Greg Kroah-Hartman Gripes About Microsoft's Linux Contribution; MS Renews Effort 213
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."
Not shocked... (Score:4, Informative)
"hv (Microsoft Hyper-V) drivers. Over 200 patches make up the massive cleanup effort needed to just get this code into a semi-sane kernel coding style (someone owes me a bit bottle of rum for that work!) Unfortunately the Microsoft developers seem to have disappeared, and no one is answering my emails. If they do not show back up to claim this driver soon, it will be removed in the 2.6.33 release. So sad..."
In other words, there is some coding to do. Did the Kernel devs coordinate with the managers at MS to ensure resources would be available to work on these patches? (200 patches is not a lot in my opinion. I have a minor patch coming out on the 21st for my in-house system with 2000+ users and it has over 300 fixes.)
I wonder if there was a minor miscommunication...
Cool!
Hit and run. (Score:3, Insightful)
From the blog,
"hv (Microsoft Hyper-V) drivers. Over 200 patches make up the massive cleanup effort needed to just get this code into a semi-sane kernel coding style (someone owes me a bit bottle of rum for that work!) Unfortunately the Microsoft developers seem to have disappeared, and no one is answering my emails. If they do not show back up to claim this driver soon, it will be removed in the 2.6.33 release. So sad..."
I'm not shocked. M$ reputation is so bad that this kind of behavior is not a surprise.
Was is a bit of a shock is that GKH actually wasted one minute longer than rejecting the fake drivers with a missive to "hold off on re-submission of the code until it actually works" What happened to the idea of showing something that works? There used to be pretty strict guidelines about coding style and what is and isn't acceptable, including having some working code first.
Anyway, what are these so-called devel
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I have seven developers writing and fixing code and five analysts testing, reporting bugs and valid
Kinda funny. (Score:3, Insightful)
I use Debian for almost all my server needs, and I'm a big fan of Ubuntu on the desktop. That said, I'm certainly not going to bitch at someone or some company because they aren't slaving away maintaining code I got free of charge.
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Re:Kinda funny. (Score:4, Funny)
Wow, did you not even read the summary? Greg KH bitches about everybody.
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Re:Kinda funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Welcome to crowdsourcing, my friend! The new corporate model where pathetic geeks will be exploited by the big moguls, and just see promises of profit sharing. After you make my code work, I will close the source, become richer than I already am, and you will go back to watch online pr0n and play WoW...
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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.
Which seems rather odd, given that one of the most common arguments put forth from the OSS community is that by open-sourcing their code, commercial vendors will save money because the community will keep them maintained.
Flame (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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MS only gave it because they got caught with their hands in the open source cookie jar and nanny GPL made them sit in the sharing corner.
Re:Kinda funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think the point is, that kernel contributions in general, even if it's MS, don't get included just because they exist. In fact, it is my understand that patches more often get rejected than accepted. If this contribution less public, and not not from MS, it might have been rejected outright.
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I'd just like to see more positive reinforcement, lest their devs lose any inclination to release code voluntarily in the future.
This code supports Linux guests in Hyper-V. In other words, it takes the legendary speed, security and stability of Windows and fuses it to the famous app compatibility and user friendliness of Linux.
It's fair to say the world is better off without it. I'd just as soon people didn't encourage such foolishness.
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MS only gave it because they got caught with their hands in the open source cookie jar and nanny GPL made them sit in the sharing corner.
I know this has been modded insightful, but am I the only one who's noticed how chronically juvenile it also sounds?
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Yes you are. You might not like it but slashdot is an internet phenom and as such many different persons from many different countries post here. So you really need to take that into consideration when doing character asassinations.
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It's modded insightful because it is insightful.
What's "juvenile" is Microsoft's utterly facile claim that they had been "working towards" releasing the source - which they were required to do immediately by their acceptance of the GPLv2 freedoms - for two months before Greg got in touch with them to ask "Where the source at, bitches?"
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Seeing the number of folks that are calling shenanigans on the above post I'm taking the courtesy of proving my point.
It was even mentioned in a slashdot article.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/07/28/0045229 [slashdot.org]
http://www.sdtimes.com/link/33641 [sdtimes.com]
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There was an article on either the register or ars that reported them using GPL'ed code in one of their virtualization dealies.
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This article seems to contradict you obi-wan [slashdot.org]
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read this [slashdot.org]
Re:Kinda funny. (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Kinda funny. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Kinda funny. (Score:4, Funny)
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Frankly, I don't care if the code only benefits Microsoft customers. I choose to use Linux on my servers, along with Linux and MacOS X on the desktop
How did it make it into the kernel in that state? (Score:4, Insightful)
Quote from the article:
GKH also said:
If the driver was in such poor shape and didn't follow the kernel coding guidelines, then how did it make it into the kernel in the first place? I was under the impression that the kernel maintainers had pretty strict guidelines about coding style and what is and isn't acceptable.
Re:How did it make it into the kernel in that stat (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Staging (Score:2)
It's still in "staging". from the article:
Here's a summary of the state of the drivers/staging/ tree, basically what will be coming in the 2.6.32 merge, and what the status of the different drivers are so far.
First off, drivers/staging/ is NOT a dumping ground for dead code. If no one steps up to maintain and work to get the code merged into the main portion of the kernel, the drivers will be removed.
Further examples:
asus_oled This only needs minor cleanups to get merged properly into the main tree. If someone wants an easy project, this would be it.
phison What? I thought I asked for this to be merged a while ago, sorry about that, no reason it should still be in staging anymore, it's just so small it slipped through the cracks...
A little credit where it's due (Score:3, Informative)
Two thirds of the summary are lifted directly from the sdtimes link...
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Just amazing, (Score:2, Troll)
Second, how can anyone actually defend MS actions here. They got caught benefiting from public efforts and were forced to release the minimum code. They put little effort into the task and delivered crap (as usual). So Good on you MS, now can you please clean up the pile of $%# you left in the corner, thank you.
astonishing
Nice Work if You can Get It (Score:2)
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I don't think Novell is a competitor with Microsoft at this point. This particular code only benefits Novell through their Microsoft partnership, and +200 patches by Mr. Kroah-Hartman must cost Novell a lot of money for someone of his position.
It's all good (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Microsoft's coding style! :-) (Score:2)
"Their code needed lots of work to get to normal Linux coding style acceptance, that's nothing new. It did take over 200 patches to get their code into reasonable shape, which is a bit excessive," he said. Microsoft did not contribute to the patching effort.
Normal Linux coding style:
10 START
20 GET JOB DONE
30 STOP
Microsoft coding style: .. .. ..
10 START
11 IF $OS=Vista, Sleep 10
12 IF $OS=XP, Sleep 5
13 IF $OS=Windows 7, Sleep 2
14 IF $Customer_Uses_Linux=true, Sleep 100
20 GET JOB DONE
21 IF $OS=Windows, STOP
22 IF $Customer_uses_Linux=true, CRASH
30 Profit
The same pattern repeated hundreds of times in all code. It takes a lot of effort to cleanup to Linux standards, no wonder!
Re:It's all good (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed - Microsoft were (eventually) fully in compliance with their GPLv2 "freedoms". They squatted down and strained and squeezed out a steaming dump of their actual source. There is no - zero - onus on them to make that source fit in with the Linux kernel zeitgeist, only to provide what was used to build their binary, everything that was used to build their binary, and only what was used to build their binary.
Their "freedoms" ends with bundling source with the binary or making it available to "any third party", not to massage it until it fits the whims of any particular Linus-kernel Nazi. And thus ends the thread.
Microsoft's Linux "Contribution" (Score:5, Insightful)
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VMWare was releasing their changes to the kernel and to X11 back when the technology was being developed at Stanford. When the company was formed that process continued. Of course, that didn't stop anyone from claiming they were violating the GPL and were bad to the community months ago. If it bleeds it leads.
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They didn't attempt to violate the GPL, get caught, and then take a crap on the floor either.
Had Microsoft gone and said "We have these drivers for you, benefiting us, that we want in the kernel. We've made a good-faith effort to do everything right, stylistically and otherwise, what do we do next?" everybody would be applauding them (as it is, people are still applauding them).
What they did instead was try to sneak them out like a thief in the night, then get caught and need to hand the code over or risk a
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In true Spirit of CodePlex then ? (Score:2, Insightful)
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'scuse me?
They weren't contributing out of the goodness of their hearts?
They were legally obligated to, and since then have avoided doing much of anything further.
It wasn't over zealousness. If they hadn't been reminded of their obligation they wouldn't have contributed at all.
Re:Of course. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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If they don't want to help maintain it, I say drop it from the kernel.
Indeed. Just because they are obligated to release it, that doesn't mean the Linux kernel is obligated to use it.
Abandonware or Denial of service (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
It was a twofer. MS weaseled out of punishment for license violation ( GPL ) and at the same time just shat in the kernel maintainers' collective pocket.
Denial of Service attacks work in meatspace, too. The maintainers have no obligation to burn up hours coding and supporting someone else's abandonware.
For that matter, so do injection attacks. For example, find out who gave the order to install any given Windows server, assuming you can still find one these days. No one will 'fess up.
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If you're over zealous about it, MS will just stop contributing.
Bradley Kuhn is a dangerous fanatic. If there's one thing I'm tired of around here, it is people who are willing to condemn Microsoft as being entirely evil on the one hand, yet completely overlook individuals among their own who behave in largely the same ways.
Also, for anyone who wants to me to cite sources to back up the claim that Kuhn is evil, just ask. There's any amount of material on the Web, and I'm more than happy to link to it.
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for anyone who wants to me to cite sources to back up the claim that Kuhn is evil, just ask
Let's see: a guy who works for the FSF and SFLC, helps enfoce the GPL? Yeah, that's real evil.
I'm guessing that since you didn't include your "sources", that you need time to fabricate them?
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If you're over zealous about it, MS will just stop contributing.
So what? They haven't contributed anything useful anyway. This "contribution" was only so their own customers, running MS's hypervisor, could better run Linux underneath. For Linux users not running MS's hypervisor (99.999% of them), it's completely useless.
Wake me when MS actually contributes something genuinely useful to FOSS, such as some fonts or codecs or something.
Re:Thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Thanks (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Except they're here to teach you to fish (Score:5, Insightful)
"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
Re:Except they're here to teach you to fish (Score:5, Informative)
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.
I don't think that's the situation. The drivers currently only exist in the -staging tree. That is far different than Linus' official tree. The -staging tree is home to driver code that does not meet the standards of Linus' tree, and it's purpose is to assist the maintainers of the code to increase its quality such that it can be included in Linus' tree. MS is not being asked to "commit resources in perpetuity," but merely to get the code up to the state where it can be included in Linus' kernel tree.
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.
See above. Once the driver is included in the kernel proper, the kernel developers themselves fix drivers when API's change. That's one of the primary benefits of being included in the kernel proper. If you're developing driver code and just dropping it on some corner of the web, then You're Doing It Wrong.
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Re:Thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
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Re:Thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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But aren't we just seeing this process dramatized before us.
Microsoft: "Here you go. Hyper-V Code."
Kernel Maintainer: "Wait. There are some problems with it that you need to deal with or we aren't going to include it in the kernel."
[Slashdot story]
Microsoft: "Oh we'll look into that."
If Microsoft cares enough about getting it into the Kernel they'll fix it. Otherwise they wont... problem solved.
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Don't you mean;
Microsoft: Here is a binary Linux kernel module for Hyper-V.
Someone: But wait... it is using GPL-only kernel interfaces.
Microsoft: Oh, er...
Grek KH: You need to release the code to be compliant.
Microsoft: Here you go. Here is the code for the driver.
Microsoft PR: Microsoft has generously donated a lot of code to the Linux kernel under the GPL license. We did this because it is the right thing to do.
[Slashdot story #1]
[Greg KH spends a lot of time thanklessly getting the code to the point wher
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Paying Hyper-V users will probably be running SLES or RHEL, and Microsoft provides support for SLES and RHEL in Hyper-V.
And neither distribution will distributing a kernel new enough to have these drivers in the mainline source for a while.
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Ever heard of back ports? Redhat does this quite a lot. New drivers into their own kernel tree. Redhat's latest 2.6.9 kernel in RHEL4 is way different to the one Linus released all those years ago.
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They didn't donate this code out of any altruism, only pure self-interest.
And that's any different than any other corporation that contributes code to the Linux kernel, how?
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Well, for one thing, most corporations that contribute code do so so that Linux will work better with their hardware. That's why a lot of the code comes from companies like Intel. As a Linux user with an Intel CPU, that makes me want to buy more Intel CPUs in the future.
MS isn't a hardware company, it's a software company, and it competes directly with Linux.
Anyway, other than this, it really isn't different, but several posters here are acting like it's some kind of useful contribution to Linux. It's not
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MS isn't a hardware company
The MS mouse, keyboard, webcam, fingerprint reader, wireless card, wireless router, Xbox and Xbox 360 (with related peripherals) in my home beg to differ on the notion that they do not brand hardware. http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/ [microsoft.com]
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None of those require kernel drivers, except for the wireless card which uses a chipset made by a real hardware company like Broadcom or Marvell.
"Hardware company" in this context means a company that makes semiconductors, not one that contracts with FlexTronics to make hardware for them using other company's off-the-shelf chips.
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You forgot Oracle.
But IMO it make no difference. The whole point of GPL is to create leveled ground for cooperation so that all participants can benefit.
MS benefits because one more OS would run well under its VM. Linux benefits because it has now one more supported platform.
If MS drops from the cooperation and nobody would step in to support the code, then the code is really useless and there is no hard removing it.
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You forgot Oracle.
That's a good point, but Oracle (before the Sun acquisition, which still hasn't been approved) doesn't make OSes, only software that runs on top of them. So just like the hardware makers, it's to Oracle's benefit to support Linux if their customers demand it. Plus, I've heard Larry Ellison really hates Bill Gates and MS.
How the Sun/Oracle merger would affect Oracle's relationship with Linux, I don't know.
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You are stepping into dangerous waters.
Single Oracle license can buy you a lot of OS licenses - along with servers for the change.
Oracle is as evil as MS. If not more: their involvement with Linux is what in greater part makes up for the server bias in development as Linux became in past years the top Oracle platform. IOW, they one of the largest supporters of ruining Linux on desktop, as fat chunk of Red Hat and Novell profits comes from supporting and selling certified Oracle platform.
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Single Oracle license can buy you a lot of OS licenses - along with servers for the change.
I don't think Oracle customers are running Linux just to save money on MS licenses; I think they simply prefer the platform.
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Well, for one thing, most corporations that contribute code do so so that Linux will work better with their hardware.
Which means they aren't contributing out of altruism but in their own self-interest. Way to refute yourself in the same sentence.
It's not like they're contributing something that's generally useful to most Linux users, like a codec or a font, or a filesystem. So stop acting like it is.
Funny cause I never made any such claim. Secondly, what do codecs and fonts have to do with kernel hacking? And secondly, most corporate contributions are really of no benefit but to themselves and their own hardware/software platforms and not to the users at large.
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Funny cause I never made any such claim.
Way to miss out on context. You didn't make that claim, "El Lobo" did when he wrote:
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.
which started this entire thread.
I never refuted myself. I'm simply pointing out that this isn't some kind of "gift" like MS sycophants such as El Lobo are trying to convince us it is. You should take some reading comprehensio
Re:Thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
No offense but you just sound like a rabid anti-Microsoft person who would hate anything they do simply because they are the ones doing it. The reality is that all corporations have self interest at heart when contributing to the Linux community. IBM for one mainly sells software services for Linux/Unix even though they also sell hardware. Oracle sells purely software but have always supported Linux/Unix.
The reality is that I went with XenServer instead of Hyper-V because Linux wasn't a supported guest OS. Since MS has made this change their product is much more competitive with the other players who support multiple operating systems. Microsoft's customers won't suffer because MS doesn't offer drivers for a VM, they will simply migrate to another platform which happens to free.
As far as most Linux users I think you are way the hell off base in that every shop I have ever encountered runs some Windows in their environment and those people will find that virtualizing their infrastructure saves them a ton of money especially since they already bought their Windows license. Get off your anti-MS high horse and come back to reality friend, it's not as bad as you make it out to be. MS is finally starting to embrace the Linux community and they face criticism the whole way, it's a stupid way of doing business and an even less intelligent method of getting what you want which is interoperability between all the major platforms. If only Apple would play so well with others... given the state of networked support in OS X I think your rabid hatred is best reserved for them although I can understand a strong distaste of Windows too.
For those of us out there that run just about everything, we'll continue on and enjoy the small improvements each platform makes and encourage continued improvement from all sides.
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SO WHAT?
Are you saying that the people that run linux on microsoft platforms don't count?
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They might be RedHat or Novell customers, but if they're running Hyper-V, then by definition they're also MS customers.
If this is that important to RH and Novell, maybe they can do the work necessary for getting these patches merged. I guess we'll see soon how important that is to any of these 3 entities.
It's actually even lamer than that... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Yeah, and they only decide to "donate" this code after it was pointed out to them that keeping the code private was a violation of the GPL, since it's clearly a derivative work of the Linux kernel.
So what do they do? Instead of GPL'ing it and working to maintain and clean up the code themselves, they just dump it on the kernel maintainers. Lame.
In my mind, it shows that Microsoft still doesn't take Linux seriously on some level. They don't bother to build a useful working relationship with the kernel dev
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Exactly. And the main reason for getting stuff into the mainstream kernel is not only to help your customers, but to make things easier for you, because once it's merged in, you no longer have to worry about maintaining it: the kernel devs do that. So if some big architectural change comes along, or naming changes, or whatever, they deal with any changes that might impact your code. It's a lot easier than trying to maintain your own separate branch of code, and then having to deal with fixing it every ti
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It's pure idiocy to not take advantage of the ability to have your code merged in, and condemns your customers to not only having to build their own kernels or use ones you provide, but keeps them stuck with old kernel versions.
Right... there's a quite a mess in the embedded world with a lot of device makers stuck on bug-ridden, horribly hacked-up 2.4 kernels. In particular, the execrably unhelpful Broadcom has never released any open-source drivers for its WiFi chipsets, and no binary drivers for 2.6.x kernels (except recently for x86).
Microsoft just doesn't "get" the way Linux works. It's kind of astonishing that even the developers responsible for writing Linux kernel code there haven't figured out the value of cooperating wi
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
So I guess the people who run Linux on MS servers aren't part of the Linux community?
I guess the poor guys that have to do this sort of thing because some manager says so, aren't cool enough to be part of your retarded little club?
Get a grip, god Linux fanboys are a pile of whiney bitches. Add another thing to the list of reasons Linux will always be the third world country of software world, no one likes a bunch of whiney bitches.
Re:Thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't be stupid.
When Intel contributes a patch, they go through the required process necessary to make the patch meet the maintainers' standards. I actually did this a couple times when I worked at Intel.
If MS isn't going to do the work necessary to make their patches meet the standards, then it shouldn't be merged. I'm actually a little disappointed that they merged it in at all before going through this process fully.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Don't be stupid.
When Intel contributes a patch, they go through the required process necessary to make the patch meet the maintainers' standards. I actually did this a couple times when I worked at Intel.
If MS isn't going to do the work necessary to make their patches meet the standards, then it shouldn't be merged. I'm actually a little disappointed that they merged it in at all before going through this process fully.
It hasn't been merged to drivers/ proper, only drivers/staging/. This is the normal procedure these days for subpar driver code: it gets merged to staging/ in the hopes it will be cleaned up and can be merged to mainline proper.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure if that's the right way to be putting it. Isn't most code submitted out of pure self-interest, rather than altruism?
Yes, of course. I'm not saying MS should donate code out of altruism (though it'd be nice...). My point was that previous posters were acting like it was some kind of "gift" to the Linux community, and it's not. It's for their own purposes, and it would only benefit MS (and their customers using Hyper-V) if it were to be merged into the mainline. If they want that, then they n
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
If it has happened, please oh please post the link!
Home and End (Score:2)
Re:The FSF's enforcement bots have mod points toda (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The FSF's enforcement bots have mod points toda (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The FSF's enforcement bots have mod points toda (Score:2)
What is worse, some people can have temper tantrums, promote insance conspiracy theories, call others who disagree with them corrupt, brainwashed cowards, and get m
Re:The FSF's enforcement bots have mod points toda (Score:2, Insightful)
Somebody call the wambulance please.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Damn! I've posted, now I can't mod it. Oh well - I'll go mod some of your posts in another thread...
This [slashdot.org] one is underrated and hilarious. I'll start there.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You seem like one paranoid individual.
Invisible downmodded posts (Score:2, Informative)