Kuhn: Busybox GPL enforcement concerns resolved

Posted Feb 23, 2012 18:54 UTC (Thu) by jake (editor, #205)
In reply to: Kuhn: Busybox GPL enforcement concerns resolved by landley
Parent article: Kuhn: Busybox GPL enforcement concerns resolved

> I put out a toybox release over a week ago (and have enough material
> already for another), but you wouldn't know it from lwn.net because
> they didn't think it worth mentioning.

Umm, Rob, did you send a release announcement to lwn@lwn.net? Maybe you did and I (and others) missed it. But if you didn't, that's a pretty good way to make sure that a project release is noticed by us.

jake

Kuhn: Busybox GPL enforcement concerns resolved

Posted Feb 23, 2012 19:24 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (8 responses)

Nope, I didn't know people did that. I just mentioned it on the project's webpage, and in my blog. I'll email you about the next release.

I'm sorry if my comment unduly singled out lwn.net, I'm just most familiar with it, and this is where this particular story seemed to originate. Places like http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Debate-over-non-GP... pick this stuff up from you guys. You're the one who deemed various blog and mailing list posts newsworthy. (My criticism wasn't "you're not doing your job" it was "this is what passes for news these days".)

Personally, I agree there's not much to cover on toybox yet. It's nice that people are noticing it, but there's a lot of obvious stuff to do yet before it's really useful. I'm aiming for a 1.0 release in the fall, but there's a hundred or more new commands to write between now and then.

I've mostly been focusing on writing code and letting everybody who _doesn't_ write code flame themselves out. I should go back to that now...

Rob

Kuhn: Busybox GPL enforcement concerns resolved

Posted Feb 23, 2012 21:57 UTC (Thu) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link] (7 responses)

I have to admit I agree with Rob on this point about my post to the BusyBox mailing list not being news. I posted the email to the BusyBox list because a few subscribers there had encouraged me to talk with Tim directly. I wanted to tell them that the discussion happened. That was it.

I don't think it was news, and I was surprised that LWN picked it up as such. It's just that, in the Free Software world, the easiest way to update a large group of developers is via the mailing list for the project in question, so that's what I did. Simply as that.

News

Posted Feb 23, 2012 22:05 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (6 responses)

The opening of this particular extended discussion was certainly deemed to be news. How could a note about an apparent peaceful resolution and closure not be news?

It was not us that kicked off this discussion - that was Matthew Garrett. But we did report on it; should we just stop and leave our readers under the impression that a disagreement still exists when there is a statement from one of the parties involved indicating that things have been worked out?

I must admit that I'm now even more confused than usual.

News

Posted Feb 23, 2012 22:30 UTC (Thu) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link] (5 responses)

I don't mind that you quoted it; it was a post made publicly and you have every right to do so. But, I wasn't drafting it as a news statement on the subject. If you wanted to make an article, I'd have rather you'd asked me about it my post, and allowed me to say something more substantive. That email message was specifically just to answer questions that BusyBox developers had asked me, and was not designed to be a full-on press statement.

The thing that troubles me about the situation is this: I've now realized that I have to assume that every post I make to every mailing list has a chance of being above-the-fold quoted in LWN. I suppose that was always the case, but it's never actually happened to me: in the past, the emails of mine I've had quoted as news on LWN have been designed to be news. Had I know journalists were directly subscribed to BusyBox mailing list, waiting for my emails to immediately repost them as news articles, I certainly would have at least double-checked for typos! And, I probably would have sent a more complete public statement to LWN, and then retooled that to be a post to BusyBox.

Fact is: those of us who live in the public eye already waste a lot of time trying to say everything perfectly for fear we'll get quoted on it. That already wastes a lot of time. This experience has convinced me: wow, so even a simple mailing list post to a member project of Conservancy has a chance of being LWN's headline tomorrow. Indeed, Every byte I ship out of my computer to any mailing list is a potential news headline. I guess I should have known that, but I never really thought about it before.

That said: hey, you're the press: it's your job to dig and find news whereever it hides. OTOH, I now have to find the extra 15 minutes of redrafting of every mailing list post I make, because I'll have to assume every one might be an LWN story! For a guy that usually works 12 hours a day, often including weekends, that's a daunting thing to have to add to my already overflowing workflow!

News

Posted Feb 23, 2012 22:39 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

Even if LWN isn't directly subscribed to a list, it's not uncommon for people to notice things that they find 'interesting' or 'newsworthy' and forward them to lwn@lwn.net

I don't think it's quite a dire as you are seeing it, until an issue blows up that you are involved in, the chance of a message being quoted directly and quickly is fairly low. It's only after an issue has blown up when people are especially interested in details that the odds rise (especially if the post makes it sound like something significant has taken place)

News

Posted Feb 23, 2012 23:34 UTC (Thu) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link] (1 responses)

Yeah, perhaps you're right. In my mind, this story was already over, and telling BusyBox what was up with my conversation with Tim was merely a loose end. I see why LWN saw it differently. No big deal.

News

Posted Feb 24, 2012 3:59 UTC (Fri) by rfontana (subscriber, #52677) [Link]

Perhaps we can say, to paraphase something famously said back in 1992, that LWN.net tonight has made Bradley Kuhn the comeback kid?

News

Posted Feb 24, 2012 1:09 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

That is so adorable! If I could make a suggestion though it would be that you can't live your life trying to be perfect for the public, sometimes there will be typos that get quoted in an article on LWN. No one is expecting perfection every waking moment.

News

Posted Feb 25, 2012 12:21 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

maybe, but i get where Bradley is coming from. It can be an unpleasant surprise when a message written with little extra attention to detail, as its “just a reply on a ml”, gets a far wider audience. I guess we need to get used to this, and it is great john/lwn gets the news from the source. Still feels awkward i guess...