Danilo Krummrich, an associate of the Nouveau driver, recently submitted a set of patches to the Linux kernel with the implementation of bindings above the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem, enabling the creation of graphic drivers in the Rust language. These changes were inspired by the work of Asahi Lina, who developed the DRM-Asahi driver for the Apple AGX GPU used in Apple Silicon chips. Asahi Lina was credited as the main author of the binding over DRM IOCTL and a co-author for other abstractions in creating drivers.
In response, Lina expressed dissatisfaction with what she felt was a belittling of her contributions to the development process. She highlighted that a large portion of the code in the DRM/DRV.RS file was authored by her, despite only minor cosmetic changes being made in the patches. Lina argued that credit should be given where it is due, especially when minimal changes were made to her original work.
Danilo explained that the patches where Lina was listed as a co-author underwent significant restructuring, with code being divided into separate files and substantial changes being made. These revised patches were then published under the authorship of Danilo Krummrich to prevent any misrepresentation of the work done. Danilo also mentioned that Lina had previously granted permission to use her code in any manner, and he was willing to credit her as the main author if she wished.
In a further exchange, Lina reiterated her stance on authorship, stating that she expected her contributions to be acknowledged and was disappointed that the division of commits led to a change in the main authorship of the code. Despite the disagreement, Lina emphasized that she did not want to escalate the conflict and was simply seeking recognition for her work.
Following the discussion, Danilo published a list outlining the changes made in the patches.