4 ms·

``` Apparently, if you follow the arguments, not having a kernel debugger leads to various maladies: - you crash when something goes wrong, and you fsck and it

by Scuds 8y ago

``` Apparently, if you follow the arguments, not having a kernel debugger leads to various maladies: - you crash when something goes wrong, and you fsck and it takes forever and you get frustrated. - people have given up on Linux kernel programming because it's too hard and too time-consuming - it takes longer to create new features. And nobody has explained to me why these are _bad_ things. ``` Uhh, you're dealing with a largely voluntary unpaid workforce that requires a lot of effort to become proficient, and by definition is not user facing. Any barrier to entry you throw up is going to decrease the viability of the project and have knock on effects years into the future.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mr_vile 8y ago
You know none of those things you said are actually a reasoned point, right?
- dang 8y ago
  Could you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
theon144 8y ago
>you're dealing with a largely voluntary unpaid workforce that requires a lot of effort to become proficient Are you, though? "While many people tend to think of open source projects as being developed by passionate volunteers, the Linux kernel is mostly developed by people who are paid by their employers to contribute." - https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel/ https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel/ And even if this were true, Linux is no ordinary FOSS project at the risk of losing "viability", with what I imagine is an absolute minimal amount of casual contributors which would be turned off by this sort of supposed "barrier to entry".
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  That article is 17 years younger than the OP. I agree with you today, but was that just as true back then? I’m not sure.
  - theon144 8y ago
    Fair point, it really may have been a different situation in 2000, I didn't realize that.
EpicEng 8y ago
Yet in practice, has it hurt Linux? Linus' entire point is that he doesn't think more is better. He'd rather have a smaller group of more talented individuals working the kernel. Even if you disagree, the premise of your argument, that Linux devs are largely an unpaid, voluntary workforce, is incorrect.
- hutzlibu 8y ago
  "Yet in practice, has it hurt Linux? " Very much, yes. There are still so many bugs and the monolithic nature which forces driver to be integrated in the kernel ... requires so much more people at least to understand the kernel better. Linus could still have his elite darwinist selected core hacker group, but for the whole linux eco system it is very bad that the barriers for the kernel are so arbitarily high.
  - setr 8y ago
    >forces driver to be integrated in the kernel Isn’t that a result of the intentional non-guarantee on not maintaining abi compatibility? Otherwise you end up with microsoft’s much more difficult to fix situation (maintain abi, difficult to update apis in general, but vendors can trivially produce them without a concern). Im not sure how microservice architecture or something would sidestep the issue; its more of a political question of who's in charge of maintaining the drivers
    - hutzlibu 8y ago
      "its more of a political question of who's in charge of maintaining the drivers" And even more stupid to set the bar then artificial high, when you don't have enough elitist, ideological pure enough hackers to do that.
      - setr 8y ago
        What bar..? It gives freedom to kernel developers to update their apis more freely and maintain effective backwards compatibility, at the cost of extra work managing/updating the drivers themselves instead of relying on vendors to do it. The only bar then is that the driver needs to be in a sane state before being accepted into the kernel tree, so that it remains easy to maintain sanity. Which seems to me a very fair, if not necessary, ask. It’s a pretty clearcut tradeoff, and they apparently have managed the manpower for it thus far... I don’t know why you need “elitist, ideological hackers” to support this strategy

by Scuds 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mr_vile 8y ago

You know none of those things you said are actually a reasoned point, right?

dang 8y ago
Could you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

theon144 8y ago

>you're dealing with a largely voluntary unpaid workforce that requires a lot of effort to become proficient Are you, though? "While many people tend to think of open source projects as being developed by passionate volunteers, the Linux kernel is mostly developed by people who are paid by their employers to contribute." - https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel/ https://thenewstack.io/contributes-linux-kernel/ And even if this were true, Linux is no ordinary FOSS project at the risk of losing "viability", with what I imagine is an absolute minimal amount of casual contributors which would be turned off by this sort of supposed "barrier to entry".

steveklabnik 8y ago
That article is 17 years younger than the OP. I agree with you today, but was that just as true back then? I’m not sure.
- theon144 8y ago
  Fair point, it really may have been a different situation in 2000, I didn't realize that.

EpicEng 8y ago

Yet in practice, has it hurt Linux? Linus' entire point is that he doesn't think more is better. He'd rather have a smaller group of more talented individuals working the kernel. Even if you disagree, the premise of your argument, that Linux devs are largely an unpaid, voluntary workforce, is incorrect.

hutzlibu 8y ago
"Yet in practice, has it hurt Linux? " Very much, yes. There are still so many bugs and the monolithic nature which forces driver to be integrated in the kernel ... requires so much more people at least to understand the kernel better. Linus could still have his elite darwinist selected core hacker group, but for the whole linux eco system it is very bad that the barriers for the kernel are so arbitarily high.
- setr 8y ago
  >forces driver to be integrated in the kernel Isn’t that a result of the intentional non-guarantee on not maintaining abi compatibility? Otherwise you end up with microsoft’s much more difficult to fix situation (maintain abi, difficult to update apis in general, but vendors can trivially produce them without a concern). Im not sure how microservice architecture or something would sidestep the issue; its more of a political question of who's in charge of maintaining the drivers
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    "its more of a political question of who's in charge of maintaining the drivers" And even more stupid to set the bar then artificial high, when you don't have enough elitist, ideological pure enough hackers to do that.
    - setr 8y ago
      What bar..? It gives freedom to kernel developers to update their apis more freely and maintain effective backwards compatibility, at the cost of extra work managing/updating the drivers themselves instead of relying on vendors to do it. The only bar then is that the driver needs to be in a sane state before being accepted into the kernel tree, so that it remains easy to maintain sanity. Which seems to me a very fair, if not necessary, ask. It’s a pretty clearcut tradeoff, and they apparently have managed the manpower for it thus far... I don’t know why you need “elitist, ideological hackers” to support this strategy