Kent Overstreet, the developer of FS Bcachefs, recently reported that the future of the file system he developed is uncertain due to actions taken by the COC Committee responsible for enforcing the Code of Conduct within the community. Linus Torvalds has refused to accept the upcoming set of corrections to Bcachefs in the Linux kernel 6.13 branch, citing complaints from the COC Committee.
Just a few days prior, a change was made to the guidelines governing the Code of Conduct, allowing for the possibility of blocking developers who violate the Code of Conduct and refuse to adhere to the conflict resolution process proposed by the COC Committee. This change introduces the option of imposing a temporary “ban” for failure to issue a public apology, temporarily blocking patches and pull requests, and excluding the offender from community discussions by restricting access to Kernel.org emails and services.
Key figures such as Linus Torvalds, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Miguel Ojeda, Dave Hansen, Jonathan Corbet, Stephen Rostedt, Dan Williams, Theodore Ts’o, and Konstantin Ryabtsev have all agreed on these new measures. The blocking period is limited to the duration of a single development cycle of a new kernel branch, approximately two months. The COC Committee must approve the decision to block with a 2/3 majority vote, and removal of the block may require a public apology from the offender.
Kent Overstreet’s blocking stemmed from an offensive remark made during a discussion with Michal Hocko, a developer of the memory management system in the kernel. The COC Committee took notice of the insult and requested a public apology from Kent, which he refused to provide, arguing that personal matters should not be aired publicly. Kent also expressed his belief that the push for public apologies was driven more by a desire to appease corporate interests rather than genuine concern for community image.
For more details on this issue, Kent’s report can be found here.