Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone

Larry McVoy
2003-03-09T23:17:59Z

On Sun, Mar 09, 2003 at 04:54:02PM -0500, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Mar 2003 13:32:46 PST, Zack Brown <zbrown@tumblerings.org> said:
>
> > Of kernel developers, only Linus seems to have a clear idea of what the kerne
> l
> > development process' needs are; but aside from insisting that distribution
> > is key (which people in camp (1) know already), he hasn't gone into the kind
> > of detail that folks would need in order to actually make a decent attempt.
>
> It's quite possible that even Linus doesn't have a clear cognitive grasp of
> all the problems - Larry gave BK to Linus to prevent burn-out. I'd not be
> surprised if Linus was so busy dealing with the *first* order problems in
> the pre-BK world (just getting patches to apply to his tree) that he never
> encountered all the 'tough problems', and once he started using BK, he
> also never hit any of the 'tough problems' because Larry's crew had already
> spent 40 man-years making sure Linus *didnt* hit them.

Bingo. We work hard to make sure that we've thought of and solved the
problems *before* they are hit in the field. We try to be proactive,
not reactive (at least in coding, mailing lists are another matter).
We're not that great at it, but we've definitely solved all sorts of
problems long before Linus did anything to hit them.
--
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm