Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Ptrace hole / Linux 2.2.25 | From | Robert Love <> | Date | 23 Mar 2003 15:54:42 -0500 |
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On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 15:30, Martin J. Bligh wrote:
> I don't agree that's always been true by any means. It may currently > be true, but that's far from a good thing. The current state of divergance > the distros have from mainline 2.4 is IMHO the biggest problem Linux has > today.
What part of my statement are you disagreeing with, here?
I agree distribution divergence is a big issue. It may be a mostly insolvable one, too. It is partially a result of having a long development cycle. But even if we had a shorter development cycle, different distributions have different priorities. It is a hard problem.
> The distros inherently have a conflict of interest getting changes merged > back into mainline ... it's time consuming to do, it provides them no real > benefit (they have to maintain their huge trees anyway), and it actively > damages the "value add" they provide.
I do not disagree.
Although, I think there is incentive to get work merged. It _does_ reduce maintenance. I think you can see Red Hat merging stuff back. I know my employer encourages everything I do to be done openly and get it merged. Its a huge benefit to maintenance and QA to get stuff merged.
> If that's people's attitude ("you should use a vendor"), then we need a > 2.4-fixed tree to be run by somebody with an interest in providing > critical bugfixes to the community with no distro ties. People may be > perfectly capable of finding, applying, and collecting their own patches, > but that's no reason to make it difficult.
No where above did I say "you should use a vendor"
In fact, what I did say is "I think users can and should compile their own kernel if they want. And as kernel developers, we should facilitate that."
I merely suggest that users should not expect anything if they go it there own. They need to follow the lists and be informed. Its like me assuming I can maintain my car without a mechanic and then freaking out when I did not hear about a service defect. Actually, a better analogy may include me knowing nothing about cars, too :)
Marcelo is in a tough spot. I think Arjan's email (just sent) sums it up well. It is not so clear cut. Personally, I think the ext3 bugs in 2.4.20 are worse than this local ptrace problem (there are other local issues, too). I also think some people are skeptical over the correctness of this patch.
Anyhow, what exactly are we arguing over?
Robert Love
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