3885319
submission
microbee writes:
Following the Linux kernel 2.6.29 release, several famous kernel hackers have raised complaints upon what seems to be a long-time performance problem related to ext3. Alan Cox, Ingo Molnar, Andrew Morton, Andi Keen, Theodore Tso, and of course Linus Torvalds have all participated. It may shed some light on the status of Linux filesystems. For example, Linus Torvalds commented on the corruption caused by writeback mode, calling it "idiotic".
618932
submission
microbee writes:
So who could make our fearless leader to ask for community help when it comes to making Linux work? Answer: the wife.
Linus Torvalds recently filed a bug for help on playing youtube video on his wife's Fedora 9 box, crying "what's the internet without the rick-roll?". He then gave very clear instructions to reproduce the problem which is very familar to Slashdot users:
- Install current Fedora 9
- Rick-roll!
- No profit!
It turns out that the default FC SELinux policy broke the swfdec plugin.
554684
submission
microbee writes:
ndiswrapper is an open source Linux Kernel module licensed under GPL that could load certain Windows drivers under Linux kernel through the Windows NDIS interface. This enables many users to use devices that are otherwise non-functional under Linux.
Due to the fact that ndiswrapper loads closed-source binaries into the kernel, there have been some discussions and disputes on how Linux kernel should treat it. The general consensus, however, is that ndiswrapper is GPL'ed, and those Windows drivers are clearly not derived works from Linux kernel, so there are no licensing issues with it.
Recently, a change in Linux kernel has unintentionally prevented ndiswrapper from using the GPL kernel symbols, so a patch is suggested to restore the previous status quo. Unexpectedly, Linus chimed in and called ndiswrapper incompatible with GPL. This totally changed the situation. Just when everyone started to wonder about the fate of ndiswrapper, Linus quickly backed off on his claims and admitted ndiswrapper is OK with GPL, concurred by USB maintainer Greg KH.
475328
submission
microbee writes:
eWeek has a story that Crispin Cowan, the creator of Novell's AppArmor, is going to join the security team at Microsoft that created the oft-criticized UAC (User Account Control) technology. Besides the announcement, I am wondering whether he is still going to participate in Linux related development. Are we going to for the first time in history see patches from a microsoft.com email address on Linux Kernel Mailing List?
297197
submission
microbee writes:
US toymaker Mattel Inc. apologized to China on Friday over the recent massive recalls of Chinese-made toys, conceding that the toys showed design mistakes made by the company and were not due to production errors. "Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologises personally to you, the Chinese people and all of our customers who received the toys," Mattel's vice president Thomas Debrowski was quoted as saying.
There is video on Reuters.com too.
93400
submission
microbee writes:
KernelTrap reports that Greg Kroah-Hartman's offer for free GPL drivers has caused criticisms from OpenBSD developers, including founder Theo de Raadt who calls it a farce. Their reason is that this move will make companies even more reluctant to provide open specs and will hurt free software in the long run. Greg is not convinced, but given his track record of being wrong once, maybe the OpenBSD folks have a point?
57748
submission
