Bruce Perens Tells Linus Torvalds To Cool It 825
Eh-Wire writes "Bruce Perens has weighed in on the controversy surrounding Andrew Trigdell's attempt to 'reverse engineer' the proprietary Bitkeeper code management software of Larry McVoy and the ensuing fallout with Linus Torvalds. Not only does he tell Linus Trovalds to 'Cool it!' he also suggests, 'Larry sees conspiracies that don't exist.' Sounds like Bruce is a bit worked up about this."
Well.. (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, it's not Larry that should be paranoid (Score:5, Funny)
As RMS will point out to everyone by the time everybody starts getting fed up with Linus: "Linux is just a kernel, we can get another one, in fact, one is maturing nicely right now..."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Buttkeeper is a loss for Linus, no one else (Score:4, Insightful)
Many zealots have conceded that BK/BM offered features that couldn't be found in any other product. If an FS RCS, like CVS, offered those features, Linus would not be writing his own kludge (GIT). People like you may think ARCH is an acceptable alternative, but some people do not want to wait a whole day to commit merges into a source tree.
His contributions can be found in the changlog entries. Liar.
And guess what? Linus's choice didn't stop them! So Linus is EVIL for not bending to the wishes of the herd about how THEY think Linus should do HIS work?
And guess what? HE DID! More important, so what!?!? We still have the source code and the changeset data!
I am not a proprietary crap zealot. I am not a supporter of McVoy. I merely recognise McVoy's RIGHT to choose the conditions upon which provides his proprietary software and his RIGHT to retract his offerings. What a horribly, unreasonable person I am for defending property rights! Some people need to learn that the will of a group of people is not grounds to dictate how other people choose to conduct their business.
Linus / BM shares? (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Register has been completely biased about the matter so I wouldn't take their word on anything. Linus is pissed off [realworldtech.com] at Tridge because he messed up the deal with McVoy and wasn't even trying to produce anything functional to replace BK. "He just wanted to see what the protocols and data was, without actually producing any replacement for the (inevitable) problems he caused and knew about."
Everybody seems to forget that McVoy contributed more than $500 000 worth of software to the osdl. Without the contribution, Tridge would have never been able to even try to reverse engineer the program.
Linus lost the use of the best SCM there is. Why shouldn't he be pissed?
Proprietary isn't (always) evil!
Re:Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's MPAA/RIAA/BSA math and you know it.
Re:Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:3, Funny)
"The value of my Slashdot posting is $1,000,000, but because I'm such a great guy, I'll contribute it to the Slashdot community for free!"
The market never had a chance to determine what the value of my posting was. In fact, I determined that the value to me of keeping it to myself was $0 (or less) when I posted it. But I get to use whatever math I want to determine its value at ONE MILLION DOLLARS and if the context is right, anyone will accept that.
On the third hand,
Re:No MPAA Math (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what if Tridge just wanted to mess around with the protocols? He was trying to get at the metadata, which McVoy believed was his, but which thousands of kernel developers believed was theirs.
Without McVoy's "contribution", there would be no need to reverse engineer the software. He didn't do it because it was there, and he was twiddling this thumbs; he was trying to get back what was theirs already.
Proprietary software isn't evil. People are evil. And people who blast others, knowing full well that they cannot respond because of the threat of legal action, are evil.
Using a closed-source, proprietary SCM while being the poster-child for the open-source movement is a bit hypocritical, no?
A bit rich? (Score:5, Insightful)
As every human being he can probably be an idiot at times (as Bruce so eloquently pointed out), but I'd apply the label "Evil" more to the likes of Monsanto , Diebold or Halliburton and their executives.
They are the ones that try to monopolize our food supply, they are willing pawns to disolve democracy, or they just lie and steal from the general public.
This is evil. Being an idiot on occasion is not.
Re:A bit rich? (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess I was evil for calling Linus evil. How's that for karma (I mean the Hindu karma, not Slashdot karma)?
Re:Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
Because Linus never wanted Linux to be the poster-child of the open-source movement or the Save the Panda movement or any movement whatsoever. He just wants to write great software. Get it? Huh?
Re:Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:5, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with being evil. Trusting your data to proprietary protocols/fileformats is irresponsible and/or stupid. You turn over your control of your own information. It actually makes very little sense.
Everybody seems to forget that McVoy contributed more than $500 000 worth of software to the osdl.
Well, I'm actually no Open Source advocate, but I don't see how you can put a price tag on software, like that. Would OSDL have spent that much money if McVoy hadn't contributed the software? How much of a contribution was it really, if he's now revoking it?
It's too bad that this has to happen with Torvalds in the spotlight, but maybe it's for the better in the end. What's being shown here is exactly why Closed Source is bad.
Linus is pissed off at Tridge because he messed up the deal with McVoy and wasn't even trying to produce anything functional to replace BK
What kind of logic is this? I honestly don't know where to begin. You know, at the end of the day, it doesn't even matter. I'll say it again, it's awesome that it's been displayed here in the clear that this is exactly why proprietary formats/protocols are Bad(tm). It's called lock-in and apparently everyone but Torvalds knew about it.
Torvalds is a smart guy though, he'll figure something out. I'm not worried about that.
Re:Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:4, Insightful)
You DO have SQL dumps of your schema and SPs, right? You DO have documentation of the low-level format, right? It's unlikely that you could ever have your data held hostage by Oracle, Sybase, or IBM, since they provide tons of documentation on the specific on-disk formats. Microsoft I don't know about -- probably in MSDN Universal somewhere though.
Now an ASP (Application Service Provider) is a different matter entirely. They have your data, you don't. I get conflicting stories on whether BitMovers acts like an ASP for free projects. I was under the impression that they just monitored repositories under their free license, wanting to be something like a sourceforge (which was before SF got really big), but I'm not entirely certain.
Re:Did you actually read Linus' reply? (Score:5, Insightful)
"He just wanted to see what the protocols and data was, without actually producing any replacement for the (inevitable) problems he caused and knew about."
Everybody seems to forget that McVoy contributed more than $500 000 worth of software to the osdl. Without the contribution, Tridge would have never been able to even try to reverse engineer the program.
Linus lost the use of the best SCM there is. Why shouldn't he be pissed?
Proprietary isn't (always) evil!
Yes, McVoy is understandably angry that someone wants to reverse-engineer his "crown jewels" and yes, it is likely that any company, ORACLE for example, would be equally pissed if their primary revenue stream was apparently targetted by an open-source programmer but guess what - most wouldn't spit their dummys this badly, if only because this one programmer trying to write an interop will be only the first of thousands who are now pissed off because BK was taken away and will have to write something as good or better themselves.
Perhaps Linus is not being a dunce ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps Linus is not being a dunce in this situation. Perhaps he sees that his friend Larry is enraged and irrational. Perhaps Li
Re:Linus / BM shares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considerable, if what we're talking about is "mind shares."
Linus has a strong personal stake in useing Bit Keeper and a personal relationship built up by working with Larry over the past few years. Despite being a Finn he is experiencing something called "emotion."
Emotion can tend to make one say and do dumb shit that one wouldn't otherwise do or say, like that dumb shit you do and say when trying to talk to a pretty girl, or, if you're a geek, about a particularly pretty piece of software that you've been living with for years.
She moved out. He's going to miss her. I'll cut him a bit of slack during his grieving period. He'll get over it. Killer apps are like busses, someone tries to introduce a new propriatary model every year.
KFG
Re:Linus / BM shares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, bitkeeper did a bait and switch with the Linux kernel and that is NOT funny! Bitkeeper should have known this and not made the offer in the first place, and Linus should not have accepted the offer!
In this one situation Linus and Bitkeeper screwed up, and made a bad decision that impacts something that many many people rely on!
Re:Linus / BM shares? (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing in that can break the licence, as Tridge never agreed to it.
Oh, and by the way, you've violated my Slashdot posting licence; as per the terms of the licence, you owe me $10,000.
Re:Linus / BM shares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Linus / BM shares? (Score:3)
Sometimes to defend... requires... a strong attack...
</Kwai Chang Caine>
Cool. (Score:3, Funny)
what happens next at the death match (Score:5, Funny)
Too harsh. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no kernel developer so I have no clue as to if Linus is "[being] a real idiot". However I do have a goodly bit of management experience and this kind of talk is bad no matter how you slice it.
Saying these kinds of things to the press can only hurt the whole OSS movement as it give all the MS, Sun, et all shills plenty of ammo to use. I can see press release from MS now, "And even Linus' colleagues wonder about his decision making process, going so far as to call them idiotic." Does that statement reflect what was originally intended? Of course not but this is the era of the spin and you can bet that they will use it in whatever way they can.
Total Carp (Score:5, Insightful)
What you are saying is carp. There is no way that rudementary working ethical debate can hurt the OSS movement because it's bigger than any of these players. That's why it's such an advantage over the closed model.
Each of these guys could be pictured in some lewd manner on the Smoking Gun and the whole Open Source movement would still march on!
Re:Total Carp (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too harsh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too harsh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too harsh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too harsh. (Score:3, Insightful)
McVoy revoked Linus' license for something that Tridge did. That's like the cops arresting you because your neighbor stole money from a bank.
No, that's more like taking back the tractor you lent to a friend because his neighbor is taking apart the engine at night in order to learn how it works.
Never trust the client. The client is in the hands of the enemy.
A telling statement of the rationality of a GPL zealot.
Re:Too harsh. (Score:4, Interesting)
However I do have a goodly bit of management experience and this kind of talk is bad no matter how you slice it.
Bruce Perens doesn't work with Linus, and Linus doesn't work with Perens. This isn't a "make everyone feel nice-nice" situation. Anyway, if Linus has such a thin skin he can't stand someone saying he can be a real idiot.. well, that's Linus's problem.
Saying these kinds of things to the press can only hurt the whole OSS movement as it give all the MS, Sun, et all shills plenty of ammo to use. I can see press release from MS now, "And even Linus' colleagues wonder about his decision making process, going so far as to call them idiotic."
Any statement taken out of context can be used against you. In the real world people disagree on things, and that's OK. Pretending otherwise is just lame. Real people with real opinions say things like "that guy can be a real idiot sometimes" and everyone accepts that statement at face value. If you start playing that game of "never say anything bad", you just wind up sounding like a dickless politician. The public at large is pretty stupid, but dickless politicians can be identified by anyone from a few light years away.
Re:Too harsh. (Score:5, Funny)
Any statement
Re:Too harsh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I try to call them as I see them. But in this case that also fits the goal of PR for the Open Source movement. Linus said something so incredibly bad for us, that could hurt us the next time that we have to reverse-engineer something for purposes of compatibility, that PR for the Open Source community is saying as loudly as possible that Linus is not representing us on this issue, that he's lost his cool for once.
Larry, on the other hand, does his own bad PR. One need only comment upon it.
Bruce
Re:Too harsh. (Score:5, Insightful)
What MS could and probably WILL use agaisnt the FOSS community, is Linus' criticism of reverse engineering of proprietary protocols. MS can now say "Even Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, condemns reverse engineering of our file formats." They could use Linus' quotes in court, in PR, etc. Linus handed MS a great Christmas present ahead of time.
Microsoft has never made any such claim (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too harsh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that right? Well, I'm with Bruce here all the way. Sometimes you just have to say it like it is. Sure, in many a company this would stay behind closed doors. So, the doors to the board meeting are 'Open' here. Kinda matches the philosophy of the software.
I'm personally very disturbed by Linus's attitude. IMHO closed protocols/file formats are the worse of all. It's the closed formats that provide the horrible lock-in. I personally don't care if Word is closed source or not, what I care about is if Microsoft decides to discontinue Word, or charge $5K for it, I have no alternative. All my damn files are stored in their format.
What's surprising is that Larry McVoy is proving the exact point, and Trigdell was working on making sure he didn't have that kind of power, yet Torvalds choses Larry's side.
You can be as pragmatic as the next guy, but this smells a lot like there's more going on. And so Torvalds needs to cool it.
Re:Too harsh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I may think he's wrong, but he's wrong in an almost predictable way. This is just a part of who Linus is. And it makes me appreciate RMS. (RMS often makes me appreciate Linus...we need BOTH!)
Re:Too harsh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet in an act of generosity, I continued reading...
Does that statement reflect what was originally intended? Of course not but this is the era of the spin and you can bet that they will use it in whatever way they can.
One of the things that makes FS/OSS so attractive is that things aren't about spin (yes, there is always going to be some spin, but nothing like in your world) but about the code and about technical excellence.
*If* Linus is being an ass[*], then we *all* benefit by calling him out on it. If we don't, then he'll just continue to be an ass. It's the way we get things done.
It's something of a matter of pride that we don't suffer fools gladly--and everyone takes their turn as the fool, even Torvalds (who once did a similar calling out of a certain Professor, over a decade ago).
[*]I think he is, but I think he's doing it because he's a polite guy and doesn't want to 'spit' on the guy who has 'sort of' donated some software to the Linux developers. Unfortunately this 'donation' is really just a PR stunt, as is apparent by the way this fiasco has played out. What BitMovers has done is essentially donated money (in the form of 'gratis' software) for Linus to use, but donated no code whatsoever.
In an odd sort of parallel, this is not unlike the incident with a printer that started RMS down the road to GNU--except that in this case, Linus is telling us we shouldn't try to fix the printer driver ourselves.
Re:Too harsh. (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC, Larry McVoy is one of the original 100 Linux kernel developers from the early 90s. I don't think it's fair to characterize him as a freeloader who is riding the coat tails of the Linux kernel.
Appropriate opprobrium. (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't need to be a software developer of any kind to understand that it's a bad thing when Linus Torvalds told Andrew Tridgell to stop developing his free software network-compatible replacement for BitKeeper. If McVoy's retelling is accurate, I find it very disturbing and so should everyone else in the free software community. This is a very big sign that Torvalds is not the free software "posterboy" some take him to be [gnu.org]. We don't tell one another what programs to write or not write without paying them, and we certainly don't impede another's desire to promote a free software alternative to a proprietary program. Impeding free software is harmful to the community.
This is remarkably one-sided of Torvalds as well. I'm sure Microsoft doesn't appreciate Samba servers being used instead of Microsoft Windows servers, yet the reason Samba is so good at what it does (and can replace some Microsoft SMB servers) is because Tridgell and the other Samba developers did the reverse-engineering work to figure out how the SMB protocols work in practice. I don't recall reading about Torvalds defending proprietary software being distributed by Microsoft by telling Tridgell to stop his Samba work; but BitMover's proprietary software has received that kind of attention from Torvalds. Torvalds is serving as a buttress for BitMover here.
As for Torvalds sometimes being a "real idiot", I can attest to that although I would never have called him names. I can think of instances where Torvalds inadvertantly embarassed himself when his opinion was sought on political matters. In such instances it is clear to all but the most ardent Torvalds fans that his reach exceeds his grasp. If I recall correctly, a recent Newsforge.com interview asked him what he thought of the upcoming GNU GPL v3 (possibly years before it comes out). This struck me as unwise since he does not closely examine copyright law or its ethical import for society (two of the things one needs to have down pat to offer critique worth considering regarding the GPL). For this advice I would have instead asked Eben Moglen or RMS, both authorities on the issues surrounding the GPL. By contrast, asking Torvalds about Linux kernel programming would be perfectly appropriate. I'd never think to go to Moglen or RMS for this information.
You shouldn't fear "spin". You need to trust that people will examine what happened and be reasonable, discuss the situation, and find better arguments. Microsoft will distort history regardless of what we do. They've proven this with their college campus tours and interviews when they declare that free software is a "cancer" or will eat your "intellectual property" like Pac-Man. Brad Kuhn (former executive director of the FSF) said at a talk in Urbana, IL that the annual budget for the FSF is what Microsoft makes in 30 seconds, yet Microsoft has said that the FSF is a threat to software development worldwide. When we see something unethical going on, we need to speak up about it, no matter who is at fault. The cure for bad speech is more speech.
Good points (Score:5, Insightful)
Why reverse engineering the smb protocol should be considered a good thing, while reverse engineering the protocol bitkeeper uses is beyond me and though Linus has come out strong against the latter he still didn't explain how he can still consider the former to be a good thing.
And above all, I think Linus is behaving very unfair towards Tridgell, who has done nothing illegal, didn't break any contract, but just did what he has done with other things already, which were always considered to be a good thing. Why doing the very same thing considered good in other circumstances now should lead to Torvalds attacking him is again beyond me.
Actually (Score:5, Funny)
Furthermore, it wasn't Perens who said this. It was actually Bobby Brown. It was also at this point that Whitney Houston told Torvalds that she "believed the children were the future," and that a reversed engineered Bitkeeper would "teach them well and let them lead the way."
Re:Actually (Score:5, Funny)
-1, Deserves Stabbity Death
I'm with Mr. Perens (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't make this right, however. Linus is unequivocally wrong in creating double standards for the morality of reverse engineering, and I don't think the community is going to forget that.
I'm not vilifying Linus, I'm aying that the guy's human, not the demigod that the slashbot party portrays.
He just cannot be in such a sensitive position and remain "just an engineer".
Re:I'm with Mr. Perens (Score:5, Interesting)
Torvalds does the Open Source movement a great disservice by downplaying the importance of freedom. I've been critical of the Open Source movement as a whole for this but apart from Torvalds, the founding fathers at least recognise that facet of the Open Source diamond needs the occasional polish. Torvalds on the other hand has demonstrated his absolute contempt for my and your freedoms and I doubt his reputation will ever recover from this.
Torvalds has jumped the shark.
Perens hardly cool :) (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever since Larry McAvoy pulled kernel dev (and former Debian Project Leader) Ben Collins' license I've been waiting for this thing to blow up. It's been obvious that it was a matter of when, not whether. And it seems pretty obvious to me that Tridge merely provided the excuse Larry has been looking for.
Linus is a smart guy, and I'm sure he'll get over his little snit before long. But in the meantime, my god, being told to cool it by Bruce Perens is like having RMS tell you not to worry so much about whether the software is really free or not!
(Not to dis Bruce, who I really like. And, as a person of Irish descent, I understand the temper thing. But still....wow!
Re:Perens hardly cool :) (Score:3, Funny)
You may have misspelled his name. I believe it's Larry McAvoid.
Re:Perens hardly cool :) (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks
Bruce
Re:Perens hardly cool :) (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I never had distaste for Stallman's philosophy. I felt that Open Source would be a gentle introduction for business people, who would be guided to understanding Stallman once they'd seen the pragmatic benefits. I have always, from the first moment it happened, been distressed that Eric positioned the organization to deprecate RMS rather than cooperate with him.
But I must say that I've become somewhat alienated from RMS personally, not from the Free Software philosophy, over the GNU FDL. It's a bad license, and I don't feel it fits with Free Software at all.
I still haven't heard you say that perhaps trying to coexist with Microsoft's "shared source" initiative and the delightful Mister Matusow wasn't such a great call.
I have debated Matusow, but I have never tried to be inclusive of "shared source". Indeed, if it's not compliant with the Open Source definition, I'm not interested in helping promote it. And thus I am not sure what you're talking about.
Bruce
My Two Cents Worth (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is what Bruce was trying to say.
If any of the above mentioned do happen to read this (seriously doubtful I know) this does not imply disrespect for your previous work, just that my seven year old acts like this when he gets pissed off too.
Bruce has a point (Score:5, Insightful)
This was a bomb waiting to go off. Linus may be pissed, but reality does that to people when they don't adhere to it's laws.
Tridge didn't do anything wrong. In fact he excel's at doing things right. See the newforge interview to get an idea.
I rarely agree with Bruce's conclusions, but this is one of the times he makes total realistic sense. Plopping the smartest, most dedicated GPL developers on a proprietary system without their consent is tantamount to treason in government. Like fingernails on a chalk board, you could hear the kernel developers principles twisting as Linus declared the use of BitKeeper law.
Linus made a bad choice. Now he gets to pay for it. Cause and effect. If BitKeeper was under an open cource license, then it wouldn't be subject to the whim's of one man's bowel movement on a certain day. But it is, and Linus should have had the foresight to see that.
He isn't just an engineer when he is steering the ship. He is the captain. He has the responsibility to look ahead of the curve, and to not get romanced by the easy way out when he's in charge. But he didn't. He fucked up. Now the role of a leader is to admit the mistake and ask for alternatives. Leave Tridge out of this. He did his job. I hope Linus does his.
Re:Your Ideology is Blinding you to Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but the problem, as several people have pointed out now, was that the closed nature of the tool may have mode it not "the best tool available". Was it the best in terms of functionality and performance? Apparently. But those aren't the only things you need to evaluate when buying or using a product. You also need to take into account things like cost, risk, reliability, and (particularly in the OSS world) licensing. I'm not an OSS fanatic by any means, but even I could see that Linus' adoption of BK was a bad move.
Regarding Tridge's efforts, I don't see that it makes one bit of difference whether BK was paid for or a gift. In either case "violating the conditions" of using the product would be bad. But Tridge was not a BK user. He was not violating the conditions of using the product. That's what got McVoy pissed: he couldn't stop Tridge by revoking Tridge's license, because Tridge never had one in the first place. So instead McVoy started threatening others in the vicinity.
Linus has every reason to be angry. Someone took away a very useful tool from him. I'd be pissed.
Yes. And that someone was Larry McVoy. Not Tridge.
Re:Your Ideology is Blinding you to Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes ethics matters more than productivity.
Re:Bruce has a point (Score:3, Insightful)
The condition that he not reverse engineer the protocol was itself morally wrong! Therefore Tridge cannot be in the wrong.
And so was born.. (Score:5, Funny)
"Kernel in the City"
Does Linus dual boot his PB? Will Perens choose to stop frequenting the Pickled Penguin after his fall out with Larry?
Real developers, real lives; this compelling new series promises to 'take the clothes off' Kernel Development.
Who Really Benefits? --- aka GIT (Score:5, Interesting)
"The real mistake was to accept the 'free' BitKeeper licence with its poison pill"
Had the 'free-licence' been (a) irrevokable, and (b) had a sensible (BK) source escrow term, then and only then would the cost-benefit to Bitmover and the community made _balanced_ sense.
But that is water under the bridge, what is really interesting is the fallout, GIT.
GIT is the Linus' replacement patch-manager, and will, I predict revolutionise thinking about SCM tools. Linus has come up with an original and revolutionary approach, (less than 6 man-weeks work, under 150k code) which lays the foundations for a really effective OpenSource SCM, and, in the process run a pithy seminar class in what was the matter with traditional SCMs.
This may turn out to be one of the most useful things to have happened in a long time.
Linus did explain his reasoning... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one instance where Linus isn't thinking clearly. I'll cut him some slack since in the past he's been more clear-headed than all of Slashdot put together, but even so it means I'll be reviewing what he says and does more carefully in the future - at least until I'm convinced he's gotten over this momentary bout of insanity.
One thing I do agree with, and always will: 'open source' and 'free software' are not one and the same, nor is there any moral issue involved in using open/free or proprietary software. Both models are perfectly valid and the people who turn the whole mess into a good/evil holy war are fucking idiots of the first order. On that he is, and always has been, right on target.
Max
Come ON. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, for once the Slashdot groupthink isn't pro-Linus. But I am. I'll explain why. First, you need to read the original thread [realworldtech.com] to get a feel for what Linus is saying. At least read the first 15 posts there.
After you've read it, you'll come away with a few realizations:
Just think: if you were a bottleneck, if data and people were coming at you at a very fast pace all the time, and if there was tremendous pressure on you to build a platform that would rival Microsoft, one coping mechanism is to find tools that increase productivity. A lot. (Other good coping mechanisms include heavy drinking and vanishing without a trace.)
Now Linus, who has no ready alternative is staring down a barrel of loaded source code, knowing it's going to fire off in his face real soon now. And someone else has yanked his defense right out from under him. He has a real problem now. He's pissed. I can put myself in his shoes, I can understand his frustration. Basically, it's this: "Well great. WTF do I do now? Oh shit, stuff is backing up already. Thanks! That's fucking great!"
Is Torvalds wrong to blame Trigdell for reverse engineering? Yes. Is Torvalds wrong to feel horribly, disastrously inconvenienced by this? No, he has every right. Forget the technical arguments for a day or a week. This is a human issue right now. People were inconsiderate of each other, and now they're walking around with bloddy noses. Give them time to assess the situation. If Torvalds doesn't soften his position in a short while, fork, screw him, whatever. But give him some time for the fight or flight instinct to be peter out before you all write him off.
Re:Come ON. (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole episode is just proof of how ridiculous Larry's License(tm) is.
Re:Come ON. (Score:5, Insightful)
If he's staring down this loaded barrel, it's because he painted himself (and the other linux developers) into this corner. Maybe Trigdell took his paintbrush away, but there was already a problem, and you can make a good argument that Trigdell was trying to come up with a solution.
If Torvalds wasn't happy with any of the open SCM dealies that he could find, he should've organized someone to do it for him. Instead he made a couple bad decisions, taking the easy way out while providing some free PR for a friend.
Turns out the easy way out wasn't the best option (it seldom is), and it collapsed in his face. Linus may not be terribly interested in the philosophical holy war between open and proprietary software, and that's fine. But he should've had the good sense to realize that combining the biggest poster child for OSS with BitKeeper on such a fundamental level was going to cause problems. And a lot of people with the sense to think about it warned him when this decision was being made. That's why noone's impressed when he starts being a jackass about it. He should have known better, or at least listened to people who did.
Remote diagnosis: CVS-phobia and SCM snobbery (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to indulge in more remote amateur Torvalds psychoanalysis, but this strikes me as the real puzzle, where did he get his absolute hatred of other version control systems? Even the admittedly clunky CVS has been sucessfully used to manage some huge software projects (gcc in the open source world; and I've seen it in use on many large proprietary projects, like Irix and Netscape).
My theory: he likes simple tools when he can get away with using them (vi vs emacs, shell vs perl) and started out with an aversion to source control in general. Then he had to keep arguing with people pushing for CVS, and he got backed into the position of being a version control snob, who refused to touch anything but the Very Best. Then his friend came along and showed him a nice shiney toy.
You're coming down on the side of "immediate expediency" in this debate, but a lot of us are taking a longer term view. You don't go beserk winning a battle if it risks losing the war.You skipped the point. (Score:5, Informative)
they were not "about as good". there is an enourmous different between taking 20-30 seconds to process a patchset and taking ONE HOUR doing it.
In my experience (Score:3, Insightful)
If you point out that they're making asses of themselves they'll argue you into half agreeing with them. They'll have rationalized their behavior to a fare-thee-well. Even if you identify the fatal flaw in their theory, they'll ignore you -- they're brilliant after all and they're used to being right when everyone around them is telling them they're wrong.
Don't get me wrong -- I love working with super-smart, creative people. But when they get that glint of mania in their eyes, you just have to back off and let experience teach them a lesson. Their being wrong in this instance doesn't invalidat their briliance, it just makes them human.
Do we know everything about this issue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Linus is worked up about something and it may be something we've not heard yet, especially with Andrew's silence. Do we know there wasn't a conversation that this work by Andrew would screw over Linus's use of a tool that makes work very efficient for him? And if Andrew persisted, especially if there were other ways to accomplish the same thing, I'd be upset too.
I'm fortunate enough to have a boss that allows me to use the best tool for the job. I enjoy being allowed to choose the best tool, for me to get the task at hand done. Is sad that Linus isn't allowed the same without taking a beating especially when the end product he is part of is so useful to all of us. So much for choice and freedom. Oh there is, it's just not the typical Linux/Open Source zealot view of choice and freedom and if that view isn't accepted then you are evil.
I'll stand in the minority and say that I feel sad for Linus losing a tool that was so helpful in creating a tool I find so useful. Yeah, he had some outlandish comments but how many of us are perfectly logical when we lash out?
I for one cannot wait to hear the whole story before judging.
This is about the *project*, not morality (Score:5, Informative)
Linus is right in what he said. He may look like an idiot right now, but he isn't. Please read his posts (cited below), and don't believe hearsay.
He said this episode is damaging to the Linux kernel *project*, because he took advantage of, and depended on, BK's *functionality*, not BK per se. He said there isn't any other app (open or closed) that offers that functionality, and that he would rather write a new one himself.
[...] It's unquestionably true that BitKeeper has advanced the state of SCM technology. Anybody who argues against that just doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. But I'd have loved even an "almost-as-good" open source SCM, because that would obviously just be a good idea.
[...]
Now, I'm dealing with the fall-out, and I'll write my own kernel source tracking tool because I can't use the best any more. That's ok - I deal with my own problems, thank you very much. But what I find sad is how some people are so _gleeful_ about a commercial program becoming less useful, only because it was commerical.
If BK was a crappy tool, I'd at least understand the glee. But in this case it was the commercial people who did the impressive technology and pushed technology forward. And I'm just honest enough to be able to say that.
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?acti on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=2&entryID=49312&room ID=11 [realworldtech.com]
So: true support for totally distributed development (replication doesn't count), performance, and trust. Nothing else matters. And BK does those better than anything else I've seen. ;)
(Well, at least I hope those are the only three things that matter. The quick-hack framework I'm putting together bases its entire design on just those three things, and maybe I'll find out that I'm wrong, and that there are three other things that I just took for granted
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?acti on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=5&entryID=49321&room ID=11 [realworldtech.com]
He said he doesn't believe in the open-or-nothing 'solution'.
So I think open source tends to become technically better over time (but it does take time), but I don't think it's a moral imperative. I do open source because it's fun, and because I think it makes sense in the long run.
For some reason that is hard for a lot of free software people to accept. Too many people see things as a war of "free software" against "proprietary evil". This is, btw, the real difference between the "open source" crowd and the "free software" crowd, as far as I'm concerned.
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?acti on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=2&entryID=49312&room ID=11 [realworldtech.com]
He did NOT say Tridgell didn't have a right to do what he did. He said Tridgell's goal was not to develop an alternative to BK right now (and therefore his current work wasn't a solution to his dependence 'problem'), and now the *project* is going to suffer.
But that's not what Tridge did. He didn't write a "better SCM than BK". He didn't even try - it wasn't his goal. He just wanted to see what the protocols and data was, without actually producing any replacement for the (inevitable) problems he caused and knew about.
He didn't create something new and impressive. He just tore down something new (and impressive) because he could, and rather than helping others, he screwed people over. And you expect me to _respect_ that kind of behaviour?
Re:This is about the *project*, not morality (Score:5, Insightful)
I read all that crap, and Linus is still wrong.
Trigdell, who had no BitKeeper license, queried McVoy's server. McVoy revoked the licenses of people, including Linus, who had nothing to do with Trigdell's queries. It makes no sense for Linus to blame Trigdell. If I send McVoy an email he doesn't like, will he punch Torvalds in the nose? Will that be my fault, instead of McVoy's?
It's nice to see Linus admitting that licensing problems can make software as useless as technical flaws. In fact, he now seems to think that license barriers are a form of incompatibility, and it's irresponsible to risk having such problems. Good for him. Maybe someday he'll connect those dots and realize who really fucked up.
Re:This is about the *project*, not morality (Score:5, Informative)
Of course if you had bothered to go to the other site where he had actually posted you might realize he had considered those things. And even explained some more things you (and a heck of a lot of other posters) obviously don't have a clue about.
But, you (and others) have already made up your mind so more information doesn't really matter....
Re:This is about the *project*, not morality (Score:5, Insightful)
And then you sent McVoy another email anyway. Yes, it's within your rights, and clearly, McVoy is a total fucking jackass. But Linus can still be mad at you without being anti-email, and without having double standards. Given that you thought sending that email was important and worthwhile, you're probably not doing anything wrong either. Two good people can disagree, as is clearly the case with Linus and Tridge.
I just hope that Tridge's legal concerns are speculative. That could be fucking twisted.
Re:This is about the *project*, not morality (Score:3, Insightful)
Linus' argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Linus does not believe that Trigdell did anything wrong by reverse engineering bitkeeper. He believes that what he did wrong was knowingly break up the "agreement" that Linus and McVoy had only to see the protocol. Trigdell did not intend on making a compatible client (or any software for that matter).
Perens does touch on this a little bit by saying Linus should not worry about what Trigdell does in his spare time (legally). I agree. If Linus and McVoy's agreement was that weak, it should never have been relied on for something important. For many people, developing free software is a hobby. Samba started as a hobby. If Trigdell wanted to examine BK's protocols as a hobby, that's his right.
When does the discussion of solutions start? (Score:4, Insightful)
Open Source SCM solutions are crap compared to BK at solving the distributed source code problem (as stated by Linus). Personally, I think they are crap at many other aspects of SCM as well (access control, ease of use, ease of administration, etc.). We've had a surge of new Open Source SCM tools crop up recently, but either they went unsupported by all but the initial developer, burnt out at 0.3.1, or failed to solve any really useful or interesting problems (Subversion, for example), or made design decisions that make installation/maintenance a nightmare (Subversion again).
Perhaps a UI wrapper around Arch (which has the ugliest command line interface known to man) would be a start. Or perhaps some additional tools to help with Darcs. Or perhaps Linus is right and we need a completely new tool that _actually_ solves the problem (if these don't already).
The point is, let's discuss moving forward and stop wasting our breath on stupid accusations. We're acting like children, for Christ's sake.
Linus' "replacement" accusation (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how Linus can know that. How can he make this claim without providing any supporting evidance for what he believe Tridge's intention was. To me it doesn't seem to be anything more than a wild and totally biased speculation.
Consindering Samba took years to become somewhat usable, it's fairly evident "over the wire" reverse engineering takes time, and to expect Tridge to come with a "replacement" right away is in fact pretty sureal.
Re:Trovalds (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Register (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good question... (Score:3, Informative)
"The Register" [theregister.co.uk] is a UK-based company, and therefore doesn't have to deal with US trademark law (for the most part). The link above is their trademark application with the UK trademark office.
According to the FAQ [patent.gov.uk], the use of "TM" in the UK is acceptable without having registered the trademark with the registrar. And according to the Trade Marks Act 1994 [hmso.gov.uk], it is illegal to use the "Registered" trade mark symbol (the R with a circle) unless it is,
Re:The Register (Score:5, Insightful)
If you actually read the article [theregister.co.uk] you can see that the sentence Actually he didn't - we just made that quote up. immediately follows the "made up" quotes. It was a joke to make a point by analogy to reverse engineering Microsoft file formats.
In the Bruce Perens article, he makes another analogy -- to the work Trigdell did reverse engineering the SMB protocol. Both articles are pointing out this weird blind spot Linus seems to have in accepting something that is generally supported by the community and completely legal: reverse engineering proprietary protocols is a good thing which frees the open source community from vendor lock in.
Re:The Register (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool it? (Score:5, Insightful)
How could that NOT be pertinent to FOSS? Open source / free software is not just about writing code; unfortunately, maybe, but that's the way things are, so it's better to deal than to ignore.
Re:Cool it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just curious, where did he say this? I have read a lot of direct writing by Linus on this subject and have NEVER seen this statement. The 'in essence' part leads me to believe this "quote" was either taken out of context or paraphrased.
I think the problem Linus had, paraphrasing, is not that protocols were sniffed but that there was no intention of creating a useful product. In short, something was done that would create problems for others with nothing useful to show for it.
Re:Cool it? (Score:5, Insightful)
To give an example... has anyone ever sent you something as a Word document instead of (say) a PDF? If yes, then (unless you actually paid for a copy of Word) you probably were quite happy that you could open that Word document with OOo, too, especially if you happened to be running something other than Windows. Would you argue that the OOo developers did something wrong by allowing you to do that?
Why would "morally right" be equivalent to "does not mess with the business model of $company who'd obviously prefer if there was no competition and everyone would be forced to pay for their own products"? That doesn't make sense, at all.
And as for Bruce thinking he can "dethrone" anyone, I doubt that's true, either - but why disagreeing with someone and pointing out flaws in their reasoning would be an attempt at "dethroning" (or "slinging mud", for that matter) is beyond me, too.
Re:Cool it? (Score:3, Insightful)
What dream world do you live in? There is no standard because companies do not want a standard. Technically, it is not really the lack of "standard" being the problem. It is the fact that companies go out of their way to prevent interoperability by not releasing specs so others could use the format. It is not just an oversight, it is by design.
Re:Cool it? (Score:5, Insightful)
-- after all, larry apperently made no money from the free linux clients only loss and his money came from the service he provides in his server software. and maybe more people would've adopted BK and paid for it -- who knows.
tha fact of the matter is ; it is about choice. you are free to hack; you are free to choose what you use and what you do with software.
the BK clients did not let you do that.
these conditions not ebing met give rise to a favourable ecosystem for reverse engineering or completely new Free replacements.
i/ restrictive licence on what your 'intent' is.
ii/ you could only use the official BK client
iii/ the free BK client was crippled.
it was a reverse engineer waiting to happen.
however, i would have imagined that larry feared 'one good turn deserves another', is that these wily open source hackers would cobble together an ENTIRE replacement.
but thats not my main point.
inspired by your statement i think i would go one further; linus is upstaging even RMS himself by allowing himself to be martyred on restrictive closed source software. by showing that he is fallible like us, capable of sin. he shows anger, and revenge -- all the dark side of the force.
we see the error of his non free pragmatism and learn how he atoned for all our non-Free sins.
the man is a genius. thank you.
i shall never hear an mp3 again!
maybe he got sick of esr talking about how Free is abstract and only novel but Open Source pragmatism like Linus's is what counts.
whatver it was we are now approachoing a new higher plateau of maturity. lets sieze on it.
on a legal note: i don't like mcevoy; he comes accross as arrogant and ethically unsound.
is it a gross mischaracterisation by the OSS press?
his products, OTOH, should be put under the microscope for any copyright violations. he sounds so paranoid and fervent taht i am sure he is the sinner "methinks the lady doth protest her [innocence]too much".
or the tainted see guilt and shame everywhere.
thanks,
che
Re:Reverse Engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
In what reality? Looking at a software package doesn't mean you accept it. Reading a license aggrement doesn't mean you accept it. Listening to or looking at output from a program doesn't mean you agreed to any license terms that program is under.
EULAs haven't even been proven to be enforcable in court. Lets not even forget the fact that reverse engineering for interoperability is expressly protected by even the DMCA.
So again I ask, in what twisted reality could simply listening to the network traffic of some other program be construed as a violation of that programs license when you did not buy, use, copy or modify the software in question?
Re:Reverse Engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
Such a license should never have presedence over the moral rights to reverse-engineer anyways. The whole license should be regarded invalid on these grounds. This whole debacle was just waiting to happen as a certainty the more popular BitKeeper became.
Attempting to treat "Linux" as a corporation, really shows a bi
Re:Cool it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much everybody except Linus is in agreement that Tridge isn't doing anthing untoward, nothing different from the work he did in writing Samba.
Everybody see that Linus is being hypocritical at best, and perhaps a bit nepotistic as well.
That sort of attitude doesn't go over well in the OS community and if he keeps it up then it's going to be a major destabilising influence on kernel developement specifically - this is how unnecessary forks begin.
Re:Cool it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
2. As far as I can tell, Tridge wasn't intent on breaking any deal between Linus and McVoy.
3. Tridge never used BitKeeper's free client, so he did not agree to the license. He can't fail to "uphold his side of the deal", because he never made a deal.
Linus is hypocritically attacking someone for reverse-engineering his friend's protocol, when he does not criticize others for doing the same to other protocols. Tridgell has done some great work, and he deserves better.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a relevant extract:
Tridge's tool would have been useful
if that usage had been sanctioned by BitMover. But since
that tool ends up invalidating your right to use BK in
the first place, and since that tool can not replace
what BK did, then yes, the tool is pointless.
So you have three choices
- don't use the tool (which makes it useless)
- use the tool, but stop using BK (which makes it useless)
- use the tool _and_ use BK, which violates the BK
license
Two useless cases, and one outright license violation.
Now, let's look at a _constructive_ case: let's say that
Tridge had written a really good SCM. Now the choice would
be:
- use the tool (cool, that works)
- use BK (cool, that also works)
and everybody would be happy. If a developer wanted to
switch to Tridges hypothetical tool, BK comes with the
stuff needed to export your own data.
See? Open Office and Samba are both in that "happy" case.
You can use them and be happy. They are _useful_ tools.
They actually _replace_ the tool they were meant to replace,
rather than just hook into it in ways that are against
the license.
Do not assume I represent any side of the argument. I just thought you people should know his rationale.
Re:So... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So... (Score:3, Interesting)
You have a fourth choice:
- use the tool (as a client) to access the BK server.
It is useful...check
It doesn't violate a license...check
Since _you_ aren't using any BK software, you don't have to comply with any licenses. The BK server doesn't have to know anything if the protocol is correct. This is analogous to using samba to connect to a MS fileserver; the samba user doesn't have to agree to the terms of Microsoft's license.
Re:That's why they call it Open Sores!! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:there's a disturbance in the force (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is that I think this is a fairly important debate.
Was Linus wrong for using a propietry tool for the development of the kernel and essentially forcing all kernel developers to follow him?
Could this situation been forseen?
Is Linus angry with Tridge because it actually shows up his previous bad decision and the only way for him to save face is to badger Tridge?
Is McVoy behaving like a spoilt kid and taking his ball home because somebody didn't want to play his game?
I'm personally with Tridge and Perens all the way on this one (not that anybody will care). Reverse Engineering is legal. McVoy needs to deal with that.
If we get a schism, then so be it. It's an important line to be divided by in the development of a Open Source / Free OS.
Re:Difference between Samba and Bitkeeper situatio (Score:5, Insightful)
How was it costing them that much? Such figures are just like the IRAA's 'cost of piracy' figures - pure Bull.
Look at the 'cost'..
- is it costing BK the value of the licenses?
.. No. That's revenue that they could have gained if the kernel developers chose to buy it independantly
- is it the cost of developing bug-fixes?
.. don't make me laugh - they have to do that anyways.
- Is is the cost of implementing features necessary for a huge distributed development team?
.. considering that this is precisely what BK was designed for, a large amount of such improvements would be required or requested by their paying customers anyways.
- Bandwidth and server costs?
.. yes, they are costs that BK would have to bear, but I doubt very much that it comes to anywhere near the half a mil a year quoted.
Let's look at what BK gained from the deal- They got massive and public prof that the system did what it was supposed to and worked well at this scale - how many other projects (OS or proprietary) as large would use it and allow BK to say they were using it?
- Massive, massive, huge unspeakable amounts of good publicity - it went from a fairly niche product to something that every linux hacker has discussed overnight!
- I would imagine a large number of big customers would have moved to BK purely for those two points alone.
That makes no sense at all.Tridge should leave what group, exactly?
The group of BK users - that he wasn't a part of anyway? - or the OSS group? "sorry mate, that guy over there doesn't like the look of you, so you will have to give up your hobby. Stop coding now and stop giving stuff away"
You do realise thatthe entire foundation, the whole point, the differentiator of open source software is licensing. The license issue is a hugely important issue, otherwise Linux would not have made it much further past Linus' initial realease. Those people with the skill enough and cared enough to want software with user-friendly licenses picked it up and helped along to bring things where they are - if you don't get the licensing point, you simply do not get open source software.
Re:Difference between Samba and Bitkeeper situatio (Score:5, Insightful)
1)has a license stating that windows users can't develop other competing products ?
2)refuse to license windows to say Novel or IBM who develops competing products ?
The answer is No !
Bitkeeper won't even sell you a license if you work on a competing product.If that is not being paranoid and unreasonable i don't know what is.
Re:Difference between Samba and Bitkeeper situatio (Score:4, Informative)
IIRC, the educational license has a clause like that for devstudio.
Re:Problem with a Single Person in Charge (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Torvalds being in control (presuming he's good - i dont actually know much about him) is a good thing because if a decision needs to be made, he can do it rather than waiting ages for a community to piss about for ages. (if the debian project ran the kernel, we'd still be on 1.x)
Re:My take on reverse-engineering (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:why do I ever get so angry... (Score:3, Insightful)