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How I got robbed of my first kernel contribution
(ariel-miculas.github.io)
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this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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Programming
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Somebody is pretty salty for no good reason. The maintainers own patch is nicer code than the suggested patch - and the change is small enough that there just isn't anything available to guide the reporter to a better solution without wasting everyone's time.
I'd probably have added a thanks for debugging effort into the commit message myself - but "please accept my patch because I want to have code in the kernel" is a very stupid thing to say, and the maintainer offering a suitable problem to fix is more than I'd have done in that situation.
Unfortunately I don't have my original patch, because I only sent that to the Linux security mailing list. I don't think it's a stupid thing to want to have code in the kernel, especially after spending all my time debugging this issue. The fix was trivial once I've pointed to the exact place where the buffer overflow happened and I should have received credit for all my effort.
You did receive credit. A good bug report allows reproducing and ideally fixing the issue - which can involve considerable effort. This is the difference between your report, and the one you linked from 6 years ago.
Like I said, I'd probably have added an additional thanks for that in my commit message - but I'm unfamiliar with the kind of reports this particular subsystem typically receives, so it is quite possible your report is just something average coming in there.
I personally prefer to include code suggesting a fix in my bug reports - but I usually don't expect it to be just merged as I'm not familiar with surrounding code. I also don't expect that to receive an additional mention - it's just part of the report, and is often cleaner in demonstrating the issue than a problem description.
The way that you jumped straight onto broadcasting drama when your very first Linux kernel patch stumbled on the code review stage is a major red flag.
I would hate to work with you because I would feel that I would be risking being subjected to a very public character attack each time I had to review one of your patches.
I'm not broadcasting drama, I'm sharing my side of the story on my personal blog and distribute it to other social media platforms.
The patch didn't stumble on the code review stage, the PowerPC maintainer didn't want to accept patches from me and implemented his own fix.
Why would you hate people who would describe their interactions with you? The only reason I see is that you would hate how you've dealt with them.
I'm not broadcasting drama, I'm sharing my side of the story on my personal blog and distribute it to other social media platforms.
That's literally broadcasting drama.
I think you'll be happier in the long run if you can forgive and move on.