Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

OSDLab Gets New Sponsors, New Projects

Posted by Hemos on from the making-things-better dept.

quakeaddict wrote to us with the news that Open Source Development Lab has gotten two (initial) new projects approved. The first is dedicated to increasing Linux TCP/IP concurrent support from 20,000 to more than 40,000 connections, while the second is focused on scaling Linux to support applications running on 16- and 64-way systems. The wire story is out now with more details.

18 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Link of interest... by pongo000 · · Score: 2

    Here's another open-source community link that might be of interest.

  2. 64 way systems will be ueful for everyone. by Urban+Existentialist · · Score: 3
    16 and 64 way systems may not seem useful to the average user at the moment, but my guess is that they soon will be, even for the average user. We are already seeing the single cpu model hitting design problems - ever larger caches, ever more complicated in an effort to run faster. I would guess that the future lies with many simple cpu's. When we move to this new paradigm, Linux will be prepared thanks to its presence in the high end market. I therefore support this research.

    You know exactly what to do-
    Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-

    --

    You know exactly what to do-
    Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
    I think of little else but you.

  3. Opensource by 11thangel · · Score: 2

    Opensource programmers seem to be getting treated like the athletes of the geek community. They show their talent, get a sponsor, and continue doing even better than ever. This is a prime example. Opensource programmers than can get sponsors will probably not become rich, like our friend Bill, but they're able to become much more motivated now that normal people are really starting to see what opensource is.

    --

    I am !amused.
  4. Huh? by update() · · Score: 2

    I don't get this story or the press release. This is a test lab funded by a group of corporations. Who is going to be writing code for these projects -- someone at the test facility or developers at one of the sponsoring companies?

    1. Re:Huh? by technos · · Score: 2

      Look at the OSDL page. Whaddya see? A bunch of names of companies that sell hardware and write code, all interested in getting Linux on their bigger and badder 'Enterprise systems'.

      What they're doing is giving access to these test systems.. The two 'initial projects' are simply projects someone approached them about doing, th which they said "Cool! Here's a login on a couple sixteen way SMP machines. Go for it!"

      --
      .sig: Now legally binding!
  5. Well, someone had to say it ... by stepson · · Score: 3

    Only 40k connections? Linux only does 20k connections now? C'mon, we all know FreeBSD 1.2 has supported 150 Million concurrent connections using only my grandma's WebTV ... Oh and don't even get me started about what it'll do after it merges with the BSDi code (Grandma can't wait!)

    Seriously though, has anyone ever ran into that limit on linux? I guess on big heavily loaded servers (/. comes to mind, as does any server that has their link on /.'s front page...) that have the CPU and memory to handle that many connections, it is almost mandatory ...

    1. Re:Well, someone had to say it ... by darksmurf · · Score: 2

      I don't believe it's an issue that Linux doesn't handle that many, I believe it's the Jabber project getting their code to do it and needing a testbed. However, it's possible Linux doesn't handle that many across >4 processors and scale as well as we would like. (must...play...)

      If I remember correctly, Jabber had a call for development help out a little bit ago when they were having trouble getting up to 32k open sockets working with buffers...

      Those limits are going to be blown out of the water with the types of systems we can provide now.

      You just don't provide a 16-processor box with 6-gigabit fiber cards and 16gigs of RAM and multiple terrabytes of storage and not expect it to scale beyond 32k sockets.

      -Nathan (will be happy when I can compile a kernel in 1.2 seconds) Dabney
      Open Source Development Lab

    2. Re:Well, someone had to say it ... by psychos · · Score: 2

      Well actually, you're wrong.

      [] global users.. 61438 max.. 80102 (58085 invisible, 67 operators)
      [] local users... 32351 max.. 38435 (52.7%)

      From twisted.ma.us.dal.net. We've been holding > 25k users on a consistent basis the past few weeks since many other servers are missing. Our record is 38435 simultaneous users.

      Also see the article about us on linux.com.

  6. Steps that IBM is taking... by alexhmit01 · · Score: 5

    Corporate Policy. For example, IBM could develop an extended version of Linux and not give it to the community. If they were to extend Linux, and include the source with the software, then there is no need to provide source code to third parties. IBM could include it with their big iron, and someone would have to buy one of the machines to distribute the code under the GPL.

    IBM is making it their corporate policy to be good citizens, those are the steps.

    Also, keep in mind the difference between open source and Free Software. The GPL guarantees Free Software, respecting the rights of the users enumerated in the GPL. Open Source is a different animal. Open Source are collaborative projects that many people can submit patches to, that is a different animal. The GNU project is not an open source project, the FSF owns all the copyrights and only accepts patches that are signed over.

    Remember what people mean when they say open source on Slashdot, it isn't merely enough to sell stuff under the GPL, to /. open source means downloadable from the corporate site (with ISO if a distribution), a web site with development information, CVS, etc., etc., etc.

    1. Re:Steps that IBM is taking... by cyber-vandal · · Score: 3

      But it only takes one rebel to post the source publically, so I doubt IBM would be that dense. The only real threat would be proprietary libraries, well marketed e.g. Win32 on Linux.

    2. Re:Steps that IBM is taking... by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 2
      Yes, corporate policy to be good citizens of the Free Software community. The corporate policy most important for this press release is that OSDL only works on projects that have licensing compliant with the Open Source Definition, and it accepts projects from the community on a first-come first-served basis. There is, of course, some justification that one has to do to get the lab director to accept a project, I don't know if he'd want to test your IRC-bot :-) .

      Thanks

      Bruce

      --
      Bruce Perens.
  7. The Brits by HongPong · · Score: 2
    OSDLab Gets New Sponsers, New Projects

    Is that the British spelling?

    --
    --hongpong.com
  8. Re:fact-bending... by British · · Score: 2

    That is a good question. Are there renegade open source programmers out there working on projects WITHOUT approval?

  9. Re:Not hiring developers yet.... by darksmurf · · Score: 5

    Correct, only sysadmin postitions for the time being.

    We actualy plan to do as much as possible via remote/ssh but there is a definite need to have the people be local because of the amount of hardware adjustments we anticipate.

    For the most part, OS install and refresh will be automated (give us time, we just opened;)

    The build boxes (kernel compile on these boxes is fun) are ready for the developers. So the only thing we are waiting on as of today is for the projects that have been approved to say: "ok, we are ready, can we have our login access now?"

    -Nathan
    Open Source Development Lab

  10. Re:Open Source O'Reilly by AugstWest · · Score: 2

    heheheheh.... maybe if the massive scalability is added through his project, WebBoard will be able to handle more than 255 boards.

  11. Re:fact-bending... by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4
    Well, I was the one answering the reporter in this case, I think. And I said that Sun was much closer to Open Source than Microsoft. They have Linux on SPARC and they actually support it on Cobalt Micro systems, and they have freed OpenOffice, although they still have some big hurdles like Java licensing to jump over.

    Of course, you always lose something in translation.

    Certainly Sun would be welcome to participate in OSDL and Linux and Open Source in general.

    Thanks

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  12. Re:fact-bending... by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3
    Another mis-translation. I said that Sun had provided SPARC documentation to Linux developers.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  13. Invoice by squiggleslash · · Score: 3
    Work completed:

    1. Opened "kernel_tcpip.c" in 'vi'
    2. Cursored down to line #define MAX_CONNECTIONS 20000
    3. Changed 2 to a 4
    4. Saved, quit vi, seemed to work
    Time taken, 1 minute. Please pay at usual hourly rate to usual account. Ta muchly.
    --
    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.