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Microsoft Developer Made the Most Changes To Linux 3.0 Code
sfcrazy sends this quote from the H:
"The 343 changes made by Microsoft developer K. Y. Srinivasan put him at the top of a list, created by LWN.net, of developers who made the most changes in the current development cycle for Linux 3.0. Along with a number of other 'change sets,' Microsoft provided a total of 361 changes, putting it in seventh place on the list of companies and groups that contributed code to the Linux kernel. By comparison, independent developers provided 1,085 change sets to Linux 3.0, while Red Hat provided 1,000 and Intel 839."
... it really is useless trivia. What's more important is what the contributions are, specifically. Per TFA:
This work by Microsoft was to clean up the “Microsoft Hyper-V (HV) driver” so that the Microsoft driver would be included in the mainline Linux kernel. Microsoft originally submitted this set of code changes back in July 2009, but there were a lot of problems with it, and the Linux kernel developers insisted that it be fixed. The Linux community had a long list of issues with Microsoft’s code, but the good news is that Microsoft worked to improve the quality of its code so that it could be accepted into the Linux kernel. Other developers helped Microsoft get their code up to par, too. ( Steve Friedl has some comments about its early technical issues.
and why:
Getting code into the mainline Linux kernel release, instead of just existing as a separate patch, is vitally important for an organization if they want people to use their software (if it needs to be part of the Linux kernel, as this did). A counter-example is that the Xen developers let KVM zoom ahead of them, because the Xen developers failed to set a high priority on getting full support for Xen into the mainline Linux kernel. As Thorsten Leemhuis at The H says, “There are many indications that the Xen developers should have put more effort into merging Xen support into the official kernel earlier. After all, while Xen was giving developers and distribution users a hard time with the old kernel, a new virtualisation star was rising on the open source horizon: KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) In the beginning, KVM could not touch the functional scope and speed of Xen. But soon, open source developers, Linux distributors, and companies such as AMD, Intel and IBM became interested in KVM and contributed a number of improvements, so that KVM quickly caught up and even moved past Xen in some respects.” Xen may do well in the future, but this is still a cautionary tale.
I wish people would get over this myth that "could care less" means that you couldn't care less.
In LWN.net's evaluation of the number of lines of code changed, Srinivasan and Microsoft are therefore nearer the bottom of the list. LWN.net found that Microsoft developers changed 11,564 lines of code (1.3 per cent) – compared to Intel's 163,232 (18.1 per cent).
Little changes are good, but simple count of changes isn't necessarily a good measure of work done. Lines of Code, while itself not a perfect measure, is better than simply Number of Commits.
He has only been part of Microsoft since february 2011. Until then, he was part of Novel.
Perhaps they couldn't care less (note the correct usage), what does that matter? So long as they contribute valid code, in compliance with licensing, that addresses a need, I don't care *who* contributes. Hell: Hans, from his jail cell, can contribute, for all of me. If it makes Linux better, and it's not some patent landmine, IJustDon'tGiveADamn.
As for user-driven innovation, yes, it is. For two reasons:
- Solo users still do contribute. Check the numbers.
- Solo users who manage to work for large companies does not mean they still don't adhere to the spirit.
So neener.
He's got it right...
Except for the Google part. They are going to sell your testicles to the CIA for nothing, while making it look like giving you a free service.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Linux is still "a community effort of users putting their minds together". There may have been a shift from the community made up mostly of individuals to corporations but it is still, a community.
Does it matter if a contributor is an individual, an individual contributing on behalf of a company or company contributing as long as the code is of good quality, is offered in ways that agrees with the norms of the community and does not violate any license used by the community? Microsoft is contributing code because they are either using linux or they have people they are supporting who are using it hence they are part of the community effort. It doesnt matter how little any individual or company cares about the GPL, all it matters is that they conduct themselves in a way that does not violate it.
It's still amusing to see Microsoft touching Linux at all while their monkey of a CEO slanders it and throws veiled threats at its userbase.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Irregardless, "could care less" is incorrect because it's logically flawed.
Contributions to Linux take many forms. Code-centric people only view contributions to the Linux kernel as contributions to Linux. Far more aware people, take contributions to Linux being amongst the following,
contributions to GNU (something you obviously need to look up),
contributions to Linux compatible hardware drivers,
contributions to Linux documentation,
contributions to Linux based graphical users interfaces,
contributions to Linux compatible applications,
contributions to graphics design including icons, appearance, fonts, screens savers, layouts,
contributions to marketing and promotion,
contributions to Linux protecting patents,
contributions to service and support,
contributions to the Linuc user community,
and of course contributions to Linux based distribution without which Linux would not exist as an operating system rather than just a kernel.
Seriously only a real asshat would take all those contributions and treat them as nothing either that or a microtroll. It amazes me that after all these years how people still fail to understand how a community developed product like Linux comes into being, how all contributions small and large are highly regarded (the value being in the sharing) and how contributions of individuals are valued (even those employed by M$, M$ did you create code, those people employed by M$ did).
From your selfish self centred viewpoint, it appears that I must apologise for using Linux whilst not being a good enough coder to contribute to the kernel. So "I am sorry", my coding sucks and my others contributions to Linux are not good enough to appease you. Of course to the rest of the Linux community I say thank you for all the contributions made no matter how great or small.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Microsoft contributed stuff so their code would work.
Does it make "linux" better? No.
Does it allow THEIR code to work? Yes.
So interoperability is bad? Thats pretty fucking funny considering the number of fanboys such as yourself that shout that MS goes out of its way to break interoperability.
Would better interop not make Linux better? Seems rather illogical to say that Linux working better with Windows is a bad thing, since that is what you're saying I'm going to have to assume one of us is as retarded as Corky from Life Goes On, and its not me.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
So you're saying the people who review kernel patches are so shitty they couldn't spot any of the things you're referring too?
You do realize you're insulting your own team more than the other team right, you're just too stupid to realize ... oh ... never mind.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Microsoft has a reason, it's called Hyper-V. Microsoft wants companies to use Hyper-V instead of VMWare and other virtualization platforms, and for that to work, even if Microsoft detests it, they need to support Linux as a virtualized guest.
What? 'Irregardless' is a perfectly comulent word.
Linux is still "a community effort of users putting their minds together". There may have been a shift from the community made up mostly of individuals to corporations but it is still, a community. Does it matter if a contributor is an individual, an individual contributing on behalf of a company or company contributing as long as the code is of good quality, is offered in ways that agrees with the norms of the community and does not violate any license used by the community? Microsoft is contributing code because they are either using linux or they have people they are supporting who are using it hence they are part of the community effort. It doesnt matter how little any individual or company cares about the GPL, all it matters is that they conduct themselves in a way that does not violate it.
I will tell you what really makes me personally feel like I am participating in a community. For most Open Source software I have used, if I have a question or a suggestion or simply some feedback, I can usually communicate directly with the maintainer or lead developer of the project. They are accessible. They are fellow human beings, not corporate conglomerates. There are no layers of sales reps or receptionists or PR personnel. Sometimes I send an e-mail just to say "thank you" for the simple reason that they owe me absolutely nothing, yet I benefit from the work they have chosen to make freely available.
It would be like calling up Microsoft and speaking directly to Ballmer about Windows. No regular Microsoft customer is ever going to do that. That's the difference between a community and a conglomerate. That, and with most Linux distributions users help each other as much as (if not more than) organizations provide formal support.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The code from ANYONE at Microsoft is venom ... and must be dead ... and must be deleated.
Neither Microsoft nor Apple can be trusted! They are both EVIL. KILL their CODE! ... Let their
bodies BURN.
A real good day will be when the bodies of Microsoft and Apple employees are burning in the streets.
-- //
Just a suggestion... cut back on the caffeine.
#DeleteChrome
No, it's called illiteracy.
I should note, that almost all of these posts so far are 1million UIDs or AC, so it probably really is teenage angst, but holy shit no wonder no one commercially supports Linux, you guys are just ungrateful fucks.
you must be new here
FOR THOSE USING WINDOWS, they can _also_ run Linux.
If they ran Linux they could host whatever they want. THAT'S why Microsoft did this. VMware Server is free, and it runs on Linux or Windows, and it hosts EVERYTHING.
That's cool. Hyper-V Server is also free, and does not require any OS to run (VMware also has a similar product - ESX). You don't need to run Windows.
Though I find it interesting that you object to running Linux in one proprietary piece of software (Hyper-V), but not the other (VMware). I'd understand your perspective it it was, at least, a matter of FOSS purity - but then you should, at least, argue for KVM or Xen.
This does not enhance Linux nor the experience of anyone who uses it.
It does enhance everyone's Linux experience if there are more Linux machines out there, don't you agree? If some previously Microsoft-only shop can now run e.g. LAMP instances on their Hyper-V servers, that's one more customer software and other companies would consider.
yeah, i feel the same way about people who use the wrong "its".
Does that include the authors of the US Constitution? Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 2: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
And yes, the apostrophe is in the original.
to be fair, we're talking about the scribe and not the founding fathers themselves.
and so, as for Jacob Shallus... well, he didn't have a backspace key but nevertheless, yes, i look back upon him disfavorably.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
So let me get this straight:
Microsoft is BAD for releasing Linux drivers
VMware is GOOD for releasing Linux drivers
It's OK to run Windows from within Linux, but not the other way around?
I fail to see what your argument is.
Does improvements in Hyper-V drivers make Linux better? Yes
Does it benefit those who don't use Hyper-V? Yes, indirectly by increasing the user base, thus providing more incentive for others to release software for Linux.
Does it benefit existing Microsoft customers the most? Yes (but why is that a problem?)
---- Sig. gone.
Even more interesting is that MS submitted code, then the most changes in the 3.0 kernel by an individual were to the MS submitted kernel code by a MS dev in order to bring MS's code up to the Linux standard so it could be included in the kernel...
It makes you wonder about code that MS doesn't have to let anyone else see i.e. their proprietary products.
(Actually, it make me wonder less -- This just confirms that they haven't really changed their coding habits since I last saw the mess that was the leaked Windows source code.)
if you're referring to my posts (and even if you're not), i intentionally adopted a mostly-uncapitalized style to reflect my perception that online discussion is a (novel) compromise between formal writing and spoken language. i still usually capitalize proper names only out of respect for others.
apart from this, you may also note that the capitalization of i is anomalous among nominative pronouns. afaik, there is no universally-accepted explanation for this, but i find the explanations put forth* to be either obsolete or personally unacceptable.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_(pronoun)
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Not really, say you run ten services, all virtual in their own instance to minimize downtime and provide redundancy 4 use windows specific programs, the the rest will run on Linux. You use a windows host to make sure nothing freaky happens. Having drivers int the kernel to support any quirks of hyper-V and improve performance is still going to help you, without flooding the server room with physical machines, and without adding substantial maintenance costs. Or say a company is all windows, has some virtualization, but want's to add a service that runs better in Linux. Then it becomes very easy to just install and instance of CentOS or Redhat (depending on management and local expertise) and get the service running. No need for new hardware, the kernel just integrates into what you already have setup. That's the point of the Linux kernel really, to be able to deploy or integrate it wherever you want. There really is meaning to the term office politics. You most often won't get what you want, unless or until you find a way the minimally disrupts the work other people are already doing.
1) Hyper-V has worked fine with Linux hosts for a long time, this is just a code cleanup and bug fix for existing Hyper-V specific drivers in the kernel.
2) VMWare also needs guest drivers to get Linux to run as it should. These are not part of the Linux kernel. VMware releases their drivers separably, but you still need them to make full use of the server.
Microsoft decided it would be easier for their users if they got their drivers included in the kernel. More work for Microsoft and the kernel maintainers, less work for the users.
---- Sig. gone.
It makes you wonder about code that MS doesn't have to let anyone else see i.e. their proprietary products.
It really doesn't. Bringing the code "up to the Linux" standard doesn't necessarily have anything to do with quality. I'm sure that the quality was improved by the process, but that's normal any time intense scrutiny is applied to a piece of code of any size. Another round of intense scrutiny would improve it some more. I'm sure much of it was also a matter of complying with Linux coding style standards. Changing from one style to another can produce a large volume of trivial changes.
I also would not be surprised if the quality of the code is Linux is somewhat higher than the quality level common at Microsoft. But I don't think this tells you one way or another.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Q. Will Microsoft continue to support Linux operating systems with Hyper-V?
A. Yes, Microsoft provides integration components and technical support for customers running select Linux distributions as guest operating systems within Hyper-V. Please check the Supported Guest Operating Systems page for more information and updates.
It definitly looks like the hyper-v drivers are officially supported by Microsoft.
Its obviously a contribution made for selfish reasons (Linux support is essential if you want your hypervisor to be competetive today and having drivers in the mainline kernel is almost a requirement) but the same can be said for pretty much all corporate contributions to the Linux kernel and quite a few individual contributions aswell.
I can't think of a single company that has made contributions to the kernel in an area that didn't benefit their main business.
And then I, as lead (and often only) developer for several FOSS projects, get an email with a question, suggestion or bug report to my personal email. When I reply with "please use the mailing list", people like you, who, to them, "community" means that the lead developer needs to answer their questions directly, complain, get upset, and sometimes get downright rude.
As a lead developer, I want a community to form. This means that I want to give all people in the community a chance to answer your question, not only myself personally.
Shachar
Saying one thing and meaning it's exact opposite is not an evolution of an "idiom" - it's just idiocy.
Unless you're telling me that in 300 years "4" might actually mean "27" or something along those lines?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Interoperability for MS is a short term goal..
When IE was new and competing with netscape, they worked to make it interoperable with netscape...
Once netscape was gone, that flew out of the window and they tried to maintain lock-in.
Now that firefox and chrome have become popular, ie is now trying to interoperate again.
The same can be said of msoffice, when they faced serious competition they supported opening wordperfect files and had a relatively open rtf spec, once the competition was overcome they turn the screws of lockin again.
I predict the same will happen with hyper-v if they get the chance... If vmware, xen and kvm fall by the wayside then it wont be long before hyper-v only runs windows, the linux support will stagnate and new versions of hyper-v will come out which aren't compatible with it.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Interestingly, windows boots a lot faster inside of a vm running on linux than it does on the hative hardware (seriously, give it a try)...
If going the other way round, linux runs somewhat slower inside of a vm running on windows... The performance penalty when running in a vm on linux is much smaller.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Than and then are completely different words.
Contrary to what many ill- and semi-literates seem to think, these are not homonyms. We spell them differently for a reason.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I have seen a great number of posts where 'then' has been substituted for 'than'. What really surprises me is the writer is quite clearly of above average intelligence...
There are also a lot of idiots doing it too.
Hopefully unrelated, recall that just a couple of days ago someone substituted "women" for "woman" in the title of a Slashdot article submission. As I read down the comments to see how quickly someone would call it, I saw plenty of other phonetic substitutions, spelling and grammar problems in the posts that follow. Yet, nobody seemed to take note (or I suppose mention) the error in the title.
I used to think "at least the members of Slashdot will continue to be functionally literate, even if the rest of the web goes to shit." Unfortunately, in the last couple of years I've discovered I was wrong.
do() || do_not();
I wish people would get over this myth that just because a lot of people say something and think they know what it means that it makes sense.
It doesn't. It's a sign that the speaker is stupid. Insisting that it's OK is a sign that the speaker is meta-stupid.
--
make install -not war
Last time I checked MS was a software development firm, and did work with linux.
You'd think that this was common knowledge. Every company for which I've worked used a mix of Windows and Linux; of necessity efforts are made to make them work together.
Sometimes I wonder how many Slashdotters actually work in IT.
Right, let's just throw away the basic meanings of some of the simplest words in our language. Everything should be taken to mean the opposite of what is actually said, because that makes perfect sense. Thanks for your time in so clearly and concisely explaining how apparently wrong I am in being correct. Hey, I guess you're right, things can mean the opposite of their stated denotations.
I've only heard Americans say "could care less", before, and it may come as a shock to many of them, but they aren't the only nation that speaks "English". Funny word, that, "English". Wonder who speaks that language...
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
That said, Windows seems to boot faster in a VM inside of Windows too. This is not so strange, the virtual hardware is probably a lot easier to detect and find drivers for than the full machine. I'm pretty sure that most programs run (slightly) slower after boot.