11 ms·

Oracle forks Jenkins

78 points by DanielRibeiro 16y ago

biot 16y ago
This title is disingenuous at best, like saying that Oracle has forked MariaDB or that Debian forked Ubuntu.
- whatusername 16y ago
  The article provides the authors reasoning for the title..
  - warmfuzzykitten 16y ago
    This isn't going to earn me any karma points, but the author's "reasoning" seems to be that the word fork has negative connotations in some circles, and therefore it must be Oracle's fault. If ever there was a tempest in a teapot, this Hudson-Jenkins thing is it. Oracle migrated its servers, cutting off access for a week, and the Hudson community exploded in rage. Accusations and insinuations followed. Well, now they're forked. Time to move on.
- andrewljohnson 16y ago
  His entire point is that it's Oracle being disingenuous here, and the entire article goes on to explain that reasoning.
  - biot 16y ago
    The way I see it is that Oracle is continuing to develop the project under the Hudson name. The bulk of the community has decided to move the project elsewhere and continue development under a new name, Jenkins. Fair enough, they are parting ways. At this point arguing over who forked who seems (to this outsider) like the old Reese's commercials arguing whether "you got chocolate on my peanut butter" or whether "you got peanut butter on my chocolate".
joshu 16y ago
All I hear about Jenkins/Hudson is in the context of this drama. Does anyone else actually use it?
- cmurphycode 16y ago
  Absolutely. Hudson is great (I would even say invaluable), and Kohsuke, the founder, is an inspirational programmer.
- mindcrime 16y ago
  We use it at my $DAYJOB, and I'm planning to set up a Jenkins server for some of my open-source projects soon. So yeah, I guess I can say that someone uses it.
- jhonnycano 16y ago
  I use it, and is wonderful
- autarch 16y ago
  I just set it up to run tests on an app I'm developing after each check in. It was amazingly easy to get running, and so far it's worked wonderfully. Amazingly for a Java app, I didn't have to touch a single XML file. Everything can be configured through the web interface. Fantastic!
  - mindcrime 16y ago
    It has a really nice REST API interface as well. One of the ways that API is expressed is through XML, but there are also JSON and Python versions (yes, the API sends you Python code in one version!)
    - flipdeadshot 16y ago
      How would a client make use of the Python code? By eval'ing it?
      - 16y ago
metageek 16y ago
>The decision to rename a project is certainly not, in and of itself, a fork. Mozilla's web browser went through a couple renames before landing on its present name of Firefox. Bad example, since Firefox is a fork of Mozilla; it started as a stripped-down version.
- antimora 16y ago
  The author is probably referring to the earlier name Firebird (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.html http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.htm...). Firefox is still a part of Mozilla project.
  - technomancy 16y ago
    See also: Phoenix.
  - cubicle67 16y ago
    For those interested, Firebird is an opensource database based on Borlard's Interbase. Back in 2000, Borland (I think they may have been called Inprise at that stage) decided to opensource Interbase (version 6 I think) , which is where Firebird comes from. Shortly after, however, Borlard reversed their decision and took Interbase back in house again. Firebird remained active. In a previous life I was a Delphi developer, and used Firebird almost exclusively. It was an amazing database - client server, yet fast with very small resource requirements and as good as no admin requirements. Set and forget. I really don't know why it hasn't had more widespread adoption, but some of the problem seems to be due to lack of good drivers
  - metageek 16y ago
    Oh, right. Forgot about that.
vineet 16y ago
I don't know if I agree with the article. I am not a fan of the whole Jenkins - Hudson situations. But at the end of the day Kohsuke was paid to work on Hudson. Oracle clearly owns the Hudson trademark and the project. The fact that many in the community felt that Oracle was a bad leader of the project and therefore wanted to fork it is really besides the point. Saying that the project was never Oracle's will only make companies want to support fewer open source projects.
dmoney 16y ago
In philosophy this is called the problem of identity over time. A ship is taken apart, piece by piece. Then the pieces are used to build two separate ships. One ship has the original nameplate; the other has the original sailors. Which is the original ship?
- Jach 16y ago
  Non-questions like these are also why a great many people dislike philosophy.
  - jerf 16y ago
    I think the error that many people make in holding on to their belief that the question must have an answer is the fault of those people, not philosophy. How did you get to the point you can confidently label that a 'non-question' if you did not consider the problem philosophically?
    - Jach 16y ago
      Maybe you consider thinking "What would I anticipate differently depending on the answer?" when faced with such a question to be a philosophical consideration, but at that point everything becomes philosophy of some form and you lose the meaning of the term. ("Everyone philosophizes" is another such generalization that doesn't help communication.) The problem with people trying to directly answer such questions (and questions like the classic tree-falls-in-a-forest one) does come from people, where else would it come from? But Philosophy as an art (not the general everything-is-philosophy) encourages these errors by positing the questions and then leaving them there as "cool mysteries". To carry on a metaphor of your post's sister, the mind is full of traps that lead to religious thinking, but Religion does nothing to help avoid those traps and actively encourages the sloppy thinking that results.
      - rdouble 16y ago
        Philosophy is useful in that it makes it easy to identify when someone is in over their head and just stringing together words.
erikpukinskis 16y ago
Leerooooooy Jenkins!
jhonnycano 16y ago
I think the problem is whether the former Hudson community have a vote against a company sustaining an open-source project. When company's interests conflicts with the community ones, which interest will remain? I think the community decision is a pretty clear statement of what's best for the project. In a nutshell, we need a project that works for us, not for the company

78 points by DanielRibeiro 16y ago

biot 16y ago

This title is disingenuous at best, like saying that Oracle has forked MariaDB or that Debian forked Ubuntu.

whatusername 16y ago
The article provides the authors reasoning for the title..
- warmfuzzykitten 16y ago
  This isn't going to earn me any karma points, but the author's "reasoning" seems to be that the word fork has negative connotations in some circles, and therefore it must be Oracle's fault. If ever there was a tempest in a teapot, this Hudson-Jenkins thing is it. Oracle migrated its servers, cutting off access for a week, and the Hudson community exploded in rage. Accusations and insinuations followed. Well, now they're forked. Time to move on.
andrewljohnson 16y ago
His entire point is that it's Oracle being disingenuous here, and the entire article goes on to explain that reasoning.
- biot 16y ago
  The way I see it is that Oracle is continuing to develop the project under the Hudson name. The bulk of the community has decided to move the project elsewhere and continue development under a new name, Jenkins. Fair enough, they are parting ways. At this point arguing over who forked who seems (to this outsider) like the old Reese's commercials arguing whether "you got chocolate on my peanut butter" or whether "you got peanut butter on my chocolate".

joshu 16y ago

All I hear about Jenkins/Hudson is in the context of this drama. Does anyone else actually use it?

cmurphycode 16y ago
Absolutely. Hudson is great (I would even say invaluable), and Kohsuke, the founder, is an inspirational programmer.
mindcrime 16y ago
We use it at my $DAYJOB, and I'm planning to set up a Jenkins server for some of my open-source projects soon. So yeah, I guess I can say that someone uses it.
jhonnycano 16y ago
I use it, and is wonderful
autarch 16y ago
I just set it up to run tests on an app I'm developing after each check in. It was amazingly easy to get running, and so far it's worked wonderfully. Amazingly for a Java app, I didn't have to touch a single XML file. Everything can be configured through the web interface. Fantastic!
- mindcrime 16y ago
  It has a really nice REST API interface as well. One of the ways that API is expressed is through XML, but there are also JSON and Python versions (yes, the API sends you Python code in one version!)
  - flipdeadshot 16y ago
    How would a client make use of the Python code? By eval'ing it?
    - 16y ago

metageek 16y ago

>The decision to rename a project is certainly not, in and of itself, a fork. Mozilla's web browser went through a couple renames before landing on its present name of Firefox. Bad example, since Firefox is a fork of Mozilla; it started as a stripped-down version.

antimora 16y ago
The author is probably referring to the earlier name Firebird (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.html http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.htm...). Firefox is still a part of Mozilla project.
- technomancy 16y ago
  See also: Phoenix.
- cubicle67 16y ago
  For those interested, Firebird is an opensource database based on Borlard's Interbase. Back in 2000, Borland (I think they may have been called Inprise at that stage) decided to opensource Interbase (version 6 I think) , which is where Firebird comes from. Shortly after, however, Borlard reversed their decision and took Interbase back in house again. Firebird remained active. In a previous life I was a Delphi developer, and used Firebird almost exclusively. It was an amazing database - client server, yet fast with very small resource requirements and as good as no admin requirements. Set and forget. I really don't know why it hasn't had more widespread adoption, but some of the problem seems to be due to lack of good drivers
- metageek 16y ago
  Oh, right. Forgot about that.

vineet 16y ago

I don't know if I agree with the article. I am not a fan of the whole Jenkins - Hudson situations. But at the end of the day Kohsuke was paid to work on Hudson. Oracle clearly owns the Hudson trademark and the project. The fact that many in the community felt that Oracle was a bad leader of the project and therefore wanted to fork it is really besides the point. Saying that the project was never Oracle's will only make companies want to support fewer open source projects.

dmoney 16y ago

In philosophy this is called the problem of identity over time. A ship is taken apart, piece by piece. Then the pieces are used to build two separate ships. One ship has the original nameplate; the other has the original sailors. Which is the original ship?

Jach 16y ago
Non-questions like these are also why a great many people dislike philosophy.
- jerf 16y ago
  I think the error that many people make in holding on to their belief that the question must have an answer is the fault of those people, not philosophy. How did you get to the point you can confidently label that a 'non-question' if you did not consider the problem philosophically?
  - Jach 16y ago
    Maybe you consider thinking "What would I anticipate differently depending on the answer?" when faced with such a question to be a philosophical consideration, but at that point everything becomes philosophy of some form and you lose the meaning of the term. ("Everyone philosophizes" is another such generalization that doesn't help communication.) The problem with people trying to directly answer such questions (and questions like the classic tree-falls-in-a-forest one) does come from people, where else would it come from? But Philosophy as an art (not the general everything-is-philosophy) encourages these errors by positing the questions and then leaving them there as "cool mysteries". To carry on a metaphor of your post's sister, the mind is full of traps that lead to religious thinking, but Religion does nothing to help avoid those traps and actively encourages the sloppy thinking that results.
    - rdouble 16y ago
      Philosophy is useful in that it makes it easy to identify when someone is in over their head and just stringing together words.

erikpukinskis 16y ago

Leerooooooy Jenkins!

jhonnycano 16y ago

I think the problem is whether the former Hudson community have a vote against a company sustaining an open-source project. When company's interests conflicts with the community ones, which interest will remain? I think the community decision is a pretty clear statement of what's best for the project. In a nutshell, we need a project that works for us, not for the company