Date: Tue, 15 Dec 98 17:18:03 -0600 From: "Richard Seaman, Jr." <lists@tar.com> To: "Nate Williams" <nate@mt.sri.com> Cc: "current@freebsd.org" <current@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Linux Threads patches available Message-ID: <199812152318.RAA06787@ns.tar.com>
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On Tue, 15 Dec 1998 15:53:03 -0700, Nate Williams wrote: >Is this code GPL, or BSD copyrighted? If the former, then it can't be a >'normal' part of the kernel. It also has alot of implications for the >many vendors who use FreeBSD as an embedded system. The kernel patches are not GPL copyrighted. They're just patches to the existing FreeBSD kernel without any additional copyright restriction. Perhaps I should have added that I think the kernel patches included here, or something like them, will be needed with just about any "kernel threads" implementation. The patches allow kernel threads signal handling to move much closer to the posix requirements, but doesn't quite go all the way (linux doesn't either at this point). The patches also implement the linux "clone" call using rfork, and make changes to the linux_mmap and linux_wait calls in the linux emulation module. However the Linux Threads code is GPL copyrighted. The additional code provided in separate files needed to get the port working, is not GPL copyrighted. However, none of this code goes into the kernel, its all in a library. I know the GPL on the threads library is a drawback. Earlier I offered to try to implement a "one-to-one" kernel threads library by extending the current pthreads code, but almost all the comments I received were that people wanted something other than one-to-one kernel threads. This was beyond my capabilities and interest. When Brian Feldman posted his patches, which were close to working, it appeared to me that a port of linux threads could be a "quick fix" for kernel threads, while someone, eventually, does the real thing for FreeBSD. Its one-to-one kernel threads, but there's not much that needs to be changed in the threads library itself. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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