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Linus Explains his Patch Policy
An anonymous reader writes "For everyone who has been wondering the method behind Linus's seeming madness of accepting or dropping patches, he has finally given a thorough explanation. A must read for anyone who wants to get their favorite feature into the next release of the kernel."
Did anyone else read that as EYE patch policy?
No?
Me either.
ARRR MATEY
As Linus suggests, use it in your tree. Go farther, and roll your own distro. If you have the time to whine about it all the time, you probably have the resources to help the community. Rumor has it LFS needs help.
I also cannot abide whiners and whingers. The old adage about 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease' does not hold in my camp.
It's more like 'the squeaky wheel gets whacked with a hammer and replaced with something better'.
People need to remember that when dealing with intelligent people, if you cannot get your point of view across without resorting to whining, you may need to reconsider what it is you are asking.
I'm running Windows and I still haven't found how to tell Microsoft where I want to go today.
Cool! Thanks Linus. Can you get it here in time for Christmas? ;-)
Grr! Arg!
Exactly. This is why about 50 times in his post, he says that you can start your own tree. THere are plenty of alternative trees out there -- but this one is his tree and thus he gets to say what goes in it. You could start your own tree tomorrow and reject patches from Linux himself if you felt like it. Behold the power inherent in that ;)
"Well, first I write down my options, and then I drop a pen from about 5 feet up and..."
Please include the whole comment. The previous poster took it out of context.
- Since I'm not personally convinced, it's not going into my tree.
It's as simple as that. I take stuff that I feel is good. Often that
feeling of goodness comes from trusting the person who sends it to me,
simply by past performance. At other times, it is because I think the
feature is cool, or well done, or whatever.
Hint: if you want stuff in my tree, make me trust you. Or work on
things that I feel are innately interesting. Don't bother dragging me
into your flame-wars and trying to convince me that I "must" apply your
patches.
- If it doesn't go into my tree, is that bad?
NO! Open source is all about _other_ people being able to make their
changes. It by no means means that those changes have to be accepted
back: the license basically only boils down to that I must be _able_ to
accept them back. But the really important thing, the thing that really
makes a difference, is that you, your dog, and your company can make
your OWN changes.
He said it, and the previous poster said it as well. It's open source. If you don't like what he includes in his tree. Go make your own fucking Kernel or use someone elses.
Simple as that.
Especially when he's drunk. We all know, that Finns carry around huge knives to cut off the balls of polar bears, when they (the Finns that is) go on a binge.
Being a whiney user just might move you from the "human" to the "polar bear" category.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
No, the idea of open source is the ability for you to say, fuck this tree, ill take all this code i want and deviate here and make my OWN tree, one with my patches and nothing i dont want!
When we have many tree's with one or two people making decisions each, its much more orginized than 20 or 30 people throwing large amounts of crap into one tree, and alot of stuff gets lost in the mess. Pull the tree that has the features you want, if it lacks one feature that you absolutly need from teh other tree, there are patches to use to get it in there.
Open source isn't about everyone and their grandmother being entitled to having their personal patches stuck into the main Linux tree. Open source is about being able to edit the software for your own personal use, not inflicting your changes upon everyone else in the world, simply because you think that you're right.
Isn't having one person in charge of the official tree against the whole idea of open-source?
no. you can still take the source code and do whatever the hell you like with it.
...so far. Linus and the other developers have created something with a much greater user acceptance than *BSD. I am not flaming or trolling here, just pointing out the differences in user base.
That said, I still like FreeBSD and OpenBSD very much. I have purchased OpenBSD disc sets and really like the ports arrangement.
If you are going back to being a 'smug BSD user', is that because it makes you feel good? Smugness heavily implies that is the case.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
If you want to add a patch to the kernel and distribute it, Linus can't stop you. Take the source, add your own patch, and distribute it. Sounds pretty equal to me.
He's admitting he's as failable as the next guy - the gist of what he's saying is that popping out of the woodwork and saying "hey, check this neat feature" isn't going to get your patch accepted into his kernel tree.
I highly doubt that any of the BSD maintainers would accept a patch either. It goes back to whether the trust is there, and evidently these guys don't hold Linus's trust.
Not much controversial here.
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Can you get it here in time for Christmas?
You can deliver a source code tree, and you can deliver a pine tree, but not even a tree will help get rid of crazy American legislators that write counterproductive copyright laws.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Shouldn't much of this be common sense to the average individual. Maybe not the specifics but the general concept, whining won't help.
When did this practice become so common. Far too often do you hear someone griping about something before ever going about it in the correct way.
+ 2 cents "We're on a mission from God" Elwood Blues
Hint: if you want stuff in my tree, make me trust you.
That's gonna be one for the quote book ten years from now...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
That
tree is called "Linus' tree" for a reason. The only thing you are
ENTITLED to is to have your own tree.
Linus
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to waiting for the great pumpkin to arrive.
Live web cams
Linus takes the patches he likes, and doesn't take the other ones.
Well.
HOW INSIGHTFUL.
How about posting an article entitled "how does Linus take shit. haven't you always wondered?"
Linus: "Look, once in for all, I take a shit by sitting on a toilet and letting it fall in."
Slashdot: "OOOOOOER! Let's post it as a news item."
Bunch o' Linus fanboys.
But the really important thing, the thing that really makes a difference, is that you, your dog, and your company can make your OWN changes.
My dog is really a code monkey
Linux: Patches accepted based on what Linus thinks is good
BSD: Patches accepted based on what will run on the MrCoffee port
Linux: Patches to support new hardware added quickly
BSD: That better be an ISA network card...
Linux: VM changes cause instability in "stable" kernel branch
BSD: VM is old and slow, but you can use punchcards as swap. Isn't that neat?
Linux: It's for people who like to tinker
BSD: It's for people who think Debian-stable is too bleeding edge
Here is my current tree:
/* ??????? */ /* PROFIT! */
int main () {
printf ("Hello, World\n");
return 0;
}
Please send me patches, thanks.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
From the message (highlight in quotes):
(b) If you can't convince me, convince somebody else. Maybe that somebody else is somebody I trust, and that somebody else feels that I was wrong and since '_he_' believes in the project 'he' will try to convince me about it.
So, Mr. Torvalds only accept patches from MALE programmers, is it? I don't care who you are, but that is SEXIST thinking! Shame on you Linus, you should have read the 'HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux' article[1] before writing inflammatory comments. I wouldn't want to be the receiving end of the karate chop from a black belt wife if I were you. But then again, I am not you...
Vendors have the motivation to test and add your patch, as long as it adds something that a customer might want. This means that your patch gets well tested. This means that Linus can treat your patch with some confidence without knowing your work.
Of course, getting into Linus's tree is the Holy Grail of OpenScource development. It's hard not to take it personally if your patch gets rejected.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
now, having read that, what are the chances of him actually checking his torvalds@transmeta.com email account from now on?
He answered that very question with this:
" NO! Open source is all about _other_ people being able to make their changes. It by no means means that those changes have to be accepted
back: the license basically only boils down to that I must be _able_ to accept them back.
But the really important thing, the thing that really makes a difference, is that you, your dog, and your company can make your OWN changes."
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
It isn't "the official tree" - it's "the Linus tree". If you don't like it, use Alan's tree, or any of the dozens of others out there.
They do. Subscribe to the LKML and post it there. Pretty well all of the important developers of the kernel (most trees) frequent it. Ok then - we have two VMs - Riks and Andreas's. Since everyone's supposed to get equal input and nobody is supposed to control the kernel - we're supposed to have both of them in play?Would you like to write the code that keeps them separate depending on which box I fill with an 'X' in menuconfig? What about all the other aspects of the kernel where we have two, five, ten, or a hundred different patches that all do the same thing? I don't know about you, but I don't really fancy downloading a 500MB Bzip2-ball of kernel source. HDDs and bandwidth may be cheap, but come on, there are limits.
So in short, if you don't like the way Linus manages his tree - branch. Take the entire code base of any of the trees you'd like as a starting point and implement your anarchist's paradise. Let me know when it becomes stable and I'll give it a whirl.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
I tried in vain to get this dictator to accept the following:
Solitaire Patch: This patch allows end users to play the game at full speed and even enables multiplayer sessions.
But he rejected this excellent linux addition.
Why Linus? Oh Why?
Linus gets straight to the point, no BS, no fluff, he rocks
I've always thought of Linus' tree as more of a kernel testing ground - even for the "stable" releases.
The big Linux vendors are usually much more conservative about what goes into their trees. But the vendors also react to customer critisism to add very useful features to their kernels - features that Linus often ignores because he doesn't have much interest some particular area. The Linux vendors have to innovate to stay in business, afterall. Like RedHat bumping up HZ to give a much smoother desktop experience. Redhat is also doing pioneering work on highly efficient kernel threads that will likely show up in their kernel before Linus'.
RedHat's kernel tree resembles the -ac tree moreso than Linus' tree (gee, might that have to do with the fact that Alan Cox works for RedHat?)
Linus' tree is not as relevant as it once was.
Remember the kid in school that would always say, "My ball, my rules"?
Take note that Linus decided to remind us nine times that it is his tree. I am a big fan of Linux, but not so much of Linus. The way he wrote that letter made him seem a bit childish.
I just wanted to get my thoughts out there. There is no need to mod me down.
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
No, the idea of open source is the ability for you to say, fuck this tree, ill take all this code i want and deviate here and make my OWN tree, one with my patches and nothing i dont want!
Thing is, how many branches can the tree grow until we can no longer define it under the species PhyLinusthus acidus-flaxen Leaf. I sort of prefer there to be a set direction, it gives me a greater confidence in the product as a whole. I guess I'm just not overly convinced of a guarantee of future compatability between the branches.
But then, I use NetBSD.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
He mentions the -ac tree... isn't it like OUR tree? I mean, OUR, slashdottish Anonymous Coward tree?
I am not sure what this is all about anymore!
LUNIX IS TO COMPLICATED!!!!!!!1!
the above post should be mandatory reading for all new users.
Well, if it deviates as much as it starts to break userland apps, i guess its a failed tree. if it works, does everything right, with added features/performance, its still linux, i seriously doubt anyone is ripping apart all the basic functions at the core of the kernel and rewriting it, almost all forks just add features, some change large important tasks, but nothign as drastic as to wonder if its still linux or not.
2c2 /* ??????? */ /* PROFIT! */
< printf ("Hello, World\n");
---
> kprintf ("Hello, World\n");
Wasn't a while ago there was a rumour that Transmeta need M$ to survive[1]? Since Linus works at Transmeta, maybe that's why he is SO cranky.
0
[1] http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/05/22320
Review process? I don't need no steenking review process. I just take the stuff I like from the people that I like. Make me like you!
You don't like my patches? Make your own patches! Then we can have flame wars about whose patches is better than whose and why it is your fault that something don't run because you haven't got the right set of patches!
Open source is nothing like socialism, it's very much like anarchy. Each person is his own king and rules his own domain.
You have no say what does into Linus' tree. No one does but Linus. Likewise, Linus has no say what goes into your tree, should you decide you want one, and you have as much right as Linus to create a Linux tree and run it however you like.
That is what open-source is all about. There is no contradiction here. For anyone at all other than Linus to have any say into what goes into Linus' tree would be contradicting the basic principles of open source. Everyone having input of equal value would be 180 degrees opposed to the whole concept...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The whole idea of open-source is to have the source open. It is open. Having one or a few people in charge is a damn good thing IMHO.
why should it give you warm fuzzies?? If you want to make sure there is a preview/ patch/ whatever process, write your OWN OS. Linus did, and he can do whatever the hell he wants with it... which is what makes it so great!!!
That's the point of his post... you want an "offcial" policy? Grab the source, start your own tree and convince that what you are doing is better than what anybody else is doing.... if what you're doing *is* better, folks will come around to your way of seeing things. If they don't, you have a version that makes YOU hapy. Which is probably jsut as good, if not better.
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
In other words, I totally comprehend his message and as such, I'll place his suggestions in effect immediately.
that;s odd how you and I differ. I use linux on my workstation at home and also have a laptop at home with OS X, and I would prefer to have linux on it most days instead of OS X.
There are a few days I love OS X, like when I am trying to view something I just can't on linux, or when I am video editing. I am glad I have the choice. I bought my laptop more on features per price that what OS it ran, and Apple had everything I wanted all in one package.(mainly built in modem, built in 802.11b, built in firewire, built in usb, and long battery life).
I think it's great that people prefer differnent OSes. The OS is just the tool to accomplish a job, some are better than others.
A serious alternative to X-Windows would be cool to at least play with the concept.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
This is my tree. There are many like it but this one is mine.
-FF
(If you don't get that, do us all a favor and moderate something else.)
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats explained.
I assume that most linux users know how to build a kernel and in the same respect how to apply patches to that kernel (this isn't exactly rocket science.. it wasn't made to confuse you), so are you all really too lazy to build in the patches you want?
transmission_err
Isn't having one person in charge of the official tree against the whole idea of open-source?
:)
No. Almost all open source projects have one person or a small group in charge. Why would this be "against the whole idea"? You're just as free to make your own changes on your own darned computer, no matter how many people are in charge of however many "official" trees. The so-called "official" trees exist merely for the convenience of those who don't want to bother to roll their own each day, and the people in charge of those "official" trees are only in charge because they've earned the trust of those who use their trees.
Shouldn't everyone have input of equal value?
No. This is a meritocracy, not a democracy. The people in charge end up in charge because they've proven themselves by the quality of their work. Remember, an "official tree" only remains "official" as long as people are willing to call it that and treat it as that. "Official tree" in open-source terms is a de-facto label, not a de-jure one.
Or to put it another way, only input of high value is valued highly.
Any more silly questions?
I have to say I agree with The Man.
My company (which sells a commercial product to run under Linux) have produced several enhancements to the kernel and have been able to get some of them into the Linus' Tree, some were not accepted, but is now incorporated into a well known Linux Distribution.
It all boils down to what I would call the Mitnik Factor (Tm). Namely how good your social skill is, i.e. how good you are to convince Linux in a PROFESSIONAL way that the patch you have made actually will add a value to the general kernel release and that the whole community will be better off with the patch in Linus' Tree rather than outside of it. (Now that is ofcourse the hard part)
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Heh! just reminded me of my favorite Finnish person joke:
The young finn Pekka was up for his manhood ritual. The village leader told him he had to accomplish three tasks:
1. Drink a bottle of vodka.
2. Kill a bear.
3. Rape a woman.
Pekka quickly drinks the bottle of vodka like all good finns. He then disappears into the forest looking for a bear, but doesn't return until the next day. He's all bloody and battered. The leader asks him worriedly "How did it go?". Pekka replies "It was real tough! Now, where's the woman I'm supposed to kill?"
So does whining about whiners make me a genius, or does being a genius make me whine about whiners?
*slap* *slap*
"You like that, bitch?"
*slap* *slap*
"You want some more, bitch?"
*slap* "
Yeah?"
*slap*
"Uh, huh!"
*slap*
"That's right, byatch!"
*slap* *slap*
I just saw a bitch-slapping by Linus, and oooooh, I liked it!
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Yes, we do.
if anything to do with OS kernels gives you warm fuzzies, your geekhood far surpasses mine...
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
This isn't exactly a huge undertaking, so why the hell didn't linus do this before? I think he enjoys denying people's patches and just liked the ego trip of saying "your patch sucks, stfu." I get the distinct impression that working with Linus is like pulling teeth out of a rabid grizzly bear.
...Linus is out of his tree! ;)
Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, catch a tiger by its toe...
- Tyler (http://www.kianta.com/)
No. You idiot.
> Shouldn't everyone have input of equal value?
Dear God, no. If that was the case, Linus would have spent the last three months trying to figure out how to fix uptime rollovers...wait a minute...
Linus treats patches in an academic fashion. Use the community as a filter to shunt inferior stuff away from the core code. Pragmatic, smart, efficient. Ideas of quality will survive the vetting. Thumbs up, and in BeelzeBill's eye.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
You're supposed to tell Them where to go.
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
Anyone notice that Linus is starting to sound like Theo?
"This is my house, if you don't like it, you can get the *uck out".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Linus is responsible for his tree, he has the authority to do anything he pleases with it and face the consequences of his good/bad choices. When someone submits a change to his tree, he is still responsible for that change so he has to be very careful about what gets in.
The ball analogy is flawed, he doesn't have the only ball in the game. I think a team coach is a better analogy, he wants to make the team succeed so he chooses the players and strategies to the best of his abilities for the benefit of the game he is playing.
Criticizing leaders is so easy. Step up and make a difference, otherwise you bring nothing positive to the table.
is it only me, or has anyone noticed over the years that "tree" discussions always come up near christmass time???
Chould we call this the Linus Christmass Tree phenomenom?
After reading this, I REALLY and TRULY like that guy. I think I may join the kernel mailing list just to hear more of what Linus has to say...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, because I was looking for something that was, for lack of a better term, less arbitrary.
Sure Linus does not dictate what each distro has to include, but he is a very influential force, and his statement is pretty much an endorsement of petty personal favoritism.
I am not in the operating system business. I write applications. I would just as soon NOT have to worry about whether a particular user has a particular patch in 'his personal tree' or not. That is just additional support headaches from my standpoint.
Linus' tone might seem a bit aggressive and abrupt, but consider that this is message is a deep, deep down a very long thread that starts here.
From the very beginning, Linus was saying he thought this patch was something that should be driven by vendors - i.e. put it in their trees *first*, and then it may find a way into Linus' tree later.
Hence the constant references to 'this is my tree, this is how I do things'.
The whole thread is actually quite interesting. If you're thinking of suggesting a patch, I suggest you read the whole lot to get an idea about how best to approach it.
Linus' tree technically isn't the official tree, it's just Linus' tree. I don't know of any distro's that use the stock Linus tree .. Can anybody correct me on this?
That is one of the most insightful comments I have ever seen on /.
Actually the whole idea of open source has nothing to do with democracy per se.
it has to do with empowered and unencumbered individuals, which shares traits with some views of democracy.
the whining socialist view of democracy that tries to hold everyone back to the level of the lowest doesn't have much to do with the open source way.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Efficiency increase, standardized notation, etc. Maybe this can be the -ac patch.
1,2c1,4
int
> main()
> {
> puts("Hello, World");
well unfortunatly Im sure its not.. grow up and suck my d!ck :)
knifefight between linus and rms!
or better known as the
"Penguin Man vs Rabid Crazy Man Battle Royale"
at stake the naming rights to linux
all $$$ goes to the microsoft legal defense fund
nbfn
i think all the mod points must be used up or something now after that splurge on the new server.....
3 cheers for Linus! What he wrote was straightforward and easy to understand. If your patches don't make it into his tree, at least you know why.
smoke trees!
oh, so that's where I left my gerbil!
Finally, someone who refuses to snivel. I'll bet he's got a strong backbone too!
I hate to say this in such a generalized term, but he's very right that no one is entitled to have their patch accepted. Americans think everything is an entitlement. That isn't so and the rest of the worlds going to get really pissed of and blow something up.
Common Errors in English
Man, did I get spanked for posting this, or what!?
Note to self: no good deed goes unmoderated.
"So in short, if you don't like the way Linus manages his tree - branch. Take the entire code base of any of the trees you'd like as a starting point and implement your anarchist's paradise. Let me know when it becomes stable and I'll give it a whirl. "
Or you could just install the folk kernel.
Why should the grower splice it in if he doesn't like the results? As stated, you can put put it into your own tree if you want.
Kinda like the way the word 'day' can either mean the entire 24-hour period, or just the part when the Sun is above the horizon, but 'night' only means the part when it's below. Except that a 'fortnight' includes both parts.... Bad example.
Besides, one of the people who Linus trusts and maintains a tree that Linus specifically mentioned, is -aa, which is Andrea Arcangeli. Now, how can anything that includes someone named 'Andrea' be considered 'sexist'?
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
According to a post further up, Slackware is one such distro
Normal people worry me!
I don't know what this patch is or what it does, and I really don't care.
No-one's patch is entitled to be incorporated into Linus' tree. It is his tree, and he puts stuff in there that he feels is the best. Would you really want Linus putting something in his tree which he didn't feel good about or was unsure of? When Linus puts something in his tree, that's his certification that he thinks it's good and useful. Its his word on that in a sense. The minute he starts putting stuff in because people pester him, his word that something is good and useful to his knowledge becomes useless.
Chances are that if the patch is good, Linus will accept it provided he's given enough time to properly evaluate it. Linus is a human being like the rest of us. He can't thoroughly evaluate hundreds of patches coming in a week before the feature-freeze deadline. Try to give him the same breathing room to do a job you'd give anyone else. Also, remember, Linus doesn't have to do anything. He's doing this voluntarily as a service to the public. If you think you're patch is good and useful enough to be incorporated, and Linus rejected it, then go out and prove that its good. Put it in you're own tree or convince a vendor to do so; then people will use it, and if its good, word will get around. Once that happens, more likely than not, Linus will put it in his tree.
I've submitted about a hundred articles to Slashdot, many of them on what I thought were good "your rights online" issues. Do you know how many submissions of mine have been accepted? 1. It was on Creg Ventor, the man who used his own DNA to help sequence the human genome; ironically, I thought that was one of my worst submissions. Yet, believe it or not, you don't see me whining to the editors of Slashdot or in the discussions about it. I realize that many many many other submissions have been made, that the editors have to choose what they feel is best, and that they have to create a variety; I also realize that they're human beings.
Other people would do well to do the same in regards to patches.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
can't see the forest for the Trees?
Ugh, I just had a flashback to my Windows 2000 Active directory training. Excuse me, I need to go shower now.
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
Portability fix, standards compliance:
Where are the zealots who say that GPL don't enforce forks? Linux seems to get more and more fragmented, both because of the "distros" which are getting wild, and because of the several "kernel trees", poorly maintained, mostly using this horrible "top-down trust" system ("top-down because Linus is the only one who can enforce his trust). I dont want to start a flame war, but all of this is due to the lack of care about the userland and tools to avoid the intrinsic mess of distributed development, trying to compensate that with a insanely centralized management.
And people say the BSD license "fragments" code.. At least the BSD's use good standards and CVS, with specialized developers assigned to maintain only their domain area, not one "developer" to "trust" everything... Guess what? BSD's have a very clean source tree, with 3 forks, conecptually different one from each other, where each is actively and sanely maintained by groups the community trust, not [fundamentally] the inverse.
So I send all of my childhood attempting to get into girls bushes and failing. Now I spend my entire adult life failing to get in another mans' tree.
Shouldn't this all balance out at some point?
Isn't having one person in charge of the official tree against the whole idea of open-source?
Shouldn't everyone have input of equal value?
Then again, a certain popular linux site also has 'super-users' who control everything. I guesse the open-source world is full of contradictions.
Open-source is about giving users access to the source code of software. It's about empowering USERS. It's not about some leftist social movement, as MicroSoft would like people to think.
--fatboy
Figured I'd post a quick summary of the underlying issue.
There is a patch that has strong vendor support (like vendors have already signed contracts involving services from this patch).
This patch is a service offered on many other commercial unixes (Irix, Solaris, AIX, etc..)
Linus considers this patch:
a) to be dangerous
b) to be difficult to test
c) likely to have the most problems on the x86 platform which is Linux's home platform
d) supporting it might add long term maintainability problems to the kernel
The kernel hackers whom Linus trusts seem to agree with his assessment.
What Linus wants is
a) for the vendors to support this patch over a long period of time on a wide range of systems.
b) For there to be some evidence that Linux users (as opposed to Linux vendors) actually want this feature.
So what you have is a fight between big guns: Suse, United Linux, IBM.. and Linus.
You filthy fucking little scank bitch. This will teach you next time to post anonymously when posting the text of the article instead of trying to be a whore. ;)
So go fuck yourself you fuck up.
Do you belive in rolling the toliet paper into a wad or do you belive in weaving a fucking wicker basket out of it before wiping your ass?
Seriously; it's three minutes since I read that comment, and I'm still laughing!
Thank you very much for saving my day (and night as it's 5:15 am here).
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
And furthermore, Linus doesn't *care* if that's how things go.
It's HIS TREE. HE CAN PLAY FAVORITES ALL HE LIKES.
He doesn't care if you go make your own, or if the world abandons his tree and goes to work on someone elses....
What part of this is hard to understand?
eh?
What fight? Linus isn't fighting.. he just plainly doesn't want it in his kernel at this time, has explained why, and wants to not be bothered with the issue anymore, because there is nothing more to discuss.
"This is my tree. There are many like it, but this one is mine." - Linus
It's not who he likes, but who he trusts! There is a big difference there, and if you read the message again, you will see that he has accepted major patches from people he dislikes and doesn't get along with...
is it only me, or has anyone noticed over the years that "tree" discussions always come up near christmass time???
Chould we call this the Linus Christmass Tree phenomenom?
Considering the week, I suspect more of a 'great pumpkin' phenomenon.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Nope. It's his tree and his rules. If you want different rules then start your own tree.
Definitely not.
Note he isn't saying "I made this OS, it's my OS, so i'll do what i want with it!"
He's saying, *this is my computer*.
He's talking about what he will or will not allow on his personal CVS archive of the linux kernel.
This is why he keeps saying "tree". He is emphasising, this is linus' copy of the linux kernel. This is linus's computer. (Though someone else probably hosts it ATM.) There are lots and lots of other copies. Get your own ftp server.
This isn't a matter of the kid who owns the ball insisting what game is played. This is a matter of an adult who has some random kids noisily playing a really obnoxious game in his living room, and he's yelling "can't you kids do that outside?"
There is no need to mod me down.
There is also no need to mod you up, you have made no worthwhile points.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease ... but when management decides there is one wheel too many, and there need to be downsizes...
It does not have to include stdio.h if you are using K&R C, so this patch should not be accepted.
Considering the week, I suspect more of a 'great pumpkin' phenomenon.
So Linus still believes in the Great Pumpkin? ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Yes, I should be slapped for that. Good grief....
Isn't it better to have the "tree" coming from one place? Look at how stable Windows XP is now that we are onto service pack 1.
How many security holes would be in there if John Asscluster patched it up in his garage.
Linux: If someone offered me heart surgery for free, when I am 100% healthy, should I take it anyway just for the fact that it is free?
People need to stop worshipng this pompus moron.
Celebrate the finer things in life
Read what Linus wrote. The best way to get patches into the reference kernel (if Linus doesn't know you) is to get wider testing/acceptance in another developer's kernel. No need to get into the "inner circle". If your shit is good, it will get in - just not directly. If all of the other developers who maintain kernel trees reject your code, your code is the problem.
Which accepts large contributions from anonymous donors.
Evolution looks so much like Outlook there ought to be royalties involved
Ever checked out Lycroris? Looks familiar doesn't it. Thought and design theft go both ways though, notice what happens when you push "tab" with a half-typed file/directory in winXP (and I think 2k) command prompt? Hmmm, somehow I think that one got ripped off from the linux (perhaps unix or previous other) community, was it GPL'ed?
The point of making products like evolution similar to office is to provide the user with something they can relate to easily enough while providing them with better functionality or stability, etc (or just functionality on an alternate medium).
People recognise Microsoft layouts. In fact, I even like them. Chances are that if MS software didn't crash so much and wasn't so fricking expensive and/or ignorant in EULA's etc, then even linux users could find a use for it.
Linux systems can get a lot by mimicking windows graphical designs and ideas. MS can learn about (but probably won't) useful functionality and ability to grow from linux.
Just IMHO though...
Mac OS-X runs the Mach kernel !!
Only the userland is BSD.
That is a fact.
Indeed.
If OS-X is a BSD than Linux is a BSD because uses SOME BSD programs.
Linux is Linux beacuse of the Linux kernel.
And OS-X is OS-X because of the Mach kernel.
So, that is NOT BSD, and boy trust me on this I like BSD.
So do not spread FUD, OS-X is Mach, Next rather than BSD.
Slackware, and gentoo if you emerge the vanilla kernel sources come to mind, and you're always free to ftp/rsync/http/whatever your own copy of the tarball, make it, and install it. Chances are it will work. Maybe not 100% depending how much the distro changed the code, but it will probably work.
Rushing toward Entropy one iteration at a time.
it would be hard to catagorize Slack as a "major" vendor these days.
Now look, don't shoot me yet. It's simply true. It's a very small outfit and their product is used by a comparitively few. That's just he way it is.
They pefer to stay small, away from the commercial mainstream as such and all that entails. They cater to a particular hardcore, loyal and *sophisticated* "market segment" that wants what Slack provides. Patrick has stated this explicitly.
Now, again before you shoot me, this is " A good thing" (tm). I'm not knocking them. I'm praising them. Markets need these small outfits catering to the "oddballs," as it were. Bigger is not always best, small *is* beautiful. Not being a Fortune 500 company does NOT mean you're a "failure."
If you shoot at a target and hit the bullseye you've succeded, no matter what anyone says.
Perhaps they're just too blind to see the goal.
KFG
Yeah, start your own tree then wait for Linus to submit a patch to your tree then do the same thing..
A funny thing is that I did just that. While playing around I put an infinite loop in the scheduling algorithm.
:)
Yup that hung up part way through bootup.
chad
Linus handed out free balls to everyone. As many as they wanted. *Then* he made sure they had *free* tools for duplicating or modifying their balls at will, ad infinitum, plus the right to distribute these balls in "competition" with the ones he was giving away for free and start their own games.
Now some people seem to be complaining that they aren't happy with the ball he gave them, they want *his* ball. They don't want to make the rules for their own game, they want him to play with *his* ball and *his* friends to *their* rules.
I've known people like that.
They're generally refered to as *assholes* by the general populace.
Linus was responding in a mature and adult way to *adults* who were behaving as children who always want what someone *else* has.
Did he mention it was *his* nine times? Why would he do something like that? Perhaps because. . . are you ready for it? Because it's his?
*They already have their own.* Linus gave it to them.
If you give me a car, any car I want, and all the tools, parts and materials to modify it as I will are you suggesting that *you* would be childish for refusing to comply with my *demand* that you paint yours plaid and glue an elephant to its roof?
Hell, this opens up whole new vistas of possibilities. I think tomorrow I'll get old Bill on the blower and demand that the next version of Windows be Linux based, and if he refuses to comply. . . why, of course he's just being childish.
KFG
Deru kugi wa utareru.
"The protruding nail gets hammered."
Seems appropriate. (And note, this is 'hammered' in a non-beverage-related manner.)
The needs of a diverse user base would be better served by a group of developers with some way to discuss and vote on things that cause arguments. It doesn't have to be formal, but anyway one person shouldn't be able to force his/her opinion if everyone else disagrees.
Of course, Linus is saying that this kind of group can just maintain their own branch. But it will take a big event for people to start using a non-Linus branch and for developers to start submitting patches for it. And users will only loose when they found out that one branch doesn't crash and the other one crashes but supports their digital camera.
I guess it depends on weather Linus wants to keep his work as interesting as possible or put up with some annoying meetings and arguments to make the project as successful as possible. Of course, he has earned our blessing to do anything he wants. But I guess in the first case, someone will eventually make a branch with a critical improvement that he overlooked and Linux will end up as fragmented as *BSD.
but from a different ventrical. .
.it was rejected. Go figure.
.it got accepted, BUT. . . not under my byline.
.a story I didn't think belonged on Slashdot didn't get on Slashdot.
I've submited exactly three stories to Slashdot.
The first one was an article a friend of mine wrote. It was a good article. It was an article apropos to certain Slashdot stories, the sort you might legitimately link to in a post, but I didn't think it was a Slashdot story in itself. It was just an op-ed piece, commentary on News for Nerds, but in itself news worthy.
He e-mailed me and asked me if I'd submit it. Ok, he's a friend, I submited it. Lo and behold. .
The second story was one I ran across and thought was absolutely nerdfully *cool!* I submited it. Lo and behold. . . it got accepted!
The third story, ok, less nerdfully cool than the other, but ultimately more important really. I submited it. Lo and behold. .
So how am I doing, submission percentage wise?
Here's where it all goes apropos on us. A got a story accepted under my byline. A story I thought ought to be on Slashdot ended up on Slashdot and. .
As far as I'm concerned I'm batting a thousand. The story I didn't simply get credit for but thought was deserving the editors thought was deserving as well. My "taste" at least was true. * And the same goes for the story that was rejected.* I knew it should be rejected. My *taste* was true.
"Rejection" isn't always *rejection.* If more people would learn the difference between the two the world would run a lot smoother.
Someone's patch was rejected. They didn't care to listen to *why* it was rejected. The end result is that *they* ended up being rejected as well, for their *behaviour,* although they seem to have a hard time grasping this simple concept.
They have been told explicitly how to regain acceptence of both their patch and themselves.
It's up to them to prove wise enough. Linus ain't going to do it for them, nor should he have to.
KFG
1/3rd of US foreign aid goes to 0.1% of the population [wrmea.com]
Why are you posting an inflamitory offtopic sig linking to an anti-Semitic website which openly supports terrorism?
And just to point out the bias here, Israel get's $2.5 billion (1.5 military, 1 civilian) a year in aid from the USA (the site you link to doesn't even get the basic numbers correct), while Egypt gets $2 billion a year in military aid. People are starving in the streets in Egypt, but the country refuses to convert even $1.00 of that military aid to civilian aid. And of course there's Jordan which averaged $284 million per year over the past 5 years and will go up to $300 million next year, which put together with what Egypt get's is almost identical to what Israel gets.
And of course there is indirect aid to the Saudis. Ten's of thousands of American soldiers protect the biggest supporter of terrorism and bin-laden in the world. If you want to bitch about something bitch about the fact that the state department coddles and protects a government which directly (if "secretly") supported and still supports the people responsible for the Twin Towers bombing.
Disclaimer: I'm an American Israel Jew. I also happen to oppose US aid to Israel, but for real reasons, not bullshit anti-Semitic ones.
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
Things like window dragging work really well.
your friends. Or my friends either. *Our* friends are among the most likely to use Slack, Debian or BSD. It's a biased sample.
.OR Debian, OR BSD.
.AND beer. You get what you pay for, even in Linux. :)
This may come as a shock to you but most Linux users haven't even *heard* of any of the three. Hell, I've even had to introduce a couple of friends who were Linux *sysadmins* to them.
Why do you think so many people have to say so many times " Linux != Redhat"?
I'm "old school" enough to have learned my way about UNIX decades before Linux existed, back when Kernigan & Ritchie was *the* manual. Slack is great, Slack is good. So is Debian.
But the fact remains that most people who use Slack or Debian don't even know they're doing it. They got it wrapped in a new "package" by some other vendor. . . and none of *those* vendors are "major" either. Why do you think "United Linux" was formed?
The people who try to estimate the Linux market who take as their sample *all* Linux users say Redhat and Redhat derived distros account for over 90% of all Linux users. I don't use Redhat. I have no religious axe to grind on that score. I'm prepared to take their estimates seriously.
Yes, yes. I know. Those estimates have all sorts of holes in them. I'm aware of the holes and how they got there. I still think, even with the holes and resulting overestimates, that Redhat absolutely dominates the "user market."
When us "old school" Linux users first used Slack it was cutting edge and dominated the market. The majority of people using Slack, not *all* mind you, just the majority, are us "old schoolers" and perhaps their "pupils."
Times change. Us "old schoolers" number only in the thousands. Tens of millions of people now use Linux.
On the whole they don't use Slack. .
I've thought about the Linux "market." I've been thinking about it for years. This is what I've concluded.
Perhaps you conclude differently. That's ok. Die Gedanken sind frei!
As in speach. .
KFG
In a project that's open in its true form, where people from all over the world work on the same project without restrictions, there isn't 1 king with more than 1 agenda.
However, in this case, there is: Linus. I fully agree that you can't include every patch supplied by every developer out there, but his trackrecord clearly shows that he refuses patches for other reasons than crappy coding. (read: political reasons).
Admitted, it's the team that should stick together and you can better favor a teammember than some stranger and neglect the teammember, but that has also the disadvantage that the RESULT of such actions is not that much different than what happens at say Microsoft: there, also a team works on Windows and you can submit ideas and patches (if you can, some can since some organisations have the sourcecode) till doomsday, if the team lead doesn't find these patches and ideas up to par, they're refused and ignored.
So: refusing patches because the code is crappy, agreed. Refusing patches because the teamleader thinks it will destabelize the projectteam or for other unknown reasons, partly agreed, as long as you don't call yourself an open source developer, since the end result is just closed source development where the sourcecode produced is downloadable.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
the majority of Linux users have never even *heard* of The Linux Counter. Look at how small the total numbers are compared to the number of actual Linux users. In fact I'll walk farther out on the limb and postit that for the "average" Linux user today if it ain't in the Redhat, Mandrake, SUSE manual it don't exist. They buy the box at the store, they install it, they run it... and that sums up their involvement with Linux. If they need support they get it from their vendor, not usenet or even Linuxnewbie. If a package isn't available from their vendor. . .it don't exist. They sure as shootin' don't do LFS. Probably havn't heard of Kuro5in or even Slashdot if it comes to that.
Linux is quietly more mainstream than I think even most Linux users are prepared to admit.
I'd wager that the average Slack, Debian, "Others" user ( I favor Others myself) is the sort far more inclined to "participate" as well. Redhat/Mandrake ( and I think it's still fair to use that catagory in the context of this discussion) still wins going away.
KFG
You deserved it. Copying and pasting a linked article is the cheapest form of karmawhoring. If you really want to do a good deed, post the article anonymously.
I doubt that this "feeling" he speeks of is the "feeling" most people mean when they speak of feelings. Namely in terms of affection.
Personally I can understand his mail. I'm coding for more than 15 years, and though I don't see myself that way, many professional, whom I worked for or have seen my resume, consider me as a freak, crack, whatever. And I can tell you that I share this feeling about good or bad code, but I think that this simply comes when you work long enough on something so that you not only can logically prove right or worng, you also develop a feeling that kicks in BEFORE you start on a specific feature. This means that, when I start thinking about a problem I want to solve, I often have a feeling of a particular solution. When this feeling is good I start working on it. When this feeling is bad I look further in it and see if I can come up with something better and the same is true for when the feeling is neutral. Many times this feeling helps me quite a lot and often turns out true. It happend that I woke up in the middle of the night and had the solution of a problem in my mind and I knew it was the correct solution.
This simply means - If you are a good coder than you should trust your feeling about quality code, and if your are really a good coder you can easily often prove that you really can trust your feeling about code. I guess that Linus is a good coder and as such I have no problem trusting his feelings on CODE. Of course that doesn't mean that you should trust his feelings if he comes up with a new theory on gravity because this is not his field of expertise.
They exist. And they are exactly good for that - playing with the concept.
For serious work you'll still need X, but that shouldn't be a problem, since X isn't glued into the OS.
Shouldn't that be
"People need to remember that when dealing with intelligent people, if you cannot get your point of view across without resorting to whining, you may need to reconsider how intelligent they really are." [if they were that 'intelligent' they would be able to help you to 'refine' your point]
most people do consider what they are asking, which is why they whine when they can't get there point accross. The quote implies that they are non-conformist and 'worse' than us.
There is nothing worse than making what you CONSIDER to be a valid point, which you may have taken a long time to think about, rejected without any apparent thought.
This breeds a how can HE know that MY idea is shit, when I've spent 2 years on the problem and he's spent a second.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Hmm. An extremely convincing argument might be the work of a social engineer, trying to sneak a trojan into the tree. Better to plot Mitnick Factor on a bell curve so that the top 10% most convincing stories get rejected automatically. ;-)
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
Linus writes very good code. He therefore tends to regard those of us mere mortals who need debugging tools, in this case, a crash dump and earlier, a kernel debugger as lesser mortals.
Do any of us really like kernel bloat? At the same time what do we do when it has tanked and we only have a vague idea why. Linus's view is that the kernel shouldn't have crashed. True, but in real life, even if the s/w is perfect, the hardware isn't and a cosmic ray may have flipped a bit. This is why we have crash dumps and debugging tools. Linus doesn't believe in this. This is why the kdb project has to stay as an external patch.
Most vendors consider Linus's kernel to be a little bit bleeding edge, they wait a while before upgrading and they may apply patches of their own (*sometimes* back ported from newer releases) to improve stability but normally not to add features. It certainly isn't the vendor's job to add this.
But don't call it true open source, or redefine the definition of Open Source. I mean: what's the difference between a closed source dev team who ask friends for advice on things vs an 'open source' team which does the same? (an anonymous developer has to be very very good and convincing to get his patch approved in the main kernel).
That was my point. Because I mentioned Microsoft it gets moderated 'flamebait', which clearly shows the true vision of some people with moderators here.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Things like window dragging work really well.
:)) now once i can get the ability from xfree to change my actual screen resolution on the fly, i'll be a happy camper.
what is it about a 3D graphics chip that facilitates window dragging? isn't this a 2D problem? sure most modern cards have good 2D capabilities, but i didn't know that there has been that much change in the 2d area lately. from my personal use, xfree on a decent 2d card works very nicely, and i can even drag the windows around (even between the virtual desktops
One Tree To Rule Them All.
Well, 2D acceleration in graphic cards is something like "draw line from x1,y1 to x2,y2 using brush b and color c". But the window management itself (overlapping, z-order, region exposes, etc.) you have to do yourself.
When you use 3D, you just threat window content like texture, windows like polygons and the hardware does the rest for you. And because this is done in hw, you can get additional things for free (real transparency: put alpha channel to texture; each window can have independent color depth - i.e. you can still run your pseudocolor apps, even if your desktop is at 32bpp). Of course, you will lose 2D acceleration mentioned in first paragraph (in theory, you could use it to draw on textures. In practice, most of your textures^Wwindows will be in system ram, so you can't).
This is not to imply that current 2D system is bad, it is that using 3D it can be even more efficient, because you will offload most often used operations to your graphic card. In past, graphic cards were dumb framebuffers with primitive acceleration. Today, you could use their power and especially their memory to accelerate your desktop. After all, this is what Apple did with their Quartz Extreme.
and this comes from an anonymous COWARD
Maybe that's why it's so great. Never had a single problem with a Slackware kernel- ever.
[I]Please send me patches, thanks.[/I]
/* ??????? */ /* PROFIT! */
A new feature: Supports moderation.
[TT]/ *
int main () {
printf ("Hello, World\n");
return 0;
}
*/
[/TT]
Actually, no, I wouldn't.
I used to think this was an age thing, because I am about to turn 33. But now I realize it has more to do with maturity, and not age. Over the last 10 years, I have grown up a lot, and gained a lot of *real* confidence in myself. (as opposed to that "I can do anything" attitude)
In my experience, people who whine are immature. For the most part, the younger you are, the more you whine, but I don't think it is a clear distinction. There are obviously exceptions. I work with someone who is my age, and nobody can stand to talk to this person because he will argue with you for hours over the littlest point, until you get so sick of him you either give in or just walk away. He is a whiner, and everyone knows it. Nobody wants to work with him, and everyone tunes him out the second he starts talking. His ratio of noise to clarity is about 95 to 5, but that 5% of the time nobody hears him.
Bottom line is, don't act mature, be mature. Don't pretend to be nice, be nice. Engineering ain't marketing or sales, we don't rely on how good something looks or sounds, we rely on how good something is.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
NT4 & win95????
Maybe in NT4, but not in any of the win9X's I know of. I'm running win98 right now, if I type in cd win(tab) I get a big tab space, no name completion.
To my knowledge, this wasn't in ME either. Where did you get this idea from, or are we talking about something different? In the GUI it fills things out for you (which is actually often more annoying than helpful), but I don't know of anything that does this in a command prompt.
Well, if you read the article, you'd know that Linus doesn't necessarily think it's a bad idea. It may just be something he doesn't care about. It doesn't matter how long you've spent working on an idea if I don't care about the problem you're addressing.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Well that's kinde of my point,
Shouldn't you be doing this?
No I don't care.
Time passes.....
Look I've done all the stats and analysis you should really be doing this, just take a look.
I still don't care.
It's not supprising that some people get annoyed.
I'm not going to argue with you, because I mostly agree with you, but it's irrelevent to the point I'm trying to make. Free/Libre/OS software is not some hippie orgy where anyone who whips out their dick can get it wet.
Yes, it helps if you can politic and schmooze -- we are talking about humans here -- but if your code is crap, all the politicking and schmoozing in the world is unlikely to get your code into the "official" tree. This is still NOT a democracy.
While I don't disagree with the general thrust of this, there are examples of original open source programs; perhaps this would be a good place for folks to mention their favorites.
One I use a lot is called Gallery. It's a web photo gallery app written in PHP. It easy to use and has a nice feature set.
Ray
Damn, I wish I had some mod points left. That's hilarious! No, really...!
It's not that you want to make more trips through the scheduler, it's that you want to make them at the right time. This really revolves around questions like "should a poll call that blocks increase a thread's priority"? Now that the preemptive kernel people and the low-latency kernel people have done their thing, it's time to look at how priorities are adjusted for blocked processes.
True real-time operating systems, like QNX, are very careful about this, so that when a thead is unblocked by an external event, the thread gets control very fast unless something of higher priority is already running. In QNX, you often code a group of coordinated processes passing control back and forth very rapidly as they send messages back and forth. (Since the networking and file system in QNX are in user processes, this happens on all I/O). The QNX OS supports this as a high-performance activity. Interprocess communication came late to UNIX, and it isn't done as well. But high-interactivity and multimedia work requires such support.