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Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 12:56:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org>
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To: Patrick Finnegan <pat@purdueriots.com>
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Subject: Re: What's left over.
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On Fri, 1 Nov 2002, Patrick Finnegan wrote:

> What I'm going to say may not be popular, and probably won't win me
> friends, but here it is anyhow:
> 
> On Fri, 1 Nov 2002, Alexander Viro wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 1 Nov 2002, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> >
> > > No, vendor == people who sold or gave us the softare.  Right now, Linus is
> > > acting like he's a big evil corporation that won't add the change no
> > > matter what we say:
> >
> > ... to his tree.  Geez, why could that be?  Maybe because you don't have
> > any rights to decide what patches does anybody else apply to their trees?
> >
> > It's not a fscking public service.  Linus has full control over his
> > tree.  You have equally full control over your tree.  Linus can't
> > tell you what patches to apply in your tree.  You can't tell Linus
> > what patches he should apply to his.
> 
> I'm sorry it _is_ a public service.  Once tens of people started
> contributing to it, it became one.  This is like saying that the
> Washington Monument belongs to the peole that maintain it, any building
> belongs to the repair crews and janitors.  

But then would you agree seeing anybody, and I mean anybody, coming along 
with a "good idea" for alteration to the Washington Monument and let them do 
what they want?

> I'm not saying that Linus is
> necessarily a janitor, but when you consider how much of the Linux kernel
> that he didn't write, you may relize that it's not just his kernel.  It
> also belongs to every single person that has written even a single
> line of code in it.

It is _his_ copy of the kernel, just as you have your own copy.

Linus' tree is known to be the main reference tree, no more.

If your patch is so valuable (and I don't mean it's not), you should be able
to convince vendors to include it in their own tree.  If _then_ it happens
to be a major feature with a large user base I'm sure it'll make the
reference tree.  But in the mean time a few scattered users isn't enough.


Nicolas

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