Kernel Log – Discussions at the 2009 Kernel Summit, FatELF in the firing line, new graphics drivers

“This year’s Kernel Summit was held in mid October in Tokyo. The
kernel developers invited to the event discussed a broad range of
Linux kernel-related issues and kernel development. Linux Weekly
News has, as usual, published a detailed summary of the topics
discussed at the meeting, which is now also available to
non-subscribers.

“As ever, one of the main topics of discussion was the
development process. According to the LWN.net report, kernel
developers are broadly happy with linux-stable and linux-next, but
there was criticism of the fact that a significant number of
patches are not finding their way into linux-next before being
merged into the main development tree. The kernel hackers are also
considering in future moving occasional obsolete kernel drivers to
the staging area for immature drivers which don’t meet kernel
development quality standards. If they do not get picked up from
there, they will then be removed from the kernel source completely
a few months later. Other points were also discussed, but, as the
report stresses, in contrast to previous developer meetings, Linus
Torvalds now appears to be broadly satisfied with the overall
development process.”

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