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Vanishing Features Of The 2.6 Kernel
chromatic writes "Jerry Cooperstein has written an excellent article summarizing the features removed from the upcoming 2.6 kernel. One controversial change may be tightening restrictions on binary-only modules." And Lovechild writes with some more 2.6 news: "I recently did an inteview with famous kernel hacker extraordinare and all round nice guy Robert M. Love for Tinyminds.org, about kernel 2.6 and what can be expected for desktop Linux users, when the new kernel series is released.
You left off one major con:
Binary-only modules must be updated by the vendor when the kernel interface changes.
If we must have binary-only modules, I like how Cisco did it for their VPN software: you compile a small wrapper function with a provided library file to generate the module. That way you can generate one specific to your kernel version.
See also: quickest way to discourage commercial development on your platform.
Gee, do you think all these corporations who have been embracing Linux in these past few years will still be using it when they can no longer use their expensive software investments with it? I doubt there are reasonable open source alternatives for most of these applications, like video card drivers or movie production applications, for example. Good luck on getting more people to adopt your platform after that.
I forsee a massive move to FreeBSD if this bullshit continues.
--sdem
Anyone know if Reiserfs4 got into the 2.6 release? I think I read Reiser had been pushing Linus to include Reiser4, and from what I've read in LinuxJournal, Reiser4 supposed to be 2-3 times faster than Reiser3.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Untrue. Most people are incapable of hacking kernel code, or any kind of code.
The kernel developers can use their abilities and positions to essentially blackmail the user base. New hardware drivers aren't usually backported to older kernels, so in order to get modern support for most things you have to run the latest. Want to run on modern hardware? You have to upgrade to a new kernel, with a new license, new restrictions, etc.
They don't owe you anything.
This is hilarious. You know, I once posted a rant on LKML about some particular issue (details unimportant). I essentially said that if it wasn't addressed, I might consider moving to BeOS (which was looking very good to me at the time). I have the freedom to make that choice, right? They don't OWE me anything, right? So clearly I most not owe THEM anything.
But I got several responses accusing me of BLACKMAIL, saying that I was "threatening" to move to BeOS in order to force someone to do something.
I could understand if there was some disagreement on a technical point, but by that point the conversation had degenerated into a flamethrowing competition between Andre Hendrick and the rest of the list. I was the only guy backing up Hendrick.
Anyway, I know from experience that many kernel developers are elitist, arrogant people. I guess they think that because their code runs in Ring 0 they must be somehow superior to the rest of us.
I never said so on the list or in private to anyone. That's just how I feel about it.
The "rant" was the result of me being extremely pissed. And I believe justifiably so. There was something in the kernel that Andre considered a "defect." He had a simple piece of code to fix it. The kernel people rejected this, because "in theory, someone can get around this, so there's no point plugging a hole which someone can reopen."
At this point, I made some remark about how it would boost user morale if the patch were in place, regardless of any real technical merit. I made some statement to the effect of, "You guys should care more about what the users want, even if you think you know better than them." I didn't mean it in a combative sense. I was just growing irritated with their arrogance, and wanted to say so. I had earlier made some comment about how BeOS offered some feature that I wanted, and of course this got used as ammo against me, claiming that I was trying to blackmail the kernel developers by threatening to leave Linux -- as if my sole usership was pivotal to their existence. I'm not idiotic enough to make such a claim.
I've tried the "ya know, this really needs changing, and here's a few reasons why..." approach. The response I've gotten was "No. You're an idiot. Your idea is stupid. We'll never do that. Go away."
Kinda makes one bitter, you know...
Back in the day there was this company called WordPerfect. Their schtick was that there were thousands of printers, but no universal way to get shit printed. So they wrote printer drivers, for all of them, and they were fantastic. WordPerfect quickly took over the market because they wrote printer drivers. They knew how the printers would be used and figured the best way to access them, and were motivated to maintain the whole base of drivers.
Open source drivers are much the same way. Owners of hardware have a pretty serious motivation to make the drivers work. You also get higher quality drivers because of the many-eyeball effect. The best situation for customers and companies alike is for the companies to release a "beta" driver, detailed specs, and hire one guy to coordinate work on the driver. Then let the thing evolve. It's the beauty of the source.
"Source code is like manure, if you spread it around things grow. If you hoarde it, it just smells bad."
-- Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.