Murray J. Root wrote:
> Much as I disagree with Stallman about nearly everything, and much as I agree
> that his posts recently have been way off-topic, I cannot agree with such a
> disgusting and unethical solution. Silencing one viewpoint simply because you
> disagree with it is just ...
Please re-read Christoph's message -- the request was made because RMS
simply has never posted a single on-topic message. By that measure he
could easily and quite rightly be labelled a spammer...
That said, _because_ it can easily be thought of as censorship, I -DO
NOT- think that RMS should be blacklisted by the mail admins from lkml.
Killfiled? Yes. Blacklisted, no.
Jeff
Jeff Garzik wrote:
>
> Murray J. Root wrote:
> > Much as I disagree with Stallman about nearly everything, and much as I agree
> > that his posts recently have been way off-topic, I cannot agree with such a
> > disgusting and unethical solution. Silencing one viewpoint simply because you
> > disagree with it is just ...
>
> Please re-read Christoph's message -- the request was made because RMS
> simply has never posted a single on-topic message. By that measure he
> could easily and quite rightly be labelled a spammer...
>
Richard's emails to this list are very occasional, and short.
To this reader at least, they are interesting and welcome.
Guys, this whole issue is never going to go away. There are
legitimate views on both sides. We just have to be accommodating.
On Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 07:13:41PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> Guys, this whole issue is never going to go away. There are
> legitimate views on both sides. We just have to be accommodating.
Agreed. One thought that occurred to me as I was tucking in my kids
(yeah, sick that I think about this crap that much) was that both Richard
and I are very convinced that what we are doing is good for the community.
We have opposing views on how to do it (in this case) but it is worth
remembering that we are both trying to help as best we are able.
The flame wars are inevitable when you get two strong willed people both
trying to do the right thing in opposite ways, it's no surprise, or it
shouldn't be. But the thought I had was that it was worth remembering
that Richard is trying to do the right thing for you and so am I.
He's not the enemy, he's a friend.
We really ought to be able to be a lot more reasonable about all this
stuff, we all have the same goals, we are all trying to make the world a
better place (swell of violin music as I puke on myself for throwing out
cliches :) More seriously, my view is that if we're fighting amongst
ourselves, we blew it. We should be fighting Microsoft, they are the
real problem, Richard isn't, the GPL isn't, BK isn't. Let's keep our
eye on the ball.
I'm off to watch some hockey, which is even more fun than this, amazingly
enough... You can take the boy out of Wisconsin, but you can't take
Wisconsin out of the boy.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm
In lists.linux.kernel.development, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 07:13:41PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
>> Guys, this whole issue is never going to go away. There are
>> legitimate views on both sides. We just have to be accommodating.
>
> Agreed. One thought that occurred to me as I was tucking in my kids
> (yeah, sick that I think about this crap that much) was that both Richard
> and I are very convinced that what we are doing is good for the community.
> We have opposing views on how to do it (in this case) but it is worth
> remembering that we are both trying to help as best we are able.
Richard Stallman started the free software foundation. He built the
compiler, library and zillions of other tools that developers use on a day
to day basis. He slept at the offices of MIT while he spent his time,
effort and money building up the Free Software Foundation.
Though many people differ with him on a wide variety of issues, he
deserves respect from all because he has devoted twenty years of his
life to the public good.
You, on the other hand, develop and sell a proprietary software product.
You convinced a large number of kernel developers (most importantly
Linus himself) to use your proprietary product to develop free software,
so that you could tell potential customers "Gee! Look how great my
software is! It's used to develop the linux kernel!"
You don't care about free software Larry. You're just glad that you have
a poster child to display your effort. Want proof? Look at how you have
treated numerous kernel developers when you found out that they worked
on free software projects that could potentially compete with your
software some day -- you revoke their "free" license to use your
software to work on the linux kernel!
Richard is trying to change the world into a better place. You, however,
are trying to get rich, and you're using free software as a stepping
stone to promote your proprietary software. Nothing wrong with getting
rich of course -- I'd love to be rich too. But you certainly don't
deserve to be lumped into the same group as RMS.
> The flame wars are inevitable when you get two strong willed people both
> trying to do the right thing in opposite ways, it's no surprise, or it
> shouldn't be. But the thought I had was that it was worth remembering
> that Richard is trying to do the right thing for you and so am I.
> He's not the enemy, he's a friend.
Are you trying to do the right thing, Larry? Do you think that Tom Gall
thought you were doing the right thing when you told him he could no
longer use bitkeeper to work on the kernel because he also works on
subversion? Do you think that Ingo Molnar thought you were doing the
right thing when you avoided his questions? Do you think Hans Reiser
felt like you were doing the right thing when he had to change his
timeline on Reiserfs so as to avoid competing with your project as long
as possible?
Frankly speaking, to someone like me, it seems like you have
singlehandedly managed to cause a very sore spot amongst a lot of kernel
developers. I can't help but wonder if some day this is going to end up
causing the first serious kernel fork -- fork A with Linus Torvalds and
those that wish to use your software and fork B with everyone else that
feels like proprietary software shouldn't be used as a crutch to develop
proprietary software.
> We really ought to be able to be a lot more reasonable about all this
> stuff, we all have the same goals, we are all trying to make the world a
> better place (swell of violin music as I puke on myself for throwing out
> cliches :) More seriously, my view is that if we're fighting amongst
> ourselves, we blew it. We should be fighting Microsoft, they are the
> real problem, Richard isn't, the GPL isn't, BK isn't. Let's keep our
> eye on the ball.
The ball that we're supposed to be keeping our eye on is things like not
being able to fix the driver for a printer because some company would
rather force you to pay them for software updates rather than giving you
the ability to fix something for yourself.
You should have kept out of the free software world Larry. You should
have stuck with promoting your software for the development of just
proprietary software. None of these issues would exist if you hadn't
shown on the scene.
Tomorrow I am going to call the free software foundation and
ask them for details on how to donate $100 a month towards writing a
replacement for your proprietary software that Linus will be willing to
use for developing the kernel. My sincere hope is that others will
follow suit to their ability.
After all - this does become a moot point if there's something better
than what you have to offer.
> I'm off to watch some hockey, which is even more fun than this, amazingly
> enough... You can take the boy out of Wisconsin, but you can't take
> Wisconsin out of the boy.
Enjoy your game.
--
GnuPG fingerprint AAE4 8C76 58DA 5902 761D 247A 8A55 DA73 0635 7400
James Blackwell -- Director http://www.linuxguru.net
James Blackwell wrote:
>Do you think Hans Reiser
>felt like you were doing the right thing when he had to change his
>timeline on Reiserfs so as to avoid competing with your project as long
>as possible?
>
>
>
I did not change my timeline. Though I was tempted to move version
control up in the priority queue, it nonetheless will remain low until
the right developer comes along, or other things that also need doing
are moved out of that queue.
Hans
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 02:19:35AM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
> [Larry is evil and is just trying to get rich]
I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't agree at all with what you are
saying. If what you are saying was true we would have shut down the
free version of the product long ago. That fact that we don't now,
given attacks such as yours, is perhaps the strongest indicator of our
commitment to Linux.
I did a little digging to figure out who you are and I'm a bit confused.
My Linux involvement predates yours by only a few years, we've both
been here for a long time. Unless you are saying that 10 years ago
I hatched this evil plot to hijack the Linux kernel, your statements
simply are not supported by history. Which anyone can check out, thanks
to Google groups.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm
In lists.linux.kernel.development, you wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 02:19:35AM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
>> [Larry is evil and is just trying to get rich]
I make no moral claims as to whether or not you are a good person.
Frankly, the question is immaterial. No. That's not what I said.
I reserve terms for evil for people like hitler and puppy killers.
No. I think you're a guy trying to make money. Nothing wrong that.
That's how the great majority (if not all) of the world works.
The point I was making was that you and Richard Stallman do not have the
same goal in mind. His goal is to alleviate what he percieves as an ill
in society. Your goal is to run a business. You have stated so yourself.
> I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't agree at all with what you are
> saying. If what you are saying was true we would have shut down the
> free version of the product long ago. That fact that we don't now,
> given attacks such as yours, is perhaps the strongest indicator of our
> commitment to Linux.
I'm glad that you don't agree that I think you're evil since I don't
think that way at all.
My arguments are that you and your software are causing more damage to
free software development than they are worth and that you and Richard
do not have the same goals.
> I did a little digging to figure out who you are and I'm a bit confused.
Ok. I started back in early 1996 and since then I've spent somewhere
around 12,000 hours helping people use linux and other free software
(such as RMS's gnu system). I spend a large amount of my time assisting
people using Linux productively via #Linux on dalnet, which I preside
over. I've submitted a moderate number of small patches to various
projects such as the kernel, freeciv, sac, linuxtrade, gnunet etc,
which are usually turned down for one good reason or another. I run a
small website that focuses on free software news. Recently, I paid a
undisclosed amount of money for the rights to have Linuxtrade relicensed
under a free software license. I'm a firm supporter of the precepts of
free software because I believe that as software becomes more pervasive
in society, the rights for the individual to patch a program should
exist just as the right exists to repair a car rather than return it to
the dealer.
> My Linux involvement predates yours by only a few years, we've both
> been here for a long time. Unless you are saying that 10 years ago
> I hatched this evil plot to hijack the Linux kernel, your statements
Of course I'm not accusing you of some conspiracy. You have been quite
clear and up front on what you do, what you offer and how you profit.
Though I'm sure you remember what you've said, I'll summarize for those
that somehow managed to slip into this thread out of context. You write a
proprietary source code revision system by the name of bitkeeper. You
offered free licences to linux kernel developers among others. Your
motivation is that you can use linux kernel development as a showcase
example when you hunt down people that are willing to pay you. This
isn't something that I have any issue with.
To make the issues I bring up more clear, I'll list them here:
1. You are anticompetitive wrt source code revision systems.
You are attempting to leverage the free licenses you give kernel developers
to slow down/halt the development of free software code revision systems
such as subversion. Though process may or may not be beneficial to the
linux kernel (I leave this argument for others with more experience),
one thing is clear: This process is clearly not beneficial to free
software that potentially competes with yours. I don't make any claim as
to whether or not you are doing the right thing. I only make the claim
that there is damage to free software occuring.
Even more clearly: you are trying to impede development of free software
such as subversion and that affects me in a negative way. The slower
that projects such as subversion and an sccs for reiserfs develop, the
longer I'm stuck with cvs.
2. Your goals are not those of Richard Stallman's.
The goal of the FSF (established 1985 or so by Richard Stallman and run
by the same to this day) are very clear and can be read at
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/philosophy.html. When you get right
down to it, the goals of the FSF are to give people the
freedom to escape people who say things such as "If you develop
subversion, then you can't use bitkeeper to work on the kernel". Instead
of dealing with this issue head on, you try and convince others "to keep
their eye on the ball" and to go chase microsoft?
3. Your software is responsible for a growing rift between developers
If you wish, I can go through all 500 or 600 emails and try and list
which people seem to be on which side of the issue, but I'd rather
assume that you and others can see for themselves. The only question
regarding this issue is whether this rift were to grow deep enough to
cause a fork. Hypothetically speaking here... wouldn't you agree it
would be a shame if we ended up with a Linux-A lead by Linus Torvalds
and a Linux-B lead by Alan Cox (Alan works at Redhat, which I understand
supports amongst other things, subversion)?
> simply are not supported by history. Which anyone can check out, thanks
> to Google groups.
My thoughts and position on many things have changed over the years and
I have no doubts that you could probably manage to drag up something
embarassing about me. Surely we are both adult enough that we wouldn't
stoop to something so low as an ad hominem attack, so I don't think its
an issue.
--
GnuPG fingerprint AAE4 8C76 58DA 5902 761D 247A 8A55 DA73 0635 7400
James Blackwell -- Director http://www.linuxguru.net
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 01:24:48PM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
> The point I was making was that you and Richard Stallman do not have the
> same goal in mind. His goal is to alleviate what he percieves as an ill
> in society. Your goal is to run a business. You have stated so yourself.
Well, Richards goal is to force his ideology on everyone. Larry's goal
in lkml context is to help to reduce Linus' load, in the context of
his business, Bitkeeper it's probably to make money - at least enough
for him and his employees to live.
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 01:24:48PM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
> 1. You are anticompetitive wrt source code revision systems.
He isn't. You are free to use BK for everything if you pay larry.
Getting something you otherwise have to pay for for free only
in some circumstances is not what I'd call anticompetitive.
> 2. Your goals are not those of Richard Stallman's.
Mine neither. And I guess that's true for most kernel developers.
Why can't you have an own opinion for gods fsckin' sake instead
of blindly following so-called leaders? This blind following
of fundamentalists is what has caused the biggest problem of mankind.
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 01:24:48PM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
> Though I'm sure you remember what you've said, I'll summarize for those
> that somehow managed to slip into this thread out of context. You write a
> proprietary source code revision system by the name of bitkeeper. You
> offered free licences to linux kernel developers among others. Your
> motivation is that you can use linux kernel development as a showcase
> example when you hunt down people that are willing to pay you.
This is where we disagree. BitKeeper was started to help Linus.
Pure and simple. Maybe it's not a well known thing, I thought it was,
but it's true all the same. I quit my job at Cobalt, had about 4 or
5 hour design discussion with Linus, DaveM and Richard Henderson on my
living room floor and got to work.
The business side of BK came into being after it became clear it was
a much bigger job than we had originally hoped. We either had to make
BK pay for itself or drop it long before it was useable. From a free
software point of view I can see where you would wish we had dropped it.
But free software wasn't our goal, our goal was to off load Linus and
help Linux. Yeah, it would be nice if we could have somehow done that
with a free software product. When you demonstrate how to do that, I'll
be happy to follow in your footsteps. Until then, the license is how it
is because that's only known way that will produce enough money to support
the product.
Try to understand that the point is to support the kernel development
process, not make RMS or you happy, and it costs a boatload of money
to do what we are doing. There's another man year of work put into
BitKeeper every month. I don't see you volunteering to pay for that
continued development. When you do, we'll talk, until then you're
just flapping your gums.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm
In lists.linux.kernel.development, you wrote:
> James Blackwell wrote:
>
>>Do you think Hans Reiser
>>felt like you were doing the right thing when he had to change his
>>timeline on Reiserfs so as to avoid competing with your project as long
>>as possible?
>>
>>
>>
> I did not change my timeline. Though I was tempted to move version
> control up in the priority queue, it nonetheless will remain low until
> the right developer comes along, or other things that also need doing
> are moved out of that queue.
I'm very sorry. I could have sworn you had said something along the
lines of 'Some day I want to put version control into reiser, which
could technically be considered a competitor to bitkeeper. I have a lot
of other things to do with reiserfs as well so I'll do those first'. But
when I went back through the list, I couldn't find it.
The closest to that I could find was the following:
> reiser4 will not contain version control. I don't know when version
> control will go into ReiserFS. I do think it should go in eventually
> though, as it makes distributed filesystems more effective if there is
> version control functionality. We would do something that in no way
> resembled BK. We would do it after implementing the core distributed
> tree algorithms. Probably not going to happen in less than 3-5 years.
> ...
> There are so many features missing from ReiserFS, and I am not really
> picky about what order they go in..... With Reiser4 we finally have
I must have gotten the issues involved with reiserfs confused with
another project.
Again, I'm sorry I got your position wrong.
--
GnuPG fingerprint AAE4 8C76 58DA 5902 761D 247A 8A55 DA73 0635 7400
James Blackwell -- Director http://www.linuxguru.net
On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Larry McVoy wrote:
> We really ought to be able to be a lot more reasonable about all this
> stuff, we all have the same goals, we are all trying to make the world a
> better place (swell of violin music as I puke on myself for throwing out
> cliches :) More seriously, my view is that if we're fighting amongst
> ourselves, we blew it. We should be fighting Microsoft, they are the
> real problem, Richard isn't, the GPL isn't, BK isn't. Let's keep our
> eye on the ball.
Failing a more reasonable approach we could always arrange a celebrity
death match. "The buisnessman" vs "st ignutious" has a nice ring to it..
don't you think?
/me runs
Gerhard
--
Gerhard Mack
[email protected]
<>< As a computer I find your faith in technology amusing.
> The point I was making was that you and Richard Stallman do not have the
> same goal in mind. His goal is to alleviate what he percieves as an ill
> in society. Your goal is to run a business. You have stated so yourself.
> Well, Richards goal is to force his ideology on everyone. Larry's goal
> in lkml context is to help to reduce Linus' load, in the context of
> his business, Bitkeeper it's probably to make money - at least enough
> for him and his employees to live.
He's done more than one thing in the past that has made me want to tear
my hair out. I agree with you. He has a bit to much "my way or my way"
seasoning for my tastes as well and I honestly do wish that RMS would
give an honest shot at trying to convert the world to his way of
thinking in smaller steps... One thing to his credit though... He
has accomplished an awful lot. Would you agree with this?
>> The point I was making was that you and Richard Stallman do not have the
>> same goal in mind. His goal is to alleviate what he percieves as an ill
>> in society. Your goal is to run a business. You have stated so yourself.
> Well, Richards goal is to force his ideology on everyone. Larry's goal
> in lkml context is to help to reduce Linus' load, in the context of
> his business, Bitkeeper it's probably to make money - at least enough
> for him and his employees to live.
If we accept your argument as it stands, then my point is valid. Larry
and RMS don't have the same goal. I don't agree with Larry and your
stand about Larry's goal, but I'll follow that up in my reply to Larry
this evening.
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 08:06:53PM +0200, Roman Zippel wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
>
> > Mine neither. And I guess that's true for most kernel developers.
> > Why can't you have an own opinion for gods fsckin' sake instead
> > of blindly following so-called leaders? This blind following
> > of fundamentalists is what has caused the biggest problem of mankind.
>
> Blind hate doesn't help either.
Of course - pure hate is an ideology aswell.
p.s. I don't see how this fits into this thread, though ;-)
At 2002-10-22 17:42 +0000, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 01:24:48PM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
> > The point I was making was that you and Richard Stallman do not
> > have the same goal in mind. His goal is to alleviate what he
> > percieves as an ill in society. Your goal is to run a business.
> > You have stated so yourself.
>
> Well, Richards goal is to force his ideology on everyone. Larry's
> goal in lkml context is to help to reduce Linus' load, in the
> context of his business, Bitkeeper it's probably to make money - at
> least enough for him and his employees to live.
I don't think so. Richard's goal seems to be to attempt to convince
everyone his ideology is good. He doesn't appear to be trying to
force anyone to do anything. If you don't like his free software
concept, you don't have to GPL your code.
Larry, however, is forcing developers off of a BM-hosted project
simply because one of their hobbies is in competition with his
company, and has explicitly rejected granting limited license to such
people for the sole purpose of developing for BM-hosted projects.
Larry also has the potential to significantly influence kernel
development by threatening withdrawal of BM hosting if the kernel
incorporates "competing" features. Larry hides behind the excuse
that (e.g. subversion) developers would get a feel for BK operation
and implement competing features in subversion, ignoring that those
developers probably understand most of the significant BK features
already. Then he rants about how nobody would do the work BM is
doing without pay, and carefully avoids connecting that argument to
his rationale for disallowing competing developers use of BK
exclusively for BM-hosted projects.
I'm sick of Larry, and I bet he's sick of me, but this BK mess is bad
mojo.
And so is posting to this flamewar.
--
When faced with the prisoner's dilemma, kill your accomplice.
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 01:24:48PM -0400, James Blackwell wrote:
> If you wish, I can go through all 500 or 600 emails and try and list
> which people seem to be on which side of the issue, but I'd rather
> assume that you and others can see for themselves. The only question
> regarding this issue is whether this rift were to grow deep enough to
> cause a fork. Hypothetically speaking here... wouldn't you agree it
> would be a shame if we ended up with a Linux-A lead by Linus Torvalds
> and a Linux-B lead by Alan Cox (Alan works at Redhat, which I understand
> supports amongst other things, subversion)?
Umm, we already have tons of forks, e.g. Alan's Tree(s), Andrea's Tree,
SuSE's Tree(s), RedHat's Tree(s) Carrier Grade Linux.
And unlike the emacs/xemacs debacle they're compatible and actually code
flows in both directions.
Hi,
On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> Mine neither. And I guess that's true for most kernel developers.
> Why can't you have an own opinion for gods fsckin' sake instead
> of blindly following so-called leaders? This blind following
> of fundamentalists is what has caused the biggest problem of mankind.
Blind hate doesn't help either.
bye, Roman