"Who the fuck are you to break a lock the authoring company put on their software."
What an odd thing to say. Who broke what lock on what software?
"How about this, if you believe you should be allowed to break someone's code, "
Since nobody broke anybodies code this statement is off topic in this discussion.
"Do you believe that a burgler should be allowed to break into your house to copy your hard drive?"
Err of course not. Who broke into whose house and stole what hard drive?
"A signature is not a requirement of agreements. Clicking "I accept" or "yes" or some other compliance button is just as acceptable."
first of all what did tridge click on to say "I accept" or "yes"
Secondly you are talking out of your ass. Nobody has ever tested this in court and nobody has ever sued anybody for violating a click through agreement.
"Also, just in case you plan to say it, immediately trying to reverse the code so you never see the EULA is also not acceptable."
Who says? You? Are you some sort of a legal scholar? I kind of doubt it because you don't seem to even be able comprehend the issues in this case let alone case law.
"Since EULA's have been and are presently accepted in court"
Citation please.
"reverse engineering of a product that specifically states in its EULA that you may not do so is not allowed and as such could result in a person being sued."
A EULA can not ask you give up a constitutional right. Secondly Tridge never singed a EULA.
"Where is this guaranteed right of yours that states someone is allowed to reverse engineer closed source without permission from the owners?"
"but reverse engineering Close Source code is NOT fine."
Says who? You? Who the fuck are you to tell people it's not fine anyway. It's legal, closed source companies do it all time. Reverse engineering is a perfectly good tool to implement technologies when you don't have access to the internals.
Why should linus take away a perfectly good and legal technique?
"By utilizing someone (anyone's) program you are agreeing to any TOS they might have - and in cases like MS' programs they have clear language about not wanting anyone to reverse engineer."
Tridge didn't sign anything with anybody, there is no TOS here.
"It is completely responsible of anyone in the Open Source industry (or any industry) to say that reverse engineering of closed source products is wrong (unless you have permission to do so)."
Nope. Sorry you are wrong. Reverse engineering is legal right and neither you nor linus can take that right away from anybody. MS can put anything in their EULA they want but like most of it it's pure bullshit. It won't stand up court.
Only an idiot voluntarity gives up rights guaranteed to them by law.
I loved magellan. I even downloaded it from someplace and tried to run it from a DOS prompt, it choked on long file names and too deep hierarchies but it actually tried to index the HD.
It would be so great to have a new version of that.
"Even Mac OS X, the quintessentially "easy to use, just works" OS, requires you to type in the administrator (similiar but not the same as root) password before installing new software or OS updates."
Only for OS updates (logical) or applications installed into a folder other then your home directory (also logical). There are a ton of Mac OS X apps which don't have an "installer" per se you simply drag the item to your home folder and use it without having to know the root password.
We are talking about the people who use lindows here. And really they should not have to sudo either then you think about it. On the mac you can install software into your own home directory without any kind of hassle, you should be able to do the same with linux. It's something you can do with --with-prefix=~ if you were compiling by hand so I don't see why it should not be possible with a package system.
It's not logging in that he is concerned about, it's click N run. Apt won't install under non root user.
I would think that it would take some serious hacking to allow apt to install software into your own home directory but it would probably be a worthwhile effort.
"Larry decided the financial risk to his company wasn't worth continuing to provide a free version."
Right. So he decided to fuck his friend linus in retaliation. This is what people warned linus about. Larry is unstable. the idea that you are going to pull somebodies license because some third party might one day compete with you is insane.
"But he wasn't writing a replacement, he was just engeering a situation where BK would become unusable."
really? Is BK so fucked up that any random third party can make it unstable? Is so then linus is better off without it.
"You're analogy is bad on two counts: first, in this case Tridge's activies impact Larry directly,"
So why punish linus then? Also how did larry get impacted? There is so much wrong with your statement I don't even know where to start. It's like if I liked to play golf and larrys house is near a golf course. He asks me to stop playing golf because I might break one his windows. When I point out to him that it's perfectly legal for me to play golf here he goes and beats up his wife in order to make me stop playing golf.
"you seem to have missed the main point: that if continuing work on tool makes the tool unnecessary then the reason to continue must be other than the tool itself. Does it sound rational to you to continue to work on something when the very act will make the work pointless? Clearly Tridge's motives were political, not technical."
it's called competition. Larry better get used to it. In the US people are free to compete with you.
"Larry has every right to ask whatever he wants. Whoever he asks has every right to ignore him. Larry has every right to take whatever (legal) actions he wants in response"
BINGO. This is why proprietary software is bad. The lincesor can pull the license anytime he wants for whatever reason he wants. This is what linus in his "pragmatism" missed completely. He got blinded by the shiny toy larry waves in front of him while ignoring everybody who warned him about the kind of a person larry was. Now he got fucked by larry. He deserves it.
"a wakeup call for the community that has at least provided a lot of publicity for the open source alternatives,"
It has been a wakeup call to the world. TO every person who thinks the proprietary software they bought or use is theirs to keep for ever. It's not. The owner can revoke your rights to use it at any time for whatever reason. Even if it's to stop some other party from writing software to compete with them.
Sobering thought.
" and a lot of people (willfully?) misunderstanding and misrepresenting the situation."
Nobody is doing any such thing. The facts are plain and simple. Larry decided to fuck his good friend linus and all the kernel developers to stop tridge from doing something that was perfectly legal. The facts are ugly but they are crystal clear.
'Incidentally, you sound very angry about all this. Why is that?"
I am not angry. I do think linus was an idiot for ignoring the hundreds of people who told him not to use BK because it was proprietary and that larry was an psychotic asshole. I also find it odd that linus would bad mouth tridge, where would lilnux be today without samba, rsync and ccache?
"Tridge was writing a tool that could extract data from a BK reposititory, but it's not a BK replacement. Larry was unwilling to continue the free version of BK if Tridge continues his project. Without a free version of BK Tridge's tool is useless - it has no purpose. Tridge refuses to stop working on his tool."
Ok so Larry decided to fuck his good friend linux in order to stop tridge from doing something tridge wanted to do in his own time. Even though what tridge did was perfectly legal and moral, even though what tridge did was not going to result in a product that would compete with bitkeeper.
IF you enjoyed php programming in your spare time and larry asked you to stop or else he would punish linus would you stop? Does that sound rational to you? What right does larry have to ask anybody to stop what they are doing anyway? Who made him fucking god.
Larry is an asshole who decided to fuck his good friend linus and all the kernel developers in order to get back at tridge for doing something that was perfectly legal. Linus deserves the screwing he got too. He should have seen this coming months ago mainly because lots of people told him it was going to happen. I hope linus learned his lesson. You can't get distracted by shiny new toys if it means compromising your future and principles. Or maybe you are right, maybe linus has no principles and he is perfectly willing to willify somebody like tridge in order to continue using the shiny toy larry gave him.
"Linus value pragmatism above philosophy in his software and Tridge's decision appears to be based on philosophy."
And look where that pragmatism got him. Now his friend no longer allows linus to continue using the shiny new toy. Tridge comes off looking great and gains more respect while linus is made to look like a fool being spanked by his friend.
The story of Noah is from the sumerians. There are some passages in the old testament that very closely follow the tao.
The old testament is simply a collection of stories from around the world as told by merchants and travelers. It's more like a book of short stories which contain retelling of myths.
Why somebody based a whole religion around it is a mystery to me, why people this day and age believe it to be 100% true and want to hang passages from it in their court house and schools is incredible to me.
As long as scientists turn the other cheek while the christians are hitting them in the face with shovels the christians will continue to win.
Right now the christians talibans control the US govt at the highest levels, the presidency, leadership of both houses of congress, the attorney generals office and even a good portion of the supreme court. There is a reason for that, they know how to figh and win.
It's time the atheists and the people who believe in science get active. We all know what happens when the religious fundamentalist tighten thier control on society. Look up "taliban" on google for an example.
"He had a legal right. He also can chose NOT to pursue what he is legally permitted to do."
So Tridge should live his life by what makes Larry happy? Fuck that. Larry has no right to dictate what tridge does or doesn't do. Larry is an insane psychotic. You can't let people like that run your life.
"Larry had the right to take away the license, and furthermore, Larry has a legal right to ACT to protect HIS franchise."
Of course he did. Linus was too distracted by the shiny toy to realize this even though lots of people warned him.
Once again the fact that a proprietory application vendor can take away your right to use software at any time for any reason was obvious to everybody but Linus. This is number one reason why using proprietary software is dangerous.
"Now YOU are the one who is LYING. I did not say Tridge was not working on a competing product. I said that Tridge's work on reverse-engineering would NOT RESULT in a REPLACEMENT to BK/BM."
So where is the harm to larry then? No competing product, no harm.
"But then again, you may be an idiot for thinking Tridge was right to sabotage the agreement Torvalds had with McVoy, merely because he could. Its called perspective."
What larry did to linus was not reasonable. It was the act of an insane psychotic and could in no way be predicted reliably by Tridge. Tridge may have thought that larry might retaliate agains him, and maybe even OSDL (even though he was doing things in his own time) but who could have guessed that larry would go after linus?
"By YOUR own admission, the end result is that the kernel developers got screwed over."
By Larry. LARRY FUCKED THE LINUX DEVELOPERS, LARRY FUCKED HIS GOOD FRIEND LINUS. Get that through your thick skull. LARRY FUCKED HIS GOOD FRIEND LINUS IN ORDER TO GET BACK AT TRIDGE.
"He did not have an alternative tool for Torvalds, he acted only to satify his curiosity, and CHOSE to screw over the developers that preferred to use BK/BM."
No Larry fucked over the developers to get back at tridge. Larry is 100% at fault here.
"AS ARE YOU. YOU cannot PROVE the client would NOT cause TRANSACTION error."
I don't have to. You can't prove a negative anyway. Any program must be robust enough to resist hacking and corruption by random clients written by random people. You yourself are claiming that bitkeeper is vulnarable to attack and corruption by any script kiddie who can telnet into a port. If what you say is true the I am doubly glad linux kernel is no longer dependent on it.
"it may not be technically feasible for a "hacker" to trash the repository with his "hacked" client."
And yet you are claiming that it is possible. that was the entire premise of your "somebody broke my tractor analogy". Get your stroy straight.
"DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO DICTATE LINUS' CHOICE IN TOOLS! He's not wrong, YOU ARE, you Stalinist."
Hey guess what. The only person who denied linus his choice of tool was Larry McVoy. Linus was using bitkeeper and no open source advocate or member was able to deny him the use of the tool. Larry took it away from him not me. Larry is tha stalinst here.
"That is a lie. A vendor is permitted to choose to whom he sells his product to, or whether he offers it for free."
Of course he can. That's why it is dangerous to use proprietary software. When you do that you are under the thumb of one vendor who can fuck you any way he wants. Larry fucked linus exactly because larry could fuck linus.
"He can also pursue a legal action against Tridge for unauthorized access to McVoy's BitMover server."
This is america, anybody can sue anybody for anything. Larry can't win though. He has no legal case. If he had a case then he would have sued him. Larry is an insane pyschotic person.
"No, I am not. I am defending his right to do whatever he is legally permitted to do and whatever legal rights he has over his products."
And that is exactly how you are defending an asshole.
"Again, you're the one lying. I never said zealots should not speak. I said they shouldn't lie & misrepresent what people have said and their positions."
Why is it OK for you to lie and misrepresent people then?
"Oh trust me, with weasels like Perens and idiots like you, I AM worried."
I am honored to be lumped in Perens. Of course I don't deserve such an honor. I am also honored to be on your list of enemies. I want to be an enemy of all people like you and McVoy.
"If the client has some responsibilities in that transaction, then an open source client could possibly corrupt that transaction. I don't know, the whole product is proprietary."
That's right, you don't know. YOu are just talking out of your ass.
Once again you completely avoided the my question. If a random client written by a random person can mess up your repository why would you use such a product? Is bitkeeper so insecure that any script kiddie can corrup your repository?
"I cannot. There hasn't been enough opportunity to let Tridge's client screw up BK/BM. That does not prove that Tridgell's client wouldn't screwup the BK/BM metadata. The "danger" still stands, as does the analogy."
So nobody fucked up your tractor. You took your tractor back because somebody did something that could have fucked up your tractor. Is that right?
" I meant McVoy has the right to be a jerk, and the right to withdraw free use of his product and his support."
Of course he does, that's why Linus was wrong to use it in the first place. He got distracted by a shiny toy without ever once thinking about what could have happened to him. This is the number one danger or using proprietary software. The maker can go out of business or flat out deny you the use of the product. This episode brings the power of prorietary software makers into sharp focus. Now even Linus knows better.
'And he is entitled to do anything conformant to law that would prevent a person from reverse-engineering his product."
By law he is not entitled to do anything to prevent a person from reverse engineering his product. For the hundredth time it's perfectly legal.
"I'm not defending the "asshole" McVoy."
Yes you are.
" I am defending Torvalds, whom I don't think is an asshole or has conducted himself improperly."
Torwalds didn't look far enough ahead. He got lured by a shiny new toy and got himself caught in a trap. he was stupid in this case. It's not improper it's just bad judgement.
"More important, I'm attacking the F/OSS cabal, because I don't believe its okay to lie and misrepresent individuals,"
Then why are you lying and misrepresenting individuals?
The problem with you is that you think anybody who disagrees with you is a zealot. You hate F/OSS so you reflexively go to Larry's defense and start lying about how he was harmed and how the "zealots" should not speak up now even though they told Linus this was going to happen.
Really that's your entire argument. The "zealots" should not speak, they should just shut up and sit down and admit once and for all that proprietary software is good.
Sorry dude it's not going to happen. YOu can call people zealots all you want you are not going to change their minds. Freedom is important and the people you try to tarnish by calling zealots are concerned about freedom.
"Reverse engineering is moral when you buy your own software, your own hardware and anything you screw up affects only you. Tride's RE work violated two of these conditions."
Which two and please prove it.
Also prove that you wave to buy the software in order to reverse engineer it.
"Tridge always had a choice. He could have chosen to develop an alternative to McVoy's product. Tridge could have chosen to show discretion, and not screw over Torvalds (and the other maintainers) on his choice of SCM tool."
How did he screw linus over? He had a perfectly legal right to do what he was doing, it was his CHOICE. How could he have possibly predicted McVoy would get a bug up his ass and deny Linus the use of bitkeeper for what he is doing.
Larry is an insane individual, no sane human being can predict how somebody who is psychotic will behave.
"I don't know anyone who's in favor of getting screwed over by someone else."
Once again who got screwed over and how? The only people who got screwed over were the kernel developers. Larry screwed them over by taking their license away. By your own admission Tridge was not working on a competing product. No harm came to larry. He just woke up one day and decided to fuck his friend and all the linux developers.
"The instant Tridge submits a change to the software tree, he risks introducing transactional corruption. McVoy is willing to track down bugs with his product. Not track down bugs submitted by a 3rd party."
If bitkeeper is so lame that a client can mess up the tree then I am glad linux is no longer dependent on it. According to your description anybody can corrupt yourcode base by writing a client.
"The tractor is my property. If someone is f**king it up, then I shouldn't be forced to accept damage to it. "
Show me where somebody fucked up bitkeeper. Go ahead, I dare you. This is a straw men argument you came up with but it's completely detached from reality.
Go ahead show me where bitkeeper was broken by tridge did.
"To bring it into intellectual property mindset, McVoy feels he has a right to conceal the methods and format of his proprietary product. He may be a jerk, but he has that right"
Yes he is a jerk (I would use asshole myself) but he does not have that right. Reverse engineering is legal in the US.
"Except I have no vested interest in Bitkeeper's product. I do not own stock, I do not make money in anyway related to the product, or the Linux kernel for that matter. I am hardly a shill."
I don't believe you. I find it very hard that somebody would try so hard to try and defend an asshole for fun or idealism.
Even in your example McVoy is an asshole. Why Linus would stick up for an asshole while tearing down one of the most prominent open source authors is a mystery to me. Where would linux be without samba and rsync?
The idea that Linus is on the side of a complete and utter asshole whiling publicly berating the author of both samba and rsync is offensive to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Probably not. You can always spend a grand or so for the hardware and software needed to get it if you want.
"Who the fuck are you to break a lock the authoring company put on their software."
What an odd thing to say. Who broke what lock on what software?
"How about this, if you believe you should be allowed to break someone's code, "
Since nobody broke anybodies code this statement is off topic in this discussion.
"Do you believe that a burgler should be allowed to break into your house to copy your hard drive?"
Err of course not. Who broke into whose house and stole what hard drive?
"A signature is not a requirement of agreements. Clicking "I accept" or "yes" or some other compliance button is just as acceptable."
first of all what did tridge click on to say "I accept" or "yes"
Secondly you are talking out of your ass. Nobody has ever tested this in court and nobody has ever sued anybody for violating a click through agreement.
"Also, just in case you plan to say it, immediately trying to reverse the code so you never see the EULA is also not acceptable."
Who says? You? Are you some sort of a legal scholar? I kind of doubt it because you don't seem to even be able comprehend the issues in this case let alone case law.
"Since EULA's have been and are presently accepted in court"
Citation please.
"reverse engineering of a product that specifically states in its EULA that you may not do so is not allowed and as such could result in a person being sued."
A EULA can not ask you give up a constitutional right. Secondly Tridge never singed a EULA.
"Where is this guaranteed right of yours that states someone is allowed to reverse engineer closed source without permission from the owners?"
this law.
You really should stop speaking now, it's clear you are absolutely ignorant on this subject. You have no idea what was done by whom and to what end.
"but reverse engineering Close Source code is NOT fine."
Says who? You? Who the fuck are you to tell people it's not fine anyway. It's legal, closed source companies do it all time. Reverse engineering is a perfectly good tool to implement technologies when you don't have access to the internals.
Why should linus take away a perfectly good and legal technique?
"By utilizing someone (anyone's) program you are agreeing to any TOS they might have - and in cases like MS' programs they have clear language about not wanting anyone to reverse engineer."
Tridge didn't sign anything with anybody, there is no TOS here.
"It is completely responsible of anyone in the Open Source industry (or any industry) to say that reverse engineering of closed source products is wrong (unless you have permission to do so)."
Nope. Sorry you are wrong. Reverse engineering is legal right and neither you nor linus can take that right away from anybody. MS can put anything in their EULA they want but like most of it it's pure bullshit. It won't stand up court.
Only an idiot voluntarity gives up rights guaranteed to them by law.
Right. All I am saying is that linux needs an easy way to install packages under your home directory without needing the root password.
You have three options.
Pretty soon you can have tiger with a working spotlight.
Right now you can have beagle which works and is somewhat usable.
In a year or so from now you will have longhorn which might have something that will probably work.
I loved magellan. I even downloaded it from someplace and tried to run it from a DOS prompt, it choked on long file names and too deep hierarchies but it actually tried to index the HD.
It would be so great to have a new version of that.
"What he said was that he didn't advocate reverse engineering closed source software"
You say that as if it was a mitigating factor. It's a despicable statement to make by a prominent (if not the most prominent) open source developer.
Now every single prorietary software maker will use his words to lobby to make reverse engineering illegal in the US.
Linus really screwed over the open source with that bit of irresponsible hissy fit he threw.
"But he certainly never said he was in support of closed source software."
He only handed them ammunition to kill samba that's all.
"Even Mac OS X, the quintessentially "easy to use, just works" OS, requires you to type in the administrator (similiar but not the same as root) password before installing new software or OS updates."
Only for OS updates (logical) or applications installed into a folder other then your home directory (also logical). There are a ton of Mac OS X apps which don't have an "installer" per se you simply drag the item to your home folder and use it without having to know the root password.
We are talking about the people who use lindows here. And really they should not have to sudo either then you think about it. On the mac you can install software into your own home directory without any kind of hassle, you should be able to do the same with linux. It's something you can do with --with-prefix=~ if you were compiling by hand so I don't see why it should not be possible with a package system.
"I don't see that this would go down very well with hardware companies though."
Who cares? Ms has screwed over every single company it has ever partnered with, why should the hardware companies be exempt.
It's not logging in that he is concerned about, it's click N run. Apt won't install under non root user.
I would think that it would take some serious hacking to allow apt to install software into your own home directory but it would probably be a worthwhile effort.
"Most of Dell's customers don't care whats inside anyway"
Most? Presuming you are right, is it smart for Dell to tell the rest of their customers to go fuck themselves?
Imagine if you had a store and you told 1/10th of your customers to go to the competition. How dumb is that?
"AMD can't produce enough chips to satisfy Dell's demands"
So it's much better to deny all your customers any choice then to satisfy a few of your customers who may want a dell with AMD in it.
Now that's what I call smart business!
"Larry decided the financial risk to his company wasn't worth continuing to provide a free version."
Right. So he decided to fuck his friend linus in retaliation. This is what people warned linus about. Larry is unstable. the idea that you are going to pull somebodies license because some third party might one day compete with you is insane.
"But he wasn't writing a replacement, he was just engeering a situation where BK would become unusable."
really? Is BK so fucked up that any random third party can make it unstable? Is so then linus is better off without it.
"You're analogy is bad on two counts: first, in this case Tridge's activies impact Larry directly,"
So why punish linus then? Also how did larry get impacted? There is so much wrong with your statement I don't even know where to start. It's like if I liked to play golf and larrys house is near a golf course. He asks me to stop playing golf because I might break one his windows. When I point out to him that it's perfectly legal for me to play golf here he goes and beats up his wife in order to make me stop playing golf.
"you seem to have missed the main point: that if continuing work on tool makes the tool unnecessary then the reason to continue must be other than the tool itself. Does it sound rational to you to continue to work on something when the very act will make the work pointless? Clearly Tridge's motives were political, not technical."
it's called competition. Larry better get used to it. In the US people are free to compete with you.
"Larry has every right to ask whatever he wants. Whoever he asks has every right to ignore him. Larry has every right to take whatever (legal) actions he wants in response"
BINGO. This is why proprietary software is bad. The lincesor can pull the license anytime he wants for whatever reason he wants. This is what linus in his "pragmatism" missed completely. He got blinded by the shiny toy larry waves in front of him while ignoring everybody who warned him about the kind of a person larry was. Now he got fucked by larry. He deserves it.
"a wakeup call for the community that has at least provided a lot of publicity for the open source alternatives,"
It has been a wakeup call to the world. TO every person who thinks the proprietary software they bought or use is theirs to keep for ever. It's not. The owner can revoke your rights to use it at any time for whatever reason. Even if it's to stop some other party from writing software to compete with them.
Sobering thought.
" and a lot of people (willfully?) misunderstanding and misrepresenting the situation."
Nobody is doing any such thing. The facts are plain and simple. Larry decided to fuck his good friend linus and all the kernel developers to stop tridge from doing something that was perfectly legal. The facts are ugly but they are crystal clear.
'Incidentally, you sound very angry about all this. Why is that?"
I am not angry. I do think linus was an idiot for ignoring the hundreds of people who told him not to use BK because it was proprietary and that larry was an psychotic asshole. I also find it odd that linus would bad mouth tridge, where would lilnux be today without samba, rsync and ccache?
Just hire a consultant to install and manage it for you. Why is that so hard to understand?
"Tridge was writing a tool that could extract data from a BK reposititory, but it's not a BK replacement.
Larry was unwilling to continue the free version of BK if Tridge continues his project.
Without a free version of BK Tridge's tool is useless - it has no purpose.
Tridge refuses to stop working on his tool."
Ok so Larry decided to fuck his good friend linux in order to stop tridge from doing something tridge wanted to do in his own time. Even though what tridge did was perfectly legal and moral, even though what tridge did was not going to result in a product that would compete with bitkeeper.
IF you enjoyed php programming in your spare time and larry asked you to stop or else he would punish linus would you stop? Does that sound rational to you? What right does larry have to ask anybody to stop what they are doing anyway? Who made him fucking god.
Larry is an asshole who decided to fuck his good friend linus and all the kernel developers in order to get back at tridge for doing something that was perfectly legal. Linus deserves the screwing he got too. He should have seen this coming months ago mainly because lots of people told him it was going to happen. I hope linus learned his lesson. You can't get distracted by shiny new toys if it means compromising your future and principles. Or maybe you are right, maybe linus has no principles and he is perfectly willing to willify somebody like tridge in order to continue using the shiny toy larry gave him.
"Linus value pragmatism above philosophy in his software and Tridge's decision appears to be based on philosophy."
And look where that pragmatism got him. Now his friend no longer allows linus to continue using the shiny new toy. Tridge comes off looking great and gains more respect while linus is made to look like a fool being spanked by his friend.
The story of Noah is from the sumerians. There are some passages in the old testament that very closely follow the tao.
The old testament is simply a collection of stories from around the world as told by merchants and travelers. It's more like a book of short stories which contain retelling of myths.
Why somebody based a whole religion around it is a mystery to me, why people this day and age believe it to be 100% true and want to hang passages from it in their court house and schools is incredible to me.
I guess it's the power of myth.
As long as scientists turn the other cheek while the christians are hitting them in the face with shovels the christians will continue to win.
Right now the christians talibans control the US govt at the highest levels, the presidency, leadership of both houses of congress, the attorney generals office and even a good portion of the supreme court. There is a reason for that, they know how to figh and win.
It's time the atheists and the people who believe in science get active. We all know what happens when the religious fundamentalist tighten thier control on society. Look up "taliban" on google for an example.
"He had a legal right. He also can chose NOT to pursue what he is legally permitted to do."
So Tridge should live his life by what makes Larry happy? Fuck that. Larry has no right to dictate what tridge does or doesn't do. Larry is an insane psychotic. You can't let people like that run your life.
"Larry had the right to take away the license, and furthermore, Larry has a legal right to ACT to protect HIS franchise."
Of course he did. Linus was too distracted by the shiny toy to realize this even though lots of people warned him.
Once again the fact that a proprietory application vendor can take away your right to use software at any time for any reason was obvious to everybody but Linus. This is number one reason why using proprietary software is dangerous.
"Now YOU are the one who is LYING. I did not say Tridge was not working on a competing product. I said that Tridge's work on reverse-engineering would NOT RESULT in a REPLACEMENT to BK/BM."
So where is the harm to larry then? No competing product, no harm.
"But then again, you may be an idiot for thinking Tridge was right to sabotage the agreement Torvalds had with McVoy, merely because he could. Its called perspective."
What larry did to linus was not reasonable. It was the act of an insane psychotic and could in no way be predicted reliably by Tridge. Tridge may have thought that larry might retaliate agains him, and maybe even OSDL (even though he was doing things in his own time) but who could have guessed that larry would go after linus?
"By YOUR own admission, the end result is that the kernel developers got screwed over."
By Larry. LARRY FUCKED THE LINUX DEVELOPERS, LARRY FUCKED HIS GOOD FRIEND LINUS. Get that through your thick skull. LARRY FUCKED HIS GOOD FRIEND LINUS IN ORDER TO GET BACK AT TRIDGE.
"He did not have an alternative tool for Torvalds, he acted only to satify his curiosity, and CHOSE to screw over the developers that preferred to use BK/BM."
No Larry fucked over the developers to get back at tridge. Larry is 100% at fault here.
"AS ARE YOU. YOU cannot PROVE the client would NOT cause TRANSACTION error."
I don't have to. You can't prove a negative anyway. Any program must be robust enough to resist hacking and corruption by random clients written by random people. You yourself are claiming that bitkeeper is vulnarable to attack and corruption by any script kiddie who can telnet into a port. If what you say is true the I am doubly glad linux kernel is no longer dependent on it.
"it may not be technically feasible for a "hacker" to trash the repository with his "hacked" client."
And yet you are claiming that it is possible. that was the entire premise of your "somebody broke my tractor analogy". Get your stroy straight.
"DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO DICTATE LINUS' CHOICE IN TOOLS! He's not wrong, YOU ARE, you Stalinist."
Hey guess what. The only person who denied linus his choice of tool was Larry McVoy. Linus was using bitkeeper and no open source advocate or member was able to deny him the use of the tool. Larry took it away from him not me. Larry is tha stalinst here.
"That is a lie. A vendor is permitted to choose to whom he sells his product to, or whether he offers it for free."
Of course he can. That's why it is dangerous to use proprietary software. When you do that you are under the thumb of one vendor who can fuck you any way he wants. Larry fucked linus exactly because larry could fuck linus.
"He can also pursue a legal action against Tridge for unauthorized access to McVoy's BitMover server."
This is america, anybody can sue anybody for anything. Larry can't win though. He has no legal case. If he had a case then he would have sued him. Larry is an insane pyschotic person.
"No, I am not. I am defending his right to do whatever he is legally permitted to do and whatever legal rights he has over his products."
And that is exactly how you are defending an asshole.
"Again, you're the one lying. I never said zealots should not speak. I said they shouldn't lie & misrepresent what people have said and their positions."
Why is it OK for you to lie and misrepresent people then?
"Oh trust me, with weasels like Perens and idiots like you, I AM worried."
I am honored to be lumped in Perens. Of course I don't deserve such an honor. I am also honored to be on your list of enemies. I want to be an enemy of all people like you and McVoy.
"If the client has some responsibilities in that transaction, then an open source client could possibly corrupt that transaction. I don't know, the whole product is proprietary."
That's right, you don't know. YOu are just talking out of your ass.
Once again you completely avoided the my question. If a random client written by a random person can mess up your repository why would you use such a product? Is bitkeeper so insecure that any script kiddie can corrup your repository?
"I cannot. There hasn't been enough opportunity to let Tridge's client screw up BK/BM. That does not prove that Tridgell's client wouldn't screwup the BK/BM metadata. The "danger" still stands, as does the analogy."
So nobody fucked up your tractor. You took your tractor back because somebody did something that could have fucked up your tractor. Is that right?
" I meant McVoy has the right to be a jerk, and the right to withdraw free use of his product and his support."
Of course he does, that's why Linus was wrong to use it in the first place. He got distracted by a shiny toy without ever once thinking about what could have happened to him. This is the number one danger or using proprietary software. The maker can go out of business or flat out deny you the use of the product. This episode brings the power of prorietary software makers into sharp focus. Now even Linus knows better.
'And he is entitled to do anything conformant to law that would prevent a person from reverse-engineering his product."
By law he is not entitled to do anything to prevent a person from reverse engineering his product. For the hundredth time it's perfectly legal.
"I'm not defending the "asshole" McVoy."
Yes you are.
" I am defending Torvalds, whom I don't think is an asshole or has conducted himself improperly."
Torwalds didn't look far enough ahead. He got lured by a shiny new toy and got himself caught in a trap. he was stupid in this case. It's not improper it's just bad judgement.
"More important, I'm attacking the F/OSS cabal, because I don't believe its okay to lie and misrepresent individuals,"
Then why are you lying and misrepresenting individuals?
The problem with you is that you think anybody who disagrees with you is a zealot. You hate F/OSS so you reflexively go to Larry's defense and start lying about how he was harmed and how the "zealots" should not speak up now even though they told Linus this was going to happen.
Really that's your entire argument. The "zealots" should not speak, they should just shut up and sit down and admit once and for all that proprietary software is good.
Sorry dude it's not going to happen. YOu can call people zealots all you want you are not going to change their minds. Freedom is important and the people you try to tarnish by calling zealots are concerned about freedom.
It's the shills like you who need to worry.
"Reverse engineering is moral when you buy your own software, your own hardware and anything you screw up affects only you. Tride's RE work violated two of these conditions."
Which two and please prove it.
Also prove that you wave to buy the software in order to reverse engineer it.
"Tridge always had a choice. He could have chosen to develop an alternative to McVoy's product. Tridge could have chosen to show discretion, and not screw over Torvalds (and the other maintainers) on his choice of SCM tool."
How did he screw linus over? He had a perfectly legal right to do what he was doing, it was his CHOICE. How could he have possibly predicted McVoy would get a bug up his ass and deny Linus the use of bitkeeper for what he is doing.
Larry is an insane individual, no sane human being can predict how somebody who is psychotic will behave.
"I don't know anyone who's in favor of getting screwed over by someone else."
Once again who got screwed over and how? The only people who got screwed over were the kernel developers. Larry screwed them over by taking their license away. By your own admission Tridge was not working on a competing product. No harm came to larry. He just woke up one day and decided to fuck his friend and all the linux developers.
"The instant Tridge submits a change to the software tree, he risks introducing transactional corruption. McVoy is willing to track down bugs with his product. Not track down bugs submitted by a 3rd party."
If bitkeeper is so lame that a client can mess up the tree then I am glad linux is no longer dependent on it. According to your description anybody can corrupt yourcode base by writing a client.
"The tractor is my property. If someone is f**king it up, then I shouldn't be forced to accept damage to it. "
Show me where somebody fucked up bitkeeper. Go ahead, I dare you. This is a straw men argument you came up with but it's completely detached from reality.
Go ahead show me where bitkeeper was broken by tridge did.
"To bring it into intellectual property mindset, McVoy feels he has a right to conceal the methods and format of his proprietary product. He may be a jerk, but he has that right"
Yes he is a jerk (I would use asshole myself) but he does not have that right. Reverse engineering is legal in the US.
"Except I have no vested interest in Bitkeeper's product. I do not own stock, I do not make money in anyway related to the product, or the Linux kernel for that matter. I am hardly a shill."
I don't believe you. I find it very hard that somebody would try so hard to try and defend an asshole for fun or idealism.
Even in your example McVoy is an asshole. Why Linus would stick up for an asshole while tearing down one of the most prominent open source authors is a mystery to me. Where would linux be without samba and rsync?
The idea that Linus is on the side of a complete and utter asshole whiling publicly berating the author of both samba and rsync is offensive to me.