see for example Linus own explanation on http://lwn.net/Articles/13066/ or http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735
to make a binary modules, you have to use linux kernel include files. So by copyright law (on which GPL is based), there is a high probability [1] that any module IS derived work of the kernel
There is also a story at the Register about the current exec shuffle that Intel is doing related to the P4. Sounds more and more like panic to me given its recent set of fiascos...
Why do you people call it P4 ? So, when next version (Pentium V) gets out, you will call it P5 ?
Oh, wait, P5 is already reserved for Pentium I !
Could we at least use the roman number, like P-IV or something.
I like the way sourceforge.net does it. Only hashes of passwords are kept for authentication purposes. When you forget your password, you click on the button, enter your account name, and it emails you (at the Email address specified when creating account) customized URL that allows you to change password.
So, nobody else can "reset" your passwords. Worst they can do is send you few emails asking you to visit URL to change password.
Security is about knowing that once that somebody -DOES- get in, they can do nothing with or to your data that isn't possible by anyone outside the machine, anyway.
And the best and 100% sure way to achive that, is to have no valuable data at all ! That way, when do steal your worthless data, they will actually have spent more on breaking in that it was worth it.
Even better, if most of the people would do that, crime would dissapear completely, since there would be incentive for anyone to steal. Of course, people might not be so happy to have nothing that is usefull, but you must sacrifice few valuable things to achive such a great goal.
You said the magic words..."fair use copying". People are copying a page or two, not whole books. If people started flocking to libraries and copying whole books (maybe they have free copy day or something that makes it economically feasible) do you think they would just let it happen? Do you think they would allow their resources to be used to copy hundreds of books a day? Not a chance
This just occured to me -- MP3s are actually fair use after all !
You see, I study lossy audio compression algorithms, particulary MP3s. I take original work (.WAV from Audio CD), apply various filters to it, cut some of the data (all above 16khz), apply low and high pass filters, also losing information, etc, until there is very little left of the original work (usually less than 1/10h is that original work).
And after all conversions and algorithams applied, there are very few pieces of the original work that remains intact (if any). So, you see, I've created new work using original work, so that falls under fair use.
Oh, and the nature of this research requires me to distribute those new works (for which I own copyright) via napster, so people can hear them and give me feedback on how well the algorithms worked out (like: "hey d00d, don't uS3 lAm3 sH1Tty 112kbs!! mE 133t HaX0r wAnnA 256kbs!!!!")
"In fall 1984, at the first Hackers' Conference, I said in one discussion session: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." That was printed in a report/transcript from the conference in the May 1985 *Whole Earth Review*, p. 49.
people, next time you use the phrase, please take a moment to reflect on what it really means?
Thanks for digging up the quote. But I think all of us know that well. The thing is that MPAA and RIAA etc. are holding the side that "information wants to be expensive" and Napster etc. people are holding the side that "information wants to be free".
And as the cost of the duplication information continues to fall down, the "information wants to be free" side grows stronger and stronger.
Bullshit. The central problem here, which this article makes perfectly clear, is that someone who owns and creates something has every right to sell it under any terms they want. If those terms suck, no one will buy it. Just because people want something does not mean they deserve to have it- especially not on terms THEY choose.
I agree completely with above. However, once they bought it, it is theirs to do whatever they want to do with it. Listen to it. Break it. Convert it to mp3. Sell it for double price. Sell it for half price. Sell it with contract that requires buyer to give their soul. Give it away for free. Pay someone to take it away. Whatever. Since it is now theirs, THEY (and not original seller) can make terms. If the next buyer don't like those terms, they won't buy it.
Piddling about what file format the music comes in is just plain cheap. It's like saying that just because a car doesn't come in red, you have the right to steal a car and paint it red
Agreed. Let's say I bought I car for 30k$. But it was yellow. And I want it red. So I paint it red. And the sell it for 60k$. Or for 10k$. Or even give it away. It is mine, I can whack it with a big hammer if I want.
Only problem with this comparasion is that the first seller is trying to convince me that I did not bought that CD I payed for. That I bought only the plastic cup holder, and not the music on it.
But, in their great goodness, they will allow me to listen to music that is contained on that cupholder, provided I do not try to do some foolish things, like playing that music when other people can hear it (public performance or broadcast). Or hireing or landing it to anyone (even to my neighbour, even thou I won't charge him a dime). Or try to make copy of it, in case this one breaks. Or some of the other thing which are assumed by 'All Rights Reserved' copyright...
RMS is most emphatically NOT an advocate of "open source". His cause is "free software" and there are many examples of software which meets the Open Source definition without being Free (the latest, apparently, being Python 1.6).
Errr, you DID read the article, right ?
Nowhere did RMS say that Python's licence is not free software. He only said (when asked, after consulting with his lawyer) that it is in his opinion not compatibile with GPL. So both may be free, even RMS will happily use both.
But you cannot intermix them -- eg. create GPL'd python scripts. (which is apparantly what some people had done in the past, and now their software may not distributed with the new python [it may be distributed with old Python which is compatibile with GPL])
Don't know what Nautilus is, but Galeon is not derived work of mozilla, so the GPL does not apply to it. Sure, it uses mozilla. But it is not derivated work, AFAICT. (IANAL)
I could use for example Microsoft internet explorer (commercial license) to execute GPL'd mutt for sending mail. That is not vialation, since mutt is not derived work of MSIE.
BTW, Isn't mozilla going to be dual licensed (MPL/GPL) RSN ?
I don't see why Debian cares whether the Python licence is compatible with the GPL, though. The licence certainly seems to be DFSG-free, and I'm not aware of any GPLed software that has ever incorporated Python bodily. (People have written GPLed software in Python, of course, but that's a different thing; there's no requirement GPLed software be written using a GPLed system or platform.)
I thougth that was evident from the article.
Yes, DFSG covers both GPL and Python's CNRI licence.
But Debian distributes software that is under GPL license, and which is just a python scripts. If GPL and CNRI are conflicting, Debian must not distribute all those GPL programs which use Python (because GPL says that if you want to add additional restrictions to GPL software, GPL is void, and you have no rights to distribute software at all)
Now if we could do that in 1976, why couldn't we make a rugged CD-player? Especially with the Jeep CD player and everything else. Let's face it: the worst thing that a reasonably-sized satellite could survive would be a micrometeor the size of a fist (maybe smaller, I didn't do any calculations, just an educated guess). Anything larger would obliterate the satellite
Yes, you are right, of course. That's why we have to put all those laser-zapping equiped sattelites in orbit to nuke the potential threats!
For example. If I didn't turn on "enable sound" the last time I built a kernel, can I just rebuild sb.o and insert it into the kernel? Nope.
This is just plain wrong. Why couldn't you ?
You just select what sound you want (via make config or others) say 'make modules' and you're ready to insert module with insmod.
What exactly WAS your problem ?
BTW, if you used pre-prepared distribution (like you used with QNX) there would be no need for compiling at all, you would just load pre-compiled modules like you start pre-compiled program in QNX.
If this concept bothers you, ask yourself why? The foundation of the GPL is that programmers should have the right to dictate how their code is used. If you accept the GPL, you accept that a programmer has an inherent right of control over their code that they can then be able to say "this code should never be used in a closed-source program".
Wrong. GPL in itself is necessary evil. The idea is not that programmer should have a way to force their will on users. Quite the contrary, idea is that programmers, distributors etc. will not be able to take away freedom from their users. (and using "evil" copyright to enforce that legally).
How is it that programmers should have this right and musicians should not? Why should software have protections that music should not? Shouldn't a musician have the same degree of control and be able to say "this song shouldn't be made freely available"?
Now, the fair comparision would be artist saying "this song must at all costs be made freely available, and no entity like RIAA etc. may be allowed to restrict it's buyers freedom to freely redistribute our work", and enforcing that via copyright law.
Is it really so unreasonable of the artists to object to someone distributing their work without their consent?
IMHO, yes. Would it be really so unreasonoble for, say, car maker to object to someone distributing their cars without ther consent ? They sold me the car. I can resell it, I can share it with my family and friends, I open TAXI service and drive unknown people around.
All that without consent of car maker. They sold it to me. What I do with it afterwards is none of their bussines. If they didn't want something to be mine they shouldn't have sold it to me.
I've already heard the standard cries of "I'm gonna burn my Metallica CDs!" and "I'm gonna send a flaming e-mail to Hilary Rosen!," but c'mon, what effect will that have? So what if you burn your Metallica CDs, you already bought them, right? And so what if you flame Hilary Rosen? You're just giving them ammo to use against you ("Look at this Napster user, see their blatant disregard for us?!?"). That is why I suggest that the planned boycott for the RIAA should go on. If you're going to send a message to the RIAA about how you feel about Napster, hit them where it matters most: their wallets.
If enough people boycott RIAA, then they'll have more ammo: "You see, that napster piracy thing is causing us significient loss in sales!"
I'm with this guy on the DMA issue, bu I also noticed that they never set the IDE drive to use 32 bit access.
Consult your kernel source. 32-bit I/O support flag (-c) is used only for PIO modes.
When you use DMA (-d), then DMA controller does the data transfers (AKA "bus mastering"), and CPU does not need to tranfer data at all (be it in 16-bit or 32-bit mode).
Repeat your tests with DMA turned ON and you'll see no difference at all.
Inserting ads, topically or not, is creating a derived work. There is no argument of which I'm aware that extends the implied permission to display to do this, which leaves them only with what is allowed by copyright law--bringing them back to "derived work."
Now, the funny part: if they do insert enough new content (hyperlinks etc.) that would fall under "fair use" clause, wouldn't it ?:-)
From X(1): The X Consortium requests that the following names be used when referring to this software: X X Window System X Version 11 X Window System, Version 11 X11
X Window System is a trademark of X Consortium, Inc.
I am certainly glad that Trolltech was not in this position, as they were already OSS supporters, but even they, after having showed this support for several years, still get flak from the community because there license wasn't written to the critic's specifcations, as if Trolltech was going to announce tomorrow, "Ha, fuck you! We left a nice little loophole in our license, so no more damn source code for you!"
Why, that is exactly what happend to.GIFs (everything was nice for years and years, until everybody was using it, and then the "pay us royalties or we'll sue the shit out of you" come).
This is exactly what is happening to MP3s right now.
Dislaimer: As a maintener of one of the peripheral filesystems in linux, I can hardly be objective. However, the post I am replying also most certainly wasn't objective, so what the heck.
Now there's a harebrained idea to add "generic" journaling functionality to the VFS. I assume this is so that when ext3 is finally ready, the VFS will support it well, and all other filesystems will have to then look like ext3.
This is just plain FUD, sorry. Journaling support HAS to be added to VFS. MAIN reason why ext3 (or ReiserFS, but I'll get back later to that) is not going to be in 2.4.0 is because of all the VFS kludging they have to do. That is the same reason why you _CAN'T_ use the journaling with software RAID (which is combination which anything bigger than home user needs - both hardware rendundancy, and you don't have to bring a system down for days fsck-ing when it goes south)
Microsoft make it nearly impossible to write new filesystems for Windows NT, because they want everyone to use NTFS. Viro's doing the same thing. So why is it tolerated in an open-source OS?
Nobody is forcing them to cooperate with Linus and/or Viro. They are perfectly free to fork and release "Reiser's Linux" (which is what some distributions use anyway. SuSE comes to mind). I don't remember when I last used Linus vanilla kernel tree, except as a reference.
Linux should have a generic, capable, stackable VFS that isn't tied to a specific filesystem, and doesn't provide special support for preferred filesystems.
And that is exactly what Viro is doing. If it wasn't, don't you think Linus and would have noticed ?
Adding to the problem is that the VFS is very poorly documented. Changes are made without any foreshadowing. The best documentation available is the source code for the Ext2 filesystem. And that is sad.
There I have to agree. VFS is poorly documented. Part of it is because it is currently undergoing major recoding. When it is done, there will be better documentation, I'm sure. BTW, why don't YOU for example volunteer to write to some VFS documentation ? There is plenty of info on linux-fsdevel and I'm sure that others will be willing to help a cause by answering any questions that you can't answer by reading fsdevel mailing list. So it is just matter of putting some time and energy, no special kernel-hacking-knowledge is required.
This post is not meant as a flame. The VFS is a serious issue. Linux could have had a journaling filesystem by now.
Of couse it is not meant as a flame, it's meant as a FUD:-) VFS is a serious issue, and Linus does have a journaling filesystem by now (few of them actually that are working). They are just not in pristine Linus tree. But if you install whatever distribution, chances are that you WILL NOT be using Linus's tree anyway.
As for Viro-Reiser flames: both of them are strong individuals and bully. Reiserfs team is MUCH better than Reiser himeself -- which especially shows when communicating with others. And although Viro usually does not have such open flame outbursts and name calling as Reiser practise, he will make implicit comments to provoke. But never by themselves, always backed up with facts about poor quality of code in reiserfs (outdated checks suited for 2.2.x kernels which changed completely, etc)
Also, if Reiserfs gets rid of the kludges and fixes it's interface, it will go in Linus 2.4.x tree (but not in 2.4.0 -- this is Linus's comment)
Although I've been bitten personally by VFS changes (filesystem which I maintain is also inode-less as is reiserfs; and VFS is still inode-centric, notwithstanding dentry-stuff), I do see that VFS changes are for the better.
Knowing the big MS, it probably means *anyone* can use your computer from anywhere in the world!
But don't you realize what this all means ? Your computer is no longer yours, it belongs to everyone! That is a basic of communism! Ohmygod, microsoft is becoming communist, just like the RMS !
Slashdot Mirror
it will only get worse for you humans when we^H^Hthey start forming unions!
see for example Linus own explanation on http://lwn.net/Articles/13066/ or
http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735
to make a binary modules, you have to use linux kernel include files. So by copyright law (on which GPL is based), there is a high probability [1] that any module IS derived work of the kernel
[1] well, it haven't been court-trialed yet AFAIK
There is also a story at the Register about the current exec shuffle that Intel is doing related to the P4. Sounds more and more like panic to me given its recent set of fiascos...
Why do you people call it P4 ? So, when next version (Pentium V) gets out, you will call it P5 ?
Oh, wait, P5 is already reserved for Pentium I !
Could we at least use the roman number, like P-IV or something.
I like the way sourceforge.net does it. Only hashes of passwords are kept for authentication purposes. When you forget your password, you click on the button, enter your account name, and it emails you (at the Email address specified when creating account) customized URL that allows you to change password.
So, nobody else can "reset" your passwords. Worst they can do is send you few emails asking you to visit URL to change password.
I can continue to run my favourite ZX Spectrum games under MAME under MS-DOS under DOSEMU under Linux under S/390 !
Security is about knowing that once that somebody -DOES- get in, they can do nothing with or to your data that isn't possible by anyone outside the machine, anyway.
And the best and 100% sure way to achive that, is to have no valuable data at all ! That way, when do steal your worthless data, they will actually have spent more on breaking in that it was worth it.
Even better, if most of the people would do that, crime would dissapear completely, since there would be incentive for anyone to steal. Of course, people might not be so happy to have nothing that is usefull, but you must sacrifice few valuable things to achive such a great goal.
You said the magic words..."fair use copying". People are copying a page or two, not whole books. If people started flocking to libraries and copying whole books (maybe they have free copy day or something that makes it economically feasible) do you think they would just let it happen? Do you think they would allow their resources to be used to copy hundreds of books a day? Not a chance
This just occured to me -- MP3s are actually fair use after all !
You see, I study lossy audio compression algorithms, particulary MP3s. I take original work (.WAV from Audio CD), apply various filters to it, cut some of the data (all above 16khz), apply low and high pass filters, also losing information, etc, until there is very little left of the original work (usually less than 1/10h is that original work).
And after all conversions and algorithams applied, there are very few pieces of the original work that remains intact (if any). So, you see, I've created new work using original work, so that falls under fair use.
Oh, and the nature of this research requires me to distribute those new works (for which I own copyright) via napster, so people can hear them and give me feedback on how well the algorithms worked out (like: "hey d00d, don't uS3 lAm3 sH1Tty 112kbs!! mE 133t HaX0r wAnnA 256kbs!!!!")
"In fall 1984, at the first Hackers' Conference, I said in one discussion session: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." That was printed in a report/transcript from the conference in the May 1985 *Whole Earth Review*, p. 49.
people, next time you use the phrase, please take a moment to reflect on what it really means?
Thanks for digging up the quote. But I think all of us know that well. The thing is that MPAA and RIAA etc. are holding the side that "information wants to be expensive" and Napster etc. people are holding the side that "information wants to be free".
And as the cost of the duplication information continues to fall down, the "information wants to be free" side grows stronger and stronger.
Bullshit. The central problem here, which this article makes perfectly clear, is that someone who owns and creates something has every right to sell it under any terms they want. If those terms suck, no one will buy it. Just because people want something does not mean they deserve to have it- especially not on terms THEY choose.
I agree completely with above. However, once they bought it, it is theirs to do whatever they want to do with it. Listen to it. Break it. Convert it to mp3. Sell it for double price. Sell it for half price. Sell it with contract that requires buyer to give their soul. Give it away for free. Pay someone to take it away. Whatever. Since it is now theirs, THEY (and not original seller) can make terms. If the next buyer don't like those terms, they won't buy it.
Piddling about what file format the music comes in is just plain cheap. It's like saying that just because a car doesn't come in red, you have the right to steal a car and paint it red
Agreed. Let's say I bought I car for 30k$. But it was yellow. And I want it red. So I paint it red. And the sell it for 60k$. Or for 10k$. Or even give it away. It is mine, I can whack it with a big hammer if I want.
Only problem with this comparasion is that the first seller is trying to convince me that I did not bought that CD I payed for. That I bought only the plastic cup holder, and not the music on it.
But, in their great goodness, they will allow me to listen to music that is contained on that cupholder, provided I do not try to do some foolish things, like playing that music when other people can hear it (public performance or broadcast). Or hireing or landing it to anyone (even to my neighbour, even thou I won't charge him a dime). Or try to make copy of it, in case this one breaks. Or some of the other thing which are assumed by 'All Rights Reserved' copyright...
RMS is most emphatically NOT an advocate of "open source". His cause is "free software" and there are many examples of software which meets the Open Source definition without being Free (the latest, apparently, being Python 1.6).
Errr, you DID read the article, right ?
Nowhere did RMS say that Python's licence is not free software. He only said (when asked, after consulting with his lawyer) that it is in his opinion not compatibile with GPL. So both may be free, even RMS will happily use both.
But you cannot intermix them -- eg. create GPL'd python scripts. (which is apparantly what some people had done in the past, and now their software may not distributed with the new python [it may be distributed with old Python which is compatibile with GPL])
I agree..and Nautilus and Galeon should too.
Nautlus && Galeon == GPL
Mozilla == MPL
According to FSF, MPL & GPL are incompatible
Therefore Nautilus && Galeon == illegal
Don't know what Nautilus is, but Galeon is not derived work of mozilla, so the GPL does not apply to it. Sure, it uses mozilla. But it is not derivated work, AFAICT. (IANAL)
I could use for example Microsoft internet explorer (commercial license) to execute GPL'd mutt for sending mail. That is not vialation, since mutt is not derived work of MSIE.
BTW, Isn't mozilla going to be dual licensed (MPL/GPL) RSN ?
I don't see why Debian cares whether the Python licence is compatible with the GPL, though. The licence certainly seems to be DFSG-free, and I'm not aware of any GPLed software that has ever incorporated Python bodily. (People have written GPLed software in Python, of course, but that's a different thing; there's no requirement GPLed software be written using a GPLed system or platform.)
I thougth that was evident from the article.
Yes, DFSG covers both GPL and Python's CNRI licence.
But Debian distributes software that is under GPL license, and which is just a python scripts. If GPL and CNRI are conflicting, Debian must not distribute all those GPL programs which use Python (because GPL says that if you want to add additional restrictions to GPL software, GPL is void, and you have no rights to distribute software at all)
... DeCSS code :-)
Yes, you are right, of course. That's why we have to put all those laser-zapping equiped sattelites in orbit to nuke the potential threats!
For example. If I didn't turn on "enable sound" the last time I built a kernel, can I just rebuild sb.o and insert it into the kernel? Nope.
This is just plain wrong. Why couldn't you ?
You just select what sound you want (via make config or others) say 'make modules' and you're ready to insert module with insmod.
What exactly WAS your problem ?
BTW, if you used pre-prepared distribution (like you used with QNX) there would be no need for compiling at all, you would just load pre-compiled modules like you start pre-compiled program in QNX.
If this concept bothers you, ask yourself why? The foundation of the GPL is that programmers should have the right to dictate how their code is used. If you accept the GPL, you accept that a programmer has an inherent right of control over their code that they can then be able to say "this code should never be used in a closed-source program".
Wrong. GPL in itself is necessary evil. The idea is not that programmer should have a way to force their will on users. Quite the contrary, idea is that programmers, distributors etc. will not be able to take away freedom from their users. (and using "evil" copyright to enforce that legally).
How is it that programmers should have this right and musicians should not? Why should software have protections that music should not? Shouldn't a musician have the same degree of control and be able to say "this song shouldn't be made freely available"?
Now, the fair comparision would be artist saying "this song must at all costs be made freely available, and no entity like RIAA etc. may be allowed to restrict it's buyers freedom to freely redistribute our work", and enforcing that via copyright law.
Is it really so unreasonable of the artists to object to someone distributing their work without their consent?
IMHO, yes. Would it be really so unreasonoble for, say, car maker to object to someone distributing their cars without ther consent ?
They sold me the car. I can resell it, I can share it with my family and friends, I open TAXI service and drive unknown people around.
All that without consent of car maker. They sold it to me. What I do with it afterwards is none of their bussines. If they didn't want something to be mine they shouldn't have sold it to me.
I've already heard the standard cries of "I'm gonna burn my Metallica CDs!" and "I'm gonna send a flaming e-mail to Hilary Rosen!," but c'mon, what effect will that have? So what if you burn your Metallica CDs, you already bought them, right? And so what if you flame Hilary Rosen? You're just giving them ammo to use against you ("Look at this Napster user, see their blatant disregard for us?!?"). That is why I suggest that the planned boycott for the RIAA should go on. If you're going to send a message to the RIAA about how you feel about Napster, hit them where it matters most: their wallets.
If enough people boycott RIAA, then they'll have more ammo: "You see, that napster piracy thing is causing us significient loss in sales!"
I'm with this guy on the DMA issue, bu I also noticed that they never set the IDE drive to use 32 bit access.
Consult your kernel source. 32-bit I/O support flag (-c) is used only for PIO modes.
When you use DMA (-d), then DMA controller does the data transfers (AKA "bus mastering"), and CPU does not need to tranfer data at all (be it in 16-bit or 32-bit mode).
Repeat your tests with DMA turned ON and you'll see no difference at all.
Too many people forget that all CPUs wait at the same speed.
Of course they don't. Time resolution is better on faster processors, so they actually wait somewhat less.
Inserting ads, topically or not, is creating a derived work. There is no argument of which I'm aware that extends the implied permission to display to do this, which leaves them only with what is allowed by copyright law--bringing them back to "derived work."
:-)
Now, the funny part: if they do insert enough new content (hyperlinks etc.) that would fall under "fair use" clause, wouldn't it ?
From X(1):
The X Consortium requests that the following names be used when referring to this software:
X
X Window System
X Version 11
X Window System, Version 11
X11
X Window System is a trademark of X Consortium, Inc.
I am certainly glad that Trolltech was not in this position, as they were already OSS supporters, but even they, after having showed this support for several years, still get flak from the community because there license wasn't written to the critic's specifcations, as if Trolltech was going to announce tomorrow, "Ha, fuck you! We left a nice little loophole in our license, so no more damn source code for you!"
.GIFs (everything was nice for years and years, until everybody was using it, and then the "pay us royalties or we'll sue the shit out of you" come).
Why, that is exactly what happend to
This is exactly what is happening to MP3s right now.
And they all were nice guys in the beggining.
Dislaimer: As a maintener of one of the peripheral filesystems in linux, I can hardly be objective. However, the post I am replying also most certainly wasn't objective, so what the heck.
:-) VFS is a serious issue, and Linus does have a journaling filesystem by now (few of them actually that are working). They are just not in pristine Linus tree. But if you install whatever distribution, chances are that you WILL NOT be using Linus's tree anyway.
Now there's a harebrained idea to add "generic" journaling functionality to the VFS. I assume this is so that when ext3 is finally ready, the VFS will support it well, and all other filesystems will have to then look like ext3.
This is just plain FUD, sorry. Journaling support HAS to be added to VFS. MAIN reason why ext3 (or ReiserFS, but I'll get back later to that) is not going to be in 2.4.0 is because of all the VFS kludging they have to do. That is the same reason why you _CAN'T_ use the journaling with software RAID (which is combination which anything bigger than home user needs - both hardware rendundancy, and you don't have to bring a system down for days fsck-ing when it goes south)
Microsoft make it nearly impossible to write new filesystems for Windows NT, because they want everyone to use NTFS. Viro's doing the same thing. So why is it tolerated in an open-source OS?
Nobody is forcing them to cooperate with Linus and/or Viro. They are perfectly free to fork and release "Reiser's Linux" (which is what some distributions use anyway. SuSE comes to mind). I don't remember when I last used Linus vanilla kernel tree, except as a reference.
Linux should have a generic, capable, stackable VFS that isn't tied to a specific filesystem, and doesn't provide special support for preferred filesystems.
And that is exactly what Viro is doing. If it wasn't, don't you think Linus and would have noticed ?
Adding to the problem is that the VFS is very poorly documented. Changes are made without any foreshadowing. The best documentation available is the source code for the Ext2 filesystem. And that is sad.
There I have to agree. VFS is poorly documented. Part of it is because it is currently undergoing major recoding. When it is done, there will be better documentation, I'm sure. BTW, why don't YOU for example volunteer to write to some VFS documentation ? There is plenty of info on linux-fsdevel and I'm sure that others will be willing to help a cause by answering any questions that you can't answer by reading fsdevel mailing list. So it is just matter of putting some time and energy, no special kernel-hacking-knowledge is required.
This post is not meant as a flame. The VFS is a serious issue. Linux could have had a journaling filesystem by now.
Of couse it is not meant as a flame, it's meant as a FUD
As for Viro-Reiser flames: both of them are strong individuals and bully. Reiserfs team is MUCH better than Reiser himeself -- which especially shows when communicating with others. And although Viro usually does not have such open flame outbursts and name calling as Reiser practise, he will make implicit comments to provoke. But never by themselves, always backed up with facts about poor quality of code in reiserfs (outdated checks suited for 2.2.x kernels which changed completely, etc)
Also, if Reiserfs gets rid of the kludges and fixes it's interface, it will go in Linus 2.4.x
tree (but not in 2.4.0 -- this is Linus's comment)
Although I've been bitten personally by VFS changes (filesystem which I maintain is also inode-less as is reiserfs; and VFS is still inode-centric, notwithstanding dentry-stuff), I do see that VFS changes are for the better.
Knowing the big MS, it probably means *anyone* can use your computer from anywhere in the world!
But don't you realize what this all means ? Your computer is no longer yours, it belongs to everyone! That is a basic of communism! Ohmygod, microsoft is becoming communist, just like the RMS !
Oh, wait, it is a good thing isn't it ?