Linux-kernel mailing list archive 2000-06,: Re: Source Code Release of NWFS 2.0 for 2.2/2.3/2.4

# Re: Source Code Release of NWFS 2.0 for 2.2/2.3/2.4

Rik van Riel (riel@nl.linux.org)
Wed, 9 Feb 2000 20:33:58 +0100 (CET)

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On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

> At least your talking to me again now -- this is progress.
> Nobody ever attacked anything, I asked questions about your stuff,
> you guys take everything so personal -- it's not personal -- it's
> just business.

Linux "business" isn't business the normal way.

> You cost me an additional $250,000 in salaries to engineers to do
> this. It would have been much simpler to just help us use your
> stuff.

It appears that your way of business is costing you an awful
lot of money. If it's just business, you may want to look into
cooperating closer and in a more friendly way with the Linux
community.

Please keep in mind that I'm not telling you what to do. It's
your money and I am sure that you'll be able to make a good
decision yourself. (but I certainly would like to be able to
work together with you guys on more friendly terms)

> I would still like to look at this possibility. I sent you the
> source code for the nwvp.c modules that do the mirroring almost
> four months ago -- you ignored them.

No need to get upset about people ignoring you. The reason
most probably is that we're all very busy with our own and
each other's things (yes, you read that right, we help each
other out). There are certain (easy) ways in which you can
get us to help you out too...

> I'll post the source code and you can look it over and see how we
> could put this into a raid driver. There are still issues with
> the buffer cache despite this, but I consider this progress. I
> look forward to working with you on this if you want to.

Cool. Your stuff seems to have solved some of the problems
that the current Linux code hasn't solved yet. Maybe it would
be a good idea if you worked closer together with the people
who are implementing RAID and clustering for Linux?

With that I don't just mean that you keep us up to date and
we'll have the chance to look at your stuff, but also that
you keep an eye on our developments and help plan the future
of the subsystems you depend on.

When you help design the future, not only will you face less
unpleasant surprises, but the code will also be closer to
what you want it to be and we can anticipate on your needs
(instead of receiving a flame afterwards). Also, your view
of the matter might have improved Linux...

Sure, doing all that might cost you quite a bit of money,
but it would have avoided the $250.000 bill of duplicated
effort, the open source community could have handed you
some valuable ideas that could have saved you even more
work or improved your product -- for free.

That the open source world works differently is not at
all a matter of "get over it".

It's a matter of adapting to the environment and using
it to your advantage...

kind regards,

Rik

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