Slashdot Mirror
FreeBSD Core Developer Thrown Out
SlashChick writes "From a discussion on the freebsd-chat mailing list, it appears that one of the FreeBSD core developers, Matt Dillon, has been barred from committing any changes to the FreeBSD kernel. Dillon was one of the developers 'responsible for making FreeBSD 4.x the most rugged and stress-proof free operating system in existence,' and also contributed to fixing the Linux VM. Unfortunately, there has been little explanation from the FreeBSD core team about why Dillon was thrown out, leading to speculation and worries about the future of the FreeBSD kernel. Does the Slashdot community have any more insight into this situation? Would someone from the FreeBSD team care to elaborate and assuage our worries?" CD Update: Greg Lehey from the core team has infact elaborated in this comment.
but surely with all the attention Linux is getting with developers, they can't go getting rid of too many people?
Get your own free personal location tracker
but I would think that the reason he was barred would be for the same reason most people are:
Differences in opinion. Maybe I am wrong (NEVER!) but that would be my guess.
Sent from your iPad.
The devil made them do it.
I think that's fairly clear. There are many strong, good hackers in this world who wouldn't be able to work together. While it's unfortunate that Matt and the rest of -core weren't able to resolve it, it's a fact of life in a big project...
Wow, actor and leet BSD Developer! Who'd have thunk?
It's all about office politics.
Hey probably wanted to make a new variant, like ExpensiveBSD or UltraFreeBSD or CoolBSD
Or maybe he admitted to owning a copy of Windows XP?
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
This remembers me the whole story between Theo de Raadt and NetBSD, which ended with the born of OpenBSD..
Miguel de incaza gets chucked out of gnome, helps kde instead.
Great, as if there aren't enough BSD branches, here's another disgruntled deveoper that might pull a De Raadt and roll his own.
On that note, it's more likely would get adopted by one of the other BSDs, and not really need to start his own. I'm sure OpenBSD can use the help.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
One thing the BSD developers need to know is that they have no justification in keeping this secret. It is aboput the users after all.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
yeh, I'm marking c++ lab exercises now, and I can tell ya, people that don't comment enough surely don't make it easy on those people that have to understand their code.
...then release WinBSD!
well, an actor atleast...
Oddly enough, it was a very similar event that led to the creation of the OpenBSD project. Theo started it after a (rather extended, IIRC) tiff with the rest of the NetBSD core team.
If Matt decides to fork the code and start his own project, I think the technical world would be a better place for it. A fifth open source BSD might seem excessive to some, but there are still many ways for such a project to differentiate itself.
unixkb.com -- articles on practical Unix issues.
People choose FreeBSD, NetBSD, *BSD, anything else because, for them, it fits the bill. I'll be the first to say that I love to push Linux anywhere I see it can make a difference but I'll be honest, I've done my fair share of pushing XP, *BSD, OS/2, 98, NT, OS X, anything that will get the job done for the user. FreeBSD and any of the BSDs for that matter are excellent backend systems. Rock solid, stable, not a lot of fluff, they are there and that's all that needs to be said.
:)
Linux boxen can be made just as stable, just as reliable, just as "there" as any BSD. I guess in a round about way I'm saying it comes down to preference and familiarity just like anything else. I'm familiar with Linux (11+ years familiar). I'm not as familiar with BSD (only about 5 years now) but I know a good deal of its strengths and weaknesses and I'm happy to say that there are places I would put BSD right now and not one of the Linux distros (barring Slackware or my own) just because of extra work involved that should be unnecessary.
Ok, done ranting.
Cliff
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
mate, have you ever _tried_ FreeBSD? I'd say it's got more of a *fine-lined niche* than any other free os out there. Isn't Linux still expanding its horizons looking for one.
Be careful about generalizing.
-P
... Gossip for Nerds, Stuff that chatters.
I know, its not even funny.
Everybody has a purpose in life, maybe mine is to lurk in slashdot.
Matt Dillon did his C compiler for the amiga, when the actor was a teenager star...
Firstly, the FreeBSD Core team (the use of "core developer" in the title of the article could be misleading) have given a lengthy explanation of this decision on the developers private list. This is where the explanation belongs and where it should stay. The reasons and the action are internal to the project and don't need to be aired in public.
Secondly, Matt is not the first, nor the last I dare say, high profile developer to leave the project. It didn't mean the death of FreeBSD then, it doesn't now. No single developer, no matter how talented and hard working, is irreplaceable. While Matt's technical contributions will certainly be missed, the claims of "imminent death, film at 11" are the same baseless FUD that came out when Mike Smith left or would have come out when John Dyson left (had Slashdot been around).
Thirdly, Matt is still free to contribute should he so wish. The only difference is that he will now have to contribute through PRs, at least for the near future, just as every other contributor started off doing, rather than directly committing himself. Whether he chooses to do this once the dust has settled is, of course, up to Matt.
Finally, long live FreeBSD! Can we please get back to worthwhile stories now :).
Sounds like crappy politics - ruins more stuff than it should. Why can't people just shut up and code?
Reminds me of a certain someone, a certain website, and a certain -1 Offtopic Mod.
But what do I know? Until you get two people together to talk it out while being moderated, you'll never get anywhere once the lines of communication break down.
Sorry, they already have that. Oh, wait. I thought you said WinBS O D. Sorry.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
11. List of what people will say.
12. Duplicate lists of what people will say.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't know anything about Matt or the BSD core so I'm only talking generally.
In my mind an unwritten requirement for most jobs is "smart and friendly." If you rub people the wrong way you're limiting yourself to small, one-person projects. Not the end of the world if you (or your manager) recognize this and play to your strengths. -IT
There are many strong, good hackers in this world who wouldn't be able to work together.
Geez, that's the truth. Anybody here ever work at Citysearch? Work is hard enough without having to listen to someone yelling or listening to the voices in your head telling you to strangle that someone. Even over email.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
The adult thing to do here is to do some serious (virtual if needed) handshaking and put this behind you guys.
Come on, Slashdot. Matt Dillon has been one of The Outsiders for at least 20 years.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
What about Doc, Miss Kitty, and Chester? Are they the next to be kicked to the curb?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I've read some hella good flames and wars on the linux kernel dev list, I never recall someone being invited not to take part though. Al Viro is especially good and reading your code and then telling you exactly how incompentent your are.
If this guy is the master hacker everyone makes him to be, this isn't enough explanation. Shouldn't the users have some say? Perhaps the mistreated developers should move on to other projects or maybe grow into adults and learn to take the heat, it's just software, it's not like you should be taking the flames seriously.
Good, let them kick him out, he is needed more elsewhere. Looks like he will be an awesome kernel developer now that he has more time to work on Linux. IMHO, The freebsd group has been edgy all along anyways and their inability or wishes to tell the community why they canned him is both unacceptable and plain silly.
BSD programmers already code for MS, haven't you read the license?
Theo de Raadt Version 2.0
...
... A deja vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix"
"FreeBSD Core Developer Guy: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just
FreeBSD Core Developer Girl: How much
like it, was it the same cat?
Theo de Raadt Version 2.0
Snowdog
a bunch of bitchy whining children
;-)
I think that's a little unkind. Politics and ideology get in the way of many things. Someone that's a brilliant coder is of little use to a team if they are not prepared to listen to other people.
If I were a hardned cynic of course I would refer the reader to my signature...
Be nice to people on the way up. You will meet them again on your way down!
Um, Matt? There's a small problem... You forgot to put a cover sheet on your last TSP report, I'm afraid we're going to have to kick you off the development team.
Suffice to say, the ends do not justify the means.
I don't know how the core team manages its repositories, or what their submission policy is, but I would interpret this move as analogous to revoking MD's write access to cvs. I'm sure he's 'welcome' to continue to submit patches, just like any other schmoe. And of course, he's always free to fork..
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
FreeBSD is not Linux. They are two different things. I'm not really sure what the point of your comment is. "...barred from committing any changes to the FreeBSD kernel" means that he can't make changes to the official version on his own. He would have to send his changes to someone still on the team & have them approve it & add it. Just like the average joe programmer looking to help out.
... film at 11.
i wonder why you post on Slashdot, why not shut up and code something ?
:)
err... people like to hear them selfes, by talking people can give there mind some rest and by talking crap they thought over and over again they get some small comment from someone that they then add to there idea and make it a little bit better and so it goes on until you need to talk again...
its life face it
BTW, do you know the expression "YHBT"? Well, YHBT.
> And besides, mere posession of any kind of *whatever* should never be construed as a crime
When you have been rapped then had the pictures spred on the internet come back and say that!
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Next time we hope you fare better. The game is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
First, remember that there is no magic bullet. There are always tradeoffs with anything. Linux has definate strong points (new hardware support usually hits linux first; there are more developers for linux). FreeBSD has fewer developers, and doesn't support the newest hardware as quickly - but the (FreeBSD) network stack is extremely solid, and the system design is very clean.
So, you have to evaluate your goals in these kinds of situations. Are you out to get the newest hardware and features, or are you looking for a clean design and good performance.
There is a reason many sites (like Yahoo, imdb, cr.yp.to) use Open/FreeBSD to run their servers.
If that's not one of your priorities, but you're still curious: I'd still take a look at FreeBSD; the overall design is quite pleasant to work with.
Also, many of the exploits produced are usually done on Linux, at least initially. This could buy you a little extra lead-time when something malicious is released. It's not security by obscurity, but it is a fringe benefit.
As always, if you're truly curious as to which OS would suit you best, you should put a little effort into it, and do some research yourself. I'm not saying you shouldn't use Linux, and I'm not saying you should use FreeBSD. FreeBSD is not for everyone. Linux is not for everyone. Do the research, decide for yourself, and next time - when you feel the urge to ask "why use *BSD?" -- you'll be able to at least discuss what you do or don't like about either. Otherwise, you end up contributing nothing to the discussion.
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...
It is a sad day when group love and touchy-feely wins out over technical excellence.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This is wrong in so many ways, I don't know where to begin.
I do. Sounds to me like his ego to brain ratio was way, way too high. It's a consistent problem with many developers (not all, so don't even fucking think about modding this flamebait, flamers). Writing code is not necessarily easy, but you're not Jesus Christ or anything. I have yet to meet a developer that doesn't make mistakes. Ever.
- The word is a virus.
And you're right. The developers owe the users nothing. They can sit at computers all day ignoring feature requests and bug reports, kicking people out they don't like, and generally doing whatever they want. That doesn't mean it's right. The free software development proccess should be open and transparent, not wrapped up in ego trips and power games.
I think my original point still stands. Free software doesn't belong to the developers, it belongs to the users.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
I get tired of such stupid comparisons. Get it straight: sharing information is not unAmerican, it violates no one's rights and it helps everyone but those who would perpetually sell you the equivalent that does not work as well.
:)
There is a corallary between Communism and Stallmanesque Free Software : both take away a private right and, through a legal and ideally fair means, give it "the people." But since Stallman doesn't have a military or a lot of cash, he doesn't have nearly the corruption issues.
Of course, the comparison is foolhardly when you're talking about BSD...
Of course that's the whole BSD movement, 2 developers get their panties in a bunch and instead of either one of them being big enough to compromise they fork. You can't tell me that the OpenBSD folks aren't doing things that all BSDs benefit from, same for FreeBSD and their amazing accomplishments. FreeBSD has been strong so far but it's sad to see them drop to that same level.
Anyhow, with multitasking read/write I/O, the disk scheduling marks the commit bit in buffer pages to signal that they need to be written back to disk. And, commit has the dual meaning with CVS. Hence, it's funny.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
then the FreeBSD project isn't worth keeping around.
If they let this project revolve around one guy then the project was doomed from the beginning.
Actually this is a good test of FreeBSD, if it survives its because its bigger then this one guy, which is the way projects should be.
Unless you can show us some mail archives, or some other kind of "proof", I will consider this to be a very bad joke.
Just as 5.0 was coming out and there seemed to be this general quietness about freedom and the GPL and RMS bashing seemed to be at an acceptable high point the good lads at FreeBSD go and remind us all again what open and freedom is all about.
What does this have to do with GPL or its attitude? Linus could just as easily bar kernel patch submission from some individual who he thought was causing problems.
This problem individual could just as easily keep on running with his own special kernel, with all these swell changes Linux kept rejecting. Same goes for FreeBSD- you can get the source, and this guy, or anyone, could keep on writing new code, patching their setup and giving the away the code.
Just because a project is GPL doesn't mean that it'll take code from anyone, or have a CVS server to which anyone could commit. From where would you get this silly idea?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Sorry, is "you must give commit privileges to everyone regardless of how much of a disruptive nuisance they are" what "open" is all about, or is that "freedom"?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I think that was the problem. A close second might have been
InfuckingCredibly Massive Level of Arrogance Syndrome.
The only difference between the bitchy whining children in open source development and the bitchy whining children in closed source development is that the latter have signed NDAs that keep the pissing contests out of the public spotlight.
Treasure of the Sierra Madres, directed by John Huston. See the IMDB.
In the wrong hands, sanity is a dangerous weapon.
- Matt Dillon was never a "core developer". The FreeBSD project doesn't use that term, but it looks like a reference to the core team. Matt has never been a member of the core team.
- Matt has done some very good work over the years. His contribution to FreeBSD release 4 was invaluable, but it would be wrong to suggest that he single-handedly made the difference. Commit statistics on the orginal list show that he has not been very active over the last 12 months.
- I was not aware of his involvement with Linux VM. Nothing we have done will change this, though.
- The FreeBSD core team has informed the development community in detail about the reasons for Matt's removal. We don't think it's appropriate, nor fair to Matt, to wash dirty linen in public.
- Matt has very little influence on the future of the FreeBSD kernel. That work which he has done over the last two years or so was mainly maintenance.
It's always sad to have to make these decisions. It's even more difficult to defend them when our hands are tied behind our backs.Hi. I'm Malda. Rob Malda.
For the rest of us who wonders what goes on inside the ivory towers...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
"I'm one individual that is damn abrasive. And oversensitive at times. And I've grown a hell of a lot in how to deal with people because of the flamewars as well as the cooling off periods."
Grown so great, indeed, that your given name is not worthy enough to dignify your comments, Mr. Coward.
Ernest Tomlinson.
P.S. If you have to tell people how mature you are, you've probably got some way to go before you get there.
Two big problems.
First, we all know slackware was released 10 years ago, and before that you'd be using Peter MacDonalds standalone install (unless you're downloading tarbells from the net, which were absolutely horrible to use). Have you been using Linux for 11+ years? Unlikely. If so, what version did you start with? 0.02?
Second, check the top uptimes on netcraft. You'll note they're ALL BSD.
Video for Online Dating Profiles
While that may be true (run `strings` against many Microsoft network applications, for example, and grep for "Regents". IIRC, NT4's ftp.exe was fun); what would be the shape of the world without BSD and its license? Who would exist for big iron servers, and who would pave the way for another free OS (Linux) to emerge into this market (it's inevietable; the market wants Linux, the market is going to get Linux, even if companies have to invest billions to do so), and what would be the shape of GPL, and other GPL'ed software had there been no BSD license?
Ideologically, people may prefer one or the other, but they're both complimentary (believe it or not).
We should be greatful for what BSD has done for us, rather than whining that "it's dead" and equating it to Microsoft.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
I am not that familiar with the *BSDs, so I didn't realize that they don't all use the same kernel. I tried FreeBSD once, there were some nitpicky things I did not like. I've yet to try Net or Open BSD.
I mostly agree.
I think BSD is great for some things, such as reference implementations of standards and other similar things, where getting it right is more important than preventing people from extending the code in closed ways.
It's also good for small programs that do one simple thing, and do it well, such as most of the basic UNIX utilities.
Just as people need to be educated about the GPL before using it, they should be similarly educated about BSD, and make a thoughtful choice.
BSD should equal the assumption that MS will use your code, possibly in a way that could damage you or other free software. It's the price paid for allowing total freedom of redistribution.
Likewise, the GPL should come with the implicit assumption that you will be making it very difficult for closed source vendors to use your code in their apps.
Of course, you already knew all that most likely, so we are just treading water here. In the end, neither license affects any end user's freedom negatively, at least never directly, and that is what is most important. Software isn't written for the software industry, it's written for end users. I think this fact alone has been the real drive of the Open Source movement.
Core are not the only ones allowed to commit. They are simply the democratically elected body of committers who preside over the welfare of the project.
Who elects core developers?
Who decides if someone is elegible to be a core developer?
If core developers are elected democratically, why was it necessary to throw out Matt Dillon explicitly instead of just explaining the situation to the electors? Aren't electors trusted to do the (apparently) reasonable thing and unelect him?
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
You must work the the US governemnt.
I didn't know Krushchev was gay.
Don't know, but I saw Brezhnev kissing Honecker.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
That's true to a degree. Closed source has the benefit of having a manager that can arbitrate these sorts of fights. Or decide in favor of one side or another.
:)
Open projects who have a decided leader (Linux w/ Linus for instance) can also work this way, though I doubt Linus wants to arbitrate every argument
thats a little nit-picky if you ask me. its never really mattered to me. Grammar is it's own worst enemy when it comes to language. Oh wait, what was it we were talking about?
How so? Obviously, while not commenting directly on this subject, you could still say that just throwing someone off a project for what amounts to a difference in opinion and manner of dealing with those differences is more wrong.
The end (gaining more civility in kernel discussions???) does not justify the means (kicking someone out). On that you are right.
Apples, oranges.
Matt Dillon is not banned from any mailing lists. He's only been removed as a "committer". In linux there's only one "committer", Linus himself. Others send patches, to the mailing list or to their pet maintainer upstream. Matt can still do both with FreeBSD, or simply use the send-pr command. What he can't do now is make changes directly to the source tree.
this general quietness about freedom and the GPL and RMS bashing seemed to be at an acceptable high point the good lads at FreeBSD go and remind us all again what open and freedom is all about.
So, while one person is kicked out of the community for narrow minded and adolescent behavior, you present the Linux community as an example for being able to tolerate RMS?
Fair enough. However, with Debian's patent intollerant behaviour, Alan Cox's famous "Thank you for joining this discussion on (whatever change to the kernel was being advocated) I've now put you all on my kill list," I don't think you have much hole GNU/ground to stand on to make a claim that they haven't shown people the door on occasion.
Besides, since this is all about software freedom, at least this person has the option to do whatever he wants with the code still. He just can't call it "FreeBSD" which is a fair thing. Just ask Theo.
--------------------
OnRoad: It gets you there and back again.
There is a corallary between Communism and Stallmanesque Free Software: both take away a private right and...
Huh? Whose right is being taken away? The legal IP owner who decides to license his software under the GPL? The person that wants to use the software without abiding by the IP owner's license?
Exactly what private right is being taken away?
I'm looking at a 500k kernel (compressed) and a crunchgen'd set of binaries taht fit onto an 8MB flash with networking, a shell and far too many other things to really be considered embedded (stuff I need for other reasons). With trimming, I'm sure we could get it down to 4MB for truly embedded use.
Of course, these guys do embedded systems and own a respectable BSD when they bought BSDI. Of course, we can't figure out why they bought BSDi since their first year appeared to focus on pissing off existing customers when FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD were as good as or better than BSDi in many respects. At least if I want mediocre support, I can get it for free :)
And there are other folks in the free world doing embedded work too.
The bonus is that we don't have to put up with RMS yammering all the time. I watched and waited for HURD forever and just presumed that Emacs would get boot code. He can call that GNU/HURD all he wants. I still wish Linus has made the arbitrary choice of using the BSD-lite userland utils instead. At least the CSRG aren't as strident.
You have to look at this with a sense of irony.
"It's always sad to have to make these decisions. It's even more difficult to defend them when our hands are tied behind our backs. "
Imagine that! They're into BSD and all tied up! Get it? Get it?
(Isn't FreeBSD an oxymoron?)
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Yeh, nobody reading this site has any insight into what good coding practice is. I assume that anyone writing kernel code for anything is probably a better coder than I am, and I would hope that they could also take a joke too.
OpenBSD also focussed hard on security through auditing the code.
I guess this is redundant to the other BSDs. But wait! Reading the kernel commits (see, we use CVS in bsd-land), I can see that FreeBSD has taken (thank you Mr Leffler) many of the crypto kernel and userland utils into FreeBSD from OpenBSD. And OpenBSD just recently sync'd up a bunch of their USB utils with NetBSDs.
So are they doing redundant work or keeping up a healthy but friendly competition? Many successfull companies will have a couple groups doing similar things - keeps the edge....
So FreeBSD code appears in Net and OpenBSD, NetBSD coders work appears in Open and FreeBSD, etc, etc. They share with each other to the benefit of everyone.
As a bonus, it's easy to build from source. /usr/ports/ (pkgsrc on netbsd) lets me just (cd /usr/ports/mail/mutt;make install) and built mutt FROM THE SOURCE for my system.
- for that. So different kernels? Yeah. Different idea's being explored. The best ones trickle into the other kernels. We end up with good VMs (remember the Linux VM battles?), we end up with Solid SMP, advanced file systems (thank you Kirk), we end up with computer science.No games of "find the RPM" and trust like hell that the person who built that mutt rpm isn't evil. And that they had the same glibc that I had. And they used the options I wanted (
Say, I found an annoying, non-security bug in one of the convoluted (non fsf) programs that came with my Linux distro. I fixed it. Where to I send in a fix that will end up in all 30 linux distros by the next year?
Oh, right. And there is no "cvs.linux.org" to contain all the patches. There is no strong peer auditing to keep craps from floating upon the water of the distros. The kernel control is pretty admirable, but after that....
At least it ain't Windows and the good linux hackers often graduate up to BSD with useful skills.
Yet they seem to be having an effect on a multi-billion dollar company. Funny that.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
"Shouldn't the users have some say?" Well, shouldn't the people who have to work with the guy have some say, too?
Someone seeing that you were victimized does not in of itself legally victimize you. You might not like it, but that's the fault of the actualy victimizer, not any third parties who merely possess evidence of the initial victimization.
Laws are intended to protect Justice, not your feelings.
Mark
Well, closed source is filled with self-righteous, immature college dropouts too. So what?
HOW COULD IT DAMAGE FREE SOFTWARE?
And what's the difference if BSD code used by Microsoft or IBM or Sun or Apple ? Or any other company or organisation or government?
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, the dead horse beats you!
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
That's exactly what it is. He can continue to submit changes, just not commit them himself.
"Don't you all find it a bit odd that an open source project bars people from working on it? How can that be?"
Easy. Open source means "Anyone can use my code in his/her project" with the possible caveat the new project must also be open source. Open source does not mean "Anyone can put his/her code in my project."
Fair enough. However, with Debian's patent intollerant behaviour,
From my understanding of the Debian policy on patents this is to protect the Debian project from legal liablity. It has nothing to do with excluding anyone.
Alan Cox's famous "Thank you for joining this discussion on (whatever change to the kernel was being advocated) I've now put you all on my kill list," I don't think you have much hole GNU/ground to stand on to make a claim that they haven't shown people the door on occasion.
This was simply a case of Alan not choosing to deal with certain people anymore. This was not the key Linux kernel developers deciding that none of them would deal with these people anymore. If anyone Alan was ignoring wanted to contribute there are other channels and other people who are as key to the Linux kernel as Alan is.
Frankly this whole mess really isn't an example of GNU vs. BSD licenses but different approaches to structuring an open source development project. Some projects have a rather insular team of developers who communicate mostly out of public view and only occasional take community patches or throw a release over the wall. Some projects get contributions from all over the place and communicate almost entirely in the open. Each approach has advantages and disadvatages.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Yes, Slackware was released 10 years ago. A lot of us didn't start with distros at all. :) I slacked off for a little while testing other stuff (OS/2, NT, Netware) but have always kept some type of Linux floating around wherever I go.
Peter MacDonald reference. I'm not going to look it up but I'm guessing you're referring to SLS. I could most definately be wrong. That period from 16-17 years old for me is a little on the hazy side. >:)
And, last but not least, I don't think I said anything the least bit derrogatory about BSD. I just don't see what the second comment was all about. The admins are using the best tools they see fit for the job. Enough said.
Cliff
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
It seems to have started when Dillon made a clever hack and people got arguing over API problems:
...
...
The problem
The solution
NOT another solution
The flamewar starts..
and continues.
heheeh Don't worry about being a troll. If I had some points to spare I'd mod ya up. :) Anyways, boxen. I've always said boxen or boxes or "that big thundering turd sitting in the corner". :) I guess I should stop using that. :)
As for the aura, I've used so much crap in my little bit of time on computers that Linux "pre-distro" (or, Linux P.D. hehehe) doesn't seem so bad. Back then that was something for me to tinker with, play around with. Now, it's something I actively promote, install, recommend, implement, and maintain on a pretty regular basis. The lack of aura is basically an open mind, open spirit, and hearty enthusiasm. Nothing has jaded me to the point yet that I'm b****ing and moaning about this or that. I'm happy where I am. I'm happy to help, and I'm happy to learn.
Cliff "Have done way too much posting today" H.
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
How many distinct BSD based operating systems are there (just open source, for this discussion, commercial proprietary ventures don't count)?
OK, now how many distinct Linux based operating systems are there?
I don't think forking has been a valid argument for *years*, if it ever was.
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
Which could be the subject of an interesting discussion. Sadly, this is Slashdot.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
FreeBSD is NOT GPL'd people! It is still free to fork, but it has a BSD license. Sorry, but this inaccurary highly annoys me. Score: -1, Anti-GPL
You could've banged Winona Ryder too if you had used FreeBSD instead of Linux.
Oh memories...
:)
DICE was my first attempt at learning C in the early 90s. I only got a few stages past hello world - I couldn't tell whether the compiling problems were my icompetence or DICE bugs (I think it was a very early version).
It wasn't long after that I decided that I wasn't cut out to be a C hacker
"I'm familiar with Linux (11+ years familiar)."
As an employer, I abhor when people add years to their resume.
From ftp.us.kernel.org :
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 63362 Oct 29 1993 linux-0.01.tar.bz2
Soooo, it seems Linux is 9.5 years old, or thereabouts.
I used to have a good sig...
Evidently you don't read Usenet much.
It's just sooo wrong ...
It is so much FUD. Get your facts straight.
If you are talking about Microsoft - they used BSD code in some networking utilities but did not do any secret changes to them. In case of Kerberos they have their proprietary extensions, but they did not use code - well, they just have enough programmers to rewrite almost everything. It does not matter if product GPLed or proprietary they could have better product just because they have enough money and people.
By the way why didn't Microsoft take over Apache, BIND, Sendmail, OpenSSH? They all use same license..
Main consumers of BSD code are UNIX vendors. They have their changes, but they tend to conform to standarts. There are also Darwin and OS X and it looks like they have clean separation between open and proprietary code. and some technologieas are opening - like Rendevouz. I don't see how anything of this could hurt free or open software.
^_^
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
On the other hand, Matt is not, and never has been, indispensible to the FreeBSD project. His biggest contribution probably has been cultural more than anything else -- he was working at UCB back in the "real" BSD days and knows how "it spozed to be". I suspect that doesn't make him popular with some of the (relative) newbies who want to add lots of features and stuff -- Matt's code has always been stripped down, clean, and fast as hell (if not always the most elegant or user-friendly code in the world). If the FreeBSD folks got tired of him carping about "the BSD Way", their loss... but it's not going to cripple FreeBSD by any means.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Of course that's the whole BSD movement, 2 developers get their panties in a bunch and instead of either one of them being big enough to compromise they fork.
In Soviet Russia, the BSD Daemon forks you!
If Matt reads this message, I hope he moves over into Linux Land. We're more tolerant of abrasive, opinionated people there -- as long as they're right.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
First, read the post to which I replied. Then go read what I said. While I didn't feel the need to go out and point at it, I was discussing the point the original author made- GPL software (like the Linux kernel) vs. non-GPL stuff like FreeBSD. He said that this was a reminder of the non-Freeness of FreeBSD. It's not. This could happen on a GPL project. Read it slowly if need be.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Matt can definitely be abrasive in the face of idiocy. That's also why I'd have him on my team in a New York minute. I'm not interested in working with idiots, and I'm not interested in somebody massaging my widdle ego when I'm wrong. If I'm being an idiot, I want to know it. Too bad too many FreeBSD developers would rather have overinflated egos than good software.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
(Sorry, you had to be around 15 years ago to get the joke... back when the typical Amiga developer was outfitted with a full suite of Matt's software, all of whose name started with a "D" for "Dillon", e.g. "DUUCP" or "DCRON" or "DICE").
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
From my understanding of the Debian policy on patents this is to protect the Debian project from legal liablity
Yeah thats one way to read the sentance "with Debian's patent intollerant behaviour" but not the way I meant it. In this sence patent just means a set way of doing things, as in way of doing things is stuck in intollerant mode.
This was simply a case of Alan not choosing to deal with certain people anymore.
It was a great maneuver, I liked it. I laughed, I cried, I bought the extended DVD. But it shows that kernel developers can give people the baBOOTski just as fast. I see nothing wrong with it myself, but let me be specific, I do see a problem with the previous posters inference that it does not happen in linux or any other GPL development.
Its not that you don't understand this, becuase you said... " isn't an example of GNU vs. BSD licenses but different approaches to structuring an open source development project."
Its just that I can't let you pin my comments as part of a BSD vs GPL flamewar. They simply are not.
-------------------
OnRoad: It gets you there and back again.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Damn, I'm glad I never got into the FreeBSD community!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
You wrote, 'When it comes to Free software, isn't "the development community" the same as "the public"?'
The two are not the same. I am a consumer of FreeBSD, by virtue of having a Virtual BSD Server from aplus.net. My use of that operating system in no way entitles me to know what transpires between the developers of that OS.
If I want to know the nitty gritty details of OS development, then I need to subscribe to the general mailing lists, read the code, and submit my own work.
Since I'm not prepared to do the above - I am quite happy to be a mere consumer in this case - I don't have any objection to people saying "this is a private matter, it doesn't concern you."
That the source code is available for your perusal is completely unrelated to the behavioral dynamics which govern the production of that code.
I don't know what it is about the FreeBSD community, but I've run into that "Kumbaya" attitude too. I managed to get my fixes into the FreeBSD kernel -- barely -- then fled back to LinuxLand where you don't have to worship the developers in order to discuss idiocy. I remember one time a FreeBSD developer actually told me that he wasn't going to accept any more email from me because I used a variable name he didn't like and me and David Miller ought to get some quaaludes (true, it wasn't a very flattering variable name, it was something like "dumb_stupid_nonsense" as the name of a variable to catch an idiotic condition, but what the hey does that have to do with technical merit?!). I'd much rather face off with David Miller about something than with the BSD guys. The BSD guys seem to have easily-bruised egos and you gotta strok'em like a Harvard MBA to get them to listen to anything.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I'm sure the people who seem to keep throwing this fact out are intellectual types and didn't, say, learn it from the UHF commentary track.
try working for eBay..........
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
Given how financially fucked I am, I would GLADLY work for an evil company currently. Sure, having morals and ethics is nice. But so is having electricity and gas...
Gees, It's not like our little exchange was overly heated or anything. Now I'm on your foes list. (sniff)
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
alt.religion.emacs ....
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Erm, you might also consider that bzip didn't exist until at least 1993. The Linux kernel development began in 1990 or so.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Depends on what you call a fork.
There are many Linux distributions and only 3 opensource BSD distributions.
On the other hand there is one main Linux kernel and 3 open source BSD kernels.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
He writes:
"If/when Luigi fixes the ABI problems with IPFW, we can remove this 'hack'. Until then, I do not consider the hackiness nature of the patch sufficient reason to not put it in."
I never saw one brilliant remark from this guy and by reading his interviews and his design documents I could only conclude that Mr Dillon was so incredibly blind and biased towards "there is only one solution to all problems and that's my solution". This remark quoted above is the most utterly stupid thing you can do as a developer, because it proves that the no.1 reason why software sux so much most of the time so true:
Nothing lasts that long as a temporary solution.
Think about it. When was the last time you hacked something in "just to patch this problem for now, I'll fix it later", while you never fixed it properly? The 'solution' Mr. Dillon wants to commit into the tree is a temp-solution. You shouldn't commit temporary CRUD into a development tree. Period.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
You said:
"It does not matter if product GPLed or proprietary they could have better product just because they have enough money and people."
*ROFL*
*cough* security/stability *cough*
HTTP/1.1 400
now that would make a good topic for a /. poll
I bet far more than 1% of /.ers contribute to some OSS, or have done at some stage.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
And have his patches disappear into the void of the pr system, where most patches never get out.
"What's the point of going abroad, if you're just another tourist..."
its a rough way to guestumate, and for what i do (mainly web development) good enuff. adoption rates, well, it ain't that specific, but not important either. winblows is still the guerilla, and the most important stat is usually which version of IE are the m$ Lusers hittin me with.
i have a red hat web server, imac, tibook (both OS X 10.2.3), powerbook 1400 (mac os 8), 333 mhz red hat box and a NeXT cube. guess you could say i use a little different stuff. that's not to mention the winbox i'm fixin up for a friend of mine right now
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
Not all proprietary software is MS. Set linux up against VMS, Solaris, OS/400 or rtLinux up against QNX and see who comes out the winner in both stability and reliability.
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
This is my view of things.
Microsoft is the worst enemy of any succesful OS once it gets big enough to threaten them. If FreeBSD would arise to linux level of installed userbase it would pop into their radar. Considering how willing MS is to pull off crazy stunts to twarth any competition i dont doubt that they would do anything in their power to embrace and extend. The BSD license allows this and since i really hate Microsoft i wouldnt want that to happen to an OS that i contributed to. In essense i would help someone i hate with my work and thats pretty abnoxious to me.
The GPL on the other hand is supposed to prevent this kind of behaviour and therefore i like it better. On a technical merit i have no doubts that FreeBSD have many strenghts but the license is probably whats holding it back.
HTTP/1.1 400
Fact: The best programmers typically have a low tolerance for idiocy, and if you want the best programmers on your team, listening is a better solution than firing them. Poor social skills? Probably. Gets a helluva lot of productivity out of these people? You betcha.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I thought it had to do with the bad code he was submitting while high on mushrooms.
Just wild speculation.
Well, with linux you got the patent problem instead. Which is why I'm not totally against RedHat taking some patents as a preemptive measure (After all - I really doubt RH would dare to fsck the OS movement - it would hit them back bigtime).
Well, it suits some people as GPL suits some other people. Doubt MS would be able to do an embrace and extend and somehow lock out the BSD family of OS. Can't see anything they can do that would stop *BSD to work as it does today. Yeah, they might get good code for free which they can use as they like in their closed source project, but if that disturbs you, then I guess the BSD licence, as you said, isn't for you, go for the GPL were you're got guarantees that your code will stay OS.
Mind you, I don't see it as a competition in the way that MS must die.die.die and Linux/*BSD must take over the world. If Linux/*BSD grows that's great and it's fun to see MS sweat a bit, but I'm quite happy as things are now. If MS gets down to 70%-60% of the market they're no longer a monopoly and they can't then really pull of some of the nasty stuff they do from time to time. That's pretty fine with me.
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Whose right is being taken away? The legal IP owner who decides to license his software under the GPL? The person that wants to use the software without abiding by the IP owner's license?
Hey, I didn't write the license.
The GPL works by essentially bribing people to follow it. Yes, the fact that it is strictly voluntary is a good argument, but the GPL has sticky parts like its ambiguosness (where, exactly, is the line between "works that happen to be distributed together" and "parts of the same work"?) and its stickyness ("you can use your own license, but you can't add any restrictions and have to be at least as open as the GPL is--but if you want to give MORE away, have fun")
The right that's being taken away is the right of someone to decide how to license their work. The mechanism that takes away this right is a contract called the GPL, and everyone who uses it gets access to all of the GPL'd code in turn.
Communism, on the other hand, is a system taken up by a Nation as a Whole wherein they all cede their property to "The People." It's often through force of arms or democratic process--both perfectly legal ways of changing a corrupt government (and whatever else you may think, the precommunist governments in Russia and China _were_ corrupt.)
*cough* security/stability *cough*
And yes, their perception of product strengths is different ;)
So read what I wrote and STFU yourself. It's not my place to spread gossip about my colleagues on Slashdot.
In other words, he's been "demoted" to the same level that everyone but Linus is at in the Linux world. Except that he's still better off than Linux submitters, because his patches will automatically go into a public bug-reporting system and can be committed by any of hundreds of committers, not just one. But of course the Linux people will keep going on about how "open" Linux development is and how "closed" FreeBSD development is.
tre cowardly just refers to the fact that you're posting anonymously.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
I agree with this wholeheartedly.
As a support person, I'd say one of the biggest challenges facing any project is when there's a developer who has too much of their ego in the code - and does not tolerate any criticism of it.
In cases like this, the day-to-day business of making the customer happy becomes a political minefield - and ultimately what you want to do is just give the developer's phone number to the customer. Which would ultimately result in the loss of the customer.
My advice to any developer: learn to recognise when you have too much emotion invested in your code, and if so, bail. Immediately. Be the code's own worst critic.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Exactly my point! At least someone has the intelligence to see that point (however poorly made), rather than figure that I am claiming FreeBSD is GPL simply because I use both of those words in the same post. :)
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I think the anonymous reply is better than I could sum it up.
Just a note as an addendum though, the AC doesn't seem to differentiate between open source forks and closed source forks, his comments mostly apply to closed source forks, which are of course much more common with BSD than GPL.
I want team players, as cliched as it sounds.
Somebody that has low tolerance for idiocy and that shows it behaving like a prima dona has no place in any self respecting, productive, team producing software.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In an OS project? Well, let me check wiuth their marketing people just to make sure...
O yes, can you tell us who do you work for? You know, I don't like buggy software...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
XP ( Extreme Programming) encourages "Refactor Mercilessly" which is what you suggest.
Graham
Coffee | nose > keyboard.
I do agree the various methods of structuring, and administrating an open source project and the relative plusses and minuses of the various approaches would make a facinating disscussion. However the likelyhood of that disscussion happening on Slashdot are slim to none.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Writing code is a very personal affair. It is like writing a book, personal to to your exact style. I could see my code getting ripped apart and me getting personally offended by it, but it depends on how it is critized and by who it is critized.