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SubjectRe: 2.0.31 : please!
Date
Guys, guys, guys. You're forgetting something very important here.

Linux is free software. Linus and the other developers don't charge for it.
They still have to feed their families, put a roof over their head, and pay
for the electricity to run the machine they're developing Linux on. They,
like anyone else, want to spend money occasionally on entertainment, a nice
anniversary present for the wife (or husband, if we have any female
developers), and other such things.

This is not something like Windows NT. Linux and its associated world
follows a completely different design philosophy. The source to most things
in the Linux world is available. The source to most things in the NT world
is not. Linux is more configurable than NT. NT is made with a "The user is a
moron who cannot comprehend anything" design philosophy. NT has some
*really* annoying bugs. Under Linux they can be fixed by any user with some
C programming knowledge when they're found. Under NT you have to wait weeks
or months for a service pack from Microsoft.

I've done a lot of quick and dirty patches to the kernel and other things to
fix bugs, add new functionality, or get something working. They've been so
asthetically unpleasing that I haven't distributed them. Maybe I will from
now on. (And don't ask: All the internal patches I've done have been
superceeded by patches by the "real" developers.)

Linux is not like NT in that everyone is a developer if they want to be. The
kernel source tree is maintained by Linus, but anyone can distribute patches
if they want. If the patches are even halfway decent, they'll probably be
appreciated by the community at large. NT, by contrast, has a bunch of
developers sitting up in a building in Redmond, Washington in the United
States, and has capitalistic interests. As such, they are _never_ going to
release source, and do what the market dictates will make them more money.

Linux isn't like that. We're interested in making a powerful OS. If people
want to call it a "hacker toy," let them. If they want to scream "Waah!
Windows NT rules because it has a point and click interface!" let them dish
out their cash for that "corporate ease of use." At least, that's the
philosophy I *think* we started with, and I hope we still have.

People, if you find a bug in the kernel, report it to the developers. Or fix
it yourself if it isn't already being worked on. Go run the OOPS through
ksymoops, and try to fix it yourself. If you can't, or don't have the time
that day, send the debugging output to the kernel list.

Thank the gods that Linu[sx] hasn't gone commercial, like someone else said.






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