[Info-vax] Beyond Open Source

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-05-11 15:59:45 +0000, David Froble said:

> John Reagan wrote:
>> On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 7:51:26 AM UTC-4, Neil Rieck wrote:
>> 
>>> I heard (third hand) about problems using Linux on multi-CPU x86-64 
>>> where one cpu will occasionally "get locked into a tight loop" and no 
>>> one knows how to fix it. The customer who continually experiences the 
>>> problem contacted "the curator" only to be told that the problem might 
>>> have something to do with the quality of the code generated by the gcc 
>>> compiler. Huh?
>> 
>> That feels more like a system spinlock problem or somebody decided to 
>> "write their own".  gcc doesn't know from spinlocks.  ...
> 
> It doesn't really matter how wide-spread a problem is, if it is YOUR problem.
> ...

So far, we have an unsubstantiated third-hand report of an unspecified 
looping issue, involving unspecified x86-64 hardware, with no 
attribution, no bug number, and potentially questionable allegations of 
gcc code-generation involvement?

If nothing else, this does make a decent case for improved error 
reporting and better diagnostics, irrespective of the identity of "the 
curator" or of the particular application or system platform.    Also 
that outsourcing the risk and the blame can sometimes still blow up on 
you.

ps: if you think OpenVMS hasn't had a few of these weird 
instruction-level locking bugs, you've probably not recently 
contemplated on the origin of the the SRM_CHECK tool.   Yes, that did 
get fixed.   As for the above report, I'm *certain* we'll learn what 
happened with the unattributed bug in the unspecified application with 
the unknown issue and the unidentified customer and the mystery support 
and reputedly with the involvement of the gcc compiler, of course.




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