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BitKeeper was first utilized by a Linux project in December of 1999, when it was employed by the Linux PowerPC project. Then in February of 2002, Linux creator Linus Torvalds decided that BitKeeper was "the best tool for the job" and started using it to manage the mainline kernel, an event that received much attention in the free and open source communities [story], and beyond. BitMover, the company behind BitKeeper, was founded by its current CEO, Larry McVoy [interview], who originally conceived of BitKeeper as a tool to keep Linus from getting burnt out by the growing task of managing the Linux Kernel. Since Linus began using the tool three years ago, the pace of Linux kernel development has doubled [story].
There are two definitions for the word "free" that are commonly used to describe software. The first is "Free as in Freedom", and the other is "Free as in Free Beer". BitKeeper was made available freely under the latter definition, allowing free and open source software developers to use the tool without having to pay any money. It was provided under the agreement that anyone actively using the free tool would not develop a competing product at the same time. In other words, the aim was to provide a tool that could be freely used, but not freely cloned. At the same time, a more advanced version of BitKeeper has been sold commercially, and both products remain the intellectual property of BitMover.
A vocal group has long protested Linus' use of BitKeeper, considering Linux the free and open source flagship product. GNU Project founder Richard Stallman [interview] is among the protestors, harshly criticizing Linus' decision to use a non-free (as in freedom) tool [story]. However, most acknowledge that no free tool currently exists that is as powerful as BitKeeper, offering the ability to perform truly distributed development. Attempts to reverse engineer some of BitKeeper's features have lead to repeated cautions by BitMover. Most recently two such reverse engineering attempts have contributed to BitMover's decision to end the development and availability of the free BitKeeper product.
"Best Tool For The Job"
Shortly after Linus began using BitKeeper, he described it as the "Best Tool For The Job". Unlike most tools that require a central repository to house the master copy of whatever data is under version control, BitKeeper allows a truly distributed system in which everybody owns their own master copy. Furthermore, most version control systems look at individual files, and even individual sections of the same files, as indepent entities. If a change is made in file A, and another change is then made in file B, the version control software will allow someone to only merge the changes in file B. With BitKeeper, this is not possible. Instead, to get the changes in file B, you must first get the changes in file A. This design ensures that the two repositories are exact duplicates.
Larry McVoy explained that when Linus first began using BitKeeper, he struggled with and complained about this feature, "suddenly Linus couldn't cherry pick individual patches out of a larger set of changes." Jeff Garzik details this conceptual difference in his bk-kernel-howto document included with the kernel. Prior to using BitKeeper, Linus would review every single patch detail by detail, and he would pull out just the pieces that he wanted. But with BitKeeper, this became more difficult. Larry explained that this resulted in more trust being placed on some of the various subsystem maintainers, with Linus beginning to look at some patches category by category rather than line by line. Those maintainers that Linus felt he could trust more required less review, and at the same time those maintainers that Linus felt he could trust less received more review. Effectively, much of the effort involved in assuring high quality was delegated, and ultimately this led to doubling the pace of kernel development.
Free Versus Free
In spite of the increase in productivity, a vocal group continued to protest Linus' use of a tool that was not open source, nor "free as in freedom". Efforts to provide BitKeeper-like functionality in open source products began in earnest. This lead to more flame wars on the Linux Kernel Mailing List with Larry trying to explain that he was happy to let Linus and other developers use the product for kernel development, but not for reverse engineering. Most recently, two such reverse engineering efforts led BitMover to question the free portion of their business model. Worse, one of these efforts was inadvertandly funded by the OSDL, Linus Torvalds' place of employement.
Larry explained that a contracter still under pay from OSDL for an unrelated project was also actively working on reverse engineering the BitKeeper protocol. Discussion began about five weeks ago to try and resolve the situation, getting so far as to obtain a verbal agreement that the individual would stop his efforts. After that time, however, it turned out that the reverse engineering effort had continued. Although OSDL wasn't directly paying for the reverse engineering effort, they were still employing someone who was actively developing a competing product, something the free BitKeeper license doesn't allow. Larry added, "OSDL had a chance to resolve this issue, but instead shrugged their shoulders and said 'it's not my problem'". It became the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Weighing this and earlier transgressions against the $500,000 dollars a year BitMover spends developing and supporting the free BitKeeper tool, the tough decision was made to phase out support and availability of their free product.
What Went Wrong
Discussing what led to this decision, Larry explained, "this is really an open source community problem and I have to say that the open source community couldn't have failed more than they have." He pointed out that as a long-time open source fanatic and the CEO of BitMover, "we represent as open-source friendly a commercial organization as you are *ever* going to see", cautioning that the events that have caused BitMover to phase out its free product could also result in other companies never even bothering to make products available on Linux. "back at Sun they had a saying 'it's the apps, stupid'. Which meant that all the 'my OS is better than your OS' rhetoric was nothing compared to having more applications on your platform than the other guy's platform. That's true for Linux as well and the point is that no company is going to port their applications to a platform who's stated goal and track record is to reverse engineer everything they find useful. At some point the open source world needs to either decide they'll tolerate commercial software and respect the fact that commercial companies are entitled to make money off their efforts or step up and take on the challenge of providing open source versions of *every* application."
He continued, "our position is that we don't think we have any chance of changing how the 'open source community' behaves. Unlike the Marine corp, the open source community is more than willing to ignore their bad apples as 'not my problem' (the Marine corp punishes the group for the behavior of the bad apples, pretty soon there are no bad apples). Maybe that will get fixed some day but until then we have to do what makes sense for our business and letting the open source guys put us out of business doesn't make sense."
Larry also noted that some people could view the end of a free BitKeeper product as a failure, but that this wasn't the case. Linus pointed out that, "three years of using BitKeeper has made some profound improvements to the workflow", describing how instead of focusing on patch by patch changes he's now able to work with other trusted developers at a higher and more efficient level.
The decision was not an easy one. "I was trying to help and it has been heartbreaking to watch parts of the community lash back at me because I couldn't figure out a politically correct way to help," Larry explained. "You have no idea how miserable that has been."
What Next
Over the next three months, BitMover intends to phase out the free BitKeeper product. Some money has been set aside to provide commercial licenses for certain kernel developers, however Linus Torvalds is not one of them. Larry suggested, "if Linus and Andrew and the others moved elsewhere, we'd glady comp them licenses", referring to their current employment with OSDL.
Beyond this, it has become obvious to all involved that BitMover no longer gains back what it spends supporting the free product. In the beginning the exchange of the service and product for marketing gains and bug reports was enough. Now that this is no longer true, Linus, not interested in a one sided deal even when he's on the winning side, decided for this and other reasons to migrate away from BitKeeper and to begin looking for an alternative.
Larry noted that the kernel tree will continue to be tracked by BitKeeper, as many kernel developers have been commercially licensing the product for that purpose. This includes employees of many large companies who actively contribute to Linux development such as IBM, Intel, HP, Nokia and Sun as well as many smaller companies.
As for what tool will replace BitKeeper to handle Linux kernel development, no decision has been made yet. Several tools have been tested, but nothing currently has been selected, as so far nothing offers sufficient performance and functionality. Larry noted that Linus tried monotone, but a simple import of flat files without versioning information took 2 hours, far too slow. The same was true for Darcs. Eventually however, some tool will be selected and further developed to meet the needs of the kernel developers.
Larry pointed out that such a tool would only need to run on Linux, having no need to support other platforms such as Solaris or Windows, and thus could take advantage of certain Linux-specific features allowing it to perform "blindingly fast". In fact, Linus has already begun working on a simplistic tool that takes advantage of Linux performance features. This effort has been aided by Larry, who added that it was also good for BitMover, as a Linux-only tool would not be competition to BitKeeper, whose largest market is on Windows.
BitKeeper versus the Open Source Replacement
By phasing out the free BitKeeper product, it is guaranteed that some other project is going to step forward to take its place as the version control system used by the Linux kernel. When asked if he was concerned about this resulting in the creation of a project that ultimately competes with BitKeeper, Larry replied, "yes, of course. We'd be idiots to not be." However, he then went on to point out some reasons that this was unlikely. In maintaining two products, he was suprised to learn that the needs of the open source community was much different than the needs of the commercial community. Certainly there was some overlap, but they found that the two communities were pushing them in different directions.
A specific example is in binary managment. There are not many binary files in the Linux kernel distribution, and what few there are don't get frequently modified. "For example", Larry said, "there may be a jpeg image which is a logo, and it may be updated once every year or so, but there's not a great need for complicated binary managment." Conversely, in the commercial community binary managment is critical. For example, someone may be tracking a 1 MB word document that goes through hundreds of revisions resulting in consuming 1 GB of space. BitKeeper is focused on improving this functionality as it is common for commercial uses, whereas an open source solution concerned with the Linux kernel wouldn't have such a need.
Furthermore, Larry pointed out that there is no "killer feature" that makes BitKeeper such a great tool. Instead, it is a collection of thousands of little features altogether which make it so powerful. He added that he hopes an open source solution will become viable soon, as until that happens features will inadvertantly be passed from commercial BitKeeper users to the open source community. Already, in the discussions about what will be needed to replace BitKeeper, the wishlists come straight out of BitKeeper's feature set.
Last Free BitKeeper Release
In a post to the Linux Kernel mailing list in February of 2005, Larry discussed a 16 bit limitation of the existing free product [story]. With nearly 64,000 changesets in the mainline kernel tree, future development will quickly exceed this limitation. For that reason, it is likely that BitMover will provide one final release of its free BitKeeper product, allowing kernel developers a graceful transition. By the end of July, the goal is to have completed the migration, thereby terminating the free product and focusing fully on the commercial product.
As the two versions of the product tended to have greatly divergent requirements, the decision to drop the free product will benefit users of the commercial product. "On a scale of one to ten", Larry explained, "I think we're a four. Of course all the other products out there are a three or less, but they don't realize it. We have a roadmap of features that will take us to maybe eight out of ten. Those will keep us busy for the next three to five years and we're very excited to be working on those problems."
Summary:
The three years that Linux was under BitKeeper source control were largely beneficial to the Linux kernel development process. It taught good source control habits, and offered kernel developers a more efficient way to manage distributed development.
The debate regarding "Free as in Freedom" versus "Free as in Free Beer" is far from over, and we are certain to see lengthy debates on the Linux Kernel Mailing List as kernel developers migrate away from BitKeeper. There is no obvious replacement today, but it is only a matter of time until a project steps forward to satisfy the needs of kernel developers. Now that the kernel has been maintained under a quality source control product, it is quite likely that it will remain so, inventing a solution if necessary, for as Plato so aptly said, "necessity is the mother of invention."
Translations:
The only people saying McVoy is supposed to suck are you!
If you read through the threads there are mostly people saying "Larry is a nice guy personally, BitKeeper is a great product". The objection that anyone has to BitKeeper is that it it reduces the freedom of the "free beer" users. For a while it was mutually advantageous for both Larry and Linus to use BitKeeper in kernel development.
That mutual advantage is now perceived to be over on Larry's side and as a result kernel-development has benefitted from 3 years of a kick-ass SCM, seen the improvements that result from a good SCM and is now in a better state than before.
Perhaps SCM programming will become the new "sexy problem".
better now than later
Isn't that a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Linux kernel usage provided marketing and beta-testing whose value is probably in the millions. Now that BK is on the map because of that, it doesn't need that anymore. Sooner or later, BK would have dropped the "free" version anyway. Maybe McVoy would have felt obligated for a few more years, but then he would probably have sold to some other company and it would have happened.
These kinds of "free" deals are dangerous and time limited, and you never seem to get back what you put in. Don't do it. And it's better for all concerned to get out now than later.
Consider a prosecutor who is
Consider a prosecutor who is afraid that, by going after the mob, he and his family will be endangered. Ho goes after the mob, and the mob puts out a hit on him. Is that "a self-fulfilling prophesy"? It would be intellectually and morally bankrupt to argue that it is.
Playing ball
Seriously: had everyone just played ball, nothing would have happened. Everyone would have used Bitkeeper just fine. Bu no, people started whining about a gift they were given and started causing problems. It seems to me that McVoy did his best to try to satisfy everyone, but in vain.
Funny you should say this. Playing ball. Yep, it was Larry's ball, his game, his terms, his conditions, his idea, he is reaping the benefit because he got people to play it.
Now that there is no more financial incentive, he's taken his ball and gone home.
Don't fool yourself for a minute that McVoy out of the goodness of his heart decided to make huge sacrifices or endure personal hardships to help the kernel developers. Don't think for a minute that it was ever costing him money in the large scheme of things (until perhaps now). Don't think any commercial company exists to help people or fight for a cause. They are in the business of making money, as the saying goes.
Nothing wrong with that. I don't think anybody (other than you) was ever under the impression that that was the case, although it seemed to me a bit like that was the picture Larry was trying to paint.
"Funny you should say this. P
"Funny you should say this. Playing ball. Yep, it was Larry's ball, his game, his terms, his conditions, his idea, he is reaping the benefit because he got people to play it."
He's reaping benefits? Funny, as I recall, Linux-developement benefitted trendemously through use of BK. Linus loved it and it made the whole process alot more bearable for him (the old system was causing him to burn out and get frustrated). You (and everyone here) have benefitted through hastened pace of progress. Yes, BK was McVoys baby, so it was up to him to determine the terms under which it was to be distributed. And those terms were pretty reasonable IMO. If you disgreed with those terms, you could have kept on using CVS instead.
"Don't fool yourself for a minute that McVoy out of the goodness of his heart decided to make huge sacrifices or endure personal hardships to help the kernel developers."
No, I don't think that he was Santa Claus or anything. But if he had wanted to, he could have decided NOT to give kernel-hackers BK for free. Had he done so, Linux-developement would have ground to a halt (as it was doing at the time). Fact is that he did give the product away for free. fact is that we all benefitted from it.
You seem to have pre-decided that McVoy is somekind of arrogant and greedy asshole. Fact is that he DID help kernel-developers. And while doing so, many people rained shit and brimstone on him. And the fact is that he has done quite alot for Linux, and not just through BK.
Yes, McVoy might not be the easiest person in the world to get along with. But he did create kick-ass piece of software which trendemously helped Linus and Linux in general. And he did receive alot of criticism over it. Main reason being the license of BK. Well, it was his software, so it was his right to choose the license and no-one has the right to whine about it. And Linus was free to use it or not use it. And he chose to use it. And thanks to that, we now have the Linux that we do.
Not about McVoy
I'll try a different quoting style...
He's reaping benefits? Funny, as I recall, Linux-developement benefitted trendemously through use of BK. Linus loved it and it made the whole process alot more bearable for him (the old system was causing him to burn out and get frustrated). You (and everyone here) have benefitted through hastened pace of progress. Yes, BK was McVoys baby, so it was up to him to determine the terms under which it was to be distributed. And those terms were pretty reasonable IMO.
Yes he is reaping benefits. The whole thing was done from a "selfish" point of view. That it also benefitted Linux was good yes, but he couldn't have done it any other way. Do you think Linus was about to start using a proprietry tool that DIDN'T benefit him?
If you disgreed with those terms, you could have kept on using CVS instead.
Well, within the last few months yes you could have. Or you could have started using bitkeeper until Larry started putting restrictions on your personal freedom to do other things, or until he took it away entirely.
Or you could use CVS and THEN wait until Larry takes his ball and goes home.
This is why it is not good to rely on "presents" from commercial companies for your core development process.
But never for a minute did I think that Linux development did not benefit while it was able to use bitkeeper. That is what made Larry's whole plan so good, yeah?
No, I don't think that he was Santa Claus or anything. But if he had wanted to, he could have decided NOT to give kernel-hackers BK for free. Had he done so, Linux-developement would have ground to a halt (as it was doing at the time).
... and bitmover would still be a nobody with an unknown product.
But I don't think it was grinding to a halt, so much as not scaling up enough. I think it is pretty clear that some new tool would have been taken up, even if Linus had to spell out how it should work (like he did for bitkeeper).
I also happen to think Andrew Morton did (and does) as much for Linux development as bitkeeper did. If not more so. And that is not even including the code he writes himself.
Fact is that he did give the product away for free. fact is that we all benefitted from it.
Yes. There was always the risk that he would take it away.
You seem to have pre-decided that McVoy is somekind of arrogant and greedy asshole.
He is basically a self confessed arrogant and greedy asshole. I don't know him personally, I don't know whether he's an asshole but yeah I think he's arrogant and greedy. But what do you mean pre-decided? Pre-nothing! I have formed my opinions based on observing Larry's action and reaction in many situations; how do you form your opinions of people?
Fact is that he DID help kernel-developers. And while doing so, many people rained shit and brimstone on him. And the fact is that he has done quite alot for Linux, and not just through BK.
Yes he did. The majority realised how much better bitkeeper was. Actually everyone realised that.
The "many people raining shit and brimstone" were actually people who were legitimately worried about trusting their data to Larry's closed formats. You'll note that practically nobody had any problems (nor rained any shit or brimstone) after he introduced the complete CVS repository.
Yes, McVoy might not be the easiest person in the world to get along with.
I really don't care about that in the slightest. This is not a vilify McVoy thing. Nobody had to talk to him in order to efficiently interact and develop with other kernel developers.
But he did create kick-ass piece of software which trendemously helped Linus and Linux in general. And he did receive alot of criticism over it. Main reason being the license of BK. Well, it was his software, so it was his right to choose the license and no-one has the right to whine about it. And Linus was free to use it or not use it. And he chose to use it. And thanks to that, we now have the Linux that we do.
Yes. And he did it to make money. The "helping Linux" part was part of the plan to make money, not part of the plan to help Linux.
That is all I'm trying to make clear here.
"Yes he is reaping benefits.
"Yes he is reaping benefits. The whole thing was done from a "selfish" point of view."
Why are you guys focusing on that one aspect of this issue? What does it matter whether he benefitted or not? Yes he propably did benefit. But he had also shown that he does care for Linux, outside of BK as well. You could say that he did it in order to promote his product and to help out Linus/Linux.
"The "helping Linux" part was part of the plan to make money, not part of the plan to help Linux."
And IBM is doind the same thing, as is Red Hat and Novell. We are grateful for IBM's efforts, yet we are suspisious when BitMover is concerned. Why? And McVoy has demonstrated that he cares about open source and Linux. He doesn't seem to me like some money-grubbing shyster. Why are you so fixated on whether this whole thing was just a promotion-tool or an attempt to help the Linux-developers? Can't it be both? Because in my book, it was both. The former doesn't affect me at all, whereas the latter does. Why should I complain about this, when the end-result is that I now have better kernel than I would have without BK? I for one am grateful for this. Or am I not allowed to be grateful, because BitMover got free publicity through this?
No, IBM is not
Please refer to my IBM is different comment above somewhere.
And for the last time I am concentrating on this point that the motivation was money, because you seemed to think that we are "to blame" for not "playing ball", and that we have somthing to thank McVoy for.
It was a good tool, it was a closed source and had a discriminatory license, it was a large (and now we see, justified) risk to put in the primary development process of the Linux kernel, and its closed nature sort of went against the spirit of open source.
Why are you so fixated on whether this whole thing was just a promotion-tool or an attempt to help the Linux-developers? Can't it be both? Because in my book, it was both.
Because if it was genuine then he wouldn't have continually whined about how he needed thanking and how much it was costing him and threatening to pull the plug, etc etc.
You can be greatful all you want. I'll just copy and paste an earlier paragraph I wrote, in case you don't see it:
"Don't forget, the kernel community has given Larry a little something which is a bit bigger (in terms of importance, and $) than he has given anyone. And nobody is asking him for thanks.
To expect that such a community owes thanks to this guy because he gave them use of a closed product for a couple of years with the motivation of it being a profit making strategy, then to dump them when they appear to no longer be good value for money is just too ironic. Ludicrous crack smoking insanity might be a better phrase."
That will be my last word on the matter. I obviously can't change your mind, and you definitely can't change mine ;)
Larry greedy for money?
If you think Larry is greedy for money, you certainly haven't seen large chunks of the debate.
I have no reason to disbelieve what he said (and I can't remember exactly what that was, but I've got it close enough) and he said that somebody tried to headhunt him.
If I've got this right, he turned down the opportunity to be the fourth FOUNDER of google, in order to write BitKeeper and help Linus/Linux.
Obviously, he didn't know that Google (or whatever it was) was going to turn into the success it did, but the way Internet stocks were going then, he turned down the chance to get in on an IPO stock at basement level, in order to help Linux with no guarantees whatsoever that he'd ever get much out of it.
Again - I don't know whether he knew what he was turning down, but he gave the impression he knew he was turning down something big.
Cheers,
Wol
it's still a bad deal overall
Why are you guys focusing on that one aspect of this issue? What does it matter whether he benefitted or not? Yes he propably did benefit. But he had also shown that he does care for Linux, outside of BK as well. You could say that he did it in order to promote his product and to help out Linus/Linux.
The open source community desparately needs something like BitKeeper--we can't all license BitKeeper. By putting all their energy into working with BitKeeper, all the potential useful feedback and contributions of ther Linux kernel hackers to a truly open source alternative have been lost. The cost to the community is enormous, even if Linus got to scratch a short-term itch.
McVoy, on the other hand, received marketing and feedback through the use with the Linux kernel he couldn't get commercially if he paid millions.
So, let's add it all up: it helped out the kernel developers for a few years, but it means two source code control system transitions for the kernel team (was that even worth it as far as the kernel is concerned?), lack of an open alternative for other open source projects, and the donation of millions of in-kind services to McVoy's company. I think it's a bad deal overall: McVoy got a lot out of it and the open source community probably lost overall.
But if he had wanted to, he c
But if he had wanted to, he could have decided NOT to give kernel-hackers BK for free.
No, No, NO.
Had he decided not to give a free version (with strings attached) to kernel developers, it would not have matured as it did, and he would not have been able to successfully market it as he did.
The commercial success of bitkeeper has been due to its acceptance and use by the linux kernel.
Here here.
Exactly. The only greedy assholes are the people who wanted to steal what he spent millions to write. Protecting that investment wasn't greed, it was just plain the right thing to do. It's interesting to note how everyone is ignoring the fact that Larry has supported Linux development despite these short sighted thieves, and only pulled the plug when OSDL wouldn't cooperate in stoping one of their own from breaking the BK liscense, which I think says a hell of a lot more about OSDL than it does BK/Larry.
Nobody was stealing anything
That is again buying Larry's bullshit. It's like saying that Samba is stealing what Microsoft spent millions developping. Bullshit.
Besides, I'm sorry, but if he spent millions developping something that can be reverse enineered in a few weeks, then he probably doesn't deserve much ;)
Nobody broke any licence here. Again, you are buying his crap. What somebody did is what we do all the time: we can't use that tool beause we can't accept the strings on the licence (have you read the bk licence ? it's _really_ scary) but we want to access software projects released as bk repositories with proper access to changeset comments and metadata. No other way than reverse engineering the repository format and writing a tool to do it. Period. It _is_ fair game, and it _is_ legal. There has been no licence breach. Larry is trying to draw a completely biased picture of the reality here.
Nobody was stealing anything?
"Besides, I'm sorry, but if he spent millions developping something that can be reverse enineered in a few weeks, then he probably doesn't deserve much ;)"
You clearly don't have a clue :-(
The whole point about science, and maths, and stuff like that, is that doing it for the FIRST time is bloody hard! Once somebody's done it, it's dead easy to copy.
How many times have you spent weeks trying to solve a problem, only to think "Doh" when somebody points out the answer to you? Larry spent millions because there was no friendly person out there to give him a "Doh" moment, or even a hint of a Doh moment.
But any Tom, Dick or Harry can then come along, take a quick look at BitKeeper, and have a whole series of "Doh" moments.
Think on this. Pretty much EVERY scientific advance is a "Doh" moment. The only reason it's expensive is because nobody ever had that particular "Doh" moment before.
Cheers,
Wol
That's got to be the stupides
That's got to be the stupidest thing anyone's said here. Do you think that it's now easy to prove Fermat's Last Theorem just because it's been proven? *If you haven't seen the proof*? BK is *proprietary*, you idiot. What's most absurd is that you're floating this mind-bogglingly moronic argument as a response to a totally ignorant and false claim -- that BK was cloned in a couple of weeks. All they did was reverse engineer a network protocol, they didn't clone BK. So stop being such a clueless shithead.
Previously you wrote "He stop
Previously you wrote "He stoped [sic] when people started openly violating his liscense [sic]". Here you write "stoping [sic] one of their own from breaking the BK liscense [sic]". I guess it's not just sloppy typing -- you really are an illiterate moron.
BitKeeper was ALWAYS a commercial project...
It's just that they were letting people use it for free if they were OpenSource developers. That doesn't change it's commercial nature.
It really all depends on your viewpoint, really. The problem as I see it is that we were depending on the good graces of a company that _claims_ to be OpenSource friendly and makes snide "jokes" about a "No Whining License" for one of their Open Source client offerings. Now that they're not "happy" with us (Sorry, I can't buy into the Open Source crowd being held to blame for someone who claims to be one of us reverse engineering the code when the license for BitKeeper prohibits this in the first place. We're not about being license breakers or IP theives.) the real problem is one of finding another solution because we were going to be at the mercy of the rights holder for anything anyway.
Stallman, unfortunately for all of us on this one, was dead-right about it all (You may not agree with him, but he's been right pretty much every time- even if it's an unpalatable position for everyone when he espouses one of these things...). I really, really wish Linus and company chose something else- we wouldn't BE in this mess right now.
Stallman is the bad apple
> Stallman, unfortunately for all of us on this one, was dead-right about it all
Dead-right? Why do you treat the man as a prophet? Stallman has a reputation of being as relentless as he is stubborn. He got involved in the kernel-BK issue with the intent of destroying BK. Stallman didn't predict a thing. In fact his involvement actively made it happen.
I think McVoy is making a huge mistake changing the free licensing of BK because this is precisely the outcome Stallman wanted.
He got involved in the kernel
He got involved in the kernel-BK issue with the intent of destroying BK.
No, Stallman got involved because he thought that using BK in the Linux kernel was a bad idea and that people should stop that.
The fact that you think that that amounts to "destroying BK" shows you how inequitable the deal is: BK would be commercially irrelevant if it weren't for the adoption by the Linux kernel developers. Of course, at this point, it doesn't matter anymore: BK is commercially accepted now thanks to Linux.
I think McVoy is making a huge mistake changing the free licensing of BK because this is precisely the outcome Stallman wanted.
McVoy is a businesman--he got what he wanted out of the "free" version of BK and now he is moving on. His blame game is just bluster and hot air.
So, it's okay to steal from others.
What you're saying amounts to "We don't care that the OSDL basically endorsed one of their own stealing from BitKeeper. We don't care what was spent to develop BK, we just want stuff for free, and if we can't think it up ourselves, we should be totally free to steal it."
Err, no
What you are saying basically amounts to a big load of shit.
Get the facts. Please.
OSDL had nothing to do with it. The fact someone worked for OSDL is irrelevant, not to mention that discriminating based on place of employment is terribly unethical and probably illegal in many countries. This wasn't done on company time.
Someone who did not agree to the license was working on making a tool with which they could view their *OWN* repository data that had been locked up in BK.
This somebody "caused" BM to then pull the license on *EVERYBODY* else who *did* agree to the license, and had done nothing wrong. This is after assurances that bitkeeper would be around for X years, and to make sure we always had access, it would go open source if BM ever went bust and blah blah blah.
Who acted unreasonably?
How did the OSDL employee ste
How did the OSDL employee steal, or attempt to steal, from BK?
BitKeeper was ALWAYS a commercial project...
Linus & co. didn't choose something else because there wasn't anything else that did the job (and still isn't at least according to the article).
RMS (rightly or wrongly) made the _same_ _decision_ when he first developed GNU tools for proprietary Unix - and continued to give those platforms priority even when Linux was first available.
RMS / FSF didn't throw proprietary platforms out and start pushing Linux when it was young and incomplete (but still usable, with some pain), rather, they waited until it was competitive with proprietary Unix and popular.
_Now_ RMS espouses the necessity of not depending on non-free platforms (eg. in the case of Java), but back then he made GNU dependent on non-free Unix (ok, so he had a plan to remove that dependency, but 20 years is a long time to be dependent...). In fact RMS only has the luxury now of espousing things like this precisely because people like Linus used whatever tools they could to create the basis for free systems.
Why are you and McVoy always looking for someone to blame?
"Or maybe they decided that it's not worth it trying to work with people who seem to hate their guts and who are constantly trying to undermine them?"
You are way off base. Please re-read the article. McVoy's own words provide the reason for this change: the development and maintenance of the "free" version of BitKeeper has become an unacceptable, and unnecessary, financial burden on Bitmover the corporation. Furthermore, McVoy makes it clear that the commercial side of Bitmover's business has become robust enough that they (Bitmover) have decided the time is right to focus exclusively in that domain. Some might say (myself among them) that Bitkeeper's use in Linux kernel development has been Bitmover's best marketing tool in acquiring this commercial base, and that therefore Bitmover's moves are rather cynical, but hey, that's life. From McVoy's own words, it is clear that he/Bitmover would eventually have come to the same decision regardless of the reverse engineering efforts. If he had left it at that, I think this move would generate far less controversy. But by attempting (for reasons that I can't fathom, but see below for why McVoy does this kind of thing) to deflect attention away from the main business issue by pointing to the reverse engineering efforts, along with a hodgepodge of other specious -- but for McVoy, obligatory -- attacks on the open source community, McVoy once again reveals his compulsion -- despite his contributions and various tomes professing his commitment to Open Source ideals -- for pursuing confrontation with the individuals, communities, and ideals of the Open Source and Free Software communities. Frankly, I'm just a little tired of hearing from McVoy. Hopefully, this move will result in reducing his exposure level in the publications I read.
Peter Yellman
Re: who is to blame here?
Let's be frank here: BitMover's insistence that the FOSS community could not create a competing product was simply untenable. Eventually someone was going to want to create a free alternative to BitKeeper--that's the FOSS way. BitMover's only true interest was leveraging the PR they got from one of the prime FOSS projects using their product. If they were truly a friend to the FOSS community, they would have used a dual license: a free one (e.g. the GPL) for the FOSS community, and a paid one for commerical enterprises. Instead, they wanted to keep their source code secret, just like a traditional proprietary software company.
I'm not saying it was wrong for Linus to use BitKeeper, but nobody should be surprised that this happened. It's rather disingeneous to suggest that certain members of the FOSS community was wrong to want to reverse engineer the BitKeeper protocol as the first step to creating a free alternative: the FOSS community is not an entity that can be controlled, after all, and if BitMover thought that they could rein in the entire FOSS community in return for a free license for Linux developers, then they don't understand the community at all.
Seriously, had Bitmover made
Seriously, had Bitmover made their product a 100% commercial product, no-one would have complained one bit.
Quite right. And that's the way commercial companies should behave: either keep their products fully proprietary or make them fully open source.
Anything else is an attempt to use open source as a marketing gimmick, and I have yet to see a company that has paid back enough to the open source community to make that worth everybody's while.
By using BitKeeper instead of an open source alternative, Linus failed to support one of the new open source version control systems, and as a result the open source community still does not have something like BitKeeper. The costs of that for the entire community are enormous, and the damage from the acceptance of BitKeeper's original offer is huge. BitKeeper should be condemned for making the offer, and Linus for being foolish enough to accept it.
Another problem with these kinds of deals is that the direction that the commercial company may want to take the "free" tool is not necessarily the best direction for FOSS. That's a problem even with dual-licensed software. So, just being able to use something under the GPL is not good enough--any kind of proprietary connection of a "free" tool has the potential for serious problems for users of the software down the road.
Similar comments apply to Sun and (to a certain degree) Troll Tech.
As a rule of thumb, stay away from software that is either not under a FOSS license, or that is dual licensed--you'll save yourself and others a lot of trouble.
RMS did same as Linus
Back when GNU was young, RMS made the same decision as Linus.
He relied on proprietary software (Unix) because the free alternatives weren't good enough - with a plan to replace the proprietary stuff, eventually (decades).
He & the FSF failed to support the free systems when they were new ("peripheral to the GNU Project"). Had they done so, things might have been different, but other people made the free systems happen anyway. The same will happen for version control systems - the free ones may take longer, but then they will probably always take longer for all sorts of reasons.
"He & the FSF failed to suppo
"He & the FSF failed to support the free systems when they were new ("peripheral to the GNU Project"). Had they done so, things might have been different, but other people made the free systems happen anyway."
What bullshit! Please provide us with a specific reference to a message in which RMS didn't support the development of a Free operating system because it was, quote: "peripheral to the GNU Project".
I believe you are attempting to smear RMS and the GNU project by rewriting history. It has been the *goal* of the GNU project to create a Free operating system (not just a kernel, btw) from the time that the project was founded in the mid 1980s, and most of the important components of GNU/Linux (glibc, gcc, gdb, etc.) were created by them. We HAVE a Free operating system today largely due to the work of project GNU, and the leadership of rms.
I insist that you back up this quote, or retract it!
What an asshole; your "insist
What an asshole; your "insist"ing doesn't change the facts familiar to anyone who was around at the time, and readily available to anyone competent to do a google search:
http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/bull/16/gnu_bulletin_25.html
This was not a gift
Bitmover was not a gift to the community. It was a contract: "you may use the tool as long you do not compete with us". Which side get most out of this contract has yet to be seen.
Even when working in contract
Even when working in contract, most companies try not to be seen ripping their partners off. BitMover came saw conquered and completely screwed over the Linux developers. So much so they are in total denial. I used to work for a company that did this (one of the billing consulting companies).. It was great fun. The way the customers justified totally ripping themselves off was brilliant. Unfortuantely morals kind of intervened and I went and found a more boring job elsewhere.
Or maybe they decided that it
Or maybe they decided that it's not worth it trying to work with people who seem to hate their guts and who are constantly trying to undermine them?
Er, the people who hate his guts were the ones refusing to use his product. The people he is abandoning are the people who have been sucking up to him.
A company that abandons its customers (they bought his system with their testing and suggestions) because it doesn't like some other people it's customers meet is a pretty bad company.
The people who agreed to the
The people who agreed to the licence and were using bitkeeper were not the same people complaining about it or trying to replace it.
So larry's conditions are basically: you can use this as long as everyone in the world does what i want. Yes, very reasonable indeed.
All his excuses not withstand
All his excuses not withstanding, I wouldn't be all too suprised to find that a certain company in Redmond has quietly passed something under the table to our man of the moment Larry to persuade him that it is not in his best interest to continue supporting a free BK for the Linux Kernel.
What better way to chop the legs out of Linux Development than to target the tools used to support that development. It makes simple sense to me and it explains better why using closed source tools to support Great Open Source Software will always be a dangerous exercise.
It always leaves you open to Subversion without you even knowing that it is happening.
All in all a useful learning experience I would say and one I certainly hope people are paying attention to.
It's not because of what you
It's not because of what you call "whining" that they've pulled BK. It's because of someone worked on writing a competing product - which the license, in all it's "free speech? what's that?"-ness disallows.
The Speed of Change hinders Linux uptake
As I recall the changes to Linux since the integration of BitKepper (around 2.4.18+ through 2.6.11) have been LOUSY!
The ability to quickly add features, new ideas and untested patches is great for development but has destroyed some GREAT reasons to take up linux: stability and speed. We've now hit the area where functionally, everybody has a different kernel code they're working on. Bugs can't be fixed and you can't test regressions when everybody has working on different kernel.
Let's stop the madness and slow down the pace of change in the kernel.
"As I recall the changes to L
"As I recall the changes to Linux since the integration of BitKepper (around 2.4.18+ through 2.6.11) have been LOUSY!"
And that has nothing to do with BK, it was a developement-process the developers decided to implement. They do not add new features to 2.6-series because they are using BK.
"The ability to quickly add features, new ideas and untested patches is great for development but has destroyed some GREAT reasons to take up linux: stability and speed."
The patches are not "untested". They are tested in the mm-tree. And the ability to quickly add features (although I'm not sure that is BK really better there than CVS for example) is a BENEFIT. It does not force the developers to do anything, it merely enables to do something if they want to do it. In the end, it's up to the developers to decide what they want to do. Are you suggesting that the kernel-hackers must start using some sucky system so that the developement-process slows down? it's a good thing you are not deciding these things....
And what "speed" are you talking about? Speed of developement? Hell it has increased after the adoption of BK! Speed of Kernel? I see no problems there. Some occasional hiccups, sure, but nothing major.
Well honestly stability has n
Well honestly stability has nothing to do with development process, and everything to do with (lousy) release process.
"The tide changing comes as n
"The tide changing comes as no surprise. It does, however, come at a poor time."
No, it's a great time for this. Development is really stable, everything's moving along fine. Andrew Morton does most of the work with Quilt anyway (http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/quilt).
For starters, lots more people should learn Quilt (it's free/open!)
Then there are Arch, Subversion and the one I'm personally in interested in, Monotone. It's about time these excellent tools got some more exposure.
Some BK history
While old it's kind of interesting to read about how BK was adopted by Linus.
Another more recent article
which talks about the changes to the LinuxDevelopment Model that BitKeeper allowed.
Licensing
Surely Linus is prohibited from developing his own source code control system, by the clause in the BK free license he accepted?
Well, the Bk folks backed out
Well, the Bk folks backed out from their side of the deal, for whatever reason... Why should Linus be expected to honour it ? Even if the license contains one clause or the other (hmmm, I remember something about not developing software competing to Bk for a year), common sense implies that it is now invalid. Although some would argue that lawyers are harldy known for their common sense...
License
I doubt Linus would have used the software under that license. I'm not sure whether it would have been a commercial license (maybe paid for by a token fee from OSDL), or some other agreement.
there are two sides to every story
.. and I'm disappointed that kerneltrap seems to have mostly told Larrys' side of this one.
The only thing that matters i
The only thing that matters is that BK is now out (thankfully), dramatically increasing the need to improve OSS version control systems. I expect this will spur much faster progress :)
RMS
I guess RMS going to make a big speech.
I am disappointed the most of
I am disappointed the most of the comments are from narrow minded free software religious zealots who don't understand that all they did whine, bitch, complain, violate a legal license (and boy they scream when someone violates the GPL), and remove one of the most useful tools for Linux kernel development we have...
There are two sides to every
There are two sides to every deal, though, and I dare say that BitMover wasn't honouring theirs. The original deal was - basically - "the kernel developers get to use BK for free; BitMover gets a high-profile project using BK, which is a Good Thing(tm) for advertising, especially considering nobody knew about the product".
The "you can't work on a competing implementation if you want to use the tool" license really is not compatible with that; and what's more, it was not just a theoretical issue, either, as at least one high-profile kernel developer (Andrea Arcangeli) was not able to use BK due to his involvement with CVS development.
Larry McVoy's continued arrogance and pathological lying (which shows in this post as well) did not help things, either.
As for violating a legal license, well, that is another issue that is not at all clear. Would it be legal for me to produce a program and then say "you can use this for free, but not if you're black", for example? Saying "you can use this for free, but not if you have done this or that in the past which is entirely unrelated" (and I do maintain that working on another revision control system *is* unrelated to the question of whether you can use BK for free or not) does not seem *that* different.
If you are going to personall
If you are going to personally attack somebody, have the courage to state your name instead of responding anonymously.