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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."
Just because Larry's paranoid doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get him.
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.
Perens vs Torvalds vs RMS vs Gates in death match, Perens lobs a grenade. Will Torvalds respond with a clean headshot ? I can see RMS as the Axe murdering type while Gates just cheats with g0d_m0d3 .
Damn noobs can't even spell Linux Torvalds!
Since when does Slashdot believe in mud-slinging? I read about Bruce Perens' comments on the Register earlier today and thought what he was saying was pretty stupid -- or at least the whole thing was stupid. How is this at all pertinent to Open Source?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
They made up a quote, but they also said right afterwards that it was, in fact, not real, so while it's debatable whether that really is good journalistic style, they did not attempt to actually mislead people, and there is no reason to assume that they're doing so now, either.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
After TheRegister made up Linus' previous quotes,
from the fine link: "The article offers the quote and then continues: 'Actually he didn't - we just made that quote up. But what Torvalds really did say this weekend is only slightly less bizarre.'" I can't see how this affects The Register's credibility.
"There are times when Linus Torvalds can be a real idiot, and this is one of these times," said Perens.
I'm no kernel developer so I have no clue as to if Linus is "[being] a real idiot". However I do have a goodly bit of management experience and this kind of talk is bad no matter how you slice it.
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." Does that statement reflect what was originally intended? Of course not but this is the era of the spin and you can bet that they will use it in whatever way they can.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Damn trolls making everyone spell incorrectly.
If you actually read the article you can see that the sentence Actually he didn't - we just made that quote up. immediately follows the "made up" quotes. It was a joke to make a point by analogy to reverse engineering Microsoft file formats.
In the Bruce Perens article, he makes another analogy -- to the work Trigdell did reverse engineering the SMB protocol. Both articles are pointing out this weird blind spot Linus seems to have in accepting something that is generally supported by the community and completely legal: reverse engineering proprietary protocols is a good thing which frees the open source community from vendor lock in.
If I write an article using the comparison "this is like the Pope saying 'I don't believe in god'" - only Slashdot would get "The pope don't believe in god" out of this :)
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.
I think Perens is really making sense here. (Not that he always doesn, but this time around he hit the nail on the head.)
Why reverse engineering the smb protocol should be considered a good thing, while reverse engineering the protocol bitkeeper uses is beyond me and though Linus has come out strong against the latter he still didn't explain how he can still consider the former to be a good thing.
And above all, I think Linus is behaving very unfair towards Tridgell, who has done nothing illegal, didn't break any contract, but just did what he has done with other things already, which were always considered to be a good thing. Why doing the very same thing considered good in other circumstances now should lead to Torvalds attacking him is again beyond me.
Saying these kinds of things to the press can only hurt the whole OSS movement as it give all the MS
What you are saying is carp. There is no way that rudementary working ethical debate can hurt the OSS movement because it's bigger than any of these players. That's why it's such an advantage over the closed model.
Each of these guys could be pictured in some lewd manner on the Smoking Gun and the whole Open Source movement would still march on!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
"I'll respond once just because RWT is not slash-dot." - Linus Torvalds flaming on Real World tech
That is total b.s. You are creating a straw man. Many, many, people did not support Linus's ridiculous decision to use Bitkeeper. Trigdell was just doing the same thing he did with Samba - reverse engineering the proprietary protocol of a morally bankrupt company. By reversing BK, the Linux kernel development community would no longer have to be victims. Proprietary protocols and software are counter to the goals of the open source community.
Hell, Theo tore the code to pieces, to make an unencumbered version, once the license changed. I sure hope Linus stands up on principle for his fellow Finn! Maybe he'll return to telnet - or buy a commercial SSH...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
There's a difference between reverse-engineering SMB and reverse-engineering Bitkeeper: noone has ever agreed to not reverse-engineer SMB just by running it. This is different from Bitkeeper. Now how does this make a difference here, where Tridgell didn't use the Bitkeeper software? He must have been listening to someone's network traffic, and either he was eavesdropping, or that other person allowed it, and this could be construed as a violation of the Bitkeeper license.
Also, McVoy has claimed that Bitkeeper saw unusual usage patterns or something like that, so maybe Tridgell even tried his software on Bitmover's servers, which to some degree would explain their anger.
Personally, I still believe that what happened is better for the Free Software movement overall. Hopefully, management people get told this story with the right spin, i.e. proprietary software means you have no rights.
The actual statement directed at Linus was that he's got to "cool it now," and that he'd better "watch out" because he's "gonna lose control."
Furthermore, it wasn't Perens who said this. It was actually Bobby Brown. It was also at this point that Whitney Houston told Torvalds that she "believed the children were the future," and that a reversed engineered Bitkeeper would "teach them well and let them lead the way."
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
Tridge verses Linus. It's like Father Christmas verses Jesus...
Remember, it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to pull the trigger of a sniper rifle.
First the Penguins, then the arguments came. How many times have we seen this happen? (?)
www.whitedust.net
If you start with stuff about free software zealots, then the will of those involved in the project can be ignored, since they're clearly not reasonable in their opinion, Hell, maybe they should give up on that stupid project of writing a free kernel, since there are perfectly good proprietry alternatives.
Wikileaks, no DNS
...when I read stupid political talk from people who wish to be able to influence not by providing, but by talking down the stars from heavens - well, like most stupid polticians do.
If I have to choose between a man who talks so much, and crap so often that it's far above the statistical mean, I will always take the side of the other guy, who proved his ways so many times with his deeds.
That's the story for me, you choose who's who from above.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
My hat's off to Linus for his work and stewardship of the kernel.
That doesn't make this right, however. Linus is unequivocally wrong in creating double standards for the morality of reverse engineering, and I don't think the community is going to forget that.
I'm not vilifying Linus, I'm aying that the guy's human, not the demigod that the slashbot party portrays.
He just cannot be in such a sensitive position and remain "just an engineer".
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
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!
Well.... I think so, yes.
The fact is that I think this is a fairly important debate.
Was Linus wrong for using a propietry tool for the development of the kernel and essentially forcing all kernel developers to follow him?
Could this situation been forseen?
Is Linus angry with Tridge because it actually shows up his previous bad decision and the only way for him to save face is to badger Tridge?
Is McVoy behaving like a spoilt kid and taking his ball home because somebody didn't want to play his game?
I'm personally with Tridge and Perens all the way on this one (not that anybody will care). Reverse Engineering is legal. McVoy needs to deal with that.
If we get a schism, then so be it. It's an important line to be divided by in the development of a Open Source / Free OS.
I used to like Linuse's "just for fun" and "I'm an engineer" attitude. Now I see what lack of ethics and moral code can lead to in ANY field. I say SHAME ON YOU LINUS.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Wow, same trick works for "trigdell". Google is amazing. Of course, since I just misspelled McVoy in another post, I guess I shouldn't be casting stones. :)
Yloni? You must mean Ylonen.
Damn straight --- but it should be "The Finns don't take no crap." I should know, I share an office with one.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
unlike SMB everyone uses it and the fact is majority of the computers are running on Windows but BitKeeper is not the same case
Okay first things first, everyone should pull their heads in. Linus should give a detailed explanation of how he thinks that reverse engineering is a "Bad Thing", Tridge should break his cone of silence and let the community in on what exactly he was doing, and Larry should get used to the fact that people in the "Open" Source Community are going to want to have a SCM that meets their requirements, both in terms of technical abilities and licensing issues.
I think this is what Bruce was trying to say.
If any of the above mentioned do happen to read this (seriously doubtful I know) this does not imply disrespect for your previous work, just that my seven year old acts like this when he gets pissed off too.
I don't recall hearing about Microsoft donating free licenses to Linux or Samba developers.
When you continously give something of value to a group of people, and they 'condone' a member of their group to do something that jeopardizes your livelyhood (how you pay your rent and provide for your family) then it is understandable that you might want to stop giving to that group--especially when the gift was costing you around $500,000/year. Seriously, think about this scenario without associating it with open source, etc. You bet your ass you'd stop giving to that group!
The ideal solution would've been for the 'troublemaker' to leave the group, so that the gift-giver would have no grounds to stop giving to the entire group. But nooo....that was too simple for them to consider.
Linus did the right thing because all the open source SCM solutions sucked for the past few years. There are some really cool open source solutions like SVK and monotone, but they probably could've used another couple years to become robust enough for a large, complex project like the Linux kernel.
Linux clearly benefitted from Bitkeeper. And Bitkeeper probably benefitted from all the publicity.
People should select SCM software based on technical merits and user productivity rather than religious views on licensing. The idiocy and fanaticism of both corporate monkeys and GPL fanatics never cease to amaze me. Linus avoids these two opposite extreams and did what was best for the Linux kernel--unfortunately, the fanatics surrounding Linus put an end to a good thing.
BTW, I'm a very satisfied Subversion 1.1.4 (Debian server) and TortoiseSVN (Windows client) user so I've nothing against open source SCM products for my needs. I just know that for the Linux kernel, there really isn't anything as appropriate as Bitkeeper.
And I pray that ClearCase doesn't become the SCM for Linux (in case IBM offers a very generous license). Not because it is closed source, but because I didn't like my experiences with it.
Sure, this may be the same thing that happened with Samba but linus never made any claims about the legality. Something which may be technically and legally similar is not necessarily just as good a strategic idea.
In the case of microsoft we had a widely deployed piece of software that the open source community needed to interact with for compatibility reasons. Nothing of the kind is true with BitKeeper. In the case of BitKeeper the open source community could have simply built their own incompatible protocol and not have to worry about being shut out of the market by a BitMover monopoly. On the other hand in the case of microsoft the open source community couldn't simply build a better protocol than Samab but really needed to be compatible.
Secondly, while it's possible I very much doubt that the BitKeeper protocol was being reverse engineered from the expensive pro version. Most likely it being reverse enginered from the free versions (or at least comped versions). Unlike microsoft which needs to keep Samba out there in every windows box BitMover was just allowing this free usage as a donation/PR move and could easily revoke it without comprimising their buisness model.
In short by trying to reverse engineer this protocol it seems that Andrew? gave the impression that the 'price' of donating expensive software to open source projects is to have your market advantages reverse engineered and probably implemented in free projects. So while sure he has just as much right to reverse engineer in samba the first instance is an important blow against a monopoly trying to use propietary protocols to unfairly strangle competition. In this case there was no similar monopolistic pressure (there isn't a strong installed base of BK users who we need to be compatible with) and made it look like there was a steep price for trying to help the open source community.
Regardless of what you think of the deciscion to use BK or the need to reverse engineer this project having someone paid by the SAME organization which is the beneficiary of the free software (or at least appears to be in the media) is surely a bad move politically. It certainly would give me pause if I was a manager at a big corporation thinking of donating some helpful development tools to some open source project.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
With "reality" you're surely meaning "ideological purity".
What I really like about Linus, unlike the likes of RMS, Perens and many slashdotters, is that he puts technical facts way ahead of political non-sense when making decisions.
So, do we get to see Microsoft products using Bitkeeper? I don't get the message here. If Larry goes ahead with this "no competing products" thing (as if he has no idea about the opensource community), extinction would probably be inevitable as has started happening to someone who owned almost every PC.
Sorry Larry, thought you had it all worked out. This seems to have nosedived. The opensource community made a better OS platform "GNU/Linux" against one that was "freely" available in India (when piracy couldn't be checked.) Are we trying to say we can't create a "better than bitkeeper" versioning system? We made so much progress with just CVS.
No Greater Friend, No Greater Enemy! (Lucius Cornelius Sulla)
Having a sig like that brings out the best of Slashdot. They can dish it out, but they can't take it.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
How was it costing them that much? Such figures are just like the IRAA's 'cost of piracy' figures - pure Bull.
Look at the 'cost'..
- is it costing BK the value of the licenses?
.. No. That's revenue that they could have gained if the kernel developers chose to buy it independantly
- is it the cost of developing bug-fixes?
.. don't make me laugh - they have to do that anyways.
- Is is the cost of implementing features necessary for a huge distributed development team?
.. considering that this is precisely what BK was designed for, a large amount of such improvements would be required or requested by their paying customers anyways.
- Bandwidth and server costs?
.. yes, they are costs that BK would have to bear, but I doubt very much that it comes to anywhere near the half a mil a year quoted.
Let's look at what BK gained from the deal- They got massive and public prof that the system did what it was supposed to and worked well at this scale - how many other projects (OS or proprietary) as large would use it and allow BK to say they were using it?
- Massive, massive, huge unspeakable amounts of good publicity - it went from a fairly niche product to something that every linux hacker has discussed overnight!
- I would imagine a large number of big customers would have moved to BK purely for those two points alone.
That makes no sense at all.Tridge should leave what group, exactly?
The group of BK users - that he wasn't a part of anyway? - or the OSS group? "sorry mate, that guy over there doesn't like the look of you, so you will have to give up your hobby. Stop coding now and stop giving stuff away"
You do realise thatthe entire foundation, the whole point, the differentiator of open source software is licensing. The license issue is a hugely important issue, otherwise Linux would not have made it much further past Linus' initial realease. Those people with the skill enough and cared enough to want software with user-friendly licenses picked it up and helped along to bring things where they are - if you don't get the licensing point, you simply do not get open source software.
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.
This is not my sig.
So what you are saying is that no one can disagree with Linus? That a person volunteering his time on a project cannot decide to work on something else at the same time?
Yup that sounds like Russia circa 1940, which by the way would be a very offensive thing to accuse Linus of considering his home country was desperately trying to fight off the Russians at that time.
Until we hear all sides of the story, not just Larrys and Linus' we should refrain from leaping in with both feet, we may just find that they end up in our mouths.
including the grammar error, that is
The Register has been completely biased about the matter so I wouldn't take their word on anything. Linus is pissed off at Tridge because he messed up the deal with McVoy and wasn't even trying to produce anything functional to replace BK. "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."
Everybody seems to forget that McVoy contributed more than $500 000 worth of software to the osdl. Without the contribution, Tridge would have never been able to even try to reverse engineer the program.
Linus lost the use of the best SCM there is. Why shouldn't he be pissed?
Proprietary isn't (always) evil!
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Linus's description of kernel development as "corraling cats" still holds true. And you don't corral cats by putting a dog smack in the middle of them.
This was a bomb waiting to go off. Linus may be pissed, but reality does that to people when they don't adhere to it's laws.
Tridge didn't do anything wrong. In fact he excel's at doing things right. See the newforge interview to get an idea.
I rarely agree with Bruce's conclusions, but this is one of the times he makes total realistic sense. Plopping the smartest, most dedicated GPL developers on a proprietary system without their consent is tantamount to treason in government. Like fingernails on a chalk board, you could hear the kernel developers principles twisting as Linus declared the use of BitKeeper law.
Linus made a bad choice. Now he gets to pay for it. Cause and effect. If BitKeeper was under an open cource license, then it wouldn't be subject to the whim's of one man's bowel movement on a certain day. But it is, and Linus should have had the foresight to see that.
He isn't just an engineer when he is steering the ship. He is the captain. He has the responsibility to look ahead of the curve, and to not get romanced by the easy way out when he's in charge. But he didn't. He fucked up. Now the role of a leader is to admit the mistake and ask for alternatives. Leave Tridge out of this. He did his job. I hope Linus does his.
Both these decisions show that there was more to Linux than mere technical merit. It has been argued (and I think successfully) that Linux would not exist in the form it does now had it not been for the selection of the GPL as its licence. Whether Linus has strong political leanings or not, many of the other kernel developers do; without some form of politicisim then, large portions of the kernel would not exist.
Carpe Daemon
It appears to be a "gift" with chains attached to it, and is not much different from other vendors lock-in attempts. Many refused the "gift", and they are, of course, not obliged to respect it's condition nor live by them.
"Kernel in the City"
Does Linus dual boot his PB? Will Perens choose to stop frequenting the Pickled Penguin after his fall out with Larry?
Real developers, real lives; this compelling new series promises to 'take the clothes off' Kernel Development.
As we all know, recently some major milestones were achieved in the development of the HURD. Larry is basically one of RMS' pawns to make Linus look bad to the community so everyone will switch to the HURD in the coming years. He's basically pissed because the biggest name in the OSS community is not a fanatic like he is. He figured out that Linux is doing so well because the benevolent dictator pattern actually works quite well, so the way to destroy this is to turn Linus into a malevolent dictator.
As RMS will point out to everyone by the time everybody starts getting fed up with Linus: "Linux is just a kernel, we can get another one, in fact, one is maturing nicely right now..."
He isn't just an engineer when he is steering the ship. He is the captain.
Love, exciting and new,
Come aboard.
We're expecting you.
Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow,
it floats back to you.
The Love Boat
soon will be making another run.
The Love Boat promises something for everyone.
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.
Love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore.
It's Looooove!
Welcome aboard - It's Looooove!
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Eric S Raymond comes into the room bitching that he wasn't invited to the death match, whips out an AK-47, and blows all of them away, all the while muttering something about "damn socialists"
if you want an example of a a community that cant make desicions because there's more red tape than in the ministry of beaurocracy then look at debian.
I think Torvalds being in control (presuming he's good - i dont actually know much about him) is a good thing because if a decision needs to be made, he can do it rather than waiting ages for a community to piss about for ages. (if the debian project ran the kernel, we'd still be on 1.x)
a) Someone has made a solution that is better than anything you have, and you are trying to find out what makes it tick so you can cheat and steal it.
b) Someone has made a solution that is pretty good, but which you have something just as good as, and you seek only interoperability*
It strikes me from what I've read that this whole BitKeeper fiasco is an example of the former i.e. that the open-source community do not have anything as capable as BitKeeper is, and this kind of reverse-engineering is, as Larry puts it, "riding my coat-tails", and is something I don't really like to see happen, nor would I sleep easily at night if I did. Samba, on the other hand (see extensive footnote below!) is different - I gather that very capable networking systems have already been created (although I could well be wrong about this - I know very little about networking) and so the open-source community has already proven that it has the brainpower required to produce something "as good as" Samba, and so is not cheating. If this is true, then I would not lose a wink of sleep from reverse-engineering Samba.
Another example I guess would be in video codecs - I see nothing wrong with reverse-engineering WMV so that it could be played in mplayer, as the open-source community already has xvid, which is at least almost as good as WMV (perhaps even better; I do not know).
* There is no conflict between "being as good as" and "not being interoperable with" i.g. "not being able to do the same thing as, in the same way". As an example, say I created a networking protocol that enabled one to share files, printers etc easily and transparently - i.e. does everything that Samba can do. However, I know nothing about the way that Samba works, so although on a network of computers running only clients and servers for my protocol, everything works just as well as it would in an all-Samba environment, put any of my servers and clients in a Samba environment and they will not work - my protocol, from the point of view of observed function, is just as good and capable as Samba, it's just they speak different languages.
But does Microsoft
1)has a license stating that windows users can't develop other competing products ?
2)refuse to license windows to say Novel or IBM who develops competing products ?
The answer is No !
Bitkeeper won't even sell you a license if you work on a competing product.If that is not being paranoid and unreasonable i don't know what is.
TechSutra
"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
Except, he didn't make Linux for the reasons you think, it was not to be supperior or because he didn't like Minix. No, it was because he wanted to learn the PC architecture and because his computer wasn't good enough to run Minix all that well.
Not to mention that Linux was originally closed source; so what exacly is your point?
My point is that "originally closed source" is irrelevant. It wasn't at some point, and Linus made that decision. When it became open source a licence was chose and Linux made that decision. They were NOT technical decisions so the argument that Linus never makes any decisions that aren't on technical merit is wrong.
Carpe Daemon
Hence, making the poster boy of Open Source appear to be a strong supporter of intellectual property rights.
Linus is a far more practical proponent than most give him credit for.
- ss1720
And that's exactly what Tridgell was doing. The register says he was only doing the client, but that's naive (or pretends to be). Many people would love Trigell make a competing alternative - and good on him! But McVoy has said "that's fine, but I'm not going to provide free licenses to a company that is gpoing to scuttle the uniqueness of my hard work!".
I personally think that geeks everywhere should celebrate anyone who comes up with a cool new better way to do things. That's McVoy. Yeah, it's nicer if you do it all for free, but you deserve some reward for all that hard work and risk and creativity!!!! So there it is.
Someone should tell zealots like Perens that in the real world, people compromise so everyone can be happy. Also that there is nothing wrong with with proprietary or comercial software. If it didn't exist free software would have nothing to 'libarate'.
Perhaps you're not aware of Mr. Perens' ideals, and his Sincere Choice project?
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
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.
...in a post on another site. But his reasoning clearly held an obvious double-standard that I simply can't swallow. My only explanation for Linus' inability to see what's right in front of his face is that he's personally invested in the issue due to his friendship with the maker of BitKeeper. Anything else just doesn't explain how the normally rational and reasonable Torvalds can do a one-eighty on this particular issue and, quite frankly, be an complete dick about in the process (his post, if you haven't read it, was more like a typical slashdot flamefest response than what you'd expect from Linus).
This is one instance where Linus isn't thinking clearly. I'll cut him some slack since in the past he's been more clear-headed than all of Slashdot put together, but even so it means I'll be reviewing what he says and does more carefully in the future - at least until I'm convinced he's gotten over this momentary bout of insanity.
One thing I do agree with, and always will: 'open source' and 'free software' are not one and the same, nor is there any moral issue involved in using open/free or proprietary software. Both models are perfectly valid and the people who turn the whole mess into a good/evil holy war are fucking idiots of the first order. On that he is, and always has been, right on target.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
If there are any legal problems with Tridgell's work, they'll sort it out one way or another, but it's no use shouting all over the press what one should do and what not.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Wow, for once the Slashdot groupthink isn't pro-Linus. But I am. I'll explain why. First, you need to read the original thread to get a feel for what Linus is saying. At least read the first 15 posts there.
After you've read it, you'll come away with a few realizations:
Just think: if you were a bottleneck, if data and people were coming at you at a very fast pace all the time, and if there was tremendous pressure on you to build a platform that would rival Microsoft, one coping mechanism is to find tools that increase productivity. A lot. (Other good coping mechanisms include heavy drinking and vanishing without a trace.)
Now Linus, who has no ready alternative is staring down a barrel of loaded source code, knowing it's going to fire off in his face real soon now. And someone else has yanked his defense right out from under him. He has a real problem now. He's pissed. I can put myself in his shoes, I can understand his frustration. Basically, it's this: "Well great. WTF do I do now? Oh shit, stuff is backing up already. Thanks! That's fucking great!"
Is Torvalds wrong to blame Trigdell for reverse engineering? Yes. Is Torvalds wrong to feel horribly, disastrously inconvenienced by this? No, he has every right. Forget the technical arguments for a day or a week. This is a human issue right now. People were inconsiderate of each other, and now they're walking around with bloddy noses. Give them time to assess the situation. If Torvalds doesn't soften his position in a short while, fork, screw him, whatever. But give him some time for the fight or flight instinct to be peter out before you all write him off.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
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?
It's not debatable, that was bad journalistic style.
But if that wasn't already obvious, the amount of confusion generated by the fake qoute should make it obvious now.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Sorry, but that's all there is to it. He picked a proprietary tool with a lousy license. In addition, the tool was produced by someone who seemed pretty clearly unstable and hostile to open source. Now that the chickens have come how to roost, he is trying to blame other people for the unpleasant task of having to switch version control systems.
I'm glad Linus does the work he does, but I don't particularly trust him to make good long-term judgements. Tanenbaum was right on the technical side, and all the people who warned about the version control system issue were right on the license front.
Let's make sure there are some good alternatives to the Linux kernel around (the main thing that Linus actually contributes to Linux) because one of these days, he is going to screw up in a way that can't be fixed anymore.
If I write an article using the comparison "this is like the Pope saying 'I don't believe in god'" - only Slashdot would get "The pope don't believe in god" out of this :)
So, you are saying slashdot is just like all of talk radio in America?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
There was only confusion because slashdot ran the story without the disclaimer and nobody RTFA'd before they freaked out.
Bad news, folks. The specialist in herding cats
...
c ti on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=2&entryID=49312&room ID=11
has peaked and may well be in need of counselling:
> 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?
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?a
.
Linus is referring here to Andrew Tridgell and the
Bitkeeper saga. The essentials:
(1) Tridge did not use Bitkeeper at work. Nor did
he use it at home. Nor did he have any kind of
Bitkeeper licence. Nor did he disassemble any
Bitkeeper binaries.
(2) All Tridge did was to send systematic queries
over the Internet to the Bitkeeper server.
Analysing its responses, he was able to write
an application to read and export from the
Bitkeeper server.
(3) That technique is called protocol scanning and
has already been successfuly used for Samba.
It is perfectly legal otherwise Microsoft's
lawyers would have been hounding Tridge a long
time ago.
So what was Tridge's crime? He declined requests by Linus Torvalds and Larry McVoy to stop scanning
Bitkeeper. For that, he is now on the receiving end of insults and innuendo.
Too bad really, both for him and for Linus. Indeed, this story is not any longer about a versioning system for the kernel. It is about Linux after Linus.
Tridgell didn't enter into the deal and Linus has no control over Tridgell. If McVoy now renegs on his deal with Linus because someone unrelated to Linus does something McVoy doesn't like, McVoy is being the jerk.
The real problem is that Linus made a bad and risky choice, people told him so, it backfired, and now he is still blaming others for his mistake.
Considering Linus was using BK to maintain Linux, on Linux, BM have to be using Linux right? for support and development. So when they gave away there "free license", they are actually supporting their own business, aren't they? So when they talk about cost, do they take in consideration that don't have to pay any lincenses for Linux, and that if there was no Linux in the first place, or a lesser quality Linux, it would affect their very own business????
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.
i read one Windows troll that spelled it "Lummox Tarballs", i think it got more laughs than anything else, they guy got angry when nobody started fussing about his attempt at trolling... /stupid comment
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Linux clearly benefitted from Bitkeeper. And Bitkeeper probably [emphasis added] benefitted from all the publicity.
Did you read what you just wrote? This might help explain your bias.
I can see the Linus vs Bruce bar brawl now - Pee Wee Herman and Mr Bean the rematch
Nothing costs nothing
Starting Linux when minix was about
.
I can't afford software X, and it's incredibly limited anyway. I'll write my own instead.
Not political
Choosing the GPL as a licence
.
I'll pick a license which encourages other people to write code for me as a byproduct.
Not political
What, next thing you'll tell us is that eating tasty food instead of dog shit is a "political decision"?
They're not without pope, it's just that the current official pope is busy enjoying his pension. ;p
It's been a long time.
really brilliant people are just as capable of really stupid behavior as anyone. If there's any difference, it's that it's on a more grandiose scale.
If you point out that they're making asses of themselves they'll argue you into half agreeing with them. They'll have rationalized their behavior to a fare-thee-well. Even if you identify the fatal flaw in their theory, they'll ignore you -- they're brilliant after all and they're used to being right when everyone around them is telling them they're wrong.
Don't get me wrong -- I love working with super-smart, creative people. But when they get that glint of mania in their eyes, you just have to back off and let experience teach them a lesson. Their being wrong in this instance doesn't invalidat their briliance, it just makes them human.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Bitkeeper exists almost solely to support Linux development.
Now that Bitkeeper won't be used for the kernel anymore, will it cease to exist? Or maybe Bitkeeper exists for other reasons?
The amount of disinformation being spread on this subject is amazing. People are responding to accusations as if they were facts.
First, Torvolds has never been against using proprietary software. His has always advocated using the best software for the job at hand. After reading the orignal sources I've come to the conclusion that no one was at fault nor was anyone casting blame. All of the possibilities that people are whining about were considered by Torvolds when he decided to adopt BK for his own use in managing the kernel, including the possibility that McVoy could "turn to the dard side". As far as the claim that Torvolds tried to get Tridge to stop I cite the following extract from a Torvolds email posted three years ago.
http://lwn.net/2002/0314/a/lt-bitkeeper.php3
The most productive thing people could do might be to just do a BK->CVS gateway, if you really feel like it. Or just go on and ignore the fact that some people are using BK - you don't actually have to ever even know.
Linus"
Most people appear to be citing sources that are citing sources who heard it from a friend who has barber who cuts Tovold's hair.
If there is a bad thing that has developed because if the use of BK it is that development of a FOSS enterprise class SCM has not recieved the focus and efforts it should have. Now, hopefully, that will change.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
no.... Linus explains clearly enough :
i on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=2&entryID=49312&room ID=11
'Tridge wanted to create a tool that checked out BK trees
for people who didn't sign the license. But it still
needed BK to actually do anything useful - since it would
not actually do the work that BK did.
"Hey, that's a useful helper". Yes, except when it isn't.
And it isn't, if releasing it just causes the BK protocols
to change, and people who used BK in the first place to
have to stop using it, and when using the tool against a
BK repository is a violation of the license that the BK
user agreed to.'
I wish people would read Linus' comment that I have linked to. He makes is point very cleary there. I really don't need to add anything to that. To avoid linking to some more comments of his, people would not read those either, I clarify: Keep in mind that to reverse engineer BK, one would HAVE to violate the license with BM. Now, once that was getting violated, BM had full authority to refuse to license it anymore.
The entire discussion thread where Linus explains himself is here: http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?act
This is not my sig.
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?
The answer to #1 is actually "yes"
IIRC, the educational license has a clause like that for devstudio.
BSD has a long history of being a system full system, unlike Linux (kernel) or GNU (a set of tools with the aim of one day becoming a full clone of the base UNIX System). The BSD kernels are developed and maintained by the same people as the base userlands of the respective BSD systems, so there's never been a tendency to view the two as separate things (like Linux and GNU).
Uhm?
It's The Register, ® means registered (trademark). Think about it.
Or: IT'S A JOKE!
Linus is worked up about something and it may be something we've not heard yet, especially with Andrew's silence. Do we know there wasn't a conversation that this work by Andrew would screw over Linus's use of a tool that makes work very efficient for him? And if Andrew persisted, especially if there were other ways to accomplish the same thing, I'd be upset too.
I'm fortunate enough to have a boss that allows me to use the best tool for the job. I enjoy being allowed to choose the best tool, for me to get the task at hand done. Is sad that Linus isn't allowed the same without taking a beating especially when the end product he is part of is so useful to all of us. So much for choice and freedom. Oh there is, it's just not the typical Linux/Open Source zealot view of choice and freedom and if that view isn't accepted then you are evil.
I'll stand in the minority and say that I feel sad for Linus losing a tool that was so helpful in creating a tool I find so useful. Yeah, he had some outlandish comments but how many of us are perfectly logical when we lash out?
I for one cannot wait to hear the whole story before judging.
Bryan Cantrill's post on the fundamental right of reverse engineering.
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?
RMS is Jesus, Tridge the Holy Ghost (you don't see him but his spirit is moving things), Linus is St Peter on whose rocking kernel the Catholinux Church is founded.
I say we take a copy of the BSD Kernel and GPL-it, you think of a name for it BSGPL or something cute like that
Then more people will start to contribute to it who care about their work staying free and maybe we can have a BSD kernel that has the size of community as a GPL project.
The BSD license lets us do that you know...its soo much more free than GPL yadda.
Hell, I say take a whole copy of the latest FreeBSD distro and we make it GPL and we all start working on it from now on.
Who's with me!! Lets get bsgpl.sourceforge.net going soon!
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
This link shows that The Register is trademarked in the UK.
;-)
"The Register" is a UK-based company, and therefore doesn't have to deal with US trademark law (for the most part). The link above is their trademark application with the UK trademark office.
According to the FAQ, the use of "TM" in the UK is acceptable without having registered the trademark with the registrar. And according to the Trade Marks Act 1994, it is illegal to use the "Registered" trade mark symbol (the R with a circle) unless it is, in fact, registered.
So The Register is officially allowed to use the "registered" symbol based on their trademarked status. And of course it makes for a great double entendre when used at the end of an article.
So no, you're not daft. But now you're probably a bit better informed.
I read the comment that you linked to. But I disagree with an important point:
to reverse engineer BK, one would HAVE to violate the license with BM
Why? Tridgell never signed a license with BM. The people who did sign licenses weren't helping Tridgell (at least I assume so). So how was a license broken?
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
The trouble is that political stuff does affect technical stuff eventually.
GPL is a bastion in the defense against evil political stuff. The licence of BK was dangerous to the progress of linux in the long term, (not the short-term). The long term is what the likes of RMS/Perens GPL supporters etc consider. Linus was thinking short-term when he chose BK.
Linus is a hero of mine alright, but hey, he is only human.
Here's the way Linus views the difference between Samba and BK:
Anobody that compares that to Open Office (or even samba, which Tridge did write) is an idiot. Open office and samba are constructive projects that actually do something useful,and are technically advanced quite regardless of the fact that they can interoperate with the competition. They look at the file data because they then _use_ it (...)" (I bolded it).
Just so one has more context, before he said that, he also said: "Tridge could have done something constructive: he could have written the best damn SCM on the planet, and believed that open source generates better things, and competed against BitKeeper that way. (...) 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."
You can read the whole post here
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
As every human being he can probably be an idiot at times (as Bruce so eloquently pointed out), but I'd apply the label "Evil" more to the likes of Monsanto , Diebold or Halliburton and their executives.
They are the ones that try to monopolize our food supply, they are willing pawns to disolve democracy, or they just lie and steal from the general public.
This is evil. Being an idiot on occasion is not.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
1) For 90+ percent of the computing public, it's inevitable. They're neither irresponsible nor stupid. They're software users. They can't even tell the difference. To them, all formats are proprietary.
2) While open standards are lovely (maybe--we all seem to accepting that without proof), the moment someone decides that an extension is necessary, the lag while it's argued over by the world community seriously impacts time-to-market. Then there's the implementation time, followed by the adoption time by all the other software competing for the same market space. If you add Nifty New Feature(tm) to your Open Source-based product, the odds are that you'll have to serialize the data associated with the feature. Suddenly, you're forced to wait until The World Agrees(sm) to deploy the new version of the product. Market advantage is lost. (Don't start with me. Developers and enterpreneurs need to eat, too, and their kids need braces just like everyone else's kids. Whether you [or I] like it or not, software is a business now.)
3) Inability to innovate privately is incompatible with a free-market economy. I like a free-market economy. It's made me a buttload of money and it's going to continue to do so. Whether or not Linus Torvalds ends up in a public argument with somebody is so below my radar....
Buttkeeper was basically designed for Linus - of course he likes it. It's a custom solution designed for the way he prefers to work. No one else really cares what revision control system they have to use. I've used at least a half a dozen over the years as I am sure most Slashdot users have as well - they are all basically the same. So Linus, stop your whining and grow up. Putting GPL meta-data in a proprietary format in the first place was stupid and was doomed to fail. Worse yet - he made this decision unilaterally without consulting all the GPL Linux code contributers. I'm surprised the unholy Buttkeeper/Linux alliance lasted as long as it did. I'm glad Tridge forced the free software community to wake up and eat its own dogfood. Tridge: 1, Linus: 0.
But this was just about the shaprest analyzed and most compassionate and emphatic comment I ever read on Slashdot.
I thank you
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I find nothing "strange" about Linus' position.
That's fine, but its just your opinion. Linus' position has been described as 'bizarre' by more than one commentator, and plenty of people like Perens disagree with it.
In fact, if you read his reply in that thread...
Obviously I did read his reply, which is why I posted it incase anyone else wanted to read. As it turns out there seems to be some question as to whether it was really Linus posting, but lets say it is... the paragraphs you mention don't address the actual issue here. So Linus doesn't care whether software is closed or open source, he just cares whether it's good software, that's fine, but its not the issue. The issue is whether its Tridgell's fault that OSDL is no longer allowed to use BK. Linus thinks it is, Perens thinks it isn't and from what I've read I'm with Perens.
1) wrong. even those who don't have a clue can hire someone to make something with an open-standard-formatted data. but if the data format is secret, NO ONE can do nothing with the data, except the creator of the format.
2) right.
3) I would like you to correlate why an openstandard is incompatile with a free-marked economy.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Tridge: 1, Linus: 0
Well that wouldn't be so bad, but unfortunately I think it's more like:
Tridge: 1, McVoy: -2, Linus: -10.
That's what makes this episode so really sad.
I just hope that some really close friend of Linus's (and no, I don't mean McVoy) sits down with him over a couple of bottles of scotch and explains the said truths to him. His mental shutters have closed down all around him atm, he just can't see what's obvious to the rest of the world.
Whatever he uses in his home is his own problem. But once the tries to foist it on the kernel developers, which are a loosely knit community, it is another thing altogether.
Actually the open source community is only against proprietary protocol and data storage formats. The software license being "open" is only a requirement in the free software community.
The rules are likely illegal, and LM kept changing the rules. Eventually they would have been broken. It is quite obvious he came into this deal with the intention of doing a bait and switch.
Indeed, I am sick and tired of it!
Farmix
The use of ® at the end of the articles is completely unrelated to trademark law. The article text is clearly not a trademark (are you confusing trademarks with copyright?) and so the symbol has no meaning apart from being a joke.
Can I go now?
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.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Linus chose the best tool available to get the job done. It happened to be a closed source tool. The productivity of the LK team over the past three years testifies to the value of the tool.
In the meantime, Tridge tries to reverse engineer the network protocol. It's one thing to pay for software and then try to reverse engineer it for interoperability. It's another thing to take something which somone has offered to the LK community and violate the conditions of that gift. If you can't see the difference, your ideological blinders are obscuring your vision.
Linus has every reason to be angry. Someone took away a very useful tool from him. I'd be pissed.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
and he is now paying the price.
Stallman is right.
This (and other) article mentions that Tridge was reading data off the wire in an attempt to reverse the protocol. They also mention that Tridge does not use the software so he isn't bound by it's license agreement.
If he doesn't have the software, whose wire is he getting the data off of?
To be honest, from an ethical standpoint, I would be pretty pissed if a company freely accepted my software and licensing terms, then sat people around the guy who was using the program who did nothing but watch the data going out the wire in attempt to reverse engineer the protocoll. It would seem to me like at the very least they accepted the no-reverse-engineering clause in bad faith.
paul reinheimer
I can't use BK because I use CVS and have sent them a patch for a bug once.
I can't use BK because I am a Debian project head, apply patches to lots of software including CVS, and hence I can't use it.
I'll pick a license which cannot be taken under my feet because LM feels like doing it.
You people have a problem, in that you mistake politics for what it really is. Politics is about seeing long ranged issues before they hit you and adjusting for it.
A good despot surrounds himself with experienced advisers and listens to them. Armed with the extra information, he makes a decision.
No, that's strategic planning.
Politics is about how to lie and bullshit the public in order to get what you really privately want for yourself.
It makes them sound like sensationaist yellow journalists. Suppose I wrote an article that began as follows: "President Bush said yesterday that 'anyone who doesn't agree with me has no political rights in my country.' Well, okay, he didn't actually say that, but what he did say is 'Terrorists seeking to destory our nation [that is, people who don't agree with Bush that America is great] should not be granted the same rights, rights they seek to destroy, on American soil [Bush's home country].'" The analogy is slighlty off, but you see my point.
These kinds of flippant, childish tone by OSS leaders, especially on the subject matter of how to functionally destroy a business' core market, really don't help OSS to gain mindshare in the business place.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
### Could this situation been forseen?
Absolutly, the Bitkeeper license kind of made it unavoidable in the long run.
### Is Linus angry with Tridge because it actually shows up his previous bad decision and the only way for him to save face is to badger Tridge?
I guess he is simply angry because Tridge made him lose his tool. It doesn't matter if Tridge was right or wrong, he simply caused the loss of Bitkeeper. If Tridge wouldn't have done it, somebody else would have sooner or later.
### Is McVoy behaving like a spoilt kid and taking his ball home because somebody didn't want to play his game?
Yes.
But still Linus decision to use Bitkeeper might have been right, even with all the turbulance, as he said they got two or three years of productive development out of this and now they are simply back at square one, where they started. Bitkeeper showed them how good SCM works, that it works and that its better than a bunch of scripts that Linus used before Bitkeeper.
It after all never was 'Linus gets rid of popular free software SCM and moves to Bitkeeper', but it was 'bunch of Linus personal scripts vs Bitkeeper', there never was and still isn't a Bitkeeper replacement available in the free software world. If the whole Bitkeeper throuble has shown something its that CVS isn't the holy grail and the free software world is better of replacing it with something more capable better sooner than later. Sadly the free software world simply needs a kick in the butt from time to time to move forward.
For reverse engineering over the wire, he needs a server, and a client, and a tcpdump alike thing to see what is happening.
That, according to my understanding of BK's license is prohibited.
plain and simple.
Now, it can be argued that he hadn't agreed to the license, but, pray tell me, how the hell he got access to a network port between client and server (which is kinda necessary in reverse engineering over the wire) in the first place?
This
I think is a slightly different way:
Was Linus wrong for using a propietry tool for the development of the kernel and essentially forcing all kernel developers to follow him?
I think he wasn't. There was no free option, and, if you remember, even GNU built their system on top of a proprietary kernel. But he made a mistake, he should have created (or asked for someone to create) a project to replace BK on the long run.
Is McVoy behaving like a spoilt kid and taking his ball home because somebody didn't want to play his game?
It is his ball, he takes it any place he wants. He have this right, and there is nothing imoral on that.
I think Tridge also did nothing wrong, so, we have a single mistake here: Linus not thinking about replacing BK on the long run.
Rethinking email
The point is that Linus is not in chage, FOSS doesn't have anyone in charge. People just follow him, if he start to make bad decisions, people will follow another one.
Rethinking email
I believe this is correct. A CAL (Client Access License) is not (necessarily) a Windows Client Access License. Any device or user (depending on your Windows licensing choice) needs a valid CAL to connect according to the MS license agreement. While the client may not have agreed to MS's EULA, whoever runs the Windows Server did.
Of course, this is why Samba has support for running an SMB server. Which makes it a (more or less) complete replacement for Microsoft's SMB implementation.
... he own his popularity, prominence and way of live on a big measure to the work of people that promote OSS.
At least for an elemental respect for the people that have been in the good and bad times all these years Linus could take an infomred approach to OSS issues.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As mantainer of the kernel, an OSS application, he his (or should not allow himself to be) under any commercial pressure.
He is suppossesd to be taking the best technical decissions. If the SCM tool to continue kernel Dev did not exist, then he should have lead to find the correct tool. Stalling development of the kernel could have been a great incentive to concentrate everybody's minds.
The ones with commercial pressures are the likes of Red Hat, Novell(Suse), perhaps IBM and others. They can always fork the kernel, use whatever tools they need (commercial or otherwise) and then give back as they have to under the GPL.
Once the correct tool is available the Linus could have integrated commercialy sponsored changes back into the reference kernel.
Linux is working because in general people are being sensible about developing under the GPL. It is completely insane that you get this far licensing under the GPL and then, when the going gets a bit rough, you use a closed source solution, which in reality is not necessary because there is (or should not be) commercial pressure to fix things.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It was a tremendous error for Linus to use BitKeeper on a GPL project in the first place. It shows profoundly bad judgement for the future of the kernel effort. Was it really necessary to switch from having virtually no source code management, to using a proprietary product using a decision-making process that disregarded the opinions of 100's of developers? In the controversial years that BitKeeper was used a suitable free alternative, tailored to the kernel development process, could have been done several times over. Perhaps it is finally time to consider life in the Linux kernel after Linus?
an ill wind that blows no good
Again, I'll let Linus speak for himself :-)i on=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=85&entryID=49486&roo mID=11
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?act
Here's the extract:
Steven Van Langendonck on 4/15/05 wrote:
>
>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.
So I think Tridge is coming from a "free software is always
useful" argument, whether it's true from a technical
standpoint or not. Because you can always extend of it,
and as such it's "useful" as a thing to hack on. That's
certainly a valid point in one sense, but...
Linus
This, looks like he was snooping on the network with the co-operation of a licensed user. Another info, Linus says he would have been OK with the reverse engineering if the result was a good enough replacement for BK.
On a positive note, he says:
I'm sure Linux will be stronger for it, since
it forced me to get off my fat ass and write my own tool.
It's the old "whatever doesn't kill you.." thing.
This is not my sig.
Come on people. Linus told long ago it chosed Larry's tool because there was nothing in open source world that was nearly as good. And 2.6 kernel and the speed it was being developed is more than enough proof of that.
On the other side, Larry made a deal. And he made a really good deal. Too bad it wasn't enforcable (both for him and Linus). I'll give you the best tool that exists on the planet for free, and in exchange you are not going to reverse engineer the protocol it uses. You can develop competing tool with its own protocol, though. This sounds like a good deal for open source comunity too. If anybody cares what I think about it. Open source comunity got a freebie.
So, while there is nothing unethical about reverse engineering the protocol, it is unethical not to keep the word you gave. If Larry struck the deal with real organization ("organizatoin" in legal sense of the word, as in legal entity), he could as well go to court and win. Easily. Luckily, it is virtually impossible to sue "open source comunity". Who exactly are you going to sue?
If anybody wants to hear my opinion, it was more than clear that somebody is going to backstab Linus and do exactly what Tridgel did. Come on people, Tridgel knew exactly what he was doing. Deal between Linus and Larry wasn't a big secret. It was spelled in big words: you may use it for free as long as nobody attempts to reverse engineer the protocol.
Deals are deals. When somebody breaks it, there is no deal anymore. It is that simple. You may be religious about the issues involved. You may be emotional. Or you may be cool headed. Whatever way you choose to react, you can't change simple facts.
Because of course no casual home copying took place before kazaa was born. Nobody (for example) taped songs from the radio, from friend's vinyl, or from other tapes....
The fact still remains though - faced with a charge of (say) $15 for a premium CD containing just one new song (and a rehash of stuff you already have) you probably won't cough up the cash. If someone offers you a copy though, you won't refuse it - even if the quality isn't as good as the premium CD, and it doesn't come with a fancy cover. for the RIAA to then decide that you *would* have spent that $15 "if only you hadn't had a copy" is good for their business, but unrealistic.
-=DaveHowe=-
Developers and enterpreneurs need to eat, too, and their kids need braces just like everyone else's kids. Whether you [or I] like it or not, software is a business now.
Ok, maybe it is societies' responsibility to provide you and your children with food and basic medical care if you are unable to do so yourself. But I don't see why anyone else should care if you make 'a buttload of money'. It's your task to find people who are willing to pay money for your services and enter into a voluntary contract. If customers want open standards or open source, find a way to make money off that or someone else surely will.
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.
One word: metadata.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
If everyone in the world switched to using bitkeeper, then legally no other source management software could be developed. Think about what a shitty restriction that is.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
...he said he wants the phrase "Cool It" back.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
FOSS is in some danger at the moment,
No, perhaps the linux kernel is having some troubles, but FOSS is not in trouble. KDE is getting along just fine, as is FreeBSD. GNU might be in danger, but only if linux completely dies and HURD once again proves to not be ready.
Personally I don't believe there is any danger to linux. There might be a slow down, and it might last as much as a year, but there is no great danger. Other projects have gone through their own troubles. (OpenBSD/NetBSD split, the WINE license change, all were trouble, but the projects got through them over time and are doing fine now)
and I'm surprised that the anti-FOSS brigade hasn't tried to capitalize on Linus' mental abberration[sic] yet.
So am I. Though there is nothing here, it is the type of thing they generally would try to play up as something major in hopes of slowing us down.
Let's hope he wakes up soon
Yes. Hey Linus: WAKE UP!
That's MPAA/RIAA/BSA math and you know it.
According to McVoy, it cost his company $500 000 a year in staff costs to maintain the OSDL-version of BitKeeper.
So no MPAA math here, and I know it.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
I hate to indulge in more remote amateur Torvalds psychoanalysis, but this strikes me as the real puzzle, where did he get his absolute hatred of other version control systems? Even the admittedly clunky CVS has been sucessfully used to manage some huge software projects (gcc in the open source world; and I've seen it in use on many large proprietary projects, like Irix and Netscape).
My theory: he likes simple tools when he can get away with using them (vi vs emacs, shell vs perl) and started out with an aversion to source control in general. Then he had to keep arguing with people pushing for CVS, and he got backed into the position of being a version control snob, who refused to touch anything but the Very Best. Then his friend came along and showed him a nice shiney toy.
You're coming down on the side of "immediate expediency" in this debate, but a lot of us are taking a longer term view. You don't go beserk winning a battle if it risks losing the war.1) It may take longer to develop such applications. So that would be the first requirement to go. (Do I use ASN.1 to describe my over-the-wire comms or should I use my own quick and dirty UDP protocol?)
2) 90%(TIC) of open source is actually a copy of something else, so any new formats are always ready to be implemented. However the immediate implementation is usually in the form of a new open source app with the newly created format.
3) This is so easy its not even funny.
a) Buy into a proprietary system, because open source/open standards based applications aren't visible/viable to PHBs. (Face it, very few open source/standard applications are seen as viable compared to an application that extends the open standard with proprietary extensions. This is for large "enterprise"-wide business systems, not some firewall or ethereal limited use app.)
b) The cost of said proprietary system appears cheaper (hence more value), since you have a large pool of developers who are specialized in said proprietary environment (given the developers see the proprietary system as a major share of the marketplace. Plus open source/open standards guys are usually more expensive, IMO. But its quantity not quality, the real incompatibility between the market and open standards.)
c) To protect its position in the marketplace, the proprietary vendor will continue to add features on top of any currently argued open standard. They'll take your features and add more so that they aren't compatible for complex applications.
I agree with Bruce Perens for the most part, but I think many people are not addressing Linus' argument directly (even though I do not believe it is a valid one!)
Linus does not believe that Trigdell did anything wrong by reverse engineering bitkeeper. He believes that what he did wrong was knowingly break up the "agreement" that Linus and McVoy had only to see the protocol. Trigdell did not intend on making a compatible client (or any software for that matter).
Perens does touch on this a little bit by saying Linus should not worry about what Trigdell does in his spare time (legally). I agree. If Linus and McVoy's agreement was that weak, it should never have been relied on for something important. For many people, developing free software is a hobby. Samba started as a hobby. If Trigdell wanted to examine BK's protocols as a hobby, that's his right.
Perhaps Linus is not being a dunce in this situation. Perhaps he sees that his friend Larry is enraged and irrational. Perhaps Linus is willing to put the welfare of the kernel above his own public image.
If all of the above is true (and that is a big if), then it could be that Linus is blaming Tridge and praising Larry in order to ensure that there is a smooth transition from Bitkeeper. If Linus came out rooting for Tridge isn't it likely that Larry would yank Bitkeeper immediately and not allow a smooth transition to some other solution?
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
The real problem is copyrights. From the time all of us were young - we were told that copying things is stealing, and a betrayal to those who create, and that it is pro buisness, and anti-communisim, and it is a moral right to restrict what other people copy because it's a property right.
So now the GPL comes along with the attitude that copyrights are wrong, and lets fight fire with fire attitude - and understandably alot of people can't handle it. Nor can they face that "the slave states can't get along with the free states", because they just can't see copyrights for the violation that they are.
But the truth is copyrights are not a property right, and have nothing to do with property. And they are more like a government granted monopoly/regulation on how people use information than a pro business property. And when you think about it, those who impose copyrights are really the traitors because they are the ones who have taken tons of knowledge and information from society freely - only to build on it and try and fence it off using lawsuits, bullying, and the force of government.
The truth is that copying is not wrong, and that the information age demands the free flow of information, just like the industrial revolution demanded the free flow of labor (eg the end of slavery) even if all hell breaks loose to do it.
I don't think that matters. OSDL has a BK license. As Tridge was employed by OSDL, it appears Larry (and possibly Linus) thought he was bound by their license terms. Tridge didn't feel that way. Because it was Larry's license, he got to interpret it as applying to Tridge's work. End of story.
I don't mean to troll; I am genuinely interested. Why open source? I have seen some arguments that say it is more secure and that it saves money, but I have never seen an argument as to why it's more secure, and how it saves money. I have nothing against open source, I use Firefox daily and have toyed with Linux (Slackware and Fedora Core) but open source doesn't matter to me as much as what the product does. So, I ask again, why does open source matter (again not trying to troll, just gain an understanding).
I would hate to work for your employer - if he signed an agreement that all male employees were required to spend non-working hours picking potatoes in a field, would you go get fitted for wellingtons?
If Tridge's contract has an explicit clause in it forbidding him to perform such research outside of working hours, then that is one thing - but I would be astonished if OSDL had such a clause in ANY of their employment contracts. And regardless, as I understand it, there was not some magical "company wide" agreement to be bound by the T&C of the BK free licence, regardless of if you use BK or not, but an individual requirement for anyone using BK to conform to the agreed licence. Now, its possible that there was a non-standard contract requiring that OSDL protect the IP rights of McVoy, but I dont' see how that could apply to random employees of OSDL unless their work required them to be in contact with BK or their contract with OSDL explicitly stated this to be the case. Of course, if you have access to some contract or licence that grants OSDL the right to enforce restrictions on what their workers do in their free time, feel free to post it - I am sure we will be fascinated and astonished.....
-=DaveHowe=-
Agreed. Linus made a mistake to start with, by adopting Bitkeeper for the kernel. Current events prove that it was a mistake. What we're seeing now is Linus being reluctant to say "I screwed up, let's try to move on" -- instead, he's still acting as though his original decision made sense. In a situation like this, Linus does need a strong response to point out to him that he's in the wrong on this, and has been for a while. Bruce is doing what has to be done.
hawk
You don't need to know anything about automobile engines to understand why buying a car with a hood that can only be opened by the dealer is not a good idea.
What the heck are you talking about? There's nothing about any open source or free software license that makes you wait until anyone agrees before you release code.
Smart developers and enterpreneurs are learning to make money off free software. Hint - people want services and systems.
Nonsense. Copyright and patents that make knowledge private are state interventions in the marketplace; free software is closer to true free market conditions than proprietary software.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
No, I don't mean bruce.
I mean seeing a couple of pepole getting reprimanded on manners by a native New Yorker--who appears to be right!
hawk, diehard western boy
I'd be disappointed too if a person who had cooperated and facilitated my efforts over a many year period was being taken advantage of by my allies.
Lets posit that BitKeeper contributed to the success of the Linux movement/project by providing a superior free capability that wasn't there before and did it at some expense charging nothing (but gaining some good karma/publicity).
Now you can reverse engineer legally. But should you?
Or should you allow that deviation from OSS purity because that person/company tried to be helpful to your efforts?
Would you be upset that something so bound up in your way of doing your work (which many consider vital to the OSS) is attacked in such a way as to cause you to have to change the way you do your work? At a cost of disruption and productivity...how many fixes aren't going to get reviewed as thoroughly because Linus has to switch the way he works (and even go off and develop an application like SCM)? Kernel guys are precious. Linus is especially vital and any distraction from his efforts to produce the best kernel possible is bad.
This is ridiculous and unproductive discussion. How about instead of pointing fingers (read: shut the f*** up, Bruce, you're no help here), we start a more open discussion of how to solve the SCM crisis Linus/Linux find themselves in?
Open Source SCM solutions are crap compared to BK at solving the distributed source code problem (as stated by Linus). Personally, I think they are crap at many other aspects of SCM as well (access control, ease of use, ease of administration, etc.). We've had a surge of new Open Source SCM tools crop up recently, but either they went unsupported by all but the initial developer, burnt out at 0.3.1, or failed to solve any really useful or interesting problems (Subversion, for example), or made design decisions that make installation/maintenance a nightmare (Subversion again).
Perhaps a UI wrapper around Arch (which has the ugliest command line interface known to man) would be a start. Or perhaps some additional tools to help with Darcs. Or perhaps Linus is right and we need a completely new tool that _actually_ solves the problem (if these don't already).
The point is, let's discuss moving forward and stop wasting our breath on stupid accusations. We're acting like children, for Christ's sake.
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
Ok, lots of arguments about closed/open, but the bottom line is: bitkeeper was made available free of charge. There were of course conditions involved in this deal, but they were quite non-restrictive. No one was forbidden of working in free solutions. Linus Itself was clear about his willingness in embracing open tools once they meet the needs. Nevertheless, it's a deal.
It's a fact that only a few individuals who develop the kernel are bound to OSDL, but OSDL is the entity to whom Bitkeeper was handed and thus is expected to go along with the deal.
Tridgell is bound to OSDL, just like Linus. He was expected to follow his employer's commitments.
People can argue endlessly about if Bitmover overreacted, if Linus' initial decision was wise, it open source is the one and only way, if reverse engineering is good or bad, if Linus is a moron , etc. I have no strong opinions about that.
But the bottom line is: Tridgell did something unnecessary just because he wanted to.
If you do not like the game, get out of if or change it. Linus is pissed because he lost a precious tool because of actions wich did not had any useful goal. This is stupid and I give him full reason in this respect.
Like I said "The only thing people are "doing without" is the "paying for" part " Weither the content providers would have gotten paid or not, is incidental to the fact that people are benefiting from the having.
which is of course true. however, the question wasn't "are they having this for free?" but "would they still have it if the only way they could get it would be to pay $15" for which the answer is no. It doesn't matter how much the "cover price" is, if you aren't going to pay it - it only matters if that is your only choice, in which case you have to decide - is this purchase worth the price?
I would be astonished if the OSDL would have been willing to cough up $500,000 for software Linus wasn't even sure he wanted to use, and which prevented him from managing the tree in the way he used to (Linus formerly pulled just those patches he wanted from any given submission and left the rest alone; BK forces him to accept or reject a submitted patch as a whole - which he freely admits took him time to get used to, and meant he had to give up some control over his source tree)
-=DaveHowe=-
And you're too much of a pussy to get an account and show who you are.
And?
Neko
Paranoia means an unreasonable fear of persecution. You can be afraid of things that only exist in your imagination, and still be at risk from things in the real world. If I believe that George Bush and the Prince of Wales have directed the CIA and the Freemasons to reprogram my refrigerator to eat me, then I'm paranoid -- even if I don't notice that my best friend is plotting to kill me because he's in love with my girlfriend.
IIRC, the claim was that the free client was costing $500,000 worth of revenue or some such thing, not that there had been a $500,000 donation to OSDL. The number is still propoganda as it presumes a lost sale for every free client in use. I can't help counter-speculating about the business value of having your (then brand new) commercial RCS/SCM put to use by a software project with Linux's public profile.
Personally I think one of the central issue of this conflict is Linus' claim that Tridge "just wanted to see what the protocols and data was, without actually producing any replacement for the (inevitable) problems he caused and knew about".
I wonder how Linus can know that. How can he make this claim without providing any supporting evidance for what he believe Tridge's intention was. To me it doesn't seem to be anything more than a wild and totally biased speculation.
Consindering Samba took years to become somewhat usable, it's fairly evident "over the wire" reverse engineering takes time, and to expect Tridge to come with a "replacement" right away is in fact pretty sureal.
So what happens to your vision of a pragmatic, purely technically-oriented leader who just wants to "have fun" and write good code?
(If anyone's interested in this subject, I recommend reading the Torvalds as-told-to "auto"-bio: "Just For Fun". Torvald's dad makes RMS look like the CEO of GM, it's no wonder he's got an aversion to explicit moralisms... but on the other hand you can also see in his behavior an implicit internalization of what you might call moral behavior, e.g. an instinct toward genrosity.)
Lets not forget that IBM owns all rights to probably the most complete SCM tool on the market. They could do more than just help a little if they were so inclined.
Look at the title of your post, read LInus' writings on this, and it is clear that you (among many others) are completely wrong.
Data lock-in is not an issue here. Full meta-data export was already written (where do you think Linus got his data for his new system, that he is now writing instead of writing the kernel, from ?). Export for any format could have and would haave been put in by Larry, and according to Linus this was "not enough" for Tridgell.
So, if data lock-in (a valid concern and obviously a good reason to talk to your vendor and agree export routes and formats...) was not the issue, what was it ?
If the format is open, you know (and have) everything necessary to use the data. If it isn't you don't. The idea that the known is preferable to the unknown is common sense.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This article should be required reading for Linus Torvalds fan-boys.
-Don
A Slightly Skeptical View on Linux
"I also think that Linus' cult of personality is one of the most significant negative moments of the movement for various reasons propagated by such different people/groups including but not limited to Eric Raymonds, Slashdot founders, Slate's Andrew Leonard, Linux distributors, etc. That's why this chapter can be considered as a modest attempt to address "Linux mythology" issue. All-in-all in this chapter I will try to paint a vivid picture of a talented, colorful and sharply individualistic Linux dictator: one of the most fascinating figures among open source pioneers. It's important to understand that this chapter was written as an antidote to publications emulating North Korean party newspapers articles that depict achievement of the party leaders with just substitution of Linux and Linus Torvalds in several places ;-)."
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
As to the license question, you are frequently bound by agreements your employer makes, although not normally on your own time. If you don't like it, you can leave, or take them to court over it.
Regardless of the legal issues, it appears that Larry probably felt that what he was doing was not in the spirit of the license, and Linus felt it not in the best interest of the developer community.
In the end Tridge stood by his legal rights, continuing to examine the wire protocol, and Larry exercised his right to determine how BK could be used. Linus stood in the middle, lost out in the process, and wasn't terribly happy about it.
The story here is Larry's perception of what Tridge was doing, the actions he took as a result of that, and how Linus viewed the whole thing.
Larry has put the first nail in BitKeeper's coffin by causing Linus to decide to write his own tool. Linus may not be the greatest PR person, but when it comes to computers, he knows his shit. Get a good team behind him, and you'll have a BitKeeper-killer in no time.
It looks like most people who have replied haven't read this. (AFAIK, this wasn't reported on slashdot, but was on the Register. Another reason to have sources of news other than /.)
Its rare (to non-existent, apart from some companies who try to claim all IP originating from an employee even out of hours is theirs) that conduct out of working hours is covered. That isn't always true (for example, people sacked recently for having a blog their employers didn't like) but I would expect anyone actually sacked for their out of hours conduct to have a fair case for unfair dismissal and compensation.
-=DaveHowe=-
As far as I know, "Recipient" would mean Linus Torvalds and other kernel developers. Not OSDL, per se.
And Tridge wasn't being paid to work on reverse-engineering BitKeeper. He was doing it on his own time.
#5 breaks down, because "Mutual Friend" and "Recipient" are the same.
In any case, if Linus felt that using BitKeeper was so important, he could pay for licenses. OSDL could pay for licenses. They're not doing that. Apparently, Linus even encouraged McVoy to end the gratis client, and he's even acknowledged that this was mostly due to the $500k/year cost claimed. Why, then, is he chewing Tridge out for causing something he believed should have been done anyway? That he actually recommended?
In essence, Linus is implicitly recognizing that Tridge's activity was only an excuse for BitMover to end a program that was no longer financially useful.
If I lend you climbing gear at the bottom of a rock face, and take it back half of the way up because you offended me, what I have done is absolutely immoral.
...for linux in 2005. So many things are happening and changing, i'm already looking forward to the 'linux in 2005' overview at the end of the year ;)
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
The Pope being dead doesn't preclude his talking:
Ever hear of EVP?
http://aaevp.com/
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Now that Linus has apparently lost what little sanity he seems to have had, is this going to spook folks away from Linux and towards other "freer" operating systems, like the BSD variants?
Because of the size of Linux distros, and the time spent in paring them down to a reasonable size, plus the fact that FreeBSD's TCP/IP stack has traditionally been faster than anyone else's, we've been slowly migrating our production servers away from Linux and towards FreeBSD. This is just another reason to start moving away from Linux - first, Linus saddles the kernel development community with a proprietary product in deference to another person's business and against common sense - then he attacks Andrew in public - a person who has done an enormous amount for the open source community - over what is simple re-engineering, something that almost everyone has done over the entire course of Linux development. In fact, Linus himself used Minix to build the first Linux kernel, so Linus can be considered the father of re-engineering in Linux. I find it more than a bit hypocritical that Linus is viciously attacking someone else for doing what he himself has done in the past, all because his friend wants to try and protect his business model.
Making business decisions based on personal feelings gives us a very bad feeling, especially when those bad decisions, followed by even more bad decisions, are being made by someone who has sole and exclusive control over a large part of *our* core business. Better, we think, to move away from an autocratic and arbitrary style of management and towards something a bit more democratic. Linux has slowly moved towards the William Jolitz autocratic style of management that characterized 386BSD, and which ultimately spelled its downfall. Linux is bigger, so it will fall much more slowly, but I think it *will* fall eventually, and for the same reasons that Linux initially overtook 386BSD.
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
And I believe VS.net has a licensing clause that says you can't use it to develop a word processor, a spreadsheet application, or a Front Page clone.
"Seek first to understand." - Socrates
His inability to get past technical facts is exactly what led him to trouble.
Here we have Larry - so worried that someone might potentially be working on a competing product that he was ready to put his foot down at the first sign of some random guy doing reverse engineering.
And what he got as a result? Now he has Linus himself working on a replacement product, and potentially some of the hundreds of other developers.
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H.G. Wells, "The Outline of History"
This whole bruhaha hit Slashdot when Larry McVoy withdrew all the free Bitkeeper licenses to all employees of the OSDL where both Linus and Tridge are working.
If Linus kept using Bitkeeper then he would have to pay for it and anyone else at the OSDL who wanted to work on the kernel would also have to pay to use Bitkeeper. These seem like pretty compelling reasons for Linus to drop Bitkeeper.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
The email linked to and the quote from Linus are significant since they show that Linus was advocating that someone should make a BK --> CVS gateway which is just what Tridge was working on.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
"There are times when Bruce Perens can be a real idiot, and this is one of those times." What Bruce's statements demonstrate is that, like Stallman, he sees GPLed software as a way of intentionally undermining programmers' livelihoods. According to statements by both Stallman and Perens, they consider programmers are "evil" unless they give away their work. Linus, having worked in the real world at a real company facing real tough competition from the Big Guys (Intel and AMD), understands that people who work hard are justified in demanding that they be paid for their work. Linus personally wanted to give Linux away, and chose the GPL largely by accident -- because he saw it on the C compiler he was using. Had he looked more thoroughly into the various alternatives, or understood the full agenda behind the GPL, he might well have chosen Larry Wall's Artistic License or the BSD License. Of course, once he released Linux under the GPL (though he did modify it to allow binary drivers), he was stuck. What this incident shows it that Linus isn't a "Stallmanista." He doesn't have it in for his fellow programmers, as Stallman and Perens do. Which is a good thing, IMHO.
Yeah because a few snide comments to the press are a great reason to abandon a profitable high-profile business - quitters are winners! Look at McVoy, the skillful, diligent way he threw a tantrum, took his toys and went home will garner him the greatest respect and credibility from the community.
Remember how Microsoft gave up the software business years ago after a single negative comment about the quality of their software? What an amazing day, I wonder where Bill Gates would be today if they kept on selling software...
I posted a question to Linus on the realworld list and he actually replied and clarified his position.
Below is the text of his reply:
It's really neither of those. I don't think reverse-engineering is bad. It's quite natural to be inquisitive, and all questions of "how does this work" are "reverse engineering" to some degree. And I might have been pissed off at BitMover, except they bent ove rbackwards trying to figure out how to continue things as well as possible. So disappointed, yes. Mainly because the whole thing seems so pointless. The tool that tridge wrote ends up being useless, and nobody won anything at all. But hey, I'm making the best of the situation. I wrote my own tools, and as usual (conceited bastard that I am), I named the new project after myself: "git". Linus
Oddly, in the license for DevStudio, MS specifically requires that "all code developed, compiled, linked, or otherwise processed by the SOFTWARE must be used in the production of a PRODUCT similar in functionality to MICROSOFT BOB."
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
And then you've just gotta smile at the self-depreciation.
I don't want to sell you death sticks.
> - use the tool, but stop using BK (which makes
> it useless)
this ignores the incremental evolution of software. the correct form of this choice is:
- use the tool (which is far from finished), and submit bug reports and patches to assist in its development.
there are lots of tools which we use now, which are partial clones of or incomplete alternatives to proprietary tools. some of them are good enough to be very useful now, some are only marginally useful, and many just show promise....but if nobody used them at all, they would never improve to the point where they were useful.
btw, i think that the one thing the pro-BK people are completely missing is that the very fact that McAvoy had the *capability* to revoke the free BK client license is *precisely* why BK should never have been used for the kernel. it doesn't matter whether LM used that capacity or not (in the end, he did - which just proves that the nay-sayers were right), what matters is that he had the capability to revoke access. that risk more than outweighed any convenience provided by the superior SCM technology. vendor lock-in is THE single most important thing that free software (and open protocols & data formats) frees us from.
I'm sure someone pointed this out before, but Bitkeeper's distributed nature means a licensee has to cooperate with the reverse-engineer, thus there is much breaking of terms.
I've read a few exchanges from the /. crowd, read a few statements by Linus and the gang, have read McVoy's interpretation of the BK saga, and have come to one conclusion:
No one but the three people involved in this fiasco *really* knows what happened to get this situation to the stage where people begin a verbal free-fire in public.
McVoy is a business man; true to his heart, he needs to keep the BK user strung out on his code. Hell, I would feel the same sense of outrage that he feels if someone threatened to kill my cash cow. Don't pretend that every one you wouldn't feel the same way if it was *your* revenue stream. To me, anyone who claims an absolute vow of poverty is looking for a monastery to live in. Everyone I know would fight to protect a source of financial income.
Selfish? You bet. But nature has created more selfish beings than egalitarian ones. Nature favors pragmatism.
But McVoy could have let this one ride a bit more. It is just a matter of time before someone cracks his model. Then he will have to play the same game as Microsoft and Adobe only on a different level. Too bad for him, though, that his inexpensive advertising scheme didn't last. That is another little detail that goes relatively "un-remarked" upon in the various forums I've read. Larry had one of the hottest programmers in FOSS using his SCM. In fact, this Man Of The Year lavished all kinds of praise on his progeny! You would have to pay more than the "free" license fee for that kind of advertising. Shit, probably A LOT more. If Linus had been paid for his endorsements, that could have added up to quite a sum of money. Larry has wisely kept those funds securely in his pocket.
Again, I'd do that too. The monks of this world can keep their vows.
Linus? Well, it was kind of hard to turn down a free license for one of the best SCMs on the market. If I had been in his position, I would have grabbed the product and ran. In fact, I would like to personally thank Larry for helping juice the Linux kernel development. I know SCO has been rummaging around in the Linux closet for evidence that it was their intellectual property that made the kernel advance so quickly. I believe that Larry's BK contribution probably made the significant increase in kernel production possible. Judging from Linus' angst and outrage, I think he believes that too.
But Linus is being a bit thin skinned. Does he believe he is the ONLY programmer that has been burned by relying on a proprietary product for their work? Didn't he listen to all the people who had been telling him about *their* bad experiences with proprietary lock-in? From what I've read in the past, they had plenty of legitimate worries that this was going to happen. I'm sure that Linus knew it would happen someday too. He's just pissed that it happened NOW as opposed to LATER.
Boo hoo, get over it, this too will pass, etc. But why attack Tridgell in public? Hmmm.... That does raise some interesting questions. And why get all bitchy about it?
There is something we are not getting in this little soap opera. Tridgell is silent, probably for good reason. But why would Linus take him to task knowing that he would not be able to respond publicly?
And Perens? This is a slugfest that only Gates, Darl, and RMS would love - all for differing reasons. Why does Perens feel compelled to call out Linus over his treatment of Tridgell?
I thought the points made by some posters about just how Tridgell was sniffing packets to see the metadata protocols is extremely insightful. To have BK protocols running on his network would require that he be operating a client and server somewhere where he could see it, no? What network was he sniffing if he didn't have a license?
What amazes me is that the attempt to get BK's protocols didn't happen *sooner*. With all of the pissing and moaning that erupted when Linus started using BK, I would have thought there would have been someone d
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
There is an anti-DRM provision that is so non-specific that placing a copy of a GNU FDL document in a system with login security could be a violation. It says something like "you may not use technical means to keep people from reading this document". Period. I disapprove of DRM as much as RMS, this is a matter of the license construction being a problem rather than the license goal.
The second one is a problem with the license goal, though. It's the "invariant sections" feature. You can designate that a section of a GFDL document can't be modified. A prohibition on modification obviously disqualifies the license as either Open Source or Free Software, most people can see that easily enough. The provision is there so that RMS can attach political statements or his version of history to documentation and have them stick. And thus he's not willing to talk about changing this. That has driven a pretty big wall between RMS and Debian, for example, since Debian will remove content not deemed as free from their system.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
This is really the better place to start reading.
Please don't refer to RMS as a fanatic. Sure, he has some ideas that are difficult for many to accept, but they are well thought out, valid arguments. Take them or leave them.
I think the biggest misperception is that Linus is an open source zealot. He has publicly made it clear many times why he wrote his own kernel in the first place. He was in college studying computer science. At the time he had a shiny new 386 PC that came with whatever Microsoft was offering at the time. He simply didn't like it and wanted to use UNIX. MINIX was available, but too expensive. So out of his own need and desire he wrote his own kernel and made his own personal choice to use the GPL. He respected the License of MINIX and left it alone. Linus has always been a man of principle and freedom of choice. He has always respected the works of others. When he created his kernel he didn't reverse engineer UNIX or anything else. He knew how he wanted it to work and that is how he went about it. I hate to say it but I have to agree with him on this matter. Don't bash someone for the license they chose. The point is that Linus has always been about using what works, else building what you really want. Bit Keeper worked for him. He was never concerned about the license, only what the software could do for him. Perhaps the silver lining to this is that he will sit down and write his own, since he aparently did not like any of the SCMs available. The downside to that is that it will interfere with the development of the kernel.
Linus is right. His priority is enhancing the Linux kernel and bases his decisions on what he thinks is best for the kernel.
Tridge is right. He saw something interesting and wanted to see how it works and set out to do so within the law.
Everyone can pick which motive they like best and flame on.
Pardon me, Mr. Perens, but I don't see that this provision would prevent someone with login access from distributing the document or making it available to someone without access, which is to say the security system secures the storage of a particular copy of the document, and not the content of it, as long as the secured system doesn't add any license conditions or prohibit users from extracting the document.
The actual license reads "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute."
Ergo, putting the document in a secure storage system in no way "obstructs" people from reading or copying from other sources. Otherwise, keeping a copy in a library would be a violation just because the doors are locked after-hours!
- Nickster
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Standing up for Tridgell's character as an Anonymous Coward is quite pathetic. I can only say with F/OSS defenders like you, there is hope.
For the record, I have little venom towards Tridgell. I don't see what he did as ethical (and the ethical issue is not about reverse engineering in general). I prefer to beleive he did it in a fit of pique. As for keeping his mouth shut, I don't know what his lawyers told him, but it must have some significant legal downside. (financial, not criminal.) But I can't respect someone who claims to be fighting for programmer rights, by screwing over what programmers wish to chose, but chooses not to fight for principle when it risks litigation.
And note, no one attacks the specifics of my charges. But how like a F/OSS fanboy; he doesn't like what I say, but he can't refute it. He can only whine that I "shut up".
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
>According to statements by both Stallman and >Perens, they consider programmers are "evil" unless >they give away their work.
This is one misconception that I am growing desperately tired of...however like some kind of many-tentacled octopus, no matter how many times I try and step on it, it just keeps rising from the grave. There also admittedly aren't that many times when I'll come to the defense of RMS...but this *is* one of them. Go and read this. In it, RMS states that he doesn't have a problem with people selling GPL bound software at all.
The free/beer and free/libre debates and the associated misconception were ESR's entire motivation for adopting the term Open Source, so far as I know. Basically what Stallman says at the above link is that the ONLY demand that the GPL makes is that source be provided with binaries. End of story. To quote from his article:-
"Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it."
(Emphasis his)
I've started realising that it isn't actually so much RMS' philosophies themselves which bother me...it's the misconceptions that a lot of other ill-informed morons who claim to be his supporters develop and spread. RMS doesn't have anything against people making money from GPL-bound software AT ALL...He did it himself at one point with Emacs. He isn't Communist, and the GPL itself isn't, either. I repeat, all the GPL demands of people is that if you're going to distribute binaries in whatever manner, you also distribute accompanying source, so that said software has a chance to propogate itself. As long as both are sold together in the one package, you can charge as much money for said package as you like.
Linus should know better, his kernel is sold by many commercial vendors, he claims that placing Linux under the GPL was the best decision he made because of this.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
But as you pointed out yourself:
You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute.
As I read it, the word you makes other sources irrelevant to the question. It's the copies that you make which must be readable.
It might take litigation to settle it. Good legal practice includes making sure your agreements are clear enough that you don't have to litigate their meaning.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
You may be right about needing litigation to settle it, but my point is that an interpretation that broad is not really reasonable, because virtually no person (user, judge, jury) would interpret that to mean that you can't lock up your own copy.
It's sort of analogous to modifying GPLed code. You can make whatever modifications you like for your personal use and keep them secret, as long as you don't try to distribute that version to others without the source to the changes. That's how I read this FDL clause - I'm perfectly free to keep my copy under lock and key and let whomever I like in to see it, but I'm not free to give a copy to somebody with a password on it. Otherwise it would be like requiring me to make my copy available 24/7 to anyone who asks, e.g. store it on a web server, which is not reasonable.
I know! Let's ask Eben Moglen! :)
- Nickster
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
I just wanted to say that I agree with every one of your points.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Anyone who believes that no source code management or CVS is superior to more powerful alternatives is showing "profoundly bad judgment".
I only point out that the kernel went from having no SCM to BK practically over night. A few months would have been sufficient to develop a new, free SCM system that everyone could agree with. What was the harm in waiting that long? Instead Linus made an autocratic decision that offended 100's of kernel developers, and put kernel development at the mercy of proprietary software. The worst thing that could have happened was that McVoy would recind the BK free client. That has now (predictably) happened. I call that profoundly bad judgement on Linus' part. Linus is becoming a most unsafe guardian of the Linux kernel.
an ill wind that blows no good
Tridge did not have a BitKeeper license and was not bound to it in any way. This is a case were a license between two parties was voided by the issuer for actions by an independent third-party. Anyone can see this was an unstable situation. Whether Tridge voided Torvald's agreement with McVoy intentionally or not is irrelevent. He was never a party to their agreement.
-Hope
You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you distribute.
This makes it sound a lot more like what you were thinking, tying the restriction to distribution. Adding the words intentionally or wilfully might also be helpful.
There is a further problem in the form of sending your friend an encrypted copy of the document. Your friend will be able to copy it and redistribute it to whoever he wants, but the derived work you distributed has a control on the reading. It could be argued that distribution doesn't actually happen until the encrypted version is opened, but that would be a pretty hard line to take, especially when considering the similarity to what this clause is trying to restrict.
In this area hides the hidden beauty of the GPL. You're free to distribute GPL data in whatever encrypted or DRM-encumbered fashion you desire, so long as an offer accompanies it to send a version with no DRM. (Of course, I'm not sure RMS would see it this way.)
What's more, HURD isn't finished and there's no problem with the concept of forking Linux anyway. If RMS wants a kernel now, that works, and for some reason dislikes something about the way Linux is developed, all he has to do is copy the entire thing to Savannah.org and appoint someone to maintain it. It is, after all, licensed under the GPL.
Torvalds has done some dumbass things of late, and criticising Andrew for wanting to create a Free Software client that interoperates with the SCM Torvalds has adopted is one of them. It's also downright unethical, given he knows McVoy is threating lawsuits, and Andrew is limited to the extent to which he can respond to Torvalds, and given the extent to which Torvalds is himself lying about what's happened.
Conspiracy? Nope. Just smart people doing dumb and nasty things.
Oh, and "Ovum's Barnett": If we agreed with you, we wouldn't have GNU based operating systems such as RedHat and Debian. Linus's little kernel would be an asterisk. Without people wanting certain basic freedoms when they receive software, we'd be using Windows and Unix. Why wouldn't we? I find it remarkable people actually pay you money to come up with this drivel.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"Remember, the GPL isn't about keeping *your* code "free", it's about making *other people's* work GPLed."
Warped, man. Really warped.
The GPL *is* there to keep YOUR code free. I don't want you taking my stuff, repackaging it as your own, and selling it closed-source. Fuck that. I didn't spend time and effort writing something to give away to everyone, only to have some dipshit company make money off it.
If you want to take my code and change it a little, you STILL can't sell it closed source. You have to make those changes available to the public. I don't see how this is a bad thing?
The reason GNU/Linux has so much momentum and populatiry is the GPL. If it weren't for the GPL and Linux, the *BSDs wouldn't be as popular as they are today.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Hmm, 6 months ago I played with GNU/Hurd and definitely it could do more than just print out an excalamation mark. Heck, I ran a boa (a web server) on the Hurd box at that time. Ran an sshd so that I can access the box remotely.
I haven't had a chance to play with it recently, but I monitor a mailing list related to it. There's definitely progress. Please give it a try.