor do I trust him as a *person* enough for me to be comfortable running
> bcachefs. I base this not on what other's may have said or written about
> him but on my own interactions with him and reading his own words.
> 
> This can (and hopefully will) change. People can grow... particularly
> through adversity. I'm hopeful that if it's decided that bcachefs will be
> removed or its in-kernel development paused Kent may reevaluate what's
> important and how he deals with people. I look forward to being able to
> trust bcachefs again but that's not right now.
> 
> Just my 2¢.
> 
> > On 2025-08-05 2:19 PM PDT Malte Schröder <malte.schroeder@...ip.de> wrote:
> > 
> > On 28.07.25 17:14, Kent Overstreet wrote:
>> <Overquoting deleted>.

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