In response to the recent BKL debate [story], Rik van Riel [interview] has expanded his kernel source archives, making the latest 2.4 and 2.5 kernel source trees available via rsynch. Larry McVoy [interview] has explained that BitKeeper was designed with SCCS compatability in mind for this very purpose, so the source archives can be accessed with other tools, such as GNU CSSC (requiring a small patch, explained within).

Rik points out that this makes it possible for those actively developing and/or using an alternative source control system to access the latest kernel tree, saying, "If you (for random values of 'you') want to put the Linux kernel source in another source control system and/or you develop another source control system, you won't need bitkeeper in order to do so ..." All the same, Rik uses and enjoys BitKeeper himself, adding, "I won't be holding my breath for a better tool than bitkeeper, though ... it'll probably be quite a while for the other source control tools to come close to the functionality I'm using on a daily basis ;)"

From: Nicolas Pitre
To: Ulrich Drepper
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: 	Sat, 5 Oct 2002 15:47:09 -0400 (EDT)

On Sat, 5 Oct 2002, Ulrich Drepper wrote:

> I have never looked closer at bk than I had to be able to check out the
> latest sources.  I'm not doing any development with it and I'm not
> checking in anything using bk.

What about Larry making available a special version of BK that would only be
able to perform checkouts?  

This special version could have a less controversial license, even be GPL
with source.  This only to provide a tool to extract data out of public BK
repositories (like Linus' kernel repository) for people who don't intend or
aren't willing to actually use the real value of the full fledged BK.

Nicolas



From: Larry McVoy
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: 	Sat, 5 Oct 2002 12:54:12 -0700

On Sat, Oct 05, 2002 at 03:47:09PM -0400, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> On Sat, 5 Oct 2002, Ulrich Drepper wrote:
> 
> > I have never looked closer at bk than I had to be able to check out the
> > latest sources.  I'm not doing any development with it and I'm not
> > checking in anything using bk.
> 
> What about Larry making available a special version of BK that would only be
> able to perform checkouts?  
> 
> This special version could have a less controversial license, even be GPL
> with source.  This only to provide a tool to extract data out of public BK
> repositories (like Linus' kernel repository) for people who don't intend or
> aren't willing to actually use the real value of the full fledged BK.

You can do this today.  rsync a BK tree and use GNU CSSC to check out
the sources.  We maintained SCCS compat for exactly that reason.
You've had the ability to ignore the BKL since day one if you aren't
running the BK binaries.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm 



From: Larry McVoy
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: 	Sat, 5 Oct 2002 12:56:24 -0700

On Sat, Oct 05, 2002 at 12:54:12PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 05, 2002 at 03:47:09PM -0400, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> > On Sat, 5 Oct 2002, Ulrich Drepper wrote:
> > 
> > > I have never looked closer at bk than I had to be able to check out the
> > > latest sources.  I'm not doing any development with it and I'm not
> > > checking in anything using bk.
> > 
> > What about Larry making available a special version of BK that would only be
> > able to perform checkouts?  
> > 
> > This special version could have a less controversial license, even be GPL
> > with source.  This only to provide a tool to extract data out of public BK
> > repositories (like Linus' kernel repository) for people who don't intend or
> > aren't willing to actually use the real value of the full fledged BK.
> 
> You can do this today.  rsync a BK tree and use GNU CSSC to check out
> the sources.  We maintained SCCS compat for exactly that reason.
> You've had the ability to ignore the BKL since day one if you aren't
> running the BK binaries.

Whoops, forgot one thing.  Take the GNU CSSC sources, they look for

	^Ah%05u\n

at the top of the file.  Make them accept both "h" and "H" and then it will
work.  We changed it so that ATT SCCS would overwrite our metadata.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm 



From: Ben Collins
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: 	Sun, 6 Oct 2002 22:01:39 -0400

> Whoops, forgot one thing.  Take the GNU CSSC sources, they look for
> 
> 	^Ah%05u\n

Here's a patch for those interested

diff -urN CSSC-0.14alpha.pl0.orig/sccsfile.cc CSSC-0.14alpha.pl0/sccsfile.cc
--- CSSC-0.14alpha.pl0.orig/sccsfile.cc	2002-03-24 19:07:09.000000000 -0500
+++ CSSC-0.14alpha.pl0/sccsfile.cc	2002-10-06 21:52:12.000000000 -0400
@@ -73,13 +73,17 @@
       return NULL;
     }
   
-  if (getc(f_local) != '\001' || getc(f_local) != 'h')
+  if (getc(f_local) != '\001')
     {
-      (void)fclose(f_local);
-      s_corrupt_quit("%s: No SCCS-file magic number.  "
-		     "Did you specify the right file?", name);
-      /*NOTEACHED*/
-      return NULL;
+      int tmp_c = getc(f_local);
+      if (tmp_c != 'h' && tmp_c != 'H')
+        {
+	  (void)fclose(f_local);
+	  s_corrupt_quit("%s: No SCCS-file magic number.  "
+			 "Did you specify the right file?", name);
+	  /*NOTEACHED*/
+	  return NULL;
+	}
     }
   
   
@@ -532,7 +536,7 @@
     }
   
   int c = read_line();
-  ASSERT(c == 'h');
+  ASSERT(c == 'h' || c == 'H');
 
   /* the checksum is represented in the file as decimal.
    */

From: Rik van Riel
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: 	Sun, 6 Oct 2002 23:10:48 -0300 (BRT)

On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Ben Collins wrote:

> > Whoops, forgot one thing.  Take the GNU CSSC sources, they look for
> >
> > 	^Ah%05u\n
>
> Here's a patch for those interested

People can grab the repository for use with CSSC from:

	ftp://nl.linux.org/pub/linux/bk2patch/

Or using rsync:
	rsync -rav --delete nl.linux.org::kernel/linux-2.4 linux-2.4
	rsync -rav --delete nl.linux.org::kernel/linux-2.5 linux-2.5

Currently these repositories are updated every two hours, but if
there is a large demand I could update it every hour or even every
30 minutes.  Don't feel ashamed to put the above rsyncs into your
crontabs, grab the source and use it ;)

have fun,

Rik
-- 
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From: Larry McVoy
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: 	Sun, 6 Oct 2002 19:29:50 -0700

> People can grab the repository for use with CSSC from:
> 
> 	ftp://nl.linux.org/pub/linux/bk2patch/

Make sure you do a

	bk -r admin -Znone

on that tree.  We support gzipped repos, SCCS/CSSC don't.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm 



From: Rik van Riel
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: 	Sun, 6 Oct 2002 23:38:44 -0300 (BRT)

On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Larry McVoy wrote:

> > People can grab the repository for use with CSSC from:
> >
> > 	ftp://nl.linux.org/pub/linux/bk2patch/
>
> Make sure you do a
> 	bk -r admin -Znone
> on that tree.  We support gzipped repos, SCCS/CSSC don't.

Thanks for the advise, I'm running this command right now.

Does this need to be run every time I pull changes into the
tree or is it enough that I run it once ?

Now, with any vendor locking arguments out of the way the
various source control systems should be able to compete on
a level ground.  If you (for random values of 'you') want
to put the Linux kernel source in another source control
system and/or you develop another source control system, you
won't need bitkeeper in order to do so ...

I won't be holding my breath for a better tool than bitkeeper,
though ... it'll probably be quite a while for the other source
control tools to come close to the functionality I'm using on
a daily basis ;)

regards,

Rik
-- 
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".

http://www.surriel.com/		http://distro.conectiva.com/

Spamtraps of the month:  september@surriel.com trac@trac.org



From: Rik van Riel
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: 	Mon, 7 Oct 2002 00:07:29 -0300 (BRT)

On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Larry McVoy wrote:
>
> > > 	ftp://nl.linux.org/pub/linux/bk2patch/
> >
> > Make sure you do a
> > 	bk -r admin -Znone
> > on that tree.  We support gzipped repos, SCCS/CSSC don't.
>
> Thanks for the advise, I'm running this command right now.

If you worried why your rsync session just died ... I killed it
after finishing uncompressing the repositories.  From now on
you'll get an uncompressed repository that SCCS/CSSC can handle.

regards,

Rik
-- 
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".

http://www.surriel.com/		http://distro.conectiva.com/

Spamtraps of the month:  september@surriel.com trac@trac.org