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Marcelo Tosatti on UnitedLinux (And More)

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

PDAJames writes "There's a new interview with Marcelo Tosatti online. He talks about what it's like to be kernel maintainer after nine months on the job and identifies the biggest problems with the kernel now. He also defends UnitedLinux against Mandrake's criticism. He would, since he works for Conectiva..."

7 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Can't we all just get along by ShwAsasin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Although I am Mandrake/SuSe/RedHat user, I still find each distro great in their own individual way. I think United Linux offers an interesting solution to the bigwigs (Red Hat, and Mandrake on a lessser scale) but it will be tough for them especially when RH/Drake have both the server / desktop markets in their palms.

    But we all know that things can change in a 90 degree turn on a day, i.e. Sega Saturn vs. PS, Genesis vs. SNES, OS9 vs. OSX, etc...

    Only time will tell.

  2. he makes some good points by idfrsr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think that he has made some good points about the value of UnitedLinux. It's nice having all the choice when selecting your distro, but for software companies writing for linux systems has to make sure that they can run on all distros is certainly an expensive undertaking.

    And I think that pushing embedded linux is also an excellent point. It is a marked that linux can take over (unlike the current desktop).

    I was disapointed he didn't talk to much about linux on the desktop, and what his views are about where/how to proceed. Anyone know of other interviews of his where he mentioned them?

    --
    "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
  3. Can't go to the U.S.? by Ami+Ganguli · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He said he got turned back at the border once for having a B1 visa when he needed a B2, and now he can't go back. What's the deal here? Is he banned for life?

    --
    It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
  4. akpm by neroz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No offense to Marcelo, 2.4.18 was a great release.. but I honestly think Andrew Morton would have been a better choice for maintainer. The delay between 2.4.18 and 2.4.19 has been several months long - a few months is acceptable because of the IDE changes, but this is just a bit much. The time between pre-releases has been too long recently as well - the longer between each pre, the more changes that are made between them == less testing of the changes seperately.

    (Yes, I know all the arguments about how it is a "stable" series and all - but some people want new features, and 2.5 is not an option, thanks to IDE being 0wned by Martin).

    This is _NOT_ a troll.

    1. Re:akpm by guybarr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I know all the arguments about how it is a "stable" series and all
      but you want to discard stability of a STABLE branch for features - not a great deal for users who wish to actually use the system.

      - but some people want new features, and 2.5 is not an option, thanks to IDE being owned by Martin
      have you considered that IDE instabilities are in 2.5 because this is where new features and engineering reforms should be done, regardless of who is the maintainer ?

      my belief: there should be a split to 3 branches:
      1) long-term dev-branch: this branch is where large-scale (>months) changes are made and tested.
      2) medium and short-term dev-branch: this branch is what you're looking for, where features and fixes which take months or less are made and tested, really tested, not like the 2.4 VM fiascos, before becoming stable.
      3) stable branch: this branch changes once a year or less, except for very minor bug/security fixes.

      changes will NOT be imported directly from 1->3, only 1->2 , 2->1 and 2->3 .

      this will give you both stability for those who need it, long-term dev and testing environemnt for the systemic reformers, and short-term devellopment for the medium- to small-scale changes.

      and before anyone of you jumps and shouts "but this is exactly the debian model of stable, testing, unstable branches" I say that both branch 1 AND 2 are dev. AND testing branches, the criterion sugested is the changes scale, not the targeted audience (though ususally decisions may be similar between models).

      --
      Working for necessity's mother.
  5. Re:Heh by GoRK · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well you are wrong about one thing: "100% IDE"

    Burners are ATAPI devices - Calling them "IDE" is sort of like saying "Ethernet" when you mean "http" or something else like that. ATAPI was invented to bring SCSI devices into the consumer market with minimum cost to hardware manufacturers (ie no change of command api's in the devices firmware). As far as the command set goes, they are actually almost 100% SCSI. Ditto with ATAPI zip drives and tape drives. Heck, even the parallel port zip drives are SCSI (with a built in ppa SCSI controller). USB mass storage uses the SCSI command set also -- and I think Firewire does too (I may be wrong about firewire). ide-scsi is *not* a SCSI emulator. It is a transport, the same as the USB mass storage transport.

    IMO, the mistake was to write a seperate driver for ATAPI in the beginning that did NOT tie to the SCSI system - we might have a mature ATAPI/SCSI interface by now that did not have the problems that we see today.

    And why do you mention only CD burners? I use ide-scsi for regular CDROMS, zip drives, and tape drives. The application support is much better (ie i can do cd to cd copies, use all backup software, etc)

    ~GoRK

  6. Re:Linus by hazyshadeofwinter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This guy could stand to learn something from... umm, himself. (C'mon, somebody had to post it!)

    --
    Click here if you just like to click on shit.