Re: userspace breakage

Linus Torvalds
2005-12-30T00:10:33Z

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
>
> Linus Torvalds wrote:
> >
> > We're not talking about internal kernel stuff. Internal kernel stuff _does_
> > get changed, and we dont' care about breakage of out-of-kernel stuff. That's
> > fundamental.
>
> Start caring. People spend lots of money supporting you, and what you are
> doing. How about taking some responsibility for that [...]

Cry me a river, Jeff.

The kernel is GPL'd. That's my responsibility. Source code. Stuff that
comes to me as patches. That's my job, and that's what I get paid for. In
fact, my contract says that I _cannot_ work on anything that isn't open
source.

Stuff outside the kernel is almost always either (a) experimental stuff
that just isn't ready to be merged or (b) tries to avoid the GPL.

Neither is worth a _second_ of anybodys time trying to support, and when
you say "people spend lots of money supporting you", you're lying through
your teeth. The GPL-avoiding kind of people don't spend a dime supporting
me, they spend their money actively trying to debase and destroy what I
and thousands of others have been working our butts off for.

So don't try to make it sound like something it isn't. We support outside
projects a hell of a lot better than we'd need to, and I can tell you that
it's mostly _me_ who does that. Most of the core kernel developers argue
that I should support less of it - and yes, they are backed up by lawyers
at their (sometimes quite big) companies.

So be honest now. Are those projects you care about going to be GPL'd and
actively pushed back into the standard kernel?

And if they aren't, SHUT THE HELL UP, because they are total freeloaders,
and claimign that they "support" me is total crap.

Linus