Bcachefs Publishes Patches For Disk Accounting Rewrite

[timofonic]

first, the script to skip bcachefs broke, triggered by kent abusing commit tags. He literally committed "Fixes:" (with nothing after the colon). so it ended up pulling it in the patch. but that had nothing to do with why the stable submission failed. and when kent was told why his patches weren't included in the stable rc, he blamed them for not telling him, but they did tell him (all documented in a separate email thread).

But the bigger issue was that kent didnt' generate the stable patches correctly, which involves tying the patches to specific commits in linus's kernel git. That is a policy rule of stable, which says that what is in stable has already been included in linus tree (doesn't have to be identical, but it has to be directly related).

This annoyed kent in several ways. First was the fact that kent didn't know about "git cherry-pick -x" flag was a documentation issue. Second, kent thinks he as bcachefs maintainer should be able to send whatever he thinks is appropiate, and that's supersedes tying it to linus's repo. Third, kent disagreed with sending things as patches, and thinks stable it should be some dashboard git branch merge tool.

Kent' always getting emotional over technical disagreements is his biggest fault, but his habit on lashing out when he made a bad assumption or was ignorant of some process or technical detail is another big issue of his. the number of times people have explained something to him he didn't know will pretty much guarantee he will start ranting about documentation.

Despite his attitude, he had a valid point. Linux kernel development documentation sucks, for example. FOSS needs a lot better documentation to evolve in a properly way.

[timofonic]

It is pretty obvious that Kent is neurodivergent / a little autistic. As a neurodivergent person myself, I don't really see a problem with his responses, but I understand not a lot of people appreciate bluntness or directness in that manner.

Yes, I agree. And not every "aspie" is a (wife) killer.

I understand his behavior must be tuned ASAP. I see him as a very passionate and idealistic person. He believes in Free Software, despite having worked previously at Open Source anti-GPL corps.

Instead of crap such as CoC that often gets ignored and misinterpreted, there should be done something to improve the ecosystem. I sincerely believe an "Aspie" that surpassed these annoying social conflicts must write something a lot more detailed for other neurodivergent people. And not only that, Linux Foundation and others should invest at this and hiring specialized mental health professionals to cope this and tune people's behavior and solve these non-technical issues, instead wasting money on crap.

Ah okay, I only read the LKML threads and comments that people have linked here and on other Phoronix threads concerning bcachefs, and I've only ever seen the bluntness and directness I've described that others described as jerk behaviour. Haven't seen what I've quoted, but rejection sensitive dypshoria and emotional dysregulation is as you said, common.

Are you a mental health professional? FOSS needs support at this, specially Linux kernel.

[oleid]

A little tip for you: such kind of person (as already mentioned in this thread) doesn't change. The best you can do, if it's applicable, is to ignore all of this.

Well, behaviour therapy can help in such cases.

[yump]

Here is my vendetta: I've been sponsoring this project for many years (as just a patreon donor), and now he's screwing up, turning his community to a defender of his bad behavior, getting senior linux developers to dislike him, and probably ruining chances for companies to consider engaging with him.

Turning public discussions of bcachefs into referenda on Kent's behavior is more likely to risk the future of bcachefs by speaking FUD into being than it is to change Kent, IMO.

Keep this in mind.

[gotar]

I also think calling neurodivergency a "mental disorder" is not only wrong but also harmful. The point of the term is to explain that you don't have to have a mental disorder to fall outside the "neurotypical".

I'm not talking about "neurodivergency", but autism-like disorders - if that was not clear (just look at how small numbers I've used). It's also typical that autist people can be outstanding in some disciplines, so it shouldn't surprise some might create a brilliant IT project working alone.

Anyway that was not the point - the main claim was that it's a bad sign for a future of such project, despite being superior or ahead of it's time. And that noone can do much about it, it's just the way it is.

[nadir]

(...) but this has nothing to do with "being a jerk". This is simply a mental disorder, you cannot blame him for.

Nah, it has everything to do with being a jerk. I know all kinds of neurodivergent people and it just doesn't make you a jerk. It can make social interactions more difficult, but people can work around that and still be kind.

Jerks, on the other hand, like to throw out their supposed neurodivergency as a defense when people complain about their jerk behavior.

I also think calling neurodivergency a "mental disorder" is not only wrong but also harmful. The point of the term is to explain that you don't have to have a mental disorder to fall outside the "neurotypical".

[gotar]

What is worse is while he doesn't seem like a bad person, he really spreads a lot of negativity in the world. He needs to change.

I'm not out to get Kent, I'm out to get Kent to stop being a jerk.

A little tip for you: such kind of person (as already mentioned in this thread) doesn't change. The best you can do, if it's applicable, is to ignore all of this.

The problem is however the project they run - if there is a need to contact with other people, like upstreaming his work to kernel, there will be negative consequences.

I've know a few (4 I think) such people in the past (and have input only from a dozen of others) and they tend to destroy their own project on the long run, or they quit. It all works well as long as they develop it (mostly) alone, it all falls apart when there's any outer pression; this sometimes leads to forks.

Your description makes him a good candidate for just another case. If so, this is really a bad news for bcachefs, but this has nothing to do with "being a jerk". This is simply a mental disorder, you cannot blame him for.

[Jessica]

Kent seems to be offended personally by technical criticism.

Ah okay, I only read the LKML threads and comments that people have linked here and on other Phoronix threads concerning bcachefs, and I've only ever seen the bluntness and directness I've described that others described as jerk behaviour. Haven't seen what I've quoted, but rejection sensitive dypshoria and emotional dysregulation is as you said, common.

[PuckPoltergeist]

you should check from some primary source the real details, but i'm pretty sure it all happens automatically and transparently. maybe they special cased this?

It will happen, as long fsck knows the on-disk layout. I don't need new enough kernel, I need a new enough fsck

[PuckPoltergeist]

It is pretty obvious that Kent is neurodivergent / a little autistic. As a neurodivergent person myself, I don't really see a problem with his responses, but I understand not a lot of people appreciate bluntness or directness in that manner.

It's not only bluntness, that's pretty normal on LKML. Kent seems to be offended personally by technical criticism. This is also typical for neurodivergent persons. This is way more problematic on LKML than bluntness or directness.