The Geekess

Open source developer, bicyclist, gardener, and geek.

Closing a door

Posted on by sarah
This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for a year now. It has never been the right time to post this. I have always been worried about the backlash. I’ve skirted around talking about this issue publicly for some time, but not acknowledging the elephant in the room has eaten away at me a bit. So, here goes.
Here’s the deal: I’m not a Linux kernel developer any more. I quietly transferred the maintainership of the USB 3.0 host controller driver in May 2014. In January 2015, I stepped down from being the Linux kernel coordinator for the FOSS Outreach Program for Women (OPW), and moved up to help coordinate the overall Outreachy program. As of December 6 2014, I gave what I hope is my last presentation on Linux kernel development. I was asked to help coordinate the Linux Plumbers Conference in Seattle in August 2015, and I said no. My Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board (TAB) term is soon over, and I will not be running for re-election.
Given the choice, I would never send another patch, bug report, or suggestion to a Linux kernel mailing list again. My personal boxes have oopsed with recent kernels, and I ignore it. My current work on userspace graphics enabling may require me to send an occasional quirks kernel patch, but I know I will spend at least a day dreading the potential toxic background radiation of interacting with the kernel community before I send anything.
I am no longer a part of the Linux kernel community.
This came about after a very long period of thought, and a lot of succession planning. I didn’t take the decision to step down lightly. I felt guilty, for a long time, for stepping down. However, I finally realized that I could no longer contribute to a community where I was technically respected, but I could not ask for personal respect. I could not work with people who helpfully encouraged newcomers to send patches, and then argued that maintainers should be allowed to spew whatever vile words they needed to in order to maintain radical emotional honesty. I did not want to work professionally with people who were allowed to get away with subtle sexist or homophobic jokes. I feel powerless in a community that had a “Code of Conflict” without a specific list of behaviors to avoid and a community with no teeth to enforce it.
I have the utmost respect for the technical efforts of the Linux kernel community. They have scaled and grown a project that is focused on maintaining some of the highest coding standards out there. The focus on technical excellence, in combination with overloaded maintainers, and people with different cultural and social norms, means that Linux kernel maintainers are often blunt, rude, or brutal to get their job done. Top Linux kernel developers often yell at each other in order to correct each other’s behavior.
That’s not a communication style that works for me. I need communication that is technically brutal but personally respectful. I need people to correct my behavior when I’m doing something wrong (either technically or socially) without tearing me down as a person. We are human. We make mistakes, and we correct them. We get frustrated with someone, we over-react, and then we apologize and try to work together towards a solution.
I would prefer the communication style within the Linux kernel community to be more respectful. I would prefer that maintainers find healthier ways to communicate when they are frustrated. I would prefer that the Linux kernel have more maintainers so that they wouldn’t have to be terse or blunt.
Sadly, the behavioral changes I would like to see in the Linux kernel community are unlikely to happen any time soon. Many senior Linux kernel developers stand by the right of maintainers to be technically and personally brutal. Even if they are very nice people in person, they do not want to see the Linux kernel communication style change.
What that means is they are privileging the emotional needs of other Linux kernel developers (to release their frustrations on others, to be blunt, rude, or curse to blow off steam) over my own emotional needs (the need to be respected as a person, to not receive verbal or emotional abuse). There’s an awful power dynamic there that favors the established maintainer over basic human decency.
I’m not posting this for kernel developers. I’m not posting this to point fingers at specific people. I’m posting this because I grieve for the community that I no longer want to be a part of. I’m posting this because I feel sad every time someone thanks me for standing up for better community norms, because I have essentially given up trying to change the Linux kernel community. Cultural change is a slow, painful process, and I no longer have the mental energy to be an active part of that cultural change in the kernel.
I have hope that the Linux kernel community will change over time. I have been a part of that change, and the documentation, tutorials, and the programs that I’ve started (like the Outreachy kernel internships) will continue to grow in my absence. Maybe I’ll be back some day, when things are better. I have a decades long career in front of me. I can wait. In the meantime, there’s other, friendlier open source communities for me to play in.
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
– Alexander Graham Bell
(FYI, comments will be moderated by someone other than me. As this is my blog, not a government entity, I have the right to replace any comment I feel like with “fart fart fart fart”. Don’t expect any responses from me either here or on social media for a while; I’ll be offline for at least a couple days.)

99 thoughts on “Closing a door”

  2. I’m saddened to see you go.
    I’m saddened by the fact that you, and other people are dragged down.
    I personally (a young white European male) felt very nervous sending in my first patch to the kernel, and after that haven’t had the courage to do more with it. I was treated right and even got compliments, but still.
    I see the stories about people being shouted at, being torn down everywhere.
    So I’m sad to see a voice of reason and professionalism go.
    I wish you well in whatever comes next, and given your history, have little doubt that it’ll be well and truly awesome.
  3. I don’t know if/how much shit you’ll get about this, but just in case I wanted to be a voice of support. If anything, I think you underestimate (or at least understate) the extent to which your preferences in this matter are genuine moral goods and not mere preferences.
    -Joshua
      • I am just an ordinary Linux user and know nothing about developing kernels.
        I am nonetheless always sad when I read about discrimination in the linux community, especially discimination against women.
        To clarify that, I would add that I am also very wary of all- encompassing buzz-words like “sexism ” which appears to many to be exclusively anti-male, but that is another issue.
        I am sorry that you have been made to feel so uncomfortable Sarah and unwelcome in the linux community, but , I think like all communities, groups, etc, it is those who are in control of the group/community who are the prime cause of the problem.
        They are the only ones in any position of power to change things and too often, as appears to be the case now, they turn a blind eye to a painful truth, preffering instead to regard personal abuse as ” harmless banter “.
        Incidentally, despite the spelling of my name, I am actually male , at least, physically.
        You have my respect,and my gratitude for the work you have done and my good wishes .
        I wish you every success for your future .
        Shalom!
  5. It won’t change because the one person who could change it – Linus – won’t do so.
    Not that it will matter, vendors are giving up on upstream. They commit to company trees, grab changes from each others code dumps or work together on group trees like Linaro.
    The cost of upstream for anything but big servers now outweighs the benefit.
  6. It is disappointing that a community that should be dedicated to good values (open source software, a fantastic product, etc.,) should come to this.
    There are concerns in the R community over a certain member of the Comprehensive R Archive Network who creates a similar atmosphere (without the sexism, but overall equally hostile). I wonder whether this is somehow related to practices that were prevalent and ‘acceptable’ in tech in the 1990’s when these organizations were founded, and whether there is a way forward from here.
    • Haha. So I’m not alone? I gave up on R right when I wanted to get in. And I’m told I’m too blunt sometimes. Hostility doesn’t have a limit it seems.
      The thing is, it takes social maturity to understand what you’re talking about. I definitely have become much milder as I’ve aged, which means I probably wouldn’t agree with you like 7 years ago.
      Unfortunately respect and peaceful dialog are not valued by many abundant open-source projects and communities and their senior members.
  8. If you don’t think well in one community feel free to help others open source OSs projects needing help , specially in graphics stack. Then you will be promoting diversity of products too.
    There are projects which have a core team elected democratically by theirs developers.
  9. I’m sorry to hear this. I hope that your departure is both an opportunity for you and serves as a catalyst for change in the development community. Good luck.
  10. Thank you for all your work, and thanks especially for giving a talk at our school last year (Waterloo). Just because you are bothered by it doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to fix it, and it’s their loss.
    Best of luck on your future endeavours.
  11. sounds reasonable.
    I whish you more fun with mesa – good to see another developer helping out there, we need openGL 4.x asap :)
  12. Thank you for the fine work you have done on kernel drivers that I rely on every day.
    As the father of three smart, motivated Daughters, thank you also for being a voice for change.
  13. A very sad day for the Linux community. That said, I completely understand. As a person who comes from a Free Software community who have their own struggles with this dynamic (and increasingly getting better), I can sympathize. We also have our own frustrations with the Linux community.
    The linux community very much tends to cling to the old mainframe / Unix society of the 80’s. There is nothing particularly special about it other than that era (having lived in it) other than the notion of sharing ideas.
    Bet of luck to you.
  14. Thank for you having the courage to write about this issue. We’ve seen glimpses of this kind of bad behaviour on mailing lists and IRC and other forums and it’s great that some open source communities have started with a friendly healthy basis for communication.
    Hopefully the cultural changes a little faster thanks to your post.
  15. Ms. Sharp,
    I believe time and energy spent berating and insulting are completely wasted; I no longer remain where they are the norm. Those are some of the behaviors we at community.smoothwall.org do not tolerate. We’re a small community of friendly people (and an old grouch or two).* We focus on improving and enhancing the system and ourselves. Come visit. And recharge your faith in humanity.
    Neal
    * – Shamelessly stolen and adapted from an old billboard outside Portales, NM.
  16. It must have taken a lot of courage to take this decision and finally write this post. Thanks for all the hard work you did and I hope to see you in another open-source projects :)
  19. Come to FreeBSD — we have a code of conduct! The kind of horrible vitriol that is acceptable in Linux is not acceptable in the FreeBSD developer community.
  20. I don’t know if it would be your thing, but we’d welcome you in the WordPress community, and I think you’d find the community you’re looking for. Mostly. :)
  22. Thank you for reminding us that the standard we walk past is the standard we accept and to keep pushing for better communities. I hope one day nobody will never need to “fart fart fart” comments
  24. Sorry to hear about your decision to leave the kernel community.
    The older I got, the more frustrated I got about other people’s stupidity and lack of respect for other human beings. I think I know how you feel.
    Lets hope that you find an open source project with a less toxic work environment one day where you enjoy working.
  25. Thank you Sarah for all the work you’ve done. You don’t need to feel guilty. You made the community a better place. Have a good time doing whatever else you’d like to do!
  26. I am sad to read this, but not surprised.
    Sad, both because the Linux kernel is losing a great developer, but also because it mirrors my experience with other FOSS communities and people from FOSS communities working on non-FOSS stuff. It’s been the major reason I have chosen not to join any established communities I was expressly invited to. Like you, I can take technically brutal comments if they are personally respectful.
    I would add that it’s my impression that these communities are not, in fact, meritocracies as they claim to be – though of course merit does factor into rank. Rather they are communities dominated by fairly typical alpha male behaviour, just channeled enough to seemingly be meritocracies. I’ve been in more than one discussion where the technically inferior path was chosen, because it was promoted with the loudest chest thumping by the most vocal team member.
    I’m not saying that last is true of all such communities, nor of the Linux kernel community in particular, but that these self-proclaimed meritocracies at the very least teeter closely to such shapes, because of the communications methods chosen.
    All that said, I’ve also met many, many FOSS developers who were respectful of any attempted contribution, even when they rejected the attempts. Kudos to all of you like that!
  27. Well, this sucks. Not that you are leaving, although obviously that’s disappointing, but that you are put into a situation where you have to make a horrible decision like this. I fear you’re right on all counts – the situation is not acceptable, leaving is the right thing to do for your own health and well-being, and the community is not likely to change soon. Please do not feel guilty for taking necessary steps to protect yourself – nobody is required to allow themselves to be victimized.I have daughters, and I very much hope that by the time they are old enough to notice, things will have changed for the better… But I am not counting on it. I wish I had something more constructive to say other than thank you for sharing, and on behalf of all non-jerkwad men out there, I apologize for the bullying idiots. We’re trying to figure out how to civilize them without becoming them. (And you didn’t say it explicitly, but it was men who were being jerks, I guarantee it…).
    I wish you happiness, peace and success wherever you choose to go. Be healthy.
  30. Sarah, thank you for your work. It’s been several years since I had to spend a single thought on USB in Linux. It is the examplar of “just works.” Sorry to see you go (but cheers to you).
  31. As an anonymous bystander, I’d like to say that I appreciate the work you’ve done and the things you’ve started.
    I hope you’ll be happier wherever you go.
    >I have the right to replace any comment I feel like with “fart fart fart fart”.
    Is this a joke I’m not getting? It seems so out of place.
  32. Thank you for your cultural support.
    I am one of those “newcomers” that performs kernel modifications for a private company, and I too have no desire to interact with the Linux culture; I feel it would require more effort to deal with personalities than to deal with technical issues.
    Please continue to fiercely defend your values wherever you are, as many voiceless people on both sides of the sex aisle need your flavor of leadership. A citizen of any community is required to defend the rights of other citizens, not disregard the concerns of their neighbors with crass.
    Fair winds and following seas where ever you go.
  33. It is rather sad, but am certain you have chosen the right path, in mainly for escaping the dread that changes that you suggest would trigger a knee jerk negative response. The community needs to be able to foster harmony and at least internally diplomatic approach. What I fear is that stress is as infectious as the invective, and one perpetuates the other. One thing I do strongly believe is that women bring something positive and calming to this male dominated environment, and with your departure, things may get worse rather than better, even for the males left.
  34. You are welcome to try FreeBSD. All projects have inmature people to some extent but we try very hard to keep the environment sane. We are more like a democracy; we have no dictators (benevolent or otherwise) and there is a code of conduct.
    Women, and particularly graphics saavy developers are actively welcome.
  35. Hola Sarah, antes que nada te mando un fuerte abrazo y mucho éxito en tus nuevos proyectos, ojalá que la comunidad mejore por el bien de todos.
    saludos y te mando un fuerte abrazo.
    Hi Sara,
    Hope than Kernel developer community changes for good, it’s no nice, see or feel like uncomfortable in any work and neither it’s the best choice for you and for all people, a place insane it’s no good for anybody.
    Saludos.
    • OpenBSD has a bad reputation (against anyone non technical, not specifically sexist), otherwise the BSDs seem pretty welcoming and safe,
  38. You are not at all wrong in saying this. I am 100% sure that the senior kernel developers perceive a need to be abrupt with people. Whether their perception is correct or not, I cannot say.
  39. I just came to watch the comment section for the “fart fart fart fart” substitution. Also, I plan to use this blog post in my tech comm class when we talk about gender and collaboration. Thanks.
  40. Thank you for your contributions to free and high-quality software. You are absolutely right that human dignity should be respected. As you put it, this is not about asking the government to silence anyone, but asking a club of sorts, one that relies on many, many volunteers, to be respectful to the people you work with. You’ve done your part. Enjoy yourself while waiting to see the hopefully inevitable cultural change. Videogames, computer science et al should not become a safe haven for homophobia and sexism–just because many a bullied person find refuge in “nerd” or “geek” culture does not make it okay for them to kick the abuse can down the road. Women and minorities and other sexualities are not the oppressors. Some developers need to check their privilege. Good luck finding positive communities to be a part of.
  41. Sarah,
    No one should be expected to deal with such hostilities, especially when contributing to open source.
    I can only hope that this helps incite change in the system and behaviors of those who have not only pushed away a great kernel maintainer, but many would-be contributors as well.
    I wish you well in your endeavors.
  42. I’m a Debian developer – and mobility impaired. In due time, is there ny chance at all that you might consider something that would help accessibility or the needs of folk who need asistive technology? At least then, you’d be assured that end users would benefit and thank you for it – and the number of core developers is smaller, many of whom are living with one or other condition themsellves.
    Things are getting better in a desperately unequal world but not nearly fast enough. Thank you so much for your contributions up until now.
  43. Thanks for this clear and reasoned statement. I think we are all living through a cultural shift as advanced computer expertise moves into the mainstream and develops more normal expectations of maturity and decency. I appreciate your efforts to move that process along, and I respect your decision to back off from the fray.
  44. Good for you, Sarah.
    People are probably going to argue about whether it’s good or bad for the kernel community to be acerbic, but they’re missing the point: it’s not good *for you*, therefore you left.
    Ignore any haters. :-)
  47. I don’t know you. I was sent a link by a friend. I don’t know you, but I know your situation. I wish I didn’t. I wish this was an isolated event in a healthy and inclusive industry. It isn’t. I feel ashamed for my fellow men, sad for the lost opportunities and angry for the people who get abused in one way or another.
    I’m sorry. But thanks for trying. And thank you for not trying too hard. Too many have tried too hard. It’s not worth it. You are worth more. Love.
  48. I’m sorry to hear you’ve left after being treated badly. I’m not a kernel developer, but I’ll still try harder not to be personally brutal to people in the communities where I develop, help and use.
  49. Thank you for your courage to post this.
    Thank you for your courage to step down.
    Thank you for your work on the Linux kernel.
    All the best for your future ventures!
  50. Sarah,
    I work in a very male dominated organisation, I rarely see this behaviour but when I do I never accept it. It’s not how I work, although it may well be how others think they need to work in order to complete tasks.
    I feel, could be wrong here, that cultural change can only happen if demonstrated by the organisations leaderership.
    If leadership don’t actually want change then it won’t happen. Some times a change in leadership is actually what is needed.
    Best o’luck in your new adventures!!!
    Patrick.
  52. Sarah,
    just a quick comment that I fully stand behind you. You did the right thing. The community loses an important contributer and they deserve it.
    Best to you!
  55. Thanks for being. Being honest, being direct – being you.
    You’ll be an enrichment for these friendlier communities.
  56. In my honest opinion, all kinds of problems in the ‘community’ are widely overreacted onto by some individuals. Anyways, thanks for work and good luck.
  58. It takes a lot of strength to stand up and say what you did. I totally respect what you are doing. Take care of you. It’s what’s the most important. You don’t have to subject yourself to nastiness.
    Also, I have no problem if you replace my comments with FART FART FART FART. 😀
  59. That is a sad commentary on a project that is a backbone on the Internet. Ultimately it reduces the number of people willing to help out which compounds part of the problem. We are social beings and this is a group project. People need to learn to communicate in such a way as it facilitates progress not impedes it. Gay jokes/insults should be left behind after high school
  61. Thanks for the wonderful blog on the toxic nature of the linux community. I appreciate your honesty and personal sacrifice. Common decency and basic respect afforded a stranger should be the norm for everyones working environment NOT TO MENTION a volunteer environment. I hope your journey has many joyful moments in store for you! Regards,
    Jim Baker
  62. You should give FreeBSD development a shot. Our community is much more respectful than Linux ever thought about being, with a code of conduct that is actively enforced.
    But I totally understand not wanting to be part of such a toxic culture. I gave up contributing to Linux in the mid 90’s because even then the culture was just too nuts.
    Warner
    • Unless a male committer threatens a female committer. We all know how that goes. Don’t suggest unsafe places. FreeBSD core’s handling of that situation proved it is not a community that is welcoming to women.
  65. Your experiences are shared by many. Contributing back a fix or feature to open source projects, particularly the Linux kernel, is often an unpleasant, thankless, and sometimes personally degrading processes. It does not need to be that way. There are other communities in this world who maintain high standards while still maintaining a positive, supportive, and thankful community environment.
    With every interaction, each of us has the opportunity to make this better.
    Thank you for all you’ve contributed to to the USB stack and beyond. These are technically impressive, highly impactful contributions of code and ideas. I hope you take great pride in this body of work – we all have been lucky to benefit from your efforts. We wish you the best!
  66. Well sorry to here you are stepping away from the Cult of the Penguin but I totally understand the reasoning and feel quite sad that it had to happen the way it has. Really I just don’t get why people can’t just get along with each other especially when it comes to sharing ideas like code etc But for what it is worth you will be missed but I am also positive you will find somewhere else to be equally as successful.
    Don’t feel bad it is not your fault but it is the responsibility of everyone who advocates Free software to also have duty of care with peoples freedoms to agree and disagree.
    Be strong , be happy, be successful, but above all, be yourself.
    Donec rursus convenerimus
  67. I’m sorry to see another developer driven away from the kernel. I also thought the Code of Conflict was useless. Thanks for all the work you’ve done.
  68. Didn’t there used to be this thing called “professionalism” that used to mean that you treat your colleagues with respect? I knew that responses to the mailing list were usually a little brusque, but I had no idea.
    Thank you so much for coming forward. You are a true pioneer, and you have shown much courage.
  69. Many thanks Shara for your post that very well confirm my own experience with too many maintainers. I wish you to find a project where you can enjoy to share your very high competencies in a pleasant and respectful way.
  71. Dear Ms. Sharp,
    I’m sorry that you decided to leave the “community” of Linux kernel developers, as it’s a loss for the community. Having said that, I think you made the right decision.
    Respect for a person is a human right. Mr. Torvalds is abusing his power by ignoring that.
    I wish you happiness and success in the future
    Yours truly,
    Tom Haberkern
  72. Having a daughter myself, I feel saddened that this is something she has to deal with simply because the majority of people in the existing system aren’t willing to objectively evaluate their behavior and that of their peers and realize the damage they are doing to the community.
    We have made considerable strides already in acknowledging the value that women have to offer in every field. I simply wish we didn’t have so many more strides left to go to get where we need to be.
  74. Thank you for work Sarah, both as a developer and an activist. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose to pursue and hope to see you back someday. Take care and don’t give up, entropy is part of our nature :-)
  75. Hi Sarah
    Very sad that things have gone this way, this is how a community loses good people. You’ve done such a lot. Awesome.
    Thanks &
    Some of the comments have suggested “alpha male” behaviour as a root cause of this, but unless we’re talking about testosterone-induced aggression I really don’t think that holds up.
    I have also seen similar behaviour in local user groups.
    It is just inexcusable, completely rude and people should just get a grip on their behaviour. While it generally doesn’t have malicious intent, it is offensive and seriously off-putting particularly to newcomers but also just in general – when actively engaging with a community, one naturally want that community to have a baseline of friendly & comfortable.
    I think the problem can more accurately be summed up in terms of social skills. Many people haven’t had brilliant examples from home, and then depending on the groups they interact with there’s more experiences and examples that are far from ideal including from some “top people” in the field (and I’d include Linus in there).
    On the plus side, these are very smart people, so once they acknowledge the issue (and see it for what it is, a serious issue that needs addressing in themselves) they should be able to work on resolving it. It may take some personal work.
    It’s not cool. It’s a bug.
    Regards from Oz,
    Arjen.
  76. Thank you.
    I’m old and retired and have worked in many environments. What you have written is correct. All the work of the Linux kernel could be done with the utmost civility if people would treat others as they would want to be treated rather than icons on a screen or buttons to be pushed.
    Linus and others are wrong to treat abuse as emphasis. It’s not. It’s bullying, inflammatory hot air, and has no place in the kernel. Treating a stranger like that on the street can get a person charged with assault or held for psychiatric observation. It’s not normal behaviour in modern society. A teacher, priest or lawyer who acted that way regularly would be suspended or fired rather quickly. Computer programmers/developers are supposed to be rational. If they need to vent base emotions they should hug someone or go for a walk not scream into the ether. Linus and others at Linux have the simple option of explaining their displeasure and refusing/ignoring requests. They don’t have to start a war of words. LKML and the Linux code is an enormous and important body of knowledge. The authours and keepers of that knowledge should be pleased with what they have done and strive to do more. Verbal abuse is out of place and contributes nothing to the task.
  77. This is highly regrettable and I’m sorry to hear that you’ve left kernel development. I do concur that the tone of discourse on LKML could do with being… sterilized, if not toned down a bit. Maintaining a culture within LKML is one thing, but it also requires maintaining professionalism. Something that I hope people start to address sooner rather than later to detoxify the image that could prevent people from coming on board.
    Best of luck to you on your future endeavours!
  78. You wrote: “I need people to correct my behavior when I’m doing something wrong (either technically or socially) without tearing me down as a person.”
    I don’t agree with your phrasing “correct (your) behavior”. If somebody thinks you’re wrong on a technical matter then the result should be a professional and respectful discussion to understand the problem and how to best it can be address. Frankly, the way you’ve engaged, and tried to get other people to engage, has been to the highest professional standard. *Your* behavior does not need to be corrected; it should be lauded.
  80. There is definitely no need for guilt and I hope you’ve found happyness in your new endevours.
    As someone outside the kernel community, but an avid FLOSS developer and I have often watched with a sort of akward gawk of someone watching reality TV at the brutal emails on LKML. Like recent network TV trends, the worst of it would bubble up and stick at the top of the “Hottest messages” leaving useful and interesting patches, announcements, and critiques hidden away never to be seen.
    When I saw this pop up on twitter, I knew what I was going to find on the other side and I wasn’t surprised. Mostly because the community I’m closely attached to has seen toxic members of the community and weak governance lead to similar departures of talented and valued members. Friends.
    Redirecting or weeding out toxic behavior from otherwise amazing communities without destroying what makes them great is daunting to say the least. I believe we all share the hope that the kernel community can work through and address their own toxic members so more people like you can be the valued members of the community they deserve to be.
  81. Thanks Sarah for everything. I did get a chance to interact with you while applying for OPW and have seen your dedication towards the Linux community.
    This has come to me as a surprise. Personally, I saw you and Greg as the people who were changing the community, as the mentors for numerous kernel newbies like me who wanted to contribute to Linux kernel. You were doing a marvelous job.
    You stood for something and we supported it. This kernel community is not owned by these maintainers or its founder or whosoever. It comprises of all of us who love you for what you do and support you.
    I will like to thank you on behalf of the community. Thanks Sarah for all you did. Best of Luck for all your future endeavors.
  82. Just wanted to add to the chorus of thanks for your work. I’m sorry you had to endure that toxic environment. It’s not one that I could bear myself. :-(
  83. Sarah, thank you so much for all the though you put into this, it shows.
    Thank you for being an inspiration to me in the greater open source world out there. Running into you at conferences, seeing you speak and interact with other developers and ask for personal respect has given me a great model to work from. You are one of a handful of people who inspired me to go back for the masters CS.
    When I was 17, I quit wanting to be an engineer. There was no emotional maturity in my compatriots, made for long days. Now I’m 36 and look, I’m an engineer. A lot of the culture shift that made me want to come back to engineering is happening because you and others like you stuck it out when yes, it is an emotionally thankless task. Thank you for the care you put into every moment you worked in this community.
    I hope you are enjoying the projects you are currently working on. I know I am. :-)
  84. Hi Sarah,
    I remember back in 2013 when you made a post about this (which I think was probably something that weighed heavily in your decision).
    Back then, I disagreed with you about the whole thing. I’ve since changed my mind after reading more of what goes on on LKML and having work and life experiences to compare it to.
    I still don’t know what the right balance is between “full on politeness” and the more “liberal” approach, but it’s pretty clear to me now that there is more to situations such as yours than what I realized back then.
    Regardless of how much we agree or disagree on the specifics, I wanted to let you know that I’m sad to see you go.
    I wish you well.
  85. I’m really sorry to hear this.
    I’ve never interacted with the kernel in any way so I didn’t know it was this bad. I knew there was a lot of frankness involved, but this sucks :/
    Thank you for your efforts and work
    I hope it gets better soon
  87. You’d be welcome in our illumos and smartos communities. Although there is no explicit code of conduct that I know of, we keep it civil almost to a fault because the focus is so intense on the technical changes in the code.
    Even the most heated discussions revolve strictly over code. Most of us there are professional engineers with several decades in the industry. intel corporation also used to have (and perhaps still has?) a team of engineers dedicated to the Solaris kernel, who used to work on OpenSolaris before Oracle closed the code and it was forked into illumos.
    Hope to be able to welcome you to our communities soon.
  89. Hi
    I hoped that you in the group meant that the group had made a turn for the better. That they had realised that they need to shape up the style of communication. I am sad to hear they have not.
    It is a loss for us all as a whole that they fail to adopt new people into their work.
    I absolutely think you made the healthier choice. And I will always look forward to see what you are up to, and I hope to bump into you again sometime soon. (perhaps time to take me up on that invitation to come visit Bergen, Norway?)
  90. Having worked with a kernel developer on a totally different project altogether and having had his behaviour excused with “that’s what he’s used to from his Linux endeavours” I can totally understand your decision. I, too, hope that the culture will change to make open source welcoming for everybody.

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