A new way to dive into the kernel! [Eudyptula Challenge]

[Arlie Stephens]

On Mar 12 2014, Aruna Hewapathirane wrote:
> >> I'm glad to hear that this challenge is real, and someone's getting
> something out of it. When the challenge first appeared I >> saw that there
> was very little actual information on its web page, and when I sent an
> email inquiry (somewhat testy, I admit), >> I got snarky humour in
> response, leading me to believe the whole thing was probably some kind of
> antisocial prank. I still >> >> don't like that the organizers are
> anonymous, of unknown competence, but that's between them and those who
> choose to >> take them up on the challenge. -- Arlie (Arlie Stephens
> arlie at worldash.org)
> 
> Hi Arlie,
> 
> Anonymous you say ?
> 
> If you have a look at this : https://www.kernel.org/ then have a another
> careful look at this: http://eudyptula-challenge.org/ do you see a
> resemblance ? kernel.org is not a bunch of jerks neither are they anonymous
> or anti-social exactly the opposite actually.

Aha - I'm not well plugged into the linux kernel community. I don't
have the familiarity with website styles that would lead me to notice
patterns. I've used a bunch of them, but that doesn't mean I've paid
attention to style. 

> Unknown competence huh ? Am guessing here as well but that kind of humour
> can only initiate from gregkh and as you know he is the stable kernel
> maintainer and has given this a whole lot of thought... and you send out
> 'testy' emails what did you expect to get back ? You reap what you sow my
> dear :)

It's all a matter of who has the bigger ego ;-) 

I saw a new site that wasn't even in google yet, and made no attempt
to establish credentials. I also compared it with its supposed model,
the Matasano Crypto Challenge at
http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/ and saw major
differences in things that mattered to me - the crypto site explains
who is behind it, and includes relevant articles. The Eudylypta site
has nothing.  

I know I'm competent and well meaning, and don't know that they are,
and reacted accordingly.  

_If_ the site owners are people known and well regarded in the linux
community, _they_ saw a person who wasn't known there, and therefore was
clueless-by-definition, and should know better than to challenge their
well regarded majesty - even with them unidentified ;-)  

_If_ on the other hand, they were a bunch of college kids being more
clever than usual about getting the intenet to do their homework (my
first thought), or trolls wanting to see how many innocent newbies
they could take in (my second thought) then they saw someone too smart 
to be taken in, who needed to be chased away lest they spoil the
scam. 

Their reaction was consistent with either possibility. 

> Have no illusions about this it is very REAL and am betting my life's
> savings this is gregkh at work so you are being mentored by ze man himself.
> Though I somehow do not think he will acknowledge to this..

Perhaps. I'm not familiar with his sense of humour, though recent postings
(last year) interactions on LKML suggest he's less bitey than Linus,
which is a good sign. 

Truth to tell, I haven't paid much attention to who's who in the linux
community, except Mel Gorman, and I'm a lot more likely to read
linux-mm than the full LKML feed. (Yes, I'm a memory management type,
by inclination at least.)  

> It really does not get any better than this, this is sincere transparency
> and accountability to me but given one has to know where to look but that
> is all the more fun ?
> 
> Aruna ( Unknown competence and anti-social my brown skinny ass - no offence
> meant )

*rofl* I can copy someone else's web page source (MIT licensed or
not) and put up a joke web page using it. If it's appropriately
licensed (as this one is) I wouldn't even be doing anything
illegal. That doesn't mean I'm the author of whatever I copy.

Anyway, I hope it is Greg Kroah-Hartman, or someone equally
competent and overall well regarded. Though the truth is, the second
part doesn't much matter, if people are getting something out of the
course. 

---
Arlie

(Arlie Stephens					arlie at worldash.org)