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I'm sure they can figure out how to submit the changes from Gmail addresses. After all, that's how they submitted the patches for their much maligned study. What I see are certain Linux kernel maintainers acting in bad faith, spreading misinformation and slandering students.

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I definitely don't think it's a good idea for students to be contributing to a project where they get slandered and have collective punishments imposed upon them for something they didn't do. Another reason to recommend that people do not contribute to the Linux kernel project.

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Dealing with "I tricked you into taking a bad patch" is not a tolerable patch review environment. And when such contributions use an entire CS department for cover, then maintainers are forced to question all such contributions.

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How did they use it for cover? They appear to have submitted them from Gmail addresses. Should contributions from Gmail addresses be banned? Their study wasn't ethical but it did demonstrate something concerning. It wasn't useless.

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Seems like all this fuss is being made because of the embarrassment it caused for the Linux kernel project rather than actual harm. Now that it's so widely publicized that this is so easy to do what happens when malicious people do this instead of tests for a questionable study?

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I don't think there is any embarrassment, I think there is annoyance. Would you agree it's okay to ban time-wasters from contributing to your project?

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hell, most OSS maintainers lack adequate time to respond effectively to good-faith contributors

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The vast majority of the contributions from them don't involve that study. The study was unethical but I think it's clear they thought they were doing something valuable and weren't trying to cause harm.

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sure, but I'm not going to consult an org chart to figure out how closely someone is associated with a bad actor. The Linux maintainers did exactly the right thing IMO - effectively pushing the responsibility for Fixing Their Shit back onto the organisation

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The more recent, somewhat dodgy looking, submissions *were* from somebody associated with the unethical study. So even if checking the org chart were the right thing, it'd have lead to pushing back in this case.