Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: taglines vs explicit

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Davide Libenzi <address@hidden>

    > My question was slightly different though. It was: Do you think, according
    > to what you read about lkml usage of BK, that you can map Arch operations
    > that will guarantee the same/greater level of ease in accomplishing those
    > tasks?

Yes.

But three things:

a) I think it would be a mistake to define the problem as "Slip arch
   in without perturbing Linus' workflow."   There is no opportunity
   to _improve_ the situation without disturbing it.

b) There is a much bigger fish to fry than Linus:  designing
   engineering processes for free software generally.   Linus is just
   a guy[1].   It is both rude and dangerous to try to turn him from
   "guy" into "pivot point for the engineering processes of the free
   software world".   I don't at all mean that he is immune to
   criticism for his quasi-contractual deal with BitMover -- only that
   the proper community response to that blunder of his is not to 
   put him in the role of touchstone for revision control tools.
   If Linus is hopelessly broken, the right answer is to route around
   him.

c) And anyway, it is _absurd_ to make him the touchstone of revision
   control.  He isn't playing that game with anyone other than Larry.
   His public statements on what's needed in such tools are scant and
   vague.  When people start saying on this list "Yes, but Linus
   {wants,needs,won't,must have,....}" mostly what I hear is the
   author of those comments saying "I believe too much of what I read
   on /."

-t

[1] Linus is just a guy

    A helpful, generous, smart, effective guy who has given a lot to
    all of us.  Personally, I sometimes like to take the slightly
    exaggerated view that "Eh... a kernel ... big whup.  Any of 10,000
    people could have done that," and regard Linus' most important
    contribution as his public demonstrations of self-respect and
    self-protection -- that he insists on being a family guy having
    fun hacking some software he likes and makes that a greater
    priority than _all_ of the chimera constructed by the industry
    captains and their self-constructed-puppet-media lackeys.

    He shouldn't be regarded as hero or keystone -- but as one of many
    decent examples of personal conduct for every other professional
    in our industry.

    (This is not, of course, an endorsement of his political views on
    matters such as licensing practices.)