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New Tool to Track Kernel Testing Time
mu22le writes "Andrea Arcangeli has created a new tool, 'klive', to automatically track the amount of testing that each kernel gets before release. According to Kernel Traffic "There was some discussion [on making it a kernel config option] that public perception might put this in the "spyware" category", but still the ability to track a kernel usage and reliability would be valuable to both developers and users."
They seem to be taking system stats and system uptimes and presenting it in a hard to understand table. Is that tracking testing?
If I turn on my computer and don't touch it for a year, it will have excellent uptime, but it doesn't really test very much. Same too, if I just start up Apache and let it do its thing.
Testing is a very important part of any development cycle and testing metrics are very useful in determining the quality of the delivered product. However, I've never heard of "testing time" used as a metric. Maybe "coverage" or "bugs over time", but the amount of time itself is never really a concern.
From what I've seen of the Linux kernel (just downloading the source from kernel.org and browsing through it), there doesn't seem to be much in the way of actual debug code thoughtfully and diligently placed throughout the code. There are a few litterings of debug code here and there, but for the most part, it seems like the developers just expect it to work without error.
Nothing wrong with that attitude, if reality backs it up. And luckily, with Linux, reality is right there to prove the developers correct.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
And I don't think it could be thought of as spyware.
Spyware is supposed to be unknowingly reporting information about you, whether it was mistakenly installed by you or it crept in from somewhere else.
An application, or kernel option you flick on like a switch, which you install, and that reports information you know about, to people you understand are going to use that information, can't be called spyware unless it also happened to report how much pr0n you have as well as the kernel's amount of usage.
I think it would be a neat option to have in the kernel in general. Off by default, all us geeks who want to say "look! here! I'm running Linux!" could turn it on and it could report our uptimes and what kernels we're running.
We could "stand up and be counted" to show our support for Linux and give the various distributions a rough idea of what we think about them.
His name is Robert Paulsen...