An open letter to the Linux community - April 24, 2021 | Department of Computer Science and Engineering | University of Minnesota

The Computer Science department at the University of Minnesota engaged in a research project to introduce adversarial commits to the Linux kernel. Once discovered, this was understandably not well received.

Our goal was to identify issues with the patching process and ways to address them, and we are very sorry that the method used in the “hypocrite commits” paper was inappropriate.

Linux Kernel committers have talked about banning all contributions from the University of Minnesota. Given the central role of Linux, the core concept of open source, and the reputation of the University's Computer Science department there is some work for the University to do to restore its reputation.