Virtualbox is an out-of-tree module and hence needs to be compiled. The base package is GPLv2 and is compatible with the Linux kernel license, but I don't know if Virtualbox developers ever tried to "upstream" their module. This is probably the easiest way to solve your problem. Most Virtualization Software these days use virtualization hardware extensions (Intel VMX/AMD SVM) and so the "hypervisor code" needs to be able to execute privileged instructions, eg - you can't run VMON from ring 3/userspace.
True. If you follow LKML, you will notice that the majority of changes are to the device drivers code. And it makes sense, after all, you want the kernel to run on a wide variety of hardware. So, it's not just what fraction of developers work on the core but rather, what the fraction of changes belong to the core kernel - which is relatively small compared to the device drivers code.
Another good way of getting into kernel hacking is not just device driver books but following mailing lists you are interested in. netdev, pci-devel, kvm are some of the interesting ones. Also, checkout GregKH's driver project - these are drivers that are not yet fit of inclusion and hence reside in a "staging" area - a great way to get involved in kernel development ( http://linuxdriverproject.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page). Note that some of the lists can have really high traffic but eventually you will get the hang of picking out the useful stuff. https://lwn.net/Kernel/Patches is a great resource for mention-worthy kernel patches without subscribing to individual lists.
I also agree with you that maintainers will _not_ be cautious and prevent newcomers. That's a bunch of bull. If at all, maintainers will be welcoming to changes from first timers and will thank you for your contributions if your changes do get in. Maintainers or other developers usually are frustrated with other style issues though - for example, lines greater than 80 chars, using a mail client that mangles your patch and so on. But keep in mind that the frustration is on the patch you posted, definitely not on you on a personal level :)
>The thesis is that things like Linux belong to a category of >human endeavours that are opposite in nature to most of what >regular consumers are exposed to nowadays
But this is true for any open source project, why just Linux ? That said, I feel Linux too can't escape the "economy of bullshit" - commercial companies have interest and contribute to different parts of the Linux kernel for a reason. Heck even MS works on the hyper-v code base, not for the betterment of Linux but for the good of their own product. The "enterprise focus" of LKML activity is proof enough.
Yes, I learned it the hard way when I had around 200 BTC stolen from the online service I was using. I kept blaming the service but the fact is it's stupid to think of bitcoins = hard currencies and online wallet services = bank.
The reason I won't accuse Linus of not being open even though he doesn't support my feature-of-choice is because while he ditches my idea saying it is crap, he still gives me the source to mess with. So, I or a friend can make the change for me and I can be happy and content.
Here's another analogy : It's like Microsoft Studios talking about how the development team used a Linux based compile farm and testbed for their new game but nevertheless, the game itself won't run on Linux.
Not everyone who advocates opensource is a developer. I am an end user of Netflix. I would like to see Netflix run on my Linux laptop and I don't care if Netflix talks about the underlying architecture in open source conferences (M$ does that too) or how they use opensource for their infrastructure. The only reason they don't support Linux is because they know it's a small user base. If they really want they can come up with a solution just like they did for Android (and ChromeOS too I guess ?) Even if I do agree with your reasoning about the inverse relation between content and Linux, why haven't they yet come up with something that provides altleast limited access to their content for Linux users ?
Exactly. Associating "Netflix" with "opensource" is kind of ironic considering they still haven't been able to deliver any workable streaming solution for the free OS.
Not that there aren't any keyloggers for Linux, I never found anything suspicious, nor have any of my other accounts been breached into. But yeah, if there is a keylogger, I bet it got installed from the Mt.Gox website itself ;)
Putting aside the way the Bitcoinica account got compromised, I wanted to mention that I learned the hard way that either Mt.Gox is rife with security holes or a lot of these breaches are actually insider jobs from someone working at MtGox : A month back I realized that I had around 40 BTC lying around and decided to sell them on MtGox. First, my Mt.Gox is mostly inactive, so I actually had to reset my password and setup a new one that I had never used before. Then, after I sold my coins, I realized I cannot transfer my money to my Dwolla account; MtGox needs a scanned copy of my SSN! While I was deliberating whether I should trust MtGox with my SSN, 24 hours had passed, and I got an automated email from MtGox saying my money had been converted to bitcoins and has been transferred! Everything gone! So, the fact that :
1. My account was mostly inactive.
2. I had recently changed my account password to a new more complex one : 2 upper caps, 5 lower case, 2 numbers and one special character.
3. My money was sitting in my account for only 24 hours.
4. The time between my money getting converted to bitcoins and the actual transfer was just a few seconds, as if an automated script scans all accounts and the performs some tasks on them.
So, in short, please don't put all the blame on Bitcoinica. Something's wrong at MtGox too :)
Technically, anyone who has contributed to the Linux kernel can drag them to court. Probably not something an average developer will jump into :) That said, Harald Welte has a dedicated site for this : http://gpl-violations.org/ and he is pretty active chasing violators. Personally, I believe if there is straightforward evidence that the sources they are providing is incomplete, spreading the word around is a good start!
"Some of you may think such a test is a waste of time but I assure you it is not. It's astonishing how many people can't do this."
Well, I can assure you that as a kernel programmer, I think it IS indeed a waste of time. It's also astonishing that the moment the interviewer asks me something like this, my enthusiasm and interest in the interview drops by more than 50%. When I apply for a kernel programming a job at Google, I am dying to talk about my system internals knowledge, device driver programming experience, subtle differences between the AMD/Intel arch and what not. Instead, what do I get ? The recruiter asks me to recite by heart problems from a popular algorithms book for the pre-screening. It's like the prospective employer is telling me : I don't care what you did in the last three years. Let's start from scratch!
What also bothers me is the the test for coding skills. When a company hires a Linux kernel developer, the best possible way to test for coding skills is to look at my contributions. Instead, I am asked to write code and implement malloc so that the interviewer gets a taste of my coding knowledge. I think this is a huge waste of time.
My point being that the job interview at Google is incredibly generic. I believe that just like you should have a different resume for each job you apply to, the same applies to the interview process too.
More Info: This is very specific to my interview experience at Google. The two times that I applied at Google for Linux kernel development positions, overall I had the same experience as described above.
Some more Info : I also don't understand the idea of the algorithms test during the prescreen. If you go through the algorithms book the recruiter suggests and look up on glassdoor for interview questions, there's a very fair chance that you already know the answer to the question that's being asked!
"Another funny thing about US immigration law is, that if you are an international student in the USA (on an F1 visa) you are entitled to work only for the university that has issued you this visa."
Isn't this all part of the 9/11 hysteria ? I am not sure but I was told that before 2001 you could work part time for any employer you wanted if you came here on a F1.
No it's not. It has its own set of problems. And bugs too! KVM has its pluses too, I agree, it's a VMM in kernel mode which apparently makes it faster, it is very non-intrusive to the rest of the kernel and hence got readily accepted upstream and so some might argue in that sense that it's better. But even though I have been hacking into KVM recently, for running a VM at home on my laptop/PC, I will always opt for VirtualBox for its simple ease of usage.
Yes, you are right. Actually, it's just the bootloader. So, technically Microsoft can come up with a bootloader (GPLed) that can boot Linux or modify the current one. My bad!
Regarding the "kernel is part of the bootloader" idea, I think that was just an idea :) That's not happening anytime soon, although you can give Linux as a stage 2 payload directly to coreboot currently.
Not just the bootloader, from what I understand, the whole OS needs to be signed : drivers in particular or anything else that could talk to the firmware. So, they need to be signed too. With OSes such as Linux, I don't even know if it's technically possible to do that from a license point of view.
And UEFI fans can still use it as a payload to coreboot! Although I am not sure why anyone would be a fan of UEFI. An extra layer of abstraction on top of BIOS ? Wait, why ?