[dpdk-dev] [PKTGEN] fixing weird termio issues that complicate debugging

[Panu Matilainen]

On 01/21/2016 05:03 PM, Wiles, Keith wrote:
> On 1/21/16, 2:46 AM, "Panu Matilainen" <pmatilai at redhat.com> wrote:
>
>> On 01/20/2016 06:26 PM, Wiles, Keith wrote:
>>> On 1/20/16, 12:32 AM, "dev on behalf of Matthew Hall" <dev-bounces at dpdk.org on behalf of mhall at mhcomputing.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> Since the pktgen code is reindented I am finding time to read through it
>>>> and experiment and see if I can get it working.
>>>>
>>>> I have issues with the init process of pktgen. It is difficult to debug
>>>> it because the init code does a lot of very scary stuff to the terminal
>>>> control / TTY device at inconvenient times in an inconvenient order, and
>>>> in the process damages the debug output and damages the screen of your
>>>> GDB without doing weird things to run GDB on a different TTY.
>>>>
>>>> Of course I am willing to contribute patches and not just complain, but
>>>> first I need some help to follow what is going on.
>>>>
>>>> Here is the problematic call-flow with some explanation what went wrong
>>>> trying it on some community machines outside of its original environment:
>>>>
>>>> 1) it calls printf("\n%s %s\n", wr_copyright_msg(), wr_powered_by());
>>>> which dumps tons of weird boilerplate of licenses, copyrights, code
>>>> creator, etc.
>>>>
>>>> It is open source and everybody that matters already knows who coded it,
>>>> so is this stuff really that important? This gets in the way when you
>>>> are trying to work on it and I just have to comment it out.
>>>
>>> One problem is a number of people wanted to steal the code and use in
>>> a paid application, so the copyright is some what a requirement.
>>
>> In that case, why is it under a BSD'ish license instead of something
>> like GPL that's designed to prevent it in the first place? Might be too
>> late to change it by now, just wondering.
>
> DPDK is BSD, so you can not use a GPL application with DPDK (I think)

Well I sure hope the license is not chosen by that assumption. Why 
assume when you can trivially check, eg:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

DPDK itself is under the very lax 3-clause BSD license which is 
compatible with the GPL. The 4-clause "advertising license" used by 
pktgen is not. But its not the license I'm complaining about.

> anyway I can try to speed you the screens, but does it really matter
> as these are only at startup and I normally leave pktgen running for
> long periods of time. The extra time at the start does not seem to
> be a big issue, right?

We wouldn't be discussing this if it was not an issue. It is offensive 
enough to turn away both users and contributors, and merely speeding up 
a bit is not going to make it a whole lot better.

As I (and now others as well) already suggested changing it to a one 
line printout is what would make worlds of difference while still 
complying with the license AFAICT. The license text requires printing 
out the copyright notice, it does not say anything about rendering it in 
full-screen ascii-art, or printing out the entire license.

	- Panu -