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Torvalds Unveils New Linux Control System

Posted by Zonk on from the that-was-quick dept.

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. "

27 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. zdnet.co.uk by fish34 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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..

    1. Re:zdnet.co.uk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Tridge didn't even reverse engineer Bitkeeper, he was just trying to reverse engineer the *file format* to prevent vendor lockin.

      The Linux kernel history was being held hostage to Bitkeeper's good graces. If the business reasons for letting kernel developers do advertisement and Beta testing disappeared, the free version would inevitably disappear and kernel developers would be SOL (as they are now).

      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.

    2. Re:zdnet.co.uk by Naikrovek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      His "reverse engineering" was this:

      telnet bitkeepermachine
      HELP
      --seeing the list of available commands--
      clone filename.c

      seeing a bunch of garbage, then shortening it to:

      echo "clone filename.c" | telnet bitkeepermachine > filename.c

      wow that's what I call reverse engineering!

    3. Re:zdnet.co.uk by Krehbiel · · Score: 5, Insightful
      My understanding is that reverse engineering for interoperability is legally fine.

      Reverse-engineering for interoperability is legally fine, unless you're bound by a license not to do it. Those who've accepted the free BitKeeper client (or who bought BitKeeper) are subject to just such a license.

      If Tridgell never acceted the BitKeeper license, then he's not bound by it, and there's nothing illegal about what he did. But you know, you don't have to do something illegal to piss people off. :-(

      McVoy got pissed that someone did what he didn't want anyone to do, so he decided to stop maintaining the free BK client. (He's also trying to say that Tridgell should have been subject to the BitKeeper license, since he happens to be a contractor doing some work for a company that had accepted the BK license. I don't buy that one.)

      Torvalds got mad that something somebody got McVoy mad, so that now his choice source control tool isn't freely available anymore. He ranted against Tridgell, but that's misplaced, I think. Torvalds isn't fully into the "Free Software" philosophy (despite his use of the GPL for Linux), and so doesn't see any value in Tridgell's work and calls it "evil."

    4. Re:zdnet.co.uk by shaitand · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Botching the BitKeeper donation was hardly a bad thing, and it is what most wanted anyway.

      There is a reason why he reverse engineered the file format and not the source control system. BitKeeper stored the code in a proprietary data format, their IP is the only data capable of reading that format. If BitMover ever chose to revoke all licenses to use their IP to read the format it would bar the kernel developers from retrieving the kernel source code stored in the system.

      Tridge was not building a source control system to mimic BitKeeper, Tridge simply reversed the file format so that the ability for kernel developers, linus, and the world; to access the kernel source code was not subject to BitMovers good graces.

    5. Re:zdnet.co.uk by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You and Linus should get together and have a big "completely missing the fucking point" party. I have always respected Linus Torvalds greatly for his technical and societal contributions until this whole flap.

      Anyway, everyone wanted a way to get ALL data in and out of the repository to make it easier to merge in third party patches. The only differences here between (say) Linus and tridge are that Linus is McVoy's buddy who is pissed off that he no longer gets to use software, and tridge is a champion of Open Source who feels that we should be in charge of our own data. Remember, Linus does not care if software is Open. He wrote Linux that way based on a pragmatic decision.

      However one try to present the facts one thing remains. That is Tridge is the worst case of zealot preaching freedom of sw, but not respecting other peoples freedom to choose and work with any license they want.

      Now, I actually pride myself on being a creative asshole, but sir, you take the prize. Tridge was trying to do one thing: INTEROPERATE WITH BITKEEPER. He was NOT writing a replacement. How could he be, he was only writing a client? This cannot possibly hurt bitkeeper; they sell a service, and there are already other clients. He was trying to develop functionality that did not exist, and that bitmover does not want to provide.

      Why do they not want to provide this functionality? Why do they want to hold the interface to YOUR DATA hostage? So that they can lock you in to bitkeeper. In other words what you and Linus are both completely missing in your ire is the fact that bitmover is entirely microsoftian in this regard. They want to lock down the standards and prevent people from using them (McVoy threatened to repeatedly change the protocol in order to stay a step ahead of tridge - I'm sure that's going to provide a lot of benefit to bitmover's customers!) so that it is extremely inconvenient to move to another SCMS. This is 100% the same as Microsoft's file format strategies; hell, if they open DOC, in some ways they'd be LESS restrictive than bitmover - fact not fiction.

      Reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability is a time-honored tradition, and protected at least here in the U.S. by federal law including the oft-reviled DMCA. Perhaps you should adjust your attitude, I think it's poking out of your ass.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:zdnet.co.uk by ozbird · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Oh pu-lease...

      Tridge reversed engineered BitKeeper in the same way I "reversed engineered" SMTP:
      telnet <hostname> <portnumber>
      help
      There are a bunch of developers saying "I told you so" to Linus; BitKeeper may have been a wonderful product, but it was a train wreck waiting to happen. If Tridge had done nothing, the result would have been the same except that Linus would have to find another scapegoat to take his frustration out on.

    7. Re:zdnet.co.uk by killjoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Now that's ironic. Tridge's actions are what caused BK to revoke the license. If he had done nothing, then we'd all still be happily using BK."

      The problem is that Larry is an insane person. Let me draw up an analogy for you.

      Let's say there is a park close to your house and you like to walk your dog there.

      Larry one day calls your boss and says that you are ugly, your dog is ugly, and he wants your boss to fire you unless you stop walking your dog when you get home.

      OF course both of you are a little bewildered because a) you are doing something on your own time and b) what you are doing is perfectly legal. So your boss tells him that no he is not going to fire or rebuke you in any way.

      Larry then calls back and says that if you don't stop walking your dog he will beat of on his friend linus. You know linus and think he is a good guy but you figure linus can take care himself and indeed is a pretty good jodo expert so you tell him no again.

      Larry then lashes out at his friend and his friend is now mad at you!.

      This is what happened. Larry stabbed his friend in the back in order to make tridge stop doing something he had legal right to do.

      Larry is an immoral insane person and linus had no right to yell at tridge for larry's actions.

      --
      evil is as evil does
  2. Git? by Phidoux · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought that's what Southerners say to their dawgs?

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  3. More tridge news here.... by gowen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Reverse engineering BitKeeper for fun and profit

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  4. Re:Git? by PeterBrett · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, that's right; from the git README:

    "git" can mean anything, depending on your mood.

    - random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not
    actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a
    mispronounciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
    - stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the
    dictionary of slang.
    - "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually
    works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
    - "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks
    --
    Pirate Party UK
  5. Re:Git? by Saunalainen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Indeed - Linus has already explained the reasoning behind this name.

  6. Re:Nice Timing! by jdmetz · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you follow the Linux Kernel mailing list at all, it has been fairly apparent for the past week at least that Linus would be using "git" to manage the kernel. He has been putting a lot of time into it. So, my guess is, yes - the editors had "inside" knowledge

  7. Tridge Speaks by anandpur · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Tridge Speaks by stevey · · Score: 5, Informative

      nc is netcat, and it's a very useful tool. It does way more than telnet.

      I wrote an introduction to netcat if you're interested in exploring it.

  8. The ZDNet article gets it wrong by slavemowgli · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  9. What is bad with copying funcionality?? by xtracto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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'
  10. Eh? by Aldric · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Although Torvalds is revered by many within the open source community as the founder of Linux, he also has detractors among the free software movement. There is even a conspiracy theory on news site Slashdot that the anti-Torvalds rhetoric may have the underlying aim of persuading the open source community to switch to Hurd -- an alternative to the Linux kernel that is being developed by the Free Software Foundation.

    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).

    1. Re:Eh? by Linux_ho · · Score: 5, Informative
      Yeah, my favorite line in the article:
      There is even a conspiracy theory on news site Slashdot that the anti-Torvalds rhetoric may have the underlying aim of persuading the open source community to switch to Hurd -- an alternative to the Linux kernel that is being developed by the Free Software Foundation.
      It was a JOKE. Note the (Score:5, Funny) tag. Just an FYI for all you non-geek journalists reading Slashdot: if you're not laughing, you should interpret (Score:5, Funny) as a clue that some piece of geek humor may have just gone way over your head. Do not take comments on Slashdot seriously, especially if you see (Score:5, Funny). This would be a mistake.

      This has been a public service announcement from the Geek Nation Communication Explanation Foundation.
      --
      include $sig;
      1;
  11. Re:Git? by Striikerr · · Score: 5, Funny

    And if you're too lazy to RTF, here's the quote from the very end of the article.. "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.""

  12. Up and running! by anpe · · Score: 5, Informative
    Today in the lkml

    Subject:Linux 2.6.12-rc3
    Linus Torvalds
    Wed, 20 Apr 2005 18:00:21 -0700

    Ok,
    you know what the subject line means by now, but this release is a bit
    different from the usual ones, for obvious reasons. It's the first in a
    _long_ time that I've done without using BK, and it's the first one ever
    that has been built up completely with "git".


    Complete message here
  13. Re:Obligatory by Barsema · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Saying BK did not profit in ANY WAY from providing Linus with Bitkeeper for no charge, is like saying Nike does not profit in ANY WAY from the fact they are giving Tiger Woods golf-gear for no charge.
    In fact I think BK got a bargain and they've gone and thrown it away.

  14. Re:Bitkeeper was a great descision by m50d · · Score: 5, Insightful

    His word is not law, that's the whole point of OSS. We can fork it when he does stupid things. We don't want to waste effort, so we flame him first.

    --
    I am trolling
  15. Erm, name change... by Xarius · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Erm, name change... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I suggest Firebird.

  16. Re:Git? by mattspammail · · Score: 5, Funny

    How about "Git Isn't Translatable"?

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    Now accepting PayPal donations!
  17. You missed some of the viewpoints. by khasim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    #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".

    #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 ... no one did anything ILLEGAL and they all made decisions based upon their stated values.

    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.