Linus' decrees?

Linus' decrees?

[Stuart MacDonald]

Recently I ran across
http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&selm=1033074519.2698.5.
camel%40localhost.localdomain

Is there a collection point for Linus' decrees?

The LSB (http://www.linuxbase.org/) seems to be mostly involved with
how a distro is laid out, and not much to do with the kernel.

..Stu

Re: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[Greg Folkert]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 925 bytes --]

On Thu, 2005-02-24 at 15:03 -0500, Stuart MacDonald wrote:
> Recently I ran across
> http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&selm=1033074519.2698.5.
> camel%40localhost.localdomain
> 
> Is there a collection point for Linus' decrees?
> 
> The LSB (http://www.linuxbase.org/) seems to be mostly involved with
> how a distro is laid out, and not much to do with the kernel.

Okay, Linus decreed... oh yeah.

Exactly what is wrong with the method anyway?

You on Crack?

And no... that is not a decree in the traditional sense. It is more like
me saying:
        "I decree that Linus Torvalds is the lead maintainer of the
        Linux Kernel"

Make TONS-O-SENSE to state the obvious. IOW the statement was all meant
to say *DO IT THIS WAY AND NO OTHER* as nobody else honors any other
method.
-- 
greg, greg@gregfolkert.net

The technology that is
Stronger, better, faster: Linux

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

RE: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[Stuart MacDonald]

From: Greg Folkert [mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net] 
> On Thu, 2005-02-24 at 15:03 -0500, Stuart MacDonald wrote:
> > Recently I ran across
> > 
> > http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&selm=
> > 1033074519.2698.5.
> > camel%40localhost.localdomain
> > 
> > Is there a collection point for Linus' decrees?
> > 
> > The LSB (http://www.linuxbase.org/) seems to be mostly involved with
> > how a distro is laid out, and not much to do with the kernel.
> 
> Okay, Linus decreed... oh yeah.
> Exactly what is wrong with the method anyway?
> You on Crack?

Uh, what? I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the above,
except that maybe you think I was implying that the
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build method is somehow wrong. Which I wasn't,
and I'm not even sure how you'd come to that conclusion from my post.

And no, I'm not on crack.

> Make TONS-O-SENSE to state the obvious. IOW the statement was all meant
> to say *DO IT THIS WAY AND NO OTHER* as nobody else honors any other
> method.

The post I reference mentions that Linus once said that a standard
method to locate the source for a particular kernel would be to have
it at /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build. This seems to be a symlink for
vanilla kernels, and actual source for the FC3 installed kernels I
have handy.

I had not heard this before, and it turns out to be handy for me. In
the past I have also seen Linus state things like "binary drivers are
bad" and "drm is okay".

So what I'm wondering is, is there a location on the net where Linus'
statements about how the kernel is to be are collected? ie, Where the
above statements could all be found, with cites.

I'm thinking there's probably other info about the standard way of
doing things in regards to the kernel (all aspects thereof) that Linus
has put forth that might be handy for me to know, and I'm hoping that
there's a handy dandy collection that I can peruse.

I guess what I'm looking for is a collection of linux kernel policies.
Is there such a collection?

..Stu

Re: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[Randy.Dunlap]

Stuart MacDonald wrote:
> From: Greg Folkert [mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net] 
> 
>>On Thu, 2005-02-24 at 15:03 -0500, Stuart MacDonald wrote:
>>
>>>Recently I ran across
>>>
>>>http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&selm=
>>>1033074519.2698.5.
>>>camel%40localhost.localdomain
>>>
>>>Is there a collection point for Linus' decrees?

[snip]

> So what I'm wondering is, is there a location on the net where Linus'
> statements about how the kernel is to be are collected? ie, Where the
> above statements could all be found, with cites.
> 
> I'm thinking there's probably other info about the standard way of
> doing things in regards to the kernel (all aspects thereof) that Linus
> has put forth that might be handy for me to know, and I'm hoping that
> there's a handy dandy collection that I can peruse.
> 
> I guess what I'm looking for is a collection of linux kernel policies.
> Is there such a collection?

Not that I know of, but it would be nice, esp. for newcomers.

-- 
~Randy

ObPlug:  there is a small collection of Linus/Andrew/et al quotes
at http://www.madrone.org/quotes/linuxquotes.html
and I have lots more queued up for there, but there aren't
enough hours in a day.

Re: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[Horst von Brand]

"Randy.Dunlap" <rddunlap@osdl.org> said:
> Stuart MacDonald wrote:

[...]

> > So what I'm wondering is, is there a location on the net where Linus'
> > statements about how the kernel is to be are collected? ie, Where the
> > above statements could all be found, with cites.
> > 
> > I'm thinking there's probably other info about the standard way of
> > doing things in regards to the kernel (all aspects thereof) that Linus
> > has put forth that might be handy for me to know, and I'm hoping that
> > there's a handy dandy collection that I can peruse.
> > 
> > I guess what I'm looking for is a collection of linux kernel policies.
> > Is there such a collection?

> Not that I know of, but it would be nice, esp. for newcomers.

I'd vote for Documentation/Policies
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +56 32 797513

RE: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[Stuart MacDonald]

From: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org 
> I'd vote for Documentation/Policies

I'll second.

..Stu

Re: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1800 bytes --]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 17:08:33 EST, Stuart MacDonald said:

> So what I'm wondering is, is there a location on the net where Linus'
> statements about how the kernel is to be are collected? ie, Where the
> above statements could all be found, with cites.

Your kernel source came with 3 files in the Documentation/ directory:
CodingStyle, SubmittingDrivers, and SubmittingPatches.  That's probably
as close to an official "how the kernel is to be" as you will find.

Remember that Linus has *always* reserved the right to change his mind
if a "sufficiently good" idea came along.  So it's not as much a "The Emperor
Penguin Has Decreed" as "Nobody's made a sufficiently convincing case to Linus".
(And I've never seen Linus claim to be totally consistent on what qualifies as
"sufficiently" - he can be a lot more stubborn about some things and flexible on
on others)

And remember that Linus has a source tree, but so do many others. There's
been lots of stuff that's made appearances elsewhere - the -mm tree has had
enough different schedulers that totally ripped out the innards of something
as basic as the scheduler that a 'plugsched' patch showed up.  I'm personally
convinced we've not seen the last of the reiser4 "file as directory" concept, and
that somebody will do a sane version at the VFS level where it belongs.  There's
a whole bunch of other in-flight code that would be totally against a "how the
kernel shall be" document of just 2 years ago.

Another thread mentioned the kernelnewbies fortunes file:
http://www.kernelnewbies.org/kernelnewbies-fortunes.tar.gz

That's probably as close to an official document as you're likely to find.
And the fact that it's in the format of a fortunes file says a lot about
the mindset of the kernel hacking community, in a Zen koan sort of way.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 226 bytes --]

RE: Greg's Policy! (was Re: Linus' policies?)

[Stuart MacDonald]

From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu
> Remember that Linus has *always* reserved the right to change his mind
> if a "sufficiently good" idea came along.  So it's not as 
> much a "The Emperor
> Penguin Has Decreed" as "Nobody's made a sufficiently 
> convincing case to Linus".
> (And I've never seen Linus claim to be totally consistent on 
> what qualifies as
> "sufficiently" - he can be a lot more stubborn about some 
> things and flexible on
> on others)

From: Theodore Ts'o
> The distributions (by and large) honor it, but other than that, you
> seem to have a slightly overinflated view how much weight and how much
> formalities such statements actually have.
> 
> The problem with collecting it, as other people have pointd out, is
> that it implies that all such statements are valid forever (such as a
> Pope's encyclical) or that we have some formal way of blessing a
> statement by sprinkling Holy Penguin Pee on it, or some way of
> retracting such a blessing (probably involving some ceremony involving
> turning a candle upside down and snuffing it out :-).   

<sigh> I was in a hurry and mimiced the wording of the referenced
post, nothing more, nothing less. Policy would have been a better
choice. I am under no illusions about validity or duration or whatnot.

..Stu

Re: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 05:08:33PM -0500, Stuart MacDonald wrote:
> The post I reference mentions that Linus once said that a standard
> method to locate the source for a particular kernel would be to have
> it at /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build. This seems to be a symlink for
> vanilla kernels, and actual source for the FC3 installed kernels I
> have handy.
>
> I guess what I'm looking for is a collection of linux kernel policies.
> Is there such a collection?

Well, the place where Linus's policy surrounding 
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build can be found in:

	/usr/src/linux/Makefile

The distributions (by and large) honor it, but other than that, you
seem to have a slightly overinflated view how much weight and how much
formalities such statements actually have.

The problem with collecting it, as other people have pointd out, is
that it implies that all such statements are valid forever (such as a
Pope's encyclical) or that we have some formal way of blessing a
statement by sprinkling Holy Penguin Pee on it, or some way of
retracting such a blessing (probably involving some ceremony involving
turning a candle upside down and snuffing it out :-).   

If the goal is to collect some hints about of out-of-kernel modules
and device drivers, there are places where that could be done, and I'd
probably suggest writing or updating a linux HOWTO as a part of the
Linux Documentation Project.  However, with the way in-kernel
interfaces are changing, one of things you will no doubt find as you
start collecting such hints is that the first hint is: "Get that
device driver or module into the mainline kernel sources; otherwise
your life will be nasty and brutish, and while perhaps not short, you
may soon wish it to be.  :-)"

						- Ted

Re: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[Andre Hedrick]

Greg,

Linus is not always correct, sometimes his point of view is hard to see.
My shoulders got in the way most of the time; however, Linus is
consistant.  Well until he changes his mind.

Crack ??  Get some plumber's putty to smooth over the gap.

Cheers,

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Greg Folkert wrote:

> On Thu, 2005-02-24 at 15:03 -0500, Stuart MacDonald wrote:
> > Recently I ran across
> > http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&selm=1033074519.2698.5.
> > camel%40localhost.localdomain
> > 
> > Is there a collection point for Linus' decrees?
> > 
> > The LSB (http://www.linuxbase.org/) seems to be mostly involved with
> > how a distro is laid out, and not much to do with the kernel.
> 
> Okay, Linus decreed... oh yeah.
> 
> Exactly what is wrong with the method anyway?
> 
> You on Crack?
> 
> And no... that is not a decree in the traditional sense. It is more like
> me saying:
>         "I decree that Linus Torvalds is the lead maintainer of the
>         Linux Kernel"
> 
> Make TONS-O-SENSE to state the obvious. IOW the statement was all meant
> to say *DO IT THIS WAY AND NO OTHER* as nobody else honors any other
> method.
> -- 
> greg, greg@gregfolkert.net
> 
> The technology that is
> Stronger, better, faster: Linux
> 

Re: Greg's Decree! (was Re: Linus' decrees?)

[jmerkey]

His point and direction (or lack thereof) are easy to see, and 
consistent. Linux has been a war of attrition
with an interesting rat's maze model of human intereaction -- always 
interesting to see new mice traverse the
maze (only there's no cheese at the end of this maze -- just the smell 
of cheese -- the cheese is on Linus'
desk outside the maze, and all the mice inside the maze are madly 
looking for it, and being driven
quite mad). :-)

Cheers,

Jeff

Andre Hedrick wrote:

>Greg,
>
>Linus is not always correct, sometimes his point of view is hard to see.
>My shoulders got in the way most of the time; however, Linus is
>consistant.  Well until he changes his mind.
>
>Crack ??  Get some plumber's putty to smooth over the gap.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Andre Hedrick
>LAD Storage Consulting Group
>
>On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Greg Folkert wrote:
>
>  
>
>>On Thu, 2005-02-24 at 15:03 -0500, Stuart MacDonald wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Recently I ran across
>>>http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&selm=1033074519.2698.5.
>>>camel%40localhost.localdomain
>>>
>>>Is there a collection point for Linus' decrees?
>>>
>>>The LSB (http://www.linuxbase.org/) seems to be mostly involved with
>>>how a distro is laid out, and not much to do with the kernel.
>>>      
>>>
>>Okay, Linus decreed... oh yeah.
>>
>>Exactly what is wrong with the method anyway?
>>
>>You on Crack?
>>
>>And no... that is not a decree in the traditional sense. It is more like
>>me saying:
>>        "I decree that Linus Torvalds is the lead maintainer of the
>>        Linux Kernel"
>>
>>Make TONS-O-SENSE to state the obvious. IOW the statement was all meant
>>to say *DO IT THIS WAY AND NO OTHER* as nobody else honors any other
>>method.
>>-- 
>>greg, greg@gregfolkert.net
>>
>>The technology that is
>>Stronger, better, faster: Linux
>>
>>    
>>
>
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
>  
>

Re: Linus' decrees?

[Andre Hedrick]

Stuart,

Yeah!  It is a road paved w/ X-maintainers ... AKA the the difference
between the active maintainer list and the credit list.

Cheers,

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Stuart MacDonald wrote:

> Recently I ran across
> http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&selm=1033074519.2698.5.
> camel%40localhost.localdomain
> 
> Is there a collection point for Linus' decrees?
> 
> The LSB (http://www.linuxbase.org/) seems to be mostly involved with
> how a distro is laid out, and not much to do with the kernel.
> 
> ..Stu
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>