Quote of the day

[Paul Rudin]

Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> writes:

> Paul Rudin <paul.nospam at rudin.co.uk>:
>
>> Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> writes:
>>> The feeling of powerlessness can be crushing when you depend on a
>>> third-party component that is broken with no fix in sight.
>>
>> Presumably it depends on whether you have the source for the third
>> party component...
>
> Just having such an experience. The linux kernel has a critical bug in a
> major distribution (who shall be left unnamed here) that has been fixed
> in a later kernel version.
>
> Thanks to linux being free software, I managed to pin down the root
> cause after more than a month of debugging. I sent a bug report to the
> linux vendor and attached a tiny patch. The vendor has graciously agreed
> to consider releasing an update in the summer (we are in the process of
> verifying the fix).
>
> The problem was first detected in December. A semi-reliable reproduction
> was discovered in early February. The root cause and proposed fix was
> identified mid-March. A vendor fix will likely come out by the end of
> June.
>
> That's a long time to be without a product to sell.
>

But you do have the option of building a kernel incorporating your fix
and using that.