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 From : Sergey Lentsov                       2:4615/71.10   29 Mar 2001  17:11:06
 To : All
 Subject : URL: http://lwn.net/2001/0329
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    Here is the [44]permanent site for this page.
    
    See also: [45]last week's LWN.
    
 Leading items and editorials
 
    The janitors get organized. The last few months have seen a flurry of
    activity from a group of developers known, informally, as "kernel
    janitors." As suggested by their name, the janitors make it their job
    to clean up messes in the kernel code base; much of their recent work
    can be seen in the "ac" series of kernel patches. Recent contributions
    include fixing a mass of erroneous user space pointer dereferences,
    straightening out inconsistent treatment of kernel locks, and even
    hundreds of spelling fixes.
    
    Thus far, janitorial work in the kernel has been handled the way much
    kernel work is done - a job gets done when somebody decides to do it.
    Some coordination happened by way of [46]the kernel janitor's list, a
    web page maintained by janitor extraordinaire Arnaldo Carvalho de
    Melo, but the janitors have remained a spread-out group.
    
    No longer. Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo has [47]announced the creation of
    a separate kernel janitor's project. Like any self-respecting project
    these days, it has [48]a SourceForge page, but there's not much there
    at the present. What does exist is a mailing list and a CVS version of
    the janitor's TODO list. The mailing list has already started to see
    traffic on janitorial techniques and kernel problems in need of fixes;
    one can read about the proper way to initialize string variables at
    compile time or plans for the death of spin_lock_irq(). The janitors
    are getting organized.
    
    This project raises an interesting question. The need for janitorial
    work is reasonably clear. Any large body of code is going to have its
    dark, dusty areas in need of a serious sweeping, and the kernel is a
    larger and more complex body than many. And the janitors have noted an
    important point: an error pattern that is found in one section of code
    has a high likelihood of recurring in other places. Once a particular
    type of mistake has been found, it makes great sense to go looking for
    instances of the same mistake elsewhere. This is essentially the same
    approach as that used by the OpenBSD team to root out security
    problems before they are exploited.
    
    But why would kernel hackers go in for this kind of work? The kernel
    is full of interesting jobs that need to be done; why would a talented
    hacker pass them up in favor of auditing some obscure driver's locking
    discipline? We asked Arnaldo that question, and got the following
    response:
    
      Because somebody has to do it? :) For the kernel to be considered
      really stable it can't stop working even in the more uncommon
      situations, where lots of the janitorial work has been
      concentrated, and it also gives kernel newbies interested in
      getting into kernel hacking a good start, because we have to study
      code and see how parts of the kernel works so that we can start
      fixing these small bugs....
      
      Other motivation is that janitor work doesn't require that you
      spend that much time, and for people too busy but willing to help,
      this can be the way to help.
      
    In fact, janitorial work can be a good entry path for aspiring kernel
    hackers. Performing major surgery on the kernel and getting the
    changes past the gatekeepers can be an intimidating prospect; small
    and obvious bug fixes are a much easier start. And they can lead to
    bigger things:
    
      Look at me, now I'm being considered to become the kernel IPX
      networking stack maintainer, and this happened because I wanted to
      get rid of some cli and sti instructions, used for locking, and use
      more modern and SMP friendly locking techniques, namely spinlocks
      and reader writer locks...
      
    Janitorial work, thus, is a good entry path for those wanting to build
    some experience and reputation capital in the kernel development
    community.
    
    The organization of the janitors can be seen as another sign of
    "growing up" in the Linux community. As the kernel grows and evolves,
    organizations develop around it to keep things clean and ensure the
    quality and stability of the code base. At some point, the kernel may
    even have an organized patch management scheme, regression tests, and
    other tools that many development projects have taken for granted for
    some time. Certainly the janitors have already been greatly helped by
    the Stanford checker (discussed in [49]last week's LWN kernel page).
    
    The kernel, meanwhile, is far from the only large development project
    in the free software community. No doubt, many other projects should
    look at the kernel janitors organization and consider setting up
    something similar. The benefits, in terms of improved code and a
    better supply of new hackers, could be both large and immediate.
    
    [50][Liz in Singapore] Writeup: Singapore Linux Conference/LinuxWorld
    Singapore 2001. While the rest of us were dealing with Colorado snow,
    LWN editor Liz Coolbaugh attended the Singapore Linux
    Conference/LinuxWorld Singapore 2001. She has now posted [51]an
    extensive writeup of the event, including a report from Donald
    Becker's keynote and many pictures. It looks like a successful
    conference, if not as heavily attended as its organizers would have
    liked; it gives a good picture of the adoption of Linux in Asia.
    
    Three years of Mozilla. Three years ago, with great fanfare, Netscape
    released the Mozilla source to the world. It was one of the defining
    moments in the history of free software: a large, proprietary product
    was being freed as a response to competition from Microsoft. To many,
    it was the event that brought free software (or "open source," a term
    which was born in the middle of all this) out into the open. It was a
    sign that the corporate world was beginning to see the value in free
    software.
    
    Three years later, how does it look?
    
    Mozilla has spent much of that time being presented as a free software
    failure. The "milestone" releases have, until recently not been up to
    even alpha-level quality. Mozilla has been seen as an example of
    features and bloat gone mad. The low point, perhaps, was when NTK
    [52]sounded off in classic fashion:
    
      Far be it for us to intimate that MOZILLA has been hijacked by the
      same naive completeness fanatics that collapse so many free
      software projects into development black-holes, but ... oh come on,
      two years and counting? Seventy megabytes of swap? Per *window*?
      Hello? Is there some kind of AOL/ crack cocaine stock-swap going
      down at Mountain View?
      
    It is also the second anniversary of [53]Jamie Zawinski's high-profile
    resignation from the project, which also did little to help its image.
    Finally, the Mozilla-based Netscape 6 release has gotten an
    unenthusiastic reception. Mozilla, at times, has seemed like an
    example of the worst that free software projects can be.
    
    Not so quick, though. In the end, Mozilla will be seen as a
    slow-starting but highly successful software development project.
    Consider:
      * The Gecko HTML rendering engine has brought a new level of speed
        and standards compliance to Linux-based web browsers. It is at the
        core of the [54]Galeon and [55]Skipstone browsers, both of which
        are coming along nicely and seeing increasing numbers of users.
        Gecko is also been picked for a number of embedded applications.
      * Perhaps more to the point, the Mozilla browser itself is reaching
        a point of true usability. It now works well enough that people
        other than those hacking on the source may actually want to use it
        - especially when they find some of its nice features, such as its
        rendering speed, the ability to set minimum font sizes (no more
        squinting at obnoxious sites), and the ability to limit animated
        images. The [56]Mozilla roadmap shows high hopes for a 1.0 release
        sometime quite soon. The [57]0.8.1 release, meanwhile, adds a
        number of new features, including the ability to browse Gopher
        sites, assuming you can find one still standing.
      * A look at the [58]Mozilla projects page shows an unbelievable
        amount of development activity. Mozilla has become the central
        point for a great deal of web-based development activity; expect
        no end of great tools to come out of there in the coming years.
        
    Mozilla is this approaching its goal of producing a great, free web
    browser. Along the way, it has taught us a number of lessons. One,
    certainly, is to look carefully at large piles of code when they
    escape from the proprietary world. Thus, for example, [59]OpenOffice
    has been received with much more cautious and realistic expectations
    than Mozilla was, which is to everybody's benefit.
    
    Another is that focus is important. Had Mozilla concentrated on
    producing just a web browser, it would likely have been further along
    at this point. [60]Konqueror, while far from a small program, is an
    example of what can be done with a more realistic (though still
    ambitious) set of objectives.
    
    Yet another thing we have learned is that bringing new developers into
    large projects is hard. For somebody new to a project, the code base
    is usually poorly documented and difficult to understand, and mailing
    list discussions appear to be conducted in Martian. Recognizing this,
    many large projects have tried to help new developers with special
    documentation, mailing lists, and so on.
    
    The last lesson, perhaps, is this: don't write off a free software
    project too soon. A year from now, many of us will have Netscape-free
    desktops, and Mozilla will be the replacement on many or most of them.
    
    Inside this week's Linux Weekly News:
      * [61]Security: 2.2.18 security issue with published exploits,
        OpenSSH 2.5.2p2, FCheck, MySQL vulnerabilities.
      * [62]Kernel: 2.4.2 glitches; regression testing; the proper size
        for dev_t.
      * [63]Distributions: What's the most popular Linux distribution in
        Singapore?
      * [64]On the Desktop: KDE 2.1.1, Siag Office, Mozilla 0.81, Mahogany
        0.62.
      * [65]Development: HappyDoc, Linux LVM, State Map Compiler 1.0, KDE
        Developer's Checklist.
      * [66]Commerce: ArsDigita Community System; OEone to build appliance
        environment with Mozilla; Privacy Foundation report on TiVo.
      * [67]History: Three years ago Mozilla was released; One year ago
        LWN was acquired by Tucows.
      * [68]Letters: The leading distribution; fair use; but no letters
        about socialism.
        
    ...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
    
    This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
      * [69]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
      * [70]Elizabeth O. Coolbaugh, Managing Editor
      * [71]Michael J. Hammel, Senior Editor
        
    March 29, 2001
    
                               [72]Click Here 
    
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                                                        [74]Next: Security
    
    [75]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2001 [76]Eklektix, Inc.,
    all rights reserved
    Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
 
 References
 
    1. http://lwn.net/
    2. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/pageid=001-012-132-000-000-001-000-000-012
    3. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/security.php3
    4. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/kernel.php3
    5. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/dists.php3
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   13. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/bigpage.php3
   14. http://lwn.net/daily/
   15. http://lwn.net/cgi-bin/webcal.pl
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   41. http://lwn.net/2000/features/pcb/
   42. http://lwn.net/2000/features/Axis/
   43. http://lwn.net/2000/features/FSLCluster/
   44. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/
   45. http://lwn.net/2001/0322/
   46. http://bazar.conectiva.com.br/~acme/TODO
   47. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/a/janitors.php3
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   51. http://lwn.net/2001/features/Singapore/
   52. http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=2000/now0714.txt#TRACKING
   53. http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html
   54. http://galeon.sourceforge.net/
   55. http://www.muhri.net/skipstone/
   56. http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap.html
   57. http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla0.8.1/
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   65. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/devel.php3
   66. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/commerce.php3
   67. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/history.php3
   68. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/letters.php3
   69. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   70. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   71. mailto:lwn@lwn.net
   72. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=lwnbutton125top
   73. http://ads.tucows.com/click.ng/buttonpos=125-001-016
   74. http://lwn.net/2001/0329/security.php3
   75. http://www.eklektix.com/
   76. http://www.eklektix.com/
 
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