What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 19:13 UTC (Tue) by daniel (guest, #3181)
In reply to: What is Florian's strategy? by Lefty
Parent article: Microsoft sues Motorola, citing Android patent infringement (ars technica)

Really? Golly. Perhaps, since you're all about advocating free software and all, you could get them to liberate all those neat kernel performance patches they've been keeping to themselves all these years. Isn't it all about sharing?

Actually, those mythical patches are gawdawful on the whole and we don't want them. They're more about abusing the kernel in various ways to do specific things in a way that could be be best described as one off hacks. Mostly left in the dust by sensible upstream patches created by developers not on a short lease.

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 19:32 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] (3 responses)

Yeah, knew that, actually. I was just wondering where that particular situation fit in with Jeremy's bold, non-capitulating, freedom-fighting worldview. "It's a conspiracy."

Mm hm.

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 20:58 UTC (Tue) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link] (2 responses)

So you've gone from asserting about Google:

> "all those neat kernel performance patches they've been keeping to
> themselves all these years"

after being told "Actually, those mythical patches are gawdawful on the whole and we don't want them" (which is quite true by the way).

to:

> "Yeah, knew that, actually"

So what actually *do* you know Lefty ? It's easy to make assertions about withheld "neat kernel performance patches" which you then agree are "godawful .. and we don't want them".

So what was the point of asserting there were valuable kernel performance patches held private by Google ? You knew it wasn't true, by your own admission above.

Merely trolling ? It would match your behavior on the Gnome lists, but I was hoping that you might behave better in a forum such as lwn.

I guess the most probable reason was try try and damage the reputation of another poster by attempting associate him with lies about bad behavior by his employer. Which is pretty low. I'd prefer it if you were just trolling I think.

Jeremy.

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 21:38 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] (1 responses)

Hey, you're the one adamantly refusing to "capitulate" in the name of freedom, pal. I guess it's okay if it's Google, though. That's different. I guess.

But since you ask, in discussions at (in particular) the various Linux Foundation-sponsored Collaboration Summits to which I've been invited, with a variety of the kernel hackers, the subject of Google's use of open source has come up a number of times.

Google clearly has several heavily modified versions of Linux used in-house, and they've said as much, for various purposes. Those modifications are intendedas I saidto boost performance, mainly, particularly within their server farms. Since they don't "distribute" these versions of Linux, they're not obligated to share any of these improvements, and, indeed, they don't.

Now, on a couple of occasions, Google has attempted to share patches. In most cases, they've been rejectedas in the case of Google's proposed modifications to the kernel for Androidon a variety of grounds, for reasons that one might characterize as "wrongheadedness", "sloppiness" and the like. The upshot is that Google is pretty much the first organization around to fork the kernel in a significant and impactful way. Now there are two: the "regular" Linux kernel, and the "Android" Linux kernel. Thanks, guys!

It's been saidand this was reported right in the LWN article I pointed out to youthat Google itself recognizes that the quality of its own work, even when not secret, is too "godawful" for them to even bother submitting.

But why am I telling you this? You "work there".

Right?

Maybe if you spent more time cleaning up your code, and less time looking for trouble on LWN, we'd all be better off. Or is this how you spend your "20% time"?

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 21:47 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

OK, guys, I'm starting to think that this conversation has gone far enough. Yes, I'm a little slow on the uptake. But maybe we could bring it to a close here?

Thanks.