Quotes of the week [LWN.net]

It would be possible for us to rescan the RMRR tables when we take a device out of the si_domain, if we _really_ have to. But I'm going to want a strand of hair from the engineer responsible for that design, for my voodoo doll.

-- David Woodhouse

If a software system is so complex that its quirks and pitfalls cannot easily be located and avoided (witness the ondemand scheduler problem on Pentium IV's message I recently filed) then is it not *effectively* open source. I am qualified to read hardware manuals, I am qualified to rewrite C code (having written code generators for several C compilers) but the LKML is like the windmill and I feel like Don Quixote tilting back and forth in front of it. One could even argue that the lack of an open bug reporting system (and "current state" online reports) effectively makes Linux a non-open-source system. Should not Linux be the one of the first systems to make all knowledge completely available? Or is it doomed to be replaced by systems which might provide such capabilities (Android perhaps???)

-- Robert Bradbury

A real git tree will contain fixes for brown paperbag bugs, it will contain reverts, it will contain the occasional messy changelog. It is also, because it's more real life, far more trustable to pull from. The thing is, nothing improves a workflow more than public embarrassment - but rebasing takes away much of that public embarrassment factor.

-- Ingo Molnar

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Not open source

Posted Oct 30, 2009 22:45 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Bradbury's comment is a bit weird.

One could even argue that the lack of an open bug reporting system (and "current state" online reports) effectively makes Linux a non-open-source system.

How can one argue that? I thought that there are several Bugzillas around; and tens of mailing lists. But anyway a bug reporting system is not in the definition of "open source". Not even in the regular way of working. Sure, it is nice to have one (and it's in Spolsky's 12 steps), but it's not a necessity for open source.

Not open source

Posted Nov 1, 2009 17:22 UTC (Sun) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]

To me this is another example of the annoying overreach of the term "open source".

To me open source is less meaningful and more easily misunderstood than free software, due
largely to its wide and varying applications - both within and beyond the realm of software.

Not open source

Posted Nov 6, 2009 19:57 UTC (Fri) by sfink (subscriber, #6405) [Link]

So he used the wrong terminology. He still has a valid, if somewhat overstated, point. There are several positive characteristics of "open" software (for want of a better term): technical end users can access the code to inspect or modify it, nontechnical end users can rely on technical people to inspect or modify the code for them, end users of any stripe can file bugs and see current status, planned changes and improvements, and talk freely with other end users to resolve problems or discuss usage.

That is not intended to be a comprehensive list, it's just off the cuff.

Linux has some of these qualities but not all. Given that being all things to all people can add quite a bit of friction to the development process (developers really don't need to be resolving Grandma Mabel's networking problems), Linux *shouldn't* have all of these qualities, at least not for all possible users, but I would claim that there are some useful advancements that would benefit the Linux community in general.

Yes, there are mailing lists and lots of Bugzillas flying around, but it is difficult to find the right one. There's no master roadmap of where to report what, how to do it effectively and politely, and how to see the results of that report. And in some cases, there's just simply no way to do it, roadmap or no.

I'm now subscribed to quite a few mailing lists that I don't really have all that much interest in, because I wanted to subscribe before posting a question, and for many questions it's unclear which mailing list is the right one (eg I just had a question that was either netfilter or linux-net related, and if I knew which one, I may not have needed to ask!)

For some things you can always go through your distribution's system, but most of the things I run into I know full well have only to do with core Linux, and I'd rather talk directly to the people responsible.

So in terms of an overall "Linux project system", there are inefficiencies and weak links that obstruct the flow of information between end users with legitimate problems and the developers/designers of the code in question. Whether or not the "open source" label is relevant to any of that is... well, irrelevant.