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Greg Kroah-Hartman Gripes About Microsoft's Linux Contribution; MS Renews Effort
dp619 writes "Microsoft's developers were missing in action after the company donated GPL-licensed drivers to the Linux kernel community in July, leaving significant work to the Linux community, according to Linux driver project lead and Novell fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman. The company rekindled its involvement after Kroah-Hartman published a status report this week. Kroah-Hartman said that other companies were also laggards in Linux development, and that Microsoft's lack of involvement was nothing out of the ordinary."
Well then they released what they were supposed to so either take it or shut up.
A good point. Anyone is free to do what ever they like with the gpl donated code that doesn't violate the gpl. That includes not including it in a future official Linus sanctioned Linux kernel. But, I think GKH is trying to get companies to stay active in development of their own donated code,using the carrot of inclusion in the Official Linus Kernel. That's not a bad idea. Someone has to fund the ongoing maintenance costs of the drivers.
As the drivers usage primarily benefits Microsoft, why not them?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
As was mentioned earlier, MS got caught infringing and so *had* to "donate" the code in question. They did the minimum they could get away with, no big surprise there...
Caveat Utilitor
No, you're wrong. Whereas everyone else sees contribution of code as a nice bit of corporate philanthropy, Greg KH sees something completely different. He sees it as corporations dumping their code on the community so they can off-load its support. As such, he often calls on corporate contributors to step up and fund a developer or two to work on the kernel full time. This flame is no different.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Thank them for what? MS's contributed drivers are useless to anyone who isn't running MS's own hypervisor and Linux underneath (i.e., MS's customers). They didn't donate this code out of any altruism, only pure self-interest.
So don't act like they're doing the Linux community any favors, because they're not.
Sounds to me like MS dumped this pile of crap code on the kernel maintainers, and then faded away instead of sticking around to deal with the inevitable problems that result when trying to merge code into the mainline (i.e. fixing all the problems that the maintainers point out).
This is for the drivers/staging tree, which is specifically set aside for drivers that don't meet normal code standards but where the intent is to bring them up to par for merging into the "real" tree.
No, they were violating the GPL.
They had to at least give source to their customers.
Rather than to continue to do that they made this driver the kernel maintainers problem. If they don't want to help maintain it, I say drop it from the kernel.
Greg K-H's public comments about the code being abandoned had the desired effect: people at Microsoft got in touch with him again. The same thing happened with code contributed by several other companies:
This is Microsoft (and other companies) learning how to deal with kernel development. Greg K-H has a good attitude about it, so let's not build a mountain out of this. Perhaps Microsoft will do better next time.
Not everything and everyone associated with Microsoft deserves abuse and scorn. Save it for their next DRM initiative or something.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Yeah, I'd want to do that too. But if the kernel maintainers do that, it would look really bad and arbitrary (no one ever remembers MS's long, long history of unethical behavior), so to be fair, they have to accept the code.
However, that doesn't mean they have to do MS's work for them. I've submitted kernel patches before (pretty minor ones), and part of the process is making your patch meet the standards of the maintainers: the coding style has to match the rest of the kernel (no Hungarian notation crap, which MS is a big fan of), and they usually find all kinds of nitpicky things they want fixed to meet their standards (which is a good thing; this is a place where perfectionism is useful). So it usually takes a few back-and-forth iterations before the patch is accepted and merged.
If I, Joe User, were to submit a patch and then disappear, it would NOT make it into the kernel. They'd write back with their complaints, wait for me to resubmit with the fixes, and then forget about it when I never resubmit.
MS shouldn't be treated any differently. They're not special, and a patchset of this size represents a lot of work to merge into the kernel. If MS wants it merged for the benefit of their customers, it's their responsibility to make the required changes, not expect it to be done for them.
Ok, honestly, when VMWare released GPLed drivers LOOOOOOOOONG ago, how many blogs did we have talking about how VMWare is contributing code to Linux, and how many people needed to state that those were simply self-serving drivers for VMWare? Nooone... These are self-serving, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it, they wanted their virtualization stuff to be able to run GNU/Linux, and they released drivers. It is not an 'evil' move but simply a logical one. But for sure it is not a 'contribution' to Linux. It is nothing out of the ordinary and honestly, I am tired of having to read countless of stories about...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
All your posts have been so far have all been complaining about how everyone around here thinks Microsoft is evil, and how the group mindthink is fucking you over. No wonder you got modded down.
Get over yourself... nobody here cares what you think. This isn't the propaganda arm of MS so if people say things that you see as "anti-Microsoft" it is probably because is is true. Certainly a site that is a "Source for technology related news with a heavy slant towards Linux and Open Source issues." clearly identifies itself and needs to be read with a bit of scepticism-even if a significant number of those you see as "anti-Microsoft" are right most of the time. I don't see BestBuy, Staples, PC World, or any other "MS Windows" propaganda arm identifying itself so blatantly as Microsoft for the good of the people.
Hmm.. did they forget to thank? It's quite common to cry about this and that... when the only think needed is to shut your mouth and THANK for the little help.
If you're here to build me a bridge, then tell me so and build it. If you're here to bring me a stone, then don't tell me you're here to build me a bridge.
Oh, cry me a river...
coding is life
You think this constitutes "publicly flame"ing Microsoft? He's just asking them to step it up and contribute. He's much harder on others in that list. It also doesn't seem like he went out of his way to be interviewed. It sounds like he just responded to a few questions that a reporter put to him. "Unfortunately" and "so sad" do not, of themselves, constitute a flame.
Here are a few other choice passages: (these may be interpreted as weak flames)
heci A wonderful example of a company throwing code over the wall, watching it get rejected, and then running away as fast as possible, all the while yelling over their shoulder, "it's required on all new systems, you will love it!" We don't, it sucks, either fix it up, or I am removing it.
me4000 and meilhaus They work on the same hardware, and they duplicate the existing COMEDI drivers. Someone thinks that custom userspace interfaces are fun and required. Turns out that being special and unique is not what to do here, use the COMEDI drivers instead. These will be removed. Heck, I'll go remove them for .32, there is no reason these should still be around, except to watch the RT guys squirm as they try to figure out the byzantine locking and build logic here (which certainly does count for something, cheap entertainment is always good.)
rspiusb A weird, very expensive camera, from a company that does not want to release the specs, and wants custom userspace interfaces. The code hasn't built since the 2.6.20 days. I'll go delete it now from .32, it doesn't deserve to live as no one cares about it, least of all, the original authors of the code :(
In other words: "Though it seems that he has the generosity to not publicly flame them unlike Microsoft." is pure hogwash... on both counts.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
"If you're here to build me a bridge, then tell me so and build it. If you're here to bring me a stone, then don't tell me you're here to build me a bridge."
Except they're here to teach you to fish, not to become your unpaid fishermen/code slaves for the rest of eternity.
I actually expect that this was an intern project for one or more interns (intern season just ended), and that there was never any expectation that the people who did the work would be around to maintain it. It was in fact a very large move for Microsoft to release this code at all, and it probably took a lot of begging internally to get management to agree to that much concession. Then they went above and beyond, and released the code patches under the GPL, which meets their requirements under the GPL to donate the code back to the Linux project. You seem to expect them to stick around and maintain that code in perpetuity, which wasn't the contract, and wasn't the license. So you're complaining and threatening to remove the drivers in the next release unless they commit resources in perpetuity to maintaing the drivers vs. *your* code base.
This is really a stupid demand on your part;if the kernel level APIs (what Sun calls their DDI/DKI - Device Driver Interface/Device Kernel Interface) in Linux were stable and not such a moving target, you could just forget the drivers and they'd keep working indefinitely.
As one of the people who struggles internally in a company to keep certain sources out there and available for anyone who wants them, IMO it's really ungrateful of you to look the gift horse in the mouth and demand more just because you can't maintain stable APIs.
-- Terry
They didn't donate this code out of any altruism, only pure self-interest.
Everyone using the GPL is doing so out of self-interest. If it was altruism, they'd be released their code into the public domain.