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Interview With BitKeeper Author Larry McVoy 365

Posted by michael from the bit-by-bit dept.
Jeremy Andrews writes "KernelTrap has spoken with Larry McVoy, BitMover founder and primary BitKeeper author. BitKeeper, a distributed source control system, has been adopted by Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds and condemned by free software icon Richard Stallman. In this interview, Larry looks back through the years, describing his exposure to computers and Linux. He also discusses the history of BitKeeper, from writing NSElite for Sun (which turned into their still used SCM, Teamware), to his desire to keep Linus from burning out, to the present day solution. The choice to not license BitKeeper under the GPL is also explained. Larry discusses much beyond Bitkeeper as well, exploring some of his other interests. Find the full interview on KernelTrap."
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Interview With BitKeeper Author Larry McVoy More

Interview With BitKeeper Author Larry McVoy

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  • Congratulations to Linus (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WzDD ( 23061 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @08:49AM (#3594514) Homepage
    For years, I've been skeptical of the Linux kernel development model, and specifically the its lack of source control. While it seemed to be "working", Linus has showed the strain several times on the kernel list. As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad he's found a tool that works for him - I totally agree with Linus' attitude of "use the tool that works for you, not its ideologically better, but otherwise inferior competition".

    Hopefully this will at least alleviate some of the "Linus doesn't scale" criticisms, too.

  • free... as in freedom? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TechnoVooDooDaddy ( 470187 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @08:52AM (#3594530) Homepage
    Stallman can't get over the fact that Bitkeeper is NOT licensed under the GPL, and that Linus chooses to use it anyway. Presumably Linus just likes it better, and he's free to do as he sees fit. Freedom, that's an interesting word, because the mere notion of it means it must apply equally and unilaterally to everyone, or it doesn't exist. Stallman has repeatedly tried to exert pressure on people including McVoy to license things under *his* GPL, and complaining loudly when it doesn't happen. In other words Stallman is making an effort to limit their freedom with their own product.

    Freedom applies to everyone, or it applies to no one.

    • you can't be "a little bit non-free" just as you can't be "a little bit pregnant". you either are, or you aren't.

      did you read what RMS had to say about Linux not even legally being able to be distributed under the terms of the GPL? and that has nothing to do with BitKeeper.

      -rp
      • i've got mana to burn so here goes..

        Stallman is all his way or no way. And when someone else has another idea, or wants to do things differently, he has issues. Linus wrote the kernel. Period. RMS can go back to Hurd or whatever if he doesn't like Linus. I personally don't blame linus one bit for switching from CVS, i've maintained CVS crap before, and it can be a hassle.. If Linus has found something that works better for him, what place does RMS have to condemn that?
        • Linus wrote the kernel. Period.

          Linus wrote which kernel? 0.1?

          I doubt if anyone knows exactly who wrote all the bits of the kernel these days.
    • Stallman has repeatedly tried to exert pressure on people including McVoy to license things under *his* GPL, and complaining loudly when it doesn't happen. In other words Stallman is making an effort to limit their freedom with their own product.

      You demonstrate a remarkable lack discernment. Stallman recognises their freedom and is not trying to limit it. He is trying to persuade them to use that freedom in a certain fashion--that is all. You may agree or disagree with what he wants, but you certainly cannot say that he is trying to limit their freedom.

      Note also that in his philosophy it is both wrong and harmful to others to release proprietary software. That is, he considers proprietary software to be immoral and would no doubt like to see it made illegal, in exactly the same sense that murder, rape and theft are immoral and illegal.

      I don't follow him that far, but there is a certain amount of logical consistency to his arguments.

    • It's suddenly become fashionable to bash Stallman on Slashdot. How odd.

      Anyway, your point is wrong-headed. Think about what gets said when people discuss GPL'd game software- people say "GPL is important for infrastructure, not for entertainment". They say when it counts open standards are important but when it's trivial it's ok to be closed.

      Well, this is a serious infrastructure issue and Stallman has every right to be upset about it.

      Your twist of the word freedom is easily parried- the freedom to take away others' freedom is not a freedom at all. The GPL position is internally consistent.

      And finally, your attack, like so many here today, is premised on an ad hominem argument- you're attacking Stallman, not his argument.

  • This is his response to the GPL issue. It's a good point. The choice is: Enough money to feed the family and pay the mortgage, or give back to the community and make a fraction of what you could have otherwise. It's not always this black and white, but many times it is.


    Larry McVoy: I've never bought into the open source model as a self sustaining model for all software. It works in some places the software is tied to some other source of revenue, such as hardware, but in general, it stinks as a business model. It's fantastic if your goal is to have a lot of free software out there, but it starts to fall apart when building that free software costs more than you can extract from it in revenue.

    BitKeeper is in that camp. There is about 25 man years of effort in BitKeeper so far, with no end in sight. We pay Bay Area salaries, so our cost for an engineer is about $160K/year. That's at least 4 million dollars no matter how you look at it, and that's a lower bound. I took a hard look at the Cyclic people who tried to make a business out of supporting CVS and they pulled in $145K in their best year. It would take 27 years to make $4 million at that rate, and that assumes we stop drawing salaries today. In this product space, if people can use it for free, they will. People have tried to argue with me that BitKeeper is a better tool and it would generate more support revenue. That's nonsense, exactly because it is a better tool. At least with CVS, there are enough broken or missing features that you could generate revenue to fix them. Maybe.

    So I took a hard look at the situation and decided that I wanted to maximize value to everyone. I divided the world up into 3 camps: the free users, the commercial users, and the vendor. The goals were to provide maximum value to everyone and have everyone provide value back in return. Here's how it works:

    Free users: these users don't pay in money, but they do pay. They pay by using the product and pointing out bugs. BitKeeper is a dramatically better product because of the free users. The BKL, the free usage license, insists that you are running the latest images, because that's where the free users provide value. It doesn't help anyone to get bug reports on problems we've already fixed. The job of the free users is to help debug the latest.

    Commercial users: these users pay in money which funds further development. As a commercial user, they can pick which release they want to run, which sometimes means they stay back for stability reasons, perceived or otherwise. They benefit from the free users running a new release first, and it's typical that they wait for the timestamps in the download area to be a few weeks old before upgrading.

    Vendor: we provide value in the form of the product and support. We get the bug fix value from the free users and financial benefit from the commercial users. The money is turned right around into additional development.

    While BitKeeper is hardly a get rich quick scheme, it is self supporting. We've taken no outside investment, the company is built on the backs and wallets of the people who work here, and that's cool. It means there is no outside board of directors in the form of VC's telling us to stop wasting time giving it away. I know that giving it away has helped make it a better product, which is good for everyone, but I'd hate to be in the position of having to justify that decision to a VC before the fact. It's easy to see that things worked after the fact, it's much harder to see that they will work ahead of time.

    The bottom line on the licensing scheme is that it was designed to give as much and get as much as possible to and from all parties. Licenses such as the GPL give more to the free users, but give dramatically less to both the original author and to the commercial users. Using GPLed software for everything is like living in a world where the answer for when you have an illness is "here are the plans for the hospital, you can finish building it and check yourself in. Oh, and here's the medical instruments you'll need, you can slice yourself open and poke around. You can do it, good luck!".

    Licensed software is more like the insurance model. Nobody pays what it cost to develop the software, that's way to expensive. So everyone pays a little bit and the cost load is spread out. Yeah, for consumer applications like what Microsoft ships, they can get very rich because there is a very large market. But for applications like BitKeeper, it's a tiny market, about a million seats world wide, and there are about 300 different SCM tools out there. Hardly the area to go try and do a free product and hope that support revenue will work. It's just not realistic. There is absolutely no chance that BitKeeper would be anywhere near as good as it is today if we had chosen to GPL it.
    • comparing software development to insurance is brilliant, it maps very well into the real world. Yes a major project is too big for a single small company to do, but spread the cost around, and it works.

      This is a model that will work for open software.
    • It works in some places the software is tied to some other source of revenue, such as hardware, but in general, it stinks as a business model. It's fantastic if your goal is to have a lot of free software out there, but it starts to fall apart when building that free software costs more than you can extract from it in revenue.

      I think this is a very accurate description of the problems related to business goals with the GPL. GPL is not, and will never be, the ultimate solution for the software industry. It is the ultimate solution if your goal is to have a lot of free software out there, as he says.

      I would like you to consider if you would work as a street musician. Playing your songs for free in the streets, and hoping that the people listening will give you their spare change. Perhaps you'll make good money, but would you quit your ordinary job to try if it works?

      Now consider what Mandrake is doing. They are giving away the product for free, counting on the members in the MandrakeClub (or whatever they call it) to pay a couple of dollars a year. Why?

      I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call that a sustainable business model. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Mandrake succeed, and they are producing a high quality product that deserves to succeed. But I wouldn't bet on it.

      So, in my opinion, the reason that Mandrake has to rely on their clubmembers kindness is that Mandrake belongs to the free software movement. They belong to that because they have chosen to build their product based on GPL:d software. And the goal of the free software movement is to have lots of free software out there. Therefore, Mandrake has not only been using the software of the free software movement, they also inherited their goals, whether they wanted that or not. And I am not sure that it is compliant with a sustainable business model.

      Mandrake is competing in a market economy. The main difference between Mandrake and its competitors (e.g. Microsoft, Sun) is that the competitors have goals that are extremely well suited for competing and making money. Mandrake's goal, or the free software movement's goal, is extremely well suited to compete. But not to make money. I think this is an explanation of the huge amount of users of free software, with still a very low turnover for software producing companies like Mandrake.

      Unfortunately for Mandrake, being able to make money is what constitutes the difference between a sustainable business model from a non-sustainable in a market economy.

      I do not think that this is a bad thing per se, but I think it is a mistake to try to compete under the same conditions as Microsoft or Sun. They have different goals, well suited for a market economy, and that is a prerequisite for success in a market. Free software will compete outside the market, where making money is not important.

      I think this is exactly the point where the conflict between the open-source and the free software movements starts. RMS's goal is to have a lot of free software. The open-source movement are more biased towards sustainable business models. The misunderstanding arises because open-source also wants free software out there, but that is not their only, not even primary goal.

      I keep my fingers crossed for Mandrake and would love to be proven wrong.

      • Mandrake has just renamed the classic software business model of support contracts into a marketing entity called club.

        This model is the oldest model out there. It created IBM, DEC and the other old greats and it is keeping some of them alive till now.

        Yes, it is different from the MSFT style "pay now what we give is what you get, and no support" model. But this does not mean that it is by any means less economically sound. It is actually more sound on the long run.

        So I do not think that Mandrake will have any problems with the Club. It is likely that the other linux vendors will take it as well.
    • The choice is: Enough money to feed the family and pay the mortgage, or give back to the community and make a fraction of what you could have otherwise. It's not always this black and white

      Larry's company sells proprietary software. Nothing wrong with that, although I question the wisdom of putting a startup in an area that demands $160K salaries. Also, speaking for myself, I'd take a pay cut to work on free software. (I think I could get by on $100K.)

      The complaint over the license has less to do with Larry than with Linus. Linus isn't fanatical about free software. He'd like the world to believe that Linux is successful because he's such a great manager, never mind the GPL.

      Mozilla and Evolution are good enough. I won't abandon them just because IE and Netscape are freeware. Linus thinks that CVS is not good enough. RMS would have him resist the temptation of BitKeeper freeware, because it lessens the incentive to improve CVS (or replace it with something better). After all, where would Linux be today if its users and developers had been tempted away by non-commercial SCO or freeware Solaris? But Linus isn't fanatical.

  • Pragmatism (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jdh28 ( 19903 ) <jdh28NO@SPAMbigfoot.com> on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @09:10AM (#3594624) Homepage

    Linus' approach to BitKeeper (and to everything it seems) is a purely pragmatic one. He has said that if there is a GPL'ed SCM that is at least as good as BitKeeper then he will switch. Until that happens he refuses to let idealism stand in the way of progress.

    I think the BitKeeper license is an interesting innovation. My only problem with it, is that if I am using it for free, I am _forced_ to upgrade when new versions become available. Even on an open source project I wouldn't want to be changing something as fundamental as my SCM very regularly. If it aint broke and all that.

    john

    • "refuses to let idealism stand in the way of progress". Ah yes, I can think of some idealistic positions we need to discard in order to make progress. For example the ideal that you should be able to make digital copies of music you purchase stands in the way of progress, or at least the RIAA would say that it did. Or that pesky constitution, we could make much faster progress if those ideals weren't standing in our way.

    • Re:Pragmatism (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @10:17AM (#3594997)
      My only problem with it, is that if I am using it for free, I am _forced_ to upgrade when new versions become available.

      So pay up and quit whining about it.

      You're getting something for free, nothing, nada, zip that someone else has spent time and effort on, why are people not appreciative of this fact any more?

      You don't go whinging about a free beer your mate gives you do you? And yes, even that beer will come with conditions (like you're supposed to drink it with him).

      • Welcome to slashdot ;)

      • Re:Pragmatism (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AxelBoldt ( 1490 )
        You're getting something for free,

        No you don't. You pay for it with the considerable hassle and expense of being forced to upgrade your basic infrastructure software whenever some company tells you to.

        If you download Linux, that's free in every sense of the word. Bitkeeper is not free. Not even free as in beer.

    • Even if one were to agree with Stallman on the BitKeeper issue, Linus using it is a good thing. As far as I see it Linus won't burn out and there is amazing incentive to create something better than BitKeeper. Can you imagine the bragging rights a group would have if they made a better product than BitKeeper?

      Nerd1: I've been using Linux for my Perl programming.
      Nerd2: I helped make the software that Linus uses to make the kernel.
      Nerd3: I beat RMS in arm wrestling.
      Nerd1 && Nerd2: *frightened looks*

  • RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @09:15AM (#3594643) Homepage Journal
    Agree or disagree, I believe the phrase BitKeeper ... condemned by free software icon Richard Stallman mis-states the issue. It's not the merits of BitKeeper _per se_ which are at issue. Rather, it is the very idea of the use of it - even if it's technically better!

    What RMS actually said [linuxworld.com] was:

    Bitkeeper issue
    The use of Bitkeeper for the Linux sources has a grave effect on the free software community, because anyone who wants to closely track patches to Linux can only do it by installing that non-free program. There must be dozens or even hundreds of kernel hackers who have done this. Most of them are gradually convincing themselves that it is ok to use non-free software, in order to avoid a sense of cognitive dissonance about the presence of Bitkeeper on their machines. What can be done about this? ...

    Linux, the kernel, is often thought of as the flagship of free software, yet its current version is partially non-free. How did this happen? This problem, like the decision to use Bitkeeper, reflects the attitude of the original developer of Linux, a person who thinks that "technically better" is more important than freedom.

    Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. "Don't bother us with politics," respond those who don't want to learn.

    That's a very profound statement. It's easy to sneer at it, to dismiss it ad hominem. But he raises important points which deserve to be addressed in depth.

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

    • And this is why I have a problem with the hard line that RMS takes. I should use an inferior product because of a philosophical position? How is this any different from the mindset of any organized religion?

      I use the best tool for the job because I want it to work. If there are two products that are technically equal, then I will give philosophy consideration and most likely go with the FSF choice. I will not make my life miserable by using a crap tool because it doesn't conform to a rigid view of good and evil that I don't necessarily agree with.

      • I should use an inferior product because of a philosophical position? How is this any different from the mindset of any organized religion?
        Because you've reached that principle through reason, and searching your personal morality, rather than having it dictated to you by a bloke in a dress.
      • RMS's philisophical point is that it's a bit odd to be using a proprietary product as the source control system for a GPL'ed kernel. Especially a GPL'ed kernel that has benefitted so much from existing Free infrastructure.

        The practical risk is that Linux, by implicitly endorsing non-free competitors to free products, is helping to cut off it's own air supply.

        For example, I suspect that there would be many fewer Free and Open Source projects if CVS were proprietary. Free (speech) infrastructure is a huge boost to software development.

        Developers have to make a choice between the short term expediency of choosing a product strictly on its current technical merits, and the long term benefits of encouraging a healthy Free software ecosystem.

        You can argue specific cases, but to deny there is a tradeoff is disingenuous.

  • RMS is an extremist. Always has been. In that role, he has fought for the complete freedom of software. IMHO, it's an admirable, idealistic view of the world. Having said that, there are times when his extremism causes him to fall right off the deep end, for refusing to make the smallest compromise for the good of the movement.

    McVoy is hardly anti-free-software. The very fact that he gives away *anything* for free symbolizes that. (He doesn't have to give anything away.) He makes the simple requirement that the free users use the newest versions for bug reporting reasons. Not a bad idea IMO.

    But RMS bristles at even the association with a software product that is ever sold for money. That extreme view causes great debate in the community (this discussion for one) and that's a *good* thing! However, RMS needs to be less beligerent about this one. The kernel needs a stable base in terms of source control. If Linus determines that the best solution is BitKeeper, then that's his decision. RMS has the right to his opinion, but not to insult the intelligence of all of us by tring to tell us that we're all compromising our values by allowing this.

    In a similar vein, am I the only one who is sick of RMS whining about the naming of Linux? The accepted name is Linux not GNU/Linux. It's out of your hands, RMS. Live with it.

    Ben
    • In that role, he has fought for the complete freedom of software.

      Wrong... In that role, he has fought for what he thinks is the complete freedom of software. Not everyone agrees with his viewpoint that GPLed software is the only truly free software available, or is even free software in the first place.

      Dinivin

      • Wrong... In that role, he has fought for what he thinks is the complete freedom of software. Not everyone agrees with his viewpoint that GPLed software is the only truly free software available, or is even free software in the first place.


        Of course he has fought for free software in his own terms. At least he has taken the trouble to define [fsf.org] his interpretation of "free". By contrast, you simply say that what he thinks of as free is not free. Care to give us your definition?

        • By contrast, you simply say that what he thinks of as free is not free. Care to give us your definition?

          This is version 1.0 of the as-truely-free-as-we-can-possibly-make-it licence:

          1. You are free to modify, change, hack, break, tweek, redistribute, copy, broadcast this code as you see fit.
          2. You agree that if something goes wrong, either through direct or indirect usage of the program that you don't hold the authors liable. You use this at your own risk
          That is a totally free licence as far as I'm concerned (well, as totally free as I can think without making my life hell).

          Sure, it sucks in the sense that someone can take your hard work, change a few credits, make it closed source and sell it - but then thats just a side effect of its totally free nature.

          Contratry to popular belief, the GPL does not give you utter freedom. It too has restrictions to protect the work of others (which is a good thing) but it can never be called totally free.

          • In other words, you just put it in the public domain.

          • Contratry to popular belief, the GPL does not give you utter freedom. It too has restrictions to protect the work of others (which is a good thing) but it can never be called totally free.


            The point I was trying to make was that there's not much point in debating the FSF meaning of "free" in the context of the dictionary meaning of "free". At least, not in this community. I believe it makes sense to make your own definition of "free" if you like, and say that this is "better", in some sense that you might define, than RMS's definition of "free". But it's a bit pointless to say that your definition of "free" is closer to what the dictionary means by "free", because no-one cares what the dictionary means in this context. "Free" now has its own meaning when talking about software, and I believe that the dictionary meaning is irrelevant.


            Now, you may argue that your definition is "better" in some other sense than being closer to what the dictionary intends. And I don't doubt your right to do that if you wish. But RMS has twenty years on you, and has GCC and EMACS (inter alia) to back up his claim!


            Please note that I'm not disputing your definition, or your right to define the word in your own terms. I'm just saying that the dictionary definition of "free" isn't especially important any more, at least in this context.

    • But RMS bristles at even the association with a software product that is ever sold for money

      Are you trolling?

      From gnu.org:

      [Y]ou always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies.

      ``Free software'' does not mean ``non-commercial''. A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important
    • Just recently we could see [slashdot.org] how right RMS is when he seems so overly extremist w.r.t. free software. The naming issue, I agree, it is not worthwhile to keep 'whining' about that, but emphasising and being purist on the subject of Free software cannot be overestimated.

      Of course anyone is free to create commercial software and I hope that McVoy makes lots of money using Bitkeeper, and giving it away for non-commercial purposes is noble. But, why must a free system like the Linux kernel be maintained in Bitkeeper, while a good free alternative is available? Maybe bitkeeper has some better features, but noone can claim that CVS is not good enough. Huge projects are maintained effectively with CVS (the BSD's, Mozilla to name a few).

      With this decision, even though Linux itself is free software, it is impossible for companies to track Linux in a manner which is consistent with the original developer (i.e. in the same version control system).

    • One little nit (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fizbin ( 2046 )
      But RMS bristles at even the association with a software product that is ever sold for money.

      RMS has never, ever, objected to any activity on the grounds that it is "tainted" by monetary objectives. (Though others nearby have - the Gnuart [gnuart.org] people, for example)

      What RMS objects to about BitKeeper (and about acrobat reader, and latex column modes, and Netscape 4) is, as he says so many times it almost makes you want to beat your head into the wall, that BitKeeper is not "free as in freedom".

      RMS has no problems with BitKeeper being sold - his problem is that the market for BitKeeper (and most other non-free software) is propped up by the restrictions placed on the buyer. In fact, RMS agrees with debian [debian.org] that software which contains a "don't sell this for more than the cost of the media" clause is not free. Part of the problem with BitKeeper is not that McVoy is selling it, but that I (or anyone else) can't.

      If every person who received a copy of BitKeeper from McVoy were able to use it however they wanted, examine all the source, modify it as desired, and then copy and sell the result, then BitKeeper would be free software. (I'm sure someone could weasel in a non-free restriction somewhere into that statement, but basically that's it) Contrary to popular opinion, RMS does not insist that every piece of free software be licensed under the GPL.

      Painting RMS as hostile to the pursuit of money, as though he were these guys [whiterobedmonks.org] is inaccurate. RMS is not actively hostile to the software market; he just doesn't view its continued existence as a sufficient reason for non-free software. If the commercial software market cannot survive without the restrictions on redistribution currently placed on buyers, then it cannot survive.

      People who paint RMS as hostile to making money fail to see the difference between "I hate that" and "I care about something else more than I care about that". (Those who would paint free speech activists as being against national security often commit a very similar structural confusion.)

      • "If every person who received a copy of BitKeeper from McVoy were able to use it however they wanted, examine all the source, modify it as desired, and then copy and sell the result, then BitKeeper would be free software."

        But that model doesn't work. Assume I need to sell the software for $50/pop to make my morgage and be able to eat. Now you, who are just doing software work part time, only need to sell it for $10/pop to make it worthwhile. Then the next guy has a full time job and is just monkeying around with a few improvements. He sells it for $1.00

        In the RMS model, all software eventually degenerates into completely free (as in no one can make any money off the software).

        In the RMS vision of the world, the ONLY software that ANYONE gets paid to develop is software written specifically for large companies who need a specific business package. This presents two problems:

        1. Much of the software that we use (free or no) isn't useful to most corporations
        2. Most of the software corporations are interested in is only useful to other corporations.

        RMS freely admits that programmers are worthless in his vision of reality. The only thing that matters to him is the principle of user freedom. He chooses to completely ignore the programmer.

        The best analogy I can think of right now is a book. You spend two years of your life working tirelessly to write a book. You begin to sell it (physical and/or ebook - it doesn't matter), but RMS is now in charge. That means anyone can take your book, copy it, change it, and place their name on it. Then they can sell it for less. So joe blow adds a few illustrations, changes a few words, and sells the book for half of what you are charging. Now he is profiting immensely for a total of 5 hours of effort, whereas you spent TWO YEARS of your life on this book. Time you could have spent playing with your kids, or earning a PhD, or whatever. TIME THAT IS GONE FOREVER. And what do you get for your trouble? Thanks to RMS you get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

        Repeat ad nauseum and eventually someone changes the book a little bit and gives it away for free. You have collected a total of $10 from the original joe blow, and now the book is freely distributed and you get nothing. THAT IS NOT FAIR.

        RMS does not have any answer for that situation, other than "too bad!"

        I, for one, refuse to support an organization like the FSF as long as a nutcase like him is involved. He claims that principle is the most important, and that his principle is the only valid one to abide by. I say turn that on him and the FSF: If you don't believe that the GPL is the answer to all our ills and that all software must be completely and totally free (no compensation for programmers), then you should withdraw your support for the FSF. Remember: according to RMS, it is more important to throw the baby out with the bathwater than anything else. You are unimportant. Your ideas belong to everyone else. You get nothing for your hard work. The only important thing is that users have the right to benefit from the fruit of your labors freely.

    • McVoy is hardly anti-free-software. The very fact that he gives away *anything* for free symbolizes that.
      Just don't confuse Larry's free (no cost) software with Stallman's free (liberty) software. The English language unfortunately uses the same word for both concepts.

      I'm not saying that Larry is anti-free-software, but the software that he gives away is definitely not free software [gnu.org].

      But RMS bristles at even the association with a software product that is ever sold for money.
      Not true! But I think others have addressed this point.
      RMS has the right to his opinion, but not to insult the intelligence of all of us by tring to tell us that we're all compromising our values by allowing this.
      Actually, he has the right to do that too. But you are only compromising your values if your values include the use of only free (FSF definition) software.
      In a similar vein, am I the only one who is sick of RMS whining about the naming of Linux?
      No, you are not. His insistence on changing the name of the linux system does absolutely nothing to further the goals of free software. It detracts from his rather well thought-out arguments and ideals.
    • In a similar vein, am I the only one who is sick of RMS whining about the naming of Linux? The accepted name is Linux not GNU/Linux. It's out of your hands, RMS. Live with it.

      I'm with you on this. Does RMS' stance mean that everything that was built with GNU tools must have the GNU name attached to it? Does it mean that the name of the OS should be changed to reflect the contributers to the kernel and its distributions? If so the name would be miles long.

      I think that most everyone would agree that the GNU tools made it possible to build the Linux kernel, just like a MS or Borland compiler enabled the construction of many Windows apps. Saying that this entitles the FSF to determine the name of the product is really stretching it. This is yet another unreasonable stance by RMS that detracts from some of the good things he has to say, and degrades his credibility (and thus influence) in the computing world in general.
    • McVoy is hardly anti-free-software. The very fact that he gives away *anything* for free symbolizes that. (He doesn't have to give anything away.) He makes the simple requirement that the free users use the newest versions for bug reporting reasons. Not a bad idea IMO.

      So the fact that Microsoft give away Internet Explorer for free means that they're not anti-free software either?

    • Rather than just whining, he should make sure that cvs is improved. File renaming, deletion, conflict resolution, IDE integration. The list of needed improvements is long.

      Hmm. I wonder if it's possible to write a revision control system in perl?

  • From the interview:

    I could point out, as others have, that Richard himself said that you can use a non-free tool when there is no good free alternative.

    Did he? I'm not 100% sure, but I thought RMS attitude was 'Free, or not at all'. I remember reading that all the computers at the EFF ran only free software.

    This sounds more like what Linus said - something about using the best tool for the job, whatever the license.

    • RMS has said that it was acceptable to install a non-free program in order to study it a as necessary step in creating a free alternative. This is not exactly the same thing as what McVoy quoted, so he may indeed have gotten RMS and Linus confused.

  • I am a CM (configuration manager) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ACK!! ( 10229 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @09:30AM (#3594705) Journal
    The funny thing is that I have to be a part time programmer to get any sort of baseline control out of CVS. Why? Because it is what it says it is.

    CVS is versioning control not a tool for complete configuration management.

    It is not difficult to keep baseline control over a project with tagging models and proper procedures. However, your cm better come to you with a proper background in scripting at the very least. I am a former sysadmin myself.

    For CVS to go beyond its parameters and become a tool for real software control takes some scripting and working.

    My goal in terms of giving back to the community is to come up with a standard set of tools for tagging and tracking source code files over a large project. Currently my tools are far to project specific to be of use to the general community. My thought was to expand upon a tool like cvsweb for ease of use.

    I have no idea if bitkeeper is any better than CVS for total software control but I will be doing some research as soon as the interview is not slashdotted.

    ________________________________________________ _

  • BitKeeper sounds nice (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BinxBolling ( 121740 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @09:34AM (#3594725)

    When I first started working in The Real World, we used CVS for version control. This was my first experience with VC software, and I thought it was okay. Certainly it was a big improvement over emacs backup files, or no VC whatsoever.

    Then my organization switched to Perforce. It was a tremendous improvement. If nothing else, the fact that the system kept track of changesets made a big difference. Also, Perforce dealt much more cleanly with file renaming. In contrast, CVS requires you to delete the file from the repository under the old name, and create a new one with the new name, thus losing the relationship between old versions and new versions of the same file.

    BitKeeper sounds nice; It seems to provide all the features I liked in Perforce, and also adds a useful concept of hierarchal repositories. This sounds like a boon for larger projects, where you have several groups working on different parts of the system. Many times I remember people in one group running into trouble because someone from another had checked in changes for which the first group was unprepared.

    It sounds to me like Linus made the right choice; I can understand RMS's preference for free software, but his absolutist stance that requires political preferences to always trump technical ones is counterproductive at best.

  • Both right (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 00_NOP ( 559413 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @09:41AM (#3594787) Homepage
    I have strong sympathies with both sides in this argument.

    I fundamentally believe people should be able to use the software tools they find most useful, though I also believe it would be great if those tools were "free", GNU-style.

    What I can't stand is the hectoring tone of the argument - and I don't think that's all RMS's fault, even if he must shoulder a lot of the blame.

    There is a disagreement, that is all.

    Sometimes the hyperbolic nature of the responses to this issue makes me think that there is little at stake here - because out in the real world, these sort of differences of opinion are generally not dealt with in this way.

    Partly that is immaturity - a lot of hackers don't have families and responsibilities, they don't live in a world where most moral and political choices are shaded in grey - but there is more to it than that.

    I think it is a boys' toys thing I suppose. A lot of overgrown teenagers, or pre-teens, fighting over who gets to play with the Action Man doll.

    Mod me down if you like, I can afford it!
  • Larry makes some good points, but the thing about free software and innovation I don't think is one of them. I've yet to see any convincing arguments for why you have to have a lot of money to produce innovative software. The fact that most free software today isn't innovative is largely because it's purpose is not to innovate, but to allow us to use our computers freely, with the knowledge we already have.

    When RMS set up the GNU project, he explicitly said that they were going to clone UNIX not because it was the best (he admitted it wasn't), but because it was quite good and everybody knew it. There was a lot of shared experience. If the goal of the GNU project had been to "make a good operating system" then it'd have splintered into flamewars immediately.

    Today, we have the same thing with KDE. It's goal is to let people use Linux easily. It's not aiming to be innovative, hence its similarity to Windows. Is this because the KDE folks have no new ideas? Nope, I've seen plenty of new ideas on the lists and in other open source projects as a wider whole, but they don't always get added, because it turns out maybe they weren't such good ideas after all, or because the extra hassle caused by everyone having to learn the new method outweighs the benefits.

    Let's get this straight - "innovation" (whatever that means anyway) does not cost money. It happens on an individual level, when somebody thinks "hey, that'd be cool". The software world is cool, because you can go ahead and do that stuff for nothing if you so wish, by starting an open source project. Or you can take the route Larry took and setup a company and hire a lot of talented people to work on it, and make some money from it. A fair choice. But not taking that route doesn't exclude you from doing "innovative" things.

  • free vs. Free (Score:4, Funny)

    by TellarHK ( 159748 ) <tellarhk@hQUOTEotmail.com minus punct> on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @10:19AM (#3595005) Homepage Journal
    To ease confusion I propose everyone just say software that you can use for free is "free" and software you have FSF Approved(tm) control over is Free. Grammatical correctness be damned, this is the Internet!

  • Show me the money (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @10:27AM (#3595048)
    Someone has come up with a way of earning a living under the following circumstances:
    1. A lone programmer has a written a new program. Lets say it's an industrial level Cad system for Linux based on 20 years experience as an architect.
    2. S/he releases it under the GPL but also writes a nice thick manual which is available as a PDF (let's assume s/he can't afford a minimal print run for this) to go with it.
    3. The program works and works well and the manual is good enough to actually use the program; support is not a major issue.
    4. The programmer continues on development of the program into new versions which are also GPL'd.

    How does this programmer buy food to eat?

    This is the flaw in the Free-Software model that McVoy is getting at. If you are a programmer who releases quality work which is distributed for free, how the hell do you survive?

    The fact that the GPL does not prevent trying to sell software does not change the reality of distribution of such software in the Internet age.

    I don't want to hear solutions based on using the software; the model here is someone who wants to be a programmer, not to remain an architect.

    I believe in Free Software; I just can't see how I could ever be involved beyond it being a hobby funded by my real job.

    TWW

    • Well, the obvious absolutist answer to how the programmer should eat is: he should get a job. Either something computer related or not, but since most programmers can't reasonably earn a living writing Free software, probably not directly related to producing software.

      Now, of course, you can argue that if programmers have to work elsewhere, and do not actually get any tangible benefits from writing the software itself, there will be a lot less software written. That is almost denfinitely true, but remember that Stallman does not use proprietary software at all, and he truly believes that people who do so loose a large part of their freedom, so the amount of proprietary software that is produced simply does not matter to him. He would be happier in a world with 10 units of free software then one with 1000 units that is not free.

      From a societal point of view, it can also be argued that a world where the people who are best at programming spend a good part of their time doing something they are less good at for a living is inherently inefficient. That is probably true as well, but the system of proprietary software is also inherently inefficient - it encourages redundant duplication of effort, and the locking in of knowledge. In many ways, the current success of free software seems to indicate that it is quite efficient in comparison.

      For anybody who, like Stallman, believes that using free software is necessary to maintain our freedom , the question of how the programmer should make a living becomes a irrelevant. Because the it's not about the programmer, it's about the user. It is not difficult to see why not all programmers like this, but you cannot discard the principal for that.
      • For anybody who, like Stallman, believes that using free software is necessary to maintain our freedom , the question of how the programmer should make a living becomes a irrelevant

        That's an ivory-tower argument. It is not irrelevant if the programmer starves, neither to the users of a good product nor least of all to the programmer!

        No programmers means no free software, after all.

        TWW


        • No programmers means no free software, after all.

          And programmers only writing proprietary software means no software for people who will not use proprietary software either.
    • I don't want to hear solutions based on using the software; the model here is someone who wants to be a programmer, not to remain an architect.


      I believe in Free Software; I just can't see how I could ever be involved beyond it being a hobby funded by my real job.


      Well, you have to get away from this model of making your own company to make money from free software. McVoy is right--that doesn't work. BUT there are other models of Free Software, many that have probably not been thought up yet.


      The most obvious is that you keep your day job, and do your Free work as a hobbyist. That's not for everyone, but obviously a lot of people do it. You have a need to fulfill, you do so, you share your solution with everyone.


      But there are lots of people who DO get to work full time on Free Software and get paid to do so. How? They work for companies that sell something OTHER than free software (Sun, IBM), that need a tool, and they build it for them, open sourcing it because they don't intend to sell it.


      Which means you can't run your open source business out of your garage, except perhaps as some sort of contractor to larger companies. But on the other hand, no one's willing to trust their computer to software you wrote in your garage but won't let me see the source too.


      The garage is for your hobby. I don't see that changing until we see some radical new social or technical development ( like a solution to the free-rider problem, or proof carrying code so I could trust binaries...)

  • In reference to BitKeeper, RMS says:
    The GPL requires "complete corresponding source code," and a sequence of integers is not the source code.

    Feh. A real programmer sees machine code as perfectly readable source code. ;-)
    • What if I choose to exercise my freedom to write an application in pure machine code? Will the FSF not install it on their machines because they don't consider numeric opcodes and data to be legitimate source code anymore?! Or is writing in machine code without comments not a freedom that they respect?

      I don't mean this as a flame, but I know the FSF loves their technicalities, so I'm curious how they'd view an application like this.
      • It's in the GPL, as long as it is in the form that is "most preferred" for editing the source code, it is fine. As long as you most prefer machine code for editing the program, and you really didn't just compile it from C or whatnot, then I'm sure it would be fine. You may have a hard time convincing them that you really wrote a 300K program directly in machine language though. :)
      • What if I choose to exercise my freedom to write an application in pure machine code?

        Then that would clearly be the preferred form for changing the code under the GPL, which accords with the FSF's idea of source code.
      • The actual language of the GPL talks about the preferred source form. Thus, if you really truly prefer to work in machine code or assembler, such a work would be quite welcome under the GPL. Why you'd do such a thing is your own lookout.
    • You can call RMS many things. But "not a real programmer" is not one of them.
      The guy is a one mother of an überhacker for f**ks sake!
  • The question is, which is worse: to have the kernel suffer because of the SCM used, or use a non-GPL package to improve the development of the kernel?

    If there was something better out there under the GPL, Linus would have chosen to use it. Remember, there is a REASON why it was chosen, and that is to improve productivity. Should the development suffer because of the SCM? I have to say I don't think it should.

    Of course, he also said that if the company went under, BitKeeper would probably be GPL'd. Gotta think that RMS is hoping for that. :-)

  • What about FSF machines' BIOS & firmware? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dstone ( 191334 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @11:01AM (#3595384) Homepage
    In reference to the FSF, RMS says:
    We have no non-free systems or applications on them now, and our principles say we must keep it that way.

    So is this to say that their motherboard BIOS and all supporting microcontroller code, EPROMs, firmware and controller code in their video cards, ethernet cards, etc. all comes with source code?! Impressive. Where do they shop?
  • For all the borking I hear on this thread about the "badness" of BK, I have to ask if there are any viable GPL'd alternatives to it?

    I am in a position to get a VC system in place at work. We have looked at a lot of commercial stuff, but they leave me kinda dry and with a lot less money. The are very proprietory, usually only work on Windows, and don't work & play well with others.

    I think I would love to implement CVS, however there are some problems with this solution. Although it is "Free", GPL'd, open, & x-platform, it is also somewhat difficult to setup, use, & maintaine from an enterprise view.

    Stop bitching about BK and build something better!!!!

  • From the interview: "If the company were to go under, then BitKeeper becomes GPLed."

    This is, in my opinion, a big commercial selling point. Often companies have gone out of business due to mismanagement or other problems, and the people who bought from them were left with no support and an expensive conversion to something else.

  • Well Well (Score:3, Insightful)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @11:15PM (#3600086) Journal
    Stallman verses the world? I can't believe it! You could knock me over with a feather.

    I've heard from several leaders of many highly visible GPLed projects who have essentially said that the biggest problem with the GPL is Stallman. Not that that's not my personal opinion, so don't flame the messenger.

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