Zen and the Art of Apache Maintenance

SilentBob4 writes "Apache recently held a week-end "infrathon" to sweep the dust out of the corners, squash a few old bugs, drink a wee bit of ale (maybe a wee bit more than a wee bit) and get their hands dirty with the Zen of maintaining their infrastructure. MadPenguin.org crashed the party in search of the secrets of getting into the "zone" while peeking into the grittiest of the nitty gritty with one of the darling projects of open source, Apache." From the article: "The guys that I interviewed were among some of the brightest minds in open source; Brian Behlendorf; Upayavira; Greg Stein; and Roy Fielding, all of whom are well known and regarded (or deserve to be). These guys have the skills to be Microsoft millionaires, but instead flew thousands of miles to sit slouching on couches and squatting on cushions hacking infrastructure maintenance for free, primarily just to hang out with each other, even though they could have done the same thing on line."

Comments

Only the really important stuff, please...

[veg_all]

...like Lego toilets.

Really fascinating stuff, but I couldn't help mysef:
From the interview with Brian Behlendorf:

MP: What's the most important thing about this event?

BB: I'm not sure this is an event worthy of Slashdot [laughing]

Heh, you must be new here.

I had a little deja vu while reading the headline.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to reply but instead but instead I'm sitting in my comfy chair typing this somewhat unfunny comment for free.

Thankyou!

[pixel.jonah]

...for all your hard "work"

Not worthy of /.

[scovetta]

BB: I'm not sure this is an event worthy of Slashdot [laughing].

Don't you worry yourself about what's worthy of /. Your event stands a good chance of being posted two or three times over the next month.

"Subversion trees" Ha! Buncha commies - I KNEW it!

[disposable60]

"Subversion trees"

Like a Phone tree, right, only they're subversives!

(yes, sub-version, I know)

Uh

[Elwood P Dowd]

In public statements and in its 2004/9/1 SEC 10-k mandatory legal filing, Microsoft calls open source projects like Apache the second greatest profitability concern behind a weak global economy. Yet Microsoft doesn't "get" why their profitability is imperiled by a movement that their Chairman called a group of "communists." Maybe Chairman Bill doesn't "get" it because he's too busy answering press calls about his generosity in donating his billions to them poor brown people over there.

Wait, what's your point?

Re:Uh

[The Angry Mick]

I don't get it either, dude. Is he complaining about A) Bill being tied up with the press, B) giving away his money, or C) giving to charity, or D) all of the above?

If it's A, it's probably intended to mean Bill should spend more time with his developers. Possibly a valid point, but presented in a horribly malignant way.

If it's B or C, he should seek professional counselling. Soon.

If it's D, there's no hope for him. He'll never be happy and should consider moving to a small shack somewhere in the wilderness - preferably without easy access to the Internet, firearms and/or explosives.

Re:Uh

[mrbooze]

If you're "poor brown people", scrabbling in the dirt hoping to find a morsel of food for your children, would you rather have a well-designed robust web server, or a sandwhich?

The world needs both free software *and* generous charitable donations. Don't discount one because you prefer the other.

And don't play the "Oh, well, it doesn't count because it's not a significant portion of his worth". A hungry person doesn't give a damn how much someone had to sacrifice to give him that bowl of soup.

They Care.

[phigga]

IMHO, this is what sets OSS above/apart from The Microsoft Way. These guys got together over a weekend to do maintenance and fix bugs on a project they truly care about. The guys at MS only started fixing bugs when it became obvious that their ineptitude might cost them some of The Almighty Dollar.

Re:They Care.

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> this is what sets OSS above/apart from The Microsoft Way

True, but I don't think it's just a Microsoft thing.

Any large software company will have red-tape out the wazoo. If you had a bright idea and wrote some spiffy new bug-fix, it would go into a repository, need to get sold in house and then reviewed & tested before going gold in a patch god-knows-how-many months later...

As much as anything I think the processes are to help management cover their asses - If it goes through a 17 step analysis and is still wrong, they've done due diligence...

Re:They Care.

[phigga]

>> True, but I don't think it's just a Microsoft thing.

I'll agree with that...unfortunately for Microsoft, they're the largest example ever of a red-tape-laden software giant, and most comments that *should* be generalizations end up becoming anti-Microsoft slams.

It makes me wonder, though, if large software corps don't have something to learn from this "event" as the article keeps calling it. Would it ultimately be productive/counterproductive to, say, stop work on all new projects (or new features to old projects) in order to spend a couple weeks fixing important, nagging bugs?

I suspect that I'm thinking too much like a small business...software giants probably have entire teams devoted to fixing bugs while the other programmers keep cranking out new features (which will of course be based on the original buggy code).

RE: I imagine...

[fshalor]

That this meeting format method may even crop up on some HR person's desk as the next idea to try at m$.

I mean, apache's clearly costing a lot less to make into a good product than IIS. And compare the relative profitability... hehe ...ale and couches at redmond. slashdot article coming next month ...

This reminds me of the PostgreSQL crew...

[tcopeland]

...the fellows that keep the PostgreSQL server farm up and running. It seems like there's always something coming up - new releases, web page tweaks, PGFoundry activity, and all that. Props to Marc Fournier, Dave Page, Andrew Dunstan, and the other fellows who make things run smoothly!

WTF

[slashrogue]

Maybe Chairman Bill doesn't "get" it because he's too busy answering press calls about his generosity in donating his billions to them poor brown people over there.
What is this elitist, racist bullshit? I can't even read the rest of the article now. Yes, let's flame someone for donating to poor people. He should put all of his money in a vault and go swimming Uncle Scrooge style and laugh at "them poor brown people" in his spare time. What. The. Fuck.

Re:WTF

[ChatHuant]

If you put a quarter in the cup at mcdonalds each time you get a big Mac, chances are you're donating a larger fraction of your income to charity than Bill Gates does. Sure, it's better to donate something than nothing, but as the old saying goes, it's not what you give, it's what you sacrifice. The point of the comment was that Bill Gates can't make up for all the wrong he's done by giving away what is, to him, a pittance.

Not that I don't like a good rant, but let's run some numbers.
Assuming you eat 3 times a day at McDonalds, you end up giving 75 c a day, or less than $275 a year. Assuming you reached 49 years (as old as Bill Gates) despite your terrible dietary habits, and you started working at 20, you ended up donating less than $8000. Even if you're at poverty level, that is you make $9827/year, your total income over this period would be close to 285000 dollars; so you're giving about 2% of your total income. Bill Gates donated close to $27 billion, and has a net worth of about 47 billion, so that's about 36% of his net worth. Looks like Gates got you beat here too.

Re:WTF

[TheOneBiscuit]

I despise your viewpoint. Are you attempting to say that although his donations have helped millions of people, it doesn't matter because it didn't hurt him enough. I am not a big fan of Microsoft, but your comment is pathetic.

Skills

[wombatmobile]

These guys have the skills to be Microsoft millionaires

Skills isn't the hard part. It's the timing.

Re:Skills

[rayde]

but you NEED skills! You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... Microsoft millionares are only people who have great skills.

Re:Skills

[serutan]

I haven't even read the article but I was compelled to come in here and make sure somebody rebutted that statement. I've been a contractor at MS on and off for years, and although there are lots of smart people there, they probably aren't any smarter than you are, and they certainly aren't any less smart than the ones I knew there in 1990 who became millionnaires because of Windows 3.1.

Those folks didn't get rich because they're brilliant programmers, they got rich because Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are brilliant business tycoons. The proof is in the plethora of ex-MS employees whose own startups failed in the late 90s. I was a contractor at one of those too... high rise offices with breathtaking view, high-energy 20-something CEO with breathtaking secretary... product never saw the light of day.

Many of the men who survived sailing with Columbus, Magellan, etc, no doubt considered themselves a cut above the ordinary run of sailors, but how many of them can you name?

Ok, got that off my chest, now to go back and read the Apache article. Looks pretty interesting.

Doesn't this sound weird?

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

Maybe Chairman Bill doesn't "get" it because he's too busy answering press calls about his generosity in donating his billions to them poor brown people over there.

Umm... Shouldn't the source be MadRacistPenguin?

Just a note

[stratjakt]

Real journalism doesn't contain stupid shit like this: "Maybe Chairman Bill doesn't "get" it because he's too busy answering press calls about his generosity in donating his billions to them poor brown people over there."

There you go, simultaneously racist, stupid, and ignorant.

I think Bill's promise to give away 90+% of his net worth is more noble than anything any slashdotter will ever accomplish.

The OSS "community" has a bad reputation precisely because of ignorant stupid bullshit statements like that one.

Re:Just a note

[Ithika]

Your failure to spot satire writ large is unfortunate, but nothing compared to the claims you make about the OSS community's "bad reputation"... I don't even know what that reputation is. This whole article is about their *good* reputation - their ability to get things done without meaningless corporate nonsense getting in the way.

What are *you* contributing that's so useful, besides your knee-jerk reactions and inability to read not-so-subtle sarcastic statements?

Can I just say

[Moderation abuser]

Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance really has nothing to do with motorcycle maintenance. It's about Quality with a capital Q.

So can we please have fewer of these "Zen and the art of blahblahblah" books?

Re:Can I just say

[G-funk]

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance really seems to be about right flaming gibberish. WTF is it with the last 10% of that book? I just can't make it through. I feel like I'm sitting in church with the simpsons hearing a lecture about who begat whom for weeks on end.

That book needs to come with a health warning: "If you haven't studied ancient greek philosophy for 15 years, stop reading at page 192. Book may become airborne, or sit next to toilet gathering dust for decades. Aim away from face."