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KERNEL

Linus’s GCC 15 mistake

Torvalds’s fix for GCC 15 reignites debate over his communication style and the kernel’s future under his benevolent dictatorship.

Linus Torvalds voluntarily took a step back in 2018 after admitting his communication style with other developers was sometimes inappropriate.

Linus Torvalds’s discussions surrounding a compatibility issue with GCC 15 has reignited long-standing online debates.

The most recent controversy surrounds the 6.15-rc3 kernel release and implementation of -Wunterminated-string-initialization in GCC 15.

Instead of deferring to existing fixes in the next branch by the likes of kernel developer Kees Cook, Torvalds took it upon himself to patch the code. In doing so, he inadvertently caused some compatibility issues with versions of the GCC compiler system before v15.

Cook criticised the move, particularly as there were existing patches, so Torvalds had created merge conflicts. He also pointed out that in the past Linus has berated maintainers for making similar careless mistakes.

This incident mirrors previous clashes between Torvalds and other developers, which led to him taking some time off in 2018 due to emails that he himself referred to as “unprofessional and uncalled for”.

After his apology and self-imposed time off, Torvalds returned to Linux development under a revised code of conduct, implemented by the Linux Foundation. This requires all contributors to deliver criticism constructively and accept criticism mindfully. It’s unclear if Torvalds did so in response to Cook’s admonition over GCC 15, as he fired back: “I did not *CARE* about coordinating… If you had fixes for it, and they hadn’t made it to me, that is 100% on *you*.”