DTrace Becomes Usable on FreeBSD

daria42 writes "A project to port Sun Microsystems' Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) tool to FreeBSD appears to have achieved some initial success. DTrace was open sourced last year and is one of the coolest features in Solaris 10."

Comments

DTrace scripts

[Life700MB]

Here you got some dtrace scripts, direct from my firefox bookmarks.


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GPL != Open Source

[nsayer]

The GPL is not the only Open Source license. Dig your head out of the sand and see how may others there are.

The CDDL under which the code in question was released is a slightly modified version of the Mozilla Public License. So if you used Mozilla or firefox or whatever to post that screed, then you've clearly sinned against the church of RMS.

Oh, and the CDDL IS an OSI approved license, so that means DTrace IS (by the definition most programmers who don't wear Birkenstocks agree on) Open Source.

As a developer, if you value your work, the GPL is the better license under which to release code, as it means no-one can take your work, close the source, and sell it as their own.

CDDL Section 3.1:

Any Covered Software that You distribute or otherwise make available in Executable form must also be made available in Source Code form and that Source Code form must be distributed only under the terms of this License. You must include a copy of this License with every copy of the Source Code form of the Covered Software You distribute or otherwise make available. You must inform recipients of any such Covered Software in Executable form as to how they can obtain such Covered Software in Source Code form in a reasonable manner on or through a medium customarily used for software exchange.

So try again.

Re:Dtrace - is often referred to as "error vomit"

[asaul]

Dtrace is the exact opposite of error vomit, and I dont recall ever hearing it called that anyway. The entire principle is that you dont need to go inserting metric shitloads of debugging and printf("we got here") statements all through your code, recompile it and then see that the error doesnt occur because all your debugging has now slowed your code enough to prevent the race condition that caused the original error.

True - its a L3 and developer tool for the most part, but there are plenty of scripts out there to show what it can do for an admin. Take a look at http://users.tpg.com.au/adsln4yb/dtrace.html for starters. Stuff like iosnoop, iotop, opensnoop and kill.d can be used quite regularly by admins without the need for putting debugging into active applications.

Not ready for -CURRENT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dtrace is one of the best Unix development tools around, no joke. However the project is nowhere near available for FreeBSD users....

From Bryan Cantrill's blog: "If you run FreeBSD in production, you're going to want John's port as it stands today -- and if you develop for the FreeBSD kernel (drivers or otherwise), you're going to need it."

Now compare this to Birrell's announcement: "There is still a lot of work to do and while that goes on, the code has to remain in the FreeBSD perforce server. It isn't ready to get merged into CVS-current yet."

Great news and nicely done... but, um, come back when it's ready for -CURRENT primetime before telling Zdnet it's ready ;)

Re:I think the GPL weenies are jealous

[Winter Lightning]

The whole point of DTrace is that it allows you to gather information
that you couldn't obtain before. See some examples here:
  http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bmc/20040805
here:
  http://users.tpg.com.au/adsln4yb/dtrace.html#OneLi ners
and here:
  http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/howtoguides/dt racehowto.jsp

Declaration of interest: I work for Sun, use DTrace, demonstrate it and
see the expressions of stunned delight on the faces of people
when they suddenly recognise its power.