Re: [Gnu-arch-users] hmmm.

[Zack Brown]

On Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 09:57:26PM -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
> (forwarded, very indirectly:)
> To: [linux-kernel mailing list]
> Date Sat, 23 Aug 2003 18:01:00 -0700
> From Larry McVoy <>
> Subject: Re: *sigh* something is wrong with bkcvs again

Larry is always threating one thing or another. He threatened to sue me for
publishing descriptions of a version control system, just because I based
some of what I said on ideas he had expressed on the linux-kernel list. As
far as I know, he's never followed through on any of his threats, against
me or anyone else. He might start pulling services, but until he
actually does, it's just hot air.

I personally believe he will one day ditch BitKeeper's "free" licensing and
all the services that go along with it, but that day will only come when he
sees the wolf at the door, i.e. arch or some other system with features to
satisfy the kernel people. At that point the only thing he'll have to gain
by keeping BK available is that it will allow kernel developers to migrate
more smoothly to the new tool.  He won't like that, so he'll throw a fit,
pull BK, and then blame the resulting migration trauma on people's ingratitude.

Posts like the one you quoted are probably most useful because they send
more developers to arch. I remember Larry saying (I forget if it was
publically or just to me) that arch was the project he most feared could
surpass and replace BitKeeper. At the time he said it, the arch list was
much lower traffic, and arch was still shell scripts and not self-hosting;
so he probably thought he had nothing to worry about.

Now arch is a C program, self-hosting, with a bunch more people contributing
(including prominent kernel guys like Miles Bader), and some high-profile
projects like xouvert using it exclusively. Larry is certainly following
arch development, and I'm sure he's getting more and more uncomfortable all
the time. And as arch progresses, he's likely to make more wild threats like
shutting down the BK->CVS gateway for periods of time in response to rudeness.

It's just par for the course. He'll get less and less stable, and finally
pull the tool completely. Nothing to be concerned about, and nothing to
discuss overly much.

Be well,
Zack

> 
> Let's put this into context. I got up this morning to find Aaron's
> posting and I started looking into the problem. It turned into a mess
> and rather than spend Saturday with my wife and kids I sent them out
> of the house so I could focus on this and fix it. It took several
> hours to track down the bug and the tree has been rebuilding since
> about 1pm. I gave up half my weekend to fix this stuff. I made my
> family get out of the house for your benefit, my wife is pissed at me,
> my kids are pissed at me, and people here are rude to me for giving
> them something for free that they should have built themselves. Hey,
> wrong answer and I'm the idiot for putting up with it. So I pointed
> out to the list that I don't like it and I tried to make it clear by
> pointing out that you wouldn't put it with that sort of bug report
> from me about the kernel. Apparently I wasn't clear enough so here is
> try #2: - We don't owe you this service - You could have built this
> service - People are routinely rude about it when there are problems -
> Keep it up and the service goes away We didn't get a nice message
> saying "please look at bk2cvs, it seems broken", we got an annoyed
> message from some guy with an ax to grind. Here's a quote from him
> talking about Pavel's oh-so-great BitKeeper clone: "It would be better
> if you stored it in BitKeeper just to piss Larry off."
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=104653836702419&w=2 The
> bk2cvs gateway is a free service, it costs us money to provide
> it. People seem to think we are obligated to provide it and support
> it, and they think it's OK to be rude. Here's a feedback loop for you:
> every time I get a rude mail about this service the gateway gets shut
> down. First time is 1 day and it doubles every time after that. That
> means that you all as a community need to pass the word that it's not
> healthy to be rude. I'm sick of it, I've had it with that, I have
> absolutely zero tolerance for it and no sense of humor about it. Some
> people have gotten the message, Ben Collins is a great example. He's
> been polite and pleasant to deal with and as a result we host the
> BK2SVN gateway next to the BK2CVS gateway. If you're nice I'll bend
> over backwards to help you but I've had it with rude people. It
> doesn't take any substantial effort to be polite and you as a
> community need to require that politeness or give up the gateway. It's
> that simple. --
> 
> ---
> Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          
> http://www.bitmover.com/lm
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-- 
Zack Brown