Bruce Perens Tells Linus Torvalds To Cool It

Eh-Wire writes "Bruce Perens has weighed in on the controversy surrounding Andrew Trigdell's attempt to 'reverse engineer' the proprietary Bitkeeper code management software of Larry McVoy and the ensuing fallout with Linus Torvalds. Not only does he tell Linus Trovalds to 'Cool it!' he also suggests, 'Larry sees conspiracies that don't exist.' Sounds like Bruce is a bit worked up about this."

Comments

Re:So...

[Narchie Troll]

1. Tridge reverse-engineers proprietary protocols. That's what he does. Ever heard of Samba?
2. As far as I can tell, Tridge wasn't intent on breaking any deal between Linus and McVoy.
3. Tridge never used BitKeeper's free client, so he did not agree to the license. He can't fail to "uphold his side of the deal", because he never made a deal.

Linus is hypocritically attacking someone for reverse-engineering his friend's protocol, when he does not criticize others for doing the same to other protocols. Tridgell has done some great work, and he deserves better.

Re:So...

[prash_n_rao]

Linus' views are here: http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?acti on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=19&entryID=49354&roo mID=11
Here's a relevant extract:
Tridge's tool would have been useful
if that usage had been sanctioned by BitMover. But since
that tool ends up invalidating your right to use BK in
the first place, and since that tool can not replace
what BK did, then yes, the tool is pointless.

So you have three choices
- don't use the tool (which makes it useless)
- use the tool, but stop using BK (which makes it useless)
- use the tool _and_ use BK, which violates the BK
license

Two useless cases, and one outright license violation.

Now, let's look at a _constructive_ case: let's say that
Tridge had written a really good SCM. Now the choice would
be:
- use the tool (cool, that works)
- use BK (cool, that also works)

and everybody would be happy. If a developer wanted to
switch to Tridges hypothetical tool, BK comes with the
stuff needed to export your own data.

See? Open Office and Samba are both in that "happy" case.
You can use them and be happy. They are _useful_ tools.
They actually _replace_ the tool they were meant to replace,
rather than just hook into it in ways that are against
the license.

Do not assume I represent any side of the argument. I just thought you people should know his rationale.

Re:Linus / BM shares?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't so busy being an idiot, you'd realise that Tridge didn't violate any licence. He never had a copy of BitKeeper in the first place, relying on sniffing networks (with permission) on which other people were using BitKeeper, and on getting BitKeeper users to mail him copies of their on-disk repositories.

Nothing in that can break the licence, as Tridge never agreed to it.

Oh, and by the way, you've violated my Slashdot posting licence; as per the terms of the licence, you owe me $10,000.

This is about the *project*, not morality

[jquiroga]

Linus is right in what he said. He may look like an idiot right now, but he isn't. Please read his posts (cited below), and don't believe hearsay.

He said this episode is damaging to the Linux kernel *project*, because he took advantage of, and depended on, BK's *functionality*, not BK per se. He said there isn't any other app (open or closed) that offers that functionality, and that he would rather write a new one himself.

[...] It's unquestionably true that BitKeeper has advanced the state of SCM technology. Anybody who argues against that just doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. But I'd have loved even an "almost-as-good" open source SCM, because that would obviously just be a good idea.
[...]
Now, I'm dealing with the fall-out, and I'll write my own kernel source tracking tool because I can't use the best any more. That's ok - I deal with my own problems, thank you very much. But what I find sad is how some people are so _gleeful_ about a commercial program becoming less useful, only because it was commerical.
If BK was a crappy tool, I'd at least understand the glee. But in this case it was the commercial people who did the impressive technology and pushed technology forward. And I'm just honest enough to be able to say that.
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?acti on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=2&entryID=49312&room ID=11

So: true support for totally distributed development (replication doesn't count), performance, and trust. Nothing else matters. And BK does those better than anything else I've seen.
(Well, at least I hope those are the only three things that matter. The quick-hack framework I'm putting together bases its entire design on just those three things, and maybe I'll find out that I'm wrong, and that there are three other things that I just took for granted ;)
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?acti on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=5&entryID=49321&room ID=11

He said he doesn't believe in the open-or-nothing 'solution'.

So I think open source tends to become technically better over time (but it does take time), but I don't think it's a moral imperative. I do open source because it's fun, and because I think it makes sense in the long run.
For some reason that is hard for a lot of free software people to accept. Too many people see things as a war of "free software" against "proprietary evil". This is, btw, the real difference between the "open source" crowd and the "free software" crowd, as far as I'm concerned.
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?acti on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=2&entryID=49312&room ID=11

He did NOT say Tridgell didn't have a right to do what he did. He said Tridgell's goal was not to develop an alternative to BK right now (and therefore his current work wasn't a solution to his dependence 'problem'), and now the *project* is going to suffer.

But that's not what Tridge did. He didn't write a "better SCM than BK". He didn't even try - it wasn't his goal. He just wanted to see what the protocols and data was, without actually producing any replacement for the (inevitable) problems he caused and knew about.
He didn't create something new and impressive. He just tore down something new (and impressive) because he could, and rather than helping others, he screwed people over. And you expect me to _respect_ that kind of behaviour?

Re:This is about the *project*, not morality

[winwar]

"It's nice to see Linus admitting that licensing problems can make software as useless as technical flaws. In fact, he now seems to think that license barriers are a form of incompatibility, and it's irresponsible to risk having such problems. Good for him. Maybe someday he'll connect those dots and realize who really fucked up."

Of course if you had bothered to go to the other site where he had actually posted you might realize he had considered those things. And even explained some more things you (and a heck of a lot of other posters) obviously don't have a clue about.

But, you (and others) have already made up your mind so more information doesn't really matter....

You skipped the point.

[hummassa]

the free SCMs had the problem of being 10-100x slower than BK.
they were not "about as good". there is an enourmous different between taking 20-30 seconds to process a patchset and taking ONE HOUR doing it.