Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] DTrace

["Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@redhat.com>]

Hi, James -


> [...]  The problem is that SystemTap hasn't really benefited from
> community based innovation largely because it doesn't have much of a
> community.  The bigger picture problem Red Hat didn't see when they
> accepted the cash was that this project wouldn't generate a
> community just from the usual publish the code and they will come
> philosophy.  [...]

Red Hat didn't help build systemtap on "contract" if that's what you
think.  It has not been the sole player either.  Many of the same
customers who really want to use the tool have been partners,
contributing considerable ongoing engineering talent to help it along.


> [...]  The rising challenge it to find a way of bringing open source
> methods to bear on this class of problem.  What SystemTap seems to
> have demonstrated nicely is that simply paying a third party to
> solve your problem doesn't really work largely because the tight
> feedback loop between the producer and the consumer that drives open
> source innovation is broken. [...]

This analysis really doesn't seem to fit well to our actual situation.
We've been soliciting/collecting community contributions from the
beginning.  We've been active on LKML since 2005.  Any accusation that
we're not displaying "open source innovation" needs better evidence
than that some LKML seniors have not been very supportive / satisfied
users.


- FChE