The Cygnus Tree and Free Software Maintenance 53
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Sokolov (a Special Agent of the International Free Computing Task Force - and that's not a joke!) has published an interresting article about how is maintened gcc, gdb and the GNU compilation toolchains on
his ftp site
(also send to several related mailing lists - gcc, gdb, etc..)
It points at some problem and one may think that Cygnus-Redhat is again trying to take over the linux world... but that's not the point." The conspiracy theorists will definitely find room for conspiracy, but really this looks like a major issue for development, and one that warrants discussion.
1st: Research article, 2nd: Post article (Score:4)
Michael Sokolov "maintained" the gcc toolchain (for the PalmOS) much in the same way an armed gunman maintains his hostages in a bank holdup. After hijacking the (Palm) gcc project from John Marshall ("official" maintainer who works for Palm, see his earlier comment [slashdot.org]) he bombarded the palm-dev-forum incessantly, ranting about how his toolchain was better and personally attacking anyone who voiced an opinion otherwise.
Eventually, the list owners (Palm) banished him from the forum, and hopefully that's the last Palm developers have seen or heard of him. I don't doubt that he's a great programmer, but his back-handed ways of going about "maintaining" the gcc toolchain have made him quite a few enemies. Slashdot would be wise to look these things up before proclaiming him some sort of anti-cygwin hero.
--
Re:Cygnus (Score:1)
Linuxconf is monolithic and it doesn't work very well. netcfg is so much nicer than linuxconf primarily because it does just one thing. Kudzu is monolithic and while it does work remarkably well at a few things (network cards and video adapters), but it's not transparent (monolithic, after all) and in cases where you wish it would do nothing it becomes clear that it's not clear what it does.
In what does RH prevent you from mangling the whole of /etc with vi(1)?
There are tools (those above?) which seem to keep shadow copies of some config files. Your hand edits can get lost. I'd tell you which ones, but my list would be hit or miss. I'm sure the RH documentation lays it all out clearly so I refer you there.
what is it that bothers you so much about Redhat apart from the fact that they try to make GNU/Linux palatable to newbies? And if it's that fact mostly, then I have to ask you why?
What bothers me about it is that there are very few computer newbies around. Most linux newbies come from Windows, and the RH model (followed by quite a few others too) seems to be "make linux look like Windows". I don't see any efforts to teach the unix ways (examples: stdin/stdout, X server vs. X client, text! text! text! config files...). Creating Windows all over again going the wrong way.
International Free Computing Task Force? (Score:4)
What kind of an organization is it?
Who are the officers of the organization?
What is their charter?
Where is their headquarters?
Is it a for profit organization or a non-profit organization?
What are some of their past activities?
Are they affiliated with any public or private companies?
Are they affiliated with any governments?
Are they affiliated with any universities?
Can anyone join the task force?
What credentials does one have to poccess to become a member?
How many members do they have?
I'm just curious about this organization because I have never heard of it before.
Re:Cygwin32 (Score:1)
Download is slightly more involved (pull down a downloader, then get the downloader to pull down the many pieces), but the real screw is after installing: the file system is way suckier now: The new / is not the same as c:\ ! to get to C:\ you need to use /cygdrive/c or //c/ Blech!
Slighly OT : gcc 3.0 & pre-compiled headers (Score:1)
If I remember correctly Corel contracted Cynus to add this functionality to egcs and if my ex-cygnus contact is to be believed it was finished and works. ( Note: they used mmap to simply dump the compiled headers : neat )
Warrants discussion? (Score:3)
I took the time to follow the links to Mr. Sokolov's verious postings. He reminds me of me when I was much less mature: carefully argumentative, inflexible, willing to drive others to distraction rather than yield to evidence. You know, an asshole.
I'm recovering. My recovery began when I realized that my technical skills counted for little when compared with my inability to get along with other people. I mean, I was losing out on cool projects and pay raises. I'm a different person today, believe me.
Play with the Special Agent if you will. I'm more inclined to let his comments go without specific reply and let reality eventually catch up with him.
Anyway, what warrants discussion, IMHO, is how to accelerate the maturing process. Personally, I wish that someone had simply fired me (now *there's* a slap with a two-by-four), or let me know that *I* wasn't getting the cool project, or that *I* was getting the miniscule raise. Something, *anything* to let me know how the world saw me (Oh wad some power the giftie gie us...).
Time Machine (Score:2)
http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/ Quasijarus/tmachine.html [adfa.edu.au]
Another project of Quasijarus [adfa.edu.au] and the demented mind of Agent Sokolov.
Re:Cygwin32 (Score:1)
Re: linuxconf (Score:2)
Re: linuxconf (Score:1)
I'm not him, but if linuxconf is what he was talking about, RedHat is guilty of choosing to use it as he suggested. In most cases, disliking RedHat is disliking the things they chose to include.
Re:It may point at a problem, but not one at Cygnu (Score:1)
Oh no, I don't have any firewalls! I am an agent of the International Free Computing Task Force, and firewalls are by definition an obstacle to Free Computing that must be brought down. When I ordered my dedicated ARPA Internet connection, I instructed my ISP very clearly to make my connection wide open without any firewalls whatsoever.
'Nuff Said.
Re:Cygnus (Score:2)
Blah, blah monolithic. You still have the option to not use linuxconf(1), just like I didn't when I used to use RedHat. And we have a basic misunderstanding about the term monolithic here: providing a (arguably) nice visual interface to a lot of utilities and /proc fiddling is not the same as being monolithic in my book. Would you consider smit(1) under AIX to be monolithic? Or are you using monolithic as short for "stuff I don't like"?
There are tools (those above?) which seem to keep shadow copies of some config files.
I can't recall any from my RH days, and I feel obliged to remind you that there isn't any tool you are forced to use. right?
What bothers me about it is that there are very few computer newbies around. Most linux newbies come from Windows, and the RH model (followed by quite a few others too) seems to be "make linux look like Windows". I don't see any efforts to teach the unix ways (examples: stdin/stdout, X server vs. X client, text! text! text! config files...). Creating Windows all over again going the wrong way.
You really need to go out more if you think there aren't a lot of computer newbies around. Linux newbies may come from the Windows, Macintosh or Big Blue sky world. There is no need for them ro become deft sysadmins to use their Linux box, unless they plan to follow that unfortunate career path (oops, gratuitous flamebait >:-). Although, I'm not sure what you mean by "Unix ways" (which UN*X? SysV flavored or BSD flavored?), you can find the kind of documentation you request here [redhat.com], there and [redhat.com]everywhere [redhat.com]. I don't know how they could go about "teaching" it, but then again, I never took of the courses they offer...
And, frankly, all this talk of "making it look like Windows" is quite boring and inaccurate. The only default installation that tried to mimic the Windows look was that fvwm95 thing by RH, but they have moved out from it a long time ago. Even then, you still had the option to customize it, right?
--
Re:Cygwin32 (read to mount c:\ as /) (Score:1)
who's being silly? I said I hadn't looked, and it is true that it's something that changed between B20 and 1.1, a change that I think is a mistake... sheesh! Don't be silly ;)
Re:Cygwin32 (Score:1)
I don't want to make a big deal about this, but that line strikes me as emblematic of why programmers (and particularly unix) are considered un-userfriendly. First, that's not the reason that I want it or use it. I want Unix-like tools (bash, emacs, grep, etc.) in the Windows environment. If I didn't want the Windows environment, I'd just run linux. From cygwin's bash you can launch DOS/windows apps, such as Perl, but it is totally screwed up if the pathnames are wrong.
But second, don't make something incompatible that doesn't need to be. There's no particular overlap between windows's default directory names and Cygwin's, so they live quite nicely superimposed atop one another. And, I like using bash filename completion. It would be even nicer if they'd convert the slashes, because some programs (perl for the scriptfile name) won't take 'em the bash way.
I have no use for software that hides the Windows environment... or as I said, I already have it: Linux (yes, or one of the BSDs, or even others).
Re:Cygwin32 (read to mount c:\ as /) (Score:1)
major issue for development? (Score:2)
Putting it on Slashdot is like shooting gophers with a double-barreled shotgun. Sure, it'll probably solve the problem, but the gore left behind will disgust messy.
Dont Try here (Score:1)
Cygnus (Score:5)
Note that Cygnus isn't just some greedy corporation -- it employs many of the hard-core free software engineers which make up the FSF. These people aren't being held at gunpoint to work there -- they work there because they think it's a great deal to be employed full-time to contribute to free software.
When Cygnus "took control" of gcc from RMS, it was for very good reason. RMS had not been competently maintaining the source tree, and many would-be code contributors who had good solutions to genuine problems were getting increasingly disgusted. The more gung-ho of them formed splinter groups, while others simply walked away. It was a bad situation, and Cygnus dealt with it by starting their own source repository, contributing several remarkable improvements (like Jim Wilson's gcse), and going out of their way to gather up the various splinter-groups that RMS had alienated.
Many people got very excited over the "Experimental GNU Compiler System" and stopped even bothering to submit their code updates to RMS's "official" repository. When RMS finally relented and told Cygnus to go ahead and take over the job, he had essentially a dead project on his hands.
Cygnus is full of genuine FSF engineers trying to do what is best for free software. They are not outsiders trying to take things over.
Disclaimer: I am not in any way affiliated with Cygnus or RedHat. In fact, I pretty much despise RedHat
-- Guges --
Re:This /. article is blody useless without the UR (Score:1)
If you read the article again you will see that is states that Sokolevs writings are on his ftp site, and there is also a link to the ftp site. I seems to be slashdoted already, so try here [gnu.org] instead.
It may point at a problem, but not one at Cygnus.. (Score:5)
In general, I like to recommend that people do a little research [google.com] before they take what Michael says too literally. Unfortunately, Google seems to have got bored with Michael's magnum opus [adfa.edu.au] (the page in which he describes his love for the GNU project [adfa.edu.au] is particularly fun), but it still lists many of the other [netbsd.org] mailing [flora.org] lists [egroups.com] Michael has tortured over the years.
GCC and EGCS history (Score:4)
Cygwin32 (Score:3)
Re:Cygnus (Score:1)
All I can say is (this is truly simplistic but it works) I have the source to EGCS and if they ever deside to go real psycho I am sure some talented people will step up and continue the work on EGCS, Yes it may not be as perfect for stability but I am not really worried, it is a bit complicated and can probably make things a bit more annoying to develop for EGCS but I cant see anything critically wrong with it... Anyone who can do useful work on a compiler has to be extremly knowledgeable in things most people dont even know about so.. until they start violating the GPL or really becoming a negative influence on Opensource lets just keep an eye on things?
Jeremy
Sokolov's article completely wrong, says GCC ppl (Score:2)
Re:International Free Computing Task Force? (Score:1)
Mr. Alienmole Ultra-Mega-Special Agent Zeroth International Free Computing Task Force
thx -nt (Score:1)
Crazy (Score:4)
He's obsessed with 4.3BSD, and is trying to recreate pristine sources of it so as to continue to use it well into the next millenium (with as few modifications as possible, of course).
He thinks that 10BaseT is the "evil intruder" in the world of network cabling; 10Base2 is acceptable, but 10Base5 is the One True Cable.
He made his own version of gzip and switched one of the bytes in the header; it's incompatible, but it's Sokolovian.
How do I know this? He used to work at CWRU [cwru.edu] before he made death threats against the president and VP of IS. Then they threw him in the nuthouse. Apparently he's loose again and on the rampage.
Not an accurate article (Score:3)
Re:International Free Computing Task Force? (Score:3)
I'd recomend you check out John Marshall's comment [slashdot.org] for more info...
Thad
And this is news how? (Score:2)
He's not the only one who would like to see a full 'tree' release, but he's probably the only one who considers it some massive coverup and mismanagement that has to be dealt with as opposed to just different project groups having different release schedules.
-- Bryan Feir
Partly a CVS problem. (Score:2)
http://www.bitmover.com/bitkeeper/bk03.html
Creating a monolithic CVS repository is one answer, but its not the only answer.
Re:International Free Computing Task Force? (Score:1)
Bruce Blackshaw
Chief Special Agent
First International Free Computing Task Force
Re:Cygwin32 (read to mount c:\ as /) (Score:1)
Re:Warrants discussion? (Score:1)
I'm curious though, is your
Re:Cygnus (Score:2)
You still have the option to not use linuxconf And RedHat had the option not to include it, and you had the option not to post, but you did and they did. So what? AFAIK, RedHat fully endorses the linuxconf approach to sysadmin, an approach that is more monolithic even than Microsoft's control panel, not to mention it works less well. And, I don't even like Microsoft or Windows. [...]
Talk about twisting words: what I said, and I'll stand by it, is that Redhat is not forcing you to use to use linuxconf(1). Heavens, it is not even forcing you to install it. For all they care, you could install a plain vanilla, no X, GNU/Linux box and proceed to hack /etc with ed(1) to your heart's content, if that's your idea of the True Un*x Ways [TM] . OTOH, I am at a loss as to what you think they sould do: beat the people who wrote linuxconf(1) (remember, this isn't something that they wrote in their backyard)? Beat the people who think it is cool and want to use it? Like I said, which is it, mac?
And to be quite honest, I'm still confused by what you mean by monolithic, dictionary notwithstanding. You can use linuxconf(1) from X or from a terminal. You can use the "monolithic" interface, or call any of the specific tools: netconf(1), userconf(1) etc. Hell, it even tells you what it's doing for some stuff, like the system info shit it gets from /proc. How is that monolithic?
Mind you, I'm telling you all this after an apt-get install which worked flawlessly on my Debian system. After having had a second look at it, I think I might even begin to use it and like it. Like I said, it reminds me a little of smit(1) (do you even know what that is?) and, since sysadmin is only marginally related to my job, it makes this heavy but unavoidable burden a little lighter to bear. I see nothing wrong with that.
You proceed to say:
To this discussion, I contributed information gleaned from my user experience: I edited some files in /etc, and they were unedited with no warning by a configuration tool that I used after that. That never
happened in the old RedHat distros and I'm dismayed at the change. To this discussion you didn't
contribute anything. If you only have experience with old versions of RedHat, you've nothing to say
here.
Could I be wrong about my experience? Yes, perhaps I inadvertantly overwrote that file. I'd love to hear from someone with up to date info explain that I must be wrong. But you're not him.
Don't be so sure about that, gal. I've been using Redhat since late '94 (and I used Slackware before that too), I've seen it come around quite a lot (remember Red Baron?). If you would mind telling me what did you change, how and why, I might be able to help.
You finish it with this:
My claim was that the vast majority of new linux users already are familiar with Windows. Are you claiming otherwise? Make a different claim of your own, or shut up. Your nattering is irritating.
Slow down, Sally. You replied to a post of mine in which I chastised an AC post unfairly modded up that dissed RedHat for bogus reasons. All I'm trying to say is that RH gets a bad rap from ACs and cluebies who try to sound "experienced" or "leet" by dissing them. I find that very irritating. And you are right, I have no reason to infer that the majority of Linux newbies come from the Windows world. AFAIK, they might as well come from no-computerland (think teenage pre-geeks who just got a PC from Dad here). The sad thing is that six months after successfully installing SuSE, they finally manage to install Slackware (or FreeBSD, nowadays), suddenly think their super-gurus and start to dismiss RH users as newbies. Pathetic, really.
--
Not really a CVS problem. (Score:1)
Regarding Bitkeeper, yeah it's nice, but it isn't free software, and the FSF requires the official archives of GNU projects to be run with 100% free software. So it is not an option at this time.
Re:Interestingly (Score:1)
You might want to look at:
- http://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html [gnu.org]
- http://gcc.gnu.org/gccmission.html [gnu.org]
- http://gcc.gnu.org/releases.html#timeline [gnu.org]
for more details on the exact relationship between GCC development, the FSF, and Red Hat.Try here (Score:3)
The Matrix (Score:2)
The Cygnus tree is of course the Matrix. I think I'll jump in.
Anybody have that file in cache? /.'d. (Score:1)
Re:/.ed already..? (Score:1)
Well, then, here's my bit of karma-whoring for the day; I yanked my copy out of cache and dumped it here [xoom.com].:)
The copy from the gcc mailinglist (Score:1)
Re:Cygwin32 (Score:3)
Please buy a dictionary (Score:1)
This /. article is blody useless without the URL (Score:1)
Re:Cygwin32 (Score:1)
Interestingly (Score:2)
[paulm@beefcake package]$ nslookup gcc.gnu.org
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: gcc.gnu.org
Address: 205.180.83.71
[paulm@beefcake package]$ nslookup sources.redhat.com
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: sources.redhat.com
Address: 205.180.83.71
Is it as simple as that? (Score:1)
Is it a good idea to have them so interdependent?
What I mean is that not everyone who uses GCC wants to use gdb, are there any possible gotchas involved in making them all share so much? I realise they have already been part of this tree for a wile, but that doesn't mean there can't be problems that have already been introduced (does it?)
I'm not trying to argue against merging anything, as I know next to nothing about the internals of any of the tools, I'm just curious.
thanks to anyone who can give an answer,
jon
--
Re: Redhat (was: Re: Cygnus) (Score:1)
Generally I mistrust every Linux company that goes public. Which means they work more for the shareholder than for the customer...
No conspiracy for god sakes (Score:3)
And what was it with the leadin about conspiracies. There is nothing conspiratorial about this, just some historical hiccups.
C.
Re:Read the article first! (was Re:Interestingly) (Score:1)
Re:Cygnus (Score:2)
But then you spoiled it all with your lame "disclaimer", which is neither funny nor accurate. What monolithic config apps are you talking about? In what does RH prevent you from mangling the whole of /etc with vi(1)? How is RH strongarming the competition or ruining compatibility with others (not SuSE, Mandrake or Caldera, for sure)? Can you pinpoint the incompatibilities between the lates RH beta and "potato" for instance? Or is this incompatibility you're talking about mainly with some other [slackware.com] distro (which used to be very popular a long time ago), that is, incidentally also incompatible with all the other distros I mentioned. Now, is it really RH's fault?
More to the point, what is it that bothers you so much about Redhat apart from the fact that they try to make GNU/Linux palatable to newbies? And if it's that fact mostly, then I have to ask you why?
--
Re:No conspiracy for god sakes (Score:1)
Upon reading this article, I also realized that there really wasn't a conspiracy. But, I've actually built my own build of egcs in the past year or so, and noticed the 'Cygnus tree' phenomenon, and was kind of wondering what was up. It's interesting to get an internal glimpse of the organization of a project with which I'm unfamiliar.
I'm trying to build an open source project that has more contributors than myself right now, and it's interesting to see how other projects happen.