Re: EXTERNAL: OT: Linux vendor survey results

  • From: Don Seiler <don@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Marc Fielding <fielding@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2013 15:59:27 -0600

Interesting. We were told from our account manager that rewritten OFA
module was not going to be shared. This would suggest otherwise unless
there's some other piece of code that they are holding back.


On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 3:51 PM, Marc Fielding <fielding@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Don,
>
> Taking a peek at Oracle's UEK source git viewer, the full IB stack seems
> to be there, including change-level detail.  See
> https://oss.oracle.com/git/?p=linux-uek3-3.8.git;a=tree;f=drivers/infiniband/core
>  for
> example.  According to the UEK3 announcement (
> https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/entry/announcing_the_unbreakable_enterprise_kernel)
> it's just the OFED 2.0 stack.  It's dual GPL/BSD licensed, so I don't see a
> reason why Red Hat couldn't incorporate the bits and pieces into their own
> kernel should they choose to.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Marc
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 12:04 PM, Don Seiler <don@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> It's accurate, and I asked them repeatedly about the nature of the bug
>> and the fix and they wouldn't tell me. I'm drafting a blog post about it
>> but was hoping to provide more detail for the reader other than "Oracle
>> said so". My take was that Oracle said they re-wrote the module from
>> scratch, and so wasn't bound by any GPL-type of license forcing them to
>> make their changes available.
>>
>> It was disappointing to say the least, and so long story short we had to
>> abandon Infiniband in favor of 10gbE.
>>
>> Don.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Matthew Zito <matt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>>> If that's accurate, that's an extremely hostile statement on the part of
>>> Oracle.  Linux is open source, and in general, other than some video
>>> drivers that are still a sensitive subject, kernel modules are not closed
>>> source.  For Oracle to take all of the work that Red Hat put into building
>>> RHEL, copy all of the bits they *did not* make closed source, and then
>>> reimplement just the pieces they choose and call it proprietary is very
>>> troubling.
>>>
>>> Matt
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 1:22 PM, Don Seiler <don@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I can also say that OEL/UEK contains some fixes that aren't available
>>>> in RHEL. In my case it was that Oracle UEK had a complete re-write of the
>>>> OFA module (open fabric). The RHEL version of this module causes DirectNFS
>>>> to choke on Infiniband. Oracle is not sharing their re-write back to RH
>>>> since they say it's proprietary. However we're still on RHEL so we had to
>>>> abandon our Infiniband plans.
>>>>
>>>> Don.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Don Seiler
>> http://www.seiler.us
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Marc Fielding
> Senior Consultant
> Pythian - love your data
> fielding@xxxxxxxxxxx | twitter.com/mfild | linkedin.com/in/mfielding
>
> --
>
>
>
>


-- 
Don Seiler
http://www.seiler.us

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