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An Unbelievable Demo

An Unbelievable Demo

2024-03-03 04:07:47

That is the story of probably the most unbelievable demo I have been given in world of open supply. You may’t make these items up.

It was 2005, and I felt like I used to be within the eye of a hurricane. I used to be an impartial efficiency marketing consultant and Solar Microsystems had simply launched DTrace, a instrument that might instrument all software program. This gave efficiency analysts like myself X-ray imaginative and prescient. Whereas I used to be busy writing and publishing superior efficiency instruments utilizing DTrace (my open supply DTraceToolkit and different DTrace tools, aka scripts), I seen one thing odd: I used to be producing extra DTrace instruments than have been popping out of Solar itself. Maybe there was some inside undertaking that was consuming all their DTrace experience?


DTraceToolkit v0.96 instruments (2006)

As I wasn’t a Solar Microsystems worker I wasn’t aware of Solar’s inside tasks. Nevertheless, I used to be doing coaching and consulting for Solar, serving to their prospects with system administration and efficiency. Solar typically invited me to their very own buyer conferences and different occasions I is perhaps all for, as an area skilled. I used to be residing in Sydney, Australia.

This time I used to be advised that there was a Very Necessary Individual visiting from the US whom I might wish to meet. I did not acknowledge the identify, however was advised that he was a DTrace skilled and developer at Solar, and was on a world tour demonstrating Solar’s new DTrace-based product. Ah-hah – this have to be the inner undertaking!

However this is able to be no bizarre undertaking. I might seen some wonderful applied sciences from Solar, however I might by no means seen a developer on a world tour. This was going to be massive, and would probably blow away my earlier DTrace work.

The VIP was returning to Sydney for just a few days earlier than going to the subsequent Australian metropolis, so we agreed to satisfy on the Solar Sydney workplace.

The Assembly

The DTrace skilled arrived sporting informal enterprise apparel and a heavy American accent, and appeared a bit weary from his world tour. He had simply been to South Africa and New Zealand, and listed different international locations and cities he was heading to subsequent. Two different Australian Solar employees joined the assembly, and one launched me with:

“Brendan teaches some courses for us, and has been doing a little DTrace stuff.”

Low-key introductions are the norm in Australia (particularly for Australians) and I questioned whether or not he knew of this cultural distinction. One other distinction was that there have been few roles in Australia for engineers in 2005, not like the US. The Solar Microsystems Australia jobs, for instance, have been all in help and none in improvement, and different tech giants had not but arrived. So again then in Australia you would discover wonderful engineers doing no matter roles have been out there.

I attempted to broaden on the “stuff” a bit by saying that I’d written the DTraceToolkit, however he wasn’t impressed. He did not acknowledge my identify, nor had he heard of the DTraceToolkit. To him, I used to be just a few random man.

He was form sufficient to present me a fast demo anyway. His DTrace product was an add-on for a bigger Solar GUI that I used to be already aware of. After it loaded, he confirmed how you would run one among a number of DTrace instruments by double clicking an icon. Both the uncooked output can be printed in a separate window, or the outcomes can be proven as a line graph. This appeared fairly underwhelming. The GUI already had this performance: Exhibiting the uncooked output of instruments or drawing a line graph. I hoped for a brand new GUI characteristic.

The one new work was the instruments themselves, of which there have been a number of. He gave a fast gross sales pitch in regards to the new and wonderful observability they offered, one thing he will need to have mentioned many occasions to impress prospects. I received the sensation he wasn’t anticipating me to correctly respect their worth.

However I did perceive these instruments, since I had coded related performance for my very own DTraceToolkit. They have been helpful, however…I used to be anticipating a hurricane of superior new DTrace content material.

“I’ve finished these earlier than – I’ve written instruments that do these items myself!”

“Yeah, positive.” He didn’t fairly say it, however gave me a appear to be he did not actually consider me, or that I may even actually perceive what they have been. This was an essential innovation by Solar Microsystems, a US-based multinational firm value billions. I used to be just a few random Aussie.

Socket Tracing

I browsed the GUI icons for one thing new, and the closest was a instrument for tracing socket I/O. I had tried this in 2004 (socketsnoop.d) and printed it as open supply, however my instrument was incomplete: I did not have entry to the kernel supply code so I had to determine every thing the onerous method utilizing black field evaluation. It labored for many TCP visitors varieties however not others, which I warned about within the script feedback. I might additionally not included it within the DTraceToolkit but as I did not take into account it completed. So of all of the instruments he had, I used to be most to see this one. Solar may do a significantly better job simply by referring to the supply code they have been instrumenting, and really end this instrument.

“Can I see the socket I/O script?”. I fired up a terminal. He regarded alarmed at first, as if I wasn’t speculated to look backstage, then realized one other promoting characteristic: “Nicely, positive, you would even add extra instruments to the GUI!” and after a pause, added “when you’ve got them”. Certain, I’ve all of them proper. He gave me a path to start out wanting below, and after a little bit of looking I discovered the listing with all of the instruments he had been demoing.

The instruments all had acquainted names. One was even referred to as socketsnoop.d. A brand new chance dawned on me.

No method.

I printed socketsnoop.d. The display crammed with my very own script. It was the identical incomplete try I had hacked up a 12 months earlier, and printed as open supply. It included some bizarre code that solely made sense after I wrote it (use of PFORMAT, previous to defaultargs) and was written in my earlier coding model. I used to be taking a look at my very own fucking script.

“That is MY script.”

I printed the opposite instruments and noticed the identical – they have been all mine. This scorching new Solar product that Mr. VIP was touring the world displaying off was really simply my very own open supply instruments.

My jaw was on the ground. He did not appear to consider me.

You Cannot Do That

I used grep to go looking all his instruments for my identify, which was within the header remark of all my instruments, to show past a doubt that these have been mine. However I discovered nothing. My identify had been stripped.

A few of my instruments had even included the road:

# Creator: Brendan Gregg  [Sydney, Australia]

And now, right here he was, in Sydney, Australia, making an attempt to promote Brendan Gregg’s instruments to Brendan Gregg.

One of many Australian Solar employees interrupted: “These say copyright Solar Microsystems.” Most of my instruments had my very own copyright and a GPLv2 or CDDL license. However these solely had Solar’s customary copyright message, and the open supply licenses had been stripped.

“You deleted my identify! And the copyrights and licenses!”

See Also

The opposite Aussie added, to the VIP: “You cannot do this.” A silence fell over the room because the magnitude of what had occurred sunk in. Whereas some at Solar have been encouraging open supply contributions and constructing a group, others have been ripping off that very same group. Taking their work, altering the licence and copyrights, after which promoting it.

The VIP wasn’t ready for this and had a glance of confusion. He did not say a lot, aside from that he did not know what had occurred, and that he could have gotten the instruments from another person already like this (ie, do not blame me). He appeared to be solely half believing what we have been saying.

The assembly ended rapidly. I advised that he get newer copies of my instruments, straight from the DTraceToolkit, since these older variations from my homepage have been outdated, and a few had errors that I had already fastened. I additionally reminded him to maintain my identify, copyright, and license on all of them.

In his protection, maybe the assembly could have gone in another way had I not been given a low-key Australian introduction. That is an Australian cultural downside (tall poppy syndrome). To an Australian, introductions within the US can sound boastful, however they may also be helpful as a fast solution to share one’s specialties.

Different Circumstances

Of all of the instruments I had printed as open supply, I nonetheless cannot consider socketsnoop.d was included. It wasn’t even superb. In a while I wrote significantly better socket instruments (in my DTrace and BPF books).

Just a few years later, Apple added dozens of my instruments to OS X. They left my identify, copyright, and CDDL open supply license intact, and even improved and enhanced a few of them. Years later, Oracle did the identical for Oracle Solaris 11, and the BSD group did for FreeBSD. My due to all of you.

You would possibly say that this wasn’t actually Solar the corporate doing this, however fairly, a careless particular person. However there was one thing in Solar’s tradition that contributed to this sort of carelessness. It was one thing I and my consulting colleagues had run into earlier than: The assumption at Solar that solely Solar may make good use of its personal applied sciences, and something created exterior of Solar was trash. When these Solar staff discovered one thing that was good, they have been inclined to imagine it got here from Solar, and it was due to this fact protected to reuse and rebrand (and relicense) as they assumed they already held the copyrights.

There have been additionally others at Solar that did attempt onerous to do the suitable factor by me and my work. On at the very least 4 different events my DTraceToolkit was constructed into observability merchandise, with out stripping licenses. (In a single case they needed to relicense to GPL, and talked to me and Solar authorized about it, however that is one other story.)

This additionally wasn’t the final time somebody unwittingly tried to promote me my very own work, it was simply the primary. I’ve discovered to not inform gross sales those that I invented what they’re displaying me, as they then give me humorous seems to be like I am a loopy particular person, however as a substitute to easily say “I’ve a whole lot of expertise with that expertise” and go away it at that.

I am reminded of this primary case since my BPF instruments are actually showing in observability merchandise, and can develop to a scale a lot larger than my DTrace instruments. I will write about it extra in future posts, however my fast recommendation to builders is that this: Please attempt to construct upon my BPF instruments and the bcc libraries (both bcc Python or bcc libbpf-tool variations) as a substitute of rewriting them, and fetch common updates. It’s because they’re works-in-progress, and rewriting (forking) them divides engineering assets and should have your prospects utilizing outdated variations. I clarify in additional element in How To Add eBPF Observability To Your Product.
Word that I believe my flame graph software program is totally different: Since it’s a easy and completed algorithm that does not want a lot upkeep, I do not see a giant downside with folks rewriting it. (It’s good to get some thanks, nonetheless, simply as I have done for people who impressed flame graphs.)

As for the unbelievable demo: This wasn’t the good DTrace product I imagined when listening to a few world tour. It was, in actual fact, my very own instruments. I think that it is not unusual for an open supply developer to find, sooner or later, that their very own code has been rebranded. However the circumstance on this case could also be a bit uncommon. A US developer received a world tour for software program he did not write, which included giving a gross sales pitch and demo in Australia, unwittingly, to the creator. I do not suppose he even mentioned thanks.

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