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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."
After having followed all this (and especially Linus' attacks on Tridge, which, as Bruce points out, are entirely unjustifed), I'm really wondering about one thing - just how many BitMover shares does Linus own? ^_~
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
While I basically agree with Bruce completely on this particular issue, there's something a bit ironic about Bruce, who has quite a reputation as a hothead himself, telling the usually unperturbable Mr. Torvalds to "cool it".
:)
:)
Ever since Larry McAvoy pulled kernel dev (and former Debian Project Leader) Ben Collins' license I've been waiting for this thing to blow up. It's been obvious that it was a matter of when, not whether. And it seems pretty obvious to me that Tridge merely provided the excuse Larry has been looking for.
Linus is a smart guy, and I'm sure he'll get over his little snit before long. But in the meantime, my god, being told to cool it by Bruce Perens is like having RMS tell you not to worry so much about whether the software is really free or not!
(Not to dis Bruce, who I really like. And, as a person of Irish descent, I understand the temper thing. But still....wow!
However I do have a goodly bit of management experience and this kind of talk is bad no matter how you slice it.
Bruce Perens doesn't work with Linus, and Linus doesn't work with Perens. This isn't a "make everyone feel nice-nice" situation. Anyway, if Linus has such a thin skin he can't stand someone saying he can be a real idiot.. well, that's Linus's problem.
Saying these kinds of things to the press can only hurt the whole OSS movement as it give all the MS, Sun, et all shills plenty of ammo to use. I can see press release from MS now, "And even Linus' colleagues wonder about his decision making process, going so far as to call them idiotic."
Any statement taken out of context can be used against you. In the real world people disagree on things, and that's OK. Pretending otherwise is just lame. Real people with real opinions say things like "that guy can be a real idiot sometimes" and everyone accepts that statement at face value. If you start playing that game of "never say anything bad", you just wind up sounding like a dickless politician. The public at large is pretty stupid, but dickless politicians can be identified by anyone from a few light years away.
AccountKiller
Torvalds does the Open Source movement a great disservice by downplaying the importance of freedom. I've been critical of the Open Source movement as a whole for this but apart from Torvalds, the founding fathers at least recognise that facet of the Open Source diamond needs the occasional polish. Torvalds on the other hand has demonstrated his absolute contempt for my and your freedoms and I doubt his reputation will ever recover from this.
Torvalds has jumped the shark.
Look from initial reports, Andrew was not trying to reverse-engineer the whole damn system, just the free client. This would put it in section b rather than a.
"The real mistake was to accept the 'free' BitKeeper licence with its poison pill"
Had the 'free-licence' been (a) irrevokable, and (b) had a sensible (BK) source escrow term, then and only then would the cost-benefit to Bitmover and the community made _balanced_ sense.
But that is water under the bridge, what is really interesting is the fallout, GIT.
GIT is the Linus' replacement patch-manager, and will, I predict revolutionise thinking about SCM tools. Linus has come up with an original and revolutionary approach, (less than 6 man-weeks work, under 150k code) which lays the foundations for a really effective OpenSource SCM, and, in the process run a pithy seminar class in what was the matter with traditional SCMs.
This may turn out to be one of the most useful things to have happened in a long time.
You don't need to be a software developer of any kind to understand that it's a bad thing when Linus Torvalds told Andrew Tridgell to stop developing his free software network-compatible replacement for BitKeeper. If McVoy's retelling is accurate, I find it very disturbing and so should everyone else in the free software community. This is a very big sign that Torvalds is not the free software "posterboy" some take him to be. We don't tell one another what programs to write or not write without paying them, and we certainly don't impede another's desire to promote a free software alternative to a proprietary program. Impeding free software is harmful to the community.
This is remarkably one-sided of Torvalds as well. I'm sure Microsoft doesn't appreciate Samba servers being used instead of Microsoft Windows servers, yet the reason Samba is so good at what it does (and can replace some Microsoft SMB servers) is because Tridgell and the other Samba developers did the reverse-engineering work to figure out how the SMB protocols work in practice. I don't recall reading about Torvalds defending proprietary software being distributed by Microsoft by telling Tridgell to stop his Samba work; but BitMover's proprietary software has received that kind of attention from Torvalds. Torvalds is serving as a buttress for BitMover here.
As for Torvalds sometimes being a "real idiot", I can attest to that although I would never have called him names. I can think of instances where Torvalds inadvertantly embarassed himself when his opinion was sought on political matters. In such instances it is clear to all but the most ardent Torvalds fans that his reach exceeds his grasp. If I recall correctly, a recent Newsforge.com interview asked him what he thought of the upcoming GNU GPL v3 (possibly years before it comes out). This struck me as unwise since he does not closely examine copyright law or its ethical import for society (two of the things one needs to have down pat to offer critique worth considering regarding the GPL). For this advice I would have instead asked Eben Moglen or RMS, both authorities on the issues surrounding the GPL. By contrast, asking Torvalds about Linux kernel programming would be perfectly appropriate. I'd never think to go to Moglen or RMS for this information.
You shouldn't fear "spin". You need to trust that people will examine what happened and be reasonable, discuss the situation, and find better arguments. Microsoft will distort history regardless of what we do. They've proven this with their college campus tours and interviews when they declare that free software is a "cancer" or will eat your "intellectual property" like Pac-Man. Brad Kuhn (former executive director of the FSF) said at a talk in Urbana, IL that the annual budget for the FSF is what Microsoft makes in 30 seconds, yet Microsoft has said that the FSF is a threat to software development worldwide. When we see something unethical going on, we need to speak up about it, no matter who is at fault. The cure for bad speech is more speech.
Digital Citizen
Point 2 is incorrect however. The tool is for interoperability between those who use BK, and these who don't. It's not useless for those who don't use BK in the first place.
Just to expand on what I think my sibling is trying to say...
You have a fourth choice:
- use the tool (as a client) to access the BK server.
It is useful...check
It doesn't violate a license...check
Since _you_ aren't using any BK software, you don't have to comply with any licenses. The BK server doesn't have to know anything if the protocol is correct. This is analogous to using samba to connect to a MS fileserver; the samba user doesn't have to agree to the terms of Microsoft's license.
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
As the other poster says, Linus deserves respect for bringing us the Linux kernel... but that's about it.
He really does just go with whatever is easiest for him personally - morals, movements and philosophies be damned.
I like Linux, I appreciate the fact that it has provided a basis for a lot of GNU development and Open Source advances... but Linus Torvalds really isn't the best spokesperson we have for Open Source. He never has been, and he never will be.
Let him concentrate on the kernel, and just ignore any of his attempts to move outside of that...
BK is distributed. And Tridge's tool is 'accessing the server'.
Wait a moment. Which server??? Distributed means no central server...
Does the distributed nature of BK not imply that every environment is at the same time server and client?
This would mean that to work with the tool you need to connect it the installation of those developers that you which to cooperate with?! An this would drag them automatically into the conflict between BM and Tridge.
To which Linus replies: (AIQICYDWTFTL)
This would mean that to work with the tool you need to connect it the installation of those developers that you which to cooperate with?!
Yes. Well. Only one of them.
But yes, it does mean that for at least that one developer, your point of:
And this would drag them automatically into the conflict between BM and Tridge.
Exactly.
So Tridge is entirely correct in saying that he didn't violate any licenses, since he never agreed to a BK license in the first place. But for the tool to be useful, somebody ends up having to be the fall guy.
The Register article "Torvalds knifes Tridgell" points to a posting in the forum at Real Word Technologies. My question is: is it sure, that this really was Linus Torvalds? I mean, in this discussion later on Bill Gates, Scott McNealy, Sam Palmisano and Darl McBride post some comments.
Using some fake name in a discussion forum is the easyest thing. So, where do we know, that the posting, where Tridgell is attacked, was really written by Torvalds?
I didn't mean evil in a vicious, sinister sort of way. I meant "morally wrong".
I guess I was evil for calling Linus evil. How's that for karma (I mean the Hindu karma, not Slashdot karma)?
-=DaveHowe=-
"Linus says (in essence) "reverse engineering the over-the-wire protocol employed by a closed-source application is morally wrong"."
Just curious, where did he say this? I have read a lot of direct writing by Linus on this subject and have NEVER seen this statement. The 'in essence' part leads me to believe this "quote" was either taken out of context or paraphrased.
I think the problem Linus had, paraphrasing, is not that protocols were sniffed but that there was no intention of creating a useful product. In short, something was done that would create problems for others with nothing useful to show for it.
If Tridge did it for principle and did nothing wrong then Tridge should be out there defending himself.
WTF? Most of us do things that aren't wrong every day of our lives. We don't have to get out there and defend ourselves over them. Tridge doesn't need to defend himself precisely because there is nothing wrong in anything he is even accused of having done.
Time and time again Microsoft has pretty much come out on the "reverse engineering is a game" position. That is companies have the right to try and reverse engineer Microsoft protocols and Microsoft has the right to make that hard by changing stuff. So I'm not sure they agree with Linus but rather with Trigdell.