Tridge wins 2005 Free Software Award 117
johnsu01 writes "The Free Software Foundation has announced the winner of the 2005 Award for the Advancement of Free Software. The winner, Andrew Tridgell, wins the prize for his work on Samba, the Linux kernel, and rsync. In his work on Samba and on a free software client for the proprietary version control system previously used by the Linux kernel hackers, Tridgell furthered what has been an important goal of the free software movement since the founding of GNU --- analyzing ways for free software to interact with the currently widespread proprietary systems so people can more easily move away from those systems."
well done (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's not forget his gift to the Tivo hackers (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget his gift to the Tivo hackers (Score:1)
Hooray Tridge! Hooray beer!
The FSF shows its true colors (Score:3, Insightful)
Tridge's work with Samba is certainly worthy of recognition. It's just the way in which the FSF chose to grant that recognition that I have a problem with.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:4, Insightful)
The open source community turned on McVoy. It never had a cooperative setup with Microsoft in the first place.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2)
There's no possible chance that you'd predecided what you thought of this, were you?
So go on, tell us why Tridge shouldn't have won the award.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:1)
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:1)
Because, yeah, the "community" was friends with Bitkeeper and we somehow are anti-commercial because they withdrew their free licensing deal. Or something. I don't even get your point.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2)
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:3, Interesting)
This is all moot anyway, since the FSF never denied [gnu.org] that it sees itself outside of any "open source community", so they would not be part of any commitment of this community to McVoy.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:1)
If that's co-operation, I'll take MS's FUD, thanks.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2)
No, the FSF is fundamentally hostile to misrepresenting assholes who think their shit don't stink. Here's a news bulletin for you: proprietary standards are bad, mm-kay?
They're also fundamentally hostile to non-Free software. Not non-free, non-Free. This is a good thing. And more importantly, it's not a secret.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:1)
Why is it that everyone but RMS and his slavish followers think there's a place for both open source and proprietary software in the world?
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2)
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2)
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:1)
Nobody who actually takes the time to read any of the FSF's introductory material [gnu.org] (e.g. the GPL's preamble, or The GNU Manifesto, or their "What is Free Software?" article) will have any confusion about the issue. The people who are confused are those who pass judgement on things without spending more than 250 milliseconds thinking about them.
Hell, the first thing you see when you visit the FS [fsf.org]
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming you're not trolling, your argument is essentially a straw man. The reality is that the FSF is hostile to proprietary software, which should hardly be a surprise.
If the FSF were opposed to commercial software, I doubt the GPL (the current version, as well as the GPLv3 draft) would say this:
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2, Insightful)
REAlly.
Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.
Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. (link [gnu.org])
So, straight from the horse's mouth, we can se
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:1)
And no, that's not what Red Hat, Novell, et al are doing. They're making money by building and packaging GPLed software.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:1)
It depends on what your definition of "sell" is. If "sell" is strictly defined as number of licenses sold, then no, it's pretty hard to live off of Free software. But there are other ways to "sell" your software. Bram Cohen lived off Paypal donations for a while, where those who gave money were "buying" continued developme
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:3, Informative)
What they are friendly to is services based software, more of consulting nature:
-- one off apps for specific clients (client gets the source)
-- custom implementations
-- support contracts
etc...
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:1)
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2)
Open source software, that is low initial cost and high implementation costs strikes me as a better model for American IT workers than closed source.
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2)
No, it's not. It's a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization [fsf.org].
Re:The FSF shows its true colors (Score:2)
Hostile in this case is just the incorrect word, the FSF, supports and promotes free software, and naturally enough acknowledges those who make signifcant contributions to it. The FSF has no real business acknowl
Trying to find the detailed story... (Score:4, Insightful)
BUT, the real story is REALLY interesting...and I can't find it, now! The story talked about how he experimented with all of the bits and bytes to get the software to work. A lot of stuff in the beginning was hard coded and everytime MS released a new version, he had to rush to fix shit, until he figured out how things really worked.
Shit! I wish I could find that story again. It really explained how to reverse engineer stuff!
"How Samba was written" (Score:5, Informative)
There's also Tridgell's Myths about Samba [groklaw.net].
Not quite ;) (Score:1)
Thank you!
Strange Politics (Score:2, Interesting)
I truly do appreciate everything SAMBA has going for it and hell, hats off to Tridge, but is it kinda weird that FSF gives him this award after being almost blamed for the bitkeeper diplomatic breakdown? (especially with how vocal RMS was regarding bitkeeper's use in Linux development)
Re:Strange Politics (Score:2)
Reading between the lines it seems to be a reward for inducing BitMover to drop their free service for Linux.
Given subsequent events [lwn.net] with mercurial [selenic.com] I think this is probably a Good Thing (tm)
Re:Strange Politics (Score:2)
To say that Tridge got the award because the FSF wanted to recognise his "role" in getting rid of Bitkeeper is offensive, in my opinion - that's basically writing off all the other contributions he's made to the free software community merely to have a go at the FSF. I would like to hear people's suggestions of someone *more* worthy to win than Tridge - I can't think of anyone off the top of my head.
Re:Strange Politics (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not disagreeing that Tridge is deserving; it's just that the FSF chose to recognize him in part for work that advances their own political, anti-commercial agenda, and that is what I find offensive.
Re:Strange Politics (Score:2)
Re:Strange Politics (Score:2, Insightful)
Awarded with... (Score:2, Interesting)
Framing the question in a more familiar way (Score:2, Funny)
2.
3.
4. Win FSF Award
5. Profit!!!
Unlikely.
Peer recognition means something. (Score:2)
He was one of the people I had hoped would win, in particular because of the pro-software freedom behavior he showed during Linus Torvalds' time spent with Bitkeeper. Andrew Tridgell was working on a free software program to let users pull data from Bitkeeper repositories, despite Torvalds' protestations. I think that Tridge's reverse engineering work on Bitkeeper and in Microsoft Windows printer/file sharing is import
Re:Peer recognition means something. (Score:2)
Tridge or Tridgell? (Score:1)
But is it Tridge or Tridgell? Is spelt both ways in the article, but in samba.org seem to call him Tridge.
--
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Re:Tridge or Tridgell? (Score:2)
Re:Tridge or Tridgell? (Score:4, Informative)
man rsync
man samba
(or check out an equivalent webpage on rsync [hmug.org], or samba [samba.org])
In the "Author" section he always writes it:
Andrew Tridgell (that's the name used in the wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org], too).
In the examples section of rsync, however, he writes:
rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nim-bus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba"
So I guess he uses "tridge" as a nickname for himself.
Handed Out at the GPLv3 Launch (Score:3, Interesting)
This was actually awarded ages ago (OK, more like a week ago) at the GPLv3 launch. I happened to be sitting one row in front of where he was sitting when they called him up (which was kinda neat, I guess). I never did get to see what the actual award was there because the thing was rolled up, and he never unrolled. So it's nice to see the picture on the website.
I'll have to check to see if I have any pictures of the award ceremony. I think I might have one of him actually holding the thing. However I haven't gotten around to dumping my camera yet, so I'm not sure.
They should also be announcing (any day now) the winner of the FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software [fsf.org], which was also awarded at the GPLv3 launch. If I had been paying closer attention, I could tell you if it was Wikimedia that won, or Wikipedia. I think I also have pictures of that award being accepted.
Fantastic (Score:3, Informative)
Anytime the creator and developers of this project get recognition it's a good thing.
I, for one, can hardly wait for a stable release of v4.
Congrats to Andrew (Score:2)
More about Tridge (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tridgell [wikipedia.org]
http://samba.org/~tridge [samba.org]
Congratulations Tridge (Score:4, Insightful)
Tridge is huge (Score:1)
This award is going downhill fast... (Score:3, Interesting)
In all seriousness, though, I just set up a diskless router based on OpenBSD that saves its state to flash using rsync. So these awards are spot-on, at least as far as I am concerned. And on the heels of Samba 4, too. Great work, tridge!
Midland Tridge (Score:1)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:1)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:1)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Does the commitment extend to me, a user of Linux?
I doubt that OSDL or Tridgell knowingly agreed to any such commitment.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
1) I work for Burger King3
2) You work for Ford
3) I agree with you that Burget King should promote Ford cars. I never indicate to you I have authority to negotiate on behalf or Burger King.
4) You give me $50 and say "I'm glad we have a deal"
5) Burger King doesn't promote Ford
6) Ford sues Burger King based on the contract
7) Ford loses since
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Larry McVoy got a bunch of cheap advertising for his software, then he threw a hissy fit when someone tried to interoperate with it. He's a twit.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, an alternate headline could have been 'Stallman Gives Torvalds The Finger.'
[1] Bruce Perens, if you're reading this, don't try telling me that they're the same. Only people in the Open Source community believe that, not people in the Free Software community, and if they were truly the same then both sides would have to agree.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
You say you understand the difference between the two, and yet see yourself in both camps -- lots of OSS advocates say
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
Reverse what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Which version of history are we now supporting?
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
He also showed me how dangerious it is to deal with one particular licenser.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
Its a shame because Linus has actually made a tremendous contribution to free software. An award for him from the FSF might actually get the FSF into the popular media.
And BitMover could have been the BitTorrent of the source control world, if they had opened their protocols. Instead we get this security by obsurity bullshit from them.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
What do you think Cox got the award for? Clearly the FSF recognizes the importance of Linus's work.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
Equating Alan Cox to "Linux" in that context just supports the theory that they'd rather award Linux dude #2 an award for Linux than "the man" because they don't like him personally...
smash.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
Guy #1 manages the project but on the whole opposes the goals for the FSF. The award would do nothing for him.
Guy #2 wrote many of the key components and does a lot of work intigrating with other open source projects and assists the goals for the FSF. The award will have a strong impact for him.
Is it so unreasonable to pick guy #2?
Re:Destructive vs constructive (Score:2)
Tridgell never entered into a license agreement with BitMover, and whether license agreements entered by other ODSL employees extended automatically to Tridge is pretty questionable.
if you don't like the licence you use something else.
Right, sourcepuller [sourceforge.net].
Re:Destructive vs constructive (Score:2)
You do realise that statement can be interpreted as it being OK to use any piece of software on a network you have access to without respecting it's licence?
If you use the software (even if you telnet to the port it listens on and type "help") you should respect it's licence if you expect others to respect yours. Now Tridgell m
Re:Destructive vs constructive (Score:2)
What Tridgell did was access packets being transmitted over a network and access ports on a computer with the permission of the computer and network owner. From this information, he reverse engineered how the bitkeeper client worked without ever touching the bitkeeper client.
If you think this is inappropriate, i hope you aren't using Samba, because that's exactly the way samba was created.
Re:Destructive vs constructive (Score:2)
Logging in and typing "help" IS using the software. Please at least get familiar with the major details before saying something did or didn't happen - Tridge was considered to be bound by the licence because he was working for a company that was granted a licence. If I was to consider myself legally free to make copies of MS Windows software purchased by my workplace it would be just as stupid as those who are saying T
Re:Destructive vs constructive (Score:3, Interesting)
as you yourself pointed out, he telnetted to a port and typed "help". that no more binds him to the license for the software than i am bound to sendmail's license if i telnet to it's port and play with the available commands. If I were to telnet to a public port on a machine a friend owns and play around with the commands available to me, and it happened to be t
Re:Destructive vs constructive (Score:2)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:1, Interesting)
I want to make a car-comparison here, but it's been done too many times by now. Instead, I'm just gonna ask moderators to mod you down, troll.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
Tridge knew the terms under which BitKeeper had been licensed to the kernel development team. And, even though he wasn't using it, and hadn't agreed to them, he knew what his actions would cause. He deliberately forced the issue, effectively making the decision fo
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
Yes, leaders tend to do that.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:1)
no, he's guilty of vandalism, regardless of who's taking responsibility. Your analogy is crap because if McVoy didn't exist, nobody anywhere could reproach Tridge for his actions.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
How was he to know that? He was just trying to reverse engineer the protocol, why should that lead to McVoy not allowing the kernel people to use it? What does he have to do with the people who have accepted the license?
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as I can tell, the switch took a lot of Linus's attention, so nothing got done on putting changes in for a month, but development continued approximately as before, and then there was a period where Linus was applying patches blazingly fast, because they'd been developed and tested while he was doing git (and he designed git so he could apply and commit patches faster than 1/second).
Re:Hmmmm (Score:1)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No doubt Tridge should get the award this year (Score:2)
My Dad sometimes plays chess with him(if you dont know Tridge is into chess and has written a chess engine called KnightCap). Apparently the last time they play Tridge kick my Dads ass
Re:No doubt Tridge should get the award this year (Score:1)
Re:Free Software (Score:3, Insightful)
Cars are free in the sense that you can examine components and build your own extensions to them. You don't need permission from Ford to build and sell towbars for Ford cars.
Binary interfaces make this next to impossible with software.
Re:Free Software (Score:1)
Re:Free Software (Score:2)
Free (as in Beer) is a side affect of Free (as in Freedom). I have to have the source to be free to modify it.
Re:Free Software (Score:1)
However, the very existence of free software is evidence that a sufficient number of people are, even discounting the fact that many people are actually paid to produce free software.
Also, bear in mind that most of the cost of the Ford is for the physical object, not the design, whereas for software the cost of the physical object may well be nil and it is o
Re:Free Software (Score:2, Informative)
From the Debian project's "about" page:
Most software costs over 100 US dollars. How can you give it away? [debian.org]
A better question is how do software companies get away with charging so much? Software is not like making a car. Once you've made one copy of your software, the production costs to make a million more are tiny (there's a good reason Micros
Re:Free Software (Score:2)