Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 14:19:18 +0900 (JST) From: Michael Hancock <michaelh@cet.co.jp> To: Chris Csanady <ccsanady@nyx.pr.mcs.net> Cc: FreeBSD Hackers <hackers@freebsd.org> Subject: Accomodating Terry (was Feasibility of porting Linux filesystem code?) Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.95.970418110118.28979C-100000@parkplace.cet.co.jp> In-Reply-To: <199704170606.BAA10948@nyx.pr.mcs.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, 17 Apr 1997, Chris Csanady wrote: > > >1) Since FreeBSD is not a democracy, we should all agree on technical > >terms to arrange this problem. There is this fs list that has almost no > >volume of use, so I guess we have seen little technical arguments. > > Speaking of the relative inactivity on the filesystems list, I find it > ironic that we have not found a way to integrate Terry's work yet. He > seems to be one of the few people that has a grasp of all the issues > involved, and has tried to fix some of them. I seriously doubt that > Terry has anything but good intentions. From all the posts and email I > have seen from him, I'd have to say that he is fairly experienced > when it comes to filesystems and SMP, and has proposed some valuable I don't know, maybe Terry needs to read C.A.Hoare's Turing award speech "The Humble Programmer". Terry is very confident and probably rightly so, but over-confident programmers are often percieved as programmers who, though highly skilled, potentially make big mistakes and this probably leads to such wide spread distrust. I've campaigned in private e-mail for Terry to work on a separate branch of the CVS repository and the chief architect and others in core were open to the idea. This was a time when Terry was on the mailing lists venting vitriolic remarks against USRG. Terry continued with his public diatribes and self promotion during the discussion so I just assumed that the separate branch stategy wouldn't fly. Freebsd-Current seems to be the only place Terry will accept for his patches and anything other than current is considered an insult. I could be wrong, its probably something more complex. Terry is very knowledgeable about filesystems, but he isn't always right. While he often admits he isn't always right, with incredible energy he will usually argue his position to seemingly no end. If you are going to try to stand toe to toe with Terry over an issue you need to be able to follow him through various meta levels of the discussion topic and frequently to abstract jumpspace. On the evolutionary vs. revolutionary scale Terry is on the revolutionary side of things. Most core members are on the evolutionary side of things and this is why the things like the SMP work is done in a separate branch. It is desirable that large changes are reviewed by others before they are committed to the Current. Reviewing Terry's changes is no small task and would be very time consuming for any involved because there aren't enough fs experts around. Reviews are an excellent means to have an effective system of checks and balances in place to ensure the highest quality code. If Terry had a separate branch to work in the reviews could be relaxed and he could work at full speed at some cost to the quality of the end result. However, I think there are people interested to track the tree and offer testing time. I'm very interested in seeing what Terry comes up with. We have excellent tools such as CVS and CVSup and though they are not perfect I think they can be used to accomodate people sitting on opposite sides of the evolution vs. revolution poles. Can we do the new fs technology branch or does somebody have a better idea? More importantly. Terry, are you even willing to work in a separate branch of the repository or is Current the only thing acceptable? Regards, Mike Hancock -- Speaking for myself, a bystander. Please do not take this as the opinion of someone representing the FreeBSD organization.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.SV4.3.95.970418110118.28979C-100000>