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I don't think it's hypocritical to prefer the GPLv3. That's a fine choice, it's just not *mine*.

. What I called hypocritical was to do so in the name of "freedom", while you're at the same time trying to argue that I don't have the "freedom" to make my own choice.

See? THAT is hypocritical.

In a very real sense, the GPLv3 asks people to do things that I personally would refuse to do. I put Linux on my kids computers, and I limit their ability to upgrade it. Do I have that legal right (I sure do, I'm their legal guardian), but the point is that this is not about "legality", this is about "morality". The GPLv3 doesn't match what I think is morally where I want to be. I think it *is* ok to control peoples hardware. I do it myself.

See for yourself.

Nothing more to see here than a ripe example of journalistic firestarting. It worked on me - here I am writing this..

...and also the comments on it. In particular the one that points to http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/20/223 , which shows that the article uses selective quotations to make it overly inflammatory.

Article needs to be modded "troll"...

http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/20/223

Go the rant Linus.

iabervon (1971) said:
They took too long to publish this. Linux 2.6.21 (released in April) added support for using one-shot timers instead of a periodic tick, so it avoids the problem like OS X does ... The CFS additionally removes the interactivity boost in favor of giving interactive tasks no extra time but rather just quick access to their available time, which is what they really benefit from.

Anonymous Cowered said:
from reading the CFS documentation, I suspect Ingo read (or at least heard) of this paper, which is available on-line for more than a year according to one of the comments above. this is probably what Ingo means by saying "the CFS scheduler is not prone to any of the 'attacks' that exist today" see http://kerneltrap.org/node/8059

iabervon (1971) said:
On the linux-kernel mailing list, there was a lot of discussion of patterns that cause bad scheduling decisions with various schedulers, generally focused on making test cases for interactivity problems for workloads people had seen. Since the authors of the paper got their initial hint from having problems with a particular real load, this and the work that Ingo is referring to independantly encountered the same issues.

Anonymous Cowered said:
Perhaps you are right, but AFAIK, the LKML doesn't contain any mention of a systematic "attack": Much like the initial hint upon which the paper is apparently based, the workloads that are described in the LKML discussions are "legitimate", in that no application is doing anything malicious. (Also note that process hiding is never discussed.) So the fact Ingo chooses to use the term "attack" in this context suggests he knows something that was not mentioned in the LKML.

Bzzt. Wrong. Linus Torvaldis explains this pretty often The "or later" clause is optional, and was never in the License that the linux kernel was released under.

http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/3/2/247 - 2.6.: still a stable kernel, but accept bigger changes leading up to it (timeframe: a month or two). - 2..x: aim for big changes that may destabilize the kernel for several releases (timeframe: a year or two) - .x.x: Linus went crazy, broke absolutely _everything_, and rewrote the kernel to be a microkernel using a special message-passing version of Visual Basic. (timeframe: "we expect that he will be released from the mental institution in a decade or two"). Linux 3.0.0 is going to be a micro-kernel or hybrid probably

Here you go.

It's going to be a microkernel using a special message-passing version of Visual Basic.

Hmmm, let me guess... it wasn't Linus.Torvalds@gmail.com or any other super geek Linux kernel hacker. It wasn't a slashdot reader either.

So I guess it is a politician... who doesn't know anything about the Internets Tubes... I guess Ted.Stevens@gmail.com?

One view on Tivoization can be found here:

http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/17/303

(Yes, it's Linus Torvalds saying that he thinks Tivoization is *good*.)

Interestingly, it could be argued that "Tivoization" would provide a solution to issues of controversy around "Diebold" voting mahines. I'm not in the US, but I get the impression (from posts here and elsewhere) that these machines aren't particularly trusted! One solution to "trust" would be to make the underlying code viewable, but not changeable (presumably by some form of TiVo-like "locking"). It could then be audited, but not "hacked".

But not with GPLv3 code! Oh well, I suppose there is always BSD!

Sesostris III

This is an interesting development in light of recent comments made by Linus about Sun and ZFS in particular, to which Jonathan Schwartz wrote a personal response.

Nobody can say for certain if ZFS will see a legal implementation directly in the Linux kernel, but I think it's fairly obvious that the largest barrier to doing so is a legal one. The summary is worded such that it does not exclude the possibility of the licensing barrier being overcome, which I personally believe will happen. You mentioned at the end of your comment what is in my mind the most likely scenario that would yield full inclusion of ZFS in the Linux kernel: both projects being relicensed (dual-licensed?) under the GPLv3.

I for one didn't quite believe Sun when they made their initial casual talks about deciding to license Java under the GPLv2, but look what happened with that: they followed through, with the primary intention to see Java be as widespread as possible and attract more users and developers. In Sun's perspective, and as they've publicly stated, the fact that their Java technology can now (well, almost) be included by default in any GNU/Linux distribution which chooses to do so was a huge selling point for choosing the GPLv2.

Now Sun has been talking about dual-licensing Solaris under the GPLv3 in addition to the CDDL. Sun sees the GNU/Linux train taking off from the station and doesn't want to miss it: that's why they GPLed Java and that's why they'll probably do the same for Solaris. In addition to this, Linus Torvalds has already stated that ZFS under the GPLv3 is perhaps a good enough reason to relicense the kernel: "maybe ZFS is worthwhile enough that I'm willing to go to the effort of trying to relicense the kernel."


So in summary, we have Sun seriously considering GPLv3 for Solaris, and if they follow through in totality, we have Linus seriously considering starting the move to GPLv3 license Linux, and we also have all of the GNU projects moving to GPLv3 at the hand of the FSF. And the patents Sun has on ZFS? Already taken care of in the GPLv3! Now we just need the licensed to be released....

Thought even after GPL 3 comes out authors had the right to choose which license they could use.

No, the users may have a right to choose GPL3 over GPL2. Most software comes with a GPL license 2 that allows the users to choose "version 2 or later".

Linus took out this clause. Which was lucky for him, since he doesn't agree with giving away signing keys for example -

http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/25/273

But if you just copy pasted the default GNU supplied files into your code, then the users can choose a later version.

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/wlg/9044

Patents

These are mentioned four places in the draft. The goals here are modest: essentially, to force programmers to relinquish patent-related controls if they use free software. If they have patents on free software, they must give a patent license to anyone using it. If they have cross-licensed patents or otherwise gained rights to use patents, they must help spread this protection to the users of their software.

Now if you're a big company, and have been involved in patent litigation, you probably ended up settling it by signing an exclusive cross license agreement with the company which you fought. It looks to me as if GPL3 would force you to extend that agreement to users of your software. But the company which signed the exclusive agreement licensing patents to your company will probably not want you to do this if your users include their competitors.

E.g. consider

Company A sues company B for infringing A's patents.
Company B countersues B for infringing B's patents.
After a complicated legal battle, A and B settle. A has more patents, so B pays A a license fee each year and both of them grant each other exclusive rights to each others patents.

Now if company B is releasing GPL software with the "this version or later" clause, company C can buy a copy, opt to license it under GPL3 and ask for a license to all company B's patents. But A has to pay B to do this.

Well looking here it seems like he's still able to carry on with his FOSS work. False alarm people.

I was just about to point out that the GPL is not isomorphic to open source software but I decided to check first.

It seems that OpenAFS support might have to be pulled from Linux because of a change to a header.

The GPL keeps people from using FOSS.

See, the big problem is that the GPL is an attempt to use copyright law against itself, in a kind of legal ju-jitsu. That's its primary goal, and supporting the spread of liberally copyrighted software (to avoid the free/open debate) is secondary. So you can support copyright and oppose open source, support copyright and support open source, oppose copyright and support open source, and even oppose copyright and oppose open source.

Say what? You can oppose copyright and oppose open source?

Sure. Microsoft's done that for years, and their open source efforts have been kind of passive-aggressive...

Microsoft and many other people who are yelling the strongest about copyright violations are the folks who want to replace copyright law with contract law. They only use copyright to force people into operating on a contract basis, and pushed through the DMCA with its explicit clauses to make copyrights subservient to contracts. Copyright law grants rights to the user as well as the creator, and so anyone who licenses software under an "end user license agreement" that restricts those rights is just as opposed to copyrights as the most rabid GPL worshipper.

"I mean, although ZFS is a rampant layering violation and we can do a lot of
  the things in there (without doing it all in the fs!) I don't think we can
  do all of it." http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/6/9/409

It sounds like his main point was pointing out problems with the current file system, rather than saying ZFS is bad. I bet he simply thinks they should try to implement a much better file system than ext3 without breaking the current layering scheme. I don't see why this is so bad. Why not try it, and if it fails miserably, ZFS is already here.

I think the author of the article took everything out of context and was just looking for some ammo against Linux. His blog post sucked. He just says the same crap that everyone always says. I'm not saying there are no problems, but I don't see how any of the problems relate to Andrew Morton saying the Linux file systems need to be upgraded/replaced.

you can't even run FC3 binaries on FC4

You can run RHEL3 binaries in RHEL4 however. And you can happily run Linux 1.0 binaries on the latest linux development snapshot. Thats because Linux DOES have a stable ABI: The syscall interface. That's the REAL ABI the Linux kernel has to support, and it's the one that it's really guaranteed to be stable. What you think as an abi it's not an "abi", it's an INTERNAL ABI. Drivers are not "software built in top of the kernel", they're plugins. And Linux developers do not care about it because linux is open source, in the open source world you can change source easily and it gets usually merged into the kernel. Basically, the Linux kernel gets more benefit from a internal unstable ABI that gets changed when it's needed and that improves all the linux drivers, than getting a stable internal ABI that only benefits a couple of external OSS drivers and another couple of propietary, illegal drivers.

Linux has no direction, no goals

That's what happens when you give everybody freedom to modify your code; everybody extends Linux in unexpected directions, that happen to be the directions the people (profesional world) desires because it's the people (profesional world) who actually develops the features. For example, some people have made Linux scale in machines with way more CPUS of what your beloved Solaris has ever run, and now other people are adding hard realtime support to the core Linux kernel, which happens to make Linux beat latency records on Wall Street servers. It all was unexpected; IT however seems to like it.

Montavista hired spammers to send their ad. Not nice. They didn't even reply to the developer who complained in LKML.

How come there is still no support for the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, as they call it? It's the best "broken" keyboard out there and one of the most comfortable ones I've ever used. Patches have been submitted multiple times, and seem to be maintained... No love for this hardware.

First couple of Google hits:

http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/3/80
and
http://lwn.net/Articles/194015/
or
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Microsoft_Natural_Erg onomic_Keyboard_4000
or
http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Microsoft_Natural_Er gonomic_Keyboard_4000

And no, I don't want to recompile my kernel.

| FILESYSTEM | TIME |DISK |
| TYPE |(secs)|USAGE|
 
|REISER4 lzo | 1938 | 278 |
|REISER4 gzip| 2295 | 213 |
 
|REISER4 | 3462 | 692 |
|EXT2 | 4092 | 816 |
|JFS | 4225 | 806 |
|EXT4 | 4408 | 816 |
|EXT3 | 4421 | 816 |
|XFS | 4625 | 779 |
|REISER3 | 6178 | 793 |
|FAT32 |12342 | 988 |
|NTFS-3g |10414 | 772 |

|File |Disk |Copy |Copy |Tar |Unzip| Del |
|System |Usage|655MB|655MB|Gzip |UnTar| 2.5 |
|Type | (MB)| (1) | (2) |655MB|655MB| Gig |
 
|REISER4 gzip | 213 | 148 | 68 | 83 | 48 | 70 |
|REISER4 lzo | 278 | 138 | 56 | 80 | 34 | 84 |
|REISER4 tails| 673 | 148 | 63 | 78 | 33 | 65 |
|REISER4 | 692 | 148 | 55 | 67 | 25 | 56 |
|NTFS3g | 772 |1333 |1426 | 585 | 767 | 194 |
|NTFS | 779 | 781 | 173 | X | X | X |
|REISER3 | 793 | 184 | 98 | 85 | 63 | 22 |
|XFS | 799 | 220 | 173 | 119 | 90 | 106 |
|JFS | 806 | 228 | 202 | 95 | 97 | 127 |
|EXT4 extents | 806 | 162 | 55 | 69 | 36 | 32 |
|EXT4 default | 816 | 174 | 70 | 74 | 42 | 50 |
|EXT3 | 816 | 182 | 74 | 73 | 43 | 51 |
|EXT2 | 816 | 201 | 82 | 73 | 39 | 67 |
|FAT32 | 988 | 253 | 158 | 118 | 81 | 95 |

Current versions of the Linux kernel have a key retention feature. For PKCS#11, there is openCryptoki.

At this point, Linus is the head maintainer of Linux 2.6, so the majority of the work he does is accepting patches, arguing in the mailing lists, and talking with the other main programmers and "sub-maintainers" (I don't know if they get a special name or anything).

He doesn't need to write code for the kernel to be important at this point. Besides, he contributes code to other things like git (an SCM) and GNOME.

I'm not worried about Windows crashing. They'll design the system to deal with that. What I'm worried about is that there are way too many people with write access to the Windows internals. Remember the BK2CVS problem?

Critical systems should do exactly what they need to do and nothing more. Using a COTS general-purpose OS almost certainly violates this principle.

As much as I'm a proponent of free software and use it whenever possible, I think that it's this zealotry pushed down the throats of others which turns some off from the Linux movement. I'm reminded of this article a few months ago, and what Linus said.

ATI and nvidia and whatever other hardware companies, as companies, are also free to release their drivers however they choose to. They are under no obligation to make it easier for you. And you, as a consumer, are free to not buy their hardware.

2.6.21 will have some nice speed improvements for KVM

That is not true for a simple reason: a contributor doesn't have to agree with anything besides the compatibility of their code with the GPLv2 in order to submit code. Therefore, without an agreenment, there's no reassignment of rights, and the effective license at the end of the day is the kernel's (since that's the licence with which the mainstream-blessed code is distributed): GPLv2.

Don't take my word for it, let me dispell your beliefs with this thread on the LKML, or if you're not feeling like reading a flame, a clarification message from Patrick McLean, or if that's not enough, another clarification message from Linus himself.

That is not true for a simple reason: a contributor doesn't have to agree with anything besides the compatibility of their code with the GPLv2 in order to submit code. Therefore, without an agreenment, there's no reassignment of rights, and the effective license at the end of the day is the kernel's (since that's the licence with which the mainstream-blessed code is distributed): GPLv2.

Don't take my word for it, let me dispell your beliefs with this thread on the LKML, or if you're not feeling like reading a flame, a clarification message from Patrick McLean, or if that's not enough, another clarification message from Linus himself.

That is not true for a simple reason: a contributor doesn't have to agree with anything besides the compatibility of their code with the GPLv2 in order to submit code. Therefore, without an agreenment, there's no reassignment of rights, and the effective license at the end of the day is the kernel's (since that's the licence with which the mainstream-blessed code is distributed): GPLv2.

Don't take my word for it, let me dispell your beliefs with this thread on the LKML, or if you're not feeling like reading a flame, a clarification message from Patrick McLean, or if that's not enough, another clarification message from Linus himself.

All the copyright to the kernel is assigned.

This is incorrect. Copyright to the code in the kernel rests with many authors, some is licensed under GPL V2, some under GPL V2 or later.

If the kernel goes GPLv3 then this applies.

Linus Torvald's current position is that it will not, as he is unwilling to license his code under GPL V3.

See http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/25/273.

cfq/ionice is for reads only. "Due to the complex path writes take to get to the io scheduler there is no ionice support for writes yes so they are all treated equally." It'll happen...

No, not better because it's untrue.

Allowing people to distribute Torvalds' version of the Linux kernel with non-free software firmware, and allowing TiVoization, these are political choices. The reasons these choices are made is more important than the label some /. posters ("political") place on them. But since they use the label, it's important that we understand what Torvalds really says and stands for.

When Torvalds takes credit for an entire operating system he didn't write by allowing people to call the GNU/Linux OS "Linux" (giving no credit to anyone but his project, named after him), that's a political choice. When he tries to insist that the name "GNU/Linux" "paint[s] Linux as a GNU project" despite that for years the FSF has been clear the Linux kernel is not a GNU package, that is a political choice. These choices are made to placate businesses (possibly also Torvalds' ego).

I'm not redefining the word political at all. It's important to see these choices for what they are: differing agendas, but still agendas. For people who share Torvalds' agenda, popularity is more important than ethics. And popularity often means going along to get along. Ironically, Torvalds' lack of advocacy for the freedom to cooperate as a general ethical principle is something people connect with him (ironic because the Linux kernel wouldn't be what it is without the cooperation of many other people and organizations). The irony continues because of the conflict between his claim that the kernel was "always about giving source code back and keeping it open, not about anything else" and proprietors efforts to make the kernel a vehicle for their proprietary code.

If that's the case then you are erecting a straw man. The license says GPLV2 OR (again OR, OR, OR, OR) later. If you wrote or used code under V2 then you can continue to do so.

Bullshit. How many times has the license for MS media player has been updated in the last five years? I'll give you a clue every update and some service packs.

What if you decided to rape nine year girls in the ass while force feeing them your shit?

If you wrote or used code under V2 then you can continue to do so.

I thought Linus did a pretty good job describing slashdot.

The withdrawal is very well thought out and no summary will do it justice. Please read it if you are at all interested in licensing and Linux

This is the same link from the summary.

You're wrong on somethings..

1) bunch of blah and stuff about memory. Since your explanation is memory->application->CPU->kernel memory->protocol stack->CPU memory->NIC driver->bus (basically, it was hard to follow with all the fud), you obviously have no idea how an OS works (I can't think of any modern, common OS's that have such a path). None of this happens as you describe, they are all parts, but the flow is nothing like you describe. See LKML for 2.6 on network programming if you want to see how this works on Linux, which is relatively transparent http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/5/17/78 also you can look at BSD.

2) The PCI Bus is irrelevant for gigabit ethernet (which is about the only network controller commonly in production, legacy stuff like 10/100 is more common- but is almost out of production) and for faster types (10GE or myrinet or infiniband), totally irrelevant. The 32bit PCI bus limit is about at gigabit speeds, and it is shared with everything else on the PCI bus- therefore suboptimal:

http://www.codepedia.com/1/PCI+BUS

PCI-X and gigabit controllers directly off the Controller chipsets is how networking is mostly done now.

3) blah blah, network slower than computers (ridiculous depends on the network and computer exclusively- in consumer computers it swings in a pendulum, when 100Mb came out most of the stuff in the PC couldn't keep up- it was faster to install over the network than from CD ROM because the CD drive was slower, it is going through that again with gigabit- most consumer PCs disk systems can't even approach filling gigabit). Then some conflation about what QoS, and policing can do... QoS only helps if the pipe is full:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service

or

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/i to_doc/qos.htm

4) ISP and stupidity. ISP's may or may not be stupid. They are driven by market forces and the market force is people don't currently want to pay for a tiered service class internet. When they do, they will offer it. Technically it has been feasible for years. Read NANOG mailing list, you will see they are not stupid, but instead are in a low margin business.

5) blah blah blah, microsecond delay, destinguishable from millisecond via a consumer computer with a common OS by a person?? hahahahah. not without a measuring device. It is possible with enough training (I suppose musicians can). Since you can buy commodity off the shelf lan gear that will turn in sub millisecond delay, I don't think spending the extra-money on low microsecond delay will help

Bunch of pseudo-science modded up on Slash again...

Oh and Jumbo FRAMES are commonly 9000B in size (although the term can refer to anything bigger than 1500B:

http://sd.wareonearth.com/~phil/net/jumbo/

or 9K on cisco:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/148.html

That's a great idea, until it becomes obvious that viewing so many patents makes you an ineffective contributor to open source projects.

Not knowing the existance of a patent and inventing the same idea on your own is one thing. Knowing a patent exists and writing code that violates it is another.

The other side of that coin: actually trying to avoid patents would make you code one line of code a year. Your productivity would drop to something pointless.

Here's one (of many) example of Linus' views on patents on LKML: http://lkml.org/lkml/2002/8/11/155

Just out of interest, why do none of the major kernel contributors (and in particular Linus) not seem to agree with this?

There also appears to be a summary at newsforge. A discussion on someone's mailing list. Mentioned in the LKML.

The article says "On the downside, the new ext4 filesystem will offer only limited backward compatibility with ext3-aware Linux kernels."

Ext4 is going to be the MOST compatible with Ext3, relative to ANY other option out there.

Upgrading to Ext4 is NOT going to involve a dump and restore from Ext3, likely a tunefs -j or similar command, just as the ext2 -> ext3 migration worked. Ext4 will be able to mount ext3.

If older versions of software could use the new format, you wouldn't need the new format. Yes, upgrading to Ext4 means your 120 petabyte raid array will not be compatible with your old "ext3 aware kernel". But it is PRECISELY because such an array is not possible under ext3 that ext4 is going to be introduced.

And does this submitter think other fancy new filesystems magically work on old kernels? Of course not. Does the submitter know if ext4 will be backported and made available to older releases? It doesn't look like they gave that much thought either.

Please read this for a more detailed description of what is happening.

Slashdot's always good for a smile.

What has happened to the concept of -stable (2.6) and -experimental (2.7) trees?

http://www.lkml.org/

You can use the archive function to go back to about two thousand and fucking four. That way you can answer the question yourself instead of everyone else having to go through this tired old shit yet again.

I find this more interesting: http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/10/12/16

For those that didn't see it (because my submission to slashdot was rejected, between other reasons), An Ode to GPLv2:

"One of the reasons I didn't end up signing the GPLv3 position statement that James posted (and others had signed up for), was that a few weeks ago I had signed up for writing another kind of statement entirely: not so much about why I dislike the GPLv3, but why I think the GPLv2 is so great.

Rest of the post

For those that didn't see it (because my submission to slashdot was rejected, between other reasons), An Ode to GPLv2:

"One of the reasons I didn't end up signing the GPLv3 position statement that James posted (and others had signed up for), was that a few weeks ago I had signed up for writing another kind of statement entirely: not so much about why I dislike the GPLv3, but why I think the GPLv2 is so great.

Rest of the post

It's unfair for the Debian maintainers to criticise Schilling

The Linux kernel is GPL. Anything linking to it must, as per the 'strict' interpretation that you mention (and that makes the most sense to me) therefore be GPL as well. Yet e.g. GNOME (which I can only assume does lots of calling to kernel functions) is LGPL and not GPL.

(I assume you meant to have the above "not" that I inserted for you.)

Good question, and I had to research this. Fortunately, in the case of the Linux kernel, the copyright holders (at least Linus) have clearly stated that they do not consider user space programs calling the kernel through clearly defined interfaces to be subject to a strict interpretation of the GPL with respect to dynamic linkage. Otherwise I agree that it would be a potential problem.

(This is basically a mirror image of the reverse case in which the GPL specifically permits shipment of GPL'ed applications linked against proprietary libraries that make up part of the OS, e.g. on Windows - but in this case the extra permission is provided by the Linux copyright holders' interpretation rather than the license text itself. The copyright holders' interpretation is always as important as the license, see for instance the case of PINE and U. Washington.)

Its almost like steve jobs pays him by the word.

Hi,

I have a gigabyte ds3 mobo with core 2 duo 6600, using kernel 2.6.17-gentoo-r4 and patch from http://lkml.org/lkml/diff/2006/7/11/493/1 both the 4 x sata piix 2 x sata jmicron work fine, pata does not work at all, it is a known issue and should be fixed in 2.6.18, see lkml and mm trees for more info.

And a damn fine machine it is too.

AC

Make a stable API that the binary only drivers can link to and remove any excuse these companies have for their poor support of Linux. This way we can have a better user experience in Linux.

Looks like you don't have to worry that much anymore.