Re: On community influencing (was Re: [PATCH v8 2/2] rust: add dma coherent allocator abstraction.)

Jarkko Sakkinen
2025-02-20T16:52:33Z

On Thu, 2025-02-20 at 12:37 -0400, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> >     I think one of key advantages of open source is that people
> > stick
> >     around for a very long time. Even when they switch jobs or move
> >     around. Maybe the usual “for life” qualifier isn’t really a
> > great
> >     choice, since it sounds more like a mandatory sentence than
> > something
> >     done by choice. What I object to is the “dictator” part, since
> > if your
> >     goal is to grow a great community and maybe reach world
> > domination,
> >     then you as the maintainer need to serve that community. And
> > not that
> >     the community serves you.
>
> +1
>
> I agree and try, as best I can, to embody this.

I keep four simple rules of email response list these days when
I response to LKML:

1. Be honest.
2. Address your concerns.
3. Ask for help where you need it.
4. Admit your possible misconceptions (getting things wrong is not a mistake).

It's quite easy actually shift away from these even if you
don't do it purposely. So I actually just read what I'm going
to respond and reflect to these :-) It's anyhow usually best
to keep a short break and breath-in/outs before triggering
send, right?

The fourth one addresses so called "toxic positive" responses
as addresses in the associated Mastodon thread [1] :-)

> Jason

[1] https://social.kernel.org/notice/ArH99Q2ErS20vJB7Tc

BR, Jarkko