Linux kernel developer Palmer Dabbelt was warned by Linus Torvalds for submitting a set of RISC-V patches at the last minute. Torvalds expressed frustration with what he called “garbage” and late submissions, which he believes add to chaos during critical merge windows. He emphasized that such changes can negatively impact the broader Linux community.
Torvalds had previously given developers fair warning about his busy schedule in August, but Dabbelt pushed through his patches anyway. The patches contained issues with helper functions and were added to generic header files instead of the RISC-V tree. Torvalds deemed these problems “useless garbage” that make code incomprehensible.
The Linux creator has taken steps to improve his behavior towards other developers in recent years, having realized the negative impact of his past outbursts. However, he remains a perfectionist who expects high standards from kernel contributions, particularly for core components.
Dabbelt apologized for being late and promised to follow the guidelines more closely in the future. Torvalds accepted his apology and emphasized that early submissions without “garbage” are necessary for maintaining quality.
Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-blasts-kernel-dev-for-making-the-world-worse-with-garbage-patches