[Ksummit-2013-discuss] [ATTEND] How to act on LKML (was: [ 00/19] 3.10.1-stable review)

[Sarah Sharp]

On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 06:54:59PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Tue, 2013-07-16 at 15:43 -0700, Sarah Sharp wrote:
> 
> > Yes, that's true.  Some kernel developers are better at moderating their
> > comments and tone towards individuals who are "sensitive".  Others
> > simply don't give a shit.  So we need to figure out how to meet
> > somewhere in the middle, in order to establish a baseline of civility.
> 
> I have to ask this because I'm thick, and don't really understand,
> but ...
> 
> What problem exactly are we trying to solve here?

Personal attacks are not cool Steve.  Some people simply don't care if a
verbal tirade is directed at them.  Others do not want anyone to attack
them personally, but they're fine with people attacking their code.

Bystanders that don't understand the kernel community structure are
discouraged from contributing because they don't want to be verbally
abused, and they really don't want to see either personal attacks or
intense belittling, demeaning comments about code.

In order to make our community better, we need to figure out where the
baseline of "good" behavior is.  We need to define what behavior we want
from both maintainers and patch submitters.  E.g. "No regressions" and
"don't break userspace" and "no personal attacks".  That needs to be
written down somewhere, and it isn't.  If it's documented somewhere,
point me to the file in Documentation.  Hint: it's not there.

That is the problem.

Sarah Sharp