Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 08:11:40 +0100 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@freebsd.org> To: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) Cc: jkh@freebsd.org (Jordan K. Hubbard), rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com, phk@freefall.cdrom.com, mark@grondar.za, wollman@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Crypt code summary(2). Message-ID: <6420.804237100@whisker.internet-eireann.ie> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 26 Jun 1995 20:35:07 MDT." <9506270235.AA01284@cs.weber.edu>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> That's not what I implied. I implied a lack of interest, not "interest > but a lack of willingness". That's not what your little summary of all the groups's "motivation" (or lack thereof) implied to me, but we can skip it. It's not worth arguing over, truly. > Arrogance is another topic entirely, and the failure attributable to > it is names "Merge", not "Consortium" (and no, I'm not *willing* to > go down that thread again). I'm glad of that because I'd argue that point as well.. :-) I said it many times, both during and after those proceedings: If there was any way for the parties to work together without tearing BOTH groups apart through internal strife and an inherent inability to even like each other, much less work together, then we'd have done it. Everyone on the outside was, in turn, pushing like some sort of demented Hedda Gabbler style match-maker who just couldn't believe that her pairing up of the Grand Dragon of the Klu-Klux-Klan and Whitney Houston wasn't going to work out. "But with his organizational abilities and her voice, it would be a match made in heaven!" she continued to gush. "What's a little difference in politics got to do with anything?" Arrogance really didn't enter into it, and it's really overly simplistic of you to think that it did. These are volunteers here Terry, in case you've forgotten. You can't get the Moose Lodge to meet every saturday for drinks and socialization if they all hate one another's guts. I never could figure out how everyone found this so bloody hard to understand at the time. Must have been something in the water. [And before you even think it, we didn't fail to get along simply due to being "rivals" and it wouldn't take Sigmund Freud to quickly ascertain that the two groups of people simply have SERIOUSLY divergent styles and age groupings]. > I agree with this, to an extent. I can name some examples quite close > to home: the original 386BSD FAQ and patchkit, both of which I foisted > off on the first willing/unsuspecting people to come along who stood a > chance (IMO) of keeping it going at the right level. And the three of us have never quite forgiven you for it, either.. :-) > Well, Rod is burning in my dual processor P90 right now (ask him if > you don't believe me). Oh, I don't doubt that you're thinking of jumping in, I'm just a little tired of the continued "I'm coming in soon! I am! How's the water? Cold? Should I wear the bathing cap? If I toss in a thermometer, would someone mind reading the temperature to me? Does anyone see any snapping turtles sitting on the bottom? You know, this reminds me of another water hole I used to use back during my salad days at RAND, why we used to gather 'round every Sunday and..." >From our perspective, what we get from you are multi-page missives but virtually nothing in the way of diffs. Try to see it through our eyes, Terry! It's hardly impatience when it's gone on for YEARS, and I think I can reasonably say that the burden of proof is quite fairly and squarely on you at this point. I'm not going to poison the well with undue cynicism, but I do think that some of the feelings of frustration that I and others feel is more than reasonably well founded. 3 or 6 months is one thing, but we're not talking about 3 to 6 months, are we? > Feel free to ask Jeffrey Hsu what is currently going on with him, if > he's willing to comment. I will. I know he's got an important project going, but judging by some of the other abortive projects that have come (and gone) before, I'm not exactly going to hold this up in lieu of actual, tangible progress. No slight to Jeff intended or implied, but my viewpoint is an entirely reasonable one. When he has something to share with us then I'm sure that he will. Until he does, however, I'm not going to go around telling everyone that Jeff's a god and is going to save the world tomorrow and, to his credit, Jeff doesn't appear to be doing so either! > Feel free to ask Sean Eric Fagan what joint project we have up our > sleeves, though I'd rather it not be made too public right now. See above. I'm sure you have 27 different projects up your sleeve right now. When one bears demonstrable fruit, call me! I'll be happy to send you a six pack of fine beer just for proving me wrong.. :-) > I just barely finished reviewing someone else's manuscript for > Prentice Hall; it was a much more time consuming job than I had > expected. Naerly 6 Months of free time; expect to see the book > "UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers" in bookstores soon. I highly > recommend it for its comparative look at many UNIX implementations. Well, I won't kick it out of bed. I'll keep my eyes open for it. > Meanwhile, Sean has seen one pre-release game of several, and everyone > on the FreeBSD Core and XFree86 mailing lists at least had opportunity > (even if they didn't exercise it) to see the first Alpha of Mimic, my > Motif library clone. Now c'mon, Terry. You're reaching for straws now. I did grab it and I saw that it wasn't anywhere near "there" enough for anything I'd want to use Motif for (e.g. compiling any sort of reasonably sized Motif-dependant software) so I went back to other things. Don't get me wrong, I know that everything's got to start somewhere, but you must admit that Mimic wasn't even really ALPHA by a long shot. ALPHA is a version of fully functioning software that may or may not have significant bugs and is perhaps missing some functionality around the edges. BETA is supposed to have the missing holes filled in and a few less bugs. RELEASE is supposed to have the last (known) bugs worked out and be as featureful as was planned for that release.. To release a credible Motif clone, you need to at least have fairly significant coverage of all the standard and commonly used primitives and header files, and Mimic doesn't even come close. So I'll give you full credit for a good project and a fine start, but please don't start saying silly things like "I released an ALPHA of Mimic, my Motif library clone" when both you and I know that what you REALLY did was release a snapshot of Mimic, your work-in-progress towards a Motif library clone. There's quite a difference! > On the other hand, places where I do only make comments, you can be > sure I have some sort of code concern or another in mind. Just because > I don't think something is release quality doesn't mean it's not there Not my point at all. I just want to see more concrete examples and less of "you guys could all rearchitect the frammitz and redo the glotch" sorts of postings. You seem to have this need to work in a corner and occasionally come out in a loud blare of trumpets and a cry of "follow me, men!" when it would seem far more practical to work a little more in the open light of day and let other people have a chance to actually see and PARTICIPATE in the day-to-day progress of a project. Imagine if we ran -current in such a fashion: No code was released, except perhaps once every 6 months or so when we felt like it, and all the other hackers had to go on were bits of forwarded email chit-chat between the various core team members things like "I'm rearchitecting the VM system guys! It's way cool!" "Yaaay! Go David!" and such. Everyone else would leave in disgust! Again, this is one of those hyper-obvious things that I'm having trouble figuring out why I should even have to mention it to you. Bill Jolitz did EXACTLY the same thing to us, which is perhaps why we're a little sensitive about it now. Doesn't make you any less guilty of it, mind you, but just to put things into further perspective. > I'd like to avoid providing opportunity for that kind of screwup again, > thank you. Well, one way of avoiding it would be to work openly and give people the chance to notice things like that BEFORE THEY HAPPEN! I know, I know, it's a crazy idea but it Might Just Work! :-) > Yes, I take a hundred paths at once; that doesn't mean I never reach > the end of any of them. Have some frigging patience! I haven't been Oh, I have Terry, believe me I have. But I think I also can't be blamed if that patience is wearing just a bit thin. I'm not the only one who thinks that the number and length of these delays has turned much of what you've talking about over the last 2 years into something of a running farce.. Wake up and smell the coffee! Why don't we simply agree to disgree on your methodology and whether or not you're ever going to come out of the hole to see your shadow and just wait and see? I'll agree that there's certainly no constructive effect to my flaming you to toast at this point, and if I reached some of my internal limits yesterday and went perhaps a bit too publically ballistic as a result, then I'll be the first to admit that I should probably back off and admit that even if I'm RIGHT in every single one of my assessments it really doesn't matter and I should shut up. You're not a horse who can be made to drink and I think we can all be comfortable with that conclusion.. :-) Jordan
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?6420.804237100>