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.