To sue the infringers, the copyright should (must? IANAL) be assigned to the FSF. I as a GNU GPL developer and copyright owner may not want my code assigned to FSF for personal reasons. How then does the FSF sue on my behalf? Can they legally do so?
It would be a great example of testing the GPL without running into the copyright argument.
An even better situation would be to write code, release the code under the GNU GPL, give it to a friend, sign a legal contract offering him use of the copyrighted code if and only if it is used under the terms of the GNU GPL, and then have him violate the terms of the GPL for either (A) release of derived source, (B) distribution, or (C) both.
Take each other to court, represent yourselves (in propia persona), and have a judge resolve the issue. Sue for enough over the small claims limitations, and when done, release him from legal liability if the suit is successful.
You set precedent, appeals potentials, and all without the FSF's involvement (or political backwash).
How is this "resource crunching"? I agree Linus may have a problem with having this in the kernel, but certainly not because it consumes resources.
There's only one resource it currently "consumes", and that's about 64K of decicated memory. We're looking to eliminate that requirement in the next release.
Since the LKCD product dumps out to a SCSI swap partition, it doesn't matter if it is mounted or not. As long as SCSI interrupts still work, you should be able to create a crash dump.
I figured I'd include an example of a crash dump analysis report that is created in/var/log/vmdump. This is what you'll get after a kernel panic (or something similar to it). You can also run 'lcrash' on the map/vmdump files and perform interactive analysis, such as a 'dump' of memory, or a 'dis'assemble of some instructions, etc. Sorry, the spacing's not going to look exactly right...
=================== UTSNAME INFORMATION ===================
sysname : Linux nodename : peak-pc.engr.sgi.com release : 2.2.13 version : #1 SMP Fri Nov 5 02:59:34 PST 1999 machine : i686 domainname : engr.sgi.com
=============== LOG BUFFER DUMP ===============
Linux version 2.2.13 (root@peak-pc.engr.sgi.com) (gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)) #1 SMP Fri Nov 5 02:59:34 PST 1999 mapped APIC to ffffe000 (0026f000) mapped IOAPIC to ffffd000 (00270000) Detected 348940216 Hz processor. Console: colour VGA+ 80x25 Calibrating delay loop... 348.16 BogoMIPS Memory: 95448k/98304k available (1100k kernel code, 424k reserved, 1268k data, 64k init) Checking 386/387 coupling... OK, FPU using exception 16 error reporting. Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK. POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX per-CPU timeslice cutoff: 100.26 usecs. CPU0: Intel Pentium II (Deschutes) stepping 02 SMP motherboard not detected. Using dummy APIC emulation. PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfcaee PCI: Using configuration type 1 PCI: Probing PCI hardware Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2 Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039 NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0. NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0 IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP Starting kswapd v 1.5 Detected PS/2 Mouse Port. Serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39 PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio hda: WDC AC24300L, ATA DISK drive hdc: NEC CD-ROM DRIVE:28C, ATAPI CDROM drive ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 hda: WDC AC24300L, 4112MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=524/255/63, UDMA hdc: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache Uniform CDROM driver Revision: 2.56 Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306 (scsi0) found at PCI 14/0 (scsi0) Narrow Channel, SCSI ID=7, 3/255 SCBs (scsi0) Warning - detected auto-termination (scsi0) Please verify driver detected settings are correct. (scsi0) If not, then please properly set the device termination (scsi0) in the Adaptec SCSI BIOS by hitting CTRL-A when prompted (scsi0) during machine bootup. (scsi0) Cables present (Int-50 YES, Ext-50 NO) (scsi0) Downloading sequencer code... 413 instructions downloaded scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.1.20/3.2.4
scsi : 1 host. (scsi0:0:6:0) Synchronous at 20.0 Mbyte/sec, offset 15. Vendor: IBM Model: DDRS-34560 Rev: S97B Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02 Detected scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0 scsi : detected 1 SCSI disk total. SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8925000 [4357 MB] [4.4 GB] 3c59x.c:v0.99H 11/17/98 Donald Becker http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.h tml eth0: 3Com 3c905B Cyclone 100baseTx at 0xdc00, 00:c0:4f:90:6e:54, IRQ 11 8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/Autonegotiate interface. MII transceiver found at address 24, status 786d. MII transceiver found at address 0, status 786d. Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives. Partition check: sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 hda: hda1 hda2 VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly. Freeing unused kernel memory: 64k freed EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended dump_open(): dump device opened: 0x803 [sd(8,3)] Adding Swap: 130748k swap-space (priority -1) Adding Swap: 130748k swap-space (priority -2) Kernel panic: User created crash dump Dumping to device 0x803 [sd(8,3)]... Writing dump header... Writing dump pages...
==================== CURRENT SYSTEM TASKS ====================
The intention of the code is to avoid this as much as possible. The only real dependency is on the SCSI controller interrupts still working.
One other point to note: there are a number of features still to add to reduce the size of the memory image and to speed up the dumping process. We're also looking to make NMIs work properly under Linux. Stay tuned.
We actually ran into very few crashes, so we added code to the kernel to crash it for us with user level commands. The code for crashing the kernel is listed on the LKCD FAQ page: http://oss.sgi.com/projects/lkcd/faq.html
The SCSI partition requirement is only because raw I/O only works for SCSI right now. As soon as an IDE driver works for raw I/O under linux2.X.Y, the LKCD project should be very easy to make work with IDE swap partitions. Please review http://oss.sgi.com/projects/lkcd/faq.html for more information about restrictions.
Slashdot Mirror
To sue the infringers, the copyright should (must? IANAL) be assigned to the FSF. I as a GNU GPL developer and copyright owner may not want my code assigned to FSF for personal reasons. How then does the FSF sue on my behalf? Can they legally do so?
It would be a great example of testing the GPL without running into the copyright argument.
An even better situation would be to write code, release the code under the GNU GPL, give it to a friend, sign a legal contract offering him use of the copyrighted code if and only if it is used under the terms of the GNU GPL, and then have him violate the terms of the GPL for either (A) release of derived source, (B) distribution, or (C) both.
Take each other to court, represent yourselves (in propia persona), and have a judge resolve the issue. Sue for enough over the small claims limitations, and when done, release him from legal liability if the suit is successful.
You set precedent, appeals potentials, and all without the FSF's involvement (or political backwash).
--Matt
How is this "resource crunching"? I agree Linus may have a problem with having this in the kernel, but certainly not because it consumes resources.
...
There's only one resource it currently "consumes", and that's about 64K of decicated memory. We're looking to eliminate that requirement in the next release.
I guess the real test will be asking Linus
--Matt
Since the LKCD product dumps out to a SCSI swap partition, it doesn't matter if it is mounted or not. As long as SCSI interrupts still work, you should be able to create a crash dump.
...
I'd be very interested to see the dump
--Matt
=======================
LCRASH CORE FILE REPORT
=======================
GENERATED ON:
Thu Nov 4 19:15:19 1999
TIME OF CRASH:
Fri Nov 5 03:12:27 1999
PANIC STRING:
User created crash dump
MAP:
map.5
VMDUMP:
vmdump.5
================
COREFILE SUMMARY
================
The system died due to a software failure.
===================
UTSNAME INFORMATION
===================
sysname : Linux
nodename : peak-pc.engr.sgi.com
release : 2.2.13
version : #1 SMP Fri Nov 5 02:59:34 PST 1999
machine : i686
domainname : engr.sgi.com
===============
LOG BUFFER DUMP
===============
Linux version 2.2.13 (root@peak-pc.engr.sgi.com) (gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)) #1 SMP Fri Nov 5 02:59:34 PST 1999
mapped APIC to ffffe000 (0026f000)
mapped IOAPIC to ffffd000 (00270000)
Detected 348940216 Hz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 348.16 BogoMIPS
Memory: 95448k/98304k available (1100k kernel code, 424k reserved, 1268k data, 64k init)
Checking 386/387 coupling... OK, FPU using exception 16 error reporting.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
per-CPU timeslice cutoff: 100.26 usecs.
CPU0: Intel Pentium II (Deschutes) stepping 02
SMP motherboard not detected. Using dummy APIC emulation.
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfcaee
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
Starting kswapd v 1.5
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
Serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
hda: WDC AC24300L, ATA DISK drive
hdc: NEC CD-ROM DRIVE:28C, ATAPI CDROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: WDC AC24300L, 4112MB w/256kB Cache, CHS=524/255/63, UDMA
hdc: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache
Uniform CDROM driver Revision: 2.56
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306
(scsi0) found at PCI 14/0
(scsi0) Narrow Channel, SCSI ID=7, 3/255 SCBs
(scsi0) Warning - detected auto-termination
(scsi0) Please verify driver detected settings are correct.
(scsi0) If not, then please properly set the device termination
(scsi0) in the Adaptec SCSI BIOS by hitting CTRL-A when prompted
(scsi0) during machine bootup.
(scsi0) Cables present (Int-50 YES, Ext-50 NO)
(scsi0) Downloading sequencer code... 413 instructions downloaded
scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.1.20/3.2.4
scsi : 1 host.
(scsi0:0:6:0) Synchronous at 20.0 Mbyte/sec, offset 15.
Vendor: IBM Model: DDRS-34560 Rev: S97B
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
scsi : detected 1 SCSI disk total.
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8925000 [4357 MB] [4.4 GB]
3c59x.c:v0.99H 11/17/98 Donald Becker http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.
eth0: 3Com 3c905B Cyclone 100baseTx at 0xdc00, 00:c0:4f:90:6e:54, IRQ 11
8K byte-wide RAM 5:3 Rx:Tx split, autoselect/Autonegotiate interface.
MII transceiver found at address 24, status 786d.
MII transceiver found at address 0, status 786d.
Enabling bus-master transmits and whole-frame receives.
Partition check:
sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
hda: hda1 hda2
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 64k freed
EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
dump_open(): dump device opened: 0x803 [sd(8,3)]
Adding Swap: 130748k swap-space (priority -1)
Adding Swap: 130748k swap-space (priority -2)
Kernel panic: User created crash dump
Dumping to device 0x803 [sd(8,3)]
Writing dump header
Writing dump pages
====================
CURRENT SYSTEM TASKS
====================
ADDR UID PID PPID STATE PRI FLAGS MM NAME
===============================================
c0234000 0 0 0 0 0 0 c0215320 swapper
c5ffa000 0 1 0 1 20 100 c5fb4060 init
c5fe8000 0 2 1 1 20 40 c0215320 kflushd
c5fe6000 0 3 1 1 20 40 c0215320 kupdate
c5fe4000 0 4 1 1 20 840 c0215320 kpiod
c5fe2000 0 5 1 1 20 840 c0215320 kswapd
c59ec000 1 248 1 1 20 140 c5fb4260 portmap
c5686000 0 263 1 1 20 140 c5fb4460 ypbind
c578c000 0 270 263 1 20 140 c5fb44e0 ypbind
c5644000 0 324 1 1 20 140 c5fb42e0 syslogd
c5602000 0 335 1 1 20 140 c5fb43e0 klogd
c55c4000 0 349 1 1 20 40 c5fb4560 atd
c5c3c000 0 363 1 1 20 40 c5fb41e0 crond
c55a2000 0 381 1 1 20 140 c5fb45e0 inetd
c5518000 0 395 1 1 20 140 c5fb4660 snmpd
c5348000 0 409 1 1 20 40 c5fb46e0 named
c52fe000 0 423 1 1 20 140 c5fb4760 routed
c5272000 0 437 1 1 20 140 c5fb47e0 xntpd
c523e000 0 451 1 1 20 140 c5fb4860 lpd
c51e4000 0 469 1 1 20 140 c5fb48e0 rpc.statd
c5194000 0 480 1 1 20 40 c5fb4960 rpc.rquotad
c5174000 0 491 1 1 20 40 c5fb49e0 rpc.mountd
c5158000 0 515 1 1 20 140 c5fb4ae0 rpc.rstatd
c513e000 0 529 1 1 20 140 c5fb4a60 rpc.rusersd
c511e000 99 543 1 1 20 40 c5fb4b60 rpc.rwalld
c50f6000 0 557 1 1 20 140 c5fb4be0 rwhod
c513c000 0 577 1 1 20 140 c5fb4360 rpc.yppasswdd
c5078000 0 589 1 1 20 140 c5fb4ce0 amd
c5086000 0 591 1 1 20 40 c0215320 rpciod
c504a000 0 592 1 1 20 40 c0215320 lockd
c4f54000 0 626 1 1 20 140 c5fb4de0 sendmail
c4f22000 0 641 1 1 20 140 c5fb4d60 gpm
c4e12000 0 655 1 1 20 140 c5fb4e60 httpd
c4e0a000 99 658 655 1 20 140 c5fb4ee0 httpd
c4e06000 99 659 655 1 20 140 c5fb4f60 httpd
c4dfc000 99 660 655 1 20 140 c4dfe040 httpd
c4df2000 99 661 655 1 20 140 c4dfe0c0 httpd
c4de8000 99 662 655 1 20 140 c4dfe140 httpd
c4dde000 99 663 655 1 20 140 c4dfe1c0 httpd
c4dd4000 99 664 655 1 20 140 c4dfe240 httpd
c4dcc000 99 665 655 1 20 140 c4dfe2c0 httpd
c4dc0000 99 666 655 1 20 140 c4dfe340 httpd
c4db6000 99 667 655 1 20 140 c4dfe3c0 httpd
c4a28000 0 699 1 1 20 140 c4dfe540 smbd
c499e000 0 710 1 1 20 140 c4dfe4c0 nmbd
c4658000 9 767 1 1 20 40 c4dfe840 actived
c48a2000 0 806 1 1 20 100 c5fb4c60 mingetty
c4928000 0 807 1 1 20 100 c5fb4160 mingetty
c4904000 0 808 1 1 20 100 c4dfe7c0 mingetty
c498a000 0 809 1 1 20 100 c4dfe440 mingetty
c4766000 0 810 1 1 20 100 c4dfe5c0 mingetty
c4c6e000 0 811 1 1 20 100 c4dfe640 mingetty
c479e000 0 812 1 1 20 100 c4dfe8c0 getty
c4798000 0 817 381 1 20 100 c5fb40e0 in.rlogind
c4976000 0 818 817 1 20 100 c4dfe740 login
c45b8000 0 819 818 1 20 100 c4dfe6c0 tcsh
c5204000 0 838 819 0 20 0 c4dfe940 crashdump
===========================
STACK TRACE OF FAILING TASK
===========================
===============================================
STACK TRACE FOR TASK: 0xc5204000 (crashdump)
0 __dump_execute+153 [0xc010da21]
1 dump_execute+149 [0xc011b925]
2 panic+167 [0xc0114b6f]
3 sys_setpriority+25 [0xc0115689]
4 system_call+45 [0xc0107a61]
===============================================
One other point to note: there are a number of features still to add to reduce the size of the memory image and to speed up the dumping process. We're also looking to make NMIs work properly under Linux. Stay tuned.
--Matt
We actually ran into very few crashes, so we added code to the kernel to crash it for us with user level commands. The code for crashing the kernel is listed on the LKCD FAQ page: http://oss.sgi.com/projects/lkcd/faq.html
The SCSI partition requirement is only because raw I/O only works for SCSI right now. As soon as an IDE driver works for raw I/O under linux2.X.Y, the LKCD project should be very easy to make work with IDE swap partitions. Please review http://oss.sgi.com/projects/lkcd/faq.html for more information about restrictions.