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Linux Kernel Developer Declares VirtualBox Driver "Crap"
An anonymous reader writes "Linux kernel developers have decided to mark the VirtualBox kernel driver as tainted crap for the significant number of problems this open-source driver has caused. The VirtualBox kernel driver reportedly causes memory corruption and other problems. With the driver being flagged as tainted crap, bug reports caused by the driver will be taken less seriously."
An anonymous coward writes
One of the developers wanted to flag the vbox driver as tainted to keep bug submissions on it from going to kernel devs.
this is *way* overblown.
...so instead of just complaining, they could fix it and offer the patch back to Oracle.
I do believe that people who complain about problems in the Linux kernel and other open source products are often told to do just that. Why expect others to do as you say, if you won't do the same?
I think you have it exactly backward. It's reasonable to tell someone to fix something himself if he wants it fixed. The people marking the Virtualbox driver as "crap" probably have no interest in using it themselves. The reason for the tag is to avoid being bothered by other people who want it fixed. Now, the Linux developers who don't care about the driver can more easily tell people who do want it fixed to do so themselves or bitch to Oracle, which seems entirely reasonable.
Actually, MS did have those reports, probably 90% of BSOD's over the years were caused by third party drivers. MS moved large chunks of the driver infrastructure into user space and for those areas where performance was deemed more important than isolating the drivers and kernel they implemented a more robust WHQL process and required drivers to be signed after WHQL testing was completed. This probably reduced the number of BSOD's experienced by 85% or so.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It's the usual scenario, you pick the idiot:
1. OSS evangelist throws sales pitch at newbie
2. Newbie starts using OSS, tries to file a bug
3. "Scratch my own itch" developer tells him to get lost
You can't on the one side say "Hey, [OSS software] is just as good as [closed payware] and it's free if one will get you "Thanks we're always interested in the bugs our (paying) customer are experiencing" and the other "You got what you paid for, go fix it yourself". And if they say "Well I don't know how to code, could I pay someone to fix it?" then they'll be quoted custom development prices that'll scare anyone right back to COTS software because they're used to that cost being spread over thousands of users. Remember most people are used to getting the whole MS Office suite for $100-150, that's 15-20 hours at minimum wage.
This isn't just some temporary situation, there's a great many people in the FLOSS community that literally don't want users, they just want more developers and anyone who isn't going to contribute anything isn't worth giving the time of day. Then there's the people who says it's so easy your Grandma could use it, but in practice it only works as a tech geek keeps fixing whatever broke in the last upgrade of Ubuntu. Because you don't get help, and if you do get help it's like 10% of the way pointing you in the right direction. You're seeing a regression? Can you bisect it down to what commit caused it? To a person who just use the binary packages on the system you might as well speak alien. Not to mention it's literally hours of work for someone who maybe wanted to take 5 minutes of their time to tell someone there's a bug. That's one of the things I learned, in 95% of the cases it's meaningless to just file a bug because very few developers bother to go around fixing bugs they don't experience themselves, and if they do they're likely to fix it on their own. Oh yes, and unlike any closed source software I've worked with OSS software makes you the steward of the bug. If there's a reproducible test case, it's still easier to file off a "is this still a problem?" than testing it yourself.
Do I blame them? Not really, I do enough work at work to know I don't want to do free work at home as well. But some are setting users off on the completely wrong foot, giving them completely wrong expectations. It really should come with a warning label "For technical users only. You don't have to be a coder, but it helps. You did not pay for this software, so any person you ask for help is likely a volunteer. Your problems are not their problems, so it's not certain anyone wants to help. Don't expect any bugs to fix themselves just because you report it. The more help you can provide developers, the more likely it might get fixed. Getting angry because nobody can or will help will get you nowhere. In short, you're on your own."
It isn't exactly an OSS sales pitch though.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings