Gentoo.org: Guru Medication Error — missing patches?

“You’ve probably heard rumors and grumblings about how
Linux kernel development has severe problems, is about to implode,
or even worse. We’ll leave it up to you to decide whether these
rumors are true. However, we’d like to bring to your attention a
problem that definitely does exist and needs fixing. What is it?
Large Linux companies like Red Hat and MandrakeSoft put a lot of
effort into creating really spiffy patched kernels. Sometimes,
obvious bugs are fixed along the way. The problem is that many of
these no-brainer patches languish in their respective kernel source
SRPMS and never get incorporated into the stock kernel. While this
is certainly not a violation of the GPL on the part of the distro
companies (the GPL requires that modifications be made available,
but does not require that anyone is informed of these modifications
or that important bug fixes are actually applied), it certainly has
a negative impact on Linux as a whole. In effect, if you do not use
distro X or Y, then you do not benefit from these fixes. Without
focusing on assigning blame, we’d like to encourage everyone to do
what they can to get good patches flowing to Marcelo so he can
incorporate them into the stock kernel. Here’s an example of a “no
brainer” patch from Mandrake’s cooker kernel that was created
nearly a year ago (back in the era of 2.4.3-ac4) yet has still not
been incorporated into the stock kernel. Was it never submitted?
Was it forgotten or lost? I don’t particularly care, as long as
this general situation gets addressed. No-brainer patch
follows…”

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