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Tridge Releases BitKeeper-Compatible Tool

Posted by Zonk on from the taking-it-to-the-next-level dept.

Peter Willis writes "Looking at Freshmeat today (a part of OSTG) it seems Andrew Tridgell has released the BitKeeper-compatible source code management client mentioned on slashdot recently, called SourcePuller. As part of the downloads available for the project you can also get dump files which detail how to pull data from BK trees without the use of libsp. From the README: 'SourcePuller is not intended to be a full replacement for BitKeeper. Instead, you should use SourcePuller as an interoperability tool for situations where you cannot use bk itself. SourcePuller is missing a large amount of core functionality from BitKeeper, and thus is not suitable as a full replacement.'" Article available about the release on The Register.

125 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. As Tridge says in the README by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Finally, I would like to point out the obvious fact that Linus was perfectly within his rights to choose bk for the kernel. I personally would not have chosen it, but it was his choice to make, not anyone elses. Linus is now in the unenviable position of changing source code management systems, which is a painful task, particularly when moving away from a system that worked as well as bk did. If you want to help, then help with code not commentary. There have been enough flames over this issue already.
    so let's keep it civil, eh?
    1. Re:As Tridge says in the README by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

      so let's keep it civil, eh?

      Oh! Civility. I'm afraid we don't have much call for that around these parts. May I interest you in some irony?

      KFG

    2. Re:As Tridge says in the README by qortra · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nice quote, but the thing is, that's all we CAN do here. Slashdot is not a place to do software development; it isn't set up for that. It's a place for discussion. So basically, discuss, praise the author, try & review the software, but if you want to "help with code", you're in the wrong place.

    3. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 4, Funny

      You heard it hear first, Tridge is anti-comments. If you want GCC to continue to support comments, speak up now or forever hold your peace.

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    4. Re:As Tridge says in the README by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Funny

      Irony always goes astray here , Perhaps i could intrest you in some apathy.

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    5. Re:As Tridge says in the README by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      From the source code I've seen and debugged, it seems most programmers are anti-comments.

    6. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 5, Funny

      "heard it hear first"

      Jesus God, that's one of the dumbest fuckups I've seen in a /. comment, and it's in my comment.

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    7. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You can however refrain from posting and contact someone about helping with the code. It's really not a thing I have time for or even interests me, so I doubt I'll be much help. I'm mostly a measly web/database programmer anyway. :)

      -- gid

    8. Re:As Tridge says in the README by killmenow · · Score: 1
      Perhaps i could intrest you in some apathy.
      Meh.
    9. Re:As Tridge says in the README by snorklewacker · · Score: 4, Informative

      > If you want to help, then help with code not commentary

      Fact is, this is slashdot. It's the nee plus ultra of peanut galleries. Note well that Linus doesn't read or post to slashdot -- he's been busy working on git, which is not a great SCM itself, but it's turning out to be pretty hot as a library. Arch is adopting git as a backend, and darcs is talking about using libgit (once there is a libgit) for a performance boost.

      --
      I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
    10. Re:As Tridge says in the README by SnowZero · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sometimes I am anti-comment. When I get some example code that has 10+ lines of comments per line of actual code, I usually delete most of the comments so I can see what the heck the code is actually doing. There is such a thing as too much verbosity, or at the very least, some documentation shouldn't be in the middle of the function.

    11. Re:As Tridge says in the README by indifferent+children · · Score: 5, Funny
      it seems most programmers are anti-comments

      You're kidding right? What do you call all of that whitespace that we sprinkle around our code? Those are comments.

      If a block of code is especially self-contained or tricky, then it is surrounded by two carriage-returns before the block and two carriage-returns after the block.

      If some statements are part of a loop, then we gratuitously indent them. That's not for the compiler's benefit; those are comments.

      Don't even get me started on our extreme generosity in supplying names (not just types!) in our function and method prototypes. What, you want us to draw you a map?



      BTW, I would submit more Insightful comments in my code if only my peers with good karma had Mod Points at code review time.

      --
      Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
    12. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      At least it's not

      "Ewe herd it here first"

    13. Re:As Tridge says in the README by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      And when they do have comments, the comments are wrong because someone redesigned that bit of code 10 versions back and never bothered to update the comments.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    14. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Psiren · · Score: 1

      Arch is adopting git as a backend...

      Really? I have to say I find that quite amazing. How long has arch been around? And git is, what, 3 or so weeks old? Either Linus really is as shit hot a coder as many would have us believe, or the arch guys have been doing something terribly wrong. Is git so fundamentally different from every other SCM out there that no one but Linus saw the need for it? Open source really does move breathtakingly fast sometimes...

    15. Re:As Tridge says in the README by jhantin · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Ewe herd it here first"

      Oh. That's just baaaaad.

      Time to get back on topic, that's enough subversion of this thread.

      --
      ...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
    16. Re:As Tridge says in the README by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      At least you don't get your code-reviewers moderating your code as -1,Redundant and -1,Offtopic. That's almost mean-spirited enough to make me stop submitting "Hello, World" patches.

      But I shall persevere. And perhaps, I'll add some CRLFs this time.

    17. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Fnkmaster · · Score: 1

      GnU hurd it hear first?

    18. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Foosinho · · Score: 4, Funny

      Two "+5 Funny" out of the same post? I bow down to your slash-skills.

    19. Re:As Tridge says in the README by MikeBabcock · · Score: 1

      And some of us indent the code randomly, and counter-intuitively to how the flow works.

      Afterall, if you can't count braces, you don't deserve to code.

      (that's a joke ... )

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    20. Re:As Tridge says in the README by RVT · · Score: 1

      Why do you think it's called programming Language? Only rarely should it be necessary to 'footnote' your code. It should speak for itself.

      Documentation is another thing. It provides context for whatever it is you are expressing. It is always good to have some of that with a function.

    21. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Sircus · · Score: 1

      Is git so fundamentally different from every other SCM out there...

      No. A lot of git's concepts are taken from monotone. It's basically monotone without the sanity-checking and without the SCM built on top of it.

      --
      PenguiNet: the (shareware) Windows SSH client
    22. Re:As Tridge says in the README by sik0fewl · · Score: 1

      BTW, I would submit more Insightful comments in my code if only my peers with good karma had Mod Points at code review time.

      Yeah, I would submit more comments in my code, too, but I would be aiming for +5 Funny so it probably wouldn't help anybody understand the code anyway.

      --
      I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
    23. Re:As Tridge says in the README by eh2o · · Score: 1

      If some statements are part of a loop, then we gratuitously indent them.

      Really? I always thought that was the ghost of RMS reaching out of emacs to strangle me...

    24. Re:As Tridge says in the README by einhverfr · · Score: 1

      Nice quote, but the thing is, that's all we CAN do here. Slashdot is not a place to do software development; it isn't set up for that. It's a place for discussion. So basically, discuss, praise the author, try & review the software, but if you want to "help with code", you're in the wrong place.

      Hardly.
      1) telnet thunk.org 5000
      2) help
      3) ????
      4) quit

      Ok, normally 4 should be Profit, but this actually works....

      --

      LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
    25. Re:As Tridge says in the README by indifferent+children · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I logged onto /. today thinking, "I'm going to type in a comment that cures cancer". A +5 Funny will have to do :-(

      --
      Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
    26. Re:As Tridge says in the README by einhverfr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wow.... I have to say... I wish all programmers commented the way you do.

      What I personally hate is the way many programmers often try to tell me how their code works using comments. These are dangerous. Whitespace provides hints as to how to read how it works, but the code has to be your authoritative point for that: SPOT principle at work (comments should not get outdated).

      If the code does not speak for itself, it is bad code and should be rewritten.

      Now........ When you do comment... Don't tell me HOW your code works! However, it is perfectly reasonable to tell me why you make a specific decision. For example: "Sorry, this code is ugly. However, I can't come up with a better answer at the moment." or "This code here is to prevent an SQL-Injection attack." Or even "As per RFC. Sorry folks, FTP to Mars won't work."

      --

      LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
    27. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Iffy+Bonzoolie · · Score: 1

      If some statements are part of a loop, then we gratuitously indent them.

      It's only gratuitous if you use something extreme like 8 spaces per indentation level.

      I think his point was that any indentation is gratuitous to the compiler - it is used for human readability, and thus could be considered a "comment."

      But, I think a comment is a certain class of readability measures applied to code. Formatting is another. Naming is another. I personally subscribe to the self-documenting code philosophy - I'd generally rather pull some code out to a seperate method and give it a terse, yet descriptive name than break the flow of the code with some inline comments. Refactoring and all that.

      Of course, sometimes I get stuck because I can't think of an acceptable name for my new class or function.

      -If

      --
      Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
    28. Re:As Tridge says in the README by fsterman · · Score: 1

      Studies have been done that show commenting helps coders write better code, especially when they comment beforehand. It's just like any profession, thinking out what you do before you do it helps you do it better. So while it might be bothersome for you it helps them. Try it.

      --
      Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
    29. Re:As Tridge says in the README by dmaxwell · · Score: 1

      If the code does not speak for itself, it is bad code and should be rewritten.

      Is that truly universal? What if a really ugly regex is the most efficient way to get something done? What if the code in question implements a not immediately apparant algorithm? As far as algorithms go some rely on some rather hairy math that not everybody has minored in mathematics to understand. In situations like that, the last thing we need are arrogant programmers who think their code is so elegant as to not need comments.

    30. Re:As Tridge says in the README by walt-sjc · · Score: 1

      From "Real Programmers Don't Eat Quiche":

      Real Programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand and even harder to modify.

    31. Re:As Tridge says in the README by gunnk · · Score: 1

      I'm going to MOSTLY agree with the grandparent, but in the strictest since you are correct to wonder if it is truly universal. However, AS AS GENERAL RULE code that is truly obscure is generally poorly written. Cramming a gazillion manipulations into a single line is not generally better performance-wise than breaking it apart into readable chunks.

      Of course, assembly is ALWAYS ugly, but can also be the most efficient code by a long shot...

      What was my point?

      --
      Life is short: void the warranty.
    32. Re:As Tridge says in the README by einhverfr · · Score: 1

      Is that truly universal? What if a really ugly regex is the most efficient way to get something done? What if the code in question implements a not immediately apparant algorithm?

      What if your really ugly regex is broken? Should I be debugging your comments or your regex?

      In this case, I would like a comment which says something about why you chose that way. Something like:

      "This is ugly but seems better than the alternative."

      This is an immediate flag that this piece of code is difficult to read and deserves additional attention.

      As far as algorithms go some rely on some rather hairy math that not everybody has minored in mathematics to understand. In situations like that, the last thing we need are arrogant programmers who think their code is so elegant as to not need comments.

      Ok, but who is going to be debugging this math app? Someone with no math background? If so how will that person know if it is working or not? I would say you are in trouble in this case even with the comments you ask for.

      So I will rephrase this:

      If the code does not speak for itself when read by a qualified programmer, it is bad code and should be rewritten. Also ideally the qualifications required should be as low as reasonably possible.

      --

      LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
    33. Re:As Tridge says in the README by Bloater · · Score: 1

      I think he means stuff like:

      if(a!=1){ /* if a isn't equal to one */
      a++; /* increment a */
      x+=a-1; /* add the old value of a onto x */
      foo( x); /* foo is a function, call it passing the value of x */
      } /* end of if (a!= 1) block */

      I have seen code like that from inexperienced coders because their tutor's slides explained what each line does in a comment and they thought that's what you're supposed to do. They also thought that indentation and whitespace was done in the slides because the tutor fancied it.

      Note to programming course tutors. *DO* *NOT* explain how code snippets work using comments. *DO* demonstrate *proper* use of comments and explain indentation and other whitespace, and exactly why you thought it was best to indent as you did.

    34. Re:As Tridge says in the README by dmaxwell · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I wasn't advocating that sort of thing at all. I'm thinking more along the lines of tersely documented document headers and some explanation when the developer feels excessive cleverness is called for. Comments don't have to be and shouldn't be a stream of consciousness.

      Another situation where they're called for is if working around brokeness elsewhere is necessary. Without knowing the problem being worked around, it won't be clear why apparantly baroque code was used. I just don't accept the "comments are almost never necessary" school of thought. Code often has to be adapted to external realities that won't be apparent from the code itself.

    35. Re:As Tridge says in the README by SnowZero · · Score: 1

      You completely missed the point. Comments are like water, essential for life. That doesn't mean a raging flood is helpful for life.

    36. Re:As Tridge says in the README by SnowZero · · Score: 1

      You are spot on. Large comments at the top of a function don't "break up" the work nearly as much as inline comments. Inline comments should not state the obvious, but merely state the sections identified in the top level comment, and describe the non-obvious(*). I always like the concept that "comments should state why you are doing something, not what you are doing."

      (*) This is way too often overlooked. If it takes more than a bit of thinking to figure out why code is written the way it is, you should comment it. In other words, rather than one comment per line, I'd rather see very few comments on obvious lines, and 7 lines of comments for one line of voodoo.

    37. Re:As Tridge says in the README by SnowZero · · Score: 1

      What I want is an editor that folds stupidly obvious comments while keeping the important ones, but even Emacs doesn't do that yet. Folding treats "set i to 0" the same as "FIXME - this is completely broken".

  2. what? by qortra · · Score: 1

    I assume you mean "have essentially nothing on them". If so, why do you say that? I has the source code for the free bitkeeper tool that he designed. What more would people want?

    1. Re:what? by GreyPoopon · · Score: 1
      What more would people want?

      How about categorization and documentation? When you access a SourceForge site with nothing but the source code on it, it's difficult to take seriously. In this case, though, we all know who the author is. For lesser known authors, lack of any additional materials can kill community interest in the project.

      --

      GreyPoopon
      --
      Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?

  3. Might come in handy now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    with the move away from bitkeeper. :-D

    On a serious note, it's good that this apparently oh so evil piece of software is finally out in the open, so that the people can see that all the fuss was about a tool that allows you to get your data that is managed by a propietary tool. How evil...

    1. Re:Might come in handy now by LiENUS · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just a note, this tool assists in no way with the move away from bitkeeper, it was only of benefit when the linux kernel was still in bitkeeper. All this lets you do is pull source from a bitkeeper server, it does not replace the bitkeeper server. The way this benefits the open source community is now developers can begin intregrating this library into other development systems (like IDEs) and allowing bitkeeper integration.

    2. Re:Might come in handy now by 4of12 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On a serious note, it's good that this apparently oh so evil piece of software is finally out in the open, so that the people can see that all the fuss was about a tool that allows you to get your data that is managed by a propietary tool.

      In a way it's good to have issues like this bubble up to give people a chance to really think about the fundamental principles involved in open source development.

      For instance, it would be hypocritical to applaud Tridge for his work on reverse-engineering SMB to create Samba and to simultaneously criticize him for doing the exact same thing with BK.

      Likewise, to criticize MS for using secrecy to make money with its products, while decrying the effect Tridge's reverse engineering has on the income of the Larry trying to feed his family by selling BK.

      The principles have to hold independent of the emotional circumstances and the players of the game.

      FOSS is all about the natural migration of more and more software technology into commodities. And that will inevitably be a difficult pill to swallow for anyone who has created new software that makes money for them. At some point, if the software is really useful, other competent programmers will look to produce a work-alike functionality. And it will be for the greater good of humanity as a whole because they will be able to use better tools for less money. Even as it erodes the financial benefits that accrue to one or to a few from having thought and done it first.

      A happy ending would be Tridge's sofware encouraging more people to buy the BK core to interoperate with Sourcepuller. But, in the longer run, I expect a free core will eventually be developed and it will displace the proprietary one.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    3. Re:Might come in handy now by John+Harrison · · Score: 1
      But, in the longer run, I expect a free core will eventually be developed and it will displace the proprietary one.

      And that my friends, is true innovation! Let someone else come up with a good idea and then implement a feature identical replacement.

      Actually one of the nice things to come out of this is the work Linus has done on git. At least someone is trying to come up with something new.

      --
      Lasers Controlled Games!
    4. Re:Might come in handy now by bcrowell · · Score: 1

      Might come in handy now with the move away from bitkeeper.
      Wow, that was a close call. I mean, we almost had a situation where, like, anyone off the street could have just used this piece of software to download the entire source code to the Linux kernel. And -- OMG -- this wouldn't have been just the stuff that the kernel developers had decided was OK to release to the public, but the real complete version that they were working on, with all the metadata included. 'Cause, y'know, once all that highly sensitive information was out there in the wild, there would've been no way to get it back and make it secret again.

      --
      Find free books.
    5. Re:Might come in handy now by SlashDread · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "The principles have to hold independent of the emotional circumstances and the players of the game." Spoke the high morale philosofer. Back in the real world, we behave, and make laws accordingly, that are big fat principle breakers, for perfectly valid practical reasons. We can fly a flag. We cannot fly the Nazi flag. Beng. Principle violation. We can speak. We cannot speak hate propaganda. Beng. Murder bad, war good. Beng beng. The principles dont differ, the practical consequenses differ. From some flag we yell and screech. From some plane crash we war. From some hate propaganda we revolutionize. People do the same on every level, we find 10 bucks, we keep it, we find 100 bucks, we go to the police. We will see who is right; if BK goes bankrupt, it was Linus.

    6. Re:Might come in handy now by ImaLamer · · Score: 1

      Well, being open source it won't be hard to fork and then start working on creating the server and "core functionality".

      --
      Get your Unix fortune now!
    7. Re:Might come in handy now by dmaxwell · · Score: 1

      And that my friends, is true innovation! Let someone else come up with a good idea and then implement a feature identical replacement.

      That is the history of all technology starting from Ogg The Caveman bashing his kill with a stick and Argh seeing it and trying it with a rock.

      Bitkeeper itself copies functionality and ideas from older SCMs; it didn't arise in a vacuum. And we all know the one about how Xerox invented the point and click GUI except that they really didn't either.

    8. Re:Might come in handy now by LiENUS · · Score: 1

      Creating the server is probably 10x more difficult than creating the client, all the client does is send requests. The server has to handle merges, ACLs and more.

    9. Re:Might come in handy now by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 1

      Just a note, this tool assists in no way with the move away from bitkeeper, it was only of benefit when the linux kernel was still in bitkeeper. All this lets you do is pull source from a bitkeeper server, it does not replace the bitkeeper server. The way this benefits the open source community is now developers can begin intregrating this library into other development systems (like IDEs) and allowing bitkeeper integration.

      Your "just a note" makes little sense. The purpose of SourcePuller is to retrieve our open source code, complete with its entire history, into a neutral, lossless dump file format that any version control tool can pull from. BitKeeper integration doesn't even come into it. The purpose of SourcePuller is to release our code from the clutches of BitKeeper so that we can forget about BitKeeper forever and get serious about improving our own tools. As we should have been right from the beginning (and as some of us were anyway, quietly, through the whole distasteful affair).

      The way this benefits the open source community is, we don't have to suffer the loss of three years of versioning history. We now move forward without BitKeeper. SourcePuller is not for integrating with BitKeeper, it is for removing BitKeeper from the open source toolchain.

      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
    10. Re:Might come in handy now by ray-auch · · Score: 1

      The version history was never "lost".

      What do you think Linus is using to test GIT ?

      Notice how he didn't announce he got the data with Tridge's help - why ? - because it wasn't necessary, everything could be exported anyhow. But apparently that wasn't enough for Tridge.

    11. Re:Might come in handy now by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 1

      The version history was never "lost"

      According to you. How about: the history, the whole history, and nothing but the history. Concentrate on the "whole" part please.

      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
    12. Re:Might come in handy now by ray-auch · · Score: 1

      Actually accroding to Linus. Like I said, where do think he got his GIT data from ?

      If this new GIT database is incomplete then perhaps someone should have waited until the lifeboat (ie. the export) was checked before pushing the self-destruct button.

      If the GIT database is complete, then what was the problem (that the reverse engineering was solving) ?

      So, is Linus' new dataset incomplete or not ? He doesn't seem to think so (anywhere I've seen) and surely he should know ?

  4. Like Grains of Sand in an Hourglass... by jeff_schiller · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...so goes the soap opera that has become the Linux community

    --
    Something Witty Goes Here
    1. Re:Like Grains of Sand in an Hourglass... by blueskies · · Score: 1

      Luckily, the free version isn't supported by ads...

    2. Re:Like Grains of Sand in an Hourglass... by indifferent+children · · Score: 2, Funny
      Suggested names:

      All My Children (a forking-good name)

      As the Hello World Turns

      One File to Give

      General Protection

      The <B> and the Beautiful

      --
      Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
    3. Re:Like Grains of Sand in an Hourglass... by jeff_schiller · · Score: 1

      LOL....if I had mod points, you'd get some.

      --
      Something Witty Goes Here
    4. Re:Like Grains of Sand in an Hourglass... by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 1


      How about "Linus's Landing"?

      "Dynasty" - about UNIX, Linux, BSD, FreeBSD, etc.

      Bill Gates = J.R. Ewing? (Naah, Billy Boy hasn't got near the style of J.R.! Forgeddaboutit...)

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
    5. Re:Like Grains of Sand in an Hourglass... by stor · · Score: 1

      "Hackers", sung to "Neighbours"

      Hackers
      Everybody needs good hackers
      With a little bit of source code
      They can code a better way!

      Hackers
      Should share their code with one another
      That's when good hackers
      Are truly free...

      Cheers
      Stor

      --
      "Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
  5. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by space_dude_27 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps because Tridge never set out to create a replacement for BK - merely a tool that would interoperate with it and enable you to get source out of a BK repository without actually running the BK client.

  6. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by sfraggle · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I must say I haven't used it
    Come back when you've tried to read the documentation - you'll quickly see why nobody in their right mind is considering GNU Arch.
    --
    were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
  7. So? by qortra · · Score: 1

    Why does that matter? Most of the features in sourceforge are basically designed to be responses to the code/applications anyway (bug reports, forums, etc). So it will get plenty of use. But even if it didn't, why not use it to host a couple of open source files that people want?

    1. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      But even if it didn't, why not use it to host a couple of open source files that people want?

      Do they? Now Larry's pulled the Linux BK, what *do* you need this for?

      (of course that didn't stop me downloading it anyway :-) )

    2. Re:So? by Bloater · · Score: 1

      All your own revision history that cannot be obtained by any other means (and couldn't be even before BitMover pulled the free BK). Tridge is just giving BK users access to their own data.

  8. Logo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    A big huge middle finger!

  9. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Flywheels has a history of linking articles at his site, PressEsc to un-related stories and comments, in order to boost his PageRank.

    He has even linked to Google to redirect to his page so that he escapes detection from mods.

    Feel free to check his history.

  10. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by grumbel · · Score: 4, Informative

    ### I must say I haven't used it, but from reviews and comparisons I've read, it seems to be a good tool.

    Well, try to use it then. The feature that it has indeed sound nice in theory, but Arch has huge problems when it comes to usability and performance, which make it unusable for something as large as Linux and unconfortable for most other projects around. A simple look at the 'help' already makes that pretty clear that there is something wrong with the userinterface:

    $ svn help | wc -l
    41
    $ tla help | wc -l
    186

    Its however not a lost case, Bazaar-ng is trying to fix those problems of Arch:

    * http://bazaar-ng.org/

  11. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by davecb · · Score: 1
    Scalability, actually.

    --dave

    --
    davecb@spamcop.net
  12. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nobody...
    Yes, you are the very very very very first first first person to come up with something THAT original.

  13. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by cduffy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Arch is a good tool -- once you've wrapped your mind around it. Coming from CVS, that's hard.

    One of the problems I'm having at work is that, having wrapped my mind around Arch, I'm for all intends and purposes unable to go back to thinking in CVS primatives -- the conceptual model is that much better. However, since Arch isn't practical for use at my place of employment (no usable win32 port, much less one with a GUI the UI folks can use), I've become damn near useless as SCM advisor -- my mental model just isn't aligned for CVS anymore, and the thought of trying to "fix" that (by retraining myself to work within all of CVS's limitations again) is just too damn horrifying.

    In a year and a half, maybe, or however long it is, Bazaar-NG will be ready for commercial use, and then we'll have somethnig that'll let me have my pretty conceptual model and actually be usable by the rest of staff. It's a dream, anyhow.

  14. No thanks by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not today, thank you. Perhaps you could come around tomorrow, or maybe the day after? I'll check my calendar, but later, ok?

    --
    Infuriate left and right
    1. Re:No thanks by babyrat · · Score: 2, Funny

      tomorow is bad for me - I plan to stop procrastinating then.

  15. Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking around by Chyeburashka · · Score: 3, Interesting
    zoopark:~/sp-0.1 gena$ cat `find . -name "*.c"` | wc -l
    13416
    zoopark:~/sp-0.1 gena$ cat `find . -name "*.h"` | wc -l
    859
    zoopark:~/sp-0.1 gena$ cat `find . -name "*.[ch]"` | wc -l
    14275
  16. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by keesh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't want a tool that tries to tell me how to do things. I want a tool that stays the hell out of my way and lets me do some work. Their "way things should be" is not suitable for all software development models, yet their tool is so closely tied to said model that they actively add in features to try to stop you from working any other way.

  17. WTG by Tharkban · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Congratulations to Tridge.

    Sounds like everyone was within their rights. Which means disagreement is simply the by product of everyone being human.

    --
    Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
  18. Why the P.C name? by thehunger · · Score: 5, Funny

    A tool that lets you Pull stuff out of BitKeeper. How did he manage to avoid naming it BitPull?

    1. Re:Why the P.C name? by sethadam1 · · Score: 1

      Then you would have completely missed the joke...

    2. Re:Why the P.C name? by williw · · Score: 5, Funny

      As soon as I read your comment, I immediately thought he should have call it PitBull or KeepBitter (get it... reverse engineering reverse name, unintended consequences. har har har)

  19. Re:Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking aro by imroy · · Score: 1

    No, the telnet bit was just for dumping the data out of a BK server with the "clone" command/request. I presume that this code interprets the data and produces usable source files and diffs, or whatever format the "metadata" is in. I've never used BK (and after this little exercise, never will) so I don't know what the other metadata is all about.

  20. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by spworley · · Score: 4, Funny
    Its however not a lost case, Bazaar-ng is trying to fix those problems of Arch

    And with the support of the community, and a lot of developer work, they'll be able to reduce Arch's 'help' text down to only 10 words, making it the most powerful source control system.
  21. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by cduffy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh, it's not that bad. Yes, Tom has given Arch features which are tied to how he works -- but none come to mind that actually stop you from working a different way, as opposed to merely being annoying.

    That said, I'm anxiously awaiting Bazaar-NG.

  22. Re:Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking aro by HeelToe · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Why not just:
    wc -l `find . -name "*.[ch]"`
  23. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by cduffy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Arch is quite scalable, if used correctly -- and the remaining places where it aren't are either (1) implementation rather than design issues, or (2) issues which have a solution proposed which nobody's bothered to implement yet.

    Folks who actually do their setup correctly (greedy, non-sparse revlibs; hardlink trees; reiserfs) have reported some very, very impressive benchmarks - and the remaining scalability issues mostly relate to patch log management, and there've been plenty of solutions proposed and on the table that could be implemented very, very quickly if anyone was feeling enough pain to prioritize them (or hire Tom to prioritize them -- same thing, really).

  24. This is what Larry was complaining about? by X.25 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If *this* is the project Larry was complaining about so much, I can't wait to hear what he has to say now.

    Larry, is THIS the reverse engineering you were talking about? Stealing your ideas? Making OSS version of BitKeeper? Blah, blah.

    There were so many cases of people making opensource software talking to proprietary back-end (getting stock quotes with tool via TCP, for example, instead of using Java/Windows clients), and noone really made so much noise.

    I have no respect anymore for BitKeeper and Larry if this is all Tridge was "reverse engineering".

    1. Re:This is what Larry was complaining about? by MattW · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And what the hell was Linus talking about? He can understand not wanting someone "riding on their coattails, solve the problem yourself" - what problem? A tool for pulling snapshots? This is not the vast mysteries of SCM being solved, this is a utility.

  25. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by krmt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I tried using arch to manage my debian packages, which have an upstreamversion-packageversion versioning number scheme. Both tla and baz complained that this wasn't an appropriate version number. This is beyond annoying, it makes arch unusable for my fairly simple needs.

    Plus, the UI is completely tied to the implementation, so you have to know a ton about the underpinnings of arch in order to use tla. I don't want to know how arch does what it does. I don't care.

    The baz people are working on fixing this, but there's a lot of problems to be fixed (see this for the massive list) and I think it'll take them some time to do so. Currently, baz is pretty buggy for me too, segfaulting on things like branching. That said, I have a lot of faith in both the baz team and Martin Pool, simply because they've thought things through very well. Currently though, tla and baz are nothing but an exercise in pain for me to use, and bzr isn't ready yet. I'll keep checking on them, because I really want to like them, but they make it so hard on me.

    --

    "I may not have morals, but I have standards."

  26. Re:Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking aro by gdr · · Score: 1
    Why not just: wc -l `find . -name "*.[ch]"`
    Because this gives you the count for each file individually before the total (which is all you really want) and if find returns no files wc sits there waiting on the standard input.
  27. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    arch is vi unfriendly (you have to edit filenames that start with +), so that perhaps discourages a third of the potential users. Also arch enforces some rules by default that annoy people (like you can't keep any non-repository files in your directory, everything must be under version control at all times. which stinks if you like to keep little notes in your own shorthand). Also the jury is out as to if arch can handle development of a highly active project like Linux. But otherwise I think arch is a neat idea and a neat tool.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  28. Waste of time by bheading · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But there's already an open-source tool for pulling code out of BitKeeper. So what is the point in Tridge's release?

    1. Re:Waste of time by Fnkmaster · · Score: 1

      Which was only released a month ago... something tells me they released that in response to Tridge's work which demonstrated the demand for such a tool to them.

    2. Re:Waste of time by Quixote · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Look at the date: 2005/03/17 (or March 17th 2005 for the rest of you). Obviously it was released to undercut Tridge.

      Tridge had 2 options after that:
      a) release his version (which is also just a client) and get the "is this it? But why did Tridge do that?" comments like the parent; or
      b) not release it, and let the rumors fly around.

      I'm glad Tridge chose to release his version and now we can all move on. Of course, the real loser in this is McVoy (he lost his biggest mouthpiece), followed by Linus (who has to now duplicate the functionality of BK as much as he can, and while he's mucking with the tools the kernel development takes a backseat).

    3. Re:Waste of time by BillKaos · · Score: 1
      Sorry it's open source but the license is not free neither acceptable:
      /*
      * Copyright (c) 2005 BitMover, Inc.
      *
      * Licensed under the NWL - No Whining License.
      *
      * You may use this, modify this, redistribute this provided you agree to:
      * - not whine about it;
      * - the fact that there is no warranty of any kind;
      * - retain this copyright in full.
      *
    4. Re:Waste of time by Bananenrepublik · · Score: 4, Informative

      Tridge's tool is about extracting the complete history out of a bitkeeper server, bitkeeper's open client is about providing an equivalent to cvs up. Fairly obvious if you RTFA and TFPYLT (the f*cking page you're linking to).

    5. Re:Waste of time by murdocj · · Score: 1

      I don't recall the exact timeline, but the original article mentioned that the Bk folk and Linus tried to come to some sort of terms that would satisfy Tridge. Given that this tool was made available a month ago, I suspect that it wasn't created to "undercut Tridge" but rather in an attempt to placate him. Apparently that attempt wasn't successful.

    6. Re:Waste of time by bheading · · Score: 1

      Does Tridge's tool extract the code from the metadata or does it merely download the metadata from the server ?

  29. Re:Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking aro by Chyeburashka · · Score: 1
    Because that provides more than the summary I wanted:
    [gena@zoopark sp-0.1]$ wc -l `find . -name "*.[ch]"`
    263 ./sp.c
    128 ./inventory.c
    94 ./releases.c
    125 ./checksum.c
    [ snipped similar output ]
    151 ./annotate.c
    119 ./getrev.c
    14275 total
    I suppose I could have done this:
    [gena@zoopark sp-0.1]$ wc -l `find . -name "*.[ch]"` | tail -n 1
    14275 total
    But that 'total' there is superfluous, so:
    [gena@zoopark sp-0.1]$ wc -l `find . -name "*.[ch]"` | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $1}'
    14275
    Thanks for the help. ;)
  30. Re:Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking aro by Wdomburg · · Score: 1

    If I were you, I'd have done find . -name \*.c | xargs cat | wc -l. That'd avoid getting back "Argument list too long" if there'd been more files. :)

  31. Summary of the this anywhere? by nolife · · Score: 1

    Anyone have a link to a decent summary of this entire story as it was played out? I've browsed through the past /. articles and searched Goolge but nothing I've found gives a decent summary or big picture history.

    --
    Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
    1. Re:Summary of the this anywhere? by cranos · · Score: 1

      I have a brief Summary. Have a look if you like.

  32. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by SnowZero · · Score: 1

    That's why I use darcs. Find out the differences with some surfing.

  33. Shoulda named it... by Cyn · · Score: 2, Funny

    BitTaker

    Or, for a more exacting description of what their relationship is... rename both tools:

    BitKeeper -> BitPitcher
    SourcePuller -> BitCatcher

    --
    cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
    1. Re:Shoulda named it... by jwymanm · · Score: 1

      I'd just save some time and name all of the tools BitCh

  34. Re:Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking aro by Chyeburashka · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Excellent point. That is actually necessary with a sizable project, like the kernel.
    [gena@zoopark linux-2.6.12-rc3]$ find . -name "*.[chS]" | xargs cat | wc -l
    6250930
    Wow, that's a lot of code for a project that started out with:
    Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers? Are you without a nice project and just dying to cut your teeth on a OS you can try to modify for your needs? Are you finding it frustrating when everything works on minix? No more all- nighters to get a nifty program working? Then this post might be just for you :-)
  35. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by skoch · · Score: 1

    Interesting way of measuring complexity.

    $ diff --help | wc -l
    81

    Does that make svn twice as simple? Does it not have a good diff built in?

  36. Probably not by TheConfusedOne · · Score: 1

    Unlike Samba, SourcePuller is completely useless without the proprietary product. So, you need to violate a commercial license in order to use it at all.

    Samba provides both client and server capability (and PDC and AD functionality now too) for non-Windows OS's.

    There really is no BK core and BK client like there is in the CIFS world. In order to replace the "BK core" someone will have to write from the ground-up a complete distributed SCM system. If that effort is undertaken then I really see no benefit whatsoever to having a client that speaks BK's client commands and writes files in their format? (Aside from potential IP violations in duplicating their format.)

    So, honestly, what does something like SourcePuller get you aside from losing use of a tool?

    --
    --- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
    1. Re:Probably not by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 2, Insightful


      Ah, the first idiot posts...

      First of all, as I understand it, the commercial license involved says you will not reverse engineer the product YOU licensed. SourcePuller doesn't do that if YOU use it with some other SCM - it simply interoperates. It may do that if Tridge wrote it that way, which he didn't since he wasn't a licensee in the first place.

      Secondly, using SourcePuller does not "get you aside from losing a tool". That statement is just idiotic. SourcePuller gets you exactly what Tridge says - interoperability with BK.

      If BK is replaced as the dominant SCM, SourcePuller will be obsolete only when no one uses BK at all. When no one uses BK at all because there is something better, what is the problem with "losing a tool"? The statement is nonsense.

      As for Samba, does anybody believe Samba would exist in the form it does if Windows didn't exist? And referencing Samba's AD support as being independent of Windows is just laughable. Samba entire existence is due to the need (however temporary) for Windows interoperability.

      Some of the posts on /. are just unbelievable...

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
    2. Re:Probably not by Moofie · · Score: 1

      "Unlike Samba, SourcePuller is completely useless without the proprietary product."

      Samba is useful without proprietary products, but it's also redundant. There are a number of other ways to scratch the same itch that Samba scratches. The reason to use Samba is to interoperate with Windows.

      Your argument is silly.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  37. Re:Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking aro by HeelToe · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I guess I wasn't considering you were only interested in that summary - of course, the cat is easier in that circumstance.

    I always find it interesting how different people use the text utilities on files in the shell. It often shows different thoughts and approaches to "set programming."

  38. Re:ATTENTION: THOSE CONSIDERING LINUX AS A MARKET by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 1

    ATTENTION: THOSE CONSIDERING WINDOWS AS A MARKET

    This is what always happens. Bring your product to Microsoft and they love you, then they kill you.

    Lesson: don't bother.

    --
    Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  39. why not LicensePuller? by Pollardito · · Score: 1

    more people would know what it's describing :)

  40. Used already? by jefu · · Score: 3, Funny

    Isn't that Wendy's new Logo?

  41. The original UNIX code by btarval · · Score: 2, Funny

    Heh. This reminds me of some of the original UNIX code, from the V6/V7 days.

    The startup code was all done in DEC assembly (of course), in a file called locore.s (or something like that - it's been years since I've seen it). Either Brian Kernigham or Dennis Ritchie must have written it; I think it was the former.

    Utterly obtuse assembly code, unless perhaps you've spent a good deal of time programming in DEC assembly. Then, no doubt, it was quite clear.

    Anyway, about halfway down (after about 50 lines or so), was this priceless comment:
    "Here's the tricky part"

    Heh. Thanks guys.

    --
    The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
  42. Insightful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Linus was just keeping the boat afloat. The Linux and FOSS communities are sailing around on the oceans with very powerful allies and foes all around us. IBM has turned out to be one of our strongest allies, by providing us protection. The War on Intellectual Property is coming soon.

    By doing what he did, Tridge is further defining the ground rules that the *real* hackers agree too. As has already been said, he did the reverse engineering on his own time, without ever having used the BitKeeper program. Lessons Learned: Reverse engineering on your own time is absolutely an ethical and allowed activity.

    The more I think about it, the biggest winner in all this is the GPL license. It will now have a custom code management application built around working with GPLed code.

  43. Re:Wow, that's a lot of code for telnet poking aro by einhverfr · · Score: 1

    wc -l `find . -name "*.[ch]"` | tail -n 1

    How many ways can you skin a cat in UNIX anyway?

    --

    LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
  44. I'm even more generous by talaphid · · Score: 1

    You can tell how early in some revision of the program a variable first appeared by which letter in the alphabet it is. That is, my first variable is "a", my second is "b", and when I run out of letters, I just repeat incrementing a prepended letter, that is, "aa", "ab"... "ba".

    Huh? You mean I can have a variable named ResultsTable? No, no.. "c" is clearly a better name. After all, you wouldn't know where to find the first reference otherwise! (hint: after "b")

  45. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by cduffy · · Score: 1

    This is beyond annoying, it makes arch unusable for my fairly simple needs.

    Unless, that is, you make the version part of your branch name.

  46. Re:Why not GNU Arch? by pHDNgell · · Score: 1

    arch is vi unfriendly (you have to edit filenames that start with +), so that perhaps discourages a third of the potential users.

    This is not entirely true. I use vi and arch and everything's cool. ``vi ./+blah'' I don't try to edit those directly anyway, I just have an alias that looks like this:

    vi `tla make-log`

    Also arch enforces some rules by default that annoy people (like you can't keep any non-repository files in your directory, everything must be under version control at all times. which stinks if you like to keep little notes in your own shorthand).

    It's perfectly happy ignoring my build directories and other random crap I use for testing. I just need to tell it what kinds of things it should ignore.

    More importantly, if something looks like source, I want my revision control system to let me know if I'm forgetting it on a checkin (or worse, if someone else is forgetting it on their checkin and I sync and attempt a build only to find that they're gone and one little piece they added is missing).

    --
    -- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
  47. I'm sorry to disappoint by TheConfusedOne · · Score: 1

    Not really though.

    Referencing Samba's AD support is actually a big point. The point is that Samba can replace an AD system, just like you could use a box running Samba to be a PDC before.

    SourcePuller can do no such thing. SourcePuller's one and only function is to pull stuff out of BitKeeper. There's no interoperability. What SCM software can SourcePuller put that data into? I know, let's write a CVS plug-in for it. Oh wait, BitMover already provided that!

    --
    --- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
    1. Re:I'm sorry to disappoint by keMen · · Score: 1

      You seem to miss the point of interoperability. Pulling data out of a proprietary system into a format that can be used by any other system is the foundation for interoperability.

      --
      Escape the Ordinary
    2. Re:I'm sorry to disappoint by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 1


      Your handle of TheConfusedOne is appropriate as the other respondents have demonstrated.

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  48. Think a second by TheConfusedOne · · Score: 1

    One of the more useful functions of Samba where I work is to allow Windows boxes to access Unix file systems.

    The point is that Samba acts as both a client and a server. It contains the complete functionality.

    SourcePuller only works to get data out of BitKeeper. It doesn't do anything to put data into another SCM system. It can't replace the BK repository's functionality. It basically becomes useless without someone running a BK repository.

    --
    --- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
  49. Paranoic by QuestionsNotAnswers · · Score: 1

    The journalism on this issue has me wondering if there is not an evil company pushing PR splinters into Linus or Linux from behind the scenes...

    A couple of articles appear to have gone a long way towards blowing up an issue - with the open source community being dragged into a non-existent 'fight'!

    Thank you /.ers for not joining in and posting days-of-our-lives comments.

    --
    Happy moony
    1. Re:Paranoic by child_of_mercy · · Score: 1

      You should have seen the double standing ovation Eben Moglen got at linux.conf.au this morning.

      He's planning on making badges saying "STALLMAN WAS RIGHT"

      FSF has the high ground in the community now, linus has blown himself out of the water.

      --
      'There is a Light that never goes out.'
  50. Linus = Denethor by child_of_mercy · · Score: 1

    Stared too long into the abyss, gave way to despair, betrayed his realm.

    Lunckily Gandalf/Stallman is going to install a new king for us...

    --
    'There is a Light that never goes out.'
  51. Close but not quite by TheConfusedOne · · Score: 1

    The point is that Samba can act as either Server or Client. SourcePuller can only ever be a client.

    Samba actually provides a migration path away from the MS Windows network by removing the dependency on MS software to provide server functionality. Think, you could replace all file and print servers on a network using Linux and Samba and not affect a single Windows client running on the network.

    This may seem like a minor distinction to you but to me it is the crux of the matter and jibes with Linus' complaint about SourcePuller. It's a tool that will only function as long as BitKeeper is being used. The irony is that the use of the tool almost guaranteed that BitKeeper wouldn't be used.

    --
    --- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.