Re: [ANNOUNCE] BK->CVS (real time mirror)

Nicolas Pitre
2003-03-12T19:11:18Z

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

> [BK is locking up our data]
> [BitMover has to give us our data in an open format]
> [The BK pill is oh-so-bitter]
> [My tummy hurts and it's Larry's fault]
>
> Boo hoo, cry me a river.
>
> Those of you complaining ought to at least look before you complain.
> You just assumed that we were screwing you and you couldn't be bothered
> to verify it before you complained. We didn't screw you at all, all
> the data is there.

Larry, please don't fall into that trap.

There will _always_ be people to whine at you. For _ever_, and even longer
if your business remains healthy.

There was a conflict issue before since one was forced into using BK in
order to have real time access to the very latest changeset in the reference
development kernel repository. Now that this issue has been resolved there
is rationally nothing else to complain about. Those who want to/can use BK
just do it, those who don't want to/can't use BK aren't penalized anymore
with regard to access to the very data they care about.

Oh then why are they still whining? Because they are humans with their own
ego, pride and beliefs. Maybe they are upset because you just removed the
best argument they had against BK up to now, maybe they have a hard time
convincing themselves that BK is superior because you managed to create a
favorable climate for its rapid development, maybe they are religious
extremists (read Free Software extremists) always about to go on a crusade
for the only True Way of living, etc. There's nothing you can do to help
those irrational issues besides just ignoring them. Linus himself just
mentioned recently that he's getting more and more effective at ignoring BSD
extremists for his Linux licensing choice. It's about time you do the same.

So please Larry don't let your feelings be trapped into critics that will
_never_ end. There will still be people to disagree with your licensing
decisions, to hate your business model, and to simply hate you. But if
_you_ know that you've made everything to make this part of the world a
better place then it should be enough to make you feel good. Seeking for
public rewards is mostly impossible as long as you're alive.

> The next time you open your mouth, the words that come out of it should be
> "thank you". Nothing else, just that.

Larry, I say "Thank you".

> If you can't say something nice, now is a good time to say nothing at all
> because we are sick and tired of dealing with people who complain far more
> than they code.

Then why do you let them turn you down? Why are those people so credible to
you so you feel you must listen to them?

> I'm serious, we've done way more than anyone could reasonably expect and
> you react with no basis in fact, assume bad things that aren't true, don't
> bother to look to see if there is a real problem, and don't bother to say
> thanks.

If you expect that aspect of human beings to change frankly you are
dreaming. I'm sorry to make it sound bad but that's reality. There will
_always_ be people to disagree and whine at something, and statistically
that something will be BK from time to time. Those who are happy with the
system usually just say nothing unfortunately and they go back to coding
right away.

Nicolas