Thread: blog post on ancient history

Hi,

Someone seems to have noticed the commits by Julian Assange and the
discussion about him on pgsql-hackers when we switched from CVS to Git:

http://herraiz.org/blog/2011/07/07/software-projects-alzheimer-julian-assanges-lost-contributions/

Anyone feels in mood for a comment?

--
Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> wrote:
> Someone seems to have noticed the commits by Julian Assange and the
> discussion about him on pgsql-hackers when we switched from CVS to Git:
>
> http://herraiz.org/blog/2011/07/07/software-projects-alzheimer-julian-assanges-lost-contributions/
>
> Anyone feels in mood for a comment?

I see our mailing list archives for pgsql-hackers only go back to
1997, so it's hard to track down what was going on in 1996.  But as
for why no one remembers the guy, it's probably because we've had
nearly 100% churn in the set of people who are involved.  Tom Lane
isn't mentioned in the commit log until 1998.  We could see if Bruce
or Marc remember him, but just to put this in perspective, the guy
made 6 commits out of almost 900 that year.  I don't think we had the
same standards for granting commit access back then that we do now.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>> Anyone feels in mood for a comment?

> I see our mailing list archives for pgsql-hackers only go back to
> 1997, so it's hard to track down what was going on in 1996.  But as
> for why no one remembers the guy, it's probably because we've had
> nearly 100% churn in the set of people who are involved.  Tom Lane
> isn't mentioned in the commit log until 1998.  We could see if Bruce
> or Marc remember him, but just to put this in perspective, the guy
> made 6 commits out of almost 900 that year.

According to the logs there was a seventh patch committed for him by
Marc, but still: seven patches, touching only libpq and psql (not by any
means as "internal" as this blogger thinks), committed over a period of
about a month.  That's not exactly a large or sustained contribution.
Is it surprising that everyone had forgotten it a few years later?

> I don't think we had the
> same standards for granting commit access back then that we do now.

Yeah, the only thing that's even mildly surprising is that he seems to
have been given commit privileges after only one patch.  However,
there's an indication in one of the commit messages that he'd previously
contributed to the code while Berkeley had it:

1996-07-25 02:46  julian

    * src/bin/psql/psql.c: Large re-write/enhancement. In pg-101 Jolly
    only included a smaller part of my (proff) patch. This is the rest
    of it, with a few, mainly aesthetic changes. I've removed a lot of
    redundency from the original code, added support for the new
    PQprint() routines in libpq, expanded tables, and a few generally
    nifty ways of massaging data in and out of the backend. Still needs
    some good stress testing.

so maybe that history had something to do with it.

            regards, tom lane

Tom Lane wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> >> Anyone feels in mood for a comment?
>
> > I see our mailing list archives for pgsql-hackers only go back to
> > 1997, so it's hard to track down what was going on in 1996.  But as
> > for why no one remembers the guy, it's probably because we've had
> > nearly 100% churn in the set of people who are involved.  Tom Lane
> > isn't mentioned in the commit log until 1998.  We could see if Bruce
> > or Marc remember him, but just to put this in perspective, the guy
> > made 6 commits out of almost 900 that year.
>
> According to the logs there was a seventh patch committed for him by
> Marc, but still: seven patches, touching only libpq and psql (not by any
> means as "internal" as this blogger thinks), committed over a period of
> about a month.  That's not exactly a large or sustained contribution.
> Is it surprising that everyone had forgotten it a few years later?
>
> > I don't think we had the
> > same standards for granting commit access back then that we do now.
>
> Yeah, the only thing that's even mildly surprising is that he seems to
> have been given commit privileges after only one patch.  However,
> there's an indication in one of the commit messages that he'd previously
> contributed to the code while Berkeley had it:
>
> 1996-07-25 02:46  julian
>
>     * src/bin/psql/psql.c: Large re-write/enhancement. In pg-101 Jolly
>     only included a smaller part of my (proff) patch. This is the rest
>     of it, with a few, mainly aesthetic changes. I've removed a lot of
>     redundency from the original code, added support for the new
>     PQprint() routines in libpq, expanded tables, and a few generally
>     nifty ways of massaging data in and out of the backend. Still needs
>     some good stress testing.
>
> so maybe that history had something to do with it.

The spring/summer of 1996 was a time when we were trying to gather all
the scattered work of people who had created patches to Postgres95 but
had not been integrated by Jolly.  Seems Julian had been in that group
so his patches were quickly applied.  If he had asked for commit, I
would have given it to him because he had a history of contributing to
the project (which I could not confirm).

FYI, I do think I have an archive of much of the pg95-dev@ki.net on a
DAT tape in my basement, and I have an unpowered computer down there
with a DAT tape drive ... hmmm.

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 22:55, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>> >> Anyone feels in mood for a comment?
>>
>> > I see our mailing list archives for pgsql-hackers only go back to
>> > 1997, so it's hard to track down what was going on in 1996.  But as
>> > for why no one remembers the guy, it's probably because we've had
>> > nearly 100% churn in the set of people who are involved.  Tom Lane
>> > isn't mentioned in the commit log until 1998.  We could see if Bruce
>> > or Marc remember him, but just to put this in perspective, the guy
>> > made 6 commits out of almost 900 that year.
>>
>> According to the logs there was a seventh patch committed for him by
>> Marc, but still: seven patches, touching only libpq and psql (not by any
>> means as "internal" as this blogger thinks), committed over a period of
>> about a month.  That's not exactly a large or sustained contribution.
>> Is it surprising that everyone had forgotten it a few years later?
>>
>> > I don't think we had the
>> > same standards for granting commit access back then that we do now.
>>
>> Yeah, the only thing that's even mildly surprising is that he seems to
>> have been given commit privileges after only one patch.  However,
>> there's an indication in one of the commit messages that he'd previously
>> contributed to the code while Berkeley had it:
>>
>> 1996-07-25 02:46  julian
>>
>>       * src/bin/psql/psql.c: Large re-write/enhancement. In pg-101 Jolly
>>       only included a smaller part of my (proff) patch. This is the rest
>>       of it, with a few, mainly aesthetic changes. I've removed a lot of
>>       redundency from the original code, added support for the new
>>       PQprint() routines in libpq, expanded tables, and a few generally
>>       nifty ways of massaging data in and out of the backend. Still needs
>>       some good stress testing.
>>
>> so maybe that history had something to do with it.
>
> The spring/summer of 1996 was a time when we were trying to gather all
> the scattered work of people who had created patches to Postgres95 but
> had not been integrated by Jolly.  Seems Julian had been in that group
> so his patches were quickly applied.  If he had asked for commit, I
> would have given it to him because he had a history of contributing to
> the project (which I could not confirm).
>
> FYI, I do think I have an archive of much of the pg95-dev@ki.net on a
> DAT tape in my basement, and I have an unpowered computer down there
> with a DAT tape drive ... hmmm.

Interesting.. In MBOX format? Some time when you're bored, it might be
interesting to recover those and put them up on
archives.postgresql.org!

--
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: http://www.hagander.net/
 Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/

Magnus Hagander wrote:
> > The spring/summer of 1996 was a time when we were trying to gather all
> > the scattered work of people who had created patches to Postgres95 but
> > had not been integrated by Jolly. ?Seems Julian had been in that group
> > so his patches were quickly applied. ?If he had asked for commit, I
> > would have given it to him because he had a history of contributing to
> > the project (which I could not confirm).
> >
> > FYI, I do think I have an archive of much of the pg95-dev@ki.net on a
> > DAT tape in my basement, and I have an unpowered computer down there
> > with a DAT tape drive ... hmmm.
>
> Interesting.. In MBOX format? Some time when you're bored, it might be
> interesting to recover those and put them up on
> archives.postgresql.org!

Yes, mbox.  I will put it on my TODO list.

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +

I have one or two emails from Julian Assange about security in ld-linux.so,
but don't remember any commits to pg source tree. Probably Bruce remember him.

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 00:07:59 +1000
From: Julian Assange <proff@SUBURBIA.NET>
To: BUGTRAQ@NETSPACE.ORG
Subject: Re: KSR[T] Advisory #2: ld.so


Oleg

On Fri, 8 Jul 2011, Robert Haas wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> wrote:
>> Someone seems to have noticed the commits by Julian Assange and the
>> discussion about him on pgsql-hackers when we switched from CVS to Git:
>>
>> http://herraiz.org/blog/2011/07/07/software-projects-alzheimer-julian-assanges-lost-contributions/
>>
>> Anyone feels in mood for a comment?
>
> I see our mailing list archives for pgsql-hackers only go back to
> 1997, so it's hard to track down what was going on in 1996.  But as
> for why no one remembers the guy, it's probably because we've had
> nearly 100% churn in the set of people who are involved.  Tom Lane
> isn't mentioned in the commit log until 1998.  We could see if Bruce
> or Marc remember him, but just to put this in perspective, the guy
> made 6 commits out of almost 900 that year.  I don't think we had the
> same standards for granting commit access back then that we do now.
>
>

     Regards,
         Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, Research Scientist, Head of AstroNet (www.astronet.ru),
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University, Russia
Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(495)939-16-83, +007(495)939-23-83