>> In February this year, Google said it was sponsoring two full-time developers to work on upstream kernel security.

That's mighty generous of them. I wonder how many they employ internally to work on kernel security?

When I was younger I was seriously considering doing Kernel development, but who would pay me?

Doing work so that then big corporations can make billions off of it without paying a penny is a fool's errand.

The way Google is addressing the issue also sounds disrespectful. Engineers are not cattle.

Engineers are not cattle.

Unfortunately they're rarely treated as pets.

> Doing work so that then big corporations can make billions off of it without paying a penny is a fool's errand.

I disagree. I contribute to free software because I consider it a public good.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with making billions of dollars in of itself if you are providing something of value. There are many, many companies out there making a more moderate income from free software, and that's perfectly fine with me.

It's wrong to use someone's work without payment though. I get some people are privileged and they can afford to donate their time, but this creates inequality.

If you are able to commit time, you are enforcing a pattern where a big corporation does not have to pay workers for some of the work and that creates an expectation that developers' work is not worth any money.

People from poor background then are excluded from participation in those areas, because they have to work for money to put food on the table.

This is similar problem to unpaid internships, where the places were snapped up by children coming from wealth (as they didn't have to work for money and parents paid rent, food etc) and that excluded working class children from having a path to getting better jobs.

Not everything in life is valued in 'money', and not all valuable things have a monetary value.

A reductionist approach to life seldom leads to happiness, and certainly doesn't lead to a wholesome understanding.

'Linux' (kernel and stack) is, of course, not 'free' of cost, whether financial or otherwise, but the user certainly has freedom to access it, adapt it, share it and use it in ways that those tied to proprietary systems are largely excluded from. Perhaps that is what makes it worth the 'cost' for many of its users.

Yes open source was targeted at users (not corporations) who couldn't afford to pay extortionate price of enterprise software.

They didn't predict that the work of so many contributors will be appropriated by corporations, sold and not reimbursed.

Basically if Google wanted to incorporate e.g. Linux in their product, they should pay all contributors for use.

If you wanted to incorporate Linux to control temperature in your shed, then you should be free to do so.

Corporations should never be allowed to use someone's work without payment.

Some hundred of millions, just a little dent in their revenues, would do.... but let's be sincere, the move to Linux was made also to have someone else pay the costs of development as much as possible....

And as a follow up, how far away from the blast was the reporter found?

:D

He would probably agree with a lot of the guts of the comments. He is also reportedly enthusiastic with the recent moves to make Rust a via language for the kernel.

The trick is if one company starts donating engineers, they're essentially providing value for competitors. The practicalities are a little tricky.

While I think the guy makes a reasonable point, I'm not convinced by the proposed solution. Firstly, kernel engineers aren't lying around waiting to be called up and secondly, they don't necessarily scale.

In the near future I think we'll see more proof of concepts as to whether kernel code can be ported to Rust and whether this brings any of the hoped for improvements in memory safety, etc. In a sense, the work might be valuable in itself as an exercise in shining a light on less illuminated parts of the code base. If this does work, it also provides a model for how more companies might contribute usefully by sponsoring specific kernel projects (as is already done in FreeBSD). And, of course, moving away from the monolithic kernel towards a microkernel might also become possible (and reasonable now that x86_32 and its poor context swapping no longer dominates). This is turn should make rolling releases easier for all too handle.

For companies it's much easier to argue for enlightened self-interest when talking about specific projects rather than providing engineers but being told you can't keep the code.

Im sure I read something about workmen and their tools, maybe it was work-persons being tools - either way it appears the project got cancelled after a couple of weeks / months / yrs anyway so...

A couple of months ago 'Linux shouldn't be using their build process and e-mail, they should be using a (oh shock and surprise) Google developed solution instead'

What was said then applies now. If Google are so concerned, employ 100 developers and get them to supply fixes to upstream.

I would expect that given the wide number of platforms Linux supports that whilst Rust could be useful in some instances it's not going to handle all the necessary cases.

Well Google had better stop leeching and start getting more involved.

They pay for a relatively tiny number of developers and invest vastly more into their Android and Fuschia platforms which don't exactly help anything in the long run.

This is a little like those charity adverts where some rich celebrity has the audacity to tell us little peasants to "help out" when their wealth dwarfs any contribution of ours.

So, fsck off Google. The world really would be a better place without you.