<story><title>Linus Torvalds muses about maintainer gray hairs and the next &apos;King of Linux&apos;</title><url>https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-muses-about-maintainer-gray-hairs-and-the-next-king-of-linux/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mont_tag</author><text>&amp;quot;Not engaging at all&amp;quot; allows the engaging group to completely take over and expunge their opposition.  The Python Software Foundation is an example. They have multiple former directors banned or resigning.  They&amp;#x27;ve defunded African Pycons that won&amp;#x27;t embrace certain ideologies. PSF employees and work group members are being purged of anyone not fully on board with the new ruling party. The discussion forums are censored and long-term contributors are afraid to post.&lt;p&gt;In general, in democratic organizations it is a failing strategy to not engage in arguments or to boycott elections.  It is a recipe for an imbalance that is almost impossible to correct later.&lt;p&gt;So, I respectfully disagree with your suggestion to not engage at all.</text></item><item><author>coldpie</author><text>&amp;gt; There was a small crowd when the drama was happening suggesting that Rust devs should just go write their own Linux-compatible kernel somewhere else which I found... insane.&lt;p&gt;One of the most important skills I found in open source development is separating technical arguments from religious arguments, and choosing to simply ignore the latter. You can spend all your time having the religious debates and feeling very productive while actually getting absolutely nothing done. Learning to recognize the distinction and, crucially, &lt;i&gt;not engage at all&lt;/i&gt; when someone is coming at you with a religious argument is incredibly valuable for anyone who is or wants to be in a leadership-ish role in that kind of environment. You&amp;#x27;ve got better things to do with your time than explain to someone why building a whole separate kernel is a stupid idea.</text></item><item><author>hypeatei</author><text>Good to see that he&amp;#x27;s still optimistic about Rust in the kernel. There was a small crowd when the drama was happening suggesting that Rust devs should just go write their own Linux-compatible kernel somewhere else which I found... insane. It&amp;#x27;s better to iterate and improve existing systems IMO.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lifty</author><text>Really curious, what ideology did the defunded African Pycons fail to embrace?</text></comment>
<story><title>Linus Torvalds muses about maintainer gray hairs and the next &apos;King of Linux&apos;</title><url>https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-muses-about-maintainer-gray-hairs-and-the-next-king-of-linux/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mont_tag</author><text>&amp;quot;Not engaging at all&amp;quot; allows the engaging group to completely take over and expunge their opposition.  The Python Software Foundation is an example. They have multiple former directors banned or resigning.  They&amp;#x27;ve defunded African Pycons that won&amp;#x27;t embrace certain ideologies. PSF employees and work group members are being purged of anyone not fully on board with the new ruling party. The discussion forums are censored and long-term contributors are afraid to post.&lt;p&gt;In general, in democratic organizations it is a failing strategy to not engage in arguments or to boycott elections.  It is a recipe for an imbalance that is almost impossible to correct later.&lt;p&gt;So, I respectfully disagree with your suggestion to not engage at all.</text></item><item><author>coldpie</author><text>&amp;gt; There was a small crowd when the drama was happening suggesting that Rust devs should just go write their own Linux-compatible kernel somewhere else which I found... insane.&lt;p&gt;One of the most important skills I found in open source development is separating technical arguments from religious arguments, and choosing to simply ignore the latter. You can spend all your time having the religious debates and feeling very productive while actually getting absolutely nothing done. Learning to recognize the distinction and, crucially, &lt;i&gt;not engage at all&lt;/i&gt; when someone is coming at you with a religious argument is incredibly valuable for anyone who is or wants to be in a leadership-ish role in that kind of environment. You&amp;#x27;ve got better things to do with your time than explain to someone why building a whole separate kernel is a stupid idea.</text></item><item><author>hypeatei</author><text>Good to see that he&amp;#x27;s still optimistic about Rust in the kernel. There was a small crowd when the drama was happening suggesting that Rust devs should just go write their own Linux-compatible kernel somewhere else which I found... insane. It&amp;#x27;s better to iterate and improve existing systems IMO.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>roenxi</author><text>I think the original comment probably had an implicit [ignore &lt;i&gt;isolated actors&lt;/i&gt;] as part of the context. Any organisation has to be wary of alternative mission statements overriding their actual mission statement and a failure to engage when that happens generally presages trouble.</text></comment>