*sigh* something is wrong with bkcvs again

*sigh* something is wrong with bkcvs again

[Aaron Lehmann]

At the *root* of a fresh checkout:

$ head -2 Makefile 
#
# Copyright (c) 2000-2003 Silicon Graphics, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

It's the XFS makefile...

Re: *sigh* something is wrong with bkcvs again

[Larry McVoy]

This is your message recast in the context of the kernel, or at least 
this is what it sounded like to me:

    *Sigh*.  The kernel oops *again*.  How dare you give me this kernel
    for free and then break it.  Fix it, right now, and I'd like an
    apology along with the fix.  Hurry up.

Maybe you didn't intend it to sound like that and you'd like to rephrase it.

On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 06:27:24PM -0700, Aaron Lehmann wrote:
> At the *root* of a fresh checkout:
> 
> $ head -2 Makefile 
> #
> # Copyright (c) 2000-2003 Silicon Graphics, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
> 
> It's the XFS makefile...
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm

Re: *sigh* something is wrong with bkcvs again

[Ken Moffat]

Larry,

 just because the subject contains the magic letters "bk" does not mean
it's neccesarily an attack on your product.  Without trying to check out
the latest 2.6 kernel to confirm this, it looks like somebody is playing
with copyrights.  And where are you reading an oops into it ?

Ken

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> This is your message recast in the context of the kernel, or at least
> this is what it sounded like to me:
>
>     *Sigh*.  The kernel oops *again*.  How dare you give me this kernel
>     for free and then break it.  Fix it, right now, and I'd like an
>     apology along with the fix.  Hurry up.
>
> Maybe you didn't intend it to sound like that and you'd like to rephrase it.
>
> On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 06:27:24PM -0700, Aaron Lehmann wrote:
> > At the *root* of a fresh checkout:
> >
> > $ head -2 Makefile
> > #
> > # Copyright (c) 2000-2003 Silicon Graphics, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
> >
> > It's the XFS makefile...
> > -
> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> > Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
>

-- 
 Peace, love, linux

Re: *sigh* something is wrong with bkcvs again

[Larry McVoy]

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

Re: *sigh* something is wrong with bkcvs again

[Stephan von Krawczynski]

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 18:01:00 -0700
Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:

> [ Larry describing another tough weekend ]
> The bk2cvs gateway is a free service, it costs us money to provide it.

Just around nobody in the list is able to judge if _having_ a bk2cvs gateway
(software) is a commercial win for your product or not. Therefore nobody can
argue with you about the statement. This is fine for you, but bad for
listeners. Effectively they leave the place with a feeling of being only
grumblers and spongers.
And since quite a lot of people are doing positive things regarding linux that
are never ever rewarded - not even by a one-liner in some credits-file - you
have to accept that they don't want and need that feeling and therefore simply
dislike you - completely unrelated to your former, current or future _work_.

Regards,
Stephan

Re: *sigh* something is wrong with bkcvs again

[Aaron Lehmann]

On Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 12:14:58PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> Maybe you didn't intend it to sound like that and you'd like to rephrase it.

Hi Larry,

The disrespect wasn't directed towards you, but at the problem. BKcvs
is a great resource, but it's got some recurring bugs, and they're
quite frustrating. While I realize you're the author, everyone makes
mistakes. Your work on the CVS gateway is appreciated, even though it
isn't flawless yet.