4 ms·

"Ideological and eventual practical problems too" is way too general. The very specific flash-point was Linus throwing an unjustified hissy-fit defending Larry

"Ideological and eventual practical problems too" is way too general. The very specific flash-point was Linus throwing an unjustified hissy-fit defending Larry McVoy of BitKeeper being difficult about Andrew Tridgel (Tridge of Samba fame) "reverse engineering" the data traffic of Bitkeeper for inter-operability (really just sniffing client packets with wireshark or something). Whether the name "git" pertains to Tridge or Linus himself who in retrospect decided he acted like a spoiled brat is still not known :)

beefhash 7y ago
> (really just sniffing client packets with wireshark or something). He connected to a BK port and typed "help". BK helpfully output a bunch of protocol help. He used that to implement something minor (I think for archival?) and McVoy wasn't having it.
- craigsmansion 7y ago
  Right, thanks! It wasn't even "wireshark", but simply a telnet session indeed.
jlokier 7y ago
There were more people having problems than Tridge. I was there, and I was told in private mail by the author of BitKeeper that I did not have permission to use it, because of my work on respository analysis software that looked like it would get too close for comfort. That's without any reverse engineering. I never used BitKeeper, or connected to the server, or read the infamous "help" text. It meant I couldn't participate in kernel development in the same way as most folks. I wasn't the only one, and that's what I mean by practical problems, not just ideological.
- craigsmansion 7y ago
  My apologies. I didn't want to gainsay your claim, but I've noticed I've been getting older [1] and things that happened "recently" and "should be common knowledge", are not, in fact, exactly that for everyone. I wanted to point out that it was not a very loose "pragmatic and/or ideological" argument back then, but there were very specific actions and respected actors involved. You obviously, being directly involved, are aware of the specifics, but it might be easy for a casual reader to place it in a "Ah, the Free Software people were ruining a good free thing even back then" context, whereas pretty much the opposite happened. [1] and you too, by implication, for which my apologies as well.
  - jlokier 7y ago
    Thanks for the apology, but no worries, it isn't needed :-) That's interesting. I read your comment as making out that it was _merely_ one person (Tridge) who had a problem with BitKeeper and BK didn't deserve the flak, but I read your later comment as making out that BK did deserve it.
int_19h 7y ago
So the real problem was really the proprietary nature of the protocol - both in the sense that it wasn't properly documented, and in the sense that the author tried to use legal means to keep it secret. But GitHub doesn't have this problem.

beefhash 7y ago

> (really just sniffing client packets with wireshark or something). He connected to a BK port and typed "help". BK helpfully output a bunch of protocol help. He used that to implement something minor (I think for archival?) and McVoy wasn't having it.

craigsmansion 7y ago
Right, thanks! It wasn't even "wireshark", but simply a telnet session indeed.

jlokier 7y ago

There were more people having problems than Tridge. I was there, and I was told in private mail by the author of BitKeeper that I did not have permission to use it, because of my work on respository analysis software that looked like it would get too close for comfort. That's without any reverse engineering. I never used BitKeeper, or connected to the server, or read the infamous "help" text. It meant I couldn't participate in kernel development in the same way as most folks. I wasn't the only one, and that's what I mean by practical problems, not just ideological.

craigsmansion 7y ago
My apologies. I didn't want to gainsay your claim, but I've noticed I've been getting older [1] and things that happened "recently" and "should be common knowledge", are not, in fact, exactly that for everyone. I wanted to point out that it was not a very loose "pragmatic and/or ideological" argument back then, but there were very specific actions and respected actors involved. You obviously, being directly involved, are aware of the specifics, but it might be easy for a casual reader to place it in a "Ah, the Free Software people were ruining a good free thing even back then" context, whereas pretty much the opposite happened. [1] and you too, by implication, for which my apologies as well.
- jlokier 7y ago
  Thanks for the apology, but no worries, it isn't needed :-) That's interesting. I read your comment as making out that it was _merely_ one person (Tridge) who had a problem with BitKeeper and BK didn't deserve the flak, but I read your later comment as making out that BK did deserve it.

int_19h 7y ago

So the real problem was really the proprietary nature of the protocol - both in the sense that it wasn't properly documented, and in the sense that the author tried to use legal means to keep it secret. But GitHub doesn't have this problem.