Slashdot Mirror
Torvalds Unveils New Linux Control System
BlakeCaldwell writes "CNet reports: 'Linux founder and leader Linus Torvalds has launched a new tool, called Git, to manage his software project, after a dispute led him to drop the previous system.' He will start using Git instead of BitKeeper to control the flow of updates and track changes in the kernel." We've covered this previously. Relatedly, ChocLinux writes "Jeremy Allison, who wrote Samba with Andrew 'Tridge' Tridgell, is sticking up for his friend in the row over BitKeeper. "
What do you mean - covered this previously - have you looked at the current poll?
The timing looks a bit strange - did the editors have inside knowledge, or is the poll guy trying to see if slashdotters can predict the future?
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
Slashdot is about a week behind! Ever hear of kerneltrap.org? *sigh*
Never touch an Irish man's Guinness!@#
how come this wasnt even an option in the current poll here. let the replies like "welcome to /. flow"
fifteen jugglers, five believers
As in "You daft git!"
What an awful zdnet article, "But now it seems that some open source developers haven't kept up their end of the bargain. " Tridge wasn't bound the by the license. "Tridgell's decision to reverse-engineering Bitkeeper. The resulting clone would violate BitMover's intellectual property -- something McVoy wasn't going to sit back and watch happen." Again, no, it wouldn't. My understanding is that reverse engineering for interoperability is legally fine. Think of Samba..
I thought that's what Southerners say to their dawgs?
Free Firefox news reader.
Well the name is daft and some of the quotes sound a bit strange, and hasn't this thing sort of sprung out of thin air in just a week?
git 'er done!
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
maybe the kernel programmers should take 2 weeks and fix the basic flaws of git, like the business of not storing deltas to files
.. that this desicion was made a few days before. not today? mh. ok. well. i think that git's way to manage source is nice. but in my opinion a (better) frontend must be coded. the actual version is really strange to handle. what are your experiences with that tool?
chris
Reverse engineering BitKeeper for fun and profit
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200504210 23821174
I guess this is the logical place to note the newest Groklaw story, Tridge Speaks where Tridge tells his side of the story, or at least a brief overview from his perspective.
The monotone hackers have the same design as this new git tool. They already adapted their visualisation tools to make pretty screenshots of the kernel patches development history: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/monotone-devel/2 005-04/msg00183.html
http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary/git
chris
http://lists.seyza.com/pipermail/gnu-arch-dev/2005 -April/001097.html
It had to be said: Hopefully this helps Linus Git 'er done.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Now what was that one lined BitKeeper demo Tridgell did at the Linux.conf.au keynote today? echo "clone" | nc whatever 5000?
The only thing is to remember: The terms of Linus' use of BK was noncommercial which is poison to a commercial entity. The combination of closed-source + no charge == noncommercial. If it was OSS, with a GPL-like license, at least the OSS community could give something back to BK that wasn't money, but it wasn't, and BK had no opportunity to profit in ANY WAY from this move.
I'm not surprised this didn't work out well.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Linguistic genius!
A blog I run for the wealth
From Groklaw
Groklaw's stevem heard Tridge's speech today at the LCA 2005 conference, Australia's national Linux conference, and he has a report for us:
This was taken from my memory of Dr. Andrew Tridgell's keynote at this years LCA2005 Conference.
Essentially Tridge did *NOT* do anything that anyone could ever possibly ever take as breaking a BitKeeper licence, as far as I can see. How was it done? He, like any good sysadmin would, first off telnetted to the BitKeeper port on a BitKeeper server.
$ telnet thunk.org 5000
WhooHoo! Connection! So, next obvious step that we *all* do is type in the obvious:
help
Back came a list of commands to manipulate the BitKeeper server and ask things of it. Well, according to Tridge, a bit of reading of the LKML (Linux Kernel Email List) shows that the "clone" command is the way to checkout someones source code repository.
So Tridge's massive "reverse engineering" project came down to a single line of shell script:
$ echo clone | nc thunk.org 5000 > e2fsprogs.dat
Hey presto, Tridge has just checked out from a BitKeeper repository into the file e2fsprogs.dat.
The audience was laughing and cheering Tridge on as he explained just what a Mountain had been made of this Molehill. And I mean made by both sides of the issue -- those who he said he was some Uber Reverse Engineering Wizard and those who claimed that he MUST have used a BK client.
Funny report, isn't it? Anyway, now you know Tridge's side of the story.
There's two major flaws in the ZDNet article, really - outside of the fact that they unfortunately buy into McVoy's lies and FUD, they get two things outright wrong.
1) BitKeeper's "free" license does not say that you can't use BK to work on a competing product - it says that you cannot work on a competing product AT ALL, no matter whether you use BK for it or not.
2) It's not true that Tridge hasn't "kept up their end of the bargain". He never used BK at all, so why would he be bound by BK's license? McVoy may not like what Tridge did, but let's face it, reverse engineering for compatibility is perfectly acceptable - even the much-maligned DMCA explicitely allows it, because lawmakers realized that it's important.
So, McVoy can rant and rave all he wants - the fact remains that HE is the one who did not keep up his end of the "bargain". The bargain was that kernel developers get to use BK for free, and BitMover gets free advertising - now that the company has established itself, it doesn't need that sort of advertising anymore, so they're just looking for a convenient excuse to pull the plug on the "free" BK.
The fact that McVoy doesn't admit that is probably to be expected, but still, it doesn't change the fact that he spreads just as much FUD and lies as Darl McBride, Laura DiDio, Maureen O'Gara, Steve Balmer and so on.
I, for one, sure hope he gets what he deserves.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
This morning Jonathan Corbet mentioned this news in detail, at this talk
:(
However, It's a same that Linus wasn't here himself to talk about it, as in previous years.
So there'll be no re-enactment of that famous penguin nip, which made history and changed the world.
from one of TFAs:
But that's not what Tridge did... 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?" wrote Torvalds
Come on!, so what if someone makes a program that implements a cool funcionality from another?? I see it in every game that has been developed in the last 20 years!, thats why whe have genres!, also, that would mean that OpenOffice is bad! or what about the same Linux (Unix clone??) or all the BSD's.
I think Linus went to far with that, so also to do SAMBA was a "non respectable behaviour" to him? wtf without SAMBA I bet they would be a really, REALLY big amount of people (and companies) not using Linux these days.
If he does not want to use it, then do not do it, but do not flame the author for doing it, and tell that is not a respectable behaviour! it seems that the most notable figure of Open Source has acquired a Not-So-Open State of Mind.
my 2C
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Well, being a bit of a git himself, I don't see what all the fuss is about.
I looked at http://pasky.or.cz/~pasky/dev/git/ and I didn't seem to read any license or specifics about the code. Anybody have more information?
If RMS reads that line he'll have a freaking heart attack!
If it allowed him to work efficently (and it did) for quite some time
Very simply that time has passed, and NO-ONE other than Linus himself knows what works best for HIM and his direct team
The flaming is useless hes "The Man" and what he wants for us in Linux land is pretty much Law, besides, how many of YOU psting all these nasty comments about his original BitKeeper descision actually were granted access to it directly, NONE.
Linus is a pragmatist not a rabid OS advocate but willing to use closed source tools if its a winning situation for him.
"Jeremy Allison, who wrote Samba with Andrew 'Tridge' Tridgell, is sticking up for his friend in the row over BitKeeper."
Yeah, well, so is nearly all the world, except for Linus and Larry McVoy. I'm sorry, Linus' actions are just plain hypocritical here. I can understand how he was pissed at losing a useful tool. I can't understand how he can promote McVoy at the expense of our freedoms, especially to reverse Engineer.
Mod me down, but Linus has too big of a head on his shoulders. He is NOT indespensible, thanks to the GPL. What does go around, comes around. And this action won't be forgotten. With all due respect to him, I think it's one of his biggest blunders in the history of Linux.
Did I miss something? I saw some comments to that effect in the stories, mostly as a joke except for the usual random nutcases that see conspiracies in everything that happens. Terrible journalism from zdnet here.
The rest of the article wasn't any better, being the most heavily biased piece of crap I've read since the last TCO study by Microsoft. Linus and Tridge both have valid points but the article paints Tridge as a villain breaking BitKeeper copyright (which he didn't) and terms of service (which he didn't agree to).
Linus has always been consistent about one thing: you use the best available tool and screw the politics.
Tridge's clone doesn't work. CVS doesn't cut it. BitKeeper works! So, that's why we're going to use it even if it's not Free.
I'm beginning to feel that all this smacktalk about how Linus made a blunder is a backslash from the rabid zealots who got their feelings hurt when Linus opted for non-GPLd software.
"Stupid Git!"
Do you realize that it is appeasers like you who're helping Microsoft and others to keep people locked in their sub-par products?
Isn't that a bit of a disparaging name in English...?
It definitely is an odd name for the tool, and while I don't mind one bit, it won't do the community any favors.
The most relevant storyline seems to be:
When asked why he called the new software, "git," British slang meaning "a rotten person," he said. "I'm an egotistical bastard, so I name all my projects after myself. First Linux, now git."
Be that as it may, the use of the term varies widely, and when used with particular entonations extends right up to words and phrases containing lots of F's and C's.
I don't think this really helps.
Thank you, moderator, for making my case about the rabid zealotry of your kind. My post was not a flamebait and you, sir, abused your privileges.
on a related note, Microsoft gets ready for its virtualization server.. bwghwahaha I'll tell you one thing's for sure... and that's MS isn't going to capture the Linux market. And Linus will see to that. :D
lnnb
And this is his way of saying fork you.
Think for yourself.
I have nothing against McVoy (Bitkeeper guy) and his desire to produce a closed-source source code management tool. But nobody should be surprised that using it for the Linux kernel turned into a huge controvercy, resulting in reverse engineering. NOBODY. Think about the zealots we're dealing with here. It's a total inability to understand the culture he was dealing with that has McVoy taking so much heat.
1. A completely ignorant, childish person with no manners.t &f=1
2. A person who feels justified in their callow behaviour.
3. A pubescent kid who thinks it's totally cool to act like a moron on the internet, only because no one can actually reach through the screen and punch their lights out.
That n00b is behaving like a bloody git. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gi
Complete message here
"Torvalds could have done something constructive: he could have written the best damn OS [Operating System] on the planet, and believed that open source generates better things, and competed against AT&T that way," says a Bell Labs Spokespers in the posting.
Like a joystick? How awesome, now we can fly the bird out of the water.
May
There's no "morality" associated with a file format or with a network protocol. It simply is.
The reall shame is that intelligent people such as yourself have bought into the myth that allowing people to attempt to patent/copyright files and protocols represents some sort of moral standing.
I think this line of reasoning is absurd.
I keep hearing how brilliant bitkeeper was because it made Linus more productive. From what I can tell, this could have been done without bitkeeper, but due to stubornness, it tool a technical tool.
;) These people were supposed to be the filter to make sure code was sane before it got to Linus.
Apoligies in advance if I get some of this wrong, but here is how I understand the issue...
Linus was the Keeper of the Keys - no code got to the kernel but through him. The problem was that he was dropping patches. So responsibility for various areas of the kernel was delegated out to luitenants, but they actually spelled it correctly
This is where my timeline gets fuzzy... Either this delegated model happened at the same time as bitkeeper, or a bit earlier. What I do remember though is that Linus was checking every single patch before accepting it to the kernel. He didn't trust his 2ICs enough to just accept their code.
What bitkeeper did to make Linus more productive could have been done by Linus if he were more trusting. Bitkeeper took away his ability to just pick and choose individual patches, and forced him to accept entire changesets.
By doing this, bitkeeper forced Linux to trust these other people to have vetted the code. He could now either take the entire changeset or none of it.
This trust in these additional people stopped him doing the very time consuming job of checking each and every patch before accepting it, leaving him free to do other things.
So what bitkeeper did to make Linus more productive, Linus could have done without a software tool.
Bah! I think you're neither got the brains nor the brave to hack0r my übersafe server, you silly clod!
I dare you to try, sissy! I double-dare you!!
- Go ahead and do you worst, git; my ip is 127.0.0.1
True, but I agree with the author that it's not flamebait. Adversarial, yes, but I don't consider that suffecient for a flamebait. His post makes a legitamite point, whereas I consider something flamebait if it exists only to be aversarial.
I can see it now...
"There's damn bug som'er in mem.c, can you see if you squish that son'va'bitch?"
"Public? I made it a private construct. Torvalds threw it in public."
"If you construct your own low level CMS when the other one runs away,you just might be a redDevneck."
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
I think that attitude marks a great rift between open source (OS) advocates. There are those who support both OS and proprietary software (PS), and those who think all PS is wrong. Judging from their public statements, Linus is in the first camp, and Richard Stallman is in the second.
Myself, I think free people should be able to to choose whatever approach they want, and good luck to them. And I'm bloody tired of all the fanatics in the world who take a good cause and elevate it to a mindless religion.
There is no "appeasment" here because there is no enemy.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
So instead of using a mature, tested solution he decides to go off and and make his own? Oh its fine for HIM but what about other people? What if he gets run over by a bus tomorrow? Yes it's open source but not a standard way of doing things.
Git? More like a twat. I have lost a lot of respect for Linus over this.
Linguistic genius!
I'm the parent AC. The entire point is about REVERSE ENGINEERING being valid; not whether the tool is free or not. Personally, I'm shocked that Linus could come out against something which has not only validated up to the Supreme Count (and has been validated for a long time), but it is a critical right in order to improve things.
Linus' statements want to set us back, and slow things down.
And, as has been well-noted elsewhere, those people who come out against reverse engineering are surely not using SAMBA are they? Doing so would be hypocritical as well.
There is a package manager, make-based one at that, out there called git. Site in german, package in English.
It's a good tool, which basically monitors source-built programs and creates an uninstallation script for them.
Won't this mean Linus' new tool will have to have a name change?
C17H21NO4
I'm a bit confused over what constitutes 'reverse engineering'.
If I build to a spec, say a spec based on someone elses UI and functionality, have I reverse engineered anything?
However, if I disassemble someone elses product and incorporate the same basic design in order to build to that spec, I would think 'reverse engineering' would be descriptive of the proocess.
So, where's the line?
I'd say that they are. In fact, several SCM tools are looking at what Linus has been doing with git and are giving the stuff due consideration (ARCH is going to pull all the "good" ideas coming from this- I think several other SCM projects are going to do the same...).
Yeah, I think Larry just stepped in a hornet's nest here- my only complaint about the whole thing is Linus' going on and on about bad ideas, etc. The only bad idea that was going on was his use of BitKeeper in the first place.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Well, McVoy really has some amazingly elegant technology if Tridge can replicate the whole client program with a single line of Bash.
Since when is logging into a server and using telnet or netcat to communicate with it a breach of anything?
If it is your data, then you are allowed to retrieve it. McVoy should grow up.
I found this on kernel.org:
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/
It's empty at the moment but we'll probably be seeing the source code appearing in it soon.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world: Those who write in decimal and those who don't
The stock reply to "RMS was vindicated, it was a mistake to use BitKeeper" is that Linus has still been more productive using BitKeeper for years than not using it.
What stopped him from writing git two years ago instead? If he had avoided BitKeeper, and none of the other source control systems were suitable, we'd be in exactly the same position as we are today, except git would be a mature package.
Read the last couple of lines on this link: http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/lin ux/story/0,10801,101207,00.html
Indeed, it might be good to read the entire article, much better than I remember Computer World particularly when compared to other articles on this topic seen elsewhere.
I found this on LXer.com this morning.
Was the reverse engineering being done on a live server? and was that being supported by BitMover?
Yes. Tridge basically has admitted this. He has said that a specialized network sniffer was used for the BitMover reverse engineering. And it was used in an active query and response manner. This is the same mode of operation he used in developing Samba so I don't understand how this could be done without accepting the BitMover license.
So Tridge has managed to incriminate himself in the extremely few comments he has posted on the matter. My guess is his lawyer (or the OSDL lawyers?) told him to be quiet. I predict that this whole mess is far from over.
I also wonder about the OSDL's future? I mean their attitude towards the whole event has been rather un-professional IMO. Even if they weren't an active party, they are associated with it, and it makes them look bad. Remember that the OSDL is supported by donatations/fees from large businesses.
That is not exactly true and that is not exactly what he did.
Why can't he just use SourceSafe? ;-)
but this is far from the whole story. It's just damage control.
Monotone changelog: http://www.venge.net/monotone/NEWS
Sun Apr 10 17:49:25 PDT 2005
0.18 release. performance improvements, features, and bug fixes.
This release is dedicated to Shweta Narayan.
- most operations sped up by a factor of 2 or better; many sped up by up several orders of magnitude.
- special thanks to Matt Johnston (matt@ucc.asn.au), Derek Scherger (derek@echologic.com), Linus Torvalds (torvalds@osdl.org).
As I understand it for not having to use a central server. With bitkeeper and git peers can synchronize with each other without the need for a central server. Although I don't really understand why that's so great..
If Linus adopted Arch or Monotone, he would basically be admitting that he could have adopted open source tools in the first place and avoided the whole BitKeeper stupidity. So for ego reasons, he has to build a new tool.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Communication protocols are methods, not works of authorship. Methods cannot be copyrighted, but they can be patented. What is your evidence otherwise?
Nobody except maybe McVoy should have gotten upset over this anyway. It seems to me that at least the free version of Bitkeeper was subject to the CalvinBall License. The problem is that Tridge doesn't seem to play CalvinBall. Something like this happening was inevitable.
If Tridgell never acceted the BitKeeper license
Then all communications with BitMover's BK servers should be deemed criminal trespass.
Might as well mention that it looks like Darcs is getting the git religion also.
Once again, Stallman is a genius. He predicted this would happen and it did.
The guy may be arrogant, maybe he's even an asshole. But he's right most of the time.
I wouldn't live with Stallman, but I sure as hell will take his advice, because *he's right*.
A software package named git - also known as the 'Gnu Interactive Tools' - allready exists.
http://www.gnu.org/software/git/git.html
Think at it as a combination on Midnight Commander with emacs keybindings & config. Me and a lot of people use this usefull shell.
So please change the name of this source versioning package.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Perpetual non-compete clauses aren't even considered reasonable in employment contracts (there's always a time limit)
Still, a 95 year time limit might be considered reasonable. Eldred v. Ashcroft.
pure Slashdot - noise with no substance so far.
Link to features/tutorial anyone?
Thanks for the clarification. Yes, my response was to your first statement about not being hypocritical. Respectfully, I am still of the opinion that Linus's statements clearly are hypocritical.
Regarding Tridge,while I think you raise a valid issue, I would also have to disagree mostly about whether he comes out clean. Your point borders on advocating the censorship of research (note I said "borders"). Rather than get into a debate about when censorship is appropriate, the response I'd like to make is that the burden here is on McVoy for his actions, and shouldn't be at the expense of Tridge (which is how Linus is trying to make it out).
In the end, it was McVoy who pulled the license, for something that Tridge did on his own time and materials. Yes, there were repurcussions. But to impose a blanket censorship upon the Linux community is not something which should ever be done; nor will the community stand for it. Thinking otherwises is at best naive; and McVoy doesn't impress me as naive whatsoever.
Research sometimes is painful. But on the whole, it will force us to become better off. If Tridge's actions has a long term negative effect, then I would agree with you.
That's easy to say, but Linus is the one that's ultimately responsible. One of the things that's made the Linux kernel so *GOOD* is the attentiont to detail that Linus gives each and every patch.
When you start delegating such things you end up with situations like FreeBSD. If you don't recall, not too long ago there was a big shakeup and Matt Dillon was ejected from the cabal because he was checking in things others didn't like. "trusting" others has it's own flaws.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Observing packets sent by whom to whom? If one of these "whom"s is a party to the BK license and worked in conjunction with Tridge, then a contract violation may have occurred.
I want to tell you a little hypothetical story about a friend of mine. He had a favorite pop artist who would dance all the time. The artist gave him a free music video, so he could watch it at home. But the artist forbad him from dancing, to protect his work you know.
Well I came over to his house one day, and watched the video as it was on. And I started dancing because having seen it I wanted to use it in my own song. But then the artist found out, and through my friend told me to stop. But I kept dancing, the artist took the tape, and now my friend is pissed off.
The lesson, if any, that can be learned from this little tale is that some friends are friends and some artists are asshats. Personally I'd rather have the friend than the free video over such a ridiculous requirement that magically is transfered over to my friends.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
It amuses me that an "anonymous coward" is making these statements.
Dig: In the US of A, and Australia (where the incidents took place) the law specifically says you can't sue somebody for doing something you explicitly enabled them to do. Purposely leaving the port unsecured legally grants non-destructive access rights, despite your claims to the contrary.
Talk to an actual US lawyer (not a witch doctor or barrister) and ask him why US citizens always put padlocks on the 3 foot fences surrounding their swimming pools - if you climb over the fence, you can drown and I'm not liable. If I leave the fence unlocked, your family can sue me even though you were trespassing. Similarly, I have my property posted with "no hunting" signs - if I don't have 'em, and somebody gets shot on my property, I have partial liability even though I never gave anyone permission to carry a gun onto the property.
You appear to be British - perhaps you are foolishly imagining your laws apply to other lands?
Oh, and finally, the IP you want: 63.161.169.133 - show me what you've got, braggart!!!
"and BK had no opportunity to profit in ANY WAY from this move"
Yes, BK became famous just through hard work and a superior product. They gained no exposure from their work with Linux, they just gave gave gave.
Has it occured to you that the programmer of BK would still be living in his mom's basement if Linus didn't make his software famous?
Now, of course, BK is infamous and my guess is that it will be sold to CA in about 18 months.
Diffs text *and* binaries:
http://xdelta.org/xdelta3.html
google "chicken song lyrics"
Compare and figure out which is worse.
Bitkeeper.
regardless of the motivations.
bad planning faced by prior warnings.
good at first, bad in the end.
time wasted.
lesson learned?
shiny medals pinned on some pocket protectors.
energy/peak oil meltdown.
bad planning faced by prior warning.
Complicance, Arogance, Evil, Greed, Religion, Compartmentalizm, War.
deaths+time wasted, no solution can stop it now.
Time a critical factor.
electronic voting.
unverifiable.
allows misguided religion to take over several countries.
corporate media ignore/censor.
propaganda sooths the citizen.
local (election) and corporate (IP) laws put 'huge fucking delay' into justice, common sense, or prosecuting anyone who swore an oath to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign (they exist!) and domestic (where currently many are just gutting everything they can get hands on.)
evil flourishs.
billions slaughtered.
others profit.
usa will be miserable.
the piper will call.
the fucking electronic machines will go.
every problem above is due to this.
So, what you are saying is that every time I connect to an open port I am bound by any contract that exists between a service provider and the vendor of the software that the provider uses?
By your reasoning, if I send an email to a site that uses MS-Exchange and has a "shared source" agreement with Microsoft, it is illegal for me to contribute code to the samba project.
Or are you saying that telnet is somehow enshrined in law as a special case? How would using telnet be legally different from using sendmail as long as I conform to the SMTP protocol? Quote the law please!
#1. BitKeeper is McVoy's code and he is allowed to do anything he wants with it. You're right that he could have pulled the "free" client at anytime and held the kernel source as "hostage".
... no one did anything ILLEGAL and they all made decisions based upon their stated values.
#2. Linus chose to use BitKeeper knowing all of that. He still chose it because it seemed to be the best product around that would meet his needs. Linus did not seem overly concerned about the potential for losing the "free" client.
#3. Tridge did not break any laws when he started to reverse engineer the packets.
So
Where's the problem?
Well, Tridge should have known that his work would piss off McVoy and that it could result in the loss of the "free" client. Yet he did it anyway WITHOUT writing a SCM that was as good or better than BitKeeper.
So, the only thing that Tridge is guilty of is not having a replacement ready for when everything blew up.
McVoy decided that he didn't want to deal with Tridge's work and just pulled the "free" client to stop what he viewed as a threat to BitKeeper.
So the only thing McVoy is guilty of is attempting to protect his own project.
Which leaves Linus suddenly without an SCM and he blames Tridge for wreaking a working situation without having a replacement ready.
So, the only thing Linus is guilty of is venting publicly.
So why is everyone picking sides? That comes down to each person's values.
A.) Those who value Open'ness more than functionality support Tridge because they believe Linus was wrong to push a proprietary product.
B.) Those who value functionality more than Open'ness support Linus because the system was working and it was helping development and there isn't an equivalent system to replace it yet.
But those are simply judgement calls based upon each individual's value set. Neither is more "right" or "wrong" than the other, except in your opinion.
Subversion is awsome:
I started using the Subversion (SVN) source control tool at home instead of CVS (they have convert scripts to convert the old CVS repos)... I use it to store about 2GB of sound and art data as well as source code and configuration files for my system, basically anything I might want to get a previous version.
My frontend is TortoiseCVS, which is integrated in the explorer windows - which makes for a really easy and intuitive interface.... No more synchronizing two separate windows. Just use explorer, very simple.
It handles binary files automatically (by autodetection using heuristics on the data and through configurable mime types), and stores binary diffs so your database doesn't get bloaty. In the recent 1.2 version of SVN they've added locking to the databgase in case you're working with others on binary (not-mergable) files.
For linux there's GUIs as well if any of you do that thing... And there's other options than just Tortoise on Windows...
They support several database formats including Berkley DB, as well as a filesystem database (similar to what cvs used)...
Access can be local filesystem, or remote over WebDAV (http) or over SSH (what I'm using, it's secure, encrypted, good!)...
TortoiseSVN even comes with a graphical merge tool (TortoiseMerge).
If you're looking for source control, I recommend Subversion. It's free, cross platform, and awesome... I would almost recommend to everyone, but I still have some features I still want to test before going that far... They still need to release 1.2 final (write-locking for binary files), and TortoiseSVN needs to support the locking feature in the 1.2 client...
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
Now we'll have other people who make:
GitTorrent
Gimp-Git
Kgit
Gititude
i'm sorry. but wow. did he just pull this out of his ASS? a brand-new version control system in what... two weeks? that meets the requirements for kernel development? that's impressive.
http://subversion.tigris.org/subversion-linus.html
Close. You forgot the part about the park being private property (like a school or something), and Linus teaching a "jodo" class there. Hmm, and maybe Tridge was trying to... make a new public parking lot next door?
I forgot what we were talking about. My dog needs to pee now.
Because it brings two important issues out in the open : using proprietary software tools on important projects, and reverse engineering. The whole thing is generating some really well thought out commentary (amid the reflexive flames) on both sides of the issue(s).
Larry and Linus, technical matters aside, are good friends. If Linus were to adopt Arch, Bazaar/NG, or Monotone, the new system would be capable of rapidly crushing BitKeeper. Linus doesn't want his friend's business going under, so Linus switches to his own tool, git, which is explicitly designed to be useful only for the specific model under which the Linux kernel is developed.
This seems like a pretty shitty thing for Linus to do, but he has acted dishonorably in the best due to his friendship with Larry.
The Linux community makes tools to make their development easier and *BSD makes tools to make their OS better.
Huh, who would have thought.....
But he stayed at a Holiday Inn last night!
It astonishes me how practically everyone replying to your post clearly hasn't a clue what they are talking about. Not even worth trying to explain to them though... if someone couldn't read and/or comprehend the point in the previous armada of posts in 4-5 past slashdot stories, they're not about to start now.
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
Please explain how reverse engineering Bitkeeper's network protocol is immoral.
Digital Citizen
One of the things that a lot of people miss is that Tridge wasn't just reverse engineering some software that reads a Word file. He was reverse engineering the protocol that BK used on their servers.
What if Tridge wrote something that totally hosed the kernel source on BK's server? People would be screaming bloody murder at BK for letting it happen. One of the reasons BK kept their stuff closed was so they could take accountability if anything went wrong and now exactly how every client was accessing it. That's one of the advantages most managers see with going with a commercial company rather than a OSS solution.
This isn't just copying functionality, it's putting a widely used system at risk because you don't agree with their practices. That's the same philosophy espoused by a lot of virus writers.
Find me in ~/.sig
then Linus should post concrete examples of what commands need to be sped up. Just waving your hands and saying it is too slow is not useful to anyone.
But eventually a Monotone/Git wrapper will be made and Git can be phased out. Git can never be a long term solution.
The comparison is perfect!
DNA just wants to be free...
The article has the sequence of events wrong: what actually happened was that BitMover Inc changed the BitKeeper license to shut out developers who work on competing open source systems, and BitMover did this only after Linus had selected BitKeeper as the version control software for the Linux Kernel.
l
The discussions the kernel team had about choosing BitKeeper were based on the assumption of zero-cost licenses for all open source developers who wanted to contribute to or follow kernel development. At this time, there was nothing in the BK license about excluding developers who work on competing software.
Then, later, BitMover changed the license, after Linus et al had gone to the trouble of making the switch. There's a term for this: "bait and switch".
See also http://subversion.tigris.org/subversion-linus.htm
-Karl Fogel
[Disclaimer: my viewpoint only, not speaking for my employer.]
http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel
This whole situation has inspired more than enough flames...
The Fifties called - they want their McCarthyite hysteria back. Here in the 21st century, the pejorative epithet of choice is "terrorist".
You're welcome.
RMS is basically a strong advocate for free/open source. Unfortunately he's close minded and his opinions are more ideological and "religious". Linus is basically open minded and understands the corporate world better. We'll have a good product in the end, however I think Linus's philosophy will acheive it much better/sooner than RMS's would.
could they GIT back to work on the damn kernel?
Git was not created to be a general-purpose SCM system -- it is designed to handle the Linux source code only, so it has design decisions that make that task fast (and to make development easy too). I believe that git is a stop-gap, "good enough for now" system that will be abandoned when one of the open-source (real) SCM systems is fast enough to handle what Linus needs it to do (e.g. both Monotone and darcs are coming out with performance releases in an attempt to meet this need).
..wayne..
Wow, that was really quite informative. Thanks!
I didn't think that Linus chose the name Linux. Iirc, he chose the name Freex for his creation.
Makes you wonder if the name was, as it implies, emphasiing Free, or it he was calling himself a Freak....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Of course there are some important differences. Like the fact that Vesta's been around for over a decade, and has been in production use for microprocessor design at Compaq and Intel for over 6 years.
CVS is teh suck. Use Vesta instead.
"Groklaw is highly inconsistent. It makes a point to show this BitKeeper deal was a "mountain out of a molehill", but the folks at Groklaw have no issue blowing other issues into orbit."
First, Groklaw did not make a point of saying this was a mountain out of a molehill. It was merely an account of what Tridge said. You impart meaning into the account according to whatever your prejudices are. Groklaw didn't tell you want to think about it. Secondly, you way overshoot your argument with the blanket "blowing other issues into orbit." Give an example. Right, thought so.
"And they aren't even lawyers! "IANAL. I am a journalist with a paralegal background...",
Precisely the sort of person you want doing legal research. You do know that is what a paralegal does, right? They do the research for the lawyers.
"When it comes down to it, Groklaw is just as much a zone of religious idolatry as Slashdot is."
Fortunately, anyone reading both sites knows you are 100% wrong. Hope you weren't paid too much to write what you did.
McVoy didn't like Tridge trying to get data out of the BitKeeper format, so he acted in his own best interest. WHAT A MONSTER!
And the obvious result is that Linux is now writing his own GPL-licensed SCM. McVoy did what he thought was best and screwed himself out of some free publicity, and now Linux will be using a GPL tool to manage the source tree.
We ALL KNEW this would eventually happen when Linus chose BitKeeper, it's just that it looks like Git is going to be shoved into production before it's really mature or stable. Blame Tridge, he knew what he was doing would piss off McVoy who was giving away his product for free publicity
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Only a programming god could write a new version tracker in the week after he got rid of his old solution. On the other hand, if programming gods exist, the Linus is a candidate.
"Personally, I wouldn't want to store my repository on someone else's server, either. "
Well there goes Gmail.
"Other than one small correction, you are dead right, I suspect. I would say "This chain of events began with Linux (perhaps forgivable) mistake of choosing a proprietary tool in the first place.""
And it ended with F/OSS advocates trying their darndest to undermine that decision. Or as one poster said "It's like giving beer to Homer Simpson". Problem is that the "advocates" could talk the talk, but not walk the walk when it came to a viable solution to Linus's problem. "Hey OSS is so much better...oops!" Maybe they should have had something good waiting before pulling the rug out from under Linus...like say before BK ever existed?
Actually I think this whole situation started not with Torvald's choosing BK. But with the OSS community not having a viable choice to present to him to begin with. Maybe instead of being mad at Linus and McVoy for making a pragmatic decision? We should be mad at ourselves for not having our act together, so that Torvalds shouldn't have to make a choice between ideology, and pragmatism.* Also this should be a warning to the OSS community, that you need to pay attention to needs within your community, before worrying about goals outside of it.
The community also needs to give Larry his due. BK did make a measurable difference. Some of which we may not learn the full extent of until years later. Also GIT owes something to BK in at least showing Linus, what's important, and what's not, as well as setting what to expect in a viable replacement.
*The outside world is watching. They may walk away with lessons that may not be as flattering as what the F/OSS community would like them to be.
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator> md
Creates a directory.
MKDIR [drive:]path
MD [drive:]path
If Command Extensions are enabled MKDIR changes as follows:
MKDIR creates any intermediate directories in the path, if needed.
For example, assume \a does not exist then:
mkdir \a\b\c\d
is the same as:
mkdir \a
chdir \a
mkdir b
chdir b
mkdir c
chdir c
mkdir d
which is what you would have to type if extensions were disabled.
[AC]
"If it weren't for the foresight to mirror *some* of the BitKeeper information in CVS, the kernel developers would have no developement history other than what they can dig up in the archives."
and
[Naikrovek]
"wow that's what I call reverse engineering!"
I'll let you two figure out what's wrong with the above.
Central SCM -- 10,000 developers all around the world work on this and that. And guess what happens when the developers think they have something nice that should be included in the next kernel? It gets all sent to the central server where a small number of people must review everything. They have to figure out what to keep, what to get rid of and how to make sure all these patches work with each other.
Distributed SCM -- everybody has their own server. They are free to work on their hearts delight. Developers start sending in patches. Linus decides on a few to use, integrates them into the kernel -- pushes out this new version to the 9,900 developers still working on their own stuff. It's now up to each individual developer to integrate his changes into the new kernel version. So instead of Linus getting overloaded with integrated patches, the work has been spread onto the big community of developers.
Better file a patent on this process before Microsoft or SCO do.
Communication protocols can require exchange of standardized data strings as part of handshaking. That data may be copyrighted.
If the "magic cookie" data is copyrighted, then its intended use is a fair use of the copyrighted work. Sega tried this argument back in the days of the Genesis but got shot down in Sega v. Accolade.
I could write a protocol that requires the client to upload a bitmap of Mickey Mouse to connect. Even if you have the method, it would be an infringement of Disney's copyright for you to use it.
Bad example. Exclusive rights in the first Mickey Mouse films -- "Plane Crazy", "Gallopin' Gaucho", and "Steamboat Willie" -- have likely already lapsed due to a faulty copyright notice: "By Ub Iwerks, Copyright MCMXXIX" instead of the correct "By Walt Disney, Copyright MCMXXIX". More importantly, even if you changed it to "Winnie-the-Pooh" which is thought to be still under copyright, this copying would be deemed a fair use rather than an infringement.
This is similar to how the DMCA can be stretched to cover printer cartridges
Lexmark pulled a stunt similar to Sega's but got shot down even in the DMCA era: Lexmark v. Static Control. Now that such a precedent is on the books, it has become easier for makers of interoperability products to get their way in summary judgments rather than through pyrrhic litigation.
Seriously, where is it? there should be a very comprehensive howto and an automated reporting method.
:S
:) ...looks like one of those included in mandrakes icewm themes ;)
:)
I guess I won't mind adding a little extra activity to my time.
I am used to linux so much that las month I tried XP I was blown away by the fact that applications just die, or the whole thing dies! sometimes a reboot, sometimes closing all apps, it was a horrible experience! and I am supposed to have lotsa memory to avoid problems
Im back to safety, no more sadness, so my productivity went back up
yeees, I just met XP to see if things where the same, sad to say, worse even though the theme is cute
So I thank every person on this planet who has been involved with linux and am here to serve
From the LWN article The guts of git: Git is not a source code management (SCM) system. It is, instead, a set of low-level utilities (Linus compares it to a special-purpose filesystem) which can be used to construct an SCM system. Much of the higher-level work is yet to be done, so the interface that most developers will work with remains unclear. Another article, (long), about git from the kerneltrap web site with relevant emails to/from Linux about some of the trade offs in it (fast patch management vs. no file deltas stored in the same file impacting space efficiency): Managing the Kernel Source With 'git'
The source for git is available online at:
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/torI'm having some difficulty wrapping my head around what git is and how much functionality it provides that is needed to do SCM. My take on this is that git can be thought of as a low level SCM repository kernel that can implement a particule file structure (optimized for directory content management) that leads to easy replication, distributed file system with no worries about file corruption (unless you are really worried about SHA1 collisions). Git is not yet a SCM but a work in progress of the repository layer.
Anyone familiar with ClearCase (a proprietary SCM now owned by IBM) is aware (possibly painfully so if they were invloved with administrating it) that it uses its own proprietary file system (which it calls VOBs). ClearCase has replication capabilities so there may be some degree of overlap in the basic concepts between ClearCase's lower level VOB layer and git.
There's more to do on top of git to make it part of a polished SCM system. I expect just as Linux has multiple Desktops (KDE/Gnome/xfce) there will be multiple git front-end clients to use the git utilities (API) to manipulate the contents of a git repository using your favourite language (Perl/PHP/Java/...) along with utilities to provide gateways to/from other SCM repositories such as CVS.
Transmitting energy without a license.
We don't have software patents in Europe (yet). I'd be happy for Linus, OSDL or any other trusted third party to file a defensive patent on my behalf (and pay for all the required searches!). I'm also looking for a new job if someone wants to hire a +4 Insightful mind who has ideas as good as that every morning in the shower. Hardly ever at work, granted, but in the shower, yes.
I think you are mistaken here. Please read Linus's own words on the subject before judging him. A quote:
Everyone having any feelings about this Linux SCM change topic, I urge you to hold your comments until you've read Linus's explanation of his feelings and actions and also his other replies in the thread, like this, this, this and this. It's really worth the little time it takes, for you'll find detailed explanations on what made BitKeeper so great, what's Linus's opinion of reverse engineering, why isn't he pissed off at BitMover, Inc. and much more.