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Obvious does not always equal right.

"PS. Don't bother telling me about subversion. If you must, start reading up on "monotone". That seems to be the most viable alternative, but don't pester the developers so much that they don't get any work done. They are already aware of my problems ;)"

Read here
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/6/121

on the linux kernel mailing list

A copy of NWL can be found at http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/14/47/:

/*
* tarball.c copyright (c) 2003 BitMover, Inc.
*
* Licensed under the NWL - No Whining License.
*
* You may use this, modify this, redistribute this provided you agree:
* - not to whine about this product or any other products from BitMover, Inc.
* - that there is no warranty of any kind.
* - retain this copyright in full.
*/

I found a mention from 2003 about this. Albeit only a extension, it seems like this have long roots.

There are bug-fixes-only patches available since 2.6.10 thanks to Andres Salomon. So if you are afraid of a 2.6.x kernel you can wait for 2.6.x.n which won't contain the most cruel bugs.

Now, assuming that they are in fact violating the GPL, anyone who has copyrighted material in the work can in fact force their hand. So any kernel developer can deal with this.

Looking on their site, they have in fact given lipservice to sending you a CD (they claim it won't contain their propriatary software, but if they are following the letter of the law, they should have to give you the kernel source w/ any modifications they made). The offer is down near the bottom of this page:

http://demo.mt.lv/help/license.html

This appears to be in compliance with 3b of the GPL.

If you report this on the LKML list I'm fairly sure several people would help you pursue it if you can show they are in fact violating the GPL (if they didn't modify the kernel, they aren't). If they are violating the GPL, they sure are being quiet about it. Google turns up very little about it. I've seen several threads on the LKML where people outside of Linus Torvalds pursue GPL violations. Alan Cox being on of them. Any number of people pursued Linksys.

http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/6/7/164

and

http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Kernel/20 03-09/7435.html

are examples

Kirby

I think he has earned the right be hostile if he wants to- it works.

From the Age article :

He said he found it sad that the Linux crowd did not help in the activism at all. "(They) always seem to talk about freedom but are not helping in this activism. It's basically BSD people doing it. That is curious. For instance, do you think Linus (Torvalds) would send a mail to TI? No, I would bet money that he did not. Yet he is aware of what is going on. That's very odd to me."

Do you think this will go across well with the "Linux crowd". "Betting money" that Linus wouldn't help ? Questioning Linus's commitment to freedom drivers? Do you think Theo has made more or less friends with this statement ?

Where was his announcement to the LKML (which is probably the most central contact point for the "Linux crowd") that he was going to pursue the vendors, and an invitation for the Linux community to help with that effort ? Did he email Linus directly ?

Looking at LKML briefly, the only post I can find specific to this effort is here, dated the 28th of October. It suggests that the effort has already been on going.

In other words, it appears that the "Linux crowd" didn't know this was happening until after it had started.

It seems that Theo has forgotten that he didn't invite the "Linux crowd" to participate in the first place.

I don't want to start a licensing flamewar (it's my opinion, I'm allowed to have one, and you're allowed to have a different one), however, in my opinion Linus is more supportive of openness than Theo is, because the GPL requires continued ancestral openness, where as the BSD license doesn't.

I wonder if Linus could do something similar to get ATI and NVidia to open up...

The day he picked the GPL, and the day he made a conscious decision to enforce it with the arrival of binary modules was the day he did all he could. On many occasions he (and others) have provided good technical justification for their decision to only support open drivers. If the vendors such as ATI and NVidia don't agree with or see the benefits of this approach, there isn't much Linus can do.

I have been beating the bushes hard looking for the best Athlon 64/socket 939 MB combo for Linux.

The nforce3 apparently suffers from some IDE problems and a bug report has been filed.

I am currently leaning towards the MSI K8T Neo2 FIR.

I would like to hear about Linux on nforce4...

Also, this site seems to be giving hardware reviews under Linux a go. Any other good Linux-centric hardare sites?

Please read *all* of this post:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/8/24/278

He says there may still be legal issues, but is not sure. He's trying to maintain some trust between himself and the 'evil company'. It would be nice if they would formally allow him to open source though.

I kinda think this is just a useless move to annoy him

As stated above, his driver can live in user-space, which seems more natural, and enables to make a fully free kernel.

he makes the effort to make opensource what he can (NDA) but provides a binary only module (on his own website) to add some more functionality (larger image/higher fps).

Please read his post
http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/8/24/278, he says that the NDA has expired one year ago. Everything could have been released under the GPL.

I have used Linux for 6 years, now 100% so... base Mandrake/Redhat originally, but tried gentoo too! (all still on their own boxes, I might add and still use -> 1000 days (more now)). But never having looked or used SuSe or Debian (and others)...

But Slackware 10 is truly excellent, and my cup of Linux :)

So much for the "many eyes" approach to security, eh? Don't get me wrong, I'm installing Gentoo on my laptop as I type this, but every OS has it's problems. Even Linux.

This is because, as I have always said - OSS software is open to the world and gets more scrutiny. Major problems are found earlier.

I'm a GNU/Linux user, and I really want to believe that open source software is under more scrutiny, but how can we know for sure? Even RMS and ESR say that open source only works because programmers need to "scratch an itch" - I'm not sure auditing the security of gigantic projects like mozilla and the linux kernel is an itch that anybody would want to scratch.

Not if they're using a stock kernel. According to Linus, user-space programs aren't ever derivative works of the kernel, so its license "just doesn't matter."

IANAL, but it seems that the question is whether or not Google has made any changes to the kernel - to speed up searches, improve reliability, etc. I could be convinced either way.

OK, replying to myself, did some digging on LKML and found this.

Disclaimer: I have not personally tried either fix, but the second one (which modifies the "clear fpu" macro in the i387 header file) looks like a more appropriate fix to me.

The provided patch is for the 2.4.27-pre5 kernel, but my 2.4.26 "i387.h" file was the same, the patch can be applied. (Again, haven't tested it yet, don't know if it works.)

linux e-penis uptime

I don't believe that the instability of this unit is because of the Linux-based software it runs. There's many other stable Linux-based media devices out there, such as Sigma Designs EM8500 DVD players, the Dreambox DM7000S DVB Satellite Receiver, Hauppauge Media MVP, and more. Bravo manufactures Linux-based standalone DVD players using the Sigma Designs chipset, as one LKML message points out, for example. I myself put the instability onus squarely on the shoulders of Roku's product engineering, having seen myself some very successful applications of embedded uClinux technologies.

Um, no, as his message with the original date-header shows, it was written saturday linustime.

Hello, my name is Justin and I'm doing some research into the specifics of Linux. Out of curiosity, who owns the Linux kernel?

Is it owned by Linus Torvalds, its contributors or the public?

Thanks for your time. Best, Justin Orndorff

• alt.os.development
• devhardware.com
• Linux Kernel Mailing List (asking who owns Linux)
• WebMaster World

Interesting...! I think I'll email PJ with this little lot!

J.

This is the notorious force2 bug that will lock the computer completely unless apic and lapic are disabled. NVidia sure was slow to release information about this but they finally did a week ago. Read all about it on lkml

Also note that this patch might lower the temperature of your cpu as experienced by many (really kewl).

Now NVidia should just step up and release the information needed to use the soundstorm apu so we can get real hardware mixing.

apparently not all good stuff

There is a known fix!

Thanks t onvidia's developer Allen Martin who (finally) stepped up an released some hard facts about what is causing the problem and how to fix it, there is a patch that will cleanly apply to the 2.6.5 kernel.

You can read Allen Martins comment on the subject here and the patch is here.

Note that though the patch was untested at that point there were several posts to confirm that it worked.

Thanks nvidia

Now: Release the necessary information so we can get a driver for the soundstorm apu and finally have real hardware mixing!

There is a known fix!

Thanks t onvidia's developer Allen Martin who (finally) stepped up an released some hard facts about what is causing the problem and how to fix it, there is a patch that will cleanly apply to the 2.6.5 kernel.

You can read Allen Martins comment on the subject here and the patch is here.

Note that though the patch was untested at that point there were several posts to confirm that it worked.

Thanks nvidia

Now: Release the necessary information so we can get a driver for the soundstorm apu and finally have real hardware mixing!

" How about some evidence of that? Where is this 512 way smp machine running linux?"

Thought I was bluffing, did you? :-)

It's the SGI Altix. In a linux-kernel post just today, an Altix user says that "Overall, linux scales to 512p much better than I would have predicted." This system runs with Itanium-II processors BTW.

So there you go, Linux handling a 512-way box tolerably well. Linux screams on an IBM 64-way box, with Xeon or Power 4 processors.

It's amazing how inconvenient it can be to stick to one's principles. In this case, we have binary globs being shipped in the kernel. The question isn't about whether you're allowed to use them as the end user. You are. The question isn't whether this is a GPL violation. It's not.

Normally we think of the kernel as being one package licensed under the GPL. Instead, if we take Torvalds' claim as gospel (and we can since it's estoppel), the kernel is GPL'd but ships with non-GPL'd parts. This is no conflict; the firmware is not a derived work and need not be covered under the GPL. As long as Torvalds has the right to redistribute those binary blobs, under any license, then he can distribute them with his kernel.

Debian, however, has a more difficult decision. The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) dictates that "The program must include source code..." and this clause applies as much to firmware as it does to the kernel core.

It's easy to criticize Debian as being overly pedantic without due concern for their users, or to say that they aren't being pragmatic. Instead Debian alongside hardline Free software advocates such as Stallman himself are being very pragmatic; their efforts of refusing non-Free software promotes the continuing development of Free software. They are consistently working towards a world of Free software, and pragmatically, compromise is a step in the wrong directory.

Maybe the code isn't shipped because we don't have compilers that will compile it. Obviously, the solution isn't to ship binary firmware with the kernel, the solution is to author a Free software compiler for this architecture! Or at least a GCC backend.

The other reason for Debian to be extremely pedantic about legal issues which is commonly overlooked is their dependence on the goodwill of their ftpmasters. The ftpmasters are the group of ISPs donating storage and bandwidth to Debian. Debian offers these people a guarantee: debian-legal (and lawyers with parent company Software in the Public Interest (SPI) are prepared to prove that the ftpmasters do indeed have the rights to redistribute all Debian software. Now, can you prove that with the kernel firmware? What license does it fall under, since it can't possibly be the GPL without source?

Having done a quick google, it appears the suse 9.0 cd has the support for sata controllers if you type 'apic' at the boot screen. (presumably that's the kernel with the drivers compiled in)

So the one remaining question is if the 7210 chipset is one of the supported ones.

This thread is a patch for the 2.4.26-rc1 kernel piix driver (the one which treats the drive like hda, rather the scsi emulation libata lib_piix which treats it as sda, and is what the 2.6 kernel uses)

Basically, it looks like it's a minor varient of the ICH5 chipset (which is well supported), so if the 7210 isn't supported yet by Jeff Garziks' libata, it soon will be.

At worst, you'll have to install with the sata controller in legacy mode (pretending to be a normal ide master/slave controller), setup a new or patched kernel, and change the bios back to enhanced mode afterwards.

Don't forget, Dell sell their poweredge servers with redhat enterprise - and if redhat supports that chipset, suse likely will too. The simplest route is probably just to email Dell's corporate tech support, and ask if the sata on that model is supported in linux yet. (jeff garzik may work for redhat, he's certainly got a redhat email address, though I hesitate to recommend emailing him directly)

You could also email SuSE, either tech support or one of the mailing lists (suse-linux-e@suse.com iirc, the full list is at lists.suse.com, it's been a while since I used SuSE)

As a quick addendum, avoid the nasty onboard RAID 0/1 on these mainboards. It's like a winmodem, most of the work is done in the closed driver, and the linux support is pretty weak at best.

You're by far and away better off using the sata drives 'standalone' then using the linux native md RAID support to RAID individual partitions. The only time you'd need the closed drivers would be if you were dual booting with windows using the onboard RAID.

Here you go

I can't find any mention of this on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. What's your source for this? Heathen Chemistry is the title of an Oasis album which, to the best of my knowledge, is not Alan's taste in music. I'm into similar music to Alan and we sometimes meet up at outdoor summer festivals.

See here http://lkml.org/lkml/1998/7/28/161
There was a long discussion on LKML if beer-drinking Tux on boot-up screen is 'politically correct' ;-) Paul B.

Who have a history of GPL ignoring: busybox gpl hall of shame

Also of intrest: this lkml thread

When I switched from 2.4 to 2.6.0-test11, I ran into a bug in ide-scsi that caused "scheduling while atomic" errors when an interrupt was lost. To get around this problem, I switched to the new burning method that doesn't use ide-scsi, and it's been completely transparent -- no need to set anything up, it just works. (I use cdrecord 2.01 for burning.)

The ide-scsi bug may or may not have been fixed in the 2.6.0 release. I haven't checked, because I never want to go back to ide-scsi. :)

When I switched from 2.4 to 2.6.0-test11, I ran into a bug in ide-scsi that caused "scheduling while atomic" errors when an interrupt was lost. To get around this problem, I switched to the new burning method that doesn't use ide-scsi, and it's been completely transparent -- no need to set anything up, it just works. (I use cdrecord 2.01 for burning.)

The ide-scsi bug may or may not have been fixed in the 2.6.0 release. I haven't checked, because I never want to go back to ide-scsi. :)

Should we believe your opinion or Linus' opinion?

Mmmm... decisions, decisions...

But the GPL doesn't exclude all dynamically-linked code from the derivative work clause (2b). That's just a convention which I suppose came from the examples in the FSF's FAQ.

However, the example (of mere aggregation) is talking about general-purpose computers. It is not reasonable to assume this example applies to all systems.

Some have the opinion that Broadcom wireless chip drivers included in the WRT54G's firmware must be open source. The reasoning seems to follow mine: the firmware is one lump and therefore a single "work", not multiple (GPL and proprietary) works aggregated.

The WRT54G is tricky because it appears that Linksys statically linked some GPL and closed code together also. However, there are some (Andrew Miklas is one) who think that even if they released all code statically linked to GPL code (which they might have done now- see Seattle Wireless's pages on hacking the WRT), that wouldn't go far enough.

...snip...

And this from one of the more bleeding-edge dists no less.

Indeed. Bleeding edge often means instability; I have heard some of the freakiest XFS problems from Gentoo users. Problems that often go away when they revert to the stock kernel, so I have to wonder what all Gentoo is doing in their kernel.

Considering that so many of the people who clamor for xfs (imx) are kids...

Indeed. Would those be the kids at Fermilab or the kids at NASA? Maybe the newbies at the Salk Institute or at Incyte Genomics. Perhaps you were thinking of the know-nothings at Quantum or the meddlers at Echostar...

I'm sure if SGI actually cleans up the interface it'll go in but who knows if _that_ will ever happen.

Please also offer some pointers on which parts of the "interface" you feel should be cleaned up.

The GPL states that those that distribute GPLed software must provide the source to the recipients of the distributions upon request. That does NOT mean that they have to make the source available on their website. It means that people you receive the ditribution, in the form of the DVD player, must receive the source upon request.

The thread started with a request by an owner of the DVD player, to Liteon, for the source. The request was refused. If that's not a clear violation, I don't know what is.

Also, as Bruce Perens pointed out in another comment, the GPL requires that you offer to provide the source code to anyone, not just people who own the DVD player.

However, I would bet that that's not really the case and they don't make the source code available as easily as that.

Good bet - as the original message stated, they refused to provide source.

is still broken. Please fix it, so i can see the pretty graphical boots that are floating around now a days. [IBM T30 Laptop ATI Mobility M7 with boot options: vga=0x316 video=radeon:0x177:ypan]

Here's the link: http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/10/9/10

-Derek

I would consider myself a kernel developer at this stage, even before my driver is included in the mainstream kernel versions.

It sounds like you are at this stage already, so are you actually asking "How do I get a driver included in the kernel as distributed?". Well I think the answer to that is to keep submitting it to the maintainer of the relevant kernel. Things like revelance, and especially quality are important factors too.

For anyone at an earlier stage, perhaps "normal" programmers who need to learn how it all works in the kernel, I have (reccomend is too strong a word, as I have only read these 2 books on the topic) read 2 OReilly books.

Understanding the Linux Kernel, 2nd Edition and Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition

Of course you should also be on the linux kernel mailing list

And the rest is dependant on exactly you want to add to the kernel.

I'm not trying to start a flamewar, just referring to this:

On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 03:51:36PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> > If you are trying to copy BK, give it up. We'll simply follow in the
> > footsteps of every other company faced with this sort of thing and change
> > the protocol every 6 months. Since you would be chasing us you can never
> > catch up. If you managed to stay close then we'd put digital signatures
> > into the protocol to prevent your clone from interoperating with BK.

http://lkml.org/archive/2003/7/19/175/

Err, sorry :) Replace all "developers.slashdot.org with lkml.org :)

Possible replies by: Rik van Riel "Trever L. Adams" Michael Buesch Shawn Shawn Larry McVoy Shawn Larry McVoy Jrn Engel Alan Cox "Trever L. Adams" Svein Ove Aas "Trever L. Adams" Alan Cox Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... Mike Fedyk Scott Robert Ladd "J.A. Magallon" Alan Cox James Simmons "David S. Miller" (Eric W. Biederman) Jeff Garzik Mark Mielke Loup

Err, sorry :) Replace all "developers.slashdot.org with lkml.org :)

Possible replies by: Rik van Riel "Trever L. Adams" Michael Buesch Shawn Shawn Larry McVoy Shawn Larry McVoy Jrn Engel Alan Cox "Trever L. Adams" Svein Ove Aas "Trever L. Adams" Alan Cox Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... Mike Fedyk Scott Robert Ladd "J.A. Magallon" Alan Cox James Simmons "David S. Miller" (Eric W. Biederman) Jeff Garzik Mark Mielke Loup

Err, sorry :) Replace all "developers.slashdot.org with lkml.org :)

Possible replies by: Rik van Riel "Trever L. Adams" Michael Buesch Shawn Shawn Larry McVoy Shawn Larry McVoy Jrn Engel Alan Cox "Trever L. Adams" Svein Ove Aas "Trever L. Adams" Alan Cox Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... Mike Fedyk Scott Robert Ladd "J.A. Magallon" Alan Cox James Simmons "David S. Miller" (Eric W. Biederman) Jeff Garzik Mark Mielke Loup

Err, sorry :) Replace all "developers.slashdot.org with lkml.org :)

Possible replies by: Rik van Riel "Trever L. Adams" Michael Buesch Shawn Shawn Larry McVoy Shawn Larry McVoy Jrn Engel Alan Cox "Trever L. Adams" Svein Ove Aas "Trever L. Adams" Alan Cox Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... Mike Fedyk Scott Robert Ladd "J.A. Magallon" Alan Cox James Simmons "David S. Miller" (Eric W. Biederman) Jeff Garzik Mark Mielke Loup

Err, sorry :) Replace all "developers.slashdot.org with lkml.org :)

Possible replies by: Rik van Riel "Trever L. Adams" Michael Buesch Shawn Shawn Larry McVoy Shawn Larry McVoy Jrn Engel Alan Cox "Trever L. Adams" Svein Ove Aas "Trever L. Adams" Alan Cox Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... Mike Fedyk Scott Robert Ladd "J.A. Magallon" Alan Cox James Simmons "David S. Miller" (Eric W. Biederman) Jeff Garzik Mark Mielke Loup

Err, sorry :) Replace all "developers.slashdot.org with lkml.org :)

Possible replies by: Rik van Riel "Trever L. Adams" Michael Buesch Shawn Shawn Larry McVoy Shawn Larry McVoy Jrn Engel Alan Cox "Trever L. Adams" Svein Ove Aas "Trever L. Adams" Alan Cox Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... Mike Fedyk Scott Robert Ladd "J.A. Magallon" Alan Cox James Simmons "David S. Miller" (Eric W. Biederman) Jeff Garzik Mark Mielke Loup

Err, sorry :) Replace all "developers.slashdot.org with lkml.org :)

Possible replies by: Rik van Riel "Trever L. Adams" Michael Buesch Shawn Shawn Larry McVoy Shawn Larry McVoy Jrn Engel Alan Cox "Trever L. Adams" Svein Ove Aas "Trever L. Adams" Alan Cox Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... Mike Fedyk Scott Robert Ladd "J.A. Magallon" Alan Cox James Simmons "David S. Miller" (Eric W. Biederman) Jeff Garzik Mark Mielke Loup