Archive for the ‘Software’ Category
FISL Day 1
So the first day of FISL has come to a close. I have to say it went better than expected, based on the quality of questions posed by the audience and visitors to the Sun booth. If today is any indication, my voice is going to completely gone by the end of the conference. I [...]
Designing for Failure
In the last few weeks, I’ve been completely re-designing the ZFS commands from the ground up1. When I stood back and looked at the current state of the utilities, several glaring deficiencies jumped out at me2. I thought I’d use this blog entry to focus on one that near and dear to me. Having spent [...]
How not to code
This little gem came up in conversation last night, and it was suggested that it would make a rather amusing blog entry. A Solaris project had a command line utility with the following, unspeakably horrid, piece of code: /* * Use the dynamic linker to look up the function we should * call. */ (void) [...]
Slashdotted…
So my last few posts have sparked quite a bit of discussion out there, appearing on slashdot as well as OSNews. It’s been quite an interesting experience, though it’s had a significant effect on my work productivity today While I’m not responding to every post, I promise that I’m reading them (and thanks to those [...]
GPL thoughts and clarifications
So it seems my previous entry has finally started to stir up some controversy. I’ll address some of the technical issues raised here shortly. But first I thought I’d clarify my view of the GPL, with the help of an analogy: Let’s say that I manufacture wooden two by fours, and that I want to [...]
Linux Kernel Debugging with KDB
So it’s been a while since my KMDB post, but I promised I would do some investigation into kernel debugging on the Linux side. Keep in mind that I have no Linux kernel experience. While I will try to be thorough in my research, there may be things I miss simply from lack of experience [...]
So now Linux is innovative?
I just ran across this interview with Linus. If you’ve read my blog, you know I’ve talked before about OS innovation, particularly with regards to Linux and Solaris. So I found this particular Linus quote very interesting: There’s innovation in Linux. There are some really good technical features that I’m proud of. There are capabilities [...]
More on OS innovation
The other day on vacation, I ran across a Slashdot article on UNIX branding and GNU/Linux. Tne original article was mildy interesting, to the point where I actually bothered to read the comments. Now, long ago I learned that 99% of Slashdot comments are worthless. Very rarely to you find thoughtful and objective comments; even [...]
Is Linux innovative?
In a departure from recent musings on the inner workings of Solaris, I thought I’d examine one of the issues that Bryan has touched on in his blog. Bryan has been looking at some of the larger issues regarding OS innovation, commoditization, and academic research. I thought I’d take a direct approach by examining our [...]
Real life obfuscated code
In a departure from my usual Solaris propaganda, I thought I’d try a little bit of history. This entry is aimed at all of you C programmers out there that enjoy the novelty of Obfuscated C. If you think you’re a real C hacker, and haven’t heard of the obfuscated C contenst, then you need [...]