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    SubjectRe: Ptrace hole / Linux 2.2.25
    Martin J. Bligh wrote:
    >>>I don't agree that's always been true by any means. It may currently
    >>>be true, but that's far from a good thing. The current state of divergance
    >>>the distros have from mainline 2.4 is IMHO the biggest problem Linux has
    >>>today.
    >>>
    >>>The distros inherently have a conflict of interest getting changes merged
    >>>back into mainline ... it's time consuming to do, it provides them no real
    >>>benefit (they have to maintain their huge trees anyway), and it actively
    >>>damages the "value add" they provide.
    >>
    >>Just to underscore Arjan's point: non-mainline patches are very actively
    >>discouraged at Red Hat. As time progresses the maintenance cost of EACH
    >>non-mainline patch increases. Non-mainline patches do not get the
    >>benefits of wide community testing, review, and feedback. Further,
    >>Red Hat employees in my experience typically land patches in the community
    >>_first_ -- witness my netdriver work (goes me -> Marcelo -> RH), DaveM's
    >>net stack work, and Alan's -ac tree.
    >
    >
    > Right ... people seem to have taken more than I meant from this, and taken
    > it more personally than it was intended. I do believe there is at least
    > some conflict of interest ... but that doesn't mean people are controlled
    > by it.
    >
    > After some other side conversations, perhaps it would be useful to clarify
    > that the appearance of a problem is more that we don't *see* patches getting
    > submitted or accepted very often. That doesn't necessarily mean they aren't
    > getting submitted.


    I see a lot of new Red Hat work getting discussed, landing in the 2.5
    tree, and then getting backported as a value-add 2.4 feature for an RH
    kernel. Other stuff is "hack it into stability, but it's ugly and
    should not go to Marcelo."

    IMNSHO this perception is more a not-looking-hard-enough issue rather
    than reality.

    I have no idea about UnitedLinux kernel, but for RHAS I wager there is
    next to _nil_ patches you would actually want to submit to Marcelo, for
    three main reasons: it's a 2.5 backport, or, it's a 2.4.2X backport,
    or, its an ugly-hack-for-stability that should not be in a mainline
    kernel without cleaning anyway.


    > But the divergance of 2.4 is still a massive issue ... whatever the
    > underlying causes are.


    Can you actually quantify this divergance?

    From actually _looking_ at RHAS for submittable patches, it seems to me
    like mostly 2.5-backport patches in 2.4, or, bandaid-until-2.5 fixes
    that don't belong in mainline.

    Jeff



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