This makes me wonder if it isn't time for a new -core.
-----Original Message-----
From: Maxim Hermion [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 12:30 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Where is FreeBSD going?
I've been an avid follower of the developments in FreeBSD for around 5
years now, so my overview of the entire history of "glue that binds"
FreeBSD together isn't complete. That said, I've come to be a bit
disappointed at how events in the last 18 months or so seem to be
pushing the project in a direction that has made things more difficult,
instead of
more successful, that has shown distain for experience and quality and
made FreeBSD a platform for large ego's to push their personal projects
down
everyone's throat.
The statistics sample from 2001 over a year was a cheap attempt to
minimize Matt's contribution to the project. The reason why he has been
mostly silent is probably one of the most prominent signs of his
superior maturity. The fact that the official defense (mostly fronted by
Greg,
atm)
he wasn't such a substantial committer is crap, for the most part. If
one wanted to go by the stats, Jeff Robertson (sorry if I munged the
spelling)
would be one of the key committers, and his UMA system isn't even
entirely
ripe yet, it's just been committed within the sample timeframe. That
suddenly phk is at the top of the list, is simple a result of his newest
attempt to add another large chunk of bit rot to the project that he can
later claim not to have time to maintain "unless someone is willing to
pay for my time" (like the atm bits, the half-finished devd monster,
et.al.) One can hardly get him to look at his malloc bits, that put his
name in lights at some point in the long past.
Matt didn't contribute because he was convinced that that the smp
development direction that was chosen (my impression at least from the
archives and my fading memory) was overly complex, too complex for the
number and talent level of the contributers involved, and that it would
delay a release from the -current branch significantly. So he was right.
I'll almost bet that that was a constant sore for John, who still hasn't
gotten his long-promised, but little delivered re-entrant work done, but
he always had time enough to object to any other commits that might help
along the way. Strangely Julian and Matt could work together. One might
attribute certain commits to both Matt and Julian (if that would matter
anyway, since -core is interested in proving the opposite
statistically).
If the issue here had anything to do with IPFW, then you all better get
out your C-coder hats and take a little more time to fix that rotting
pile of muck that has been the standard broken packet filter interface
for FreeBSD long past its possible usefulness. A packet filter with no
central maintainer which is subject to once yearly random feature bloat
through some wild university project from Luigi. The brokenness that
Luigi introduced (and the repository bloat through backing out and
recommitting, ad absurdum) was probably no less a threat to security
than anything Matt did. If the security officer was to be blatantly
honest with himself, ipfw would be marked broken for either a full audit
or full removal (just port obsd's pf or something that someone actually
actively _cares_ about).
You've alienated Jordan, Mike, Bill Paul (for all I can see), Greenman,
you constantly rag on Terry, even though he's seen and done more with
FreeBSD than most of you, O'Brien is on the verge of quitting (since he,
like I, am not convinced that GEOM is anything more than an ego trip
that will never be completely maintained or usefully documented). There
are certainly others, too, that have attempted to make technically
correct contributions, but didn't fit into the sort of paranoid "glee
club" that core would like to have around them. You guys lack the
talent to steer the positive from Matt into the project and let the crap
fall by the wayside. I'm not saying Matt's rants are the most
intelligent thing he's done, but he's sat by the wayside and watch the
superstars beat up the code to a point where it's less stable, slower,
and more bloated than it ever was. I, for one, can understand his
frustration (as I can with Mike's, Jordan's, and a few others), although
I find his method of expressing it extreme, I often wished he'd have
just visited the offenders personally with a clue bat.
All in all, history will judge if -core has made the right decision. I
personally believe it was a decision made in weakness. The loss the
project as a whole will suffer is greater than the bruised ego's the
-core has had to deal with in its communications with Matt. Matt was an
extremist, but he put up or shut up. I wish I could say that for most of
-core. This is a personality confict in a technical project. I'd say
that most of you take this just as personally as Matt did, but instead
of insulting him in a moment of anger, you shoot off your own respective
feet, lose a good deal of experience and embarass the man publicly. You
talk the talk of respect, but you aren't walking the walk. I'd say most
of you need thicker skin. In the end, FreeBSD folk will walk smiling
though the streets, but the project will become a cult of likeable
people, instead of one that achieved technical excellence. That will,
imho, be what history says of the current -core. Hint: lose the
touchy-feely, hack the code.
Sincerely,
Maxim Hermion
FreeBSD committer
PS: if I've offended anyone (yeah, I singled a few out), prove me wrong,
but spare me your insultedness. It's become a pathetic hobby in -core.
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