[Fwd: Re: Google are using linux kernel - what do you know about the source?]

[Fwd: Re: Google are using linux kernel - what do you know about the source?]

[Chris Malton]

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And copy to the list...

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From: Chris Malton <chrism@DONOTSPAMMEcjsoftuk.dyndns.org>
To: Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio@zmailer.org>
Subject: Re: Google are using linux kernel - what do you know about the source?
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 17:57:31 +0100
Message-ID: <4654727B.8070506@DONOTSPAMMEcjsoftuk.dyndns.org>

And where, may I ask, does one find the source of Google's modified 
kernel? (At least, the unmodified bits!)

Chris


Matti Aarnio wrote:
> On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 04:50:35PM +0200, Diego Calleja wrote:
>   
>> El Wed, 23 May 2007 16:23:44 +0200, Gergo Szakal <bastyaelvtars@gmail.com> escribió:
>>
>>     
>>> Greetings to all list-members!
>>>
>>> Recently I have read that Google are selling enterprise hardware that
>>> is running a modified version of the Linuk kernel [1]. I decided to ask
>>> them whether the source is available. I did this via the question form
>>> they offered.
>>>       
>> http://code.google.com/mirror/gsa.html
>>     
>
> Gerco,
>
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
> There you will notice that use of Linux KERNEL does not mean that
> your must publish sources for your proprietary application, or to
> make it easy for somebody to make a distribution competeting with
> yours.  People like Oracle have realized this a long ago, and are
> selling their commercial products also for Linux platform.
>
> Google has made available all parts of the system that they are
> obliged under GPL to make available.  
>
> Perhaps person supplying the reply from Google didn't quite understand
> what the product is, and that it has lots of components where you
> can get sources for, although nothing exiting and special happens
> in them.  A better reply from Google would have been:
>
>     "The GSA is made of a branded PC hardware, Linux operating
>      system (sources of components available) plus proprietary
>      Google search engine suite."
>
> /Matti Aarnio
> -
> 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/
>
>
>   



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Re: [Fwd: Re: Google are using linux kernel - what do you know about the source?]

[Jeff Garzik]

Chris Malton wrote:
> And where, may I ask, does one find the source of Google's modified 
> kernel? (At least, the unmodified bits!)


Google does not distribute their software, so they do not have to make 
their modifications public.

WRT the Linux kernel, Google is essentially a closed source company.

	Jeff

Re: [Fwd: Re: Google are using linux kernel - what do you know about the source?]

[Alan Cox]

> Google does not distribute their software, so they do not have to make 
> their modifications public.

They do for the kernel - they produce an "appliance".

> WRT the Linux kernel, Google is essentially a closed source company.

They've quietly fed little bits back now and then but not made a big song
and dance about it. Hopefully with Andrew there and the like more will
occur.

Application level yes they are highly proprietary and will no doubt stay
that way until someone figures out to do open distributed search 8)

Alan

Re: [Fwd: Re: Google are using linux kernel - what do you know about the source?]

[Jeff Garzik]

Alan Cox wrote:
>> Google does not distribute their software, so they do not have to make 
>> their modifications public.
> 
> They do for the kernel - they produce an "appliance".

Ah, I stand corrected.


>> WRT the Linux kernel, Google is essentially a closed source company.
> 
> They've quietly fed little bits back now and then but not made a big song
> and dance about it. Hopefully with Andrew there and the like more will
> occur.

Strange that the NIC and SATA driver bits never seem to be among those 
"little bits"...  Along with filesystem and other modifications 
discussed in the press, or observable net stack behavior when connecting 
to their computers over the 'net.

So, emphasis on "little", I guess.

	Jeff

Re: [Fwd: Re: Google are using linux kernel - what do you know about the source?]

[Francois Romieu]

Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org> :
> Alan Cox wrote:
[...]
> >They've quietly fed little bits back now and then but not made a big song
> >and dance about it. Hopefully with Andrew there and the like more will
> >occur.
> 
> Strange that the NIC and SATA driver bits never seem to be among those 
> "little bits"...  Along with filesystem and other modifications 
> discussed in the press, or observable net stack behavior when connecting 
> to their computers over the 'net.
> 
> So, emphasis on "little", I guess.

It is a strange way to ask more contribution from the @google.com people
whose name appear in git log.

:o(

-- 
Ueimor

Re: [Fwd: Re: Google are using linux kernel - what do you know about the source?]

[Scott Preece]

On 5/23/07, Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org> wrote:
> Alan Cox wrote:
> >> Google does not distribute their software, so they do not have to make
> >> their modifications public.
> >
> > They do for the kernel - they produce an "appliance".
>
> Ah, I stand corrected.
>
>
> >> WRT the Linux kernel, Google is essentially a closed source company.
> >
> > They've quietly fed little bits back now and then but not made a big song
> > and dance about it. Hopefully with Andrew there and the like more will
> > occur.
>
> Strange that the NIC and SATA driver bits never seem to be among those
> "little bits"...  Along with filesystem and other modifications
> discussed in the press, or observable net stack behavior when connecting
> to their computers over the 'net.
>
> So, emphasis on "little", I guess.
>
>         Jeff
---

For 2.6.21, Jon Corbet's count for LWN showed Google ninth on the list
(by number of changesets), among companies whose contributors could be
identified.