Re: [git pull] drm

Linus Torvalds
2009-12-11T00:10:19Z

On Thu, 10 Dec 2009, Alan Cox wrote:
>
> > But not only is Fedora not following the rules,
>
> You changed the rules. You require a Signed-off-by:. Fedora can no more
> add a signed off by than you can. It's not their code nor Red Hat's code
> any more than they "own" the kernel because they pay someone to work on
> it.

You're avoiding the point: they are shipping it, they are paying for (at
least some) development, and they seem to not even want to face the issue.

Sign-offs aren't some new feature that took Red Hat people by surprise.
The "get it merged upstream first" didn't change in any way from it: it
just codified existing practice - of _course_ everybody expects copyrights
to be honored and clear.

> It's really simple: if you want to merge it *you* pull it and sign it off.
> If you aren't prepared to do that then ask why Fedora should, its not
> their code either.

I'm not shipping it. They are. That's the difference.

I realize that you have some emotional attachments to Red Hat, but ask
yourself (and answer honestly): what would you think if some random other
distro was packaging tens of thousands of lines of kernel code and not
apparently working at trying to get them upstream?

Dave claims it's only been going on for a few months, but quite frankly,
we all know better. The nouveau kernel modules have been shipped for a lot
longer than just F12.

And it's possible that other distros are doing the same thing. I happen to
know that Fedora does it (and has been doing it for at least a year),
because I happen to have an Intel development machine that runs Fedora and
was shipped by Intel with an nVidia card (and has a power supply that
craps out if you don't use several hundred watts of power, so I can't
change it to something more power-efficient - seriously).

Linus