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

Delete BitKeeper

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a need for a source code managment tool with some new features. Free ones exist, why not add to them? Then the entire world could benefit.

Free Software will change the world. Companies can still make money and programmers will still have jobs. There will be a market for customising software and adding features. There will be a market for providing training and support (and people will pay it because they didn't spend money of the software).

In fact there will probably be more jobs and more programmers hired because software as a whole will start moving forward at a much quicker pace.

When everyone realises this there will be no market for BitKeeper, to make this happen people must think about Freedom.

Ciaran O'Riordan