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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 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
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
They caught him using Windows XP at home.
... 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.
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
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
... film at 11.
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...
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.
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
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.
- 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.IF it went down the way everybody seems to think it went down, I'd write your point the other way:
It is a sad day when one person's arrogance and abusiveness excludes them from technical discussions.
Communities have a right to choose with whom they wish to associate. I don't HAVE to put up with your abuse, just because you're smart.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It is incredibly frustrating to read Slashdot whenever something like this comes up, because so many people (Linux people, it seems) confuse Core with the body of committers, despite the fact that we go through this exercise over and over again.
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
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.
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?
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
So lets look at some facts:
- Yahoo is powered by freebsd
- Hotmail was (is still?) poewered by FreeBSD
- My laptop is powered by FreeBSD
- KDE works great and GNOME ain't to shabby
- My laptop is powered by FreeBSD. I switched from OpenBSD because KDE3 wouldn't compile.
- Sun and FreeBSD have come to some kind of agreement so FreeBSD will be distributed with java once sun and java figure out what the agreement is that there lawyers made. Until then all you have to do is download two tarballs, stick them in the righ place and install like any other port.
No its not cool. No its not the place to be for games or embedded systems with GUIs. However, it's great for web/database type things and other places you need scalibility because alot more kernel parameters can be set on the fly than in linux. Also it does have its share of wizbang. Background fsck! Yeah thats boys and girls. System boots up after power failure or kernel panic, fack the / partition, which of course is small and does not contain--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
How's life in your perfect world?
When you're working on a large project with tight deadlines, sometimes you have to put in hacks. Sure, it hurts to do it, but sometimes there is just no choice. The quote you use suggests one of these situations: there's a bug in a piece of code you have no control over, and no influence over. You however are dependent on it to provide some funtionality you _must_ deliver. Only choice is to put in a workaround, and of course lean on the appropriate developer (very) heavily to fix their code pronto.
Now I've never worked on a large O/S project, so maybe he could just have gone in and fixed the IPFW (whatever that is) himself, in which case this argument is moot, but in the world I work in people own code and they don't like other people fiddling with it.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Actually, he seems biased towards "Fix this feature that most people always use during development quickly now, so it at least works, instead of fixing it five months down the line."
I would have to heartily support that.
For a critical feature in a large project, having that feature in a workable state is more important during on-the-fly development and testing than having it in a perfect state. Perfection can be achieved later with a little discipline. Having it non-functional is just time-consuming.
The fact that it's considered a crude hack is all the more motivation to fix the code so you can remove it.
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.