Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Transparency when rejecting patches without technical reason

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Sat, 19 Aug 2023 at 18:22, Wolfram Sang <wsa@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> I hope you understood that my wish for transparency was not about
> discussing if the patches should have gone in or not. It is about
> discussing or at least stating which reasons we have for not accepting
> patches.

I don't think there is any value at all in discussing hypotheticals.

But I will say that the next time some has-been superpower ends up
with a premier that goes crazy and starts attacking other countries,
we'll do the same thing.

So that's certainly _one_ reason to not take patches.

But let's hope that one reason ends up never being relevant again, and
as such not really worth discussing (and it's sure as hell not worth
debating).

And other reasons? I don't think most people had "Russia ends up going
rogue, so kernel developers stop taking patches from state-sponsored
actors" on their bingo card in 2021. I certainly didn't.

So unless you have a crystal ball and can predict what the next event
that would cause us to not accept patches would look like, what is
there to discuss?

That's kind of my point.

The Russian situation isn't worth discussing - anybody who wants to
debate it is simply not anybody I want to spend one second debating
*with*.

And any future situation is so hypothetical as to not seemingly be
worth discussing either, unless you have some inside information.

We'll have to take them as they come, and the best we can probably do
is to just hope we don't ever see anything similar in the future.

               Linus