But in the real world the source is just as important as the binary kernel itself - it allows you to "tweak" your kernel in allot of ways, some performance related (opinion varies), some hardware compatibility related (you may need to build modules *into\* the kernel to boot certain devices), security related (removing untrusted/unneeded modules from the core), and even just to to incremental upgrades/bugfixes (downloading only updated module instead of the whole source lib).
This "flexibility" and openness of the kernel is arguably linux/BSD/etc's most powerful feature, bar none. It puts the user in control. That's why I and others liken it to a country's constitution, to be prominently displayed and upheld. The kernel and source should be inseparable.
Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
On Fri, 2004-10-15 at 12:00 -0600, Ken Johanson wrote:
But my cage rattling is about "Why is the kernel source not included", not lack or headers. If I could have just rpm/bzipped the source from one of the discs we wouldnt even be here right now.
I've been attempting to read up on and understand this issue since the flamewar started. Am I correct in thinking that the kernel source code can now be found in one of the SRPM packages? If so, then it's still on the disks, right? So Red Hat *does* distribute them?
Note: I am aware that the SRPMS disks are a different set, and that someone would then have to download the binary ISO images plus either the kernel SRPMS independently or the SRPMS ISO images as well. However, it sounds like a more-consistent approach since all source code is found in SRPMS rather than in binary RPM packages.
What, if anything, am I missing?
Cheers,
