Interview With BitKeeper Author Larry McVoy

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."

Comments

Congratulations to Linus

[WzDD]

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?

[TechnoVooDooDaddy]

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.

Re:free... as in freedom?

[MrFredBloggs]

"In other words Stallman is making an effort to limit their freedom with their own product"

No, he`s suggesting they change. He`s not trying to limit anything. Such wilfil falsehoods are very tedious, and easy to see through, so whats the point?

Re:free... as in freedom?

[rapid prototype]

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

Re:free... as in freedom?

[TechnoVooDooDaddy]

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?

Re:free... as in freedom?

[rapid prototype]

my post was not about BitKeeper. if you read RMS's rant about BitKeeper, he mentioned many of the problems with Linus using "something that works better for him" because Linus does NOT have that privilege as thousands of programmers worship him. like it or not, he IS THE ROLE MODEL for this generation of hackers, much as Bill Joy, etc, were the role models for my generation.

again my post was more about the other non-free things which have crept into the kernel SOURCE tree -- read the article. large chunks of binary firmware in the kernel source means kernel not able to be distrubted under GPL.

-rp (proud user of both *BSD and Slackware GNU/Linux so don't blindly call me a FSF zealot)

Re:free... as in freedom?

[Vryl]

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.

Re:free... as in freedom?

[rapid prototype]

all we know for sure is that the GNU Project is responsible for more lines of code than any other contributor.

now, whatever the hell that means...

-rp

Re:free... as in freedom?

[zangdesign]

So what happens then Role Model refuses to accept the role? You can't force him to accept that job and all the attendant responsibilities without removing the very freedom that the GNU and Open Source communities value so much.

Re:free... as in freedom?

[rapid prototype]

you don't force him to accept the role, you simply point out that he is not fulfilling the role in the way you had hoped for. that's all anyone has done.

-rp

Re:free... as in freedom?

[Weh]

Well, Linus may be the role-model or not, as a role model he is under no moral obligation from anyone to use software that is licensed under some specific license. Furthermore, real role-models might have some moral obligation from society to set the right example for what is right etc. etc. However RMS' views on what is right aren't neccesarily part of common societal views of right/wrong per se. It is not like Linus is peddling drugs to children or anything like that. He is making a choice about the software he wants to use.

Re:free... as in freedom?

[Bob Uhl]

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.

Re:free... as in freedom?

[abe ferlman]

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.

Re:free... as in freedom?

[zangdesign]

But you have no right to be disappointed if he has not accepted the role. If one accepts that one is a role model, then fine, but otherwise, you're just applying needless pressure.

Re:free... as in freedom?

[sql*kitten]

Note also that in his philosophy it is both wrong and harmful to others to release proprietary software.

You might as well say, selling food rather than giving it away is harmful to others, therefore all food should be free. But what about the farmers, and the equipment? Who pays for all that?

Stallman may be a great programmer, but he's no economist, and it shows in his business philosophy. He essentially believes that people have no ownership of intellectual property, because information products such as software can be replicated at minimal cost. He also assumes that software can be produced at no cost. To get back to the farming metaphor, food can be produced at no cost, for example you can plant an apple tree, and if you look after it, eventually you will have a free supply of apples. That works for subsistence farming, or a society largely composed of subsistence farmers. But in the modern world, only about 3% of the population work on farms - everyone else buys food, and we all enjoy the economies of scale. In software, the production of software is not the business most corporations are in - they are in the business of aerospace, or banking, or retail (for example). Writing your own software, or waiting for a piece of "free" software to come along simply is not viable in that environment, just as it is not practical these days for everyone to feed themselves from their own plot of land, or roam public spaces looking for apple trees.

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

Yes, his position is internally consistent, but outside of academia or a socialized-software-factory environment, his position is inconsistent with the laws of economics.

To GPL or not GPL ....

[Cpl Laque]

In all seriousness I don't think all software should be GPL'd. When You are developing an OS or an Office suite. You will have A large cunsomers base so the cost of developing the software will be offset by the vendors. But If you are writing a small application that takes alot of time and money to develop and you see no other way of making money off of it then go ahead go commercial. I believe this more of of a freedom of choice issue than anything else. If the creator wants not to go GPL then fine it was his time and his money and his effort.

Re:To GPL or not GPL ....

[nmos]

Interestingly enough the main cost of most small market software I've seen is in the form of support and services. Most of the remaining cost comes from having to jump through hoops to get around bugs or limitations in the software that would be trivial to deal with if the software were Free. There may well be cases where Free Software just doesn't work but I don't think just being in a small market is it.

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[coryboehne]

Judging by the intelligence shown in both of these comments (most likely from the same person) you really do show off the intelligence difference between us stupid pathetic dumb yank twats and the most wonderful people in whatever country you happen to hail from. :)

The only part of the interview that matters....

[mshiltonj]

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.

Re:The only part of the interview that matters....

[petis]

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.

Re:The only part of the interview that matters....

[arivanov]

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.

Re:The only part of the interview that matters....

[ahde]

True.

Microsoft would collapse if they couldn't sell enough cardboard boxes in one year. It is a very fragile business model. That's why they want to get in to services and servers.

For example, if Microsoft had pushed something that flopped like Windows ME (and did not offer 98, NT, and 2k at the same time), they would have fallen faster than Enron, $30 billion cash reserver notwithstanding

Pragmatism

[jdh28]

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

Re:Pragmatism

[kelleher]

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.

That is absolutely and completely untrue. Was McVoy standing behind all current free users with a gun when they chose to use BitKeeper? No. They all willingly agreed to use his license for the privilige of running his software. There's no force involved.

What your saying is no different from some software company complaining about having to give away the source code to GPL'd software they modified...

Re:Pragmatism

[ajm]

"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

[Mr_Silver]

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).

Re:Pragmatism

[oever]

That is absolutely and completely untrue. Was McVoy standing behind all current free users with a gun when they chose to use BitKeeper? No. They all willingly agreed to use his license for the privilige of running his software. There's no force involved.

And what RMS is saying, is that Linus forces Linux programmers to agree to the BitKeeper license.

Re:Pragmatism

[blancolioni]

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.

Um ... that's the innovative bit.

Re:Pragmatism

[HeUnique]

Welcome to slashdot ;)

Re:Pragmatism

[jdh28]

My understanding is that the license to use BitKeeper stipulates that you must keep up with the current version. I understand why BitMover want this to happen, and that they have the right to put whatever terms they want in their license. It's just that this clause is quite unusual.

I have never used BitKeeper and work in a small enough place that source control on that scale is not necessary. If I ever wanted to move beyond CVS then this clause in the license might hold me back from choosing BitKeeper (the free version anyway).

However, I haven't actually read the license, so I could be mistaken anyway...

john

Re:Pragmatism

[jdh28]

There's also the requirement to make changelogs public if you're using it for free.

john

Re:Pragmatism

[Otterley]

RMS forces people to accept the GPL when they run GNU software -- what's the difference?

Re:Pragmatism

[Jebediah21]

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*

Re:Pragmatism

[cburley]

RMS forces people to accept the GPL when they run GNU software

No he doesn't. Where did you get that idea?

Re:Pragmatism

[AxelBoldt]

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.

Re:Pragmatism

[sql*kitten]

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

No one forced you to use it... presumably you are using it of your own free will because it does things that CVS (or whatever) doesn't. You are gaining a tangible benefit from it. If you object to the terms and conditions, you are free to choose not to use it. Since you are getting a value, however, it is only fair that you repay that value by offering something in return, in this case, upgrading and reporting any bugs you find. Anything else is just parasitic.

Re:Pragmatism

[kelleher]

Again, untrue. Does Linus still provide diffs and tar balls? Yes. Does Linux still accept diffs? Yes.

Let's even take this a bit further... Is there anything stopping RMS (or any of the other whinners out there) from forking the whole kernel and developing under CVS? Only laziness - nothing has been forced on anyone.

Re:Pragmatism

[Inthewire]

Nerd3: Don't look so scared. I wore gloves.

No....

[BJH]

*Groan*...yet more McVoy...

Quite enough of his views have been dumped in my mailbox from l-k every day for the last week. The man's a walking flamewar.

Re:No....

[mvw]

The man's a walking flamewar.

McVoy managed to piss off ESR, who is, as you all know a strange mix of valuable open source contributor and condemnable weapons idiot.

Regards, Marc

Re:No....

[mvw]

Given what happened the last time all the guns were rounded up in your country, I would think you would've learned your lesson by now.

You probably hint on the founding myth of the United States, where an armed militia fought the English colonial army. I don't see how armed people would have fought the nazi regime, when that regime was supported by a majority of those people of that time.

And a recent event, where someone got his training and weapons via a shooting club, rather speaks against the general availibilty of guns.

Regards,
Marc

Re:No....

[ncc74656]

Given what happened the last time all the guns were rounded up in your country, I would think you would've learned your lesson by now.

You probably hint on the founding myth of the United States, where an armed militia fought the English colonial army.

It's no myth. Bellesiles was a fraud, in case you haven't heard yet.

I don't see how armed people would have fought the nazi regime

IIRC, didn't the Nazis have some trouble dealing with the Warsaw ghetto, where the locals had managed to procure some small arms for themselves?

when that regime was supported by a majority of those people of that time

Was it? I'd think the people didn't have much of a choice in the matter, once they gave up the ability to defend themselves: "do as der Führer says, or we'll put a bullet in your head." Besides, when is a majority opinion ever of any relevance anyway when it comes to your rights? I don't know if prewar Germany was a democracy, but the United States sure as hell isn't—and I'm grateful that it isn't. Democracy, after all, is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.

And a recent event, where someone got his training and weapons via a shooting club, rather speaks against the general availibilty of guns.

My experience is that you won't find a more polite or upstanding group of people than at the gun range. Since everybody is in possession of firearms of varying degrees of potential lethality, people tend to be on their best behavior—an illustration of the axiom that "an armed society is a polite society."

I don't deny that there are psychopathic individuals in society whose rights ought to be restricted. It does not follow, however, that the rights of law-abiding citizens should be infringed on account of a few "bad apples." Should your free-speech rights be infringed because somebody might say something that would cause offense? Should your right to peaceably assemble be infringed because a few rabble-rousers might go on a rampage through downtown and bust up a few shop windows? If your answer to these questions is "no," then you logically cannot justify infringing the right to keep and bear arms.

Re:No....

[GigsVT]

And a
recent event [bbc.co.uk], where someone got his training and weapons via a shooting club, rather speaks against the general availibilty of guns.

The story mentions nothing of where he obtained the guns. Besides, it's a fallacy to think that he could not have gotten the guns, even if they were illegal. Illicit drugs are still readily available, despite being banned for decades.

I don't see how armed people would have fought the nazi regime,

Thousands of cheap liberator pistols were dropped on occupied territories. The idea was that a civillian could use the single-shot weapon to sneak up on and kill a german soldier and take his gun. It's difficult to guage how effective the strategy was.

It may be easy for you, because you live in a nice comfy, stable world. For those of us who realize that all countries go through times of civil unrest, don't try to dictate how we can protect ourselves and our families.

I guess you support the anti-circumvention clause of the US DMCA too. After all, you think the means to an illegal end should be banned, not the illegal action itself.

Re:No....

[mvw]

My experience is that you won't find a more polite or upstanding group of people than at the gun range. Since everybody is in possession of firearms of varying degrees of potential lethality, people tend to be on their best behavior--an illustration of the axiom that "an armed society is a polite society."

Sure, exactly the same reason why porcupines make love veeerrry cautiously.

Re:No....

[mvw]

It may be easy for you, because you live in a nice comfy, stable world.

Stable times?
I had one grandfather who was in the German army, the other grandfather in the Dutch resistance (with 7 brothers killed by the Germans), my father fought Indonesians in Nieuw Guinea.
Guess I was just lucky so far.

For those of us who realize that all countries go through times of civil unrest, don't try to dictate how we can protect ourselves and our families

If you were Swiss, a rather rich society with folks of a certain phlegmatic temper and not those trigger happy cowboys, I might have less stomach pains with the all those guns around.

Regards,
Marc

Re:No....

[Inthewire]

"If you were Swiss, a rather rich society with folks of a certain phlegmatic temper and not those trigger happy cowboys, I might have less stomach pains with the all those guns around."

The day I was laid off I had a pistol in my pocket. I accepted the news, cleaned out my workspace, and went home. I didn't shoot anyone. I didn't even threaten anyone.
Now, I'm an American southerner. I live in a crime-ridden place called Memphis, Tennessee.
I'm not rich. In fact, I'm not even poor. I'm broke.
However, I am deliberate in my actions and peaceful in my outlook.
So though I don't meet your national or economic criteria, I do have the sense of responsibility and restraint appropriate to an armed individual.
The fact of the matter is that I do not seek the approval of those who would deny me the ability to protect myself.
To summarize: Drop the requirements for "Swiss" and "rich" and I agree with you.

RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[Seth Finkelstein]

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 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)

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical RMS. Lets look at these claims in detail shall we?

>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.

Nonsense many important kernel Authors (Al Viro for one) find patch + diff just fine and don't use BK at all.

>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.

More nonsense. Most of them are developers who don't have the extreme idealogical bias that RMS has against all non-free software. They just want to make free software better.

>Linux, the kernel, is often thought of as the >flagship of free software, yet its current >version is partially non-free.

Vintage Stallman and equally nonsensical. "I can't persuade people with logic so I'll frighten them with words like 'partially non-free'". I've got news for you hippy: All software licenses (including the GPL) retrict the use of the software and thus make it partially non-free. Sometimes those restrictions are benign, but that's a seperate issue.

>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.

This is precisely why linux is so much better than the Hurd. Technically better _is_ more important than freedom. Linux is both technically excellent and free.

Its been so long since RMS wrote any code I'm sure he doesn't care that all of the open-source SCMs blow. But as an average developer IT REALLY MATTERS.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[glenstar]

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!

Why do FSF advocates insist on clouding the difference between the right to free-use and the right to change the source? BitKeeper is *free-to-use*, with the exception of a very reasonable clause for bug tracking. BitKeeper is not *free to change*, but really, whom does that affect? 0.00001% of the population? Less? Seriously, how many people actually give a rat's ass that they can get the source to a program?

Granted, *I* enjoy looking at the source for the programs I install, and I like building them from source. I don't believe that gives me a magic bullet (if the program is released under the GPL) to fork off some weird version of that code.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[the_rev_matt]

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.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[gowen]

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.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[Weh]

Most of them are gradually convincing themselves that it is ok to use non-free software

These kind of things worry me a bit. Since when is there a moral obligation to never, ever use any software that's not free?

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[reverse solidus]

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.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[Langley]

Why do FSF advocates insist on clouding the difference between the right to free-use and the right to change the source?

Because that difference is what defines Free software. Free software is not labeled 'Free' as a reflection of the cost of the collection of bits. It is the ability of anyone to modify those bits and redistribute them under the provisions of the GPL to all that desire the modification.

Yes the GPL requires you to essentially give up total control of your original code, but it also ensures that no one can hijack your code and prevent you from accessing their changes (if they are publicly releasing those changes).

Of course this is not to say that the GPL is the best license to use in all cases. To have software be a profitable business model you would be foolish to release the code under the GPL, but the GPL isn't designed to protect profits. That is what Microsoft's EULA is for.

RMS has a valid point in showing concern that the Linux kernel is using non-Free RC software. While it probably would not be difficult for Linus to revert the tree back to CVS if things did not work out for BitKeeper, RMS feels the risk is not worth the expense. The interview mentioned that if BitMover were to go under the code would be released under the GPL. That is nice, but I don't think an interview on a website counts as a legal document.

The point is RMS has a strong, unwavering opinion. When he sees something that offends his opinion he reacts (usually setting off all the fire-alarms on slashdot). While not everyone agrees with his philosophy, be grateful he is around defending Free software. One day when you discover you too need Free software hopefully RMS will still be around for you to join up with. It would be a shame to have to start all of his work over again.

I hope BitMover makes a policy change stating that if the company dissolves the source code will be licensed under the GPL, and that this policy cannot be altered under any change in management. This is the only way to support the claim that the code would revert under collapse.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[Florian Weimer]

BitKeeper is not even "free to use". According to the license, I have to use it in a way which does not cripple the Open Logging feature. In other words, the context in which the program is run is restricted. This is even worse than what you have to do when you use most source-less gratuit software.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[Taurine]

Where RMS says:

"Most of them are gradually convincing themselves that it is ok to use non-free software"

he implies that these people previously thought that it was not OK to use non-free software. That seems pretty unlikely. Most of the top kernel hackers work in the computer industry as their day job, so they are likely not wholely against non-free software anyway.

Linus Torvalds clearly doesn't have a problem with non-free software. This is a part of his pragmatic viewpoint. Perhaps he is socially engineering the project by trying to positively select other pragmatic people for the kernel project? It would likely be much easier to progress in the kernel project working with a team of pragmatists - less distracting flamewars for one thing.

Of course that doesn't help to progress the GNU project. What RMS would appear to advocate would be that some of the kernel hackers come off that project for a while to create the configuration management software that would best suit Linus.

It depends on your goals. But then, that's a pragmatic view, too.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[kz45]

Yes the GPL requires you to essentially give up total control of your original code, but it also ensures that no one can hijack your code and prevent you from accessing their changes (if they are publicly releasing those changes).

Isn't that taking away the freedom of the next person using your source?

preventing you from accessing your own code is one thing, but from someone else's changes is not your right anyway.

Public domain software is the only true free sourcecode.

RMS has a valid point in showing concern that the Linux kernel is using non-Free RC software. While it probably would not be difficult for Linus to revert the tree back to CVS if things did not work out for BitKeeper, RMS feels the risk is not worth the expense. The interview mentioned that if BitMover were to go under the code would be released under the GPL. That is nice, but I don't think an interview on a website counts as a legal document

true, but the inability to tolerate any form of proprietary software shows his true non-free colors.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[kz45]

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

linux shouldn't have competitors. Freedom is freedom. if people use OSS, good, if they don't, that's their choice too. Why try to force it upon people?

It's beginning to sound more like a religious cult to me, using the philosophy as power.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[Phil Wilkins]

Stallman wears dresses?

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[nmos]

Every day we have opportunities to do things that are "Wrong" but would be to our advantage from a purely practical point of view. Do you take advantage of all such opportunities? If not then why not?

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[nmos]

I don't know about you but many of the programs I use would not have even been ported to the platforms I use them on if they had not been Free Software.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to point something out in RMS's argument that makes absolutely zero sense -- you do NOT need to install the BK client in order to track the changes in the Linux kernel. All you need is an open-source, "free" web browser (i.e. Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon, Lynx) to go and view the source, patches, etc. Don't believe me? Point your web browser (free or non-free -- which ever you prefer) to -> Linux 2.5 Development Tree. If you are interested in the Linux 2.4 tree, try this link to Marcelo's tree.

So how is that I need to install a non-free client app to closely track the progress of kernel development RMS? This interface lets me see the entire version history of the kernel -- file by file or patch by patch from any web broswer (free or non-free). I can even search the change set comments for particular information (e.g. search for SCSI to find all of the SCSI patches). It seems to me that this interface is better than anything this community has previously had to track the progress of the kernel. Not to mention, we get more informative change logs now. Just for grins, I even accessed this site from a Kyocera Palm phone. Slow as all get out, but it worked.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[kirkjobsluder]

Well there is the core of the issue. Free-software absolutists have a tendency to confuse things that we do because they are nice for people (like holding the door for others) and things that are moral perogatives (thou shalt not kill). I put as much of my work as possible into open-content or public domain not because it is wrong to do otherwise, but because I'm a nice guy who wants to give something back to the community.

There is no moral perogative to publish source code. We don't argue that every novel should include an easily modifiable source, Attack of the Clones should be packaged with the story boards, scripts and musical scores, or that Frank Zappa records must include chording charts. It is nice to do so, it is beneficial to do so, it even may be the best way to release software. But my rights are not violated if a vendor does not open-source software, if I don't like how it works, I brew my own and the software goes in the trash.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[ahde]

would you support building the kernel with gcc if you had to use a proprietary product to view debug output? Sure, there's a free download of gdb, but there's no guarantee that it will still be around. Or that it will continue to work right. Oh and by the way, you can't keep using your old gcc and gdb, that's part of what you agree to to use the "free" gcc. In some countries, you could still go through the mangled debug binaries and maybe even reverse engineer a compatible debugger, but you'd be stuck playing catch up. And no one in the USA could legally use your debugger.

And then maybe, just maybe, NetBEUI has a bug in it. Too bad you can't fix it. I guess you could just send your network traffic with a different protocol, but have fun converting a network and all its idiosychrasies back to TCP/IP.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[ahde]

No, the practical risk is that kernel development becomes inexplicably intertwined with Bitkeeper and when Larry's accountant runs off with his wife and the company savings, Bitmover goes bankrupt and it takes a year to get development back on track.

Re:RMS condemning non-free, not BitKeeper itself

[ahde]

Which works fine unless ..er.. bitkeeper folds, and then the assets won't be his to release, even if he wanted to.

Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ArthurDent]

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

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[dinivin]

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

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ArthurDent]

You're right. I merely meant that was his goal, not that everyone agrees with his goals or methods.

Ben

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Pentagram]

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

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[jelson]

RMS is not against BitKeeper because it is sold for money. The FSF has repeatedly said that they fully support people selling "free software" to support more free software. They even say right here: we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can.

What RMS is against, and what also makes me a little uneasy, is that I have no access to the source code to BitKeeper. The for-no-money version of BitKeeper is crippleware that only works under certain conditions; those conditions can later change. I feel uneasy about putting my entire change history into a format that, in the future, may no longer be accessible by any tool that I have.

Don't you think this is a reasonable thing to be concerned about? This is the issue. Not "Oh no, someone is charging money for free software!".

I think BitKeeper sounds like a very useful tool, and is leaps and bounds better than CVS. But I am afraid to use it for this reason.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Ryan_Singer]

Stallman doesn't care if McVoy gives anything away for free, nor does he care if McVoy charges for it. For Stallman Free does not been free download or free beer, Free mean Free Speech or Free Source. He never said that the kernal didn't need source controll, just that it bugs him and should bug others that to develop on linux someone needs to use software that he can't see the source to. He's not insulting your intellegence, you do that to yourself when you berate him as a knee jerk response without knowing his most basic stances, like speech vs. beer. oh aand by the way, the GNU in GNU/Linux is silent. :)

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ArthurDent]

I'm not trolling. Perhaps that generalization was too sweeping. Yet, how does that stated view of commercial software jibe with his beligerent response to the idea of Linus using BitKeeper? Linux was running into difficulties due to the lack of a scalable source code control system. I would think that a decision (that wasn't RMS's to make) that makes it easier for Linux to develop as a free entity does not deserve this nasty response from RMS.

Ben

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ArthurDent]

You're absolutely correct. It probably should be named GNU/Linux. My only point is that the name Linux is already accepted, and it's really hard to change the terminology midstream.

RMS marginalizes himself by looking like a whiner in this regard IMHO.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Baki]

Just recently we could see 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).

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ArthurDent]

That *is* something to be concerned about. It's just not a good enough reason to reject it out of hand. However with the volume of "free" users that BK will gain from this, it will be in their best interest to serve the community well if for no other reason than the SQA they'll get out of it. :)

It's not this concern that worries me. It's the idea that the idea of using BK should be disregarded out of hand because BK is not totally free that seems like throwing what might be the baby out with the bathwater.

Ben

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[rapid prototype]

am I the only one who is sick of RMS whining about the naming of Linux?

so it's not okay to whine, but it's okay to whine about someone whining. cool. sounds like a Maple Leafs fan.

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.

but that is the point, we ARE compromising our values by allowing this. would you be happy if Linus openly professed his love for Internet Explorer (it is available free of charge)? As I said in an earlier post, Linus does not have the privilege of being able to choose the tool he wants based on its merits. he is the poster child of the revolution, the role model to aspiring little hackers everywhere. for him to use non-free tools to distribute a free OS sends the kind of mixed message that got us into this mess (first IBM, then Windows) in the first place.

The accepted name is Linux not GNU/Linux.

accepted by whom? you? not by RMS, not by a lot of people.

-rp

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ctid]

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 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?

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[bgarcia]

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.

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.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ryants]

Yet, how does that stated view of commercial software jibe with his beligerent response to the idea of Linus using BitKeeper?

Why do people have such a hard time understanding this?

RMS believes there are certain freedoms, listed at www.gnu.org, that must be met before a software package may be called "free". In English it is unfortuante that "free" has two meanings: in Latin, they are "libre" and "gratis".

The issues is not, never has been, nor never will be about the issue of cost (gratis). The issue is about liberty/freedom.

BitKeeper doesn't even come close to satisfying the requirements for being free (libre), regardless of its cost. Hence RMS' problem with it.

I hope these words were small enough for you.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ryants]

That *is* something to be concerned about. It's just not a good enough reason to reject it out of hand.

Well, if you have any sort of ideals, it is.

However with the volume of "free" users that BK will gain from this, it will be in their best interest to serve the community well if for no other reason than the SQA they'll get out of it.

What the hell does this mean? They owe absolutely nothing to the "free" class of users.

It's the idea that the idea of using BK should be disregarded out of hand because BK is not totally free that seems like throwing what might be the baby out with the bathwater.

No. It's called remaining ideologically pure, or, in more vulgar terms, "sticking to your guns".

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[lgraba]

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.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Mr_Silver]

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.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[SurfsUp]

McVoy is hardly anti-free-software. The very fact that he gives away *anything* for free symbolizes that.

Loss leader? 30 day free trial? What has that got with 'free as in freedom'? Larry lets open source projects use BitKeeper for free (for now) so that he can stamp 'Official Source Code Management System of Linux' on the box, and get free advertising. It's not because he loves free (as in freedom) software. In fact, he takes every opportunity to trash the ideals of free-as-in-freedom software and argues that it is anti-business, almost parroting the words of Microsoft. With friends like that...

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.

That's what he says. The less trusting suggest it's so that he can change the licence any time he wants, in particular, he can end the free usage any time he wants. So he's enshrined his right to pull a bait and switch.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Weh]

From the article:

Richard might want to consider the fact that developing new software is extremely expensive. He's very proud of the collection of free software, but that's a collection of reimplementations, but no profoundly new ideas or products. Free software is very cool, it's useful, I use it, and I'm grateful, but it has one big problem. What if the free software model simply can't support the costs of developing new ideas? Realize that for every good new idea that you hear about, there are at least a 100 that were funded, developed, and failed before you ever saw them. The naive reaction is "well, they were stupid". That's nonsense, history has shown over and over that we find new ideas amongst the insight we gain by building the bad ideas. Without doing that, we don't learn what was bad and we don't recognize what is good. So the problem is that all those bad development projects cost a lot of money. Does free software generate that kind of money? Not a chance. Go look at the software R&D budgets for Microsoft, Sun, IBM, etc. You can take all the free software revenue in the world and it doesn't begin to make a dent in what those guys spend, let alone what they earn.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[dinivin]

By contrast, you simply say that what he thinks of as free is not free.

Care to point out where I said that? Please, before posting again and embarassing yourself, learn to read.

Dinivin

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[signifying nothing]

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?

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[SurfsUp]

It appears we have a biased moderator on the loose. Please read the above article and tell me which part is 'flamebait'. Notice that the article references Larry's very own words, it is not my opinion, but Larry's.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Jeppe Salvesen]

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?

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[elefantstn]

Actually, it's "liber" in Latin, not "libre."

Love,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Latin Pedant

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ryants]

Doh!

Thanks for the correction. Stupid French, wish I had never learned that language.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[edhall]

I see it argued all the time that people are confusing the two meanings of "free," and that the two concepts don't have much to do with each other. But that's not true. When we're talking about software, libre pretty much compels gratis. It's easy to see why: if I attempt to charge more than a pittance for my software you can simply get a copy elsewhere.

The GPL doesn't oppose commercial software in so many words, but is sets up such strong forces against the commercialization of software that it can be considered to do so. It is disingenuous to say otherwise. Now, Stallman may think that this particular downside is ignorable compared to the virtues of his particular codification of "freedom," but others see things differently.

-Ed

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[kz45]

For Stallman Free does not been free download or free beer, Free mean Free Speech or Free Source.

but if you charged for the source (and offer no free as in beer download), it isn't considered free as in speech, so the two go hand-in-hand.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[kz45]

for him to use non-free tools to distribute a free OS sends the kind of mixed message that got us into this mess (first IBM, then Windows) in the first place

I think you are mistaken about linus's views. He is not nearly as zealous as RMS.

If he was, he wouldn't have landed that job at a proprietary software based company (the ones that made the crusoe processor).

would you be happy if Linus openly professed his love for Internet Explorer (it is available free of charge)?

yes, because then I would know that the linux community was going somewhere. Ignoring something that is technically better will not make it go away, or change the views of the millions of people that are using it.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[GigsVT]

When we're talking about software, libre
pretty much compels gratis. It's easy to see why: if I attempt to charge more than a pittance for my software you can simply get a copy elsewhere.

You are thinking in the old paradigm, where companies hide behind copyright laws (which don't apply well to modern technology) to resell something over and over that has no market value (supply->infinity, price->zero). You probably also support the efforts of the RIAA/MPAA.

However, free software relies on a new paradigm, one where you get much more for your money, and the software produced is far better.

For example, I recently contracted the author of a certain open source program to add functionality for a certain type of file my company uses.

It cost far less than it would have to buy the same functionality from the overpriced and underskilled commercial heavyweights in my area. It also took far less time, working directly with the developer, rather than through layers of red tape.

The community benefits from the added functionality, my company benefits from the use of a superior program, with support directly from the programmers, for far less money. It's win-win-win-win.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Ryan_Singer]

not intirely, it's not GPL, but it still is free as in speech. Think of it as consulting, you pay them to speak, I mean code, until your problem goes away.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ctid]

I'm not embarassed by anything I wrote. Your post:

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.

... implies that RMS's definition of free isn't shared by everyone. You even say that some people don't think of it as free. I assumed that you were one of those people. Why don't you try to give your definition, instead of trying to pick an argument with me? What is it about RMS's definition of free that you think is not free?

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[NDPTAL85]

What parts of "CVS is not as good as BitKeeper" do you not understand?

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

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

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ctid]

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.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[tphockenberry]

>Linus does not have the privilege of being able to choose the tool he wants based on its merits

Why not? You argue he can't because he's viewed as a role model. OK. Why shouldn't Linus be free (there's that word again) to make whatever choice works best for him? Afterall, that's freedom. The freedom to choose.

Personally, I think he's a great role model. He's smart, has made an amazing impact, and he doesn't get hung up on bizarro "I'm the free software posterboy" stuff.

Oh, and my personal choice is Linux not GNU/Linux.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ArthurDent]

I said:
However with the volume of "free" users that BK will gain from this, it will be in their best interest to serve the community well if for no other reason than the SQA they'll get out of it.

ryants replied:
What the hell does this mean? They owe absolutely nothing to the "free" class of users.


My point is that a big source of bug reports is valuable to them. Why would you intentionally alienate a large base of users who are basically forced to test the newest version?

Ben

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Zathrus]

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

To take a different whack at this, why on Earth is this admirable? Extremisim is never admirable. It's the same thing as fanatacism. And fanatics never make clear, reasonable choices because their particular issue outweighs everything else. That's why it's called fanaticism or extremism.

Oh, I'm sure some people will say something about it being for a "good cause". But how are we to determine what the good causes and the bad causes are? It's a very subjective thing, and while I think that the free (liber) software movement has done some wonderful things, I also think there are rational limits to it and that RMS doesn't have any concept of what those limits are.

Don't use BitKeeper? Ok, whatever. Use what? CVS? No, because it doesn't meet my needs. So use what? Nothing at all? Something that doesn't work? Or something that does get the job done and so what if it's not idealogically pure? The real world (which is where fanatics dare not tread, lest they discover that their idealistic world has naught but a thin thread tying it to reality) says that you use what works. Ideals are fine, but understand that it may very well cost you far more than what that ideal is worth.

Throughout history it hasn't been the fanatics that have changed the course of human events. It's been those who are idealistic, but also understand how the world works. Fanatics merely cause aberations, and often do more harm than good to those who they're trying to help.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[dvdeug]

It's been those who are idealistic, but also understand how the world works.

Vladimir Lenin was pragmatic and changed things, but he needed the impractical writer Karl Marx. Saul of Tarsis was pragmatic and changed things, but he needed the wandering preacher Jesus Christ. Sure, pragmatists are usually the ones to change the world, but they often rely on fanatics for how and why they are changing the world. Linus Torvald has changed the way the world looks at Free software more than RMS has, but if it wasn't for RMS, Linux never would have been released under the GPL.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Chops]

RMS is an extremist. Always has been.

I agree, but I see that as a good rather than a bad thing.

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

"Fought for" is, I would argue, a distortion -- he didn't beat anybody up or use force (physical/political/etc.) to advance the freedom of software. He wrote a metric assload of free software (emacs, gcc, glibc, etc.), and he'll talk to anyone who'll listen about how important it is for software to be free, but to my knowledge he's never fought.

McVoy is hardly anti-free-software. The very fact that he gives away *anything* for free symbolizes that.

"Free software" is normally used to mean software that can be modified and redistributed without restriction (or with only the restriction that source be included.) Bitkeeper is not free software. By your standard, Microsoft is hardly anti-free-software; they give away IE and DirectX at no cost, after all.

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

The GPL explicitly allows you to sell GPLed software; without that, Red Hat and Mandrake wouldn't exist, and free software wouldn't be where it is today. RMS will complain, though, if you claim that your business model requires you to take away freedom from your customers in order to survive. McVoy brags about how much he pays his engineers (including, presumably, himself), and then claims that he's concluded that you can't make money selling free software. RMS claims that the right to do as you wish with software you bought is more important than your right to spend $4 million dollars producing software.

In a similar vein, am I the only one who is sick of RMS whining about the naming of Linux?

Okay, here's the deal: Originally, Linux and GNU were two separate projects. Gradually, the Linux people assimilated more and more GNU code, until the Red Hat system that you boot uses a Linux kernel, and a GNU compiler toolchain, text editor, C library, shell, common UNIX utilities (sed/ls/tar/etc.), and sometimes GUI. The vast majority of the code without which your system wouldn't function is GNU code. For this, RMS asks that the GNU project be given credit equal to that given to the Linux project (which has now given up on producing a complete OS, and is happily maintaining the Linux kernel and a handful of kernely user-space tools) when referring to the resulting hybrid.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[edhall]

Only if it already exists. You can easily and ethically charge whatever the market will bear for writing it in the first place (or enhancing someone else's).

That only works for a minority of software. It essentially means that the original purchaser has to pay for the entire development, and all others pay essentially nothing. A fair amount of contract software could be done that way since it is either highly specialized or is relatively minor modification of existing software. But the overwhelming number of desktop applications reasonably couldn't be developed with such a payment model.

-Ed

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[doom]

In a similar vein, am I the only one who is sick of RMS whining about the naming of Linux?

Why no. I've never heard anyone say that before. What a strange, unconventional attitude you have there. With ground-breaking thinking like this, I expect you're destined for great things. Call us when you get your MacArthur prize.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[AxelBoldt]

Use what? CVS? No, because it doesn't meet my needs. So use what? Nothing at all? Something that doesn't work?

I trust you have evaluated cvs and have found it to "not meet your needs" and "not work at all"? Or maybe you are just buying completely into Larry's anti-CVS propaganda. Hint: mozilla, a project much larger than the Linux kernel and with more developers, uses CVS.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[edhall]

"New Paradigm?" How quaint.

If copyright laws are passe, then why is the GPL based on copyright law? That's right, the GPL, like any software license, tells me what I can and cannot do with the software and I am bound to follow that by copyright. Otherwise, I could do whatever the hell I wanted to with it.

Now what does this have to do with the RIAA/MPAA? I believe people should be paid for their work, but I also believe that there are far too many other people who add little but take much as middlemen -- like the RIAA and MPAA. But they are dinosaurs headed for extinction, and I won't miss them a bit.

As for "supply->infinity,price->zero," that's simply silly. The dot-com bubble is over, and no one repealed the laws of economics after all. Even though the additional cost of a copy is vanishingly small, you can't simply wish away the initial costs of production no matter how many copies are made. Now, that hardly means that the Microsoft model for software production is the only one -- far from it. There has been a lot written about the economics of free software, and as you note it can be much more efficient in some circumstances. But there are domains where it doesn't work so well because production costs are high and the number of likely end users low. And those are the areas where commercial software will continue to dominate.

Larry feels that sourcecode management software is one of those domains where development costs are high (even though his company is arguably about as lean as a software company can get) but the market small. I'm not so sure that's true if, as he claims, the market is a million users, with most of those users being software developers. In fact, I'd think that Bitkeeper would be a pretty good candidate for the free software model. But Linus thinks it's the best tool for the job, and that is more important to him than using only GPL tools.

-Ed

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[doom]

AxelBoldt wrote:

Use what? CVS? No, because it doesn't meet my needs. So use what? Nothing at all? Something that doesn't work?

I trust you have evaluated cvs and have found it to "not meet your needs" and "not work at all"? Or maybe you are just buying completely into Larry's anti-CVS propaganda. Hint: mozilla, a project much larger than the Linux kernel and with more developers, uses CVS.

Yes, thanks for pointing this out. I read the McVoy interview, and I've heard from some bitkeeper enthusiasts, but I still don't quite see why the distributed repository model is supposed to be inherently superior...

It would seem to me that even the really large open source development projects don't really have enough programmers to run a centralized code repository into the ground.

So in theory I can see how it would be kind of cool that you can sync up to any tree of code managed by bitkeeper as though it were another repository, but why is that so wonderfully useful? McVoy essential resorts to what I call "the mysticism argument" in this interview (Which always goes something like "It's hard to explain why this is good, but once you embrace it and use it for awhile you suddenly grok the Tao of GazongaTech, and you never ever want to be without GazongaTech ever again.").

People like to whine about CVS (and it does have real problems, e.g. watch-it if you want to check in binaries; if you need to move a directory around, you're going to lose the history on it; I gather branch management is a bit of a pain, etc). But the real reason there's not free replacement for it is that it works well enough for most programmers to live with it.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[GigsVT]

If copyright laws are passe, then why is the GPL based on copyright law?

Don't put words in my mouth. I said "hiding behind copyright law". There is a difference between using copyright law how it was meant to be used, that is, encouraging creation of works, and using it as a weapon to stifle the distribution and use of works. Copyright has been distorted by corporate lobbies well beyond its original intent. I am well aware that the GPL would have no force without copyright.

Now what does this have to do with the RIAA/MPAA?

I had a big reply to this part written, but then I read my original message, and it was a pretty hasty conclusion. Forget it.

What scares me the most is that a pattern of binary digits induced magnetically onto a hard disk platter can be a crime. That is seems highly irrational to me, though not particularly relevant to this conversation.

As for "supply->infinity,price->zero," that's simply silly. The dot-com bubble is over, and no one repealed the laws of economics after all.

What are you talking about here? That is basic economics. As supply increses, price drops, eventually to near zero as supply approaches infinity. Since information can be copied with near zero cost, and the barriers to entry are low, the market value of information as a commodity is near zero.

Liber only compels gratis when you are talking about selling software as a commodity, and then, save for DRM or strong arm tactics, the market compels gratis anyway, when talking about the software with no other value added services.

Specialized information and customized apps are still worth something, hence the business model of open source, i.e. consulting and customization.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ahde]

No, Linux was running into difficulties due to the lack of *any* source code control system. Linus did not like any of the other available offerings that he had tried (CVS), but agreed to give Bitkeeper a trial since Larry McVoy was a personal friend.

Even if Bitkeeper is the *best* solution out there, it is not the only thing that could overcome development difficulties. It *is* the only one that Linus is willing to try. And by now, due to the amount of time and effort expended in adapting to Bitkeeper, he's probably committed beyond any ability to change.

That is what is known as vendor lock in.

Meanwhile, Linus and others are pointing out flaws and deficiencies in Bitkeeper, while Larry moans about his "paying" customers when there are tons of eager hands to help improve his product if they were allowed to. Larry tells anyone with a suggestion that isn't Linus or a paying customer to fuck off and kiss his ass for the gift he has loudly and openly donated to the Linux kernel, which owes it's success Bitmover.com!

(remainder of whitepaper w/ pointless charts and photos deleted)

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ahde]

what part of "CVS is better than mailing list archives" do you not understand?

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[ahde]

He landed his job at Transmeta based solely on his fame from developing Linux. He might have gotten the job on his own merit, but we'll never know. As it turns out, most of his job is working on the kernel when he feels like it, and making public appearances as "creator of the free operating system GNU/Linux"

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[sql*kitten]

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

That's just sophistry. Can you sell something that's available for free? You can maybe sell services on a time-and-materials basis, but that's not the same thing at all.

Free software'' does not mean ``non-commercial''. A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution.

All this means is that commercial entities aren't forbidden from using free products. It's hardly worth stating.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[Zathrus]

Actually I do use CVS, and at work no less. Our lead developer is a big proponent of using open source tools where it makes sense, and I'm all for it. Our project isn't big enough to expose most of the hairy bits of CVS though.

But I'm not Linus, and I don't have to manage the kernel tree. If he's decided that CVS does not meet his needs then that's all there is to it. CVS apparantly annoys him in various areas, and I know that when something annoys me the likelihood of my using it is somewhere around zero.

So basically, use CVS and lose Linus, or use BitKeeper and keep him.

Besides which, if people would actually bother reading the links, you don't have to submit Bitkeeper pulls for patches. Regular old diffs are fine, as long as there's enough changelog info.

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[dinivin]

What is it about RMS's definition of free that you think is not free?

Once again, I never made the statement that I disagree with his definition. You really need to learn how to read.

Dinivin

Re:Linus could not accept CVS/RCS

[windex]

I would have to agree with the AC and burn karma in the process. Larry McVoy is an exciting and pleasurable indivudual if you never read or hear of him in your entire life. Now, the problem is, that I can't see RMS as much better... Oh well.

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[__aawsxp7741]

In what way is improving existing concepts "reinventing the wheel"? Should CVS never have been developed as RCS already existed?

The fundamental difference between BitKeeper and existing systems is its completely distributed approach. Go read the interview.

Re:Linus could not accept CVS/RCS

[tao]

CVS has a lot of short-comings. Most people that use CVS are ready to admit that, I think. Maybe CVS works for gcc, but gcc has multiple persons with write access to the tree. The kernel bitkeeper repository has only one single person with write-access; Linus himself. Linus himself decides what goes in and what doesn't, by pulling from other developer's trees, or by applying normal patches.

Then again, CVS would probably be able to handle the kernel too. But Linus doesn't like CVS one single bit, and since he doesn't, the choice wasn't CVS vs BK, but rather no source-management system vs BK.

Oh, and Bitkeeper is in no way mandatory for kernel-development. Alan Cox and Alexander Viro, for instance, don't use BK, and have no trouble getting their contributions into the kernel. In fact, Viro commented that it got easier, since Linus got relieved of some work.

The fact that gcc was a prerequisite for the Linux-kernel doesn't change the fact that CVS is far inferior to BK. Oh, and it's not like BK is totally non-free. As long as you accept to have your changelogs logged to a server, you get the program for free. Furthermore, the source-code is available, and you are allowed to modify it, as long as it still passes the regression-tests and does nothing to circumvent the open-logging. To finnish off, the program will become GPL if BitMover ceases to exist (can't remember the exact terms, sorry...)

I'm not saying that I'm thrilled with having one important part of the kernel-development process non-free, but I agree when Larry McVoy says that people should spend their time coding a replacement instead of complaining.

Innacurate quote by McVoy?

[deepchasm]

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.

Re:Innacurate quote by McVoy?

[fizbin]

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.

Re:Innacurate quote by McVoy?

[Eccles]

I'm not 100% sure, but I thought RMS attitude was 'Free, or not at all'.

Then what did he use to write emacs, et al in the first place? It wasn't from toggling a basic OS and editor into memory on a PDP/11...

Re:Innacurate quote by McVoy?

[nmos]

Most of RMS's early Free Software was written on and for non-free systems. His view basically is that if he hadn't then his Free Software wouldn't exist at all and therefore it was a worthy trade-off. His eventual goal however was to replace the entire OS with a free OS so this wasn't considered a long term solution so much as a necessary evil.

Re:Licence problems?

[tao]

Use of BitKeeper is not mandated for kernel development. Linus has promised it never will become either.

but what *is* freedom?

[Clansman]

You are defining it as "free from being hassled about the choices you make even though they may impact upon aothers freedoms in the future"

This is unheard of in the western world where lobbyists and pressure groups act as our eyes and ears, keeping tabs on the decisions that people make - especially when, being people, they are inclined to take the odd short-term view for expediancies sake.

Re:but what *is* freedom?

[Ozymandias_KoK]

Freedom is in general irrespective of it's own consequences. Otherwise the word freedom tends to no longer apply, doesn't it?

Re:Licence problems?

[rapid prototype]

no, but "the kids" see Linus using it and go "gee, that must be the cool new hacker thing to do. I'll use BitKeeper, too! who cares if it is not free software, what does that mean, anyway? 1 0wn j00!".

-rp

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[anpe]

One of bitkeeper's nice features is to keep track of a set of patches (You can apply or undo a group of patches)
If you want to know more about it Jeff Garzik posted a BK kernel hacking HOWTO

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[coryboehne]

But none the less, it is still simply re-vamping an old technology, and I never said that re-inventing the wheel was a bad thing at all, as a matter of a fact, taken literally, if re-inventing the wheel had never occured, we would still be driving around on tree cross-sections, I think you may have misunderstood my comment, and I am to blame as I did not clarify that I do not beleve this to be a bad thing, I simply wanted to know if I had missed something or if bitkeeper was really just an advanced version checking system.

I am a CM (configuration manager)

[ACK!!]

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.

________________________________________________ _

Re:I am a CM (configuration manager)

[Raedwald]

I've been a CM specialist, using SCCS, ClearCase, RCS and Continuus at various times. I tried CVS once for my hobbyist programming, but was rather unimpreseed: the gain over RCS seemed marginal.

Is it significant that the open source community has not produced a heavy weight configuration management (CM) system? I've always suspected a 'hacker' mentality in the commuity, in the sense that following processes and procedures is anathema, and instead people 'just edit the code' in a relatively undisciplined manner. CM is deeply unsexy. It's hard enough to get commercial programmers to follow good CM practices, even with mamangement backing. The community has no management coercion, of course, so it's understandable that CM would fair badly in the commuity.

Perhaps a distrust or displike of CM by the community has lead to the situation were open source (or specifically GPLed) tools are just not up to the job?

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[coryboehne]

Yea baby! Now that could be a very handy feature, thank you very much for posting a reply that actually addressed my question, instead of just assulting my post and my intelligence or country of residence.

Re:Licence problems?

[tao]

Ehmmm, you're missing one thing in this line of thought; these are the same "Kids" that probably stays with Windows in the first place because there are a lot more Games available for Windows... Sure, some weak minds will probably start using BK because of Linus-worship rather than need, but most people intelligent enough to grasp the concept of a SCM-system, are also intelligent enough to make their own decisions.

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, bullshit. "Re-inventing the wheel" has obvious pejorative connotations.

Re:Licence problems?

[rapid prototype]

Linus has promised it never will become either.

gee, it's a good thing we have the personal promise of a human being to rest the future of our operating system on (i say our as a kernel contributor, PCMCIA stack). i feel very reassured, how about everybody else? i would rather have that freedom assured by the GPL than by the promise of a human being, which no matter how great you think Linus is (and i do think he's great...) he is still human.

-rp

Re:Licence problems?

[tao]

You obviously miss the fact that the source-code for the kernel is available for each and everyone to take up and fork off if your fears came true... If Linus really decides to go BK-development only, then he'll get a code-base fork on his ass faster than you can frag Stef in Quake III.

The fact that Linus is the accepted maintainer of the developmental branch of Linux and owns the trademark, doesn't mean that you can't fork the kernel and call it "Rapid Prototypix"... :-)

One little nit

[fizbin]

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 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 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 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.)

Re:One little nit

[rabtech]

"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.

Re:One little nit

[BadmanX]

Thank you! I'm glad SOMEBODY else realizes this! Sometimes I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

Someone else here put it another way...liber pretty much guarantees gratis. This was always RMS' intention from the beginning. Yes, someone will point out the FSF page where they say selling GPL software is allowed. That's a smokescreen; they know that nobody is ever going to make money selling GPL software, so they don't have to ban it - it has already been effectively banned. You cannot make money selling software unless you can (ostensibly) control how the software is distributed.

Now people are going to pipe up screaming, "Well, it's your own fucking fault for trying to make money off something that can be copied so easily! Your business model is broken! Because software copies so easily, it's effective worth is zero!" These people have never written anything, and simply use this to justify their piracy. By saying this they demean me; they claim that the time and effort I put into the software is worthless. Apparently I shouldn't have bothered.

I have never understood why RMS believes that programming is something that doesn't deserve compensation. How is it any different from construction, from medicine, from clerical work? I work long hours and solve many problems to make something that might be useful to someone else, but because I'm a programmer it's wrong for me to benefit from what I've done in any way. I'll never get it.

To paraphrase a very popular .sig around here: "Worried about the non-'free' nature of commercial software? Here's a tip: write your own fucking code."

Re:One little nit

[dvdeug]

You cannot make money selling software unless you can (ostensibly) control how the software is distributed.

Of course, the fact that Cygnus and ACT (the makers of GNAT, the GNU Ada compiler) do shouldn't affect your argument in any way.

Re:One little nit

[ahde]

I don't know how RMS feels, but if I had to choose between to two, I'd choose "modify" over "redistribute" anyday.

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[TooTallFourThinking]

It all depends on the context. You can ask someone why would you want to reinvent the wheel without any negative connotations. Which, I believe, is true judging from the context of the original post. Just because it is usually used in a condescending way does not mean it always is.

Ah, there's the rub

[Nygard]

The system is no longer GNU + Linux kernel. If it's about giving credit in proportional amounts, then X, perl, Berkeley, Apache, Netscape, and many other major contributors should also be recognized.

I do understand that some of these can be stripped away without impairing the OS, but some of them cannot.

While calling the whole ball of wax "Linux" may be overstating the importance of the kernel, calling it GNU/Linux understates the importances of all the other contributions.

Re:Licence problems?

[rapid prototype]

You obviously miss the fact that the source-code for the kernel is available for each and everyone to take up and fork off if your fears came true.

You obviously didn't read the articles linked to in the story. One details the fact that substantial amounts of binary-only code is in the source tree.

-rp

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[__aawsxp7741]

To quote the top poster, "Isn't it just a fancy system [...] ?" (emphasis mine). Now if that doesn't support the negative connotation...

Also, if you want to use an expression which is usually used in a negative way neutrally, that needs to be made clear.

BTW, I would be quite interested in seeing an example of a non-negative use of this expression.

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[cjstephen]

The effectiveness of the source control system used to develop any non-trivial, multi-developer project is critical.

Creating a good one isn't trivial.

In my opinion, CVS and RCS are far from the best solutions available. CVS behaves like an automation layer on top of the single file version control of RCS, not a change management system for a whole project. It can do most things other systems can do, but you may have to waste effort working around its weaknesses.

I've not used BitKeeper but I have used Perforce, another commercial product which can be used for free on Free software projects, and found the benefits to the development process significant. Making simple things trivial and hard things quite easy helps developers to do the right thing without getting in their way.

Minimising the cost of using the source control system to its fullest effect leads to many improvements throughout the software development process. I'd argue it leads to better, more maintainable code.

As a Linux user and free software advocate I'm glad that Linus is using BitKeeper, rather than CVS. I'd love to see a better free software source control system, but until we've built one I'd rather not sacrifice quality and efficiency in other important projects.

Show me the money

[nagora]

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

Re:Show me the money

[PigleT]

a) Dual-license it so companies who want to nick it for their own purposes and not release modifications have to sign a different agreement with you at some significant cost

b) have a consultancy business around the product specialising in easing installations and customization (with after-installation support an optional block cost)

c) sell t-shirts, caps, charge for shipping CDs with software on.

d) found a co-operative of several like-minded or related companies who want to advertise on your web-space

these are just ottomh. A little imagination might provide a few more :)

Re:Show me the money

[nagora]

a) Dual-license it so companies who want to nick it for their own purposes and not release modifications have to sign a different agreement with you at some significant cost

The issue here is not with their modifications. If a company uses the software without paying and without modifying it what difference does it make to the programmer?

b) have a consultancy business around the product specialising in easing installations and customization (with after-installation support an optional block cost)

Installation should work without calling in a consultant; also the programmer in the scenario wishes to program, not run a consultancy business. I've done this and I can tell you that it is boring and frustrating in the extreme.

sell t-shirts, caps, charge for shipping CDs with software on

Shipping doesn't enter into it when the program makes its way to rpmfind.net; t-shirts etc. just about cover the costs of the Reg and they have more users than a Linux CAD system can dream of.

d) found a co-operative of several like-minded or related companies who want to advertise on your web-space

Advertising is a dead duck at the moment. A co-operative might have some angle but, again, it's taking time away from the product.

Look at it this way: If I were an expert carpenter making furniture that people want to use I could hire people to deal with all the non-carpentry bits of the business. With Free Software I can't because there is no revenue stream at the start with which to build up the business. I can't sell a few copies and gradually find more and more outlets, initally doing everything myself and then hireing others to let me get back to the stuff I'm good at.

As soon as a copy appears on the 'Net I'm screwed. The only choices tend to be the sort of ones you've outlined, all of which pull me further and further away from the actual thing I'm good at.

TWW

Re:Show me the money

[deepchasm]

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.

If they want to be a programmer, and only a programmer, then why are you asking ways in which they can get paid for distributing software and manuals?

If they were just a programmer, then they would be doing bespoke software - someone comes to them (be it a separate company or just their boss) and tells them what they need a program to do. It gets written, and they get paid for their time. IMO the GPL can work very well in this situation - if the customer gets the software they asked for, what do they care if others can use it? After all, they're paying for the programmers time, not the software.

(Examples of this way of working are the improvements RMS made to Emacs for various companies - the improvements were GPLd and RMS was paid for his time)

Obviously a lot of software is not developed in this way, and this is where trying to make money from writing GPLd software falls down:

In the current software market it is obviously cheaper to develop one program and sell it to lots of people because that can spread out the cost of development (as apposed to bespoke software.)

Unfortunately, this means you can't "just be a programmer", because all your many customers aren't going to pay you in advance for, lets say, the new MS Office. You have to build your product with feature creap, so that it appeals to as many people as possible. On top of this, you then have to market your product at consumers. Only then do you see a return on your investment.

Anyway, this is why you can't use a GPL in this existing software industry and make millions.

Note, I'm not saying it's impossible to make money, and I'm not saying you can't make a living (you don't have to be dirty stinking rich to be successful), I'm not saying that the software industry will always be this way. But at the moment people are more concerned with making money than software, and trying to put the GPL in that kind of industry is like trying to bang a round peg into a square hole.

Re:Show me the money

[Hobbex]

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.

Re:Show me the money

[Corrado]

a) Dual-license it so companies who want to nick it for their own purposes and not release modifications have to sign a different agreement with you at some significant cost

The issue here is not with their modifications. If a company uses the software without paying and without modifying it what difference does it make to the programmer?

Dual-license it in the same vein as Ghostscript. Pay for the latest version; older versions are GPL'd. That way, everyone gets a go with the older stuff, and the programmer makes a bundle selling to those that must have the latest/greatest.

Re:Show me the money

[nagora]

If they want to be a programmer, and only a programmer, then why are you asking ways in which they can get paid for distributing software and manuals?

Writing a manual is part of writing a software package, especially if it's one you've designed yourself. Distribution has to be done at least initially by the programmer but the aim in a "real" industry would be to make enough money to pay someone to do that for you.

If they were just a programmer, then they would be doing bespoke software

The example, which I don't think is unrealistic, is someone that is using their programming skill to produce a new product based on their own experience of what is needed. If bespoke is the only option then you are saying that there is no role for the inventive programmer or the programmer who comes from a non-programming background who knows what their previous profession needs.

because all your many customers aren't going to pay you in advance

Are they going to pay at all? An initial release might be written in one's spare time but if it never produces an income how long can work on new versions be justified? Very few people have the finances RMS has now and fewer are willing to have the lifestyle he is reported to have lead in the early days before the prizes, grants and donations started rolling in.

But at the moment people are more concerned with making money than software,

I want to write software. I have to pay the mortgage. If that's what you mean by "more concerned" then you're right but that's the way of the world.

Basically, I can see no way of making ANY money from original software where the recipient can distribute the software in exactly the same way as the author without any consideration of what that may do to the author's ability to charge other people for their time.

I also do not want to live in a world where software is distributed without source code. This logically leads to distribution with source which may be modified for internal use but not distributed. RMS and the GPL would never allow that.

Are we any nearer a solution? Of course the answer might be that it just can't be done; that the effort of creating software can never be rewarded properly while source code is avalable; that's certainly MS's opinion but they are the best argument that closed-source does too little to reward the user.

TWW

Re:Show me the money

[nagora]

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

Re:Show me the money

[nagora]

Dual-license it in the same vein as Ghostscript. Pay for the latest version; older versions are GPL'd.

This is the most promising approach but, for the purposes of this discussion, has one big flaw: RMS. Imagine you've just written the first ever Ghostscript and you release it under a propriety license, intending to GPL in a year. The next day /. reports it and RMS releases a statement saying that it's not free and so should be deleted from every hard drive before it can brainwash everyone into thinking non-free software is acceptable. Sheesh!

TWW

Re:Show me the money

[stevey]

I see where you're going with this; and the standard stock answer is 'support'.

But with a fine manual your users aren't going to need it - and if there isn't a manual and you have a userbase all the users will help each other out..

It seems like you can only rely upon support if your application has few users; or has very big clients using it who are used to paying for support contracts - whether they need it or not.

(Or perhaps if customization/installation is different for each user - so no users have a situation in common with each other).

I think the best way forward is a compromise give most stuff away under GPL, and keep the juicy bits for yourself. Much like what Trolltech does with the Windows port of Qt.

Re:Show me the money

[Hobbex]

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.

Re:Show me the money

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

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...)

Re:Show me the money

[nagora]

But doesn't it strike you as bizarre that someone like myself with a quarter of a century's experience in what is supposed to be one of the key skills of the new industrial age is being told that the only applications of that skill is to either do it as a hobby or find some way of tagging along with someone that does something else?

The idea that you keep the day job and work as a hobbyist is an old and honorable one that inventors have been doing for years. But when such an inventor hits the jackpot with, for example, the wind-up radio they can exploit the success and start being inventors full-time. That is not an option in the world of the GPL: the jackpot only gives you the option to go and do something else (distribution, support etc). Does that seem to make sense to you?

TWW

Re:Show me the money

[nmos]

It depends on the software. In some cases you could offer to provide customized versions to businesses who need that. You could charge for updated versions of the manual. You could charge for support services. You could dual licence it to companies who want to include a modified version of your program in their own product. You will probably NOT ever become the next M$ by selling shrink wrapped Free Software to Joe consumer but that opportunity is mostly gone anyway.

Re:Show me the money

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Yes, it does strike me as strange. But there's lots of even stranger things going on in our economy. The President asks us to purchase more to make our economy better. You might think it would be much HARDER to meet all of our needs in an economy if everyone is consuming more, but apparently this is not the case.

If we can accept that, than accepting the idea that doing what's best for everyone else won't be best for your bottom line doesn't surprise me very much at all. That's essentially the problem here--the community is best served by Free software, but your bottom line is not. It seems less a problem with Free software, and more a problem with capitalism itself no one's managed to figure out. But someone had better figure it out soon before we consume our environment into destruction...

Re:Show me the money

[Anonymous Coward]

He isn't saying that the programmer shouldn't make a living, he said it is irrelevent how he does so. Of course Stallman believes everyone should be rich, so they could be happy and maybe even donate money to the FSF.

Here's an analogy: it is irrelevant how a cocaine pusher makes a living, he just shouldn't do it selling cocaine. It is irrelevent how Britney Spears makes living, she's still hot. It is irrelevent how my DJ neighbor makes a living, if he plays music that loud one more time I'm calling the police. Etc.

Back to your example of the programmer who slaves away making a big complecated piece of software and is finally done.

There are many ways to get paid. You can work for a company that wants that software, and doesn't care who else has it, and is willing to pay you to do it. You can make early versions with limited functionality and hope that people pay you do add the features they need after they start using it. All of these have the added advantage that they are more likely to succeed than your "hide in the garage" strategy.

But if you decide to invest years of your life on the promise of future income from selling a piece of software you are writing, you are fucked. You are fucked even if we ban the GPL and shoot all the GNU people; the software you describe is, like all software, infinitely copyable, and you'll get some money from some people, and large numbers of others will simply not pay. Go to gnutella and search on "*.iso" or the name of some really expensive package.

The truth is that even in the corporate world very few people do what you described. Some big hosues like Bell Labs will let you write shit for a decade in some basement in hopes it will be awesome when they finally see it. Most expect continual progress and feedback, and make you listen to the people who are using the early versions, to steer you in the right direction. They quit paying you if your shit doesn't look useful. Why do you think the independent world is different ? Hundreds of thousands of people are paid to write software, but actually very few make money selling software.

If you go hide in an ivory tower and write software for years, and it is awesome, well, you just did a lot of work for free. That's a feature of the digital age that exists no matter what, and the GPL just formalizes it.

If you want to survive in the digital age by writing useful software, you have to talk to people, convince them it is useful, convince them to believe you by having your previous predictions of useful products come out true, be attentive to their needs, etc.

The ivory tower theory here is yours. The idea that you can work for years and then expect me to pay you money is stupid. If you want me to pay you money, you better talk to me before you get to work. Or maybe you can find a patron like Michelangelo did for the Sistine Chapel; which, by the way, I can look at anytime I choose without paying, on the web.

The final analysis is this: society is under no obligation to subsidize your particular work-alone style of software production with a monopoly; society couldn't to that if they wanted to due to the nature of the digital medium; if society could and did want to, it's a bad way to make software so we shouldn't; and finally, it is your job to figure out how to make a living, just because you presented an implausible plan for it doesn't reflect any fault of the GNU project.

I sympathize with your sense of morality. The bible says "the laborer is worthy of his wage," and there is a natural sense of offense at someone working hard and productivly and not getting paid. But your efforts to ask society, and the mathematics of digital copying, to change so one particular strategy of hard work will be rewarded, are doomed. The universe is what it is, and it will not change so your hypothetical programmer makes money. But your hypothetical programmer can change, and do something different, and make money for writing software in some other way.

Re:Show me the money

[nagora]

the software you describe is, like all software, infinitely copyable, and you'll get some money from some people, and large numbers of others will simply not pay.

The ability to set the law on people is not insignificant in the example of a niche application that is only going to be seriously used by companies who will not want to be sued. It doesn't matter if the warez-kiddies pass it around as they were never the market in the first place. However, the GPL makes it impossible to stop even the target market screwing you.

The truth is that even in the corporate world very few people do what you described.

So are you saying that the way things are done at the moment is as good as it can get and there's nothing FSF, RMS, Linus, or anyone can do about it? If so I think you might be right.

Hundreds of thousands of people are paid to write software, but actually very few make money selling software.

A lot of people write books but no one expects them to do it for free even in the bright new digital age. It is, however, one possible future for writers and the same question will face them: "Why are we discriminated against in this new age?"

This is the crux of the matter and the flaw in your argument that the GPL just formalizes this discrimination. The GPL does more than that, it actually creates the discrimination by removing the authors right to say "if you use my work, pay me". It attempts to replace it with "if you use the community (of programmers) work, pay us in kind". Unfortunately, "kind" doesn't put food on the table. In this sense the GPL is actively unfair to programmers because it gives the right to make money off their time and effort to everyone who comes into contact with it. As I say, in the digital future this is going to be an issue for writers of books too.

If you want to survive in the digital age by writing useful software, you have to talk to people, convince them it is useful, convince them to believe you by having your previous predictions of useful products come out true, be attentive to their needs, etc.

And where does the money appear in this?

The idea that you can work for years and then expect me to pay you money is stupid.

The idea that people will produce useful things for free is pretty stupid to me. They will, and do, produce some things but there is an obvious problem with larger projects that take a sigificant portion of a working year.

f you want me to pay you money, you better talk to me before you get to work.

Why? When you are shopping and see a new product you like do you just go home and write a letter to the manufacturer saying "I would have bought your product if only you had consulted me first"? Of course not.

Or maybe you can find a patron like Michelangelo did for the Sistine Chapel; which, by the way, I can look at anytime I choose without paying, on the web.

I think the copyright has run out on that by now. Seriously, though, the patron system of that period did give freedom to artists but it is based on the fact that only one person can own the artwork at a time. The Sistine Chapel may have been open to the public but it need not have been. When only one person owns the product then it is fair enough that they pay the whole cost. Our modern markets, particularly in software, are based on the fact that most projects are not paid off by their first sale; the personal computer would not exist today if Woz and Jobs, or dozens of others, had needed a visionary and rich patron to get them going.

society is under no obligation to subsidize your particular work-alone style of software production with a monopoly;

I'm not asking for subsidy, I'm asking for pay. A susidy implies that the cost outweighs the value; that's not what I'm talking about at all.

society couldn't to that if they wanted to due to the nature of the digital medium

Society can and does give me the tools to to it (copyright laws), why should a programmer not have the same rights that anyone else has? You are arguing that practical issues make it impossible to force payment from everyone that uses my code; that's true but the GPL additionally make it impossible for me to force payment from anyone beyond the first user.

if society could and did want to, it's a bad way to make software so we shouldn't;

On the contrary, it's the best way to make new software with totally new ideas and approaches.

finally, it is your job to figure out how to make a living, just because you presented an implausible plan for it doesn't reflect any fault of the GNU project.

In the framework of the topic (RMS's issues with Bitkeeper) the GNU project IS the problem. The implausability is caused by RMS's insistance that providing the source code must include giving the right to profit from that source code. This is the killer for any real industry of independant programmers who wish to live off their work while allowing their users to have control of the software they have bought for their own use.

The universe is what it is, and it will not change so your hypothetical programmer makes money

The universe is neither here nor there; laws and morals can and do change to accomodate people's changing desires and aspirations. I can make money designing colour schemes for houses; why am I to be denied the ability to make money from desiging and writing software simply because I think the user should get the source code?

TWW

Re:Show me the money

[doom]

nagora wrote: 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?

Here are some of the answers people have come up with:

1. Go into business as a consultant adding features to the code that are requested by the major corporate users of it.
2. Polish up the PDF a bit, and get O'Reilly/SAMS/whoever publish it in printed form.
3. Use the success of the free project to attract the attention or proprietary software developers, and sell your services to them at the highest rate possible.

Another question you might want to ask yourself is how is it possible for the programmer to make money selling closed source binaries? You think you're going to beat Autodesk at this game? Is that at all realistic?

Re:Show me the money

[RGRistroph]

The truth is that even in the corporate world very few people do what you described.

"So are you saying that the way things are done at the moment is as good as it can get and there's nothing FSF, RMS, Linus, or anyone can do about it? If so I think you might be right." No, that's not what I am saying. Things are not good at the moment, but they getting better, largely due to the efforts of those people. When I said "few people do what you described" what I meant was few people spent years writing some CAD program and then made money off of it. Instead, they get paid, and in fact the company has revenue, through out the entire process. The type of work you are trying to preserve simply never existed in the first place.

Hundreds of thousands of people are paid to write software, but actually very few make money selling software.

"A lot of people write books but no one expects them to do it for free . . . "

I took the liberty of bolding "selling" in my original quote. In the original statement, what I meant was the many people were paid to write software, and few derived that income as a result of copyright law. The complete repeal of Title 17, which would also make the GPl invalid, would destroy less than half of all software jobs, maybe much less.

If you want to survive in the digital age by writing useful software, you have to talk to people, convince them it is useful, convince them to believe you by having your previous predictions of useful products come out true, be attentive to their needs, etc.

"And where does the money appear in this?"

If you have nothing they want to pay you for, you will have to go into another line of work besides computers. This is true now, and it will be true after the GPL takes over, and after copyright law is reformed or eliminated.

society is under no obligation to subsidize your particular work-alone style of software production with a monopoly;

"I'm not asking for subsidy, I'm asking for pay. A susidy implies that the cost outweighs the value; that's not what I'm talking about at all."

Outweighing the value is exactly what I am talking about. Why should the entire nation be prevented from doing certain things with computers (i.e, distributing what you wrote) ? Normally one should think that the entire nation would benefit, because a new business was created. But the costs are no longer trivial; if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except through RIAA style locks on all digital devices, are we getting our money's worth for your business ? No.

if society could and did want to, it's a bad way to make software so we shouldn't;

"On the contrary, it's the best way to make new software with totally new ideas and approaches."

If it was a totally new idea and approach, the GPL wouldn't even come into it -- you would put your totally new code under whatever license you chose to. But like someother people who like to beef about "totally new," you really want to stand on the shoulders of giants by using their code, but not pay them by respecting their licenses. So you are raising all kinds of FUD about the fall of economy, which is really just the (possible) fall of your business, in an attempt to scare people into not licensing under the GPL.

finally, it is your job to figure out how to make a living, just because you presented an implausible plan for it doesn't reflect any fault of the GNU project.

"In the framework of the topic (RMS's issues with Bitkeeper) the GNU project IS the problem. The implausability is caused by RMS's insistance that providing the source code must include giving the right to profit from that source code. This is the killer for any real industry of independant programmers who wish to live off their work while allowing their users to have control of the software they have bought for their own use."

RMS and his followers will build a complete system of computing in which everyone can access the source code. Some people will make money in the that separate ecosystem. If you can't figure out how to, don't write new code by extending GNU code. If all your customers leave you for the FSF/GNU world, well, write better shit and charge less and bring them back. Or look at the people making money in the FSF world and emulate them. But don't simply try to talk the FSF people out of doing it, because it's a waste of time, it won't work.

"I can make money designing colour schemes for houses; why am I to be denied the ability to make money from desiging and writing software simply because I think the user should get the source code?"

There are some ways to make money designing color schemes for houses. But you can't force people to buy them at the point of a gun, and you may find it difficult to stop the neighbors from painting their house the same way. Similarly, you are not being denied the ability to make money from designing and writing software any more than you are being denied the ability to make money mining astroids. The details of both schemes are up to you. Just because it's hard to get metals from astroids, doesn't mean it's smart for you to find the miner's equivalent of a slashdot web board and start trying to convince them not to dig metal on earth, to preserve your job.

I posted this response logged in, so you could email me if you wish; I'm interested in continuing the discussion. My ideas about how the industry will look in a few years when GNU is really taking over have been through a lot of arguments like this, and I am actively trying to learn the skills and come up with ideas to prosper in the (g)new era, and I'd be happy to share my ideas.

Re:Show me the money

[Sloppy]

IMHO, only one way.

Step 0: Someone wants a CAD program, so they hire a lone programmer at an hourly rate. Programmer writes the program, paid as he does it.

Then proceed to your step 1.

You must be paid for doing the work, not paid for supplying the product.

This is feasible for some types of software. (e.g. I do make money writing custom software billed at an hourly rate. But this is very expensive considering what the customers get for it. But if you need it, you need it. There are very few customers. Almost too few...) It is probably not very feasible with other types of software. (e.g. I am not going to spend thousands of dollars to hire someone to write a game for me to play.) You could group the funders using street performer protocol and it's variations, though. But this is still mostly theoretical.

Re:Show me the money

[nagora]

I posted this response logged in, so you could email me if you wish; ... I am actively trying to learn the skills and come up with ideas to prosper in the (g)new era, and I'd be happy to share my ideas.

Well, let's share them with everyone for now ;)

My intent is not to question the GPL from the point of view of a programmer that takes GPL'd software and builds on it. In that context the GPL is fine by me, if you want to use someone else's code then you'll have to abide by their restrictions.

The issue of not writing software based on GNU code is irrelivant to me as I've never done it nor intend to do it; not being a C programmer makes this easy.

The circle I'm trying to square is the maker of original software that wishes to devote their working life to the production of high-quality, well documented programs which are distributed in source form.

On the one hand the GPL is useless for this person, on the other RMS will rant and rave at anyone that uses the software unless the user is free to profit from it in exactly the same way as the author.

One reply to this is "Sod RMS and just do it", but when things like BitKeeper crop up and people start hassling the author because of what RMS has said then it's a concern for anyone else that is thinking of entering the software business. Note that I don't actually like McVoy's licence terms but the principle is the vocal opposition of non-GPL-compatible licences of any sort.

The bottom line is that there are lots of companies making money by selling closed-source programs and none doing it with open-source programs (not libraries) that I know of.

I simply do not see the distinction between being paid to write software and making money selling software; if I make enough money selling software I'll hire someone to do the sales for me, that doesn't mean that I'm no longer making money from selling the software. In the corporate setting my wages pay for the code I've sold to the company that week, or in expectation of software I will sell to them during my period of employment. It's still making money from selling my work.

If you have nothing they want to pay you for, you will have to go into another line of work besides computers.

The issue for the GPL-author is that if you have something they want they still don't have to pay you so long as someone else has the code and doesn't want paid. Every sale of GPLd code undermines the author's market. The same is true of non-GPL'd code but in that case the undermining is illegal and action can take place at least in theory.

Why should the entire nation be prevented from doing certain things with computers (i.e, distributing what you wrote) ?

Why should they be allowed? They're not allowed to do that with any other creative work and even the GPL is based on such copyright laws. I have no interest in extending the current, or rather the pre-DMCA, laws - they were quite good and reached a decent balance.

if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except through RIAA style locks on all digital devices,

That is not the cost. That is the cost of forcing users the pay for every copy of a work that they have for personal use. The pirating issue is just an excuse to squeeze more cash out of non-pirates in the same way that region codes on DVD's are just a cartel's way of fixing prices. Users have never had free rein to distribute to others without permission and that seems fair enough to me.

Similarly, you are not being denied the ability to make money from designing and writing software

Technically, this is true. In practice RMS has made it clear that pressure will be brought to bear on anyone that does not accept the three principles of freedom to modify, freedom to distribute, and free access to source code;. My beef is with the second one of these, and only the second, and I would normally choose to release any new, original software without it. Doing so would lead, if the software becomes popular, to being branded an enemy of the Free Software Movement, and I don't see that it's true, or that it's right that this should happen.

My ideas about how the industry will look in a few years when GNU is really taking over

GNU can never take over the industry as it can not sustain the industry's basic unit - the programmer - in any numbers. Projects which take a year to carry through can be paid for from savings but if there's no chance that the market will pay a fair price for the finised article, who would bother?

Relying on everyone scratching their own itches is not going to motivate people like the one in my original example and yet they are exactly the sort of people that many industries need: experienced in the industry and interested in producing a software product based on that experience which could help the industry. If people like that can not see any reward for their efforts then most software will address current and immediate issues and revolutionary ideas and visionary software will be stiffled.

Is the choice facing programers "Be poor but ethical or professional and evil"?

TWW

Re:Show me the money

[RGRistroph]

The circle I'm trying to square is the maker of original software that wishes to devote their working life to the production of high-quality, well documented programs which are distributed in source form.

That's a vague and very encompassing discription. I think of many plans which would count under that, and doom you to bankruptcy today; and I'm sure that if everyone wrote code under the GPL, there would be other and different ways to fail and succeed at that task.

You seem to think that the only way to make money is off of the copyright priviledge. In fact, that's simply not the case, and it's simply not the case that most people writing code today live off of that.

The bottom line is that there are lots of companies making money by selling closed-source programs and none doing it with open-source programs (not libraries) that I know of.

First of all, I'm not talking about open source, I'm talking about Free Software, specifically under the GPL. Secondly, it's not an axiom or law of nature that their have to be lots of companies making a killing selling software. (It's not an axiom that you don't die bankrupt, either.) Also, why do you exclude libraries ?

I simply do not see the distinction between being paid to write software and making money selling software;; if I make enough money selling software I'll hire someone to do the sales for me, that doesn't mean that I'm no longer making money from selling the software. In the corporate setting my wages pay for the code I've sold to the company that week, or in expectation of software I will sell to them during my period of employment. It's still making money from selling my work.

The last case, where you make money from selling your work, doesn't depend on copyright at all.

Let's take the example of someone who writes, say, software that tracks every train Burlington Northern owns and operates, and can display it on a big map and you can click on it to see the cargo, etc. That person is getting paid to write software. If congress repeals all copyright law, their job is still safe, because BN still needs that software -- regardless of whether they are an actual employee of BN, or of a contractor, or whatever. The market for that software is still there. There is no other customer, and no one would pirate it, because no one else has Burlington Northerns' rail network.

On the other hand, there are programmers whose job is dependent on copyrights. Say, a guy who is working for Quicken putting in new features. If copyright vanishes, a couple of people just through their cracked Quicken .iso's on gnutella, the profit from that edition is gone. Quicken might not go bankrupt immediately, hell, maybe they would thrash around writing new versions on a short release cycle and trying to squeeze something out of each release, selling support and customizations to big firms, and they might even survive. But the shrink wrapped box in Best Buy is history.

My point is that the percentage of people who jobs will actually change if copyright disappears is smaller than you think -- something like 10% to 50%, I don't know. But most people would keep on working. I've written software professionally since 1996, getting paid every year, and not one lick of it ever comes under copyright -- it's not distributed to other places at all. That is actually the majority of software jobs out there.

me:if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except through RIAA style locks on all digital devices,

You: That is not the cost. That is the cost of forcing users the pay for every copy of a work that they have for personal use. The pirating issue is just an excuse to squeeze more cash out of non-pirates in the same way that region codes on DVD's are just a cartel's way of fixing prices. Users have never had free rein to distribute to others without permission and that seems fair enough to me.

The hell that is not cost. If you have some scheme of running an industry that has been knocked into a cocked hat, and your solution is that the next CD drive I buy has a digital key in it and won't play my CDs, then I am damn sure paying a cost and subsidizing your broken money making scheme, as sure as the sugar tariff makes me subsidize beat farmers, as sure as the expensive gas that has ten percent ethanol means I am subsidizing ADM, etc, etc.

Here's some more security related examples: one time the ranchers down here in Texas had a broken-ass way of branding cattle but not fencing off land (it wasn' t broken-ass to begin with, but hey, the world changed, just like it's changing for you and me) and to stop brand modification and cattle rustling they had to form posses which swept through innocent people's property, shoving their winchester's in their faces and sometimes taking their honestly owned but unbranded livestock. Those people were paying a to subsidize the big rancher's inability to figure out how to make a living in a changing world.

At times various countries (notably Germany in the 20's and 30's) tried to pay for all radio stations with a tax on radios, based on the number of vacuum tubes. Needless to say, that system gradually fell apart, not the least because people bought radios from other countries and smuggled them in. Anyone who ever missed a train because the customs guy was searching their bag for a non-existent radio paid a subsidy to the idiotic radio scheme.

The problem for your hypothetical programmer who wants to devote his life to writing a beautiful piece of software and then extract money from every person who ever uses it, is that his "posses" and "customs men" (i.e, the copyright enforcers) may not even make the scheme work for a little while.

In practice RMS has made it clear that pressure will be brought to bear on anyone that does not accept the three principles of freedom to modify, freedom to distribute, and free access to source code; My beef is with the second one of these, and only the second . . .

GNU can never take over the industry as it can not sustain the industry's basic unit - the programmer - in any numbers. Well, I explained above that most or many programmers are sustained in a way entirely orthagonal to copyright and thus the GPL. What will happen is that those programmers who most directly depend on freedom-limiting plans of making money (like your plan of making money by limiting people's second freedom) will find their money supply drying up. There are lots of other ways to make money. It is likely that a lot more software will be written by people who are not primarily software writers, but other engineers or professionals trying to get their primary job done (this isn't due purely to social/GPL related reasons; this is also due to technical shifts in the rise of powerful but easy to learn languages, GUI programming tools like that HP labview crap I hate, etc). The large corporate houses will go the way of Enron and SCO, for the most part. On the other hand, some places like IBM, will survive just fine -- they make money for making things work, not just for selling Title 17 rights.

In general, society will stop putting as much money into the production of software. However, the collapse of the big houses will be matched by the rise of small companies and individual consultants who can do amazing things because they have knowledge of and access to an emmense body of work. In the end, although less money total will be going into the sector of software production, I think more money total will end up in the pockets of programmers; the corporate overhead will disappear out of the industry entirely.

Let me try another one of my overblown and ineffective analogies.

If someone in 1900 invented steam powered digging robots, and went down to Panama all by his lonesome and dug a canal, so that he could charge fees to ships and become a billionaire, would his twenty years hard work in the jungle fixing rusty robots be rewarded with a lifetime of ease ?

No, because Teddy Roosevelt would send down the marines and take that canal, just like he took Panama itself to build it in the first place.

Does this mean that no canals happen ? No, canals just aren't built that way. Just because your awesome work of beautiful CAD tool programming will never make the writer a dime, doesn't mean that the GPL is invalidated, or that somehow all the GNU people just aren't acknowledging realities of the world, or whatever. It just means that some naive and romantic vision of the way things happen in the real world turned out not to be true.

It just means that you found another way to waste your life, out of the thousands that already exist, like killing yourself on whiskey while writing the great american novel, like playing clubs for free drinks until the big break finally comes, etc, etc.

Binary == Source

[dstone]

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. ;-)

Re:Binary == Source

[dstone]

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.

Re:Binary == Source

[GigsVT]

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. :)

Re:Binary == Source

[dvdeug]

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.

Re:Binary == Source

[Bob Uhl]

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.

Re:Binary == Source

[danro]

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!

Re:Binary == Source

[scosol]

That's always been one of my big problems with the whole source/binary code thing.

Going from source to binary is nothing more than a translation.

Hey RMS- I'll give you the source code alright... it's in a language I wrote, and compiles on a compiler I wrote- and no you can't have the compiler.

What's that?
You say that the sourcecode appears to be nothing more than a random sequence of words and numbers?
Well I don't give a shit- in *my* language on *my* compiler it makes this "binary"- prove me wrong :)

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[coryboehne]

At the very least I have the guts to post under a real account with karma, you post your flamebait under anonymous coward. Hmm, tells ya something does'nt it?

Maybe a bitkeeper in emacs

[mab]

Emacs can do everything so why not CVS.

RMS is a good programmer so if he doesn't like bitkeeper maybe he should write something better.

Re:Maybe a bitkeeper in emacs

[PigleT]

Which bit of VC / CVS-mode have you not used?

Emacs is currently keeping my job sane - I get patches in the mail every day, have to save out, gunzip, and apply and commit them. I can do all this with emacs, Gnus, Ediff-mode and vc-mode - and most importantly I don't have to leave my environment to run gunzip in a shell.

Re:Maybe a bitkeeper in emacs

[SuperKendall]

The original post was a little unclear - he wasn't complaining that Emacs didn't work with CVS. Instead, he was saying "Why is it that CVS is not as well thought out and powerful as Emacs?". In other words, why has RMS not sat down to improve CVS by leaps and bounds?

I have wondered myself for a while why more modern features like tracking directory changes have not bee built into CVS yet, or why there don't seem to be any other good candidates - whenever I look around I find some projects aiming to build improved SCM software but I don't recall seeing much of anything out of the very early stages of development.

Re:Maybe a bitkeeper in emacs

[Dahan]

RMS is a good programmer so if he doesn't like bitkeeper maybe he should write something better.

RMS doesn't actually write any code these days; he just goes around looking for stuff to whine about. Think of him as the Jesse Jackson of the computer world.

Re:Maybe a bitkeeper in emacs

[RGRistroph]

The reason why tracking directory changes isn't in there is that most projects don't need that. By the time a project does need it, the developers have been using CVS for a while, and think according to it's limitations, and arrange their projects accordingly.

The question is, what features of CVS were considered lacking for this particular project, i.e., the linux kernel ?

Parenthetically, I'd like to note that in my (limited) experience, people who resist CVS usually just don't want to learn the new tool and see it as interfering in their normal work by making them type bureaucratic commands before editting files (not true, this is a false perception derived from other version management systems) or they just don't want to really collaborate at all, and the objections to CVS are a way to say "I really don't want to work that closely with you."

Obviously the last case doesn't apply to Linus :)

We can also be confident Linus is not rejecting CVS from a position of ignorance. Go to groups.google.com and do the search on "author:Linus author:Torvalds cvs" and you can see his comments on the subject; he describes using CVS for work, and specific objections such as the ease of finding changes related only to a specific set of committs, stuff about branching, etc.

However, in the limited search through the usenet postings I've done, I didn't see him ask for a feature that simply can't be done with CVS. Those things are complecated, and you might end up writing a little bash alias/function to automatically construct some of the weirder commands, but they are not impossible; I'm an idiot and I've figured out how do keep multiple branches and merge a successful one back into the main tree. You just print out the big manual/guide by Pers Cederqvist and read the first 20 to 30 pages to get started, and after that look things up.

There is one thing that you do need to think about beforehand, and that is a scheme for branch naming and tagging (which are different things). If you have some type of system by which you give an easy to figure out tag to the point where you start a branch it makes it easier to go to the end of the branch and get a diff against the root of that branch, thus seeing all changes associated with that branch. People who use CVS for big things can describe their schemes.

The one issue which I am not sure about CVS handling, is keeping multiple respositories on different machines and synching between them in a truly distributed fasion. If it's possible it would consist of some kludge like putting the kernel CVS repository under CVS control in a separate repository. But I am not entirely sure that is something you want to do in CVS anyway. If I wanted to hack on a code base for an extented period while away from net connectivity to the repository, I would copy the repository to my machine, disconnect and hack away. If I did minor changes and never needed to commit to my local copy, upon re-connecting I would point my working directory back at the real repository (this consists of running a little recursive perl script that edits the right places in all the CVS/Root and CVS/Repository files, lots of people have had to do this and you can find different tools to do that) and updating and committing. If I made a series of commits while away, and new branchs and etc, then it would be complecated and you would end up with various perl scripts wrapping around lots of getting stuff from various tags in one repository and committing to the other, a real pain. Those scripts would essentially add those functionalities to CVS, maybe even more difficult than putting it into CVS directly.

But the point is it is possible. And if someone of Linus's stature asks for something in CVS, he's likely to get it. So I'm still disappointed in the current state of affairs. However, I am sure that many free software advocates are embarassed by the uproar and what it implies about the current state of CVS, and like me, are poking through the old posts to see what needs to be fixed or enhanced. The end result of all this will be good.

Re:Maybe a bitkeeper in emacs

[SuperKendall]

I think RMS's point was that the end result may well not be good - why should anyone bother to fix up CVS when they can just use BitKeeper? More importantly, *will* anyone bother to fix CVS? Even with Linus asking, who will pick up that torch for real?

Regarding CVS features - I love CVS and am fine with using it. However, at every single company I've been at CVS is dropped in favor of newer (and often inferior) tools because they have features like directory versioning. I've found very few SCM groups (actually none) willing to use CVS. I think if it had more advanaced features I would be able to have more traction in arguing for its use.

The last paragraph is important

[jhines]

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.

Re:Licence problems?

[Disoculated]

Er, whatever else happens, I'd like to think of people with enough skill to be submitting kernel patches (that might be accepted, anyway) are above the "1 0wn j00!!" skill level and know something about different development enviornments. Or maybe I'm on crack.

true but

[Clansman]

If he did then some of the big projects would just switch and the negative publicity would hurt.

Its a free market, this free software lark - if people want to they can take cvs and build a free bit keeper competitor ...

Sorry, but that's progress baby.

[gosand]

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?

[dstone]

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?

Re:What about FSF machines' BIOS & firmware?

[tonyt]

note how they call themselves the FSF, not the FHF.

think about it.

Re:What about FSF machines' BIOS & firmware?

[bad-badtz-maru]

What are the 8 common anti debate tactics?

Re:What about FSF machines' BIOS & firmware?

[evilviper]

Considering that they are written in assembly, it does indeed come with source code.

I appreciate your point of view, but you picked a terrible example.

Re:What about FSF machines' BIOS & firmware?

[seanadams.com]

Considering that they are written in assembly, it does indeed come with source code

Repeat after me: machine language != assembler source. You can disassemble it, but you don't get the labels, comments, formatting, and macros back. Good luck trying to do anything with that...

Re:What about FSF machines' BIOS & firmware?

[evilviper]

Source code does not strictly NEED to include comments, and the labels can be easilly recreated wherever you see a jump. Don't bother trying to convince me it's unusable' I've done quite a bit of work in assembly.

Role models

[ceej]

Good. I like a role model who has the sense to use the best tool for the job, and who doesn't waste his time with inferior tools.

Re:Role models

[JordanH]

• Good. I like a role model who has the sense to use the best tool for the job, and who doesn't waste his time with inferior tools.

Best has a context associated with it. RMS believes that best is always free as in GPL'd. Anything else, to him, is inferior.

Linus himself was quoted as saying "Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did. "

I'm concerned about what I see as extreme pragmatism on Linus' part. Surely, better software, in terms of features and useability, isn't the only criteria for determining it's selection. Price is obviously a major criterion with such internet-developed projects as the Linux Kernel.

As far as I can tell, the BitKeeper license doesn't insure that future versions, perhaps even versions necessary to run on future OS releases, will still be free of charge and without source, we can't be sure that we could make it work on those releases.

Maybe this is just paranoia and there's really nothing to worry about, or maybe not.

RMS is insistent and consistent. Somebody has to be.

I like Barry Goldwater's statement "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." To RMS this is about liberty and he doesn't compromise.

It seems to me that there are two choices: The GPL is adopted for purely pragmatic reasons because we can outcompete closed source development. The other is that the GPL is adopted as a principled position.

If we take the first position, then will we stop using Linux the moment something better comes along in terms of features, useability and stability? After all, the existence of BitKeeper proves that, at least in some contexts, that closed source development is superior to Open Source Development models. Doesn't it?

Let me ask you. Should we adopt MicroSoft software if it offers better features and useability? Or... are there other concerns than the narrow "best tool for the job" consideration?

Re:Role models

[AstroJetson]

Let me ask you. Should we adopt MicroSoft software if it offers better features and useability?

Short answer:
Yes, in my opinion.

Long answer:
That's a personal decision. If 'best' to you means that it offers better features and useability without consideration of other factors such as license, then you should use MS software if you feel that it is the most functional thing out there. In my case, I don't use BSD/Linux because they're open/free. I use them because I think they're the best tools for the job (from a purely pragmatic viewpoint). If MS offered something that I thought was better, I'd consider switching, even if I had to pay for it. (I don't think this is likely, but it is conceivable.)

On the other hand, if your definition of 'best' takes into consideration the ideology behind the software, if you (like RMS) require software to be free before you will consider it worthy of use then obviously the answer is no.

It boils down to how pragmatic/ideological you are. Linus is and has always been the pragmatic type, whereas Stallman....well, you know where he stands.

Let me also say that I don't fault RMS for (what some consider to be) his extremism. As you say: someone has to be. To move something of enormous inertia, you either have to push really hard or have a lot of people pushing with you.

Re:Role models

[kirkjobsluder]

It seems to me that there are two choices: The GPL is adopted for purely pragmatic reasons because we can outcompete closed source development. The other is that the GPL is adopted as a principled position.

If we take the first position, then will we stop using Linux the moment something better comes along in terms of features, useability and stability? After all, the existence of BitKeeper proves that, at least in some contexts, that closed source development is superior to Open Source Development models. Doesn't it?

Let me ask you. Should we adopt MicroSoft software if it offers better features and useability? Or... are there other concerns than the narrow "best tool for the job" consideration?

Some of us use closed source because its not just an issue of "best tool for the job" but the closed source is the only tool that works! For an example, my ability to work depends on speech recognition software where I have the choice between and L&H commercial product and an IBM commercial product (although the interface for ViaVoice is open, the speech engine is not.)

Given that in many cases the closed-source commercial software is not only the "best for the job" but stalling on deployment may have a fairly large negative human cost, the purist position is not morally defensible.

Re:Role models

[JordanH]

I want to point out that I was trying to speak for RMS' view above. I myself do not nor cannot, at this point, use only free software to support myself

I do feel that large GPL'd projects like Linux should stay true to a philosophy that made them possible. I was saying that to adopt the GPL only for pragmatic reasons is no different than adopting any other non-free software for pragmatic reasons.

ClearCase is not centralized

[ives]

I wonder why he keeps saying that ClearCase is a centralized system. With
ClearCase MultiSite source code repositories can easily be replicated and kept in sync between different sites.

Together with other divisions on different continents, we've been working on large software projects using MultiSite for several years now.

Re:ClearCase is not centralized

[arivanov]

One site is always a master, the rest are slaves for a specific branch. For another branch roles may be swapped of course.

There are also some specifics dealing with the conflict resolutions and obvious races in them. Usually the lusers never see that. It is for the cm to sweat over and sort them out.

Anyway, Larry is right, you are wrong.

RTFM again please.

Re:ClearCase is not centralized

[ethereal]

ClearCASE multisite is still client-server, not distributed. If it were really distributed right, I wouldn't have to wait on the daily export/import from overseas.

ClearCASE has a nice *nix API, great security and triggers, and possibly their ClearQuest/unified change management/whatever it is are great (haven't used them yet myself), but right now they stink at being distributed. Even CVS or bonsai would provide better distributed access to source than ClearCASE does at the moment. ClearCASE multisite is still optimized for UUCP-style replication of version-controlled data; it hasn't reached the Internet age yet.

And I'm speaking as a ClearCASE user and admin (including multisite) since v2.1. BitKeeper doesn't sound like it would work 100% for what we do either, but on the other hand I'm not sure how many more releases of ClearCASE (the Unix GUI becomes more unusable every time) we can take :)

Fast machine!

[Chacham]

From the article:(I got to log into his 8 way Xeon box, wheeee! Fast machine!).

Makes you wonder. Would he rather go to an amusement park, or compile the kernel on a fast machine.

Re:Fast machine!

[wscott]

Get him to post a picture of the "swing" in his backyard and I think you will know the answer.

BitKeeper is proprietary, and that's okay

[_|()|\|]

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.

Re:BitKeeper is proprietary, and that's okay

[gorilla]

although I question the wisdom of putting a startup in an area that demands $160K salaries

Remember that it costs the employer more than just the salary. Benefits, taxes and so on add to the cost.

Re:BitKeeper is proprietary, and that's okay

[afidel]

If there had been freeware SCO Linux likely wouldn't exist. Linus made Linux because the proprietary unice's were SO expensive and there were no noncommercial liscenses. He later fell into the learning/development track, but he would likely not have had there been a cheap/free unix offering.

Re:BitKeeper is proprietary, and that's okay

[cobar]

The BSDs would. There had been people interested in a free BSD for a long time, even before Linux was released, if you look at usenet archives. When the legal problems were happening/problems with 386bsd, a number of them started checking out Linux.

Re:BitKeeper is proprietary, and that's okay

[Phronesis]

Also, speaking for myself, I'd take a pay cut to work on free software. (I think I could get by on $100K.)

Aside from the question of overhead (loaded vs. takehome), which others have addressed articulately, I would point out that according to Larry, the TOTAL revenue BitKeeper could expect under a GPL business model would be around $150K per year. Given 25 programmer years going into Bitkeeper, this would mean that your $100K per year would be paid out over the next 17 years at a rate of about $6K per year for every year you had worked at BitKeeper (first year, you get $5K, second $10K, third year, $15K, etc., ramping up to a steady rate of $100K per year after 17 years).

Would you still make this choice?

Re:BitKeeper is proprietary, and that's okay

[drsmithy]

Also, speaking for myself, I'd take a pay cut to work on free software. (I think I could get by on $100K.)

Aw, poor baby. Are you *sure* you could manage to "get by" on a paltry US$100k a year ?

Re:BitKeeper is proprietary, and that's okay

[_|()|\|]

Are you *sure* you could manage to "get by" on a paltry US$100k a year?

Well, that's only if I get my six weeks vacation.

Re:Delete BitKeeper

[SurfsUp]

The parent post, a perfectly normal post, was modded down as 'redundant'. There is a pattern of that here, today (read the modded down posts - yes of course, some are the usual trolls). Who is modding those posts down, and why? Please judge for yourself whether the parent is 'redundant' (and in particular, watch for this post to be modded down).

There was a need for a source code managment tool with some new features. Free ones exist, why not add to them? Then the entire world could benefit.

Free Software will change the world. Companies can still make money and programmers will still have jobs. There will be a market for customising software and adding features. There will be a market for providing training and support (and people will pay it because they didn't spend money of the software).

In fact there will probably be more jobs and more programmers hired because software as a whole will start moving forward at a much quicker pace.

When everyone realises this there will be no market for BitKeeper, to make this happen people must think about Freedom.

proprietary vendors cloud free, not FSF

[_|()|\|]

Why do FSF advocates insist on clouding the difference between the right to free-use and the right to change the source?

On the contrary, I think the FSF explains the different types of free software very clearly. The common response to a question such as yours is: would you buy a car with the hood welded shut? You're not a mechanic, so what do you care?

Take, for example, Intel Solaris. It was distributed free of charge from its web site, ISOs and all. I download it, install it on my web server, happy as a clam that I have a free, enterprise O/S behind MyPuppySam.org. Oops, the web server crashed, and I have to reinstall. Hmm, the Solaris CD-R is scratched. "Hey, buddy, can I borrow your Solaris disk?" I ask my friend. "Sorry, dude, didn't you read the license agreement? I'm not allowed to lend you my copy. You'll have to go download it again," he replies. Oops, it's not available for download any more, because it's been "deferred," whatever that means. Guess I'll have to pay $50 and wait for the mail man. I guess I should count myself lucky that I can buy the media kit, at all.

Re:proprietary vendors cloud free, not FSF

[kz45]

On the contrary, I think the FSF explains the different types of free software [gnu.org] very clearly. The common response to a question such as yours is: would you buy a car with the hood welded shut? You're not a mechanic, so what do you care?

I think a closer argument would be: would you buy a car without the design plans from the company?

Re:proprietary vendors cloud free, not FSF

[GigsVT]

I don't buy that. In order to change the car, replace parts of you, you do not need design plans, you can simply measure the bolt spacings, etc, and get the part you need, even replacing the whole engine. Reverse engineering compiled binaries to make a large change to them is an order of magnitude harder.

I'd say it's worse than the hood welded shut, it's more like having all the parts welded together, which would have to be carefully cut and remilled to replace one part of it.

FSF leaders

[kz45]

condemned by free software icon Richard Stallman

How can this nutjob be considered an icon of freedom in the linux community?

It's obvious he only has room for his own self interests.

Absolute nonsense

[FreeUser]

The system is no longer GNU + Linux kernel. If it's about giving credit in proportional amounts, then X, perl, Berkeley, Apache, Netscape, and many other major contributors should also be recognized.

That is just flatout nonsense, and has been rebutted so many times, so effectively, that one seriously wonders how people can still say that with a straight face, much less get modded up to +5 for it. The reasons, of course, are ad homonim ... people dislike RMS for various reasons, his sometimes abrasive personality and lack of tact almost certainly among them.

The core UNIX/Linux operating system consistes of the kernel, various file and binary utilities, a few core libraries, and (arguably) a compiler. It most certainly does not include a GUI windowing system (Microsoft's confusion as to what constitutes an operating system aside), nor does it include a web browser, much less a web server.

The core Linux operating system consists of the Linux kernel and a collection of critical components that were written by the GNU folks long before Linux came along. You may not like RMS's request, or argument, that Linux systems ought to go by the moniker of GNU/Linux, but only someone completely ignorant of operating system design, and of the internals and components of the Linux operating system, would ever argue that "if we call it GNU/Linux we should call it Berkely/GNU/X/Apache/Netscape/Linux." That, or someone who knows better, but has a political ax to grind and is willing to bend the truth more than a little in order to do so.

As an excersize, remove GNU glibc from your (GNU/)Linux system and reboot. If that doesn't make clear the fallacy of your argument, then I suspect nothing ever will.

Call it GNU/Linux, or just call it Linux if you prefer, but please cease and desist spreading absolute nonsense about what is and is not a part an operating system v. what are user space utilities that run on top of an operating system.

Re:Absolute nonsense

[Jorrit]

What is your criterium from calling something part of an operating system vs something that isn't part of an operating system? System versus user space is a rather weird criterium to use for that IMHO... There are lots of GNU tools included with Linux that run just fine in user-space. Are these then not part of the OS? Also X-Windows actually runs (partially) in system space (i.e. the hardware drivers and so on). So why is this then not part of the OS? This is simply not a valid criterium.

Also I really do think that a GUI is an essential part of a modern operating system. Just like a file system is an essential part of an operating system.

Greetings,

Re:Absolute nonsense

[Jorrit]

Well... With some effort you can make a linux distribution that runs on one floppy alone by removing semi-non-essential stuff. Would that mean that everything that got removed is not part of the OS?

Not all OS's have a GUI included. That's true. However that doesn't mean that a GUI is not part of the operating system when it is included. I really see no fundamental difference between a filesystem and a GUI system. Both provide services to the user of the OS. And for a desktop user, both are essential.

Greetings,

Re:Absolute nonsense

[OWJones]

As an excersize, remove GNU glibc from your (GNU/)Linux system and reboot. If that doesn't make clear the fallacy of your argument, then I suspect nothing ever will.

Call it GNU/Linux, or just call it Linux if you prefer, but please cease and desist spreading absolute nonsense about what is and is not a part an operating system v. what are user space utilities that run on top of an operating system.

I enjoy how you contradict yourself here. Funny, but I thought glibc was for userspace applications. Every single textbook, paper, and non-MS-influenced publication I can find -- and there are about 5 of them at my desk, including the Tannenbaum book you claim to cite in another post -- defines an operating system as the (as in singular) program which serves as a layer between the hardware and the application author, and presents a consistent system call API to these applications. They say nothing about it being "the program ... oh yeah, plus some libraries and utilities." Nothing. They do talk about the API the OS provides for those libraries and utilities, but they are separate.

I agree with you that we shouldn't call it "Berkely/GNU/X/Apache/Netscape/Linux". I just don't see how you can selectively ignore your own arguments when they stop being convenient for you.

-jdm

Re:Absolute nonsense

[Nygard]

On the contrary, what you define as the "core operating system" is simply a definition that can easily change from one system to another. Take a look at Amoeba, for one example, or QNX, for another.

Your attempt to define the operating system as "the minimal components without which my computer is a chunk of metal" is insufficient. There have been successful installs of the Squeak Smalltalk that use just the Linux kernel, with none of the user-space programs commonly distributed with the kernel. That would indicate that glibc can be removed -- if done intelligently.

Now, as to your accusation of ad hominem attacks upon RMS, I suggest you read some of my other posts. Despite your ad hominem attack on me you will find that I like and admire Richard. From the first day I met him, I've appreciated his principled and uncompromising position. Believe it or not, I respect someone who can stick to his position over 17 years. Especially in the face of spiteful, ungrateful children who snatch at his creation while spitting in his face! A lesser man would have thrown up his hands and walked away in disgust.

Somehow, I don't think you were actually talking to me about "bending the truth", "spreading nonsense", "being ignorant", or "having a political ax to grind". If you were, you have no information whatsoever to base those personal, insulting, and offensive statements on. (Shall we discuss credentials?) I suspect you are attributing positions to me based on what you've read from others. Don't. You only end up alienating a potential ally.

Re:Absolute nonsense

[RedWizzard]

... defines an operating system as the (as in singular) program which serves as a layer between the hardware and the application author, and presents a consistent system call API to these applications.

I think that's an extremely simplistic view of what an operating system is. In reality there are a bunch of layers between the hardware and the application. Few applications call the Linux kernel APIs directly.

Re:Absolute nonsense

[FreeUser]

Now, as to your accusation of ad hominem attacks upon RMS, I suggest you read some of my other posts. Despite your ad hominem attack on me you will find that I like and admire Richard.

My points weren't aimed at you specifically, but a more general commentary on the numerous posts I've seen on the LKML, here on slashdot, and elsewhere.

As to the definition of what is a core operating system, we are discussing UNIX and UNIX-Like operating systems, of which the defintion I presented is the most widely accepted one (barring rewrites by Microsoft and others), one which goes back to the early days of System V (and arguably even System 7, though System 7 folks would probably think it bloated). It was not my definition you were referring to (the minimum to make your computer something other than a chunk of metal), but that of a followup poster. My definition was the one most commonly accepted for UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, which includes more than that bare minimum, but is nevertheless limited to the kernel, a core set of libraries, a core set of utilities, a shell, and perhaps a compiler.

My criticisms weren't intended to reflect upon you, though in rereading my comments I certainly didn't make that clear. My point is that the argument of 'we shouldn't call it GNU/Linux because then we'll have to call it GNU/X/BSD/Apache/Netscape/KDE/Linux' is (a) flawed and (b) that argument is in my experience almost always presented by someone who (a) knows better and (b) is simply grinding a political ax because they dislike/are annoyed with RMS. In these threads I have seen people bend the truth rather severely, and I do believe the argument that the X Window system could reasonably be considered a part of the UNIX operating system is nonsense.

It was not my intention to insult you personally, or attack you personally, and I apologize that my post came across that way.

I've been using GNU/Linux (I'll call it that out of respect for RMS's contribution, even if I disagree with his emphesis of the naming issue) since the early 0.48x days, and was as annoyed and angry as everyone else when RMS came out with his stupid and untactful 'lignux' nonsense. I am even ambivelent to whether it is called Linux or GNU/Linux, even though I try to call it the latter (when I remember, which isn't all that often). But what really irks me is Linus telling people to remove all references to the free software foundation from the kernel Howto's and documentation ... that to me is just spiteful and wretched ungratefulness, and it disgusts me profoundly. I may not agree with all of RMS's politics, but a deliberate effort to point people away from his message as a response to his plea to point people toward his message is simply despicable by any measure, and, to be very blunt, I lost most of my respect for the Linux kernel leadership when that happened.

As a result, even though I don't agree with RMS on a number of issues, I feel compelled, as someone who has benefited greatly from his contributions, to stand up to efforts to denigrate his contribution, and his GNU/Linux request, when I feel the arguments are fallaceous (which I believe the whole X/Apache/... thing to be). My ire isn't aimed at you personally so much as at a community, of which I am a part, that is behaving in a really despicable manner toward a person, and an organization, without which it not only wouldn't exist, but which is even now, in spite of that behavior, actively working to protect those very same freedoms that community requires, yet takes completely for granted.

Re:Absolute nonsense

[Nygard]

I have to be brief, which is unfortunate. I don't have nearly enough time to present all the nuances I see at work here.

I understand your ire at the community at large. I share it. At the same time, I don't believe that Richard is choosing his battles wisely. He is certainly free to do so, but I regret the damage it is causing to the larger purpose.

It is in human nature that a name, once given, is irrevocable. Even if you apply new names, the old one lies just below the surface. This is not a battle he can win. It is only causing schisms and alienation within a community that needs to be united against the much more dangerous forces arrayed against it.

Yes, it is true that, through inattention and disregard, users may lose the freedom that they have only just regained. But, at least in my view, that threat pales in comparison to that posed by groups (well-known to us all) that are actively trying to strip away that same freedom. I would worry more about the enemy soldier shooting at me than my squadmate's second-hand smoke.

Anyway, I think it is clear that we are on the same side, but differ in our emphasis.

Re:Absolute nonsense

[FreeUser]

I understand your ire at the community at large. I share it. At the same time, I don't believe that Richard is choosing his battles wisely. He is certainly free to do so, but I regret the damage it is causing to the larger purpose.

I agree. I understand RMS's reasoning, and his reasons (and they are reasonable and good), but you are absolutely right about the inertia a name, once given, has, and the unnecessary divisiveness RMS's GNU/Linux v. Linux campaign entails. He probably thinks that the awareness the argument itself raises is worth the divisions it creates, which may or may not be the case (I don't know).

Certainly, now that Linus has decided to take a political stand (and his calling it an apolitical stand doesn't make it any less political ... in fact it strikes me as rather hypocritical) to deliberately and with malice of forethought deemphesize and edit out references to the Free Software Foundation from any and all kernel documentation deepens that schism tremendously, and adds unecessary fuel to the fire while IMHO doing a disservice to all sides of the community in the process. And, unlike RMS (who I think we agree chose his battle poorly in this case), Linus has IMHO no good justification at all for pointing people away from the FSF. RMS at least had reasonable grounds for his request, even if it was, tactically, a foolish request (although one I will still continue to try and honor out of respect for the guy, whenever I remember to).

But, at least in my view, that threat pales in comparison to that posed by groups (well-known to us all) that are actively trying to strip away that same freedom. I would worry more about the enemy soldier shooting at me than my squadmate's second-hand smoke.

Excellent point, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. We are definitely all of us on the same side of the "freedom-of-expression v. autoritarian cartel economy" battle even if we do (perhaps vehemently, on some subjects) disagree. I really wish Torvalds, RMS, and ESR would realize the same and stop sniping one another, but that is probably far too much to hope for. In the interim I'll try and choose my words more carefully so as not to inadvertantly insult friends and allies like yourself, and again, I apologize for having done so. :-)

Alternatives to BitKeeper?

[Corrado]

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!!!!

Re:Alternatives to BitKeeper?

[SurfsUp]

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.

There are Subversion and Arch. CVS/NG is being talked about.

Re:Alternatives to BitKeeper?

[crucini]

The are very proprietory, usually only work on Windows, and don't work & play well with others.

I tend to think that any version control system that only works on Windows must be a toy. Microsoft makes one such toy system - "Visual Source Safe" which loses data and is shunned by Microsoft themselves.

ClearCase is probably the leading system - expensive, powerful, and high-maintenance. Perforce is popular. Bitkeeper seems to be the rising star. CVS is free, reliable and low-maintenance, with some annoying limitations. Subversion and Arch are too new to trust. I'd vote for CVS unless there were strong reasons to do otherwise.

As far as proprietary goes, you shouldn't generally expect the repository files to be usefully readable. Rather, you should have a checkout or export script that pulls out a current tree and history data.

He did make some resonable suggestions

[SuperKendall]

One thing I recall RMS saying is that they should at least make sure to set up a CVS mirror that was synched regularily with the BitKepper tree - whcih seems like a great idea, then people who want to keep using CVS can do so.

too True ... Re:Pragmatism

[gnugnugnu]

The beauty of the GPL is that you can use the software as much as you like and the license does not matter. If you dont want to agree to the GPL then you are still given all your standard entitlements under normal Copyright.

Only when you want to distribute the software or its source does the GPL come into play.

I admire Richard Stallmans idealism.
I amdire Linus pragmatism, the right tool for the right job.

Big commercial selling point

[Futurepower(R)]

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.

Be realistic

[NDPTAL85]

Isn't it kind of demeaning to have to resort to selling t-shirts to keep yourself from being homeless when you have such valuable (monetary wise) skills such as software development? And don't try and tell me that all open source projects can be made lucrative simply by offering support services and contracts. That simply just doesn't work most of the time.

I simply don't know why someone who has spent 4 years and thousands of dollars on a college degree in their specific field such as computer science would then want to degrade themselves by working for free and having to resort to all sorts of gimmicks such as selling project t-shirts just to put food on the table.

Geek art?

[matvei]

Larry McVoy: I was an Art History major specializing in Greek art, pottery and sculpture, when I figured out that was really cool but not going to support me.

Am I the only one who managed to read that as Geek art? ;-)

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[TooTallFourThinking]

It's all about context. I inferred nothing negative in the statement. It seemed the poster thought Bitkeeper was a fancier version of CVS. And asked to find out if it was or wasn't.

Although, I do agree that if it usually is used negatively, to avoid confusion, it should be stated that it is not meant in a negative way. So, I still believe the original poster.

Beyond this, it is just going to be a pissing contest, for neither of us know what the original poster meant; we are just inferring meaning. Unless we ask the poster, who did state they meant nothing negative in it. Regardless, you believe one thing, I believe another. Let us leave it at that.

MAD (MPEG Audio Decoder)

[cpeterso]

MAD (MPEG Audio Decoder) is an example of someone writing cool GPL software and then successfully licensing it with a non-GPL license to many commerical products that do not want to share their code.

Re:MAD (MPEG Audio Decoder)

[nagora]

That's interesting; they're using the "viral" nature of the GPL to create a market for the non-GPL'd version. Only works when there's other code to "infect", though. A stand-alone package couldn't easily do this, could it?

TWW

Re:MAD (MPEG Audio Decoder)

[_|()|\|]

they're using the "viral" nature of the GPL to create a market for the non-GPL'd version ... A stand-alone package couldn't easily do this, could it?

Same situation for Qt. They got the KDE developers to standardize on Qt, which creates a market for companies like Borland and Opera to buy commercial licenses. This continues to be an objection to KDE: it establishes TrollTech as the toll collector on the Linux desktop.

As for more or less stand-alone examples, you have CUPS and GhostScript. CUPS gives away the print manager and some popular drivers, but sells other drivers. GhostScript gives away old versions after it has earned enough in the first round.

This strategy of dual licensing requires owning the copyright to all the code. Unless your user base feels very charitable, you end up doing all the development yourself.

So yes, you can easily release a crippled GPL version as a loss leader, while selling a more full featured, proprietary version. However, you risk someone adding compelling features to the free version that you can't use. This is kind of the situation that TransGaming has put itself into. It counted on a free stream of development from the WINE developers. Its compelling added value is the copy protection code, which won't soon find its way into WINE proper.

full of shit

[ahde]

I'm sick of Larry McVoy claiming that he derives no benefit from Linus and the other kernel developers using BkBits. He tries to sound like some sanctimonious benevolent sack of shit for letting them use it, and then spouts all that tripe about his "paying" customers.

But the truth is that he couldn't buy that kind of advertizing anywhere. At least 99% of his market is *heavily* influenced by Linus's endorsement and that "BitMover is the dotcom in Linux!" or whatever his glossy ads say.

At least Hans Reiser was up front about his motivation for getting ReiserFS into the 2.4 kernel (and *somewhat* gracious when it didn't make it in right way), and he was actually donating code.

It's a bit like Nike claiming that by giving Michael Jordan free shoes that we should all kiss their feet for being so gracious as to allow us to watch basketball.

UNIX, POSIX, DOS, even Windows and Mac OS X

[FreeUser]

What is your criterium from calling something part of an operating system

It isn't my criterium, it is the criterium that has been applied by numerous academics, and virtually every UNIX vendor, and is encoded in the POSIX standard itself. (C.f. amongst numerous others, Tannenbaum et. al.)

Also I really do think that a GUI is an essential part of a modern operating system. Just like a file system is an essential part of an operating system.

You may think that, but (despite being a project leader of a very interesting project ... nice, subtle appeal to authority there btw) there are literally thousands of Apache+GNU+Linux servers deployed throughout the web which prove that a GUI is not an essential part of an operating system, indeed isn't a part of the operating system at all, while a filesystem clearly is.

Indeed, it wasn't until people began adopting Microsoft Newspeak that the GUI was considered a part of the operating system (even though Macs had been bundling their GUI as part of their OS for years, ironicly enough).

You can make a GUI a fundamental part of your OS, without which the operating system cannot boot or function, but that isn't an indication of a GUI being necessary for a functioning OS as much as a design flaw in your implimentation (and a serious one at that if you have any serious intention of using it to deploy servers).

Interestingly enough Microsoft didn't do this (you can still boot without running the GUI in "dos" mode), and Apple has gotten away from that with their BSD-based OS X.

All of course is neither here nor there, since we are discussing UNIX operating systems like (GNU)Linux, not Mac or Windows. The X Window System is not, and never has been, a fundamental, core component of the UNIX or (GNU)Linux operating system, nor does it appear in the POSIX standard which does define, quite precisely, what is included in a POSIX compliant operating system.

Re:UNIX, POSIX, DOS, even Windows and Mac OS X

[FreeUser]

Not for lack of wanting; backwards compatibility forced MS to keep with the DOS+GUI model far longer than they wanted. The current Windows offerings don't have a console-only mode.

True, but unless they've done a complete rewrite the current crop of Windows/XP stuff is very likely still just a gui user app running atop a DOS "operating system." This is likely more of a response to DR DOS's demonstration, in which they ran Windows 95 (or perhaps it was 98) on top of DR DOS, having replaced MS DOS completely. A rather dramatic proof that, all marketing aside, the GUI was in fact not part and parcel to the operating system, but just another user program running on top of DOS.

Even NT kicks out to a console (the famouse BSOD) when it crashes ... it too is a GUI running on top of a text based operating system ... MS has simply obfuscated that a little more.

Now they are trying to get video card manufactureres to make video cards without text mode (in order to make other, more intelligently designed operating systems jump through additional hoops before they can boot). This will likely obfuscate that underlying fact even more, but the fact remains that the GUI is not, and never has been, a fundamental part of the operating system ... Orwellian "historian"[1] efforts on the part of Micrsoft notwithstanding.

[1]1984 reference: historians were tasked with rewriting history according to whatever the current party doctrine was.

Stallman == crank

[kin_korn_karn]

why does anyone pay attention to what Stallman says? isn't it obvious by now that he has no high-minded ideals and is only out for his own interest? geez..

Compromise

[theolein]

I think one would be hard pressed to argue with the author in economic terms. As Rob has often said, the solution is probably somewhere in the middle. There are definite benefits in OpenSource from a developers point of view and peer review points of view, but as an unemployed programmer from the dotcom bust I can appreciate that programmers need to earn a living as well. His compromise model seems to be one of the more successful models in the business today. Apple does something similar with it's opening the OS core as Darwin and keeping the GUI and the fancy bits proprietry. This keeps them in money and provides the core with the benefit of many eyes and views and keeps OSS developers happy with something to hack on. I think of all the large companies Microsoft is probably the most scared to go this route with their products, although even they seem to be doing a bit of this even if it is only for PR purposes.

Contradiction on the origin of new ideas

[AxelBoldt]

In the interview, he says

We need the profit motive to keep the gears turning, those gears crank out the new stuff. It's great that free software gives us free versions of existing products, but who is going to pay for the next generation of new products?

Compare that to this paragraph from his 1993 Sourceware OS paper:

Almost every good feature in computer operating systems today, including most features in DOS, Windows, and Windows/NT, came from the mind of one hacker or another. Typically, the work was not commissioned by a company.

(Highlighted in the original).

Extremism is the exact word...

[scosol]

Did anyone actually read RMS's recent reply?

He says that the "non-free parts of the Linux kernel" are firmware and bytecode and such that get downloaded to devices upon bootup.
Then he goes on to say that setting some registers is one thing, but this is different.

What the hell is he on?
Why is "setting a few registers" any different?
What is code?
In my view- code is nothing more than a set of instructions.

Arghhh- it makes me want to just piss on his GPL and tell him that these "binaries" are in fact human-readable sourcecode- but he just doesn't speak the language :)

Show me the savings

[_|()|\|]

A lone programmer has a written a new program ... How does this programmer buy food to eat?

This notion of the "lone programmer" writing the Great American Program in his basement would be absurd if it didn't describe the beginnings of some of the most successful free software projects. We have to stop thinking of free software as a business model for producers and look at it from the point of view of the consumers.

California formed a department specifically to advise on IT issues. The state accepted that department's recommendation to buy millions of dollars of Oracle software, apparently far in excess of its need. California needs software. Should it enter an absurd contract with a proprietary software company, or should it spend the money on free software that is guaranteed to be there tomorrow, and that won't cost a penny more if the state hires more employees?

The UK spent half a billion dollars on air traffic control software that doesn't work very well.

Sun, on the other hand, has contracted with Wipro, an SEI CMM level 5 outfit in India to enhance Metacity as a GNOME window manager. They can do this because it's free software.

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[ahde]

according to Larry McVoy (on the LKML), its at least an order of magnitude more complex than the Linux kernel.

The reason GPL was chosen

[RGRistroph]

The reason GPL was chosen for the linux kernel did not have anything to do with productivity, and it had a lot to do with freedom.

Read these posts by the man himself:

"The point about the GPL (for me) is the continual improvements it allows by everybody."
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm= acjbbg%242fq% 241%40penguin.transmeta.com&output=gplain

"I happen to believe that for stuff that I've done for my own enjoyment and made available to others because I like to, I want to always have the ability to decide to follow somebody elses fork of my work instead. The GPL gives me that. I have the right to say 'I don't _have_ to be the
driver - I can decide to be a follower too'."
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9gpio 5%24a8%2 41%40cesium.transmeta.com&output=gplain

"However, I'm also idealistic. Not the rabid, frothing at the mouth, bomb-throwing crazy type idealist, but instead the type that thinks that the software world is better off with easy and free access to sources. Because that's what _I_ wanted to have when I started, and I couldn't have it.

So having the choice between the BSD license and the GPL, I actually think that the BSD license is a lot clearer and in some respects better, and in a perfect world I'd use that instead. BUT! I also think that the GPL is more conductive to making the world more like the place I would prefer."

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acjbbg%242f q% 241%40penguin.transmeta.com&output=gplain

I'm not going to even try to make those links real clickable links; I's tried it before with the google links with lots of percent signs, and it never works.

Re:The reason GPL was chosen

[gosand]

The reason GPL was chosen for the linux kernel did not have anything to do with productivity, and it had a lot to do with freedom.

I wasn't referring to the kernel, I was referring to BitKeeper.

Resistance?

[crucini]

I don't see how armed people would have fought the nazi regime, when that regime was supported by a majority of those people of that time.

It's a complex question, and I don't claim to have the answer; only to have some perspective. The Waco incident in the US illustrates one kind of outcome. Superficially, the Branch Davidians lost that battle. But in a deeper sense, they may have won. The deaths drew a lot of critical attention to the aggressive approach of the ATF agents. I've read that the ATF is trying very hard not to repeat this incident. If the Branch Davidians had been unarmed, I would probably never have heard of them. They would be arrested without incident and living in prison somewhere. And the government would have gone on to arrest more religious wackos of various kinds.

So it's possible that armed resistance by Jewish families would have raised awareness of how serious a move the government was making. People are not inclined to see oppression when the oppressed are quietly cooperating.

What makes this unlikely, however, is that the government did not show their intentions early on, or provide clear opportunities for defiance. For example, compulsory registration seems to have been a common tactic. Would anyone shoot a government official over being made to fill out a form? But if not then, when does one fight back?

Caveat emptor

[kirkjobsluder]

Hrm, am I the only one who finds the car metaphor rather strained? One of the big problems with defining freedom in terms of availability to source code (and then proposing a right to have source code as a basic requirement of free speech) is that it seems both philosophically and practically out of touch with the realities of how software gets used.

In cost, most software fits into the same price bracket as consumer electronics. Open up most consumer electronic devices made in the last 20 years and you are confronted with a sticker that says "no user-servisable parts inside" and a massive quantity of tiny SMCs and ICs connected on a printed circuit board with hair-thin traces. This has seriously reduced the old fashioned art of hacking hardware. (And I say this as a kid who spent many hours with a multimeter and a sodering gun re-wiring "Simon.") If it breaks get a new one. If none of them work, do without. I don't believe that Sony is infringing on my rights by selling me a radio on an IC chip rather than made from big m&m capacators and hand-wound coils.

Software works under similar economics. Even with the source code only an elite minority have the ability to look under the hood, and even fewer have the desire to. Even if the idea that free speech demands open-source had a philosophical position stronger than a wet tissue, it would be a hard sell. Most bugs, glitches and gremlens are easily worked around and simply ignored. No one cares if software crashes your desktop computer once a day because it provides an excuse for a coffee break. The problems associated with that software are frequently well-balanced by the abilities you get from using that software.

So one of the first mistakes that open-source fundamentalists make is in translating their personal preferences for access to source code as a feature into a moral issue. Closed-source software places no constraints on you. If you don't like the absence of source code as a feature, you probably don't have to use it. You can vote with your feet and your wallet. Caveat emptor.

glibc

[crucini]

As an excersize, remove GNU glibc from your (GNU/)Linux system and reboot. If that doesn't make clear the fallacy of your argument, then I suspect nothing ever will.

That may not be the best example of why GNU deserve to slap their name on Linux. Have you read these comments by glibc maintainer Ulrich Drepper? Here's a quote:

This $&%$& [RMS] demands everything to be labeled in a way which credits him and he does not stop before making completely wrong statements like "its variant". I find this completely unacceptable and can assure everybody that I consider none of the code I contributed to glibc (which is quite a lot) to be as part of the GNU project and so a major part of what Stallman claims credit for is simply going away.

Well Well

[evilviper]

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.

Re:Subversion is free. But is it alive?

[brucet]

But where is Subversion? It seems to be forgotten on the Tigris.org backyard.

It seems to be under very active development. They have been getting out regular releases and have an alpha release planned for June.

Check out its status here

-Bruce

FSF should fund bitkeeper replacement

[valrama]

The FSF does have a lot of funds. The whole world knows CVS sucks. (someone said CVS is ok for gcc... do you ever follow the gcc list? People periodically bitch of how horrendously slow it is to update code other than from trunk) Why does not the FSF and comrade Richard hire hackers to work on a next generation CVS? Perhaps a bitkeeper clone, perhaps something better?

Re:Licence problems?

[tao]

And what, exactly, has that got to do with Linus' use of BK? And FYI, I did read RMS article. And Larry's answer to it.

As for the firmware issue, I'm not perfectly happy with the situation either, but I suspect we'll have to put up with the situation until someone reverse-engineer the firmware or convinces the hardware-manufacturers to release their source. Not particularly different from the BIOS in your computer really. You don't currently have the source for it either (I'm hoping that the OpenBIOS project will take us there, though.)

Oh, and I bet that the firmware would get removed from the kernel if you sent a patch that does that and provide ftp-space for the firmware-code. It's Linux, damn it, don't whine, show us the code to fix the problem.

Re:Re-inventing the wheel

[coryboehne]

I really must direct the moderator whom modded down this post as a troll to the following conversation Here after you read this, please re-consider the damage you have done to both my good name, my valid-non-troll post, and most importantly my karma. Thank you.

Some good advice

[p3d0]

Strive for minimalism. Less is more. If you can delete code and have it still work, do so.

I never looked at it quite that way, but it's totally true. Remember that "lines of code" is a good measure of the complexity of a solution, but has no relation whatsoever to the complexity of the problem.

--
"...lines of code has commonly been found to outperform many of the more complex composite measures of software development." - A. Powell, 1996