On Fri, Feb 07, 2025 at 05:16:28AM +0900, Hector Martin wrote: > And what I see, is very little effort to improve that status quo, or at > least very little that yields any actual change that isn't just > band-aids (e.g. tooling like b4, which is nice and appreciated, but > doesn't fix any underlying issues). And that's not going to change no > matter how many long technical arguments we have on the MLs (or even off > MLs, since MLs are also not particularly good for this, and I've seen > multiple arguments only reach a resolution after being redirected to IRC).
>From my perspective, there are several camps clashing when it comes to the kernel development model. One is people who are (rightfully) pointing out that using the mailing lists was fine 20 years ago, but the world of software development has vastly moved on to forges. The other camp is people who (also rightfully) point out that kernel development has always been decentralized and we should resist all attempts to get ourselves into a position where Linux is dependent on any single Benevolent Entity (Github, Gitlab, LF, kernel.org, etc), because this would give that entity too much political or commercial control or, at the very least, introduce SPoFs. At best, I can hope to make both camps grumpily agree to coexist. I *am* very wary of Benevolent Entities, because we have too many very recent examples of companies "realigning priorities" when political winds shift. Programs and initiatives that have until recently been poster board examples of progress and benevolence are shuttered and defunded. I am concerned that we're only a couple of mood swings away from someone deciding that free software should not be allowed to exist because it benefits America's foes. Many of us remember all too well when large tech giants treated Linux as a "cancer" to be opposed, and I can certainly see that idea easily re-entering some Big Brain in Charge. >From my perspective, I would like to ensure that Linux development can continue without a hard dependency on a single centralized forge -- whether controlled by a large commercial entity, or even a standalone one that is operated by kernel.org. It's becoming shockingly difficult to operate a public resource on the web unless you're willing to put it behind a large commercial CDN that will protect you from hostile bots (and if you do that, you're back to depending on the whims of a Benevolent Entity). We're trying to get lore.kernel.org to the point where it's like a global messaging bus that is indexed and searchable. Currently, you mostly have to send things to a mailing list for them to end up on lore, but it's gradually becoming less and less the case. We're already bridging with bugzilla and we should be able to bridge with forges soon, too (currently delayed again because I'm scrambling to move kernel.org frontends away from Equinix). Who knows, we may be actually leapfrogging the forge era of software development straight into "AI" agents era -- but that remains to be seen. Anyway, all of this is to say that I'm happy that you've found b4 useful, but I wouldn't view it as a band-aid -- it's just a very small and email-centric way to interact with the kernel lore. -K
