LZS intervju tjedna: Greg Kroah-Hartman

Poštovani čitatelji, u našim nastojanjima da budemo bolji uvijek donosimo nove sadržaje i vruće teme. Ovoga smo puta otišli i korak dalje.

O aktualnim temama smo porazgovarali s gospodinom Gregom Kroah-Hartmanom — čovjekom zaduženim za naš i vaš kernel, čovjekom zaduženim za Linux.

Greg Kroah-Hartman je Linux kernel developer. Trenutni je održavatelj -stable grane krenela zajedno s Chrisom Wrightom. Održava staging podsustav, USB, driver core, debugfs, kref, kobject, sysfs kernel podsustave i Userspace I/O zajedno sa Hansom J. Kochom, kao i TTY layer. Također je održavatelj linux-hotpluga i kreator udeva. Uz sav posao, te pakete održava i za Gentoo. Radio je za Novell u SUSE Lab Divisionu, a od 1. veljače 2012 radi za Linux Foundation. Trenutno radi puno radno vrijeme na Linux Driver projektu. Koautor je knjige Linux Device Drivers te autor knjige Linux Kernel in a Nutshell. Obavljao je i poslove urednika u Linux Journalu te piše za LWN.net.

O čemu smo pričali s Gregom, kakva su njegova razmišljanja i koju je poruku poslao našim čitateljima saznajte u nastavku.

LZS: Lijep pozdrav, Greg! Prije svega, zahvaljujem vam na ovom intervjuu u ime naše Linux za Sve zajednice. Možete li se ukratko predstaviti našim čitateljima?

Greg: Zovem se Greg Kroah-Hartman. Razvijam Linux kernel, radim za Linux Foundation i obavljam razne poslove vezane uz kernel.

LZS: Kako biste opisali svoju ulogu u zajednici? Na kojim projektima radite?

Greg: U Linux kernel zajednici sam odgovoran za izdavanje stabilnih verzija kernela. Također održavam podsustave za USB, staging mess za drivere i različite druge podsustave (char, tty, serial, misc, debugfs, sysfs i vjerojatno još par ostalih kojih se sada ne mogu sjetiti).

LZS: Kako ste postali kernel developer?

Greg: Bio sam programer ugrađenih sustava u tvrtki koja je proizvodila čitače bar koda. Radio sam na implementaciji USB sučelja za naše uređaje i isprobavao ga na svim tada dostupnim operativnim sustavima. Oduvijek sam volio koristiti Linux, ali u to doba Linux kernel nije u svom glavnom stablu imao podršku za USB. Počeo sam obraćati pažnju na razvoj USB podrške u kernelu i slati zakrpe za uređaje kojima sam imao pristup da bi oni radili kako treba. Vrijeme je prolazilo i ja sam počeo pisati nove drivere za USB uređaje koje sam imao (to su bili različiti “USB na serijski port” uređaji). Lokalna tvrtka je tražila nekog tko bi posvetio puno radno vrijeme Linux kernelu. Prijavio sam se 1999. godine i od tada je rad na kernelu moj posao.

 

LZS: Nešto što nas sve zanima – koja je vaša distribucija izbora i koje alate za produktivnost koristite? Koje programe koristite na svom računalu?

Greg: Koristim mnogo različitih distribucija. Na svom stolnom računalu koristim openSUSE Tumbleweed (zato što sam odgovoran za tu distribuciju). Na laptopu koristim Arch Linux jer je to bila jedina distribucija koje je radila na njemu kad sam ga dobio. Moji lokalni sustavi vrte Gentoo Linux, a moji udaljeni sustavi koriste Amazon Linux AMI (radi se o EC2 instanci).

Kao radno sučelje na svom desktop računalu koristim GNOME 3, a na laptopu koristim i3 sa GNOME 3 jezgrom. Cijeli dan provodim u muttu s emailovima, uređujući u vimu. Bez nekog posebnog razloga izmjenjujem Firefox i Chrome kao zadani internetski preglednik.

LZS: Što biste rekli o svom doprinosu razvoju kernela?

Greg: Volim to raditi.

LZS: Linus vas smatra osobom od povjerenja i navodi vas kao jednog od najpouzdanijih doprinositelja. Kako bi opisali svoj odnos s Linusom?

Greg: Imamo profesionalan odnos. Surađujemo putem emaila i susrećemo se na raznim konferencijama diljem svijeta.

LZS: Što mislite o suradnji Linux developera i proizvođača hardvera?

Greg: Mislim da je vrlo dobra. Velika većina doprinosa u kernelu dolazi direktno od developera koji su zaposleni kod proizvođača hardvera. Bez njihove podrške Linux danas ne bi bio toliko dobar.

LZS: Linux često kritiziraju zbog problema s određenim driverima.

Greg: Zaista? Linux podržava više uređaja nego bilo koji drugi operativni sustav. Također podržava više različitih tipova procesora nego bilo koji drugi operativni sustav. Gotovo svi ti driveri rade na svim tipovima procesora, što znači da Linux podržava više hardvera nego bilo koji operativni sustav u povijesti računarstva.

Istina, driveri su vrlo osobna stvar. Nema veze što Linux podržava desetke tisuća drugih uređaja; vama su važni samo onih 5-6 koje imate na svom računalu. Ako oni ne rade, imate pravo biti uznemireni.

Bez obzira na to, ne znam za hardver koji ne radi kako treba s driverima za Linux. Znate li vi? Ako netko zna, molim ga da mi javi i ja ću preko Linux Driver projekta surađivati s proizvođačima da im Linux driveri prorade.

LZS: Kako rješavate slučajeve kad vam neki proizvođači jednostavno odbiju dati izvorni kod za drivere i na taj način rade veliku štetu Linuxu?

Greg: Ah, te dvije zločeste video driver tvrtke! Iskreno, to me uopće ne brine. Radi se o samo dva “sićušna” drivera, a open source driveri ugrađeni u kernel podržavaju gotovo sve tipove hardvera kao i ovi vanjski, tako da je to u današnje vrijeme stvarno zanemarivo.

Ne bih rekao da su te tvrtke ikada “oštetile” Linux, budući da nam ide tako dobro. Zar ne?

LZS:  Sad kad je Steam konačno dostupan na Linuxu, kakva su vaša očekivanja što se tiče drivera?

Greg: Steam je dostupan na Linuxu i radi fantastično. Posjetio sam Valveove developere nekoliko puta (živimo u istom gradu) i već nekoliko mjeseci igram igre na njemu. Nisu mi poznati nikakvi problemi s driverima koje uzrokuje Steam i igre na njemu. Jesu li vama poznati?

LZS: Hoće li to prisiliti proizvođače grafičkih kartica da postanu otvoreniji prema slobodnom softveru?

Greg: Ne vidim zašto bi to uopće promijenilo trenutno stanje. Vi mislite da bi?

LZS: Možemo li očekivati bolje vlasničke drivere?

Greg: Već postoje bolji otvoreni i vlasnički driveri koji su rezultat suradnje između Valvea i proizvođača grafičkih kartica. Tako da je svatko tko koristi Linux već sada na velikom dobitku.

LZS: Smatrate li da je FLOSS pokret uspio zadržati pozitivan moment? Hoćemo li u narednim godinama viđati napredak, stagnaciju ili pak nazadovanje FLOSS projekata?

Greg: U ovom trenutku ne primjećujem nikakve znakove usporavanja Linuxa. Vidite li ih vi?

LZS: Imate li kakvih informacija o tome na koji način, kada i gdje Canonical doprinosi razvoju kernela?

Greg: Da, pogledajte izvještaje koje Linux Foundation objavljuje svake godine, a koje i ja pomažem pisati. U njima detaljno piše o doprinosima za Linux kernel. Također, lwn.net objavljuje “Tko je napisao 3.x kernel” članak za svako izdanje kernela, u kojem se detaljno vidi koji pojedinci i tvrtke doprinose razvoju Linux kernela. Za odgovor na vaše pitanje pogledajte te izvore.

LZS: Što mislite o tenzijama između Canonicala i FLOSS zajednice koje viđamo u medijima?

Greg: O kakvim tenzijama konkretno govorite?

LZS: Mnogi korisnici optužuju Canonical da nisu dovoljno otvoreni i da ne daju dovoljno zajednici.

Greg: Da, čuo sam za te prigovore.

LZS: Također, postoji taj pokret unutar Ubuntu zajednice koji postavlja Marka u položaj svojevrsnog božanstva, a tu su i konstantne prepirke sa FSF-om i Stallmanom.

Greg: Ljudi se vole svađati. Bolje je ignorirati ih i raditi svoje.

LZS: Kakvo je vaše mišljenje o Canonicalu i njihovoj viziji operativnog sustava?

Greg: Budući da ne koristim Ubuntu ni na jednom od svojih računala, žao mi je, ali nemam nikakvo mišljenje o tome.

LZS: Što mislite o odnosu između GPLv3 i GPLv2 licence? Određene stavke u GPLv3 zahtijevaju da svaki plugin mora biti otvorenog koda (ne nužno GPLv3). Je li takav model licenciranja uopće moguć u slučaju Linux kernela i kakvo je vaše mišljenje o tome?

Greg: Dio developera Linux kernela je izdao izjavu o GPLv3 u fazi izrade njegovog nacrta. Mnoga pitanja iz te izjave nisu razriješena u konačnoj v3 verziji licence. Pomogao sam napisati tu izjavu, tako da ju možete uzeti kao moje mišljenje o tom pitanju.

 

LZS: Odmaknimo se na trenutak od Linuxa – recite nam što mislite o novom izdanju Windowsa? Čini li vam se njihova radikalna promjena korisničkog sučelja kao pametan potez ili kao propala strategija?

Greg: Koristio sam Windows 8 samo pet minuta prije nego sam ga obrisao sa testnog laptopa i instalirao Linux na njega tako da, na žalost, stvarno nemam mišljenje o njihovoj promjeni ili njihovoj strategiji.

LZS: Vratimo li se natrag u svijet Linuxa, možemo vidjeti da se sučelja prilagođena touchscreen uređajima sve više razvijaju. Međutim, nedostatak opcija za prilagođavanje sučelja unosi nezadovoljstvo i dio zajednice. Smatrate li njihovo nezadovoljstvo opravdanim?

Greg: Ne shvaćam. Moj Nexus 7 ima touchscreen sučelje, a ima hrpu opcija za prilagođavanje, a isto tako ga pokreće Linux. Što je uspjeh Androida na uređajima osjetljivima na dodir, ako ne dokaz da Linux može bez problema pokretati takav tip hardvera?

LZS: Prijeđimo na neke lakše teme. Kakvu glazbu slušate u trenucima opuštanja, a kakvu dok programirate?

Greg: Dok radim slušam dosta lokalnih neovisnih radio stanica koje streamaju preko Interneta: http://kexp.org

LZS: Koji je vaš savjet korisnicima koji se žele aktivno uključiti u razvoj kernela?

Greg: Nađite nešto u kernelu što vas smeta i radite na tome da to riješite. To može biti upozorenje koje vidite pri buildanju koda, ili želite da vam novi uređaj radi bolje s postojećim driverima, ili nešto drugo. Uglavnom, pronađite nešto do čega vam je stalo i počnite doprinositi u tom području. Dokumentacija u kernelu je odlično mjesto za početak traženja informacija potrebnih da biste pravilno doprinijeli.

LZS: Za kraj, vaša poruka našim čitateljima?

Greg: Ako imate problema s Linux kernelom, svakako ih recite nekom kernel developeru. Inače najvjerojatnije neće biti ispravljeni budući da kod nas rade sasvim u redu.

Nadam se da ste zadovoljni mojim odgovorima. Slobodno me priupitajte ako vas još nešto zanima.

Zahvaljujem,

Greg K-H

Slijedi izvornik intervjua na engleskom jeziku.

 

LZS: Hi, Greg. First of all, I would like to thank you for this interview on behalf of our “Linux za sve” community. Could you please briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

Greg: My name is Greg Kroah-Hartman and I’m a Linux kernel developer. I work for the Linux Foundation doing kernel-related things.

LZS: How would you describe your role in the community? What projects do you work on?

Greg: In the Linux kernel community, I am responsible for releasing the stable kernel releases. I’m also the kernel subsystem maintainer for USB, the driver core, the staging mess of drivers, and other various subsystems (char, tty, serial, misc, debugfs, sysfs, and probably a few others I forgot.)

LZS: How did you become a kernel developer?

Greg: I was an embedded systems programmer, working for a company that made bar code scanners. It was my job to implement the USB interface for our device, so I worked on testing it on all available operating systems. I had always liked using Linux, but at the time Linux did not have USB support in the main kernel tree. I started paying attention to the USB kernel development efforts and started sending patches in to get devices (that I had access to) to work properly. Time went on and I started writing new drivers for some USB devices that I had (various USB to serial devices). A local company advertised a full-time Linux kernel job. I applied and started there in 1999 and have been working full-time on the kernel ever since.

LZS: Here’s something everyone wants to know – what is your distro of choice and which productivity tools do you use? What software do you use on your computer?

Greg: I use a lot of different distros. On my desktop/workstation I use openSUSE Tumbleweed (as I’m responsible for that distro). On my laptop I run Arch Linux, as that is the only one that would work on it when I first got it. My local build system runs Gentoo Linux, and my remote build system runs Amazon Linux AMI (it is an EC2 compute instance).

For a desktop environment I use GNOME 3 on my desktop and i3 on my laptop with the GNOME 3 core underneath it. I spend all day in mutt for my email, and vim for editing. I alternate between Chrome and Firefox as my default browser for no good reason.

LZS: What would you say about your contribution to kernel development?

Greg: I like doing it

LZS: Linus considers you trustworthy and says you’re one of the most reliable contributors. What is your relationship with Linus like?

Greg: We have a professional relationship, working through email and seeing each other at various conferences around the world.

LZS: What is your take on the cooperation between Linux developers and hardware manufacturers?

Greg: Very good, the large majority of all kernel contributions come directly from developers employed by hardware manufacturers. If it wasn’t for their support, Linux wouldn’t be as good as it is today.

LZS: Linux is often criticized for problems with certain drivers.

Greg: Really? Linux supports more devices than any other operating system. It also supports more different CPU types than any other operating system, and almost all of those drivers work on all of those CPU types, making Linux support more hardware than any operating system has ever done in the history of computing.

Now, drivers are a very personal thing. It doesn’t matter if Linux supports ten thousand other devices – all you care about is the 5-6 that you have attached to your box. If they don’t work well, then you have every right to be upset.

That being said, I do not know of any hardware that does not work properly with Linux drivers, do you? If anyone does, please let me know and I will work with the hardware companies to get Linux drivers working for them, through the Linux Driver Project <http://linuxdriverproject.org>

LZS: How do you deal with instances where some manufacturers simply refuse to release the source code for drivers, thus doing a lot of damage to Linux?

Greg: Ah, those two pesky video driver companies. Honestly, I don’t worry about them at all. It’s only two “tiny” drivers, and the in-kernel open source drivers now support almost all of the same hardware types as the external ones do, so it’s almost a moot point these days. I wouldn’t say those companies have ever “damaged” Linux, given that we are succeeding so well, would you?

LZS: In terms of drivers, what are your expectations now that Steam will finally be available for Linux?

Greg: Steam is available for Linux and works wonderfully. I’ve visited the Valve developers a few times (we live in the same town) and have been playing the games on it for a few months now. I don’t know of any driver problems caused by Steam and the games on it, do you?

LZS: Will it force graphics card vendors to become more FLOSS-friendly?

Greg: I don’t see why it would change their current positions at all, do you?

LZS: Are we going to see better proprietary drivers?

Greg: You already have seen better drivers from both the open and closed video driver companies thanks to Valve and the work they have done with these companies. So everyone running Linux has benefited greatly already.

LZS: Do you think that the FLOSS movement has managed to preserve its positive momentum? Are we going to see a surge in FLOSS projects, or do you expect stagnation, perhaps even a decline in the years ahead?

Greg: I don’t see any signs of Linux slowing down at this time, do you?

LZS: Do you have any information about how, when and where Canonical participates in kernel development?

Greg: Yes, see the reports the Linux Foundation releases every year that I help write. They detail who is contributing to the Linux kernel. Also, lwn.net releases a “who wrote the 3.x kernel” article for every kernel release, which details the different individuals and companies that are contributing to Linux kernel development. See those sources for answers
to this question if you are curious.

LZS: What is your opinion on all these tensions between Canonical and FLOSS that we see in the media?

Greg: What tensions are you referring to?

LZS: Many users are accusing Canonical of not being open enough and not giving back to the community.

Greg: Yes, I have heard about those complaints.

LZS: And then there is a movement within the Ubuntu community that puts Mark in the role of some kind of god. Also, there is their constant arguing with FSF and Stallman.

Greg: People love to argue, it’s better to just do things and ignore them all

LZS: What is, then, your opinion of Canonical and their idea of the operating system?

Greg: I really have no opinion about it, as I don’t use Ubuntu on any of my systems, sorry.

LZS: What do you think of the relation between GPLv3 and GPLv2? There are some clauses in GPLv3 which practically demand that every plugin should be open source (not necessarily GPLv3). Is such a licensing model possible in the case of Linux kernel and what is your opinion on that matter?

Greg: A number of Linux kernel developers released a statement about the GPLv3 during its drafting phase. Most of the issues raised in that statement were not addressed in the final v3 version of the license. I helped write that statement, so you can consider that my opinion on the matter.

LZS: Let’s step away from Linux for a moment – tell us what you think of the new Windows release. Do you find their radical change of UI a smart move or a failed strategy?

Greg: I’ve only used the Windows 8 interface for about 5 minutes before deleting it from a test laptop that I had, and installed Linux on it, so I really have no opinion on their change or their strategy, sorry.

LZS: If we go back to the Linux world, we can see that interfaces with touchscreen adaptation are also being developed. However, they lack configuration options, which leaves parts of the community dissatisfied. Do you think their discontent is justified?

Greg: I don’t understand. My Nexus 7 is a touch interface, and it has a ton of configuration options on it, and it’s running Linux. How is the success of Android on touch devices not proof that Linux can handle these types of hardware devices just fine?

LZS: On to some lighter topics. What kind of music do you listen to while relaxing? What about music when you’re writing code?

Greg: I listen a lot to a local independant radio station while working that is streamed online as well: http://kexp.org

LZS: What advice would you give to users who wish to actively participate in (kernel) development?

Greg: Find something in the kernel that is bothering you, and work to solve it. It could be the fact that you see a build warning in the code, or you need to get a new device to work better with an existing driver, or something else. But find something that you care about and start contributing in that area. The in-kernel file, Documentation/HOWTO is the place to start reading about how to find the resources you need to contribute properly.

LZS: Your final message to our readers?

Greg: If anyone has any problems with the Linux kernel, be sure to tell a kernel developer about it. Otherwise it usually will not get fixed as it works just fine for us.

Hopefully I’ve answered these properly. Feel free to ask any follow-on questions that you might have.

Thanks,
Greg K-H

Intervju dogovorio i realizirao: Lutherus

LZS intervju tjedna: Greg Kroah-Hartman, 4.8 out of 5 based on 29 ratings