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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!
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.
Strange question. Linus says (in essence) "reverse engineering the over-the-wire protocol employed by a closed-source application is morally wrong". Bruce says "that's not true, and FWIW, you didn't seem to have a problem when the same thing was done for Samba, either".
How could that NOT be pertinent to FOSS? Open source / free software is not just about writing code; unfortunately, maybe, but that's the way things are, so it's better to deal than to ignore.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
"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!
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.
It's pertinent because this small fiasco has the ability to radically destabilise kernel development.
Pretty much everybody except Linus is in agreement that Tridge isn't doing anthing untoward, nothing different from the work he did in writing Samba.
Everybody see that Linus is being hypocritical at best, and perhaps a bit nepotistic as well.
That sort of attitude doesn't go over well in the OS community and if he keeps it up then it's going to be a major destabilising influence on kernel developement specifically - this is how unnecessary forks begin.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
You dont need to have BitKeepr software to reverse engineer the _data_ - and that _is_ the same as reverse engineering SMB. Since you dont have microsofts source code for the portocol stack, you only have the data. People have been reverse engineering data for as long as there has been computers.. data reverse engineering has occured for millions of software data structures.. from game data mods.. to document recreations.. to graphic data .. and so on.. the only problem here is that Linus believes that Larry owns the data.. he doesnt.. he can only own the source and the binaries derived from that source. If someone manages to make some code that happens to reproduce the same data - TUFF!! Take it on the chin and get the hell over it.
This is just the latest in a string of problems that seem to be caused by Linus. He's not scaleable, and we have no access to his source to fix his bugs. I think it's time we replaced him with an open solution
I am trolling
You say that as if reverse-engineering is something bad, though. I say the opposite is true - it's a good thing, as it furthers interoperability between different products and prevents vendor lock-in (which, incidentally, is just the stunt that Larry seems to be trying to pull now by claiming that the metadata of projects hosted on BK is somehow copyrighted to BitMover). Maybe you'd argue that being "100% original" is better, but again - welcome to the real world, kid. Interoperability *is* a real concern.
To give an example... has anyone ever sent you something as a Word document instead of (say) a PDF? If yes, then (unless you actually paid for a copy of Word) you probably were quite happy that you could open that Word document with OOo, too, especially if you happened to be running something other than Windows. Would you argue that the OOo developers did something wrong by allowing you to do that?
Why would "morally right" be equivalent to "does not mess with the business model of $company who'd obviously prefer if there was no competition and everyone would be forced to pay for their own products"? That doesn't make sense, at all.
And as for Bruce thinking he can "dethrone" anyone, I doubt that's true, either - but why disagreeing with someone and pointing out flaws in their reasoning would be an attempt at "dethroning" (or "slinging mud", for that matter) is beyond me, too.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
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.
that is an intersting interpretation and an intersting point in itself. however a reverse engineered unencumbered client-replacement is either beneficial to all as a stop gap or diverting effort for the FLOSS to roll their own valid and (r)evolutionary replacement.
-- after all, larry apperently made no money from the free linux clients only loss and his money came from the service he provides in his server software. and maybe more people would've adopted BK and paid for it -- who knows.
tha fact of the matter is ; it is about choice. you are free to hack; you are free to choose what you use and what you do with software.
the BK clients did not let you do that.
these conditions not ebing met give rise to a favourable ecosystem for reverse engineering or completely new Free replacements.
i/ restrictive licence on what your 'intent' is.
ii/ you could only use the official BK client
iii/ the free BK client was crippled.
it was a reverse engineer waiting to happen.
however, i would have imagined that larry feared 'one good turn deserves another', is that these wily open source hackers would cobble together an ENTIRE replacement.
but thats not my main point.
inspired by your statement i think i would go one further; linus is upstaging even RMS himself by allowing himself to be martyred on restrictive closed source software. by showing that he is fallible like us, capable of sin. he shows anger, and revenge -- all the dark side of the force.
we see the error of his non free pragmatism and learn how he atoned for all our non-Free sins.
the man is a genius. thank you.
i shall never hear an mp3 again!
maybe he got sick of esr talking about how Free is abstract and only novel but Open Source pragmatism like Linus's is what counts.
whatver it was we are now approachoing a new higher plateau of maturity. lets sieze on it.
on a legal note: i don't like mcevoy; he comes accross as arrogant and ethically unsound.
is it a gross mischaracterisation by the OSS press?
his products, OTOH, should be put under the microscope for any copyright violations. he sounds so paranoid and fervent taht i am sure he is the sinner "methinks the lady doth protest her [innocence]too much".
or the tainted see guilt and shame everywhere.
thanks,
che
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.
In what reality? Looking at a software package doesn't mean you accept it. Reading a license aggrement doesn't mean you accept it. Listening to or looking at output from a program doesn't mean you agreed to any license terms that program is under.
EULAs haven't even been proven to be enforcable in court. Lets not even forget the fact that reverse engineering for interoperability is expressly protected by even the DMCA.
So again I ask, in what twisted reality could simply listening to the network traffic of some other program be construed as a violation of that programs license when you did not buy, use, copy or modify the software in question?
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:
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.
Such a license should never have presedence over the moral rights to reverse-engineer anyways. The whole license should be regarded invalid on these grounds. This whole debacle was just waiting to happen as a certainty the more popular BitKeeper became.
Attempting to treat "Linux" as a corporation, really shows a big misunderstanding of BM and Linus regarding the community. You can't stop it! Even if you think you're "leading" it (Linus is NOT).
It's stupid, plain and simple. But they're just human, like the rest of us. I think everybody need to acknowledge that.
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.
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.
"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..."
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
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
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?
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?
There was only confusion because slashdot ran the story without the disclaimer and nobody RTFA'd before they freaked out.
Hmmm. I always side with the person having the strongest logical argument. Doing anything less is using emotions and predjudices to make judgements instead of one's noggin.
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.
It's not pertinent because it won't further the cause. It's a blind alley. Perens thinks he can dethrone the king of Open Source by slinging mud at him -- perhaps justly -- perhaps not.
Linus isn't "the king of Open Source": he doesn't have any authority. If he starts screwing up too much technically or legally, he'll become irrelevant. And the only two major parts of Linux he is responsible for are the kernel and the name.
Linus is right about his moral statements right now,
No, he is not, at least not in my opinion, and apparently not in the opinion of many other people.
I've known for years, that Open Source does not have to be a reverse-engineered byproduct to be of any value. It can be 100% orginal.
No, it can't be. Microsoft, Apple, Sun, and all those other big companies are almost completely unoriginal. Reimplementation and reverse engineering is necessary, not only because it is silly to reinvent the wheel, but also because users expect and want familiarity and interoperability.
There have been plenty of 100% original systems, systems that were far superior to any of the currently popular systems, systems compared to which Linux is garbage, but they didn't succeed: the market doesn't want originality.
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.
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.
Someone should develop some kind of output/interoperability standard and rally support in the closed source sector.
What dream world do you live in? There is no standard because companies do not want a standard. Technically, it is not really the lack of "standard" being the problem. It is the fact that companies go out of their way to prevent interoperability by not releasing specs so others could use the format. It is not just an oversight, it is by design.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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 says (in essence) "reverse engineering the over-the-wire protocol employed by a closed-source application is morally wrong"."
Just curious, where did he say this? I have read a lot of direct writing by Linus on this subject and have NEVER seen this statement. The 'in essence' part leads me to believe this "quote" was either taken out of context or paraphrased.
I think the problem Linus had, paraphrasing, is not that protocols were sniffed but that there was no intention of creating a useful product. In short, something was done that would create problems for others with nothing useful to show for it.
Yes, but the problem, as several people have pointed out now, was that the closed nature of the tool may have mode it not "the best tool available". Was it the best in terms of functionality and performance? Apparently. But those aren't the only things you need to evaluate when buying or using a product. You also need to take into account things like cost, risk, reliability, and (particularly in the OSS world) licensing. I'm not an OSS fanatic by any means, but even I could see that Linus' adoption of BK was a bad move.
Regarding Tridge's efforts, I don't see that it makes one bit of difference whether BK was paid for or a gift. In either case "violating the conditions" of using the product would be bad. But Tridge was not a BK user. He was not violating the conditions of using the product. That's what got McVoy pissed: he couldn't stop Tridge by revoking Tridge's license, because Tridge never had one in the first place. So instead McVoy started threatening others in the vicinity.
Linus has every reason to be angry. Someone took away a very useful tool from him. I'd be pissed.
Yes. And that someone was Larry McVoy. Not Tridge.
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.
The best research ever done on prolonged exposure to cold and methods of healing and recovery was conducted by Josef Mengele.
Sometimes ethics matters more than productivity.
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.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
And without Linux and OSDL, no one would care who BitMover or BitKeeper is. Face it. Linus used Larry to develop and enhance Linux just as much as Larry used Linux and the OSS community to enhance BitKeeper. For there to be any animosity over this is childish. Sanction OSDL and Tridgell, give Linus his personal BitKeeper license, and stop being a daft prick. I find the fact that McVoy won't give Linus a license because he still works at OSDL to be most deplorable. I haven't seen such antics since the kindergarten sandbox...
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=-
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.
Allow me to repeat: AFAICT Tridge was not bound by any license. What McVoy has done is void the licenses of legitimate BK users due to the actions of someone who wasn't even a BK user. That is, as you say, McVoy's right. But it also his choice. Tridge was not doing anything illegal, nor was he (AFAICT) violating the BK license. But apparently whatever Tridge was up to annoyed McVoy enough that McVoy decided to try emotional blackmail: "I can't legally stop you from doing what you're doing, but if you keep doing it I'll be nasty to your friends and colleagues." Should Tridge have stopped? I dunno - depends on your stance on blackmail I suppose. But the fact remains that it was McVoy that chose to use the threat of BK withdrawal to stop something he disagreed with.
Anyone else would be free to examine the traffic, as you say.
I don't want to sell you death sticks.
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.
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.