How a university got itself banned from the Linux kernel
The University of Minnesota’s path to banishment was long, turbulent, and full of emotion
On the evening of April 6th, a student emailed a patch to a list of developers. Fifteen days later, the University of Minnesota was banned from contributing to the Linux kernel.
“I suggest you find a different community to do experiments on,” wrote Linux Foundation fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman in a livid email. “You are not welcome here.”
How did one email lead to a university-wide ban? I’ve spent the past week digging into this world the players, the jargon, the university’s turbulent history with open-source software, the devoted and principled Linux kernel community. None of the University of Minnesota researchers would talk to me for this story. But among the other major characters the Linux developers there was no such hesitancy. This was a community eager to speak; it was a community betrayed.