Interview With BitKeeper Author Larry McVoy

Jeremy Andrews writes "KernelTrap has spoken with Larry McVoy, BitMover founder and primary BitKeeper author. BitKeeper, a distributed source control system, has been adopted by Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds and condemned by free software icon Richard Stallman. In this interview, Larry looks back through the years, describing his exposure to computers and Linux. He also discusses the history of BitKeeper, from writing NSElite for Sun (which turned into their still used SCM, Teamware), to his desire to keep Linus from burning out, to the present day solution. The choice to not license BitKeeper under the GPL is also explained. Larry discusses much beyond Bitkeeper as well, exploring some of his other interests. Find the full interview on KernelTrap."

Comments

Re:Extremism and Source Code Control...

[SurfsUp]

McVoy is hardly anti-free-software. The very fact that he gives away *anything* for free symbolizes that.

Loss leader? 30 day free trial? What has that got with 'free as in freedom'? Larry lets open source projects use BitKeeper for free (for now) so that he can stamp 'Official Source Code Management System of Linux' on the box, and get free advertising. It's not because he loves free (as in freedom) software. In fact, he takes every opportunity to trash the ideals of free-as-in-freedom software and argues that it is anti-business, almost parroting the words of Microsoft. With friends like that...

The very fact that he gives away *anything* for free symbolizes that. (He doesn't have to give anything away.) He makes the simple requirement that the free users use the newest versions for bug reporting reasons.

That's what he says. The less trusting suggest it's so that he can change the licence any time he wants, in particular, he can end the free usage any time he wants. So he's enshrined his right to pull a bait and switch.

Re:No....

[ncc74656]

ESR, who is, as you all know a strange mix of valuable open source contributor and condemnable weapons idiot.

...as opposed to a sheep who does whatever Big Brother tells him to do and who expects Big Brother to save his weak ass when the sh*t hits the fan? Given what happened the last time all the guns were rounded up in your country, I would think you would've learned your lesson by now.