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BitKeeper, back when I used it (2-3 years ago) had some nifty features, yes -- but was prone to corrupting the repository on a regular basis. What's more, Larry deliberately changed the license so that my then-current employer was no longer in compliance. Suffice to say that more than a few people there still consider him an asshole for that.

If Red Hat is going to put money into a better version control system, I'd hope that that would be either Subversion or arch. (The author is flat broke and has no web hosting unless someone gives him some, so that link may not work; also see here and here). Arch is brilliant, functional, much more reliable than BitKeeper (at least, much more reliable than BitKeeper was when I used it)... and for someone as utterly friggin' brilliant as Tom Lord to be utterly penniless (as in, unable to buy beer, much less pay rent) is just wrong.

Here's an update about arch and the regexps.com fundraising effort.

A few days ago, I released a GPL'ed package (the monkey directory editor for Emacs) as a fundraiser: rather than post the source or put up a tar bundle or repository, I've been charging people money to send them the source.

To my surprise, that actually worked a little bit. Some people bought copies. Great!

Today I'm trying a new variation: I've mailed out (to the gnu-emacs-sources mailing list) the source for the previous version of monkey, and now I'm offering to sell (still GPL) distributions that have some new features. We'll see.

If all of this works out, one idea I'm considering is to make all of my source available in the usual way (tar bundles, revision control repositories), but to rate-limit traffic from ".com" domains and sell FTP accounts. I think this model can be adopted by many projects, if it works, and that it won't cause any serious problems for hackers sharing code with one another (they just might want to use a non-".com" address for anonymous transfers).

This "service differential for source code" model isn't perfect by some standards. It doesn't force users to pay and it doesn't force customers to spend their money wisely. On the other hand, this model reminds users to pay and implements a well-defined service that they can pay for.

If you like the idea of this model -- that's another reason to support the current fundraiser! Perhaps we can bootstrap a whole new kind of Free Software Business Model.

Tom Lord is author of the only GNU release that has ever been pubically withdrawn (sed 3.0). Doesn't inspire much trust.

We were all young once....(some still are, I guess). I don't particularly recall why that happened, but I'd guess it was because though the (then new) regexp engine tested well on the tests available then, it was too slow on some other cases discovered after release, by users. It only took about another 10 years to get the regexp matcher right :-) You can find the current version in the Hackerlab C library, at www.regexps.com

Perhaps the problem is the overinsistence on advertising the products as free software as opposed to advertising them as useful products that can be licensed, for a price, at whatever terms the buyer wishes. The problem appears similar to that solved by Sleepycat.

The claims of hackerlab and arch are that they are technically superior solutions to important subareas of computer science. This is precisely what Sleepycat claims for Berkeley DB. As a GPLed library, hackerlab already qualifies as a product that cannot be used commercially unless the distributor wishes to distribute the source code for the application under the GPL. If hackerlab really has value, that ought to be enough to pry some money to continue its support. Similar considerations should apply to arch if it was designed properly.

I really don't know why in this case the market isn't a perfect judge of the true value of this project.

1. Nobody should ever be using SCCS these days
2. I wouldn't join in with an attempt to clone BitKeeper because
   • Larry is very good - I wouldn't bet that it can be done better
   • I wouldn't want to take away Larry's revenue stream
3. Something that's been on my TODO list for a long time now is to take a serious look at Arch by Tom Lord.
4. If you do go and invent a new version control system, please don't forget to create a VCS module for it (there are already modules for CVS, RevXML, RCS and Perforce).
5. I use CVS to manage the source repository for CSSC, but I have my eye on Subversion.

ObCVSWhinges:
On the whole CVS is good - in fact, in the most part it's good enough (ever heard the expression "The best is the enemy of the good"? Well, the good is the enemy of the best, too!).

My pains with it are

• It gradually gets slower as you add more files and revisions
• Inadequate hooks for plugging it into your bug tracker, work management system, database, toaster etc. The *info scripts exist but aren't really enough.
• There are obscure gotchas that mean I can't unreservedly reccomend it for use by just anybody (i.e. people without training/skills). These issues include problems with binary files being edited on several branches at once.

I took a short look at the arch home page. Support for sftp still isn't built-in (so it's still dreadfully insecure), but there is a separate patch available to support sftp. I suspect that eventually arch will support sftp and/or other things to replace the absurd "password in the clear" approach it's currently using.

However, it still isn't clear to me that a developer can't modify other files in supposedly "frozen" copies in arch. arch takes a very unusual approach to repositories - which is interesting! - but it appears that Joe Programmer might be able to modify other files than the one Joe is supposed to be modifying. Or perhaps Joe changes "older" versions that he's submitted, screwing up configuration management. Perhaps arch counters this, but I haven't seen any analysis of it that way (please let me know if there are any!!). The fact that arch still requires passwords in the clear doesn't exactly give me warm fuzzies about its security; writing secure programs isn't trivial and requires a commitment to do so.

Arch is actually quite interesting in many ways... but the security issues do concern me.

Subversion isn't the only open-source revision control system out there. Check out these projects as well:
OpenCM
arch
Stellation
PRCS

For all the borking I hear on this thread about the "badness" of BK, I have to ask if there are any viable GPL'd alternatives to it?

I am in a position to get a VC system in place at work. We have looked at a lot of commercial stuff, but they leave me kinda dry and with a lot less money. The are very proprietory, usually only work on Windows, and don't work & play well with others.

I think I would love to implement CVS, however there are some problems with this solution. Although it is "Free", GPL'd, open, & x-platform, it is also somewhat difficult to setup, use, & maintaine from an enterprise view.

There are Subversion and Arch. CVS/NG is being talked about.

Using BitKeeper troubling.. why cant someone just beat linus over the head with cvs.. and script that up for him? have perl will travel

Linux has made it very clear that CVS doesn't get anywhere near to to meeting the needs of the kernel developers. There are a couple of interesting free revision control systems, arch and subversion on the horizon, which may get adopted at some point in the future however.

john

Subversion definitely looks interesting. It's under active development and is making fast progress. But I doubt the authors would recommend it yet for production use; it's still in pre-Alpha.

But one important feature that they don't intend to tackle is the ability to have distributed repositories. The idea is that if there are 40 developers working on a shared code tree, but a team of 6 people who are going to making major changes to the code. These 6 developers should be able to easily checkin their code to a local repository until it is ready to atomically merged into the main repository.

There's a good description of this on the BitKeeper web page.

It looks like arch is intending something similar, but the project seems to be progressing fairly slowly.

-Bruce

We all know that BitKeeper isn't free software, and I don't really know why it was chosen by Linus to manage Linux development since we have a much better solution in arch.

I think it is great. It follows the *nix spirit, spliting a problem in lots of little parts as addressing each part with one pre-existing tool or some home-made bash scripts. For the diff/patch lovers (like myself), it is great to find another uses for these tools.

I used to use CVS... but it doesn't scale so good. When Linus move to BitKeeper, I give it a try... but it was so disappointing. So I decided to give arch a try.... I am using it 'til now.

You can check it here.

I find it interesting that in their Assessment of Various SCM Systems there is no mention of BitKeeper, Arch, or Subversion, all of which have been brought up here in the past.

Does anyone know how they compare? It seems to me as though this space is becoming increasingly crowded. Choice is a good thing, I just fear that it might be at the cost of being able to easily communicate code between developers.

In opening, what is wrong with CVS? If it's such a big piece of shit, where are CVS' authors to address the problem?

With arch, subversion, Bitkeeper, Perforce, and Starteam there is a large group of choices for someone setting up a new project. Having the choice is a good thing, but there is a lack of good information on the topic.

I'm looking to get a RCS setup soon for an open source project, and this article reminded me that maybe CVS isn't a given. To decide, I can go read the docs for each, set each one of them up, and find the one that best suits me. Man, that's gonna suck.

Someone needs to sit down with each of these (and any others of significance) and really do a comparison. Investing the time to get your brain wrapped around a new RCS is very expensive.

/. inserts a space in any string over a certain size to prevent attacks where someone posts a huge string and forces the display to be a mile wide.

If you make the URL a link like this (which is common courtesy anyway) then /. doesn't break the URL.

Now I'm confused!

I've been using CVS for years and read with great interest the recent Linux Journal article about the Subversion project to created a CVS replacement that is better than CVS.

Then I see a Slashdot story about arch.

Now, my FearLessLeader starts using Bitkeeper.

Should I move from CVS and, if so, which is best?

According to this, there is a plan for CVS repository conversion.

Cool.

Here is a comparison to cvs

Anyone seen the the hackerlabs/regexp.com site? This site has almost the attitude of the article, but they do still provide anonymous ftp. I guess you could call it grudgeware. They only "strongly encourage" you to donate, er, I mean pay the "Download Fee." They also have self-assessed GNU "GPL Registration" fees in addition to traditional licensing. Huh. At prices like that, though, I'd hope it's both a regex library and a dessert topping.

Anyone seen the the hackerlabs/regexp.com site? This site has almost the attitude of the article, but they do still provide anonymous ftp. I guess you could call it grudgeware. They only "strongly encourage" you to donate, er, I mean pay the "Download Fee." They also have self-assessed GNU "GPL Registration" fees in addition to traditional licensing. Huh. At prices like that, though, I'd hope it's both a regex library and a dessert topping.