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Tridge Speaks |
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Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 02:38 AM EDT
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Groklaw's stevem heard Tridge's speech today at the LCA 2005 conference, Australia's national Linux conference, and he has a report for us:
This was taken from my memory of Dr. Andrew Tridgell's keynote at this
years LCA2005 Conference.
Essentially Tridge did *NOT* do anything that anyone could ever possibly
ever take as breaking a BitKeeper licence, as far as I can see.
How was it done?
He, like any good sysadmin would, first off telnetted to the BitKeeper
port on a BitKeeper server.
$ telnet thunk.org 5000
WhooHoo! Connection!
So, next obvious step that we *all* do is type in the obvious:
help
Back came a list of commands to manipulate the BitKeeper server and ask
things of it.
Well, according to Tridge, a bit of reading of the LKML (Linux Kernel
Email List) shows that the "clone" command is the way to checkout
someones source code repository.
So Tridge's massive "reverse engineering" project came down to a single
line of shell script:
$ echo clone | nc thunk.org 5000 > e2fsprogs.dat
Hey presto, Tridge has just checked out from a BitKeeper repository into
the file e2fsprogs.dat.
The audience was laughing and cheering Tridge on as he explained just
what a Mountain had been made of this Molehill. And I mean made by both
sides of the issue -- those who he said he was some Uber Reverse
Engineering Wizard and those who claimed that he MUST have used a BK client.
Funny report, isn't it? Anyway, now you know Tridge's side of the story.
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Authored by: fudisbad on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 02:58 AM EDT |
For current events, legal filings and Nasdaq delisting rulings.
Please make links clickable.
Example: <a href="http://example.com">Click here</a>
---
See my bio for copyright details re: this post.
Darl McBride, show your evidence![ Reply to This | # ]
|
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- So when are the court fireworks... - Authored by: cfitch on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:27 PM EDT
- "Proprietary standards grow online" - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:31 PM EDT
- Microsoft / Ballmer grins and bears Linux--a little - Authored by: clark_kent on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:49 PM EDT
- The EU Commissioner who went for drinkies on Paul Allen's Yaght. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:51 PM EDT
- OT: justice is only for the corporations - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:19 PM EDT
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Authored by: fudisbad on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 02:59 AM EDT |
If required.
---
See my bio for copyright details re: this post.
Darl McBride, show your evidence![ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:01 AM EDT |
That's the funniest thing I've read all year. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- ROFL - Authored by: belzecue on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:13 AM EDT
- Hehe - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:44 AM EDT
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Authored by: ak on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:06 AM EDT |
Tridge probably also helped IBM to anonymously hack into The SCO Group Inc's
FTP-server.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:17 AM EDT |
I recall that Linus ranted that no good came of your project; but I just wanted
to say thank you and point out that some great good came of our project
already.
Linux is now (almost certainly) moving to a F/OSS source control system -- and
that already is a very good thing.
Also, this article sure brightened my day. ROTFL![ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:22 AM EDT |
He'd rather <em>be</em> right than <em>do</em> right, I
assume. If he wants to be smug and supercillious, he can sod off and work for a
corporate entity, as far as I'm concerned. FOSS is built on acting ethically
<em>even towards people you disagree with</em>.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:23 AM EDT |
Tridgell demos Bitkeeper interoperability | The Register
http://
www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/21/tridgell_bitkeeper_howto/[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: kh on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:30 AM EDT |
Larry McVoy:
Larry has a very clear moral standpoint: "You can
compete
with me, but you can't do so by riding on my coat-tails. Solve the
problems
on your own, and compete _honestly_. Don't compete by looking at my
solution."
And that is what the BK license boils down to. It says: "Get off my
coat-tails,
you free-loader". And I can't really argue against
that.
We are all riding on each others coat tails here, or as
Isaac Newton said:
If I
see further than my forefathers it's
because I stand on the shoulders of
giants.
It's a question of
whether you want to take what other people have
done and add your "great idea"
and let other people use it and add to it or
not.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Pivotal inventions. - Authored by: kinrite on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:36 AM EDT
- coat tails - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:49 AM EDT
- coat tails - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:58 AM EDT
- coat tails - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 04:31 AM EDT
- coat tails - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 11:32 AM EDT
- standing on the shoulders of giants - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:01 PM EDT
- On this quote - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 22 2005 @ 08:01 PM EDT
- coat tails - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 23 2005 @ 04:05 PM EDT
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Authored by: nathan.sidwell on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 04:59 AM EDT |
When a server responds to 'help' with a 'this is how you can talk to me' blurb,
it looks like an invitation to me. There's nothing in the response about any
restrictions or words like 'issuing commands means you agree to the licence'.
This is up there with the lecture I used to give undergrads about how to talk
directly to an SMTP server and therefore spoof email.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- what is help for? - Authored by: kh on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:43 AM EDT
- BK clients... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 04:34 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: 133t on Saturday, April 23 2005 @ 04:27 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 25 2005 @ 08:20 AM EDT
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:18 AM EDT |
I have to wonder: if this was the sum total of the reverse engineering
project, why was such a big thing made of it? Surely if he simply telnetted in
and could happily use that to check out a BitKeeper tree to his satisfaction
then that would have been the end of it, and no-one would ever have
known.
The only way that this could have resulted in a revocation of the
free BitKeeper availability must have been that Andrew Tridgell made it appear
that he was developing a tool to interoperate with BitKeeper.
If all he
was doing was telnetting in, but claiming/making it seem like he was reverse
engineering the protocol, then I'm afraid it does fit in with Linus Torvald's
judgement that he was "just being destructive". The license would have been
well-known, and I believe that he was already asked to stop doing it once (to
which he verbally agreed) before the license was revoked. The only purpose to
making it sound like more was to provoke the license removal.
I must
also say that I'm not entirely in agreement with the "he wasn't using BitKeeper
and so wasn't bound by its license". True, he wouldn't have been legally bound
by the license, but if by his actions (as a prominent member of the open source
community) he was causing the removal of that tool for the rest of the group
then surely he had not the moral right to do so. There are considerations beyond
what you can and can't do legally, and causing the removal of the tool that many
other developers were using (by all accounts deliberately) is, while certainly
not illegal, hardly commendable behaviour.
As others have said, if he
had developed a replacement SCM which could have rivalled BitKeeper then it
would have presented a strong case for switching. As it is, he appears to have
removed a highly productive tool from the community at large which does not
currently have a replacement. As such, he has hampered kernel development while
dividing the community. This negatively affects a large chunk of the open source
community. As such, I can't condone his actions.
Some would argue that
Linus Torvalds, by adopting the BitKeeper software, has already forced a
decision on the community. However the benefits of this have already been seen
in faster and better development of the kernel. The free SCM replacement would,
I believe, have happened eventually. By causing the removal of BitKeeper before
the community was ready for this, I don't see anything positive in what Andrew
Tridgell has done. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:21 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:40 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:51 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: juliac on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:06 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: RK on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:30 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 11:20 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:40 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 08:26 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 11:17 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 11:32 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:13 PM EDT
- Troll - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:41 PM EDT
- Truth - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:23 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 12:07 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Nick Bridge on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 12:14 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Cesar Rincon on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 02:04 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:15 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: micheal on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 12:12 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:12 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: meshuggeneh on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:12 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:51 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:58 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:05 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 08:16 AM EDT
- Not quite - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:00 AM EDT
- Not quite - Authored by: Pogue Mahone on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:39 AM EDT
- Not quite - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 08:35 AM EDT
- Not quite - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:55 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:37 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: darkonc on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:03 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 08:26 AM EDT
- Apparently Larry came out shooting - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 10:19 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 12:19 PM EDT
- I assume you aren't using SAMBA - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 12:26 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: starsky on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 08:14 PM EDT
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Authored by: gibodean on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:43 AM EDT |
OK, so Tridge just checks out the bitkeeper repository into a file, but what
format is that file ? Is that a standard format that can easily be used by
other source management systems ? Or, is the problem that the file is a
proprietary, bitkeeper specific one, that there are no docs on how to interpret
? And hence McVoy is upset about Tridge figuring out that file format and
possibly doing some sort of conversion to standard formats ?
I don't think this whole thing is just due to using a standard interface to
extract the file. I strongly suspect it goes beyond that.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:44 AM EDT |
As far as I can see Tidge might be legally in the right here but what he did was
still needlesly destructive.
He knew what he was doing was in risk of damaging the whole linux kernel
development process before he started. He was then even warned off by Linus
himself and asked to stop, which he didn't. You can hardly be suprised at Linus
being annoyed with him when the result was what Linus feared - the effective
destruction of Linus' ability to use his chosen tool.
What was the use of Tidge's project? It's utterly useless to linux development
as we all know and he knew that whilst going about it - infact it has hindered
development. Tidge knew that if continued to work on his tool then BK would no
longer be available for use in the kernel development process. So how can
building that tool have been designed to help anyone - as soon as it was made
public knowledge it effectivley made itself redundant.
So what was Tidge's reasons for doing this - the only answer I can come up with
is a puritanical and fundamental belief that he was in the right about something
which is IMHO a religious belief. Does that really excuse him for destroying
somebody else's development process?
Not only that Tidge's actions have been in danger of opening a big rift in the
open source community between the pragmatists who believe that open source is a
beneficial and superior development process and those who take to it more like a
religion. This we could really do without, we've got RMS already, he does a
good enough job at that on his own.
For me open source is as much about freedom of choice as about freedom of speech
or information. What Tidge did was to deliberatley reverse a choice someone
else made - not by debate or even by providing a new and better solution but by
sabotage.
Linus is and was completley right in this although perhaps his public
condemnation was a little out of place for him, but then you've got to expect
someone to be annoyed when another party deliberatley sabotages their work.
I'm not criticising Tidge for having his stong convictions and beliefs, however
that doesn't give him the right to force them onto everyone else or condemn
others for having different beliefs. Actually I agree with him in principle but
I learned as a toddler that the world doesn't work on principle, otherwise we'd
all be communists and it would work :-)
As far as I can tell Linus simply wants to use the best tool for the job - when
the tool he feels he wants or needs doesn't exist he will then go out and
produce one - this is how Linux itself started. Linus is about getting things
done, which is what software development requires otherwise you rarely produce
stable versions (Enlightenment and Debian both fail at this IMHO). Now of
course Linus has to write a new SCM system and I for one don't envy him the
task.
So please, lets stop this religious war that Tidge seems to have opened up and
concentrate on what we're good at - producing great software![ Reply to This | # ]
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- Who destroyed what, here? - Authored by: Dark on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 05:57 AM EDT
- I completely disagree - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:05 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: discard on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:12 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:26 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:51 AM EDT
- You Contradict Yourself - Authored by: Atticus on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 11:35 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 12:35 PM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: wingel on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 03:34 PM EDT
- "his tool"??? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 04:33 PM EDT
- Bravo! My thoughts exactly - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:06 PM EDT
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:51 AM EDT |
if that's all he did then he must really type slowly since the discussions
between all parties was reportedly going on for weeks, (with him promising to
stop while they were going on), and it was only after they found that he hadn't
stopped that Larry blew up.
there has to be a LOT more to this then just what Tridge is reporting (like him
trying to feed data back into bitkeeper, which would be the logical next step,
and also far more likly to go wrong and be noticed)[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: stevem on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:58 AM EDT |
Can I additionally add that Tridge would *easily* have to be one of the most
entertaining speakers I have heard in quite some time.
His kynote was *excellent*. Covered a lot of ground, software engineering and
how it applies to Samba 4 and previous versions and the like. And many lessons
for the rest of us.
eg. valgrind is superb. Learn it. gcov is superb. Learn it.
Combine them and the magic shines. There was a third point in there as well,
which I can't recall. Figures... :-)
But *please*, take the above article light heartedly. I was in a screaming hurry
when I wrote it and was simply recalling from my very few jotted notes.
This being a Linux Conf, I guess Tridge felt he had to explain, what little he
could, as an appropriate "thing to do". The above revelations came
right at the tail end of his Keynote.
Honestly, when you see what such a fuss had been made about how he could or
couldn't do any reverse engineering technically, And then to clearly demonstrate
just how *trivial* it is to access a BK server and hence do "wire
analysis" without a fancy schmancy client; Well you couldn't help but laugh
at the sheer absurdity of this entire situation.
And can I stress, the audience was all but literally laughing their heads off.
Cheers!
- SteveM
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:03 AM EDT
- Tridge Speaks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 04:22 PM EDT
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:21 AM EDT |
I think a lot of folks simply cannot accept that Linus
could ever do or be wrong. In this case, he is way wrong.
He made a bad deal when he adopted the closed, proprietary
BitKeeper. Anyone who follows the kernel mailing list
knows that Larry McVoy is not to be trusted. He changed
the license frequently in reaction to perceived threats to
his "intellectual property." He acts like he created
BitKeeper completely from scratch, and with complete
originality. Well, he's full of it. McVoy got three years
of priceless PR and development assistance from the kernel
team, and he built on the work of others. Now he wants to
keep it all to himself, and not allow others to "steal"
even the ideas and concepts behind BitKeeper.
Linus should be mad at his buddy McVoy for yanking
BitKeeper away from the kernel team- what kind of childish
nonsense is that, anyway? He's punishing other
people for what Tridgell supposedly did.
McVoy has demonstrated for years that he is not to be
trusted. We expect better from Linus- hopefully he will
realize he blew it. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: darkonc on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 07:43 AM EDT |
I have no problems with McVoy protecting his software investment per se (I'm
getting a bit edgy about using the 'IP' moniker), but what I'm seeing is a bit
more disturbing than that.
Under the guise of 'no reverse engineering' and
the flag of 'intellectual property', he seems to be claiming effective control
of a good deal more than that -- he seems to be claiming ownership of the entire
Linux change tree. This is where the 'drug pusher' analogy kicks in.
You
see: in a large software project (and Linux certainly applies here), the version
change information is almost as important as a static dump of the current tree..
Version information allows you to keep track of who changed what when (and even
why). It allows you to merge in some changes, back out others and even track how
productive individual users have been.
BitKeeper doesn't allow non-clients
to get version information. All you can get is a static dump. On the other hand,
if you get a BitKeeper license, you get version information, but it seems like
you're not allowed to 'reverse engineer', which seems to include getting version
info out of the client and passing that information on to a non-client
user.
In other words, If you walk away from BitKeeper, you might have to
walk away from the entire version tree starting from when you imported your
software into Bitkeeper.
This is where the 'drug pusher' analogy kicks in --
The longer you've been using BitKeeper, and the longer you've been 'locking in'
your change information, the harder it is to walk away from BitKeeper. If you
do it for long enough, you can get to the point where you really can't walk away
from it without being effectively disfunctional for quite some period of
time.... Kinda like a drug addict. The longer you've been 'using' the harder it
is to walk away.
If this went on long enough, we might end up at a the point
where the Linux kernel community could be effectively paralyzed by a cold-turky
loss of BitKeeper. After that point, someone might buy out McVoy. That someone
might then sell out to (say) Microsoft, and Microsoft could then suddenly start
charging tens of thousands of dollars for a copy of the formerly 'free'
BitKeeper -- or even sabotage the Linux tree in subtle ways. They could even
just hold the entire Linux tree hostage in any of a number of other ways --
possibly doing, thru subterfuge, what SCO tried (and, apparently, failed) to do
do thru the courts: effectively claim ownership of the Linux kernel.
There's
a lot of conjecture in the above, and some assumptions about what you're allowed
to get out of BitKeeper when (I've never used BitKeeper myself). If I've made
any material misconstruations of the current state of affairs, I'd love to hear
of the corrections. --- Powerful, committed communication. Touching the
jewel within each person and bringing it to life.. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: droth on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 08:31 AM EDT |
Okay, that was hilarious. And a definite "d'oh!" moment for me - simply
telnetting to a bk server never occurred to me as a way to get at the
data.
But simply telnetting to a bk server is not what Tridgell's tool does.
McVoy's complaint was that Tridgell is/was working on a tool that would allow
someone *write* access to a bk repository. From the News Forge
article:
. . . We did get a verbal promise from OSDL that Tridge
had discontinued his work and would not begin again as long as we were trying to
work things out. We believed we had an uneasy truce, but it ends up Tridge was
still working.
We ended up in a no-win situation. OSDL didn't appear to care
and we couldn't trust what we were being told. With that we were fairly
confident that Tridge was going to release his code. That was a problem for us
for two reasons:
a) Corruption. BK is a complicated system, there are
>10,000 replicas of the BK database holding Linux floating around. If a
problem starts moving through those there is no way to fix them all by hand.
This happened once before, a user tweaked the ChangeSet file, and it costs
$35,000 plus a custom release to fix it.
So McVoy's fear
was that either someone was going to use Tridge's tool to commit directly to a
working repository, or that someone would export using Tridge's tool and commit
back with a bk client but commit bad data. Either way you parse it, McVoy's
problem with Tridge's work starts the moment someone puts code back into a
repository.
I haven't seen any statement from Tridge that his tool doesn't
do that, and as far as I know, the tool hasn't been released yet. If it does
allow commits to a BK repository, then I completely understand McVoy's
concerns.
If it doesn't allow commits, then my question is: why make it at
all? There's already a free BK client available for read-only access. Why did
Tridge need to write a new one? [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 09:36 AM EDT |
I perceive great potential over FOSS for all businesses but especially for
businesses that are not in the software buisness themselves. My dream is
partially revealed in the following recent incident here at work:
Company wide mailing went out explaining IT was removing Visio from all PCs that
hadn't executed it for 45 days. The licenses could then be reused by people who
really needed it and the Company would save US$1.5M yearly.
Now why not take an existing FOSS program and assign 10 fulltime software
engineers to enhance it. After a year or two the Visio replacement is so much
better than Visio the Company starts actively looking for more software to
replace in this manner. Other companies have joined the effort on the Visio
replacement and my company is now only assigning 3 engineers to the project.
But the other companies that joined in have contributed solutions to their
problems that I never thought of and the Visio replacement is even more useful
to my company.
Over a 5 year period my company has spent less money on developing the Visio
replacement than the cost of Visio licensing. The replacement is a better
solution because my company put the effort into enhancing it themselves and
nobody else knows what the Company needs. The outlook for the next 5 years is
for ever decreasing costs as more companies have joined the development effort.
I would rather see all of BitKeeper with a GPL. Still plenty of potential for
profitability. It is unpleasent to see all the benefit BitKeeper got out of
Linux kernel development experience yet retained the power to take the tool
away.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: _Arthur on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 09:44 AM EDT |
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?
action=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=2&entryID=49312&roomID=11
Tridge wanted to create a tool that checked out BK trees
for people who didn't sign the license. But it still
needed BK to actually do anything useful - since it would
not actually do the work that BK did.
"Hey, that's a useful helper". Yes, except when it isn't.
And it isn't, if releasing it just causes the BK protocols
to change, and people who used BK in the first place to
have to stop using it, and when using the tool against a
BK repository is a violation of the license that the BK
user agreed to.
See the problem now? Tridge's tool would have been useful
if that usage had been sanctioned by BitMover. But since
that tool ends up invalidating your right to use BK in
the first place, and since that tool can not replace
what BK did, then yes, the tool is pointless.
So you have three choices
- don't use the tool (which makes it useless)
- use the tool, but stop using BK (which makes it useless)
- use the tool _and_ use BK, which violates the BK
license
Two useless cases, and one outright license violation.
...
Anyway, it's a moot point. It's been an "interesting"
experience. I'm sure Linux will be stronger for it, since
it forced me to get off my fat ass and write my own tool.
It's the old "whatever doesn't kill you.." thing.
The only real letdown (and the reason I've been irritated
with you - sorry about that) has literally been people who
are happy about other peoples pain. That really gets my
goat.
(Linus)
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?
action=detail&PostNum=3322&Thread=19&entryID=49354&roomID=11
_Arthur[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Bas Burger on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 09:57 AM EDT |
I replied a few days ago to the thread on realworldtech,
http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?action=detail&PostNum=3322&
;Thread=2&entryID=49312&roomID=11
There I already stated that people like Dr. Tridgell are only trying to make
things interoperable.
I also stated that no program, either propietary or open source have no right to
fence off interoperability, the EU seems to agree with me in their case against
MS.
Mr. Torvalds should have think more about the consequences of using a propietary
service, even when that service is constructed by a good friend.
What happened is exactly what we in the free software camp warn of, it only
takes one single efford of anybody creating interoperability to blow that little
deal.
So once again we cannot trust any propietary software maker to his/her word.
Dr. Tridgell did only what was inevitable, sooner or later somebody would try to
make that service interoperable.
While I am very gartefull that Mr. Torvalds started the Linux kernel, I have not
that much trust in his leadership talent. I think he lacks real vision ala RMS
and is too pragmatic at times. Of course this is my private opinion.
Personally I value Dr. Tridgell more important then Mr. Torvalds without knowing
them both however.
I will spend no words on here about Mr. McVoy, he is not really important here,
he did what any propietary does and must do to keep his product closed.
Bas.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Bas Burger on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 10:02 AM EDT |
I have a question...
Is a piece of open source software still open source when it is embedded in a
propietary system that keeps out everybody that does not sign a contract?
I think BitKeeper was a blatant GPL violation, can somebody from the FSF explain
the consequenses?
Bas.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Nick Bridge on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 12:30 PM EDT |
Good for you, Tridge!
Look at McVoy's attitude from
2003:
From Richard Stallman
Subject Bitkeeper
Date Fri, 18 Jul
2003 15:51:36 -0400
> If you are trying to copy BK, give it up. We'll
simply follow in the
> footsteps of every other company faced with this
sort of thing and change
> the protocol every 6 months. Since you would
be chasing us you can never
> catch up. If you managed to stay close
then we'd put digital signatures
> into the protocol to prevent your
clone from interoperating with BK.
I think it would be appropriate at this point
to write a free client
that talks with Bitkeeper, and for Linux developers to
start switching
to that from Bitkeeper. At that point, McVoy will face a hard
choice:
if he carries out these threats, he risks alienating the community
that
he hopes will market Bitkeeper for him.
This should never
have happened - BitKeeper was the wrong choice. It's not pragmatic to be
beholden to someone like this, it's plain idiotic.
Going with BitKeeper
under those circumstances, made this eventuality inevitable. And many, many
people said so. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 01:59 PM EDT |
Hey Tridge, congratulations. You just hacked bit keeper the at the same level
IBM hacked SCO's web site for a copy of Linux. Nice company you're keeping
there!
Come on people, when are we going to start using a little common sense.
(telnet is such a cutting edge tool, hardly anyone would have the expertise to
handle this.)
True, the vendor of Bitkeeper can rescind the gift, but it doesn't make for good
public relations.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 02:18 PM EDT |
I mean, IBM is Open Source's big buddy now and they bought Atria/Rational a
while ago...
Maybe it's time they showed what a real supporter or Linux they are, rather than
giving away patents on anti-tamper screws.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 06:40 PM EDT |
Tridge's client is now
available. Perhaps some of the real programmers here can tell us what it
actually does. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: rezende on Thursday, April 21 2005 @ 09:41 PM EDT |
The BK incident, with all debates that followed, has been good for something
else too: Revealing who's in for what at the FOSS arena.[ Reply to This | # ]
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