BitKeeper EULA Forbids Working On Competition

Col. Klink (retired) writes "BitKeeper's new EULA forbids working on the competition. Larry McVoy has told Ben Collins that he can't use BK because he works on subversion (a free revision control program). In fact, you can't use BitKeeper if you OR your company have anything to do with competing software. Free Software advocates who were upset when Linus decided to use non-Free software now have the opportunity to say 'I told you so.'"

Comments

clarification for a tired dummy

[dirvish]

I don't feel like reading a EULA tonight...by "working on" I assume that means contributing code. Is that correct? It doesn't mean using the program, right?

Re:clarification for a tired dummy

[unixmaster]

Yeah means contributing to code.

Re:clarification for a tired dummy

[rseuhs]

Since Bitkeeper is a development package, "using" equals "contributing code" for all meaningful cases.

Re:clarification for a tired dummy

[kasperd]

"using" equals "contributing code"

Yes using BitKeeper equals contributing code to some project . But using BitKeeper does not equal contributing code to a project competing with BitKeeper .

You can use BitKeeper and other version control software for developing software for a completely different purpose (like for instance Linux), the question was what the EULA has to say about that.

I actually doubt this statement in the BitKeeper EULA has any relevance for European users. I guess it is only in America you can legally make such ridiculous claims.

Re:clarification for a tired dummy

[TrebleJunkie]

Oh, I'm sure you can *make* the claim here, but try enforcing it. Good luck with that.

Only the gratis license is affected

[Bartab]

Note that only the use of Bitkeeper for free is affected by this clause. It still seems like this was a bait-and-switch maneuver on the part of BitKeeper, also there seems to be some personal animosity with the Subversion crew.

Subversion isn't quite up to par, yet, but it does seem like the switch to 2.6/3.0 "soon" would be a good time to switch revision control systems to something less... counter productive.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[gladiator72]

An excellent time to quote President Zaphod Beeblebrox: "WOW!"

It makes me quiver with abject glee to know with relative certainty that authors of printed publications will never resort to individual licenses (rather than the kind of license that is required to, for instance, make a movie or adapt the story to the stage) that would abjectly forbid any other author or potential author of a book in a similar genre from reading!

Imagine if H.G. Wells would have declared that anyone reading his books would be strictly forbidden from publishing a novel in the genre that would become known as science-fiction.

Imagine if chip manufacturer X were to forbid other chip manufacturers from using their(X) chips or any product that uses their chips in the design or fabrication of the competing chips.

Imagine if you were forbidden from using ketchup in your meatloaf!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!! Hrm... okay. I'm slipping. Heh. Yeah. Anyway.

Regardless of how simple and striaght-forward the BitKeeper product may be, I think Mr. McVoy is forgetting that folks that do kernel development have been using tools such as gcc, as, emacs, vi, lint, m4 thingies, troff, make, info... XWindows (for the love of God!) Needless to say, your average kernel developer is probably not the typical oh-my-i-just-cant-figure-this-out-when-is-bill-goi ng-to-come-and-save-me-with-another-bug-ridden-blo ated-version-of-his-operating-system-so-I-can-get- on-with-what-I-really-want-do
sort of end user. If he really thinks he can bully the egg-head* community in such a fashion, he's either much more brilliant than he's coming off as or his visions of becoming a respected revision control system author are going to intersect quite abruptly with the particular variety of fate known as limited-lifespan (at least as it pertains to projects that have large groups of developers that just might actually work for a competitor).

On a different angle, if the kernel community does not decide to ditch BK for some reason, it will make for entertaining legal stories if/when Mr. McVoy starts having people hauled in. Can you imagine the kinds of goodies that will be drifting through the minds of those junior-assistant-undersecretary-to-the-person-who- brings-water-to-the-one-who-gets-to-deal-with-the- silly-things officer at foreign state departments?

Mr. McVoy, please. I beg of you. Our glorious leader is already making us look extremely silly and annoying to the rest of the planet! Please do not exaserbate the situation.

Praise Cheezewiz...

* this adjective used out of respect

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact remains that these are the terms of the license. Anyone who doesn't like the license should obey it and use something else. Whining about it on slashdot won't help.

(your post was not funny. I would advise you to try harder but perhaps trying too hard is the problem.)

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[AdTropis]

i think your analogies are off. in the H. G. Wells analogy, i think it might be more like:

H. G. Wells would forbid anyone from publishing a novel that was written using his typewriter/pencil.

or in the chip fab analogy:

company X would forbid company Y from producing a competing product using X's fabrication facilities.

it doesn't appear as though BK is trying to eliminate the competition. BK is simply saying: you can't use their resources (bandwidth, server space, software, etc) if you work on a competing product. as Larry McVoy says several times on the mailing list, he is running a business and supporting your competition is not a great idea for a business.

i do, however, think that the restriction is a bit harsh since it doesn't just keep the project from being developed using BK. it also keeps the developers who help develop competing products from using BK to work on non-competing products (like the linux kernel). this seems to have caused quite a problem for several of the kernel developers.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[Chandon Seldon]

Umm... I'm afraid I disagree with your stated opinion.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[haystor]

Or better yet, write a software EULA to a widely used program that prohibits the practice of law. Then perhaps we might see some effort on behalf of the courts to say that EULA's are unenforceable.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[sjames]

I can understand (to a degree) preventing someone from using BK for free to develop a competing product, but to rule out working on competing software period is somewhat more destructive.

Necessity truly is the mother of invention. We invent because of some dissatisfaction with the present way of doing things. To make something that is necessary (or even quite helpful) more expensive for anyone who wants to invent a better replacement is to deliberatly kill innovation.

I imagine that Edison used either oil or gas lights while working on the light bulb. Henry ford probably used some form of transportation other than his feet while preparing to make automobiles. Imagine if they had been unable to afford the increased cost?

I suppose next, we will see OS licenses that disallow use of a computer to develop a better OS, or chipsets that don't allow the development of a new chipset.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants". The BK EULA is like the 'giants' forbidding Newton from standing on their shoulders. Perhaps the oil companies would like to charge $100/gallon if you work on electric cars?

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[AdTropis]

the difference, however, is that when Edison used oil/gas lights, he had bought those lights and owned them. he was then free to do whatever he wanted with them including developing a better, competing product.

the BK situation is different because the data is stored on BK's servers. while i would argue that the actual BK client itself (the binary copy you have anyways) is yours to do with what you please, the actual service that BK provides is under their control. if it were possible to run your own BK server on your own hardware with your own internet connection, i don't think McVoy would have a leg to stand on with his new policy.

so, going back to your Edison analogy, i think the oil/gas light industry would have been upset had Edison developed the electric light bulb in their factories/development labs. however, while Edison did use their products, he did so at his own expense and was therefore in the right.

as a p.s. i want to make it clear that i don't think software vendors should have the right to dictate what uses one can get out of software. when you buy a hammer, the hammer manufacturer can't tell you what to do with it. the same should be true of software since software is basically a tool. however, in the case where a business is providing a service that makes use of their own resources, i think they should have the full right to make any contractual stipulations that they want. it is their equipment and their business.

i hope that clears up my viewpoint a little. i'm thinking my original reply might have left a few confused as to what my actual viewpoint was.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[Gerald]

How about the SourceForge analogy?

Suppose someone were using SourceForge's free service to develop a product which would compete directly with SourceForge's commercial offering. Would it be reasonable for SF to tell them to go somewhere else?

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[mpe]

Imagine if H.G. Wells would have declared that anyone reading his books would be strictly forbidden from publishing a novel in the genre that would become known as science-fiction.

Or even forbidden from writing a story, play, poem, screenplay, movie, etc which used the themes of time travel, invention, social class, evolution, etc in any way. Just for having read "The Time machine".

Imagine if you were forbidden from using ketchup in your meatloaf!!

You could use katchup with your meatloaf, but never again eat any other product any part of the tomato or a related plant.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[sjames]

so, going back to your Edison analogy, i think the oil/gas light industry would have been upset had Edison developed the electric light bulb in their factories/development labs.

That's all fine and dandy. However, the BK EULA goes further than that. It would be more like the oil lamp company offers a free lamp with purchace of oil, but will cost $1000 if you or anyone you work for tries to develop a competing technology, even if that development is confined to daylight hours.

Further, they don't tell you that until after you have already used the 'free' lamp for a while and become dependant on it.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[gladiator72]

I'm crushed.

And how high does the days-since-your-evaluation-license-expired counter on your winzip installation count... :P

Perhaps a little research under the topic of "common carrier" as it pertains to the telecommunications industry might give you a couple ideas as to the untenable nature of this sort of EULA clause.

Not everything you read is true. Not everything you sign is binding.

When I was in college, I watched in utter amazement at the number of students that rushed home to change after a campus LBG group posted signs to the affect of "support LBG students! wear jeans on Monday!" (these were, of course, posted late Sunday night)

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[YoungHack]

I did notice recently that one of the Microsoft
licenses was automatically revoked if you chose
to sue (anyone) over a patent that was related
to the covered software.

So perhaps they are doing everyone a favor by
dissuading litigation.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Rar anyways, and it is payed for :)

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not saying that these people can't use it.

What he is saying is that "Here's this product that I charge money for. As a gift to the community, I intend to give it away to a certain category of people. This category does not include anyone who works on competing products (even free, as in either beer or speech, competing products). These people are welcome to pay for the license, however."

This is a perfectly reasonable stance on his part. It would also be a perfectly reasonable stance for the Linux Kernel group to say "Okay, we won't use it".

The real debate going on here isn't so much about the license change, but what the future effects of subsequent license changes could be, especially if it gets to the point where the Kernel group do decide to drop it.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two questions.

Actually three. The first is whether you're crushed, and since you're a pompus wanker you are obviously not. Sadly it usually takes more than that.

The second is it legally enforcable? Probably not.

The third, is the question of legal enforcability all you need to consider? If you're some kind of asshole who will take all he can without actually being arrested, no. If you sign something anyway when you don't believe it is binding you're just a specialized kind of liar.

To answer your question, neither MacOS nor Windows XP requires winzip. XP includes it, and MacOS includes Stuffit. So sorry you attended a college for morons.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[Rik van Riel]

Subversion isn't quite up to par, yet, but it does seem like the switch to 2.6/3.0 "soon" would be a good time to switch revision control systems

Sorry to shatter your dreams, but subversion is fundamentally unsuitable to a project like the Linux kernel. Sure, Linus could export his kernel to the world via subversion, but:

• other developers couldn't use version control for their own development ... or
• other developers would need write rights to the central repository

As you know, neither of these options is acceptable. Linus wants to keep control over his tree while the other developers want to be able to have version control over their own tree.

CVS with diff&patch just doesn't cut it and neither does Subversion. Apart from the missing functionality there's also the speed problem: just imagine 1000 people asking for revision history of the kernel tree at once...

An alternative for bitkeeper really would need to be a distributed source control system, where each developer has his/her own repository locally and can push changes to (or pull changes from) other developers easily.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[Anonymous Coward]

If you sign something anyway when you don't believe it is binding you're just a specialized kind of liar.

So what kind of liar are you when you say to your customer:

"You can use this product under these terms... oops, except now that you've paid for it, all the terms change... oh shit, look at the time, need to get those conditions changed again"

?

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[pyrrho]

this is exactly right... "you can't use this phone if you are going to discuss developing a better technology". Some people have defended this EULA on the grounds, for example that, "CVS isn't a competitor to BK" (b/c it's so lowly, I guess).. that is... IT ONLY HOPES TO PROHIBIT THE ADVANCEMENT OF THINGS THAT ARE BETTER! It's specifically wants to slow technology to perpetuate itself. YES, I understand why this makes "sense" from the business point of view... but as a user and customer it makes no sense.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[warp1]

> An excellent time to quote President Zaphod Beeblebrox: "WOW!"

Someone has made a mistake. The score isn't a 5, it's a 6!

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[gladiator72]

I am indeed crushed. Flattened like the week old corpse of a smallish beetle under the heel of a fat man. I am bug dust blown before what is undoubtedly a certifiably freakish halitosis... I go now to my death!

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[velco]

Sorry to shatter your dreams, but subversion is fundamentally unsuitable to a project like the Linux kernel.

Rik, actually, distributed repositories and inter-repository comminucation is a planned feature for SVN (though not for v1.0, IIRC).

And are there indeed BK repos, which push into the Linus's tree ? If not, all the hoopla about BK and its suitability for Linux (the kernel) development is just noise.

~velco

PS. FWIW, SVN is is a very advanced state. To paraphrase Roland McGrath - "We're way ahead of you. SVN has always been on the bleeding edge of not being useful for anything".

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[AdTropis]

and again, the analogy is off...

imagine the oil lamp company that offers a free lamp *rental* (not a purchase, you do not own the lamp) if you purchase the oil for it and then cries foul when you try to create the electric lightbulb. yes, in that case i would say that the lamp company would be in their right to either charge you for the lamp or insist that you return it. it is their property after all, not yours.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[sjames]

The buggy whip and oil lamp manufacturors of the world thank you! After all, if stifling innovation is such ways was during the industrial revolution, we might still be trying to get it going.

Imagine a world where you can't buy anything at all, only rent it for life provided you meet a few piddlingly small requirements....

Honestly, that's the way things are going these days. In order to evaluate what is right, we have to consider the effects on society and progress as well as individual rights.

Consider a similar scenerio: The bank holding your mortgage informs you that the interest rate will be 5%. Unless you enter into competition with one of their investments, then it will be 24.5%. Naturally, they decide what constitutes competition. That decision is subject to change without notice, of course.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected

[PhilHibbs]

Imagine if H.G. Wells would have declared that anyone reading his books would be strictly forbidden from publishing a novel in the genre that would become known as science-fiction.

It's ridiculous, but if HGW gave it away for free under that condition, then maybe that would be legal. However, in the case of books that you buy, normal copyright (i.e. fair use) applies, and restrictive licences like this are not allowed. I think there have been cases where shrinkwrap licences on purchased books have been ruled invalid.

There's another big difference between books and software - H.G.Wells and Jules Verne weren't really competitors, because an SF fan would probably want to read both. BitKeeper and SubVersion are competitors, because if both are fully functional, you only need one of them.

What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[phr2]

Could someone please post a feature list of what BitKeeper does that comparable free programs don't? There may be such a list already, so a url would be fine. It's time for free source control programs to get whatever capabilities that they're missing. Since I've never seen BitKeeper myself, I'd like to know what new stuff needs to be implemented.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[kryps]

Hi!

You can find a probably biased comparison here:
http://www.bitkeeper.com/Products.Comparisons.CVS. html

-- kryps

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[g4dget]

CVS is quite powerful and fast. I think just about any project for which CVS is not powerful enough probably needs to be broken up into larger numbers of independent source trees and groups of developers. And, yes, I include the Linux kernel in that assessment.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[Anonymous Coward]

CVS is quite a poor comparison, Subversion is a mix of CVS and Perforce, so screw it as well, it's in a different league (centralised, small scale version control)

wrt branching and stuff arch might be the best free counterpart, but it needs a lot of work to be really competitive

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[kryps]

Hi!

Well it seems that Tom Lord (author of arch) did not succeed raising the cash that he needed to continue development. His website (www.regexps.com) has been down for weeks now.

Not that I think that arch would have grown up to something useful in the future anyway. Producing a good SCM such as BitKeeper is an unholy amount of work and he was under the perception that the so-called "community" would donate enough money to allow him to accomplish that. Poor guy. Welcome to reality.

-- kryps

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[pediddle]

Yes CVS is powerful and fast, but anyone who uses it long enough knows there are just some CVS features that are hacks. Binary file support for one example, renaming files, and the biggest of all, renaming directories. If you can make a project that never has to reorganize in its history, then you are some kind of diety.

The reason Subversion, BitKeeper, and a whole host of other next-generation SCM products are being developed is because CVS just plain doesn't cut it for most serious development. It works, but not nicely.

Subversion is not distributed, so while having independent, distributed source trees is a nice feature of BitKeeper that some projects require, it is not the only reason to switch.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Binary?

Sounds a bit iffy if you ask me.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[tomlord]

> he was under the perception that the so-called
> "community" would donate enough money to allow
> him to accomplish that.

No, I wasn't. The community did keep me afloat for longer than I otherwise would have been, while I worked on getting corporate funding for a small team to finish and polish the hell out of arch.

Now an interesting question becomes: what does the bitkeeper license imply to IBM, HP/Compaq, Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, and other businesses that depend on the linux kernel?

This event points to a more general problem: the free software business world needs a better infrastructure for all projects, not just the kernel. Now they have one more reason to believe in the urgency of this need.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[kryps]

Good to hear. Is there a website where I can track the progress of arch development?

-- kryps

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[tomlord]

> Is there a website....

No. I didn't say that commercial support has been found. It hasn't.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[gehirntot]

This event points to a more general problem: the free software business world needs a better infrastructure for all projects, not just the kernel. Now they have one more reason to believe in the urgency of this need.

At least for content management systems, there is a very solid CVS replacement:

OpenCM.

One of the many features of OpenCM is cryptographic integrity protection.

Go, read their webpage.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[Jordy]

BitKeeper does have one feature that I consider worth the price of development, simply because I haven't found it anywhere else. Each developer has a full-featured repository on their machine.

This means that you can get on a plane, disconnected from the world, start working on your laptop and commit, revert, branch, etc. Once you get back to an internet connection, you can easily sync back to the main repository and have all those lovely change messasges transferred with you.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple repositories are an absolute must, and I don't understand how so many free and proprietary version control systems can be offered without them.

The greatest advantage is that you have to levels of checkins: local and global. That means I can keep checking changes in three times a day if I want to, and the changes don't even have to compile. When you are ready to commit the changes for the whole project, you do a global checkin.

I know the same feature can be simulated with branching but not without a bunch of extra scripts. Teamware and Bitkeeper support that right out of the box.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[rodgerd]

It implies that RedHat cannot, for example, patch an exploit in CVS and ship it any more. It could even be said to imply RedHat can't ship CVS - in as much as they modify vanilla CVS in order to package it.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[g4dget]

Binary file support for one example,

It stores and versions them--what more do you want?

renaming files, and the biggest of all, renaming directories.

Renaming files and directories is already pretty straightforward in CVS. But since there is no explicit command for it, many people seem to think it's hard. Adding a "cvs rename" would be easy--no reason to throw out the entire system and start from scratch.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Renaming files and directories is already pretty straightforward in CVS. But since there is no explicit command for it, many people seem to think it's hard. Adding a "cvs rename" would be easy--no reason to throw out the entire system and start from scratch.

It's not just renaming files and directories, it's keeping a history of what used to be what. In CVS, if you rename a directory, there's nothing that keeps track of the old name, which can break older versions of your source/makefiles if they refer to that directory. In a sufficiently large project this becomes a problem when you refactor/redesign/reorganize things over time.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[mirabilos]

Binary works kind of well.

Renaming (in general) sort of works, but you lose
the earlier names, or the history. I usually mv the
RCS files if it's not a big deal.
Also, with a bit of inter-developer action, you
could tag the tree before the rename, and after,
so everyone could diff his changes. Oh, wait.

You missed the big scary missing point of cvs
(after renaming): disconnected operation.

See, a developer at flight cannot simply check in.
Even if he has a local copy of the master repo, he
would need to preserve it, etc etc, with many
hassles.
I first encountered it getting the OpenBSD source
via CTM, by retrieving
the full repository. CTM cannot update any more when
you modificate the files (ok there is some mechanism
to circumvent that, but xxx,v.ctm is just ugly).

Some OpenBSD developer told me in IRC (#OpenBSD on
OpenProjects.net (www.freenode.net)) that they will
switch to OpenCM in some years when it is more mature.
(it became a port some days later...) which is said
to be better. They will not use any of the other CMS,
he added.

Maybe this helps.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[howardjp]

Uhm, the BSDs have been there for ten years. Where have you been?

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[Just Some Guy]

Are you still wanting to work on arch? Do you still need hosting? If so, I can probably donate some storage and bandwidth. Drop me an email if you can use my resources (consumer-grade though they may be).

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[tomlord]

The BSDs have been "way ahead of everyone else" in engineering infrastructure for ten years -- but they aren't "there".

More specifically, the BSD makefiles and the process disciplines observed by the relatively small groups of core maintainers are nice. However, these nice properties of BSD development don't translate easily to other projects; aren't anarchic enough for the role of free software in today's markets; aren't automated enough, etc.

But -- yeah -- the BSDs are pretty inspiring.

Hmm. I have a little paper about where I think the free software business world needs to go to get "there", if anyone is interested. Write to lord@emf.net to ask for a copy.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[Anonymous Coward]

As Dr. Evil says..."Riiiiiiiighhhhhht". As others have noted, this 'comparison' doesn't include SubVersion, and I suspect it won't. Of course, BitKeeper is certainly welcome to prove me wrong...

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[whereiswaldo]

It bothers me that a company can say in their EULA something like "these terms may change at any time without notice". What security does that give the user? You're at the mercy of their whim. It should work that whatever you agree to with a certain version of their product cannot change -- if a new version comes out with new terms, you shouldn't be forced to use that version and therefore abide by those terms. But alas, it is not so.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do?

[g4dget]

In CVS, if you rename a directory, there's nothing that keeps track of the old name,

Sure there is. You rename by deleting the old file and adding it as a new file. It's simple and all versions of the software are consistent.

An explicit "cvs rename" command would basically do just that, but it could have a few more convenience features (linking logs together, handling directories automatically).

If you "mv" around files in the CVS directory, on the other hand, your repository will be inconsistent. Don't do that.

For what a EULA is worth

[Teun]

(without having read the "New EULA")

It's a New EULA, so the old one did not mention it?
The solution is simple: continue to use your existing version.

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[Florian Weimer]

It's a New EULA, so the old one did not mention it?
The solution is simple: continue to use your existing version.

The old EULA is revoked automatically as soon as Bitmover changes the Bitkeeper test suite so that the old version no longer passes it. In essence, this means that Bitmover can revoke old licenses at any time.

IANAL, but I know I can't rely on Bitkeeper (the vendor doesn't want me to, obviously). Maybe the commercially sold version is different, I don't know.

Bitkeeper is probably really nice software, so we can only hope that Red Hat (or someone else) buys Bitmover one day and licenses Bitkeeper under the GPL.

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[XaXXon]

Unfortunately, this as been in the EULA for at least 6 months. Not sure where I read it, but it's in the mailing list archive.

Also, as was mentioned earlier, if you're using the free version, BitKeeper forces you to upgrade as newer beta versions come out.

On a personal note,
Man, this really sucks. BitKeeper is cool, but man, I don't want to deal with it not being free, much less major restrictions on who can use it within the limitations put upon the free version. I'd be happy to see Linus come back and say "no" to bitkeeper and push it back into obscurity forever..

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[justdisguyyaknow]

Buy Bitmover and release Bitkeeper under the GPL?

You want to reward him for this sort of behavior? I'd rather direct my goodwill wishing at someone or some company a bit nobler.....

And just wait for subversion in the meantime. Actually there are many alternatives to root for.

(Besides, do you know how expensive it would be to buy Bitmover? Think about the ego's involved. Better yet, just ask. I imagine you'd get a straight answer. Any guesses on how many zeros for to own this magic product you'd then be expected to give away for free?)

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[Florian Weimer]

Buy Bitmover and release Bitkeeper under the GPL? You want to reward him for this sort of behavior? I'd rather direct my goodwill wishing at someone or some company a bit nobler.....

What behavior? Actually, I'm not sure if Larry McVoy is the evil guy here. He couldn't do any harm to the free software community if people playing key roles in the community weren't using his software (thus forcing others to do so as well).

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[cduffy]

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.

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[Anonymous Coward]

Hye parent should be 5;Informative. Please use your mods wisely.

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[justdisguyyaknow]

Well, I'd clarify my comment a bit. I'm fine with whatever licensing terms he wants to go with (they may be arguable outrageous, as long as they're legal).

But the idea of retroactively adjusting licenses and forcing compliance for _existing_ users seems like it's not quite fair. (Even Microsoft can't force you to install SP3 or upgrade office 97, even thought they'd like to. Even the GPL lets you choose which version of a later license you'd like to be bound under.)

What's going on here is _existing_ users under an old license have to upgrade to new terms.

Bottom line, I'd just rather deal with friendlier people. If better development tools are the order, and non-free software is okay, I'd look elsewhere?

Otherwise, what's the next license change going to look like?

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[Florian Weimer]

Otherwise, what's the next license change going to look like?

I agree that the hidden relicense clause is quite obnoxious, and it's something I can't deal with. I need version control badly, and I can't suddenly switch systems just because the vendor decided to change the license in some obscure way, making it unacceptable to me.

However, it's funny that you bring up Perforce in this context. Perforce grants gratis licenses for free software development for just one year. After this time period, the licensed apparently has to be renewed.

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[Rik van Riel]

I'd be happy to see Linus come back and say "no" to bitkeeper and push it back into obscurity forever..

Even if Linus stops using bitkeeper, I won't.

I'll only stop using bitkeeper the moment an equivalent free alternative to bitkeeper is available.

Flaming me won't change my decision, making a free alternative to bitkeeper available will.

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[tomlord]

> and for someone as utterly friggin' brilliant as
> Tom Lord to be utterly penniless [...] is just
> wrong

Of course, I strongly agree.

> (as in, unable to buy beer, much less pay rent)

I am as happy as one can be under these circumstances to report that, much to my surprise, I was able to buy both this month's rent and this week's beer on the last dribs and drabs of a friend's credit. But, yeah, it's pretty bleak.

But, hey ... I've got this kick-ass business and technology plan here for companies like Red Hat and all the unix vendors.... free software is _good_ for business, and I'm doing my damndest to make things work. (Hey, Scott McNealy, let's do lunch (you're buying):-)

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[Rik van Riel]

... thus forcing others to do so as well ...

Bitkeeper uses the open SCCS data format to store all its data. The Linux kernel source code is available in a half-dozen other ways than bitkeeper. Linus accepts (prefers!) patches sent the oldfashioned way.

I have no explanation other than ignorance or mass panic for the phenomenon that happened here on /. today. There simply is nobody forcing people to use bitkeeper, the only reason to use bitkeeper is that it's the best tool out there.

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[cduffy]

But, hey ... I've got this kick-ass business and technology plan here for companies like Red Hat and all the unix vendors.... free software is _good_ for business, and I'm doing my damndest to make things work. (Hey, Scott McNealy, let's do lunch (you're buying):-)

Say, tried talking with MontaVista Software? They /seriously/ need a good version control system (with patchset functionality and all), and have even tried to fund internal development of one a few times... they also need some particular reporting functionality. Their engineering budget is tight at the moment, but it still might be possible for ya to work something out. If you care to send me an email (the address /. shows above should work with a little demangling), I can let you know what they needed (last time I knew, of course, which was a few months ago), and maybe provide a few pointers wrt who to talk to there.

Good luck!

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[BadmanX]

... and for someone as utterly friggin' brilliant as Tom Lord to be utterly penniless is just wrong.

Really? I thought the whole point of Free Software was to make sure no one ever made any money. After all, if he were really brilliant, he'd have found something to do during the day (like bus tables) that would let him continue to program at night.

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[justdisguyyaknow]

I didn't realize that about the Perforce renewal. I'd wager it's just to make sure people aren't abusing the license (by working on non-free software, not by competing with them). But I wouldn't be concerned, given that everyone I've ever talked to that's interacted with those guys says nice things about them. Not that I use any of these tools anyway, just seems like they represent a nice (in many senses of the word) alternative. See this slashdot discussion.....

Re:For what a EULA is worth

[cduffy]

Okay, that's just trolling. Let's start:

I thought the whole point of Free Software was to make sure no one ever made any money.

Bullshit. There's plenty of money to be made writing, porting, selling and supporting free software -- I just parted ways with an employer which provided me with a steady paycheck for over two years doing just that. They don't appear to be going away soon, either -- I fully expect to still have friends working there 5 or 10 years from now.

After all, if he were really brilliant, he'd have found something to do during the day (like bus tables) that would let him continue to program at night.

Ya know, some of us don't want to bus tables. I'm looking into employment providing support and training for Linux users (in cooperation with a local ISP's support and training department), or doing system administration, or one of the many other jobs available working with free software -- it's simply more fun that way. Seriously -- spend a few years writing proprietary code, and a few years working for an open source company. If your experience is anything like mine, you'll find the latter to be far more satisfying.

They can... if they purchase it!

[kryps]

Hi!

If the submitter had followed the thread on LKML more closely he would have realized that it is only forbidden to use the *free* (i.e. openlogging) version of BK to develop a competing product. They can still *purchase* a commercial license and develop whatever they want with it.

-- kryps

Re:They can... if they purchase it!

[unixmaster]

(d) Notwithstanding any other terms in this License, this License is not available to You if You and/or your employer develop, produce, sell, and/or resell a product which contains substantially similar capabil- ities of the BitKeeper Software, or, in the reason- able opinion of BitMover, competes with the BitKeeper Software.

What part of this says you can develop what you want by acquiring a commercial license?

Re:They can... if they purchase it!

[kryps]

Hi!

Well this is quoted from the free license. The commercial license does not include this section.

-- kryps

Re:They can... if they purchase it!

[unixmaster]

/me smacks himself

Thnx for info!

Re:They can... if they purchase it!

[albalbo]

Yeah, for now. The problem is not about money - it is about BK being proprietary. There is no reason why Bitmover could decide to not licence to subversion developers at all, whether they pay or not - they're not forced to licence to anyone.

I'm sure people wouldn't mind paying if it was available as free software, without all this vendor lock-in.

Re:They can... if they purchase it!

[OsamaBinLogin]

> They can still *purchase* a commercial license and develop
> whatever they want with it.

heaven forbid someone should actually PAY MONEY for software.

Re:They can... if they purchase it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right. This is not about money, but freedom. What keeps Larry from having a statement in his next license saying
"if you know people that work on our competitors, this license is revoked", "if you vote for democrats...", "if you think Larry McVoy is a stupid ass...".
That's the whole point, these licenses are meant to keep people from doing what they want.

Re:They can... if they purchase it!

[wheany]

That's the whole point, these licenses are meant to keep people from doing what they want.

And telling people to only use free software is meant to keep people from doing what they want.

Since when?

[Eudial]

Since when does ppl acutally read the EULA?

Re:Since when?

[Crazieeman]

Nobody.

They probably write in special clauses that include transfer of ownership of soul and all worldly possessions etc etc.

Re:Since when?

[sheean.nl]

They probably write in special clauses that include transfer of ownership of soul and all worldly possessions etc etc.

wasn't that Microsoft's task already???

Re:Since when?

[Eudial]

Well, actually, it's quite handy here in sweden, cuz if you're below 18, you can't make a committment, and cuz of that, you can just hire a 17 year old to press the "I agree" button for you, and voila (sp?), you have it installed, without a valid agreement.

Re:Since when?

[Frodo Looijaard]

Not knowing Swedish law, I have the nagging suspicion that, in that case, you have no valid copy, and it can not be used, neither by you, nor by the 17-year old, because it is not licensed.

Re:Since when?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Linus decided to adopt BitKeeper as the SCM for the Linux kernel.

Re:Since when?

[buswolley]

you quote has a greammar mistake

Re:Since when?

[jazman_777]

Since when does ppl acutally read the EULA?

I know Theo de Raadt does, which is why I stick with OpenBSD. He's hard-nosed (some say obnoxious), but principled like RMS. So even recently he called for a fork of OpenSSL, since they accepted Sun code which has some strings attached. See here.

Re:Since when?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for posting the link to Theo's message
about his stance on Free Software. In times like these, where
everyday we have another "free" license, which
in-effect dilutes the power of GPL and bsd, it
is refreshing to know that people like RMS and Theo
are reliable defenderes of Free Software.

( I was considering trying openbsd during the
last few months, but never got around to actually
install it. Now that I know Theo is a reliable
defender of Free Software, his distribution has (or will have) great
value.)

the path of least resistance

[patSPLAT]

The Subversion folks would like nothing better than to displace BK.

Larry McVoy has an entirely reasonable business concern. He has also now provided the momentum for that concern to materialize. This may provide the motivation for Subversion to produce the cvs.succ that we all wish for late at nights, writing posts such as this one.

~ pS

Re:the path of least resistance

[g4dget]

Larry McVoy has an entirely reasonable business concern.

Yes, but it is just as reasonable for open source users to reject such software. Merely making software available for free under some license does not obligate anybody to use it or open source advocates to defend it.

Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, free users have to always use the latest version since they are beta testers at the same time. It should be in the license (I haven't read it though). At least Larry explained it like that in l-k mailing list.

Re:Not possible

[dillon_rinker]

Nope. If the license says so, it can be changed at any time, even retroactively.

Why don't they use standard CVS?

[caluml]

What was the reason behind not using standard CVS like other OSS projects?

Is the kernel just too big for it?

P.S. I don't have an opinion as to which oen they use - as long as the one they do use gets the job done, and is secure.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

> What was the reason behind not using standard CVS like other OSS projects?
> Is the kernel just too big for it?

CVS is far from being perfect, but it's not the matter of the project size.
For example, NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD all use cvs for the whole source tree and it's way bigger than Linux kernel.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[ewhac]

CVS has too many inherent limitations to make it a good choice for large-scale projects. Although it's been around for just ever and is fairly solid, there are a couple of issues that make CVS a sub-optimal choice.

First, CVS is built on top of RCS and, as such, doesn't handle binary files. Okay, that's a fib; it sorta kinda does, but it's very klunky, and easily prone to errors. Further, it's easy for the "binary-ness" of a file to be lost (i.e. be treated as text), resulting in all kinds of nasty corruption. Best Practices will avoid this, but everyone has to be on their toes all the time.

Second, CVS has no notion of "transactions". Let's say you check in a bugfix/new feature to the kernel. The change involves modifying six different files. CVS does not see this checkin as a single transaction, but six completely separate ones. So a lot of information about the scope of a given change is not easily found. The only way you can know a particular change affected multiple files is by noticing that their checkin comments are identical. Further, if you perform a checkin against multiple files and one or more of them has a conflict (someone else checked in a change before you did), CVS will simply halt at the conflicting file; earlier files successfully checked in up to that point are not backed out. Thus, the repository is left in an inconsistent state. Best Practices can avoid this but, again, everyone has to be on their toes.

Other source control systems don't have these problems. In particular, Subversion is transaction-based, so groups of files checked in at once either all get checked in, or none of them do, keeping the repository consistent. Also, Subversion handles arbitrary meta-data for each file, including its MIME type, so the "binary-ness" of a file cannot be lost or modified unless you expressly change its MIME type. Even better, Subversion will automatically perform newline translation to/from your local platform when checking out/in text files.

For small projects with small numbers of people, CVS is perfectly okay. But beyond a certain scale, CVS's limitations start to get in the way, and you need something better.

Schwab

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[theefer]

Yes, and there are others points :

- CVS cannot move files and keep a track of the log.
- CVS directory handling is quite horrible

Now, I use CVS as everybody else here does, it works, sure. But there are some problems that should be fixed (and cannot be because of the CVS base), that's why I'll probably switch to Subversion soon. It's still under heavy development, but it gets better from day to day.

Let's support some free software instead of proprietary ones !

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[jolan]

I don't see how Linux needs something scaleable.

It all comes down to (mostly) Linus anyway.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

SARCASM++

Sure. CVS cannot be used on big projects.

Like the whole freebsd kernel+userland

SARCASM--

Cheers,

--fred

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[kevin lyda]

you made a lot of good points until the small projects with a small number of people bit. that's crap. free and open bsd use cvs for one thing; they are not small.

cvs works for developers with a clue about cvs. that's not to say that a better version control system couldn't be developed - one can and should. but saying cvs is crap for large projects is demonstrably false.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[hyperturbopete]

Bitkeeper does look pretty sweet though.

I looked over their website and the feature that struck me was having "sub-repositories"... i dont remember what the actual name for them is.

the idea is that if you have 50 developers, and 5 of them are working on a section of the tree, they can merge each others related work amongst themselves (in their own sub-repository) before commiting to the "master" repository, at which point everyone sees their changes.

As for the distributed nature of bitkeeper, blah blah blah. It doesnt seem like such a big deal. Stick your repository in a database, if you need scalability buy a database that can scale.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[ebyrob]

Ya, multiple repositories is certainly an interesting concept, but...

Isn't that why CVS requires you to update the things you want to update when you want them updated? Under CVS it is essentially each developer's responsibility to update their checkouts to the version that is appropriate for them. It would seem that under CVS this team of 5 would have their own branch or product that had incremental and "nightly" releases. No one else is obligated to use the "nightly" releases, instead waiting for tagged stable releases. However, if there is only a single repository then the information becomes available to everyone immediately rather than waiting for multiple merging processes to go on in the case it is ever needed outside that group of 5...

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

> free and open bsd use cvs for one thing; they are not small

But they are dead.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, good point !

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when, unix cares about the "binary-ness" of the files? Unices don't differentiate binary and text files.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[barole]

First, CVS is built on top of RCS and, as such, doesn't handle binary files. Okay, that's a fib; it sorta kinda does, but it's very klunky, and easily prone to errors. Further, it's easy for the "binary-ness" of a file to be lost (i.e. be treated as text), resulting in all kinds of nasty corruption. Best Practices will avoid this, but everyone has to be on their toes all the time.

Hmm. I have never seen this happen. I can't imagine how it could unless you use something like the cvs admin command. However, I'll take your word that it can happen, but to me seems unlikely.

Second, CVS has no notion of "transactions". Let's say you check in a bugfix/new feature to the kernel. The change involves modifying six different files. CVS does not see this checkin as a single transaction, but six completely separate ones. So a lot of information about the scope of a given change is not easily found. The only way you can know a particular change affected multiple files is by noticing that their checkin comments are identical.

You are certainly right about CVS not having transactions. However, in the case you bring up, if you are concerned that the change may need to be backed out, etc, you can create tags before and after committing to get a "poor man's transaction."

Further, if you perform a checkin against multiple files and one or more of them has a conflict (someone else checked in a change before you did), CVS will simply halt at the conflicting file; earlier files successfully checked in up to that point are not backed out.

This is wrong and has been as long as I can remember. Maybe you have not used cvs for a long time? If the files you are trying to check in have changed, cvs will prevent the commit from starting. You will have to merge the changes to your local copy via cvs update before it will let you commit. Perhaps they added this feature because of complaints like yours.

The only time I have seen a commit get partially committed was when I was committing over a network and the network connection died in the middle. I admit that it is a pain if it happens.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

> But they are dead.

Only because they failed to stick to their morals
about licenses and chose to use non-Free software
such as CVS---it is covered under the GPL after all.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[SilverSun]

Hi,

I work on a High Energy Physics Experiment. We use a single CVS repository for a project with 1324 packages and 2,410,111 Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) and aproxiamteley 200 committers. CVS works. Not optimal but it does. However a small part of the project contains binary files and CVS was completely unusable. I don't see why CVS should not work for the Linux kernel. There are not many committers, almost no binary files and the Linux folks are used to be quite disciplined about their patches. I know some of Linus' arguments against CVS, but frankly I don't understand one half and have other opinion abot the other half.

Cheers, Peter

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[durdur]

>cvs works for developers with a clue about cvs

Very well put. I work in a company with hundreds of developers of different backgrounds and skill levels. Making sure they all know what they are doing with CVS would not be a small task. So would cleaning up after the ones who do clueless things with it. Some shops get around this by building script layers on top of CVS. Right now we use a non-free alternative (but are looking at subversion).

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

And where would they be without GPLed GCC?

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

> And where would they be without GPLed GCC?

The poster to whom I responded asserted that the bsd's were dead. And, yes, I think that obviously using a GPLed GCC contributed greatly to their demise. Frankly, dealing with the onerous terms of the GNU Public License is enough to destroy any project---or at least render it as fundamentally unusable as Linux, because the only developers who are willing to develop GPLed code are religious zealots.

And we all know exactly how flawed the reasoning processes of zealots are, don't we?

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick! Someone tell Apple!

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[shlong]

free and open bsd use cvs for one thing; they are not small.

Actually, most of the interesting, complicated, and/or highly distributed work in FreeBSD happens in Perforce. The only thing that CVS gives us that Perforce doesn't have is the ability to replicate the repository. Unfortunately, that's also 90% of the reason why haven't fully switched over to Perforce.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[pongo000]

First, CVS is built on top of RCS and, as such, doesn't handle binary files.

Give me one good scenario in which a version control system would be the appropriate place to archive binaries.

I believe you are trying to use the wrong tool for the job.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Only because they failed to stick to their morals
> about licenses and chose to use non-Free software
> such as CVS---it is covered under the GPL after
> all.

No, the bsd's died because programs fail to work
if they do not have more than 4 terms in their
license.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[grumbel]

Never seen a binary while in a source tarball? A icon for a GUI app or a sprite for a game? Why should they be keep at a different place when they are just a part of the source like a normal .c file?

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[dvdeug]

Give me one good scenario in which a version control system would be the appropriate place to archive binaries.

If you import your whole source into CVS, what happens to the png's (e.g. icons) that are in the directory? A version control system may not be able to do much with them, but the least it can do is not mangle them.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

jesus, where do you guys find the room to store that many physical lines of code? have you thought about leaving them in digital format

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[timeOday]

I like to keep documentation under revision control, and part of documentation is images. Also bitmaps for toolbars etc. And for that matter Word files. (Yes, it's suboptimal because you can't usefully compare revisions if you consider them binary files, but at least you can keep all the old versions around).

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[hyperturbopete]

Well, by "everyone" they meant other developers. If there is one repository, the whole project might not build until the 5 developers get their 5 sets pf patches straightened out....

You're probably right in tthat the 5 developers could have their own branch, which would then be mereged back when its ready. I'm actually not too familiar with the branching on CVS so I don't know if that's a good way of working things.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[dubl-u]

Give me one good scenario in which a version control system would be the appropriate place to archive binaries.

1. When developing Java code, I always check in all the libraries my project depends on. That way any developer can build the whole thing by just checking out the project.
2. Often projects have raw data included; often the best way to store that is in binary.
3. When developing web sites, I check in images.
4. In my documentation for almost any project, I often include all sorts of diagrams.
5. I know of a project that checks a whole copy of Tomcat in, so that they have a clear reference platform in the repository. That makes automated testing much easier.
6. Some people will use their repository to check in full compiled versions, so that they can easily get a copy of whatever it is that they shipped.
7. Oh, and let's note that not everybody happens to speak a language that fits well into 7-bit ASCII; maybe they would like to check in something that they think of as "plain text", even if CVS doesn't.

And that's just off the top of my head; I'm sure others could suggest more.

The question should really be, "Why should a version control system be allowed to insist that I only use 7-bit ASCII files?"

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Mr. Shiny And New]

The bitkeeper distributed repository concept basically creates a tree of repositories, with developers working off of leaves of the tree. Developers can push changes up the tree to the parent repository; other developers using the same parent can then pull down the changes. It's essentially the same as branching in any other SCCS.

However, there is additional flexibility in Bitkeeper where you can push bundles of changes in other directions; such as horizontally across leaves or to other arbitrary locations in the tree. You can do this by hand with branches, however it's harder. I'm disappointed with Bitkeeper's free license; it seemed like such a good tool but now I won't waste any more of my time evaluating it. Maybe if my employer decides to switch away from Rational ClearCase, I'll try to get them to look at BitKeeper.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Meleneth]

Normally I don't bother correcting slashdot posts, but I rather dig CVS and really can't stand to see it badmouthed this way by someone so uninformed..

First, CVS is built on top of RCS and, as such, doesn't handle binary files. Okay, that's a fib; it sorta kinda does, but it's very klunky, and easily prone to errors. Further, it's easy for the "binary-ness" of a file to be lost (i.e. be treated as text), resulting in all kinds of nasty corruption. Best Practices will avoid this, but everyone has to be on their toes all the time.

Ok, so it doesn't, but it does. Eh? CVS handles binary files just fine. It may not do diffs, but it does version track them - it just stores full copies of each version. In most code projects the amount of change of binary files that are eligable to be checked into CVS is very small. Besides, disk space is way cheap, right?

As for easily prone to errors, the binary-ness of a file can be set after it is imported, and personally I have never seen a file "forget" it was binary.

Second, CVS has no notion of "transactions". Let's say you check in a bugfix/new feature to the kernel. The change involves modifying six different files. CVS does not see this checkin as a single transaction, but six completely separate ones. So a lot of information about the scope of a given change is not easily found. The only way you can know a particular change affected multiple files is by noticing that their checkin comments are identical.

you may wish to check out cvs2cl.pl - it generates a Changelog from a checked out copy of a repository, grouping files with the change and comments that go with it. Debian has a package for it. Kinda takes the bite out of "not easily found".

Further, if you perform a checkin against multiple files and one or more of them has a conflict (someone else checked in a change before you did), CVS will simply halt at the conflicting file; earlier files successfully checked in up to that point are not backed out. Thus, the repository is left in an inconsistent state. Best Practices can avoid this but, again, everyone has to be on their toes.

Wrong. CVS will not commit any files if there are conflicts in the files you are commiting. If you notice, it walks each directory before connecting to the repository.

Even better, Subversion will automatically perform newline translation to/from your local platform when checking out/in text files.

CVS does this as well, and has for a long time. This is the only reason there is a 'problem' with binary files in the first place - CVS tries to translate the newline characters in the binary file unless you use -kb when adding the file the first time.

For small projects with small numbers of people, CVS is perfectly okay. But beyond a certain scale, CVS's limitations start to get in the way, and you need something better.

With one feature (tracking MIME type) that CVS doesn't have, I think your point kind of falls over.

Please don't take this as an attack on SubVersion or yourself - I'm just trying to get more correct information out there.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Kaz Kylheku]

Transactions are highly overrated, and the lack of them doesn't pose a serious problem to CVS users at all.

When a group of files are commited together, that information is not irretrievably lost. Tools exist which can extract these change sets out of CVS; for example Karl Fogel's cvs2cl perl script. There are some hacks involved, such as looking at ranges of timestamps, but it works.

It's possible that a network failure can interrupt a CVS commit. That isn't much of a problem; you simply reestablish the connection and complete it. This doesn't pose any serious problem to your configuration management process. In principle, CVS could be modified to do commits in two phases; in the first phase, build up the files to be committed, and in the second phase, rename them over top of the original ones, rather than doing this file by file. That would require a lot of extra disk space for large commits, with no real benefit.

I have developed a project which addresses many of the real *semantic* issues of CVS version control, by layering a little bit of clever software on top of the CVS client. Meta-CVS versions the directory structure, symbolic links, execute permissions and property lists attached to objects. See http://www.freshmeat.net/projects/mcvs. Meta-CVS also simplifies branching and merging, handling all the tagging to keep track of what has been merged where. These are the number one and two pains in CVS: lack of support for renaming, and branching that requires the explicit, tedious management of irrelevant details. Add these on top of CVS and you have a pretty decent version control system.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[runderwo]

And we all know exactly how flawed the reasoning processes of zealots are, don't we?

Not really. Please provide examples that clearly back up your claims:

1) that the "onerous" GPL "obviously" destroyed *BSD development.
2) that the "only developers who are willing to develop GPLed code are religious zealots".

Thanks!

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[Ninja Programmer]

Ok, so it doesn't, but it does. Eh? CVS handles binary files just fine. It may not do diffs, but it does version track them - it just stores full copies of each version. In most code projects the amount of change of binary files that are eligable to be checked into CVS is very small. Besides, disk space is way cheap, right?


Ah yes, but it doesn't allow conversion from binary to ascii and back without a *LOT* of working around of the revision system. And certainly such transitions are not tracked. And yes this *is* relevant for certain formats like PDF which be either ASCII or binary depending on the mode in which you are using it.


Wrong. CVS will not commit any files if there are conflicts in the files you are commiting. If you notice, it walks each directory before connecting to the repository.


But this does not make it atomic. If two users are checking in overlapping changes at the same time, then there is nothing CVS can do. CVS does not have a concept of a "block lock" on multiple transactions, and therefore has no way of dealing with concurrent overlapping checkins.

His scenario as stated is not correct, but he may have felt this to have happened if someone else was checking in at the same time, and they did not ever deduce that this is what happened. CVS also gives no warning about the concurrent overlapping checkin scenario.


CVS does this as well, and has for a long time. This is the only reason there is a 'problem' with binary files in the first place - CVS tries to translate the newline characters in the binary file unless you use -kb when adding the file the first time.


Well as long as we are nitpicking -- the other reason, that is just as relevant is because of the keyword expansion. While this is desirable in some text files, in some it is not, and it binary files it is never desirable. CVS forces you to correctly pick the mode right from the very start of file creation.

I would like to point out that because of the existence of Samba and certain *intellegent* editors that exist on Windows, this auto-translation that CVS performs can actually be a problem. If you check out with Windows, edit, then check in on UNIX you are screwed. And yes there are real scenarios where this can happen (this is when *I* learned about CVS's auto-CR/LF translation "feature".)

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[ZorroXXX]

Give me one good scenario in which a version control system would be the appropriate place to archive binaries.

The compiler used to compile the code.

If you really care about maintaining code released for a product for the only sensible way to handle the compiler and other tools used is to place them under version control as well as the source.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[pongo000]

All good comments, but save for one, no one really justifies the use of version control software as the appropriate place to archive binaries. The beauty of VCS is that the revisions themselves are not saved, but the deltas between them. Saving binaries under VCS serves to do nothing mor than bloat the repositories with data best archived elsewhere.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[gorilla]

I'd say that the saving of deltas is an internal detail, which the user of the VCS shouldn't need to be aware of.

VCS system are used because it makes management of development easier. Including the correct binary files is part of that making easier.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[spitzak]

Although CVS certainly has problems, I have had not trouble with the "lack of transactions". At least the version I use checks for conflicts before checking anything in.

Biggest problems: the inability to rename or mv files.

Second biggest problem: getting around the inability to rename files involves deleting files and it seems it often goes bonkers here. These seem to be bugs like where it insists that a file is in the repository but will not check it in and refuses addempts to add or remove it.

I have also had trouble with their transactions, if it crashes (esp with SourceForge) in the middle it is left "locked" and nobody can do anything. And you can never get rid of a subdirectory.

I would like to see a new system that treats the entire project as a single "file" and allows changes to be tracked not only across the renameing or moving of files, but also the splitting and joining of files and the movement of large blocks from one file to another (this last one may be hard...)

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[ebyrob]

Past .1 the project should always build.

It may not build the version with all the features you want that is current development but it should always build. Tags combined with testing and knowing what you are doing are enough to accomplish this.

There is no way each developer needs their own branch. Each developer can check out the repository on their machine and do whatever testing and what not they need to do locally. Checking in to CVS *is* the act of remerging your changes back into the larger project.

A checkin goes as follows:
0) Test. You should have already fully tested all your changes with what was previosly checked out to be worked on.

1) Update. This is to see if anyone else has "beaten" you and checked something in while you were working. It should be assumed that whatever is currently in CVS is currently working. If this assumption is false it's red flag time and whoever checked in something that didn't work is in deep doo doo. (If no updates have occured, skip to step 3. )

2) Test with updated version.
If any updates have occured, then everything needs to be retested before checkin. (Now go back to step 1)

3) Commit. Check those puppies in and make sure you put in the right comments or you'll keep getting asked about stuff.

4) Test. One last time you should check out whatever has been committed (proabably to a new location) and test it all again. This is to cover your own butt and be sure you don't wind up in deep doo doo from someone else's step 1.

5) Always remember, you are the only one responsible for the changes you make on your own machine. If someone else makes changes that make your changes invalid and your time is wasted then communication has broken down. CVS job is to facilitate communcation. In this case, it did by notifying you there is a problem. Your job is to solve the problem.

Note: many houses actually pass around a "checkin token" to avoid getting in an update/test/update cycle while someone else is committing changes. This does put an upper limit on number of developers that should have CVS access to a particular set of files. (5-15?).

IMHO having more than 10 individuals responsible for a single file (or even sub-project) at the same time should be enough to scare anyone...

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[JamieF]

There's a race condition in that process between steps 1 and 3, that I think you are partly aware of since you have a step 4.

On small to medium-small projects CVS works OK. (It's why my employer uses; despite CVS's hideous usability problems, it's free and once you learn all its quirks and limitations you can get work done and it doesn't get in your way much.)

But on a medium project, you can get into problems where you do an update, merge, test, and then commit, and (because commits aren't atomic) still you end up with a half-checkin that stopped due to a conflict, and suddenly the head won't build. So you return to step 1 and fix it. Whew, that was scary. But for a moment, it *was* broken, even though you followed the process.

Now all you have to do is scale up x10 or x100 developers (and maybe x10 or x100 lines of code) and you can imagine that it would be broken frequently. The better other developers are about updating often, the greater the chance that they'll grab the broken code, try to work with it, build, and wonder WTF they did that broke it. Super loss of productivity, all because of one stupid feature that nobody even cares about unless they're on a large project.

And then there must be some project size (probably OS scale or something similar) where this problem is so bad that you basically can't get any work done at all because you're just treading water trying to get the changes merged and working. At that point CVS becomes totally out of the question.

Re:Why don't they use standard CVS?

[ebyrob]

Ya, there are issues in useability and what not with CVS.. (although I've never used a source control tool that I actually thought was easier for small projects)

The lack of atomicity really is the most critical feature missing in CVS. I suppose when I've worked on projects over "small/medium" size I'll consider that one even more important.

The "checkin token" does avoid this race condition because doing a commit after an update will always work if you're the only one commiting at a given time. The reason for step 4 is not to avoid a race condition in update/checkin, but to validate that what you thought you checked in was checked in properly and that any tags/branches are still valid and capable of building properly. It is also a "double-check" to be sure that things weren't missed in an earlier test/build phase.

When a "checkin token" is not used, the race condition is simply risked and only if it occurs does everything stop while one person (or group) sorts things out.

Of course, working for a small company I don't really see what happens when there are say 100 developers working on a project. Perhaps the needs are special perhaps it just requires specialization and proper management.

Bottom line, I have to wonder about farming out something as important as source control to another company. BitKeeper is willing to move people off of CVS. Who is willing to move people off of BitKeeper when they need it?

Too bad.

[7-Vodka]

It seemed like bitkeeper was working out quite well for the linux kernel. I liked the detailed changelogs that started apearing after the switch.

Hopefully one of the teams working on Free alternatives will get it to a stage suitable for maintaining the kernel.

I wonder what they'll be using when linux 4.x rolls around? Maybe linux will still be using bitkeeper and the HURD will be using something like subversion (assuming the HURD becomes easy enough for us mortals to use by then :)

I'm hoping that by the time I wake up this afternoon there will be interesting comments by the top kernel hackers, the FSF and Linus about this.

Re:Too bad.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Besides, weren't a recent bitch/troll/flamewar recently about the fact the Linus WASN'T using bitkeeper?

Come on folks, you bitch when he doesn't use tools. You bitch at the tools he selects. Bitch Bitch Bitch.

If we spent half as many people actually contributing code as we had poeple commenting on it who knows where we would be right now?

To that end, I recommend a new Mod level:
-5 Back seat driver

Re:Too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all.

All I can recover is critics because Mr Torvalds was not using *any* SCM tool at all, not because him not using BitKeeper (nor CVS or anyone else, for that matter).

The question on the simplest words was/is:
*Linux kernel is now so complex (both because source code lines numbers *and* number of contributors) it needs the aid of some form of advanced SCM tool.
*This tool must be GPLed

Full stop.

Illegal

[giminy]

Forgive me if I'm stupid, but doesn't an EULA say what you can and can't do with respect to the product that the EULA covers? Reverse engineering and stuff like that are, grudgingly, acceptable terms of an EULA, but saying you can't do something that is not directly related to the software program covered by the EULA seems a tad on the side of illegality.

I have a feeling that if anyone challenged the agreement, the law would force it to change. Granted you have to accept the EULA in order to use the software...but if I made a EULA that said you were no longer allowed to own a firearm if you used my product, it would be tossed to the wind in a second. In a sense, Bitmover's EULA infringes on my right to compete, yes/no? If Bitmover doesn't want people to use an idea they have, they should file a patent for that idea, or otherwise rely on copyright/trademark law to prevent people from "stealing."

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

it's the cost free license, if you want to reverse engineer it, you're free to buy a license, then you can do that

but I doubt you can force bitmover to give you BK for free so you can push them out of business

Re:Illegal

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

The sad part is that many software companies tries to control HOW you use the program, WHO uses it and WHAT they use it for.

The gargantual licenses used by software companies nowadays are taking ridiculous proportions.

We are all lucky that RMS once upon a time came up with the GNU GPL to ensure end users rights and that at least some software gives you a lot more freedom that restrictions.

Re:Illegal

[orkysoft]

Well, basically, what they're saying is: "We made this neat program, which you can use, but in return, you have to promise you won't compete with us."

If this clause had always been in the EULA, there would have been no problem: people would've known what they were getting into.

But now, apparently, the clause has appeared in a revised version of the EULA, which would now force users to switch if they find the new terms unacceptable. This is obviously not a nice practice.

Re:Illegal

[Bartab]

As has been pointed out, non compete licenses are illegal. Refusing to do business with competitors is illegal, etc, etc.

However, BitKeeper isn't saying they won't -sell- licenses to competitors. Just that competitors can't use the free license. The Commerical license does not have the problem clause.

Re:Illegal

[Mnemia]

Yeah, it's the whole bait and switch aspect of this that's worrisome to me. As much as I disagree with the idea that any company should be able to tell me what I can do with something not related _directly_ to their product, I could accept that if they had said "this is the deal" right at the start, and let people make an informed decision about whether they were willing to be bound by that. But they've clearly just done this to lock people in and then try to squash competition. A very Redmondian tactic if you ask me.

Whatever happened to the idea that software should compete on its merits rather than by trying to hobble its competitors? I say, the sooner we have a functional replacement for this, the sooner we will be free of onerous and unfair practices like what's going on here.

Reading the LKML thread, the recurring theme was "we just don't want to help our competition for free". But the misleading, deliberately or not, thing about saying that is that the actual clause goes far beyond just prohibiting the use of BK for direct use in developing Subversion, for instance. It actually stops you from using it when you are simply working on an *unrelated* competing project that does *not* use BK. Frankly, that's not their business to decide and is designed as a way to siphon off developer support for these other projects by forcing a choice between say the kernel and Subversion.

I think the best legal attack on this clause would be to say that they are being discriminatory in who they license to since first-sale probably doesn't apply when they give it away.

Re:Illegal

[standards]

if I made a EULA that said you were no longer allowed to own a firearm if you used my product, it would be tossed to the wind in a second.

How so? I will contract with you if you do not own a firearm. If you do own a firearm, I will not contract with you.

What's so illegal about that? I am not the US government, but a private person. Unless the discriminatory action is clearly specified in law, I can discriminate against you all I wish.

I don't think there is a law that says I, as a private individual, can't discriminate against gun owners. If there is, please let me know. And please don't bother to quote the constitution - that's for discrimination by the Federal gov't.

Re:Illegal

[hokanomono]

Is there much difference in principle between refusing business with competitors and demanding an arbitrary higher price from competitors?

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

"You are not allowed to use this software if, by using it, you intend to support black people." Discuss.

Re:Illegal

[UnknownSoldier]

> ...but if I made a EULA that said you were no longer allowed to own a firearm if you used my product, it would be tossed to the wind in a second.

Not quite. You're uninformed on contract law:

1. You can contract your rights away. That is, private contract law can *supercede* the constituional rights. (Note: That illegal contracts, such as a contract for murder is void, since you never had the right in the first place to kill someone.)

2. A contract is based on "reasonable" terms. If you believe a stipulation is not reasonable, and broke the contract as a result, a judge has to figure out what was reasonable.

3. If the contract was agreed upon voluntantiy AND not under duress, then it is legal. Note the AND! Otherwise it is null and void.

Now as to whether the EULA constitues a legally-binding agreement (since you never signed it, or verbally agreed to it), is still up in debate. Although I believe there have been a few recent rulings. One said it was, one said it wasn't.

Cheers

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry retard.
If I hire a carpenter to frame my house and he agrees to sign a contract saying he will work without workman's compensation insurance and he gets hurt it won't mean shit in court. I will be forced to pay and pay and pay if he gets hurt even if he signs it in blood.
Signing away your constitutional rights is inherently unreasonable.

Re:Illegal

[Chandon Seldon]

If the licence says "People who have dyed their hair green may not use our product", then you can't use their product if you have dyed green hair.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

1. You can contract your rights away. That is, private contract law can *supercede* the constituional rights. (Note: That illegal contracts, such as a contract for murder is void, since you never had the right in the first place to kill someone.)

Wrong, wrong, wrong. One cannot contract away protections provided by law (including those enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights). That is very clear. As for this EULA, if it's found to interfere w/ interstate commerce (and it probably can be interpreted that way), the Feds will be happy to get involved.

Re:Illegal

[MaxVlast]

Very good, brother Anderson. Have a glass of Kool-Aid.

Re:Illegal

[ameoba]

If Sun's licence for Java has gotten away with preventing the publication of benchmarks & its use in nuclear power plants, this isn't much of a step beyond that...

Re:Illegal

[alienmole]

The issue is the nature of a EULA on most software. The "accepting" party never signs anything, and acknowledgement of the agreement is simply, assumed based on use of the software. That makes its status somewhat questionable...

Re:Illegal

[Reziac]

But this sounds more like "If I contract with you, I'll wait til you are thoroughly dependent on our product, then at some arbitrary time I will suddenly change the contract so that you must throw away all your existing firearms, even if you need them."

You can't unilaterally and retroactively change the terms of a contract -- if you do, that gives the other party the right to vacate the contract, because it is no longer what they agreed to. IF an EULA is an enforceable contract, then it falls under normal contract law -- and that cuts both ways.

I'm not being very clear here, but you get the idea.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, one other thing I've been wondering about. I read somewhere that to be valid a contract has to include some form of future payment. In other words, both parties to the contract have to gain something from the contract.

Now, every EULA I've agreed to has come well after any payment to the software company. The EULA tells me what I can do with the software (granting me some rights), but doesn't give anything to the other party (the company.)

Doesn't that invalidate it as a contract?

Re:Illegal

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

You can contract your rights away. That is, private contract law can *supercede* the constituional rights.

You can contract away some of your rights. Courts have held that there are rights you cannot waive in a contract.

Re:Illegal

[p3d0]

Right. Sounds just like monopolistic practices.

Re:Illegal

[pongo000]

I don't think there is a law that says I, as a private individual, can't discriminate against gun owners. If there is, please let me know. And please don't bother to quote the constitution - that's for discrimination by the Federal gov't.

Please refrain from undermining your arguments with baseless assertions. Courts have upheld the Constitution in many cases that do not involve the Federal government. Illegal search and seizure? Applies to local governments as well. Due process? Can be extended to local school districts. And on and on.

Re:Illegal

[Speed Racer]

Wrong, wrong, wrong. One cannot contract away protections provided by law (including those enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights). That is very clear.

Tell that to the members of the various armed services.

Re:Illegal

[mpe]

One cannot contract away protections provided by law (including those enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights). That is very clear. As for this EULA, if it's found to interfere w/ interstate commerce (and it probably can be interpreted that way), the Feds will be happy to get involved.

Many EULAs contain clauses to the effect that all disputes must be handled under the law of a specific place. Presumably that would satisfy that condition. Or if the user was outside the US it would automatically be a federal matter.

Re:Illegal

[mpe]

Okay, one other thing I've been wondering about. I read somewhere that to be valid a contract has to include some form of future payment. In other words, both parties to the contract have to gain something from the contract.

The legal term is "consideration" which simply means that something of value (or at least something which all parties agree is of value) must be exchanged.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

> If Bitmover doesn't want people to use an idea they have, they should file a patent for that idea, or otherwise rely on copyright/trademark law to prevent people from "stealing."

That was the whole idea behind patents. But, in today's corrupt world, the point has been ignored.

In the "old days" the idea behind a patent was to break the trade secret behind it. The deal is simple, tell us how you do it and we'll limit others from making COMMERCIAL use of it. You and I could read the patent and use the idea, but we couldn't sell it.

Then came the "NDA". But that was tricky, and for good reason. If you suffered a loss under NDA, you did indeed suffer the loss. The secret was out and all you could do is sue the people that breached the contract. It is important that it be so, since the social contract is biased towards using (reasonable) patents to protect ideas.

From day 1 the EULA has thrown the social contract of idea protection to the wind. Now we can have what amounts to perpetual NDA, with none of the risks. Patents are, really, kinda moot in the face of the EULA.

Obviously EULA's break the social contract. But, don't expect today's Corporatist governments do be thinking much about the good of society at large.

Re:Illegal

[bm_luethke]

To begin with what you said is not quite true. For example if your company is large enough you must hire a certain amount of minorities. You are not allowed to not hire someone because of a disability. There are many such protected classes in hiring practices.

Though what the poster was saying isn't that I won't hire you if you own a gun but you must get rid of your guns if you work for me. Slightly different. Which is something you also can't do.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was llegal if you offer your product for public sale. Public sales are considered goods and have separate codified guidelines that may be in lieu of common laws that uphold private contractual agreements.

So, to answer your question, you may be a private person, but private to private contracts govern just that. You shouldn't be able to offer a good for public sale and then turn around and try to formulate the sale as a private one.

This is no different than leases in the real estate world. Before, bad landlords evicted tenants without notice. They just threw them out. Even today, my understand is that if your lease says you can be evicted immediately and you sign it, there are many times local and state laws that protect you that overrule that lease.

I see no problem with such laws. In a way, THAT is what the debate with EULAS is about--companies may try to spin them as private to private contracts, but they should not be if their goods are available for general public sale. Public and private domains are hotly debated, and some would say there are really no definitive differences, but in either case, I find it difficult to agree that something voluntarily marketed publicly (and for sale) can then be withdrawn into the private domain entirely and not be expected to come under at least some scrutiny of the transaction.

Re:Illegal

[blibbleblobble]

"You can't unilaterally and retroactively change the terms of a contract"

Can't you? Lawyers at most software companies, and even most websites think that you can.

Why isn't my software listed on TuCows? Because their user agreement would have required me to automatically accept any unilateral changes to their contract. Yahoo, hotmail, passport, ebay, are all the same.

That type of contract is like signing a blank cheque (which also has no legal protection), and if you see such a clause, don't agree to it. Most places will relax a EULA or ToS if people make it clear that they will not accept the condition, and if not, it's still not worth the risk of agreeing to the contract.

Re:Illegal

[the gnat]

I believe that's because of the 14th amendment- local governments (or their agents, including schools) are not allowed to violate your rights under the constitution. They can provide additional rights, but not revoke those granted by the federal government. Thus the US Supreme Court can rescind state laws, or change the verdict or sentence in a death penalty case (the majority of which are not federal).

Private individuals, however, are not under the same restrictions. I'm not sure what the source of the ban against racial discrimination is; I think the SCOTUS has struck down laws that mandate it, but additional laws (state or federal) prohibit certain types of discrimination by individuals. Other things such as gay rights laws, where they exist, are local. I've never seen a law about firearm owners, though.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

You fell right into what the parent poster was saying. A company cannot discriminate against minorities, the disabled, etc, because there are laws against it. There is no federal law against the discrimination of homosexuals or gun owners, any laws regarding discrimination against those two groups are local. If there is no law saying I cannot discriminate against someone then I am absolutely free to do so.

Re:Illegal

[kasparov]

Last I checked, you couldn't be held to a contract that required you to give up your constitutional rights. A person can not hold you to a contract that stipulates that you can not vote in an election, must become their slave, or will willingly go to jail without a jury trial if you don't hold up your end of the bargain.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you would probably get slapped down under any of a number of statutes. You can't refuse to do business with someone for reasons which are clearly non business related. Otherwise the Civil Rights Act becomes meaningless. Ok, I can't refuse your money because I don't like blacks (or insert any other historically oppressed group here) but I can refuse to sell to you if you are wearing a lot of gold? How long would that last in court? You could of course forbid weapons on your property, they still haven't taken ALL of our rights away yet.

Should this be so? As a strict constructionist libertarian I think it is all a load of crap. A redneck bar should be able to hang up a sign saying "No Niggers, Spics or Jews allowed." Of course a black hangout down the road should be able to hang their own sign saying "No inbred redneck bastards" And the normal (hopefully) more enlightened citizenry in between should forget bringing in lawyers and apply moral pressure to both sides be a bit more tolerant because in the end laws aren't the answer to stupidity.

You are onto the right idea though, real freedom includes the right to do stupid things. Or at least things that many think are stupid. Take that away and we are slaves to popular opinion.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda sorta. But they can force you thru arbitration to avoid court.

This case isn't about the constitutional rights of firearms. It's about protecting their product. So maybe the "firearm" paradigm isn't a good one... but the fact is that contracts can include stuff like "if you compete with us, the contract is over and you may no longer use our product."

Seems pretty straight forward.

Re:Illegal

[HBI]

Then again we see how well Java has done...

I think this problem will take care of itself, based on past experience.

Re:Illegal

[cduffy]

Yes, but the only way that a private contract is a Constitutional case is if the government is brought into doing something unconstitutional via the process of enforcing it (which is how the practice of using restrictive covenants for legal enforcement of racial discrimination became unenforcable). I doubt that finding someone in breach of contract due to ownership of a firearm would, in present day, be found in court to meet that standard.

Re:Illegal

[Reziac]

A very good comparison -- agreeing to a retroactively-alterable contract or EULA is indeed like signing a blank check, and perhaps that's precisely the analogy needed to open eyes about the dangers (especially to business) of such EULAs/contracts.

Re:Illegal

[bm_luethke]

even though this story is old and this is an anonymous coward I will reply. It is perfectly legal to NOT HIRE someone because of thier gun ownership. it is not legal to make employes GET RID OF thier guns. Two totally seperate issues. You can refuse to hire readheads, you can't tell all employees to die thier hair blonde on monday.

Re:Illegal

[Vulture_]

Sun doesn't want Java used in nuclear power plants for a very simple reason, and it's nothing sneaky. They don't want the massive liability, loss of revenue, and really really really bad press if Java were to screw up somehow and cause the reactor(s) to explode.

Granted, all of this is just a remote possibility; they also say that if you use it, you are solely responsible for any damage (nuclear disasters or otherwise) that happens as a result. Still, it seems prudent for a company with as much to lose as Sun to avoid taking unnecessary risks.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

When you AGREE to an EULA that says it can be changed on a whim without notice, you have truly screwed up...

To then complain after such a fuckup, is truly amazing. Some people here think RMS is crazy, but maybe he isn't. Maybe he just have seen it all and decided to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT (which is not something whiners do).

Re:Illegal

[sql*kitten]

I don't think there is a law that says I, as a private individual, can't discriminate against gun owners. If there is, please let me know. And please don't bother to quote the constitution - that's for discrimination by the Federal gov't.

There are plenty of laws that say that private individuals can't discriminate, it just so happens that gun owners aren't protected (at present). If you refuse to contract with gays, blacks, the disabled, etc, you will find yourself in a lot of trouble. You can't even say "abusive" things these days, right to free speech does not protect you from committing a "hate crime" - attacking a man is assault, but attacking a man an also calling him a "nigger" is judged much more harshly.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, I think that's the point that the parent poster was making - as long as it isn't illegal, you can do it.

So you can discriminate again gun owners, people who live in yellow houses, those with long fingernails, etc etc.

Unless it's illegal, it's legal. The trick is finding the laws that make something illegal. If you can't, it's legal.

I can hear RMS now ...

[Strike]

... saying "told ya so!"

RMS was right

[raahul_da_man]

Many slashdot posters seem to think Richard is just a voice crying out in the wilderness, but increasingly he seems to be a prophet.

Many years before this happened Richard pointed out the flaws of relying on non free software. Will any of the slashdot posters who called him crazy then apologize now?

Linus is wrong and Richard was right. You can't be "pragmatic" and use the best tool for the job if you want to keep your freedom.

Re:RMS was right

[Subcarrier]

Linus is wrong and Richard was right. You can't be "pragmatic" and use the best tool for the job if you want to keep your freedom.

Pragmatic, according to Linus, means freedom to choose the best tool for the job from the available alternatives.

Adhering strictly to the free software ideology limits your freedom to do so. Which is fine, as long as you recognize that this limitation to your freedom is self-imposed and that others may not be bound by the same limitations.

Re:RMS was right

[albalbo]

Many slashdot posters seem to think Richard is just a voice crying out in the wilderness, but increasingly he seems to be a prophet.

Absolutely right. Lest we forget, EULA clauses not allowing people to develop competitive (esp. Free Software) products is something Microsoft does. And they were rightly derided for that. Are we saying just because Bitmover are giving away free stuff that we're not going to apply the same standards?

Re:RMS was right

[nagora]

Many slashdot posters seem to think Richard is just a voice crying out in the wilderness, but increasingly he seems to be a prophet.

The real problem is that RMS may or may not be a prophet but he insists on acting like god and pissing off people just by his tone. The real message gets lost in the ensuing flamewar. Overall he has become counter-productive to his own aims

TWW

Re:RMS was right

[khuber]

The real problem is that RMS may or may not be a prophet but he insists on acting like god and pissing off people just by his tone. The real message gets lost in the ensuing flamewar. Overall he has become counter-productive to his own aims

The GPL and LGPL are extremely widely used. The FSF is successful and maintains a large amount of software. How has RMS's message been counterproductive?

-Kevin

Re:RMS was right

[nagora]

How has RMS's message been counterproductive?

Read my post again; his message has not become counter-productive, his manner has. The whole irrational GUN/Linux argument has convinced a lot of people that anything RMS says can safely be ignored as the rantings of a crank. This is in turn hurting the GPL. The fact that anyone ever considered using BitKeeper is a sign that the message of why the GPL is so important to programmers working on projects like the kernel has been lost in the noise somewhere.

TWW

Re:RMS was right

[khuber]

Read my post again

Don't insult my reading comprehension. That's rude and unnecessary. I read and quoted your entire post and asked you to clarify. However, you did clarify your point.

-Kevin

Re:RMS was right

[nathanh]

Many years before this happened Richard pointed out the flaws of relying on non free software. Will any of the slashdot posters who called him crazy then apologize now?

No, they won't.

Hating RMS is a religion. Facts don't faze the fanatics.

Re: RMS was right

[Black Parrot]

> Hating RMS is a religion.

For agnustics?

Re:RMS was right

[ebyrob]

Well... the fully free alternative definitely must exist, and I'm grateful that Mr. Stallman saw fit to undertake that task. It also shows great foresight (or stubborness) that the GNU project continues to work on their own kernel even with Linux getting such acclaim these days. I applaud them for it!

However, non-free alternatives and mixed alternatives simply existing is not necessarily a problem. What is good for the prophet is not always good for the people.

Re:RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh nos he insulted you. Shut up, no one wants your faulty opinions.

Re:RMS was right

[xeno-cat]

"Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moon light?"

Your certainly free too.

Re:RMS was right

[LordNimon]

raahul_da_man's point was that Linus did not make the right choice. He thought he did, but he was wrong then. That's right - Linus Torvalds was wrong to choose BitKeeper when he did. He should never have chosen it. Why? Because the fact that the license could have changed to something this onerous means that you could not rely on the product over the long term, and choosing something like BitKeeper requires you to make a long-term commitment to the product. What good is a version control system if you have to throw it out six months later? What are you supposed to do with the versioning information when you abandon BitKeeper for some other product?

Not only that, but Linus may not even be able to test Subversion while using BitKeeper, because the BK people may consider testing to be the same thing as "working on".

Re:RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

kevin, please, shut the fuck up. you sound like a little crybaby bitch.

Re:RMS was right

[nagora]

Don't insult my reading comprehension. That's rude and unnecessary. I read and quoted your entire post and asked you to clarify.

You quoted the post and asked me to clarify a point that was not in it ("How has RMS's message been counterproductive?" when I had said that he had become counter productive and had specifically said that his message had become lost). It was a reasonable assumption that you had not read the post carefully enough.

TWW

Re:RMS was right

[Zeinfeld]

Don't insult my reading comprehension. That's rude and unnecessary. I read and quoted your entire post and asked you to clarify. However, you did clarify your point.

Your reading comprehension appeared off to me as well.

RMS is a crank. There is no contradiction between doing something good and being a crank. Schockley invented the transistor and won the nobel prize but he was an utter crank who spent most of his later years writing racist tracts on Eugenics with the same basic premise as Murray/Herstein but without taking the trouble to hide the racism motivating the work.

The BitKeeper license is simply the logical extension of the GPL viral clause. Instead of coercing people to only use free software bitkeeper forces you to only use their software. This is not so different if you remember that when GPL was written FSF was the only game in town.

Re:RMS was right

[Subcarrier]

raahul_da_man's point was that Linus did not make the right choice.

That was raahul_da_man's opinion, for which he gave no supporting arguments. I ventured no opinion either way, I merely pointed out that ideological constraints limit the pool from which you can choose the tools.

You make some good points and I agree with some of them, although I don't feel qualified to second guess Linus on this.

If the new EULA makes BK no longer the best tool for the job then it's time to change the tool. If the pain of changeover is worth enduring then the decision is clear. It's not like we're chained to BK by a pact of blood. This is what I call pragmatism.

Re:RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Will any of the slashdot posters who called him crazy then apologize now?

Nope. Right or wrong, he's still crazy.

Re:RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Get your dick out of your ass and be a reasonable person. Stop taking a page from RMS's book and try getting along with other people. You'll be surprised to learn that if you aren't a prick, people won't shun you.

Re:RMS was right

[khuber]

I did mean RMS's message delivery, that is RMS's message. The FSF takes a more subdued stance.

Regardless, attacking me was juvenile.

-Kevin

Re:RMS was right

[GigsVT]

The BitKeeper license is simply the logical extension of the GPL viral clause. Instead of coercing people to only use free software bitkeeper forces you to only use their software.

What the hell are you talking about? You don't even have to agree to the GPL to use GPL software! The GPL only comes into play if you want to distribute a work based from the source code of a GPL program.

You can even use stuff like gcc to produce code under whatever license you like, as you own the output you cause a GPL program to create (in all but a couple minor exceptional circumstances, where the program outputs parts of its own source code).

Re:RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

No, attacking you was very justified. Perhaps you should try actually reading the posts you are replying to next time?

Re:RMS was right

[khuber]

Do you behave like that at work? Or are you still in grade school?

-Kevin

Re:RMS was right

[Zeinfeld]

What the hell are you talking about? You don't even have to agree to the GPL to use GPL software! The GPL only comes into play if you want to distribute a work based from the source code of a GPL program.

Go talk to Stallman and he will make it absolutely clear that his real aim is to eliminate non-free software. It will be just about the only thing that is absolutely clear...

For RMS the GPL is simply a means to an end that is beyond the GPL.

The Open Sorce Movement long ago outgrew RMS. The only person who really takes him seriously these days is Bill Gates.

Many people who start radically new movements are cranks. Freud was a drug adict, Kellog started his breakfast cereal company to stop mastubation, the Onedia company started out as a hippie free love community. Robert Owen invented modern manufacturing, socialism and went to America to set up a utopian society (interesting footnote, his son was responsible for the founding of the Smithsonian, not by donating the money but by preventing it being stolen by the then Congress).

If all you know of RMS is the GPL then you don't know him. Hero worship is never a particularly good idea, if you are going to choose a hero to worship, please at least choose one that is not afraid of water.

Re:RMS was right

[alienmole]

Hating RMS is a religion. Facts don't faze the fanatics.

Oh great. Now we have RMS-hater-hater fanatics.

Re:RMS was right

[pez]

The GNU/Linux arguments that RMS supports are *anything* but irrational. They are the most reasoned and rational arguments I've ever read.

Whether you agree with them, on the other hand....... that's another story entirely.

-Pez

Re:RMS was right

[Reziac]

"The BitKeeper license is simply the logical extension of the GPL viral clause. Instead of coercing people to only use free software bitkeeper forces you to only use their software." Yiiiy! I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right -- that is indeed the next logical step, whether the software in question is "free" or not!

Re:RMS was right

[Reziac]

Well, I don't hate RMS (I don't even dislike him), even tho over time I've become a bit disillusioned with some of the GPL's terms. I've even corresponded with RMS. He struck me as a nice, sincere, dedicated, hardworking -- fanatic. And just as you said, "Facts don't faze the fanatics."

Re:RMS was right

[peter]

You're saying that RMS wrote the GPL, thus the GPL stands for everything RMS does. That's wrong: you can use GPLed software, and even develop GPLed software without sharing all of RMSes goals and ideals. What you first said was:

The BitKeeper license is simply the logical extension of the GPL viral clause. Instead of coercing people to only use free software bitkeeper forces you to only use their software.

GigsVT answered: "The GPL only comes into play if you want to distribute a work based from the source code of a GPL program." This is correct.

You then carried on your argument as if you'd been talking about RMS:

Go talk to Stallman and he will make it absolutely clear that his real aim is to eliminate non-free software. It will be just about the only thing that is absolutely clear...

For RMS the GPL is simply a means to an end that is beyond the GPL.

This doesn't support your earlier argument at all. RMS is a thoughtful person, and doesn't force his ideals on anyone. First of all, nobody would use GPLed software if it forced you to act like RMS wishes everyone would. Software with such restrictions would be the opposite of what RMS is trying to accomplish. If the GPL worked the way you first said, GPLed software would be non-free! (and since it would require you to only use Free software, nobody could use it because using it would require you to not use it. Duh.)

If all you know of RMS is the GPL then you don't know him. Hero worship is never a particularly good idea, if you are going to choose a hero to worship, please at least choose one that is not afraid of water.

I don't worship him at all. I respect him, but that's about it as far as what I think of him personally. I really like some of his ideas and philosophical arguments. For any given piece of software I can think of, I think it would be a Good Thing if it was Free. Unless the mindset of the world changes, I suppose proprietary software will keep getting developed, esp. for specialized applications, like controlling lab equipment. Proprietary software is better than nothing, but should be avoided as much as possible as a building block for other software. If a computer running the company's software is an integral part of an atomic force microscope setup, you can use it without worrying too much that it will bite you. The software is totally specific to that one application, so if there's a problem, you need a new AFM, but you don't need to change anything else. (proprietary data formats are another story. They are _always_ a Bad Thing).

Re:RMS was right

[MaxVlast]

Somebody has a really thin skin. Do you behave like that toward everyone?

Re:RMS was right

[Rysc]

I can see the next MS EULA now: "If you have IE installed, you cannot write code for a competing browser."

Re:RMS was right

[khuber]

Somebody has a really thin skin. Do you behave like that toward everyone?

When someone's treating me poorly damned right I'm going to say something and not just take it. Childish behavior keeps a lot of people away from Slashdot. I think we can keep the discussions civil.

-Kevin

Re:RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't even make sense. STFU, Donny, you're out of your element.

Re:RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of nutcases. Use the best tools you can affort, and it's as simple as that...

Only pimpled-faced, fat-assed, ugly kiddies with nothing to do argues over "freedom of software" aor similar bullshit.

Re:RMS was right

[Ian Bicking]

The HURD no longer has any political purpose -- it is continued purely for technical reasons, because some people are interested in it (the nature of free software projects). FSF, GNU, and RMS all have absolutely no problem with the Linux kernel on political/ideological grounds. There may be disagreement on binary modules and development tools (i.e. BK), but those things are not the same as the kernel itself.

In fact, if the BSD kernel had clear licensing and legal status when the HURD was first being developed, it probably would have been used instead.

Re: RMS was right

[Nygard]

>groan<

Oh, ouch. You're killin' me.

Re: RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Use a spell check loser. It's "agnostics".

Re:RMS was right

[jvkjvk]

That was raahul_da_man's opinion, for which he gave no supporting arguments.

I think that the simple fact of the new EULA for BitKeeper is enough of a supporting argument.

If the new EULA makes BK no longer the best tool for the job then it's time to change the tool. If the pain of changeover is worth enduring then the decision is clear. It's not like we're chained to BK by a pact of blood. This is what I call pragmatism.

So you agree that there would be some 'pain' in changing over to some other system? You also agree that the new EULA may be a reason to switch?

Is there a place in your so called 'pragmatism' for forward looking thinking? If so, by your own statements, you seem to be saying that choosing BK was wrong in the first place, pragmatically, not ideologically.

Re:RMS was right

[bruthasj]

All this really means is that the bitmover guys are afraid that their technology is so non-novel it would be too easy for someone to create another tool that does the same thing. Shoot, it could be a bunch of shell scripts using diff, patch and rsync. Subsequently, you would have to invent a bunch of new vocabulary words to mask the fact it isn't original.

Let's take for example the TrollTech guys. They were derided and yelled at for awhile -- especially the KDE guys for using non-free related material. One of the reason they relicensed under the QPL and GPL was to get more market. Another prime reason is that they knew they could be faster and better than any fork off the software. That's the most important thing to remember and that's why BitKeeper has this clause in their EULA. It's because they're afraid of forks accelerating and replacing their work and so they must use legalities to protect themselves.

So, if Debian were to be consistent in their politics, they would actually put the Kernel in Non-free. How ironic. Yeah they don't actually use a library or code from them, but remember what Debian is trying to stand for.

Re:RMS was right

[Rik van Riel]

The BitKeeper license is simply the logical extension of the GPL viral clause. Instead of coercing people to only use free software bitkeeper forces you to only use their software.

Please read the bitkeeper license before writing about it. All that the new free bitkeeper license said that if you develop and/or sell a competing product you don't get to use bitkeeper for free.

This means that eg. the developers of the Subversion project need to grab the Linux kernel source code in a different way. They could use ftp, rsync+sccs, http and possibly other ways too.

I don't see what the big problem is with this "if you compete with me you no longer get my product for free" clause...

Re:RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, you whine alot. Are you French?

Re:RMS was right

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Many years before this happened Richard pointed out the flaws of relying on non free software. Will any of the slashdot posters who called him crazy then apologize now?

Ok, I'll step up to the microphone and do just that.

I used to say that RMS was a wacko who is hurting the free software universe more than he's helping it at this point. But as time goes on, the closed world is getting so incredibly out of control that RMS's strict adherence to the ideals of free software make more and more sense. Kudos to RMS for being dependably ideal about it.

However, I still think his insistence on calling Linux "GNU/Linux" is sophomoric and imbecilic. Perhaps if he'd be willing to drop that petty crusade, people would take the rest of his position seriously.

Re: RMS was right

[WNight]

You are truly quasar-level stupid. Festingly ignorant.

It's a joke. The spelling is intentional.

Re:RMS was right

[Subcarrier]

So you agree that there would be some 'pain' in changing over to some other system?

Change is always painful.

You also agree that the new EULA may be a reason to switch?

Sure, it inconveniences a few people who develop other version control tools. Whether those people are central to Linux kernel development remains to be seen. As I said, I'm not prepared to second guess Linus on this.

Is there a place in your so called 'pragmatism' for forward looking thinking? If so, by your own statements, you seem to be saying that choosing BK was wrong in the first place, pragmatically, not ideologically.

Now you're putting words in my mouth. Hindsight is so wonderful, isn't it? There are a number of people raving that the world is coming to and end any day now and that if we don't believe this or that we're all going to burn. I'm sure that if the world DID come to an end, those very same people would be gleefully shouting "I told you so."

I'm convinced that Linus chose the best available tool for the job at the time. It may still be the best tool for all I know. Why not get off your high and mighty horse and volunteer to maintain the Linxu 2.6 (or 3.0?) kernel tree? Perhaps you will learn the anser.

Re: RMS was right

[Anonymous Coward]

YES, a BITE!!

Who's quasar-level stupid now, stupid-head?

Re: RMS was right

[rweir]

Well...

Re:RMS was right

[Grizzlysmit]

Yup he sure was, I guess that moves my position one step closer to RMS's, comercial licensing is to dodgy, I'd still prefer him to give up on that GNU/Linux thing, but on this one I was wrong you where right RMS.

BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Perdo]

Put yourself in their shoes.

Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

What if you knew that they were using it in production with in house changes and additions with out releasing source code?

This is where BitMover is sitting. Developers are using their software to assist in developing their competition and doing it in violation of their licensing agreement.

BitMover is just doing what we would do if the shoe was on the other foot. This issue will be solved in the same way the open source community always deals with challenges.

The open source community will produce a better alternative under the GPL without using their software. Just like Windows is not the developer enviroment for the kernel, BitKeeper will not be the revision control software used for Subversion.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[TsEA]

If you actually read the link in the story, you will see that it prevents you from using it if you are developping (or aiding development) of an alternative.

This actually means that if I am both a subversion hacker and a kernel hacker, I can't use BitKeeper anymore for my kernel hacking....

Anything good (or sane) about that?

And by the way, the GPL clearly gives the right to microsoft to use linux, even modify it, if they aren't distributing it... I think most conscious kernel hackers already know that.

So that really makes them the bad guys (I didn't see any anti-Microsoft clause in the GPL)

So that really makes them the bad guys ;)

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[The Fanta Menace]

The open source community will produce a better alternative under the GPL without using their software. Just like Windows is not the developer enviroment for the kernel, BitKeeper will not be the revision control software used for Subversion.

This isn't the issue, however.

The problem was that the developer of Subversion was also a kernel developer. I don't think that they were using Bitkeeper for developing Subversion - but the developer used Bitkeeper to check patches into the kernel. Now he cannot use Bitkeeper at all, and hence it is more difficult for him to work on Linux

No, it's not Bitmover who is at fault here - it's a problem caused by using non-free software to develop Linux.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[dybvandal]

Microsoft relies on perl for their entire testing fra mework for all I know. They did pay for the port to windows though. Activestate did it form them.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Perdo]

Yeah, Mod that Perdo guy down. He almost made us think for a minute. We just want to follow the party line. The party line says BitMover is bad! ...

Meta might catch it.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[otopico]

Reading the email, it looks less like 'dont use bk to develop a competetor' and more like 'remember when we asked you for help? well screw you now'.

BK has the right to license whom it wants, but I think the 'no compete' clause for the free version might have some personal prejudice behind it.

Not that any of it matters.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[KewlPC]

Actually, he can use BitKeeper. He'll just have to pay for it.

This new EULA only affects the free version of BitKeeper.

And it makes perfect sense: why should a company develop a piece of software, and give a limited (???) version away for free in hopes of people paying for the full version, only to allow people to use the free version to create competing software?

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

when you make your fake mod this guy up posts you are suppost to remember to switch to another user.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he is just being openly sarcastic at the brutal populist mob think there. While I am not a fan of Mr. Living Document McVoy and his daily revision of the BitKeeper licensce [ I think it should say, Section 69. Call Larry on the phone if its okay if little buppie can use BK for his project], but he does bring up a valid point. GO against the mob here, and you get flame moderated.

I have followed this man's work, and he is continually posting potentially risqu* things that would incite the mob to flame him in to negative-one-dom, but he has the balls to be witty, humorous and say non populist things. Cleary he does not care about Karma but her damn right well deserves the +2.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[rnt]

This is where BitMover is sitting. Developers are using their software to assist in developing their competition and doing it in violation of their licensing agreement.

So it would be perfectly reasonable for the GCC folks to decide you can't use gcc for developing any software that will not be placed under the GPL?

In that case I think I might run into trouble when I want to recompile the kernel on my FreeBSD box... Or would that be GNU/FreeBSD? :-)

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Saxerman]

Put yourself in their shoes.

I... uh... can't. I understand the concept of trying to sell software to make a living, but I don't support it. I sell my services as a programmer to make a living and give away the code. This is not to say people who sell code are 'bad guys' but I fail to understand how they hope to compete with those commie open source hackers. Sure your start out with an edge and a superior product, but how long are you going to stay that way?

Which, of course, you sum up nicely: The open source community will produce a better alternative under the GPL without using their software. That being said, do they really think they stand to make more money by pushing away the Subversion team? In the short term, maybe, but I think in the long run they just killed themselves. I think the wineX crew handles their PR much better.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[mgkimsal2]

This is not to say people who sell code are 'bad guys' but I fail to understand how they hope to compete with those commie open source hackers.

By making stuff that no commie open source hacker has an 'itch' to 'scratch', or at least 'scratch' well enough to appeal to common end users.

Sure your start out with an edge and a superior product, but how long are you going to stay that way?

Maybe only 4-5 years. That's enough for me for one product.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[kryps]

I think that LM overrates the benefits that BitKeeper has to his competitors.

1) His main argument why open source developers can not reproduce something like BitKeeper is that it takes a god-awful amount of work to develop a complex SCM like BK and make it work for all corner cases as well. And this does not change at all even if they have access to BitKeeper for free.

2) For his commercial competitors (e.g. Rational) it is no big deal to buy a few BitKeeper license and have some developers thoroughly test and disect it. The licensing costs are by no means prohibitive to do that. So this point is moot as well.

So all in all having the competitors use the product does not seem to be a big deal. He should have refrained from introducing this clause because of all the bad hype it generates. But he seems to suffer from an overly inflated ego like many developers in the open-source community so he fails to understand that he has much more to loose than to gain by including this clause.

-- kryps

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

There have been multiple stories about microsoft research using linux machines. So microsoft is using linux for research, and most likely not distributing the results.

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/software/lcc/doc/lin ux .html

so you are VERY wrong on both counts (and "we" most certainly don't prevent them from using anything)

Oelewapperke

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Perdo]

As other posters have pointed out, BitKeeper's licence is the same paid or free. You may not use BitKeeper to assist in developing a competitive product.

This may mean in it's role as revision control software.

This may also mean as a model to base competeing software off of.

In the first case, don't use it.

In the second case, it is a reverse engineering poison pill.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[kryps]

>>> As other posters have pointed out, BitKeeper's licence is the same paid or free. You may not use BitKeeper to assist in developing a competitive product.

This is just not true. There is the commercial license (the BKCL) and there is the free license (the BKL). Both differ in many points and there is no clause about development of competing products in the BKCL. Check your sources.

-- kryps

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Perdo]

Well, that's a pretty big claim.

Microsoft violating the GPL.

You even have a dead link to back it up.

Find the source. Read it carefully. Do not reply to me. Post the story to Slashdot, because it would make BIG news.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Jay Maynard]

GO against the mob here, and you get flame moderated.

Amen. I've taken to metamoderating all Troll and Flamebait moderations as unfair in an attempt to counteract this abuse of the system.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[bluetea]

If you actually read the link in the story, you will see that it prevents you from using it if you are developping (or aiding development) of an alternative.

This actually means that if I am both a subversion hacker and a kernel hacker, I can't use BitKeeper anymore for my kernel hacking....

Right, and if you read it closely, it also says that if your company develops a configuration management program (even if it's for in-house use and even if you don't work on it), you can't use BitKeeper without buying a license. That means that if you are (for instance), an IBM employee working on the kernel in your spare time, you're hosed. The same applies to other companies, I'm sure.

I think it's fair and it definitely makes sense from BitMover's perspective, but it also shows why it was a mistake for Linus to ignore the implications of requiring (or close to it) the use of commercial software to develop the kernel. Who knows how many more license changes there are in the pipe?

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[MaxVlast]

Or he could just stfu and pay for it. It's not like he has any legitimate reason to expect free software from a company that's trying to stay in business.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[naasking]

Put yourself in their shoes. Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

Yes.

What if you knew that they were using it in production with in house changes and additions with out releasing source code?

No problem. Distribution requires source changes to be available, not use.

The open source community will produce a better alternative under the GPL without using their software. Just like Windows is not the developer enviroment for the kernel, BitKeeper will not be the revision control software used for Subversion.

You're right, it's called OpenCM

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should try putting something relevant in your post.

1. Most businesses DO test competitors' products.
2. Microsoft IS allowed to develop in-house modifications of Linux and/or the GNU tools. They are simply not allowed to redistribute them without source (or without a method available for getting the source for a certain number of years.) (Unless the GPL's gone beyond version 2 without me noticing.)

You should've made a reference to the BSD TCP/IP stack instead.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

Then who is the bad guy ?

Bitmover doesn't want competitor to be good, like any business. Their licence try to stop the competition from getting better by having a look at their product, like if Gnome developers could not use Windows anymore because they could "steal" UI ideas.

OTOH, B.Collins refused once to help BK to get to a broader audience (the ARM community), by providing them computers.

So who is the bad guy ? The one that doesn't want to loose its technical advantage, or the one that want to break the other advantage, by giving it to everyone ?

BitMovers choose to help the community because its a "give and take" move. They get advertising and free testers, but these testers get a free versioning system.
Ben Collins choose to make Subversion because he wants to help the community to have a good and _libre_ versioning system.

By the way, having unreleased change of a GPLed software is OK, as long as the software isn't released at all. If MS used a modified Linux in house, I - as a Linux user - couldn't care less.
GPL is not about letting every one know what every one else is doing, but letting every one be able to fix the tools they're using.
The business consideration comes after the freedom one in RMS perspective, which Ben Collins follows.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[gandy909]

>Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

I would LAUGH!

>What if you knew that they were using it in production with in house changes and additions with out releasing source code?

Aren't you required to 'release' the source only if/when you 'release' the binaries??? If you make changes for your own use and do not 'release' it to anyone else isn't that ok?

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[SDF-7]

I... uh... can't. I understand the concept of trying to sell software to make a living, but I don't support it. I sell my services as a programmer to make a living and give away the code.

Hmm... so your economic model for your employers would be:

1) Conceive idea for new tool/features in existing tool.

2) Pay for programmer to code ideas.

3) Don't sell the tool -- give it away!

4) ???

5) Profit!

Seriously - I am very curious where you expect those paying you to get the money from in the first place? I fully understand and support the 'hobbyist' programmer who makes money in some other fashion (inheritance, programming at another job, etc.) and who gives away code just for the joy of seeing people appreciate the effort or idea -- but somehow the bills have to be paid.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[fwr]

Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

I don't see why it would bother kernel developers.

What if you knew that they were using it in production with in house changes and additions with out releasing source code?

This is explicitly allowed by the GPL, so for any kernel developers to have a problem with this would be hypocritical. Anyone can use any GPL software in house in a production environment with as many custom changes they want without releasing those changes to everyone in the world as long as they do not distribute their custom version outside their organization. Perhaps you meant something else than what your words clearly say? That you mean an "in house" "production" environment is somehow equivalent to distributing a version of a GPL software package outside (not in house) your organization with custom changes and not releasing the source code? That would be illegal, but that's not what you said.

This is where BitMover is sitting. Developers are using their software to assist in developing their competition and doing it in violation of their licensing agreement.

Not it is not. Their new license apparently goes well beyond that. It says that developers using (the free license version of) their software for a non-competing product, such as the kernel, can not work on a competing product, regardless of what other revision control software they use to build the competing product. So, no Linux kernel developers, or anyone else that uses the "free" version of BK, can contribute to some competing products. This is quite different than you portray.

BitMover is just doing what we would do if the shoe was on the other foot. This issue will be solved in the same way the open source community always deals with challenges.

I don't believe you understand what the issue is.

The open source community will produce a better alternative under the GPL without using their software. Just like Windows is not the developer enviroment for the kernel, BitKeeper will not be the revision control software used for Subversion.

One would hope that the community produces a better alternative under the GPL. If BM wants to limit the use of their software to create a competing product then I don't see a problem with this as much as what they are doing, which is described above.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously need to familiarize yourself with the GPL. The poster's claims IN NO WAY imply a violation of the GPL. Microsoft is free to use GPL software, to modify it and to NOT DISTRIBUTE THEIR MODIFICATIONS. The only obligation is to distribute the source under the same GPL terms IF YOU DISTRIBUTE BINARIES. So no distribution at all is perfectly acceptable.

Yes, Microsoft uses GPL'd software and we in the free software movement think that's great.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[ceejayoz]

Umm... how exactly is that page supposed to prove that MS is using Linux and not releasing the results? Down the bottom of that page, the source code for the compiler (lcc) they're discussing is provided for download.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

The open source community will produce a better alternative under the GPL without using their software. "

They will not.
I am not aware of a single OS product that is better than commercial alternative.
Not a single one.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[pbryan]

Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

If I were a Linux kernel developer, how people would use my kernel is none of my business.

What if you knew that they were using it in production with in house changes and additions with out releasing source code?

If I knew they were distributing binaries to Linux without accompanying source code, I would insist that they rectify their apparent violations of the GPL.

This is where BitMover is sitting. Developers are using their software to assist in developing their competition and doing it in violation of their licensing agreement.

Actually, BM is restricting the license to BK, not based on how it's used, but on who uses it. If you're a competitor to BM, you do not qualify to use the Gratis version.

It's not open source software. It's commercial software. This may be ultimately incompatible with its use by open source developers. This is no surprise, right? Linus seems to make choices based on the merits of technology and practicality, not politics. If too many barriers to the use of BK emerge, I have a feeling he could make a different decision.

BitMover is just doing what we would do if the shoe was on the other foot. This issue will be solved in the same way the open source community always deals with challenges.

Placing restrictions on how a piece of software is used violates the "free speech" elements of any open source software license. It would stop being open source software. How people use the Linux kernel is none of the developers' business. How they redistribute it, however, differs with certain licenses.

The open source community will produce a better alternative under the GPL without using their software. Just like Windows is not the developer enviroment for the kernel, BitKeeper will not be the revision control software used for Subversion.

I don't think the SV folks ever considered using BK as their revision control system. I think the issue is, a SV developer could not accept the Gratis license to BK to work on the Kernel, because he was excluded because he works on a competitive project.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Lonath]

Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

Reducto Ad-Absurdum - If people had acted like this, then there wouldn't be ANY free or open source software, because RMS (or anyone else for that matter) would never have been able to write a compiler using an editor compiled by a commercial compiler that wouldn't allow you to use that compiler to make things that could be used to make other compilers. This IS fucked up regardless of how you see it. You do have the right to use software under copyright law, and this little EULA bullshit dance got plopped on top of it and nobody's wanted to go to court to stop it.

Copyright law is supposed to be limited. It's supposed to cover copying and public performance. You sitting in your house using software you've paid for shouldn't be controlled. The whole idea that you license the software and you can't use it until you agree to the license is bullshit. It may be the law, but it's still bullshit. Otherwise you have nothing except a worthless shiny disk. And once you've paid for that disk you ought to be allowed to use it and you are allowed to use it under copyright law, but somehow they've managed to get this legal fiction scaffolded into place that says you need more permission to use the software after you have the bits.

It's like books with shrinkwrap licenses. I know they've been mentioned here before, but again. Bullshit. Someday books will come with locks and you'll get thrown in jail if you buy the book and then don't pony up to give up your rights to get the key.

Yet another reason to never give money to the copyright industry forever.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/software/lcc/doc/linux .html

The link is live.

Your browser software software is dead or you don't know how to use it. (Hint: try removing the %20's)

Now, you read the source then come back and appologize for being so arrogant.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Patersmith]

I don't care. It is principally wrong to allow someone to dictate what you can and can't develop on a given compiler, RCS, operating system, DBMS, programming language, whatever.

What if Microsoft changed their Windows or Visual [insert language here] EULA tomorrow to say that you can't use their products to work on anything that, in their reasonable judgement, competes with any of their products?

It might not sit well with kernel developers if Microsoft were to use Linux in their business, but what business is it of ours to tell anyone what they can or can't do with Linux? Actually, I'd bet 100:1 odds that Microsoft has at least one Linux box in Redmond.

Not only is it bad judgement, it's anti-competitive in my opinion.

I hope you're right and the open source community comes up with something better.

When will people learn? Every time you put up a stupid block, you WILL be coded around.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[kubrick]

You constructed a strawman argument (Microsoft "abusing" the GPL, which wouldn't be a problem as they are allowed to do what you describe) and you asserted that other developers were copying code/features from BitKeeper, something that has yet to be proven. I'm not surprised you were modded down.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[maxwell demon]

Indeed, to make the BitKeeper - Linux analogy perfect, it would be as if you would say that no one either working on a different OS or working for a company that works on a different OS would not be allowed to use Linux, even it that use were for a completely different purpose.

For example, you would not be allowed to use Linux at home for private use, if you were an IBM employee (since IBM develops AIX).

But the situation with Linux is - fortunately - quite different: Even if MS decided not only to do all their Windows development on Linux machines, but even compile Windows with gcc, they would still have the right to do so. They wouldn't even have to release Windows under the GPL as long as they don't use GPLed code in Windows.

That's the point of free software: You can use it any way you like, without any restrictions. Only if you incorporate the code into one of your programs, that program must be free again.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[kubrick]

Or he could just stfu and pay for it. It's not like he has any legitimate reason to expect free software from a company that's trying to stay in business.

... and the quality (or at least the quantity :) of Linux kernel developers drops, as the process of acquiring the software required to develop it becomes more onerous and legally difficult. Not a good move from a technical standpoint.

Still, that's a decision for Linus et. al. to make, and it looks like they'll stick with it until the situation becomes unbearable for a majority of major developers -- given the way BitMover keep changing their licenses, it wouldn't surprise me to see this happen. Besides, the license language is overly broad. All major Linux distros contain CVS (I imagine :), so no-one who works for these organisations can use BitKeeper, and these people will find it more difficult to keep up with kernel development.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[dubl-u]

This is not to say people who sell code are 'bad guys' but I fail to understand how they hope to compete with those commie open source hackers. Sure your start out with an edge and a superior product, but how long are you going to stay that way?

Right now, I strictly sell services, but were I to sell a product, this would not worry me. The way for any software company (or any company whose main skill is innovation) to stay on top is to avoid commoditization. Take a look at 3M. They have a corporate goal that 30% of revenue come from new products, which forces them to keep coming out with new stuff all the time. That means that they get to charge premium prices until their competitors catch up.

Were I running a software product company, I'd be tempted to just GPL the source code to any version more than, say, 5 years old. Not only would that contribute to the open source community and thus the broader public, but it would create stiff low-end competition for any of my competitors, making it harder for them to get a foothold that would let them come after my lead on the high end.

Any software company that is really dependent for revenue on old code isn't really in the business of making products or selling services; they're in the business of making monopolies.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[matastas]

Put yourself in their shoes..

Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

What? And do something that is complete, totally legitimate: legally acquiring a third-pary product and using it to develop another product?

Wake up. This is not only done everyday, but it's acceptable. The EULA would be tossed out of court.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Saxerman]

Seriously - I am very curious where you expect those paying you to get the money from in the first place?

You don't understand how a company that sells something other than software might require a programmer? Then I sugest you read The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

Why not ?

What if you knew that they were using it in production with in house changes and additions with out releasing source code?

Read the GPL - they don't have any legal obligation to release source code to anyone they don't give binaries to!

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Rik van Riel]

Bitkeeper is just a tool to access the kernel source, but it's not the only tool.

As long as people have a free choice between tar+patch, bitkeeper, rsync+sccs and other alternatives, what's the problem ?

If Bitkeeper tried vendor lock-in we would have a problem, but since bitkeeper is in no way required to work on the kernel I can't see what everybody is upset about.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think it's fair and it definitely makes sense from BitMover's perspective"

you keep on saying that, maybe it will come true.

i'm certain time will show that the backlash will far outway anything they will gain.

greedy fuckers in this day and age are becoming highly unpopular.

just the APPEARANCE of greed is going to byte you i the ass.

oh well.

good luck to them

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[geekoid]

except your arguments were both ignorant and wrong. Thats is why you were modded down.

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm.... last time I checked, the GPL didn't say you can't use GPL'd programs if you work for Microsoft (or anyone else). In fact, that kind of license is frowned upon by RMS and also the Debian project. What's your point here?

Read both free and commerical license..

[Anonymous Coward]

on there server and neither had anything about this that was mentioned in the links in the article. Is this FUD or just a lack of BK to update there website to reflect these new license terms..

How about if you paid for it?

[The Fanta Menace]

Is this also the case if you've actually paid for a licence for BitKeeper?

Could you imagine the furore if a Windoze licence stated that you weren't allowed to use it to develop another OS?

Re:How about if you paid for it?

[expro]

Actually, for quite some time, there were significant portions of the Visual C++ Suite dealing with databases that could not be used to produce a competing Office Suite, for those of us who occasionally read the EULA.

Re:How about if you paid for it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, IIRC, MSDN has a license saying that you can only use it to develop for Windows.

You can...

[Sunnan]

"You can't be "pragmatic" and use the best tool for the job if you want to keep your freedom."

You can, but non-free software can't be the best tool for the job.

Re:You can...

[OsamaBinLogin]

> You can, but non-free software can't be the best tool for the job.

something tells me that BK is in use because it is the "best", or someone thought it was the best at one time.

Their site is uncomfortably cagey about the $price. That probably means, some suit dickers with your boss, feeling out "what the market will bear". IE the most money they can get.

The only number I came up with is "roughly 1% of the cost of an engineer" (cost of ownership page). OK so how does that compare with the cost of the lawyers meant to fight this whole thing?

How awful is it if you actually PAID MONEY for the software? Face it, if your boss doesn't have bucks, you don't have a job. Somebody's paying for the Linux kernel to be developed - if it costs 1% more, is that a big deal?

What the hell is your fucking problem?!

[Fefe]

This guy is giving away a free version of his software to help kernel developers and now you double standard hypocrites actually whine that he does not like this free version to be used by his competition?

Be grateful that he gave you this software in the first place!

The subversion guy should be talking to his customers and find out what they want instead of using Bitkeeper to copy. Respect must be earned, not copied.

Re:What the hell is your fucking problem?!

[Sunnan]

"Be grateful that he gave you this software in the first place!"

"Gave"?

He "gave" away this software?

Listen bud, if Ulysses gives me a horse, I'll damm well look it in the mouth.

If you "give" me something don't leave tentacles of ownership and control attached to it.

The free software movement isn't about getting cheap software - it's about software freedom.

I kinda feel sorry for Larry, because he just doesn't get it -- but his "help" is tearing up the community.

Consider ethics and software freedom.

[jbn-o]

What part of this says you can develop what you want by acquiring a commercial license?

Nothing, but that doesn't make your point. To determine if the claim is true you need to compare both licenses for both versions. The license on the $0 version might differ from the other version.

Of course none of this matters if you recognize that Linus Torvalds is arguing a rather selfish point--one should use the programs that get the job done, proprietary or Free Software (or anything in between). No regard is given for the ethical and larger social ramifications of our choices; we are being asked by Torvalds to consider only our own desires. I encourage you all to consider your software freedom and recognize that the practical benefits of better programs and a better society where we can share freely come (in part) from the freedoms and attention paid to ethics found in the Free Software movement.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[AceMarkE]

Aw, enough already. Look, this isn't personal, and it's partially cause I'm way too tired right now and therefore easily annoyed.

With that said...

I'm sick of people acting like "Software Freedom" is a life-and-death issue. Linus is right. If it works, use it. If it doesn't work, don't. If the Free Software product is better, use it. If the proprietary/closed/whatever version is better - use it. Or contribute to the open product until it's better, THEN use it. The key point here is, USE WHAT WORKS.

Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of open-source stuff, I admire RMS and the GNU project for everything they've contributed to the computing world, and I enjoy having the freedom to tinker with stuff. In the end, though, I'll use whatever is going to work best for ME in whatever situation.

The world won't end if people use proprietary software. Get over it.

Mark Erikson

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[khuber]

The key point here is, USE WHAT WORKS.

That's your opinion.

-Kevin

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[otopico]

Nonsense.

The whole point of using a tool is to get a job done. If I need to hammer a nail, I could go and use a free rock to do the job, or I could go to a store and buy a hammer. Both will do the job, but one is better suited to do that job. It doesn't make me evil if I buy a proprietary solution.

The reason people like Linus use whatever gets the job done isn't due to their selfishness or social apathy, but because they have a job to do. This isn't ending world hunger or curing all disease, it's fricking software.

One of the things that make free software people look absurd is the religious fanaticism some of the free software folk feel is necessary. They forget that in the grand scheme of life and the universe, software, free or commercial doesn't really matter. You want people to do it your way, forgetting that free software also means freedom to use what you want, even if it isn't free software.

Quit trying to make it a moral issue. It is an issue of choice. People have the right to use what they want. If you don't like that then maybe you are more like the closed source software houses than you wish to admit.

Hypocrites.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[khuber]

otopico, you can't use your hammer to pount nails manufactured by our competitors.

We feel this is necessary to ensure the viability of our business.

Unfortunately your hammer was a free sample you obtained from the International Hammer Show 2001, and not the full commercial version.

We do sell a commercial hammer with no restrictions for $99.95.

Sincerely,
Ron O'Nail, U.S. Hammer Corp.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[otopico]

ok, that was funny.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[AceMarkE]

Never said it wasn't. Look, I understand the argument you're making in your post below. A license restriction like this is, in my opinion, pretty stupid. otopico's post below this says it pretty well, though. One, it's software. Two, freedom means you can use what you want.

The problem as I see it is that Free Software advocates feel that a piece of software should be judged purely by how Free it is, without regard to any other attributes. I disagree (here's that whole opinion thing again). When I'm looking at a piece of software, I'm going to judge it based on several things. How well does it do what it's supposed to do? How well does it do what _I_ need it to do? DOES it do what I need it to? What is the price? After all that, THEN I'll factor in how Free it is. If I've got two effectively identical programs in front of me, with the licensing being the only difference, yeah, sure, I'll go with the Free one.

Like I said. Software Freedom isn't a life or death issue. Don't try to make it one.

Mark Erikson

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn what hypocrite means before you make an ass of yourself in public, dipshit.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[MaxVlast]

Tell me you're joking. _Please_ tell me this is a hilarious joke that's just an iota subtler than shows up on my radar.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is, it is a moral issue. The choice isn't between "free" or commercial software, it is between philosophies that differ as in "my way or no way" on one side and "live and let live" on the other.

It is a choice between freedom and totalitarianism.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now here's the argument that changed my mind! I'm throwing out my soap and electric razor this morning. Bye bye Macintosh, hello crappy PC with Linux! I'm going Free, baby! (I'll be able to make a living using Hurd, right? Shit! GNU/Hurd. Sorry RMS, sorry RMS, sorry RMS [begins chanting mantra]).

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

No[blockquote]
The world won't end if people use proprietary software. Get over it.
[/blockquote]
The world wouldn't end if we didn't have freedom of speech either. The point is that the world would be a lot less interesting without it, and there's no reason to prefer censorship over freedom of speech, or proprietary software over free software. Try to understand what people mean before stating your own opinion, please

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[xigxag]

It was funny but if someone's giving you a free hammer, so what? Either use it according to their restrictions or stop being a cheap bastard and pay for an "unrestricted" hammer.

The irony of this whole thing is that if BitMover completely withdrew its free offering, you folks wouldn't have a cause for complaint here. When the removal of choice is viewed somehow as an ethical improvement, it really makes me wonder about the FSM zealots.

ObLink: Here's a link to a lengthy critique of BitKeeper's license.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

The choice isn't between "free" or commercial software, it is between philosophies that differ as in "my way or no way" on one side and "live and let live" on the other.

That's bullshit. Having strong guarantees on the freedom that people have is totalitarian. You cannot ensure freedom without disallowing people to take away other people's freedoms. If you consider that totalitarian, then i consider you stupid.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Znork]

The problem with licensed proprietary software is that you can never make more than a snapshot judgement on it. You do not have the data necessary to make a judgement than will be valid for more than a few seconds.

I see nothing where Larry McVoy swears the license will never be changed to exclude anyone providing non-BK repositories. I havent seen a mail where he swears that people working for for-profit corporations wont be excluded. I havent seen him promise that BK wont exclude anyone with a beard either in the future.

How do you make a judgement then? How well does it do what it's supposed to do? How well does it do what you need it to do? Well, how much does that matter when _you may not be allowed to use it at all tomorrow_? What value does it have for you then?

Software freedom isnt necessarily the deciding factor if your choice matters the next five minutes. But when you make a choice that must be valid over a decade youd better have a crystal ball to see how whoever decides the license is going to act for the next ten years.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[kryps]

I wholeheartedly agree. I think that the FSM should be really thankful to be able to use a great tool such as BK for free. If there were a free SCM which could do what BK can then I am sure that the kernel hackers would use it. But there is no such tool.

-- kryps

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[InodoroPereyra]

Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of open-source stuff, I admire RMS and the GNU project for everything they've contributed to the computing world, and I enjoy having the freedom to tinker with stuff. In the end, though, I'll use whatever is going to work best for ME in whatever situation.

Fine, but you don't seem to understand that if everybody did what you do, you wouldn't have free software to enjoy. So, in short, you adopt a comfortable "I use the right tool for the job" attitude, you "get sick" of people who really stand for free software and finally use their software when it is done. Brilliant.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Tikiman]

I'm sick of people acting like "Software Freedom" is a life-and-death issue. Linus is right. If it works, use it. If it doesn't work, don't. If the Free Software product is better, use it. If the proprietary/closed/whatever version is better - use it. Or contribute to the open product until it's better, THEN use it. The key point here is, USE WHAT WORKS.

Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of open-source stuff, I admire RMS and the GNU project for everything they've contributed to the computing world, and I enjoy having the freedom to tinker with stuff. In the end, though, I'll use whatever is going to work best for ME in whatever situation.

Quite a selfish viewpoint you have there - it turns out that the best solution for YOU may not be the best for society at large. Perhaps you need to brush up on FSF philosphy. No one said it as "life-or-death". But if businesses had their way, there would be no free software - and you don't find that the least bit scary? Think about it - you have 0 rights to your hardware unless you start dishing out cash and accepting possibly onerous license agreements. In other words, you give up all of your rights.

So you have a choice - live in a world where free software is a critical force for maintaining the rights of consumers, or live in a world where you just want whats "best", and therefor implying that the world would be just fine without free software. I hope you thing the first, because the second is a scary world indeed.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Blkdeath]

Quit trying to make it a moral issue. It is an issue of choice. People have the right to use what they want. If you don't like that then maybe you are more like the closed source software houses than you wish to admit.

You're thinking in the microcosmic view of the situation. Essentially, you're considering a single person performing a single task. You have to think of the people who make the software industry work - business. The home "market" essentially only exists to ensure that home users will be comfortable with the offerings that mega software corporations sell to business (small and large - moreso large) when they go to work.

Decisions made by people in the software industry affect millions of people and tens, even hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

Consider the release of Microsoft Windows 95. IBM (a company not without its own monopolistic history, but I digress) was initially going to promote OS/2 alongside Win'95, but Microsoft did not approve of this. At the last minute before the release, IBM was presented with an ultimatum; Win'95 or nothing. Since Win'95 was the current 'thing to have', it would have been a crippling blow for the (current) industry leading hardware manufacturer to ship PCs without it.

Now consider things that retroactively cost billions - Melissa shut down corporations and wreaked havoc for weeks. Since people did not have any access to the code that makes the affected products 'tick' (ie; Outlook (Express)), they were forced to sit on their hands and wait for a proprietary solution.

Proprietary products, as it's been pointed out in the past, tend to limit their users to only their own products. Concealment of APIs to make it difficult for competitors to integrate, making significant changes to the API and/or protocols without proper documentation so that competitors will find their products behind the times, etc..

Proprietary software licenses tend to become progressively more restrictive, rather than less. Restricting a user's rights to use the other products and (digital) media they already own, for one thing. Restricting the types of files they are permitted to store locally and share with others. Restricting who they may converse with online, and allowing corporations and government bodies a peek into what you're doing on your computer - in the interests of preventing theft of "Intellectual Property" and terrorism, of course.

Free software is a moral issue. Don't try to make it less of one; you're only playing into the hands of the corporations.

For a good read on a possible free-software-free future, head on over to read this fine essay.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[SDF-7]

He probably doesn't seem to understand it because what you said doesn't follow at all.

What he said was "Use what works - and if nothing does, either write your own or help out those who _are_ writing what you need" (loose paraphrasing).

There's nothing implying that _only_ non-Free software will fill your needs, nor is there anything implying that people will automagically stop writing Free software just because someone is willing to pay for a non-Free piece they feel does the job better. You seem to be implying that everyone should use only Free software - regardless of the competence of the software for the task at hand, and frankly - that's either just silly or you need to look in the mirror and confess that you've become a zealot.

If there's a need for a piece of software, someone will write it. If it is someone who believes in Free (and presumably not necessarily free unless they have a day job) software, they write it and it fits the need, people will use it.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[khuber]

I'm personally more interested in being able to do what I want with software. Proprietary software can smother an OS. On Windows everyone wants $25 for their silly little shareware program, and the most basic tools aren't freely and easily available to the extent they are on Linux. The problem with that mentality is that it creates a barrier to improving productivity for everyone. By making software technology more widespread and free you are essentially moving software to the next higher level. That is what I want.

Additionally, I don't think that rejecting the BK license will somehow destroy the commercial software industry. I don't think it will even blink. Companies can make money in a myriad of ways. It is simply not necessary for the success of capitalism (as some people in this thread seem to believe) that we allow companies to create onerous EULAs.

-Kevin

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Those restrictions weren't part of the original terms under which I received the hammer.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Skjellifetti]

The bullshit sure is thick around here today.

Quite a selfish viewpoint you have there - it turns out that the best solution for YOU may not be the best for society at large.

Who are you to impose on the rest of us your vision of what is best for society at large -- especially when your vision conflicts with what is best for someone else?

But if businesses had their way, there would be no free software - and you don't find that the least bit scary?

Not at all because it won't happen. You will always be free to write software and licence it as GNU/BSD/Whatever so long as your software does not steal rights that belong to someone else. Note that the "so long" clause has many implications that will be fought out in the courts, legislatures, and international orgs like the WTO in the coming months and years.

Think about it - you have 0 rights to your hardware unless you start dishing out cash and accepting possibly onerous license agreements. In other words, you give up all of your rights.

What rights are you giving up? When you buy a product, you enter a contractual arrangement with the seller. You only get those rights that you purchase. Want more rights to the something? Then convince the seller to sell them to you. Think about a plot of land you are considering buying. Does the sale include the mineral rights? Does it include deed restrictions? Why is software different? Some companies sell their software as purely closed source, some sell it with source code. In each case you have bought a different package of rights. Why does any product offered for sale have to include all potential rights to that product? Unbundling the product into seperate packages of rights enhances the public welfare by increasing the choices available to both sellers and buyers. Fewer people would buy the product if the seller were forced to include all potential rights.

So you have a choice - live in a world where free software is a critical force for maintaining the rights of consumers, or live in a world where you just want whats "best", and therefor implying that the world would be just fine without free software.

Huh? Why does a willingness to pay for a particular feature set that is currently provided only by closed source vendors imply "that the world would be just fine without free software." Your logic escapes me.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[erat]

How you can compare freedom of speech with free software is beyond me. Last time I checked, nobody lost his/her life or the lives of family members and friends over a free/proprietary software issue.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe not "life-and-death" but you don't seem to grasp the full intent of free-as-in-speech.

With proprietary software, we have people who are motivated to take discovered ideas and make them owned properties. I really don't see that a "faster FFT implementation" is any less a mathematical concept that belongs to humanity than the concept of binary trees or linked lists(neither of which would be freely usable if "invented" in today's climate!)

The question is not "life-and-death" but advancement of knowledge. It's probably not too hard to draw parallels between the proprietary software publishers of today with the academics of a thousand years ago who kept their discoveries a secret so they could make money. Imagine if it were possible for Newton to get a patent on Calculus(and gotten past the prior art :) and then had his relatives push for extensions, ala Disney.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this guy reminds me of why I hate open source zealots/head cases.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Tralfamadorian]

Listen idiot, he wasn't comparing them, he was making the point that the world wouldn't end if we lost a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that those things are not important.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was reffering to an organisation that wants to forbid proprietary software. I believe that is totalitarian. And stupid.

I mean, if I create something, be that a song, a book, or a piece of software, shouldn't it be up to me to choose under which terms I want to share it with others? That is freedom. Totalitarianism would be to have the state dictate for me those terms, which we know the FSF and RMS wants it to. (It is true! Do a google!)

I believe in Free Software, and the GPL is a good license if you don't want others to exploit your software comercially without giving back to you, but people shouldn't be forced to use it.

And, I believe that it is no coincidence that the software that is the foundation for the Internet and modern networking is cowered by a licence (BSDL) that ensures maximal freedom. That is the way standards are made.

What insults do you give me for this?

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[kirkjobsluder]

How do you make a judgement then? How well does it do what it's supposed to do? How well does it do what you need it to do? Well, how much does that matter when _you may not be allowed to use it at all tomorrow_? What value does it have for you then?

Software freedom isnt necessarily the deciding factor if your choice matters the next five minutes. But when you make a choice that must be valid over a decade youd better have a crystal ball to see how whoever decides the license is going to act for the next ten years.

One of the things that really frustrates me is that free software advocates frequently phrase the issues in terms of black and white, all or nothing. Your post ignores the fact that once I buy a piece of software under a certain set of terms, the seller is also bound by the contract. They can't change the terms arbitrarily (although Microsoft gets around this by changing the terms attached to security updates.)

Sometimes, the choice between free and proprietary software is less important than whether the software does what it needs to do. My ability to work depends on speech recognition software for which no viable open source solution exists. (From what I can tell my choices are between the entirely closed NaturallySpeaking, and the partially closed ViaVoice.) I don't particularly like the fact that the software I need to work is only available on a proprietary basis and no free software solutions are ready for prime time, or that this functionality only works on proprietary operating systems. However given a choice between using a proprietary software package on a proprietary operating system, and not doing anything while my crystal ball is fuzzy as to whether free software solutions are available in the near future, I feel that it is better to use what works then to do nothing waiting for something that does work.

One of my big complaints about the free software movement is that freedom is only phrased as the freedom for an elite few to modify the code. Very rarely are other critical needs addressed. This is an ethical blind spot that is a serious problem.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[xigxag]

Those restrictions weren't part of the original terms under which I received the hammer

Sure they were. Maybe you're thinking of the old obsolete FreeHammer which didn't have those restrictions, but you voluntarily traded that one in for the new FreeHammer (with our new improved EULA) a long time ago. Remember?

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Jerry]

The whole point of using a tool is to get a job done. If I need to hammer a nail, I could go and use a free rock to do the job, or I could go to a store and buy a hammer. Both will do the job, but one is better suited to do that job. It doesn't make me evil if I buy a proprietary solution.

It's easy to see you come from a WinXX background and are throughly indoctrinated in accepting the loss of your rights.

You go to the store and buy your hammer. What you may or may not have noticed is a EULA posted somewhere in the store, not necessarily easy to find or view but subject to change without notification, that prohibits you from using that hammer to build a store which sells competing hammers.

What is at stake here is the Open Source movement itself -- the idea that someone should NOT be able to exploit the work of prior coders without passing on the work and yours to subsequent coders. Bill Gates didn't mind using the BSD version of FTP, and other BSD software, because he didn't have share his improvements, if any, nor will he share the revenues. The BSD coders have the right to allow themselves to be exploited but such subserviance is not in the spirit of the Open Source movement, which has brought you the Linux OS and tons of great software including the source!

The Open Source movement can be compared to the ethical paradigm that used to govern the transmission of scientific knowledge. Unfortunately for us the many members of the scientific community accpet public funds to develop knowledge and then form companies that patent the knowledge they acquired using public funds, with our own governments approval. Sad. The public pays twice. Once for discovery, then through the nose for access.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Atzanteol]

Linux Torvalds Selfish! News at 11! Seriously. He's the project lead of a very large project that many of us reap the benefits of. When was the last time you offered to assist him in keeping track of the source? You didn't? And you expect him to bend over backwards for *you*? This is far and away an unreasonable request to make.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Znork]

You are, of course, entirely right. If you can be sure that the license you have is binding for both parties (ie, you 'bought' the software and it's yours according to the terms in the original license and provided that the file formats are open enough to allow you to migrate off the software in some reasonable way, should future revisions or change in circumstances merit such a migration) then you have an acceptable situation. Then you _can_ make an informed judgement as to the cost vs. benefit of the proprietary product.

BitKeeper, unfortunately, isnt such a product. As far as I can recall, the free BitKeeper license requires you to upgrade at any time a new test release is made, which also means the license terms can change at any time.

This tends to be the trend in proprietary software. This trend tends to make it less and less useful for me, since I make decisions on what software to use on a longer term perspective (I _hate_ having to do unecessary migrations or changes just because I cant use a certain product anymore).

Oh, well, apparently we agree then :).

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[wheany]

Okay, did I understand correctly:

Freedom means that I may only use free-as-in-speech software, no matter how crappy-as-in-shitty the software is?

Wow, nice freedom.

I say: Use free software if you want. Use non-free software if you want. I don't care. Just don't try to tell me what kind of software I should use.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[khuber]

Wow, an AC with nothing useful to say.

-Kevin

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you die a long, horrible death; with some large, proprietary program running on your system as it happens.

Wow, a moron who registered an account with even less useful things to say.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[khuber]

Let me guess - you were the head of Debate Club in highschool?

I don't hate proprietary software at all. I just prefer free software, especially at home since I'm a hobbyist. I want a certain amount of core software to be freely available so software can keep advancing, especially developer tools, operating systems, and basic utilities. I don't think that's a weird position at all.

-Kevin

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[dubl-u]

Fine, but you don't seem to understand that if everybody did what you do, you wouldn't have free software to enjoy.

That's just wrong. Larry Wall wrote Perl because he needed it. Linus wrote Linux because it was interesting and fun. Neither of them did it out of any mystical dedication to Free Software, hallowed be its name. Millions of people use them not because RMS told them to, but because Linux and Perl kick ass.

The existence of free software doesn't depend on people using crappy software just because it fits with some political agenda. It depends on people making cool things and then giving them away, which in turn inspires others to do the same.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[dubl-u]

But if businesses had their way, there would be no free software - and you don't find that the least bit scary?

That's a pretty broad brush you're painting with, there.

It's true that some businesses don't want some software to be free. But it's clearly false that all businesses want no software to be free.

So you have a choice - live in a world where free software is a critical force for maintaining the rights of consumers, or live in a world where you just want whats "best", and therefor implying that the world would be just fine without free software.

That's a lovely dichotomy; it's a pity it's false.

How about we live in a world where we make free software the "best" for many purposes? That way we don't have to have the Freedom Police goose-stepping their way onto my computer to make sure I'm making the right choices for the benefit of "society at large".

Happily, that's the world I live in. When free software is the best, I use it. When it's not, I pay up. And either way, I contribute back to the community, widening the space in which free software is the best.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the hammer/software analogy is starting to break down.

The whole issue comes down to whether or not the kernel continues to use bitkeeper. I doubt it will. Having a dynamic license for anything is a terrible disadvantage to the licensee.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Mr. Slippery]

I'm sick of people acting like "Software Freedom" is a life-and-death issue.

As software comes to take a greater role in our society, software freedom is going to becomre just as much a life-and-death issue as freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The key point here is, USE WHAT WORKS.

In determining what "works", a wise person takes into account the total range of effects of a choice (or as broad as he or she can see, anyway).

Say company X makes a better hammer than company Y; maybe X's has a more comfortable handle. But company X engages in all sorts of unsavory business practices. I am willing - obligated, even - to put up with an occasional blister generated by my Brand Y hammer, rather than buy a Brand X and put my money in company X's slimy little pocket.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I'm sorry about that. I misjudged your view on proprietary software thinking you had some holy war against it. I prefer free software myself, I was just under the impression that you were saying it was viable under no circumstances.

My mistake,
Sorry for the seeming trolls ;).

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is that, as Mr Torvalds has told a ton of times, Linux *is not* is only work nomore.

That said is *unwise* from the very beginning to relay on a non GPL'ed tool for such a critical task as SCM the Linux kernel.

As was spotted when it was said that the tool of choice was to be BitKeeper, the big problem is: Linux kernel is GPL, BitKeeper is not and, what is much, much more dangerous, Linux is using it for the "personal favour"*1 of BitKeeper author, which can turn his mood whenever he feels so.

Now, the first problems arise: people *migth* be starting to be acustomed to BitKeeper, because is the free tool they're using on the Linux kernel development (so some of the most brilliant young programmers) but they will pay for it if they want to use on their own projects.

But, of course, the worse problems are still to arise: BitKeeper author is known to be a brilliant programmer and, as many brilliant programmers to have a, humm... "rush" character. What if simply tomorrow it loves Linus no more so he changes BitKeeper license and is free no more, or simply says it just can be used on Linux development at all? OK, would say the mentally insane, then let's move to another SCM tool (as if it was easy!).

As a last thing, Linus Torvalds has a name and a name of judicious man heavy-weigthed on the Open Source community: it shoud have thougth it better and give credit to Subversion or even meta-cvs instead of BitKeeper *even* being known they are worse products than BitKeeper itself *now*. Torvalds must know the weigth of his own name so if he choose a true GPLed solution, even if suboptimal (but not unusable: CVS has shown to be usable while not perfect through the years) he knows his only name will attract aid from third parties for the tool to become what is expected. The question is that the rigth license is much much much much more important than the current abilities of the product for an open source project as many examples has shown to us.

*1 Of course is not a "favour" but a meditated decition for his product to gain name and momentum.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[jbn-o]

Linus is right. If it works, use it. If it doesn't work, don't.

That doesn't illustrate why you think Torvalds is right.

I'm in favor of open-source stuff, I admire RMS and the GNU project for everything they've contributed to the computing world...

Please show your support by citing the correct movement when you talk about RMS and GNU. What you just said suggests an unfamiliarity with both software movements significant enough to be confusing to readers. RMS and GNU have nothing to do with the Open Source movement. RMS does Free Software and the GNU project & the GNU GPL were set up to make a complete Free Software operating system a reality. Listen to the 2001 NYU speech or read the transcript of this speech where RMS corrects the error you just made. The Free Software movement predates the Open Source movement by over a decade. Please read the FSF's essay on the difference between the two movements so you won't make this mistake again and confuse other readers.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[otopico]

The Open Source movement has never been at stake. Are people not going to use free software because BK decided to limit the use of their software?

And as for me 'accepting the loss of my rights', I choose to use software that does the job I need it to do. Personally I couldn't care less if the source is open or closed. When I choose to use a certain piece of software is is based solely on whether or not it will do the job I want it to. I use a mix of open and closed software because that is what software is for, a tool. If I were told that I couldn't use a piece of software in a certain way, and I needed that function, then I would choose something else.

Choosing closed source is a matter of trade offs. Is the user willing to give up some control in order to get the main task done? Most people say yes, unless they happen to be on slashdot.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Tikiman]

How about we live in a world where we make free software the "best" for many purposes? That way we don't have to have the Freedom Police goose-stepping their way onto my computer to make sure I'm making the right choices for the benefit of "society at large".

Happily, that's the world I live in. When free software is the best, I use it. When it's not, I pay up. And either way, I contribute back to the community, widening the space in which free software is the best.

You (and the other responders to my post) have completely missed my point... Unfortuntely, software is either free-as-in-freedom, or its not - there is no gray area when it comes to this. With free software, all rights for personal use and modification are in the hands of the end user. You have control. With non-free software however, your rights can be taken away on a whim. This problem is only getting worse now that many companies are adopting subscription models.

Now I'm not saying right now there is no reason to use proprietary software - the issue at hand is the attitude "if its the best product, use it". It is a naive attitude that does not reflect real-world concerns. It tends to reward nasty, anti-competitve companies like Microsoft that use monopolistic practices to create the "best" product, but only because they stifled competition. My point is not to debate which model produces better sofware but to acknowledge the role of free-as-in-freedom software in the debate - too many people don't think it should be factor.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Lemmy Caution]

The problem isn't the Linus is selfish. He isn't.

He's just not a very good Kantian. :)

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Rik van Riel]

Software freedom ? What about freedom of choice ?

we are being asked by Torvalds to consider only our own desires

Nonsense. All Linus is asking for is for people to be able to make their own choices. Linus choses to use bitkeeper, but he doesn't force that choice on you in any way.

You can get the latest Linux Kernel source code by ftp, rsync, etc... You can even get the full revision history from the bitkeeper tree without using bitkeeper:

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

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Rik van Riel]

Proprietary products, as it's been pointed out in the past, tend to limit their users to only their own products.

This problem is called "vendor lock-in" and it happens when the proprietary software stores your data in a format that can't be accessed by other software.

Bitkeeper doesn't suffer from this problem since its data is stored in SCCS format (GNU CSSC can handle that fine) and it will happily export patches so people that don't use bitkeeper can access the latest source code.

Vendor lock-in is NOT an argument against bitkeeper.

Blatant plug: you can get the latest bitkeeper kernel source without using bitkeeper.
http://ftp.nl.linux.org/pub/linux/bk2patch/

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[dubl-u]

Now I'm not saying right now there is no reason to use proprietary software - the issue at hand is the attitude "if its the best product, use it". It is a naive attitude that does not reflect real-world concerns. It tends to reward nasty, anti-competitve companies like Microsoft that use monopolistic practices to create the "best" product, but only because they stifled competition.

If the goal is not to reward monopolistic jerks, that's great, but free software is only one way of achieving that.

I haven't paid a nickel to MS, even via the MS new machine tax, in at least five years. But I'm happy to reward good software products with actual cash. This is especially true for ones that increase my productivity, as that allows me to give more back to the community.

If every kernel developer had to pay Microsoft $1000 to get a VCS license just to work on the kernel, I'd say that this was something other than a tempest in a teapot. But BitKeeper hardly has a monopoly even in their market segment, and lots of people contribute to the kernel without using BitKeeper. Your principle of not rewarding monoplies is a good one (and one I follow myself), but as far as this issue goes, irrelevant.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get me wrong, I understand your position, I mean, I really do. The problem is that you've never met a license you didn't like -- and well, there are a lot of people here who have, including me.

I get this a lot from a fellow co-worker of mine. He so likes the gui of Windows 2k, that he hasn't read through the EULA of WMP 9. It's his computer and his life, whatever he is willing to sign his life away to is his problem. I'll point it out one day to him, but I'd rather it bite him in the ass first. I suspect you'll find this out the hard way as well, when you didn't read that endentured subscriber clause in that shrink-wrapped license before you opened it.

And that's the whole problem. Using that license doesn't work for me -- it restricts what I am able to do with that software. Given McVoy's politics, he might do something that prevents me from using it in the future.

Again, don't get me wrong, I agree with you that there's a time and a place for proprietary software, it's just that I don't trust McVoy anymore, and I don't think anyone else here does either.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[jbn-o]

What about freedom of choice?

That is not one of the freedoms the Free Software movement champions because that is a practical consequence of the freedoms they do champion. The freedom of choice is well served by maintaining a commons--the commons of Free Software. If you got further (as the FSF does) and protect that commons (say, by copylefting Free Software), you ensure the commons will grow and serve choice even further. Lawrence Lessig will be arguing a related point in the upcoming Supreme Court copyright case Eldred v. Ashcroft, but he'll take it from the other side: when one stifles the commons of the Public Domain by extending copyright's term, one is not promoting "the progress of science and the useful arts" (a quote from the US Constitution).

All Linus is asking for is for people to be able to make their own choices.

If that were truly all he were asking for it would be rather silly--there is no danger of multiple choices going away. What's interesting about Torvald's request is what's not being raised: Torvalds is not asking you to consider forces at work outside your own concerns. To adopt your language, all the FSF is asking for is for people to consider the ethical implications of choice they may not have been aware of before.

You can get the latest Linux Kernel source code by ftp, rsync, etc...

I never argued one couldn't do that, so I don't see how that is apropos at all. Alternatives for getting the kernal is not the point.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Vulture_]

No. Wrong. When Microsoft introduced extortionist clauses into the EULAs for its security patches, there was an uproar on Slashdot over it, despite the fact that the security patches are for products which cost money (and a lot of it, too).

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[William Tanksley]

Quite a selfish viewpoint you have there - it turns out that the best solution for YOU may not be the best for society at large.

Two points.

First, in the most general case, contrary to what you say, society (including the Free Software society) gains by encouraging the individual to make the best choice for his own interests. See the economic work of John Nash for a detailed mathematical proof, or von Mises' "Human Action" for a carefully reasoned logical explanation.

But if businesses had their way, there would be no free software - and you don't find that the least bit scary?

I find it to be an uninteresting scare tactic on your part. Obviously, a license or law like that would be against my interests, and I'd fight to prevent it, just as I am fighting to support Open Source Software and Free Software (both for their own merits).

So you have a choice - live in a world where free software is a critical force for maintaining the rights of consumers, or live in a world where you just want whats "best", and therefor implying that the world would be just fine without free software. I hope you thing the first, because the second is a scary world indeed.

I take the second choice, because contrary to your statement, Free Software IS the best. Shake off your fear -- if you truly support free software, have a little bit of trust in it!

Fight for it -- freedom is always worth fighting for -- but stop trying to destroy freedom in the name of Freedom.

-Billy

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[William Tanksley]

Quite a selfish viewpoint you have there - it turns out that the best solution for YOU may not be the best for society at large.

Two points.

First, in the most general case...

Second :-), in the specific case of software, choosing and being satisfied with subpar software because it's free provides a negative selection pressure on Free Software. If you wish it to remain inferior, then by all means keep advancing it.

Choosing a product based on how it meets your needs doesn't hurt the worse Free Software (although it may hurt a company which happens to be backing it); it only forces the Free Software to compete for users, which in the long run will help it.

And at the end of the day, even if you're right and I SHOULD have been using the Free Software, it's still free and you can still use it in utter certainty that you're doing the right thing -- and I can still switch to it.

(Of course, this license sounds too bad to be true; I can't agree to terminating all possibility of working on Subversion. The license here is against my interests, so I won't accept it.)

-Billy

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the point is business practices are not stood for in other industries, ney, they are illegal. For some reason, everybody assumes that software should be different. My view is that, like every other good or service, once you sell something to somebody, you no longer have any control, legal or otherwise, over it's use or misuse. I think it is about time the computer industry realized this.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[aminorex]

> Last time I checked, nobody lost his/her life or
> the lives of family members and friends over a
> free/proprietary software issue.

But you haven't checked, have you? Remember when
the USN destroyer was shut down by NT4? How many
commercial aircraft have been lost due to software
errors? There's really no way of estimating,
frankly. I only know of one clear case, in which
an ATC screen display was misprogrammed, resulting
in a collision with mass fatalities in Germany,
but in general, when closed-source software costs
lives it's very difficult to prove that it was the
result of a software defect, and believe me, the
vendor will spend every last dime they have making
sure that you will never be able to pin the blame
on them.

Free software is free speech, and whether the cost
of defying censorship is jailtime, court awards,
or a bullet in the head is immaterial to that fact.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see nothing where Larry McVoy swears the license will never be changed to exclude anyone providing non-BK repositories. I havent seen a mail where he swears that people working for for-profit corporations wont be excluded. I havent seen him promise that BK wont exclude anyone with a beard either in the future.

And even if you had, it wouldn't help you a bit. The license says:

8.1. Merger

This License represents the complete agreement between You and BitMover regarding the BitKeeper Software covered by this License.

... hence everything else is irrelevant, sworn or not. If you want assurances, you may need to buy the product (which you can test beforehand) and that's that.

Oh, and it seems you can use ATT's SCCS to extract all your data without using BitKeeper, so you are not completely vendor tied -- unlike using Microsoft Word, for example. So give BitMover some credit.

The free-as-beer, restricted-speech license may not be nice. Oh well. There are alternatives which may be good enough for you/for now.

Lesson Learned:
If you use non-free software, you may get bitten.

• Use it, if you must
• buy it, if you can (you get more leverage that way, but don't count on it)
• always keep a way out -- just like you keep backups (you do, don't you? Harddisks fail even without malice)
• be prepared to leave, if circumstances change
• Know beforehand when to leave.

Has no one here any idea of what a "business" is?

[pediddle]

So many people here are getting all upset because BitKeeper is not free. Well, there's nothing wrong with trying to make money off of some software, while helping the community at the same time.

No business in their right mind is going to help a competetor take their market share. Maybe BitKeeper can't help if Subversion takes that market on its own, but they are not going to help them do it.

Disclaimer: I have a huge interest in Subversion, and I've been contributing to their mailing list for almost a year. I love Subversion. But I still implore all you Slashdot hippies: do not assume that all non-free software is evil, and do not make BitKeeper the bad guy just because they want to make money.

Free software depends on a few companies' ability to actually make money developing and using free software. Without industry support, free software will never make it past a select few geeks' basement computers. If you like free software, then you should support BitKeeper's decision. BitKeeper has helped the FS community in the past, and their support for the kernel project has been wonderful. Support them, help the FS industry grow, and everyone benefits.

In Related News...

[sparkz]

Microsoft announce that all Windows licenses held by Open Source developers are null and void.

The BSA will be knocking on the door any minute... follow the white rabbit.

Re:In Related News...

[Anonymous Coward]

idiot!!!!!!!! dont give them ideas!!!!!!!

Re:In Related News...

[dfries]

You have it reversed. People working at Microsoft can't work on open source projects.

Cool, one less company to look at on my job search. resume

Re:In Related News...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it reversed. People working at Microsoft can't work on open source projects.
...well, who'd want them to anyway? With thinking like that, no wonder you're unemployed.

cvs is free as in free speech

[linucs]

so why you don't use it like the rest of the civilized world dehe! wake up pal

Re:cvs is free as in free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply because CVS sucks. Use Subversion instead.

Re:cvs is free as in free speech

[linucs]

well i could use it as long as it is free as in free speech as in libre as in libero as in not proprietary

Re:Illegal...(it depends on the state)

[wuchang]

IANAL, but a related ruling in California does make it illegal to stick non-compete clauses in an employment agreement.

http://www.wilkefleury.com/doc.asp?ParentID=268

I don't think there's a ruling in any state as to whether or not it holds for EULAs.

Alan Cox?

[vsync64]

Does Alan Cox use BitKeeper, and if so, does he pay for his copy? I would imagine not, given his stances on free software and intellectual property.

I'd like to point out that Alan Cox works for RedHat, whose operating system includes CVS. I would venture to guess that RedHat hackers have contributed to CVS, at the very least with a 1-line diff here or there. This makes RedHat both a reseller and a developer of CVS, and even if he doesn't personally have anything to do with CVS (doubtful) he is forbidden from using the openlogging version.

I find it ironic that at a time when BitKeeper is trying to sway developers toward their product, they create onerous conditions which prevent a prominent developer and political spokesman from using said product on any sort of trial basis.

Technically, I suppose I'm not allowed to use BitKeeper either, since I've written (and released, I think; I'll have to double-check) an add-on to CVS which parses and cross-references checkin logs.

The really funny thing is that CVS is quite prevalent in the free software world, where it is extremely common to create patches and add-ons. The most effective referrals to BitKeeper would be from CVS hackers or those otherwise extremely experienced with it, but by preventing precisely these people from trying BitKeeper out, the one thing that could help BitKeeper the most -- a public defection from a "pet project" -- is verboten.

It's rare that we get to see such an obvious case of shooting oneself in the foot.

Re:Alan Cox?

[another_plonk]

Here's a similar question by Ulrich Drepper
And here's Larry McVoy's answer

Re:Alan Cox?

[another_plonk]

Here's Larry McVoy's direct answer to your question:


http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=1 03 376590408834&w=2

Re:Alan Cox?

[Frodo Looijaard]

I just don't get his answer.

He says:

Distributions do not *SELL* CVS, they distribute CVS. We choose those words with care for exactly that reason. All the clause is saying is that if you are a competitor you don't get to use our product for free.


while the license says (emphasise is mine):

Notwithstanding [...] this License is not available to You if You and/or your employer develop, produce, sell, and/or resell a product which contains substantially similar capabilities of the BitKeeper Software [...]

As this is an and/or, I would say that developing is enough to disqualify you, whether you sell it commercially or not. As most distributions have a patch or two in (the product) CVS, I would say that they helped develop CVS. But IANAL, of course.

Re:Alan Cox?

[OsamaBinLogin]

> ...using said product on any sort of trial basis...

I think it's being used way more than on a trial basis. It's being used for production purposes. Somebody's making money off of that software. It's only right that a slice of that is passed on to BK.

Re:Alan Cox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone have a picture of Larry McVoy sucking his own cock? He does a nice job in the LKML.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[khuber]

Well, there's nothing wrong with trying to make money off of some software, while helping the community at the same time.

No. There IS something morally wrong about restricting the use of your software. Ridiculous.

-Kevin

Change of Leadership.

[Reservoir Penguin]

I have great respect for Linis but from reading his recent interviews I got a feeling that hes really burnt out.
In his own words hed rather spend time woith his kids building sandcastles than working on GNU/Linux kernel. Hes total lack of political consionce is starting to hurt our community as well.
Just for fun was fine and dany in 93 but now we need somone who will do more to promote Free Software.
I myself vote for Alam Cox, he has shown not only great technical skill bit aslo deep belief in FS (I'm refering to him threating to quit redHat a few month ago)
Let Linix retire and take a postion as an "honorary" leader.

Re:Change of Leadership.

[otopico]

You assume Linus started this all to be the great voice in the wilderness. As if he was trying to create some eutopia where all software could be free and the evil corporations would be struck down by the forces of good. Bah.

He did it because be wanted to. He lacks a 'political conscience' because he didn't have one.

It seems to me that Linus would rather spend time with his family because his family is more important to him than some stupid code he wrote long ago.

It is just software people, this isn't that important.

Re:Change of Leadership.

[Reservoir Penguin]

That was exactly my point. I respect Linux as a hacker but right now Linux community needs a diffrent kind of leader, simply being a top coder is not enough. His refusal to take a stand on the BitKeeper issue cannot be ignored anylonger in light of the new development.

Dont forget that Linus started working on the kernel partly because applying patches to Minix and redistribtion was controlled by a rahter restrictive license. How long will he continue to sidestep the issue when a large number of top coders will be essentially cut-off from contributing to the kernel source tree.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[pediddle]

In a perfect world, you'd be right. But think about how BitKeeper is able to support its own development: money. Not everyone can simply donate all of their time to the community.

So, BitKeeper has done the next best thing. They donate some of their time to the community, in the form of the free version of their license. But they still have to make money, or else the software would not exist.

If you want to use it for anything, pay for it. The non-free license doesn't contain this restriction. If you aren't paying for it and you decide to take advantage of their generosity, by hurting their money-making abilities or any number of other ways, then you are a theif. Plain and simple.

Be greatful for the generosity they have shown, and hope that they do not turn against the community completely because of all your (not just you, khuber) whining. Like I said, the free software community depends on industry support, and industry support depends on free software's ability to generate cash.

The EULA is not new

[Anonymous Coward]

The EULA was changed ages ago.

Flamewars about Bitkeeper occur from time to time on the kernel mailing list, and they are not likely to go away any time soon.

This is not news to anybody who actually follows kernel-dev.

There is no need to use Bitkeeper to submit patches to Linus, he still accepts the old diff format.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[khuber]

I don't care if BitKeeper makes money. I do care if Linux development is hampered by their stupid license. Time to dump BK.

-Kevin

Please see Larry's comments (and responses)

[crimsun]

I believe the intent of "Col. Klink (retired)" was to bring this to a wider audience, but there are several points that need to be reiterated.

1) "In fact you can't use BitKeeper if you OR your company have anything to do with competing software."

The above applies to /free/ use only. You are still welcome to purchase a commercial license from BitMover. What Larry has said "makes sense" from a survival/profit (i.e. capitalist) point of view: "you simply don't get to use our product -- which we provide for free -- to put our company out of business."

Furthermore, Larry has demonstrated that even if you /don't/ use BK, accessing changes and patches should be no more difficult than prior to Linus's trial/adoption of BK.

2) It has been made very clear by several of the core developers that accessibility to Linus's merges has been made much easier since his trial/adoption of BK. See here, here, and here.

3) This is hardly a "new EULA."

Please see the thread at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=103 389686711292&w=2, or subscribe to linux-kernel at vger.kernel.org for updates.

Re:Please see Larry's comments (and responses)

[srn_test]

The problem I see is something like this:

Person A at (say) IBM notices a bug in CVS & submits a patch.

Suddenly, Person B, working 3000km from person A who has never heard of person A cannot use the free BK for some private purpose (maintaining pron lists for all I care).

Does that seem reasonable?

Re:Please see Larry's comments (and responses)

[crimsun]

Actually Larry says that IBM's Linux Technology Center will have an exception clause, so the scenario you specifically outlined is moot.

However, the general case is still valid. In that case, Larry says BitMover wants you to do one (or more) of the following:

1) apply for an exception, which may or may not be difficult to obtain;

2) buy a commercial license.

Now the scenario outlined by a few more sharp-thinking kernel developers is to export GNU patches on a system not under BitMover's umbrella using means that don't fall under BitMover's IP, and then make them available to the public. Larry has stated in such a fashion that then there isn't anything BitMovers can do to prevent such changes from propagating.

Re:Please see Larry's comments (and responses)

[Znork]

"you simply don't get to use our product -- which we provide for free -- to put our company out of business."

Not quite. He's saying "You dont get to use our product -- which we provide for free -- for _anything_ if you also work on a product providing similar functionality to what we do (or work for a company that does)".

That not only hinders development of competing products, it also hinders development on entirely unrelated products by degrading access to the sources for anyone who also works on other revision handling products, or for a company that might also be developing such products (which means nobody working at, for example, RedHat, IBM, Oracle, Rational, etc can use BK to access the kernel source without legal exposure). Which means BK is an extremely bad choice for any major free software project.

While accessing patches may not be _harder_ now, nor is it easier. Choosing something other than BK would make it easier for everyone.

Re:Please see Larry's comments (and responses)

[Vulture_]

The above applies to /free/ use only.

Until they change the non-gratis license to also include a non-compete clause. Since they have the audacity to add this to the gratis license, they cannot be trusted not to add it to the non-gratis license as well, at some point in the future (when they were well-established and have many paying customers). With this change in the gratis EULA, it is clear that Larry McVoy has no qualm with the use of arm-twisting and coercion for the purpose of extracting cash from (potential) customers.

This means that, once BK is well-established, Larry McVoy will no longer need Linus Torvalds to give BK cheap publicity, and will be quick to screw Linus over with another retroactive license change (such as license fees proportional to the number of users of the resulting product, along the lines of the patent license fees for MP3).

Are you from Florida, by any chance?

[Subcarrier]

I have great respect for Linis...
I myself vote for Alam Cox...
Let Linix retire...

I don't recognize any of these gentlemen. Your vote has been disqualified.

Read the whole discussion on LKML.

[Nerant]

Kerneltrap.org covered all of this. for those too lazy to read through the whole exchange, i'll extract the best part (emphasis in bold is mine):
"
From: Larry McVoy
Subject: Re: New BK License Problem?
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 16:44:06 -0700

> And that's perfectly fair. However as worded in your license today, the
> individuals who work for those companies and have nothing to do with
> the competitive software you are worried about can't use your product
> to work on open source software.

Yes, that's true. But that doesn't mean we can't make exceptions, we can
and do.

> defined on www.opensource.org, may apply for a waiver to
>
> stating
> 1) Which company they work for
> 2) Which Open Source Project(s) they are going to be using the
> Bitkeeper software for
> 3) Identify if they are working on this project in their "free" time or
> as part of their
> job definition
>
> If granted the waiver will only cover the stated Open Source project(s)
> you have named. If you expand your use of the BitKeeper software to
> other Open Source project(s) you will need to apply for a waiver for
> those project(s) as well.

If *I* had suggested this language I would have been flamed off the face
of the earth. The people who are complaining the loudest are complaining
that BitKeeper limits their choices or takes their freedom away or whatever.
They absolutely *despise* any sort of authority figure and the idea of
coming begging to BitMover for a waiver each time just makes them crazy. "

In short?
If you want to use Bitkeeper for the development of something to replace it, you have to purchase a commercial license. Otherwise, you can use the "gratis" license.

Re:Read the whole discussion on LKML.

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy desperately wants to create competition to BitKeeper.

Re:Read the whole discussion on LKML.

[XaXXon]

In short?
If you want to use Bitkeeper for the development of something to replace it, you have to purchase a commercial license. Otherwise, you can use the "gratis" license.


This isn't an accurate statement, or at best it's misleading. Say you want to work on two projects -- one a version control program, the other the Linux kernel. For the version control stuff, you use your own software (or CVS or anything not BK), and for Linux you use BK (which apparently you don't have to do, but it integrates best). Nope, can't do it. Because you work on a competing project, you can't use BK for free for anything. I think this is the biggest problem.

Apparently you're allowed to buy your own license, but most people don't have $5,000 to shell out (I've seen the price list) for a single copy.

Re:Read the whole discussion on LKML.

[Anonymous Coward]

You ALSO need to purchase a copy if the company you work for develops, sells, distributes, etc. a competing product. That's a lot of companies. Employees do more than work. Where do you think most kernel hackers work? For Red Hat? Oh wait, Red Hat is covered by this too (they sell, support, and distribute RCS and CVS).

For example, I am no longer allowed to work on open source projects which use BK without asking another developer to merge my patches. That's a load of crap. I'm not trying to replace BK -- it has nothing to do with either my job or my personal projects.

Things like this...

[testuser58]

Just make me feel like a sucker for choosing the "hip" GPL for my software. To think that I could have included a license that says something like:

• "by using this software, you agree to give me your car and talk to a jar of pickels at work for the first five minutes of every day."
  
• "by using this software, you agree to agree to the previous agreement, section D, which can be found in records department 41, level 9, building B. Yeah, see them to find out what you just agreed to, sucker."
  
  or
  
  
• "by using this software, you agree to tell me when you encounter bugs instead of emailing me I'll never use your software because it doesn't work good!"

Sigh... the fun I could've had...

Re:Things like this...

[Knobby]

To heck with the gpl, try the Free Oject-Oriented License

Frontpage

[stud9920]

But can I use BitKeeper to keep incremental copies of my libel against frontpage ?

and more important :

Was Taco legally allowed to write this story with Frontpage - as he always does ?

Read the thread

[blender98]

If anyone bothers on read the whole thread (ha!), they'll find that this only affects the free use of BK.

Larry's main concern is that someone who wants to implement a competing version control system does not use a free version of BK to do so. He is not attempting to prevent the subversion people from using bitkeeper; he just doesn't want them using it for free.

Before people start jumping up and down and screaming "antitrust", let me just state again that he is simply insisting that people who work on competing products but BK, rather than using it for free. He is by no means restricting anyone's trade.

Furthermore, BK is not required to checkout source code from a BK repository -- SCCS suffices, and Rik van Riel, Jeff Garzik and others make snapshots available every couple of hours.

The long and short is that nobody need use bitkeeper for kernel development (the source code may be obtained in a timely fashion using existing tools). If you don't like the BK license, don't use BK!

Larry has a responsibility to BitMover and its employees. He has salaries to pay, and making it easier for competitors to duplicate BK does not make that any easier. By providing BK and bkbits.net for free, he is doing the kernel community a service -- how about we cut him some slack?

Re:Read the thread

[jrfonseca]

I've read carefully all the thread on http://kerneltrap.org/node.php?id=444 but I don't share your opinion.

Larry first presented BitKeeper designed to both aid the kernel development and to be comercially viable. So far these two goals haven't collided: people could use freely BitKeeper for kernel development and BitKeeper has been growing as a comercial product.

But this changes does affect everything: it prevents people that (even if just remotely) contribute somehow to different SCM products and which were using BitKeeper freely has they were incentivated to revert their habits. The problem is not that they can't find a way around, but that Larry is taking away a present which had been given away freely.

The worst is that this change does not seem to be made to protect BitKeeper business model but seems instead a act of bad faith against a particural set of people.

This radically change my opinion about the usage of BitKeeper and the trust on the people behind it, and from I've read Debian maintainers feel the same.

McVoy just killed BK

[Performer Guy]

Face it, after this EULA and the email this guy just sent out bit keeper is dead. R.I.P. Who knows where their business dealings will take them and what use it will be in their interests to curtail in future. If you're using BK for source management you have to be looking over your sholder and worrying what proclamation McVoy will issue next that might force you to throw out all versions in your tree currently and move to an alternative product.

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[jdreed1024]

If you're using BK for source management you have to be looking over your sholder and worrying what proclamation McVoy will issue next that might force you to throw out all versions in your tree currently and move to an alternative product.

Wow, this is FUD worthy of Microsoft.

Go read the fscking links. All it says is that you can't use BitKeeper to work on competing products. Can you use BitKeeper to work on The GIMP? Sure. Can you use BitKeeper to work on KDE? Sure. Can you use BitKeeper to work on Subversion? No.

Do you honestly think it's McVoy's goal to kill off free software? If so, why does he say in his mail that

we're a business which happens to be committed to helping the kernel team because we think that the kernel is vital to the world at large. Helping the kernel absolutely does not translate to helping people who happen to be our competitors.

Come on, people. If they really hated free software, they wouldn't be doing this. Of course, now is the spot where people will chime in saying "they're just making us use it so they can control the code and lock us in." Wrong. I haven't used BitKeeper, but I'll bet that you can still get the source code out of it. I don't think it will ever prohibit you from extracting the current source tree - if it does, well, that's the point at which Linus should abandon it.

That having been said, it does appear from this mail that McVoy has a personal disagreement with Ben Collins. (See the relevant text about 'netwinder') If so, a EULA is a poor forum in which to take action for his grievances. It does NOT, however, mean that he is any more wrong for doing so. He wants to make money. There's nothing wrong with that. The FSF may have a truly noble cause, but until there's such a thing as Open Source Food, and Free-As-In-Beer-And-Speech housing, people will still need money.

Now is the chance for the community to put live up to its hype. We've always said that we don't need to badmouth MS, we can just come up with something better. Go ahead! Make Subversion better than BitKeeper. Make it so that everyone who uses BitKeeper will be pounding your doors down trying to get Subversion. This isn't Windows we're talking about here - it's a revision control prorgam that's used mainly by clueful people. So make Subversion better, and put BitMover out of business, and then you'll have won.

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[Jay Maynard]

I agree with most of your posting, but I have to argue with:

That having been said, it does appear from this mail that McVoy has a personal disagreement with Ben Collins. (See the relevant text about 'netwinder') If so, a EULA is a poor forum in which to take action for his grievances. It does NOT, however, mean that he is any more wrong for doing so.

McVoy didn't take action specifically against Collins in the EULA; rather, Collins had the chutzpah to tell McVoy what a dirty rotten no-goodnik he was and then ask for a favor. In McVoy's place, I'd have told him to go pound sand too.

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[Col. Klink (retired)]

> Can you use BitKeeper to work on The GIMP? Sure.

Unless you or your company also work on CVS.

> Can you use BitKeeper to work on KDE? Sure.

Unless you or your company distribute Subversion.

Ben Collins can't use BK to work on the kernel anymore.

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[epine]

As a user of the free BitKeeper license I've had a direct experience with Mr McVoy's "reasonable opinion". I will say first of all that I'm extremely pleased with the technical capabilities of the BitKeeper software. It's a superb fit for the distributed mode of development we practice here. I would extremely distressed to lose the use of this tool over petty licensing conditions.

That said, I see two traits in Larry McVoy as the person behind the terminology. One is the hard nosed "we're here to make a living" side where he steps up to the plate and makes unpleasant decisions when he feels he needs to protect his team and his company. The other trait is his feisty, confrontation rhetorical style where "my way or the highway" takes a front seat to "reasonable opinion". I'm not even sure that "reasonable opinion" was granted a rumble seat in my encounter.

Reasonable opinion means different things to different people. Perhaps it is a flaw in my own nature that I tend to be far too forgiving, but nevertheless that factors into my own standard of reasonable opinion. I was unable to detect a shread of commonality between my own standard and Larry's standard, whatever it might be.

I find this development to put me in an extremely awkward position. I have a fetish for good tools, and BitKeeper is an excellent tool. I banned the use of CVS in this shop (for our own source code) because I believe the use of CVS sends the message that compromise is acceptable. By far my strongest reason for adopting BitKeeper was to reinforce the message among my own team that sloppiness around the edges is not tolerated.

Soon we will be making additional hires and I have to ask myself "am I willing to subject the people we hire to the constraints of the BitKeeper license, now and in the future?" We are looking for the kinds of people who contribute to open source projects wherever they feel they have the skills to do so. I despise non-linearity in my own professional life, I certainly can't imagine becoming a conduit of non-linearity in the lives of the people I hire.

I admire Larry for standing up and doing what he feels is right to protect his team and his company. Where Larry crosses the line IMHO is conveying the message with pitchfork included. He carries a pitchfork in one hand, and writes "resonable" into his EULA with the other. That certainly has me looking over my shoulder. If I find myself shafted on Larry's pitchfork I'll be drinking alone.

My first move will be to establish an internal line of development on one of the open source alternatives.

I may yet choose BitKeeper for its technical superiority and commercial support, but certainly not without a backup parachute strapped on my back.

Caveat Emptor.

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[Anonymous Coward]

Use BK to work on the gimp? Nope. XCF contains versioning information. What about KDE? Nope. KDE contains CVS access programs.

Hell, I (just a nobody) maintain some local patches for CVS, so I can't even take BK for a test drive.

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[Xtifr]

McVoy didn't take action specifically against Collins in the EULA; rather, Collins had the chutzpah to tell McVoy what a dirty rotten no-goodnik he was and then ask for a favor.

That is not what happened! Keep in mind that Ben Collins is a former leader of the Debian Project, a non-profit free software development and integration org. Larry works for a for-profit company that makes non-free software. Larry asked Ben to donate hardware! Such a donation to a company that only produces non-free software would have been entirely inappropriate for the Debian Project Leader. And pointing out that BK's license fails to meet the (long established) Debian Free Software Guidelines hardly constitutes calling Larry a "dirty rotten no-goodnik".

Of course, Larry tends to fly into a tizzy whenever anyone suggests that his contributions to the free software community might be less than those who actually produce free software!

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[nagora]

Go read the fscking links. All it says is that you can't use BitKeeper to work on competing products. Can you use BitKeeper to work on The GIMP? Sure.

Today. What about next week when Larry reveals his great new paint program? Who died and let him decide what people can program?

Does MS have the right to prevent people using Excel to show that they're not stumping up dividends? Can GM tell you not to drive to anti-GM protests in your car?

If they really hated free software, they wouldn't be doing this.

Um, I think you'll find that they are doing this because they do hate free software, at least when it's free as in "free competition".

TWW

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[Jay Maynard]

If Ben had simply refused the donation, that would have been one thing. Instead, he told Larry what a dirty rotten no-goodnik he was in the message turning him down.

Now, he wants Larry to grant him a favor. I have no trouble understanding why Larry told him no.

Re:McVoy just killed BK

[Xtifr]

Instead, he told Larry what a dirty rotten no-goodnik

Can you prove that claim? Larry gets a lot of flak from free software fanatics. It's highly probable that he interprets any MENTION of the non-freeness of BK as a claim of his dirty-rotten-no-goodnikness at this point. But it seems out of character for Ben to have actually insulted Larry without mitigating circumstances.

Note that if Ben were the usual sort of raving free-software loon you frequently get on /., he wouldn't have ever installed BK in the first place. As a former leader of the Debian project, there is ZERO chance that he was unaware of BK's non-libre status. So even if you don't know Ben as well as I do (not well, but well enough), it should be pretty obvious that there must either be more to the story or the story (that Ben gratuitously insulted Larry out of the blue) is just plain wrong.

Now, he wants Larry to grant him a favor.

No, he doesn't. He asked if the his license was still valid, Larry said, no, Ben said OK and deleted BK. No problem.

CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Tet]

This makes RedHat both a reseller and a developer of CVS, and even if he doesn't personally have anything to do with CVS (doubtful) he is forbidden from using the openlogging version.

Nope. You entire argument rest on the premise that CVS "contains substantially similar capabilities" to BitKeeper. It doesn't... not just in my eyes, but in the eyes of Larry McVoy and BitMover. Larry has repeatedly stated that if CVS was good enough, he'd never have had to start developing BK in the first place. CVS is fundamentally flawed in its design, and doesn't come close to BK in terms of capabilities. By far the biggest one is its lack of changesets, but there are others, too. Hence, RedHat shipping CVS has no bearing on use of BK by any RH employees. Now if Red Hat shipped TrueChange, Perforce, or (more relevant in this case) Subversion, then it would be a different matter. And even if they did, I'm sure Larry would make an exception, or modify the license slightly. He's a reasonable guy, and wants to do the right thing, but at the same time, he has a business to run, and staff to pay, and it's perfectly reasonable for him to take steps to protect that.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if Red Hat shipped TrueChange, Perforce, or (more relevant in this case) Subversion, then it would be a different matter.

Thank you for the list of better alternatives to the piece of totalitarian crap known as BitKeeper. Larry has used people, contacts and has used chicanery to dupe the open source community into aprecating the ways of Bill Gates and others. I find his snarky, snotty curt replies and completely ambiguous license (which apparently is a "living document" [a term which is a load of non committal crap aptly describing what the BK license is] and can be changed to meet Larry's mood if he so wills it). I read those links above, and find his to be an embarrassment, and would advise that he hire some blond tart to interface with the "geek" public; she even in her tartdom, would probably piss me off less than this guy. RMS may be a weirdo, but its guys like this who twist and mangle a concept the profit by thatmakes that guy look like a saint. A least RMS is consistent. This Larry character is a sophist, and that would be a compliment at best.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[NewStarRising]

From the Article: "Take special note that: * The license on the "anything" containing substantially similar capabilities to BitKeeper *does not matter*. In other words, if you or employer develops, produces, sells, or resells anything containing, say Subversion or CVS, you have no gratis license to use BitKeeper." This EXPLICITLY states that CVS is included in the products that will deny you a free BitKeeper liscence. It is not about how buggy CVS is, or how close YOU feel it is. RTFA

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Tet]

It is not about how buggy CVS is, or how close YOU feel it is. RTFA

Sigh. The "article" is a piece of uninformed and legally irrelevant speculation by one Debian developer. What matters in this case is what BitMover think, and BitMover have repeatedly stated that they don't see CVS as competition.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[epine]

If BitMover so thinks, it should be written into the EULA where the word "reasonable" now presides. The point of my previous post was that people should evaluate the EULA exactly as written, as a lawyer would do. There's exactly as much rope coiled underneath that harpoon as the legal system defines that term legally.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Znork]

You're 'sure' he's 'reasonable'? How 'sure' are you? Sure enough to offer a warranty offering to pay for whatever license RedHat would have to buy to obtain the same level of functionality? Sure enough to pay for the development of an interoperable product if no licenses are obtainable at any price? Sure enough to pay for and migrate the entire Linux kernel to a new revision handling system, should BitMover get bought by MS ('at a price they cant refuse') who then proceeds to relicense BK so that it cannot be used for development of GPL software?

As you say, he's got a buisness to run and a staff to pay, and as long as you use licensed proprietary products whose licenses can change at anytime you're taking a serious risk.

So, are you sure enough to pick up the tab, or do you think the kernel should be using a free product for revision handling?

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Tet]

So, are you sure enough to pick up the tab, or do you think the kernel should be using a free product for revision handling?

"The kernel" doesn't use any revision control. Some kernel developers use BK, and yes, that now includes Linus. Some use CVS. Some may use others (subversion, arch, etc.). But the point is, no one is saying you need to use BK to hack the kernel. Indeed, Alan Cox doesn't. So where's the problem again? Linus uses it because it makes his life easier. Prior to using BK, he didn't use *anything*. If BitMover gets bought out by MS, then Linus reverts back to using nothing (or if subversion or some other free package has improved to the point where it does what he wants, then he'll use that instead). There is no risk here. Oh, and BTW, you can't retroactively relicense a product. Even if MS did buy BitMover, existing licensees could keep using the product under the terms of their original license.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[TrentC]

Now if Red Hat shipped TrueChange, Perforce, or (more relevant in this case) Subversion, then it would be a different matter.

So BitMover gets a say in what Red Hat gets to ship in their distribution now? That's good to hear...

[McVoy is] a reasonable guy, and wants to do the right thing,

Bullshit. In one of the linked articles, Larry McVoy specifically tells Ben Collins that "you work on Subversion, which places you in violation of our license, and you wouldn't give us a netwinder to test on when I asked for one because you didn't like our license, so you specifically are in violation."

The fact that McVoy dredged up an incident that is totally irrelevant to Collins' work on Subversion and uses it to justify revoking Collins' gratis license for BitKeeper tells me just how "reasonable" McVoy is (and BitMover is by extension, if McVoy decides who is in compliance with their license).

Jay (=

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Znork]

"Oh, and BTW, you can't retroactively relicense a product. Even if MS did buy BitMover, existing licensees could keep using the product under the terms of their original license."

As the current BitKeeper Free license is only valid as long as the BitKeeper software "performs all licensing functions, such as Open Logging, identically to the current version of the Bit-Keeper Software as distributed by BitMover, Inc."..., well, you should re-read the license.

They dont have to "retroactively relicense" the product. Your license expires as soon as you dont conform anymore, BitMover controls wether you conform or not, and you have to upgrade to a new version when they decide, at which point they can change the license in whatever way they want.

Furthermore the license explicitly forbids interfacting to BitKeeper Packages by any other means than using bitkeeper, unless you comply with the license of the BitKeeper Package, which again means access to the source can be arbitrarily changed to disallow access by interfacing products.

Do you see the problem and the risk now?

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "reasonable" friend: "Sales go up when Slashdot kids tie underwear in a knot."

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[dubl-u]

You're missing the point.

McVoy said that the guy was in violation, ergo no license.

The bit you're complaining about was meant to show that even if McVoy felt like being nice, it was clear that Collins had been a prick about exactly the kind of issue he was complaining about now, so that any request to keep using BitKeeper for free even though he was in clear violation of the license was hypocritical.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Tet]

Furthermore the license explicitly forbids interfacting to BitKeeper Packages by any other means than using bitkeeper, unless you comply with the license of the BitKeeper Package, which again means access to the source can be arbitrarily changed to disallow access by interfacing products.

No it doesn't. Read the BKL. What is says is that if you use BK to access a BK package, then you may only do so by complying with the license of that package. If you use other tools to access the package, then the BK licenses don't come into play at all.

Do you see the problem and the risk now?

For the kernel, no. Assume the worst. What happens then? We revert back to the previously released kernel, and start from there. Actually, it's not even that bad, because there are several up to date trees that aren't held in BitKeeper.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Compuser]

Soooo...
As I see it, the license hinges on Bit_guys' opinions.
So then it basically reduces to: "This software is
free for use by my homies. If I cease to like you,
then you pay." This in turn means that people using
free version effectively now have overhead costs,
namely keeping the McVoy guy happy.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Znork]

Ah, yeah, you're right on the first point.

"For the kernel, no. Assume the worst. What happens then? We revert back to the previously released kernel, and start from there. Actually, it's not even that bad, because there are several up to date trees that aren't held in BitKeeper."

As yet it would not be a major problem, since it's a fairly short time since the kernel source was BKized. However, revision control systems have a tendency to become a major part in how well projects work, and they tend to integrate into the workflow of a project (frankly, I cant imagine how Linus managed to keep track for as long as he did; I tend to find that managing projects without at least CVS becomes a pain even with just a few people involved in them. Heck, I even CVS'ize things I'm working on by myself if they go beyond one or two files and a few hundred lines). They also tend to get third party functionality built upon the existence of these tools, which might all have to be rewritten.

If we do assume the worst, exporting the sources would be the easy thing, even if all metadata was lost. Rearranging project workflow and starting to form a new one around another system would be the bad thing. Personally, I'd guess it'd cost about 6 months to a year before things got up to speed again.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Tet]

Rearranging project workflow and starting to form a new one around another system would be the bad thing. Personally, I'd guess it'd cost about 6 months to a year before things got up to speed again.

Yep, and on that point I agree with you, although I think the 6 months is a little pessimistic. Not every kernel developer uses BK, and I don't see that changing in the near future, even if it was GPLed tomorrow. For those that do, changing to another system will incur an overhead, sure, but I'd say 4-6 weeks is more realistic. Given the likelihood of this worst case scenario in the first place (low, IMHO, others may disagree), then I'd say the risk is small enough to be worth taking for the benefits using BK brings.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Znork]

Yeah, we agree pretty much. 6 months to a year is based on a future where bitkeeper use is the mainstream choice for kernel developers.

I also think the scenario where BK turns 'evil' over a day is unlikely; however I think it will more likely turn 'difficult' over a longer period of time. Since the 'excluded' people who cant use BitKeeper includes anyone people working for companies like IBM, Oracle, RedHat (unless they obtain specific permission) as well as anyone trying to write a versioned filesystem for linux (which, in turn, may taint people working on the IO subsystems if they work to accomodate such a filesystem) or contribute to any revisioning handling system, the list may eventually get so large that something else has to be used instead. Since the exclusion is explicity there to discourage work on competing products and it might actually work in that way, it may take longer for such alterantives to get developed, which will make the eventual transition more painful.

The advantages of BitKeeper over the previous umm... method... are indeed what makes it worth it. However, the advantages of BitKeeper over CVS or PRCS (with some stabilizing work) are not quite as large. The use of either of those for the kernel would also get more developers involved in them to adress the issues.

So, in my opinion, on one hand we have BitKeeper which is the best technical solution, but which excludes a whole bunch of developers from the advantage of revision controlled source and generates a whole lot of frustration and more or less pointless discussion, and which will have to be replaced eventually (either because it becomes too much of a license pain or because BitMover goes out of buisness (which apparently Larry McVoy thinks is likely, should anyone develop a free revision control system that solves the problems of the linux kernel)) and on the other we have CVS or PRCS which arent quite as good but which wont exclude anyone and which will evolve faster if used by such a large project.

The best long term choice IMO would be to go with the free solution.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Tet]

CVS or PRCS which arent quite as good but which wont exclude anyone and which will evolve faster if used by such a large project.

CVS is already used by more than enough people. If it was going to evolve, it would have already done so. Part of the reason it hasn't is that the design is fundamentally flawed to start with. It's easier to start from scratch than it is to fix the faults of CVS. Which is what PRCS has done to an extent, and yes, if kernel developers started using that, then perhaps it would eventually evolve to the point where it was as good as BK. But it's not good enough now, and Linux wasn't/isn't interested in the political side of using something because it's free. He's using BK because Larry kept asking him what he needed to add to BK before Linus was happy to use it, and he enhanced BK until it reached that point. Had one of the PRCS (or subversion, or arch) developers done the same thing, then maybe we'd be in a similar position but with a free solution. But it didn't work out that way. And though he may be a bit hotheaded at times, I personally believe Larry to be a net gain to our community. He gives far more than he takes, and I struggle to criticise him for it...

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[pyrrho]

you line of reasoning here is non-sensical.

1. It's what Bitkeepers Lawyers and a Judge think is a competitor that will pertain
2. If you wanted to improve CVS to have the features that did make it compete with BK (according to BitMover), do you think that would be covered?! Of course... Think about it. Lets say you have a standard source forge project version .0, Ultimate Source Keeper. That doesn't compete with BK because it doesn't exist. Is it their intention to prohibit you from working on it only after they admit that it exceeds the quality of their own product?
   

I think it's clear they don't want you making CVS (or anything else) better... so that it will continue to not be a competitor. If developers think this is a good idea they havn't thought about all the tools THEY USE! This kind of limitation is ridiculous.

and btw, it doesn't matter what they THINK a competitor is... it matters what the market is choosing between.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[pyrrho]

I keep hearing this. What is the major unworkable design flaw?

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Tet]

I keep hearing this. What is the major unworkable design flaw?

1. It's based around files, not changesets. That means bulk updates are not atomic, and you can't sensibly migrate multi-file changes between branches.
2. The design doesn't allow for file renaming.
3. It's not distributed.
4. It's based on the RCS file format, which while fast, is not resilient against corruption. For a source control system, data integrity should rate higher than performance.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Vulture_]

He's a reasonable guy

Is that so? Then explain this.

he has a business to run, and staff to pay, and it's perfectly reasonable for him to take steps to protect that.

And his idea of that protection is to generate a pile of negative publicity, about his company and himself, by attempting underhanded tactics with his EULA? After Microsoft took a serious beating on Slashdot for doing the same thing? Seems more like sabotage to me.

Re:CVS is *NOT* equivalent to BK (was "Alan Cox?")

[Cro Magnon]

But what if BitMover changes its mind and decides CVS IS competition?

Buttkeeper is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

So is the company that makes it, buttmover

Re:Only the gratis license is affected tsarkon dea

[OsamaBinLogin]

who is Larry McVoy? What does he have to do with this whole thing?

Re:Only the gratis license is affected tsarkon dea

[Anonymous Coward]

Larry McVoy is the creator of BitKeeper.

arch

[chris_sawtell]

It looks to me as if arch is a pretty good alternative yo Bit-Keeper.

Anybody used it for a big project?

Re:arch

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but Tom Lord is an utter twit. Just watch his behaviour on any mailing-list he's part of. I know this doesn't really affect the quality of Arch, but I find it hard to trust an app written by a moron.

Re:arch

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? He posts a lot of really smart stuff.

Re:arch

[chris_sawtell]

That may or may not be the case, but remember that there are several software authors who come to mind who give one the completely erroneous impression that they are "utter twits", yet they somehow they manage to churn out brilliant software packages. I have d/led the arch thingie and wondered if it was worth investing the time to get my head around it? It's far from simple you see.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected tsarkon dea

[Anonymous Coward]

The complaint generator is a great tool, eh? :)

larry mcvoy

[Anonymous Coward]

is a jackass. has been since he worked for sun and sgi and talked shit about linux (google for mcvoy linux). when he saw the winds of change coming and decided to jump on the linux bandwagon, he was a jackass talking shit and starting fights with the freebsd people (google for mcvoy freebsd). read some of his older l-k posts, where he bitches and whines about how noone working on linux understands a damn thing because sun was soooo much better.

now he's being a jackass yet again.

in short, larry mcvoy is just another cranky bitch. increasingly, these types seem to dominate the "open source" software development community and it's surrounding "clique" (mcvoy is not an OSS developer, but he's definitely a linus groupie nowdays).

what i'd like to do is take theo (hell, throw the rest of openbsd-hackers on there too... they all seem to think that the more rude they are the smarter they'll appear), larry, the idiots over at courier-mta (hotmail is illegal! fucking tools), the kde fanatics (redhat is breaking kde!), the gnome fanatics (redhat is breaking gnome!), about 1/2 of the l-k people (my patch wasn't applied in time! linus doesn't love me!), about 3/4 of the freebsd developers (fuck you fumerola!) and stick them all in a giant cage, and stand outside it with a big pointy stick and spend all day jabbing it in and listening to the cries of pain and the complaining (this is all your fault! this is all linux's fault! this is all sun's fault! this is all RMS' fault! this is *OUCH* ... *cackle*).

but seriously... why does our community seem to be full of these social rejects?

Re:larry mcvoy

[Anonymous Coward]

And why is RMS branded the loon? He's a balanced and normal kind of guy compared to the flakes you mentioned.

Sure are full of themselves!

[ebyrob]

From the site:

If you can't afford a good source management product, use CVS, we'll help you migrate off of it when the time comes.

Wow... We use CVS at work and certainly haven't felt it isn't "industrial enough" to handle what we're after. Quite the opposite in fact.

Broken builds?? What do they think the last tagged version of the stable branch is supposed to be for?

"plain text" a bad thing? I find I can usually trust products that keep plain things plain, much more than ones that try to over-complexify everything. If a developer can't handle managing several checkouts of a repository in his/her own work area, he/she probably doesn't deserve the title.

RCS limitations? Be nice to see some of the most prominent listed if they are such a big deal.

The multiple repository thing does seem interesting, but I'd think if it came to where you really needed it, something could be worked out using CVS without too much work... Actually, in practice it would seem better to get everything into the main repository as quickly as possible so everyone else can start testing on the code sooner, even if there was a bit more overhead associated with doing that.

Course, maybe this BitKeeper appeals to managers more than actual developers...

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[mysticalreaper]

Course, maybe this BitKeeper appeals to managers more than actual developers...

I'm not a developer, but you know who is? Linus Torvalds. And you know what else? I have a sneaking feeling that he's a better developer than you. And you know what he thinks? He thinks BitKeeper is better than CVS. And you know what? All the other kernel developers agree with him. The only thing they can't reach a consensus about is the liscense.

The isssue is not whether BK is better than CVS or not. BK is better. That's been decided. The issue is about the liscense.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[Sircus]

RCS limitations? Be nice to see some of the most prominent listed if they are such a big deal.

I'm betting you use cvs annotate (aka cvs blame) quite a lot, right? Consider the fact that in order to provide this functionality, CVS first internally converts its RCS file into SCCS format, then uses the temporary SCCS file to provide the annotation. RCS simply doesn't have the capability to sensibly provide this functionality on the fly.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[Anonymous Coward]

This, my friends, is the fallacy commonly known as "appeal to autority". Tell your family and colleagues! It's fun.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[peter]

> This, my friends, is the fallacy commonly known as "appeal to autority". Tell your family and colleagues! It's fun.

From the website you linked to:
Since this sort of reasoning is fallacious only when the person is not a
legitimate authority in a particular context...

Almost everyone on /. knows who Linus is. Most would agree that he is a very talented developer. He handles submissions from lots of people every day, and keeps the kernel project going quite nicely. He is one of the best know people who is obviously in a position to evaluate software like CVS and BK. The post you replied to was phrased like a falacious appeal to authority, but it's actually a good point.

Also note that part of the issue here is whether Linus should be using BK to manage the kernel. Thus, it is a lot more relevant what Linus thinks about BK than if you were trying to decide for yourself whether to use it. I hope Linus will eventually decide that BK is too non-Free for him, or, preferably, pressures BitMover to make BK more Free.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[AstralSeeker]

You've obviously never worked on big software projects with multiple concurrent versions being developped at the same time. CVS is utter shit for that (as is VSS), it is not "industrial enough" by any means.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[Anonymous Coward]

do you guys really think linus is god, or just a fairly talented guy who was in the right place at the right time and had some good inspiration?

seems to me theres a shitload of people out there that could have easily "written" linux given the help of a couple thousand ppl on the internet...

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[fire-eyes]

Wow... We use CVS at work and certainly haven't felt it isn't "industrial enough" to handle what we're after. Quite the opposite in fact.

Indeed, AOL/TW feels the same. Mozilla is maintained with CVS.

The same for Sun, OpenOffice is maintained with CVS.

These guys are putting their own foot up their own ass all over the place.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never worked on big software projects with multiple concurrent versions being developped at the same time.

you mean like mozilla?
doh!

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[Ninja Programmer]

Wow... We use CVS at work and certainly haven't felt it isn't "industrial enough" to handle what we're after. Quite the opposite in fact.


What do you have like 3 developers at your work? Once we hit about 15 people at my work place, CVS was showing obvious warts and problems (but my employer is cheap, and I could not convince them to move to Perforce.)


Broken builds?? What do they think the last tagged version of the stable branch is supposed to be for?


Wasting people's time and giving people a false sense of security? If you have enough developers working on the same project, you rarely want to move the tree back more than a few hours. Do you put tags on your tree every few hours?

Also as your project gets bigger, tracking down the precise cause of a bug can very complicated. Simple binary search on checkins becomes a useful way to track down problems. Since CVS has atomicity problems, even doing checkout by date is insufficient to narrow down a precise checkin that caused whatever problem you are looking for.


"plain text" a bad thing? I find I can usually trust products that keep plain things plain, much more than ones that try to over-complexify everything. If a developer can't handle managing several checkouts of a repository in his/her own work area, he/she probably doesn't deserve the title.


You are going to put your JPG/GIF/WAV files into your repository in plaintext somehow? Even if you uu-encode them, the diffs will be as large as the files themselves.

CVS admin requires administration priveleges -- i.e., you are not suppoed to be directly fooling with your respository as part of standard development. Managing your own repositories requires changing your CVS environment directory, in between any context change between repositories. I.e., trying to manage a project where some files are part of the master repository and some are your personal repository is basically not reasonably doable.


RCS limitations? Be nice to see some of the most prominent listed if they are such a big deal.


They have a direct comparison of BitKeeper and RCS right there on their website.


The multiple repository thing does seem interesting, but I'd think if it came to where you really needed it, something could be worked out using CVS without too much work... Actually, in practice it would seem better to get everything into the main repository as quickly as possible so everyone else can start testing on the code sooner, even if there was a bit more overhead associated with doing that.


But that is only one mode of development criteria that you are satisfying. What if you need to perform a "long excursion" of source development, with a subteam of developers? The more developers on your team, the shorter this "excursion" has to be to warrant a seperate repository.


Course, maybe this BitKeeper appeals to managers more than actual developers...


From what I can tell, its features are developer oriented. For example, it does not have any features to associate bug tracking to checkins (so you know who to blame, for example.) But it has features relating to performance and finer granularity of checkin tracking versus CVS, which I would call developer features.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[quantum bit]

Yeah, I know it's flamebait, but I've got the karma to burn...

I'm not a developer, but you know who is? Linus Torvalds. And you know what else? I have a sneaking feeling that he's a better developer than you. And you know what he thinks? He thinks BitKeeper is better than CVS. And you know what? All the other kernel developers agree with him. The only thing they can't reach a consensus about is the liscense.

Funny how Linusm who of course is a "better" developer, needs such a "better" revision management system to manage a kernel. The BSD projects use CVS to manage an entire OS. Hmmmmmmm.......

Go ahead mods, do your worst. "News for Linux Users. Everyone else bugger off."

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[Carlos Laviola]

Gosh, I didn't know Linux worked on the kernel and was a specialist in SCMs.

He may be a good developer, but he spent years developing Linux -- his sole project -- without using ANY KIND of revision control system/SCM. And you tell us he's an authority on this subject?

Riiight.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[Just Some Guy]

You mean, like:

• FreeBSD 3.5 (maintenance)
  
• FreeBSD 4.6.2 (current stable branch)
  
• FreeBSD 4.7 (upcoming release, still in testing)
  
• FreeBSD 5.0 (current unstable branch)
  

...all existing in one CVS tree? You're right. CVS is so awful that it wouldn't be possible.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to be a voice in the wilderness, I'm a GNU/Linux user, and I think using BitKeeper was a huge mistake. I get the feeling that Linus let his ego make this choice, rather than common sense. By choosing BK he got to thumb his nose at a lot of people who would have preferred a Free package, even if it wasn't technically superior. And what a disservice he did to the community by doing so. He locks out principled developers (those seeking to use only Free Software). He sent a clear signal that writing proprietary software for Linux was not only a good thing, but darn near expected. And finally, he prevents any existing Free solution from getting further exposure, which might encourage development along lines that would shore up any of its perceived shortcomings for projects like the Linux kernel. One has to wonder what Linux offers that a BSD doesn't, other than a comfortable set of defaults and proprietary binaries for things like Java. In fact, as I understand it, the Linux kernel itself is dangerously close to violating the letter, if not the spirit, of the GPL under which license it is distributed-- does it not include certain drivers, that for all intents and purposes are essentially binaries?

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[peter]

Hmm, good point. I guess anything would seem better than what he was doing before, so of course Linus likes it. I still don't think the argument was a falacious appeal to authority, but instead a somewhat biased authority. The examples cited in the web page about appeal to authority were things like "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV. Use these drugs, they are good." Linus actually does use BK, and he manages a really big project with it. His opinion is relevant, especially his opinon on how much the Linux kernel benefits from the use of BK, since that is an issue as much as whether other people should use BK for other projects. The general consensus is that it's great to be able to see what Linus's tree looks like in near real time, rather than snapshots every two days. The loss of freedom is starting to mount as BK's no-cost license becomes more and more restrictive. A couple years ago, it was GPL+you have to use the open-logging stuff.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[ebyrob]

I suppose the apache developers (who do use CVS) and the OpenBSD folks (who do use CVS) are inferior developers as well... Nice to know I'm in good company.

For the record, I'd probably have to guess Linus is more of a manager than a programmer these days.

Re:Sure are full of themselves!

[ebyrob]

These guys are putting their own foot up their own ass all over the place.

Well, seeing as I work for a small company where a big project would be 5 devlopers, CVS is more than enough. Funny that we've already tried VSS and had to give it up because we couldn't reliably back things up.

Were we a lot bigger I'd figure on one of two options. Either get better at using and adding to CVS to make it more useful, or hire somebody else to manage our source for us (ala BitKeeper). Of course there is one really big issue with any proprietary solution. Vendor lock in. I could see being any one of those 3 companies and choosing CVS becuase then I knew if I ever did change to something else, I'd have multiple vendors offering to support my stuff.

Bitkeeper said it best themselves:
If you can't afford a good source management product, use CVS, we'll help you migrate off of it when the time comes.

CVS is easy to migrate off of... Can the same be said about BitKeeper?

Re:Only the gratis license is affected tsarkon dea

[Anonymous Coward]

The scary part about it this time is its dead on.

aegis: a free software alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

aegis (aegis.sourceforge.net) is a mature source code management solution much better than CVS and offers the same core functionality of BitKeeper (transactions, changesets) plus a lot more. Heck, there was even a proposal to use aegis to manage the Linux kernel source code, way back in 1999! See this article. Unfortunately the choice was made for non-free software. Maybe now it's time to look at that proposal again.

Re:aegis: a free software alternative

[Florian Weimer]

Aegis implements a process, not just version control, and many people are cautious about software which forces them to work in a certain way (until they have been using it for years, then it becomes The One True Way). Most Aegis newcomers who are forced to use it by the project maintainer will detest it because it encourages (forces?) them to write test cases along their changes...

However, the process implemented by Aegis closely mirrors the Linux development process: a developer makes changes, some subsystem maintainer reviews it, and Linus integrates it into the official tree. But there's a drawback: this only works if all developers have access to the same repository, on the same filesystem. :-(

Aegis has got a distributed development model, but it doesn't offer the same repository tracking features as Bitkeeper. I don't know if this is relevant in the kernel context, IIRC Linus has complained more than once that the repository tracking (which links changesets to particular repositories/revisions) prevents him from automatically applying patches to the master repository.

Re:aegis: a free software alternative

[GooberToo]

I was just looking at that project just the other day for my own use. Anyone actually using Aegis? Is it reliable (no data loss)? Is it muture and stable? I'm curious what the reasons were for using BK over this. Anyone? Has the Aeigis matured enough to be considered a serious contender with BK?

When comparing the two, what features are lacking and/or missing?

Anyone in the know what to share?

Re:aegis: a free software alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the aegis mailing lists (available from the aegis homepage). FWIW, yes, I have been using aegis for 4+ years now. Occasional minor hiccups, nothing that couldn't be solved by asking on the mailing list or fiddling a bit myself.

Borland Turbo C++ 3.0

[Anonymous Coward]

When I bought TC++, the EULA had a similar clause where you couldn't create a competing compiler - And that is even when when you've paid for the software!!

The trick is more intricate... was: Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't tell people not to use/develop other software for their free bookkeeper license. But the free license stipulates that you have to use their servers or none at all. And they can cut off access to their servers (which is a free service) any time they like.

Re:larry mcvoy mcvoy the sugarbitch

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, here. Now is must be decided, who is a better cranky prissy bitch doing the obvious then lashing out like a live Portuguese-man-of-war tentacle in your ass, Theo de Raadt [aka, de Ass], or this mongoloid.

Now I must say, at least FreeBSD is coherent and RMS is consistent. It's the know nothing jackasses like Theo, who can't even get SMP AT ALL (because he sucks), not even after stuff he could steal from FreeBSD or NetBSD, and this dipshit who traipse and prance and philander big names like Linux into imprisoning themselves with a restrictive fascist product.

Its upwelling of this turbulent childish crap which continues to make Linux and incoherent, poorly documented (if it wasn't for Google it wouldn't be documented at all) pile of shit that sucks coders in with crap that is propriety and not portable. It promotes non portability, its kernels frequently suck on non x86 hardware, its not released in a manner which lends itself to consistency, and from creeps like Larry McVoy talking crap about imprisoning kernel hackers for copyright violations to Linux saying shit like "if it compiles it's a good kernel, if it boots it's a great kernel," makes Linux desperately NEED the commercial entities that belong to the LSB and others to come in and clean this kiddie crap up. JUNEOS is based on FreeBSD, not Linux, for a reason. FreeBSD can show a giant organization how its supposed to be done. Big companies look at Linux, kick themselves in the ass because marketing and the CIO says they have to use it because pseudo technologists prefer Linux 10:1 over real operating systems, and then these donkies percolate in a trough of pig shit arguing and bickering over licenses, whose better and this sort of crap.

Linux, its times to grow up. And the first thing to do is to display consistency, boot this McVoy shithead down the staircase for his closed totalitarian fascist crap.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[antientropic]

So many people here are getting all upset because BitKeeper is not free.

Nobody is upset that BitKeeper is not free. After all, you don't see people complaining on LKML that Microsoft Visual Studio is not free. The problem is that several Linux developers, foremost among them Linus Torvalds, have started using it. The problems with this are:

• Kernel development for the first time becomes dependent on a non-free tool. You can pretend that this not so, that Linus could switch to another version management system at any time, but it just ain't so: SCM tools are a major part of a software development effort and replacing them is not easy once they are entrenched.
• It sends the message that Linux, the flag-ship open source system, apparently cannot be developed without non-free tools.
• Freedom of using software in any way you like is not an abstract issue, as this case shows. People are now being prevented from doing Linux kernel development in the most convenient way currently available - using BitKeeper - and contributing to other version management systems at the same time. Hence, their freedom is reduced in a very real way. This would not be the case if only free software were used for kernel development.

I can see the grim future

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will take this idea and use it against linux.

You may not install a competing operating system

Re:I can see the grim future

[Squidgee]

The sad part of this is:
It's possible. MS already has told hardware vendors no "OS-less" hardware. They could use this to constrict the users, as the hardware route didn't help them all that much...

Glad I recently migrated to Mac OS X. :) Mmm, pretty Unix...

Re:I can see the grim future

[mobets]

no no no, you can't use our software to download competing software. No downloading linux isos, no mozilla, no open office, no Java...

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[javilon]

'So many people here are getting all upset because BitKeeper is not free'

No, I am upset because it is used to develop Linux (which is free) and because is the only non free tool used to do it.

I think Linus is wrong on this, because by using it, in a way, he is forcing it upon other people involved in kernel development.

If BK where used to develop windows I wouldn't have any problem with it.

I got the post....

[croftj]

I wonder which one of them will be able to piss the highest!

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[ebyrob]

Free software depends on a few companies' ability to actually make money developing and using free software.

Ya, and commercial software relies on free software to keep it honest enough that computers can actually remain a useful tool to the human race...

We all need each other, lets have a group hug.

P.S - I don't think most of the point is that bitkeeper is bad, just that it was a bad idea for the kernel to rely so heavily on a commercial product in the first place. From some posts, it even sounds like the development team could have licenses to bitkeeper that wouldn't limit what they can work on if they're ready to shell out the bucks...

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[OsamaBinLogin]

> I don't care if BitKeeper makes money.

Well, a lot of people didn't care if Eazel made money either.

> I do care if Linux development is hampered by their stupid
> license. Time to dump BK.

Their stupid license isn't what's the problem. The problem is people who refuse to consider paying for their software. Not even an option to consider? Nobody on this whole topic has even brought up the actual number of dollars - no need to, because spending money is out of the question. You're willing to hamper your project because you're not willing to even consider paying money.

Several times the cost of this software has been burned up by me and you and all the other programmers reading and arguing on this thread. Take your yearly salary, divide by 2000 hours (ok maybe 1850 for our european friends), that's your hourly rate. RedHat's pulling in $40M per year, ask them for some bucks.

Somebody's paying for it, one way or another. Go begging for some VC and tell them it's a "Linux" project and watch the doors slam and the money dry up. That's you, paying for someone else's refusal to pay money, for software like Eazel.

What goes around comes around. You want Linux to succeed, well, the money's got to come from somewhere.

If you really want to make a difference....

[croftj]

Then you should really consider starting a "free the source" fund to collect enough money for the required number of licenses needed to work on subversion.

Re:If you really want to make a difference....

[XaXXon]

Hrmm.. what I want to know is why subversion doesn't use subversion for their source control..

Re:If you really want to make a difference....

[the eric conspiracy]

I want to know is why subversion doesn't use subversion for their source control..

They do.

Re:What does BitKeeper exactly do? vermillion

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice Subversion isn't mentioned on der Fuhrer's, Heinrich Larry McVoy, web site. That's because its better. And its doesn't have the lynch mob license.

Everyone, do a Google search on the badmouthing ranting brat, McVoy, here.

You will see he is a ranting brat, who can't really make money doing innovative things, so he copies essentially what Teamware does, and introduces this fucking bullshit license. Look, BSD, Apache, GPL and some slight variations of the said licenses. No, Reichsfuhrer McVoy (Waffen SS) needs to have a EULA that would make lawyers at MSFT personally worship him.

You can see him, prancing and posing on his web page, showing his affiliations with the geeks, and talking of his nice cats, and I love cats, I feel bad they have to be owned by McVoy. I suspect if he is like he is with the cats as he is with licenses, he beats them, then soft talks, pets them, feeds them, gives them milk, then beats them.

He is a minion of darkness, and anti-open-source zealot, a wolf in sheep's clothes, seeking to undermine, erode and destroy the only reason Linux, which is a piece of shit compared to more coherent, beautiful, consistently documentation of which there are too many to name, is the really interesting license that keeps improvements to GNU/Linux source code PUBLIC.

Larry sits upon his lofty perch, his sagely experience career and his all knowingness. He flames and deprecates Linux, with some deserved points, then he offers gratuitous sex to a certain few and gets his BitDungeonKeeper used on the Linux tree, and now it lies, polluted and tainted in an unfree cage dying.

There should be a new troll on Slashdot now, FACT: Free Linux is Dying. [There is no article from Netcraft anymore since people like Larry and others can tell people what the fuck they can and cant do with their software based on whatever other software they are using].

Doesn't it make you nervous...

[Anonymous Coward]

That when you go to the Bitkeeper website, they won't publish a price?

I mean, you expect it with something like Oracle, because Oracle and their salesman are the lowest forms of life on earth.

But here, they won't tell you the price. Just a "call us for pricing".

You guys make fun of Microsoft, but they publish list prices.

It Bitkeeper's model "Never Twice the Same Price?"

uh oh..

[bo0push3r]

you had best make sure you're in compliance. otherwise, you could be in a lot of trouble!

*MY* vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Is to not allow you to post until you can spell works like "Linus" and "Linux".

Even "Alan" might be a start.

Let me know what school you're going to; I want to make sure my kids can't go there. Why the fuck do your parents pay for your school, and you can't even spell simple words.

Christ almight.

The capper will be when you give your customer "Slashdot Excuse (tm)" about why you can't or won't spell properly. And that's all it will be: a pathetic excuse. Try to be an adult and not make excuses. Just say "Yes, I am a fucktard. Please ignore me"

You're welcome.

Re:*MY* vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Is to not allow you to post until you can spell works like "Linus" and "Linux".

Spell works?

Why the fuck do your parents pay for your school, and you can't even spell simple words.

And? Don't you mean "when"?

Christ almight.

Almight? I don't think that is a word.

The capper will be when you give your customer "Slashdot Excuse (tm)" about why you can't or won't spell properly.

You need a "the" in that sentence.

Just say "Yes, I am a fucktard. Please ignore me"

You need punctuation at the end of the sentence.

By the way, all above emphasis is mine.

My complaint about Larry McVoy

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been debating with myself over the last few weeks whether or not I should write this comment. Obviously, I outvoted myself and wrote it. I concluded I absolutely had to tell you that I like to throw darts at Larry McVoy's picture. But before I continue, allow me to explain that McVoy wants us to believe that his vices are the only true virtues. How stupid does he think we are? To turn that question around, how can someone who claims to be so educated and so open-minded dare to force people to act in ways far removed from the natural patterns of human behavior? This can be answered most easily by stating that I am making a pretty serious accusation here. I am accusing him of planning to lead me down a path of pain and suffering. And I don't want anyone to think that I am basing my accusation only on the fact that he somehow manages to get away with spreading lies (courtesy and manners don't count for anything), distortions (cannibalism, wife-swapping, and the murder of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior), and misplaced idealism (he has been robbed of all he does not possess). However, when I try to respond in kind, I get censored faster than you can say "archaeopterygiformes". You might think that anyone who doesn't know that McVoy is obstreperous must be inhabiting a different world. Well, if that's the case, then I'm afraid McVoy's allies must have spent the past month on Mars. So, why can't we simply agree to disagree? I guess it just boils down to the question: What exactly is his point? This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly, because many people are incredulous when I tell them that he intends to perpetuate the myth that abhorrent, recalcitrant braggarts are inherently good, sensitive, creative, and inoffensive. "How could McVoy be so tasteless?", they ask me. "It doesn't seem possible." Well, it is definitely possible, and now I'll explain exactly how McVoy plans to do it. But first, you need to realize that his drugged-out inclinations can be quite educational. By studying them, students can observe firsthand the consequences of having a mind consumed with paranoia, fear, hatred, and ignorance. Unless we replace today's chaos and lack of vision with order and a supreme sense of purpose, our whole social structure will gradually disintegrate and crumble into ruins.

Two quick comments: 1) McVoy's sentiments reflect several layers of moral concern for many religions, and 2) he hates it when you say that false denials, pleas for sympathy, and a base campaign for smearing others with his own crimes constitute his whole method of defense. He really hates it when you say that. Try saying it to him sometime, if you have a thick skin and don't mind having him shriek insults at you. McVoy's epigrams are destructive. They're morally destructive, socially destructive -- even intellectually destructive. And, as if that weren't enough, McVoy commonly appoints ineffective people to important positions. He then ensures that these people stay in those positions, because that makes it easy for McVoy to put our liberties at risk by a materialistic and mischievous rush to pigeonhole people into predetermined categories.

The following theorem may therefore be established as an eternally valid truth: He has, at times, called me "harebrained" or "feckless". Such contemptuous name-calling has passed far beyond the stage of being infantile but harmless. It has the capacity to rescue militarism from the rubbish heap of history, dust it off, slap on a coat of cheap sophistry, and market it as new and improved. In a sense, McVoy wants to restructure the social, political, and economic relationships throughout the entire society. What's wrong with that? What's wrong is McVoy's gossamer grasp of reality. In a nutshell, Larry McVoy clings to fanaticism like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.

Re:RMS was right. so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

RMS is always assuming the worst, so it is cheap to point out when things turn out worse than more optimistic thinking would have warranted.

How could you live if you never extended any trust in anybody? Sad to say, the corporate world has not been the most respectable recipient of such trust in all cases.

For that reason, I am thankful that RMS is hoarding a core part of GNU software and taking utmost care that no corporation has a chance to get its paws legally into it.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[marx]

If you want to use it for anything, pay for it. The non-free license doesn't contain this restriction.

That's quite irrelevant though. The issue here is that Bitmover is using use-restrictions in its EULA, not the specifics of those use-restrictions. The non-free license may not contain this restriction now, but there is nothing which says it won't tomorrow. Bitmover could arbitrarily and retroactively restrict anyone from using Bitkeeper with this mechanism. They could suddenly restrict muslims from using it if they got a patriotic urge.

Around every tool such as this there is an investment in infrastructure around it. It's just like Microsoft Word. People learn the tool and the format and certain features become entrenched. To make a change away from it requires a significant investment in time (learning, testing, establishing protocols) for each individual.

If Linus enforces this new standard in the kernel development process, it has to be a long-term standard. What Bitmover has shown is that it cannot be trusted to be a long-term supplier of reliable and open tools. This means that the investment that everyone made in Bitkeeper has been wasted. No one likes people who waste their time.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[cHiphead]

hey genius, do you have any idea what freedom is? the EULA is restricting your rights as individual and its actually restricting you from doing something completely unrelated to the use of the program. THAT is f-king insane, BK deserves the bad press for this one. Looks like they let their lawyers determine their software strategy a little to much.

If only if it were so innocent

[MobyTurbo]

BitMover is just doing what we would do if the shoe was on the other foot.[...] Just like Windows is not the developer enviroment for the kernel, BitKeeper will not be the revision control software used for Subversion.

I have moderator points today, but I guess I'll give them up for this article because I don't see anyone else bringing up the most common useage in the legal field of this particular form of license agreement.Of course, IANAL. :-)

I'd agree with your perspective concerning Bitkeepers IP rights if this was the only way this clause is used in a shrink-wrap license. However, it is more often used in court in a semi-fraudulent manner. More often than not, Bitkeeper could claim that a developer was "contaminated", and unless it was *very carefully* documented otherwise, with the sort of documentation rarely available in an open-source project, it can shut down the competitition. I'd hate to think that Bitkeeper's lawyers would do something so cynical, but its a common practice with this sort of contract. About the only remedy is to start the entire project over from scratch and work in "double-clean" rooms, but that's practically impossible in an open source project.

Kudos to Bitkeeper's lawyers for proving that fascism is alive and well in the commercial software industry when it comes to competing with open source projects. Until they drop this clause open-source developers should boycott their tools, because doing otherwise is too great a risk. Maybe they'll get the message, if not, Bitkeeper will go the way of gopher, another product which got a license like this and was dropped like a hot potato by developers in favor of www, and of course the competition ended up being better. :-)

BK Summary

[mysticalreaper]

What's the short version?

A) The license forbids you to use BK to further a direct competitor to BK. Distributing a competitor, while using BK, like Red Hat does, is allowed.

B) This license is the FREE license. Remember the saying, "Beggars can't be choosers?" They can't. Are you using BK for free? Then you can't expect to choose the license. If you buy the program, you can develop whatever you like with it.

C) Anyone still has the ability to be a kernel hacker without using BK whatsoever. The old tools still work, Linus and everyone else still accepts standard patches. It's just the old tools are actually worse than BK. BK was chosen purely on technical merits, it's only the license that's raising questions.

Point B) is important. Because this is the FREE license, it means that BM is not violating anti-trust laws by forbidding competition, because you can purchase the product, and get unrestricted use. Companies are not required to provide free samples of their products to competitors to help them out. Also, it means that BM is NOT acting like MS when they pulled the same stunt in their EULA. (Adding a clause stating that you cannot use MS products to harm MS in any way).

Summary: Bit Mover is acting reasonably, and completely within their rights as a company to define the acceptable uses of their free gift to users. The issue should is not whether or not Bit Mover is 'cheating' people. The issue now is whether or not to use Bit Keeper personally.

Re:BK Summary

[fwr]

A) The license forbids you to use BK to further a direct competitor to BK. Distributing a competitor, while using BK, like Red Hat does, is allowed.

Ah, I see you choose your words carefully. I have to grudgingly agree what you say here. However, you are misleading. Distributing a competitor, while using BK may be allowed, but contributing to a competitor (while not using BK for that purpose) while using BK for a non-competing project is NOT allowed. Does RedHat contribute to any competing products? If so, and that would mean ANY of their employees, then they, and that would mean any of their employees, can not use BK for kernel development. Heck, if you were a disgruntaled RedHat employee and wanted to screw over the company all you would have to do is contribute to one of BK's competitors. Then NO OTHER RedHat employees could use BK for any purpose.

Re:BK Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

A) The license forbids you to use BK to further a direct competitor to BK. Distributing a competitor, while using BK, like Red Hat does, is allowed.

But Red Hat has actively developed CVS. Just take a look at the changelog. This means that all employees of RH is prohibited from using the gratis version, yes?

To think a bit more far-fetched - suppose the NSA used CVS for SE Linux. And fixed a bug in CVS or something like that. Then everyone who's employed by the USA (for example like a chef in the white house, or someone who does road maintenance in Texas), can't use the gratis version.

Perhaps you see the absurdity of the lisence now.

If you work for a large organization, it's close to impossible to know if your company has actively taken part in developing a "competitor" to BK. How do you know that someone in the Ukranian office hasn't submitted a patch to Subversion, or that the Minneapolis office has sold consultanty services to the developers of Perforce? Hard to know, right? But if you can't document that nobody has, you may be in violation of the license, even though you may work in the legal department - doing no IT-related work at all - of the organization, and only hack the kernel in you spare time.

Re:BK Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

All you morons should stop talking like you are lawyers...anti-competitive, antitrust? You guys are anti intelligence :-)

Re:BK Summary

[blibbleblobble]

"Beggars can't be choosers ... If you buy the program, you can develop whatever you like with it."

So which license did you choose for that £600 version of microsoft office?

If your beggars can't be choosers, neither can rich and generous customers in the EULA-software world.

Re:BK Summary

[Citizen of Earth]

This license is the FREE license. Remember the saying, "Beggars can't be choosers?" They can't.

This is all very nice, but they still can't do anything illegal. The restriction in the EULA, even if for a free-as-in-beer product, smacks of anti-trust and anti-trade violations. AFAIK, even a pipsqueak outfit can be sued for anti-trust violations. The first response to this EULA should come in the form of a threatening lawyergram from the EFF. Presumably BK doesn't want to spend the next ten years in court.

Re:BK Summary

[mysticalreaper]

BK is not free software. If they do somehow end up in court for this, violating anti-trust laws, you know what Bit Mover will do? They will say, fine, if this license is illegal, there is none anymore. No free license at all. And then BK will not be free as in beer, not at all. You will not be able to get BK in a free form, you will only be able to get the pay version.

And will tha be a victory? Will righteousness and truth have triumphed? Maybe, but it won't help me out one bit. We'll be worse of than we are right now. But you can hold your own opinion.

Re:BK Summary

[Citizen of Earth]

BK is not free software. If they do somehow end up in court for this, violating anti-trust laws, you know what Bit Mover will do? They will say, fine, if this license is illegal, there is none anymore. No free license at all. And then BK will not be free as in beer, not at all. You will not be able to get BK in a free form, you will only be able to get the pay version.

Sounds good to me! The only chance they have of being big is to use the GIF strategy of market penetration. Without that, and the the advancing open-source systems, they will be out of business within two years. They sound like big assholes to me. Fuck 'em!

Linus and Linux need to do some serious soul searching over the next couple of days anyway. If they choose to use an open system that is not quite as good today, they can be reasonable sure that it will become better than commercial software PDQ.

How good can a immature coder, code

[Bruha]

Sounds like a bunch of 10 year olds threw this thing together. "You cant be in my club if you are part of his club"

I'm curious how the lawyer they hired to write the EULA kept from laughing.

legit uses for binaries in open source trees

[yerricde]

Binary? Sounds a bit iffy

Oh really? How else does one store a sampled sound or a bitmap image? Sure, a vector image can be stored as SVG source code, but most current desktop environments use bitmap images for icons, and CVS wasn't designed to handle two-dimensional data.

Re:legit uses for binaries in open source trees

[Anonymous Coward]

An ignorant question, but I'm very interested to know.
How are bitmaps two dimensional? Is the data in a bitmap an array of some sort? If that's true then is it true for all bitmap formats?

Re:legit uses for binaries in open source trees

[HiThere]

I'm not sure about sound, but *.xpm will handle most 2-D images. I'd like an equivalent format for 3-D (or n-D) objects, but I haven't yet encountered one. Still, anything that can be seen has a projective transform into a pair of 2-D image files, which xpm format can handle.

N.B.: This is more complicated than just a 2-D array of bits. You need a header that talks about value to color translation, and how wide, and how high the image is, and whether parts of it are transparent, etc. But the xpm format hadles this reasonably well. One thing it doesn't do is specify compression, but that's what gzip is for. So binary files allow you to compress images. This is sometimes important, depending on your purpose.

P.S.: Executable compiled files, however, probably require binary.

Re:Illegal...(it depends on the state)

[Zeinfeld]

IANAL, but a related ruling in California does make it illegal to stick non-compete clauses in an employment agreementI don't think there's a ruling in any state as to whether or not it holds for EULAs.

IANAL but the rulling you cite is not the most relevant because it is based on a provision which is specifically about employment, "[E]very contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void." (Business & Professions Code section 16600.)

While there is an employment aspect here, in particular the attempt to taint people using competing code I don't think it is the most direct grounds for invalidating the licence clause. There is no shortage of state and federal anti-trust laws. The fact that software is open source does not remove those protections, the software is also offered on commercial terms and so is a for-profit concern.

The clause is intentionally anti-competative and might well cross the line into unfair competition.

However there is another dimension here. The minute the guy attempted to enforce the license term he would be ostracised as being what the Open Source community call 'a complete and utter prick'.

EULA crosses separation of jobs

[yerricde]

why should a company develop a piece of software, and give a limited (???) version away for free in hopes of people paying for the full version, only to allow people to use the free version to create competing software?

Except the incident in question doesn't involve using the free(beer) version of bitkeeper to work on a replacement. It involves somebody who works two jobs: in one job, he uses free(beer) bitkeeper; in the other, he works on a replacement. The EULA crosses that separation of jobs by restricting the person, not the use of the software.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

So many people here are getting all upset because BitKeeper is not free

That's not the issue. You can't expect hundreds of people working on the kernel adjust their lives periodically to confirm to a license that can change at any time. It's just not practical.

Seems like whenever a company does something contraversial, you get a handful of people who stand up and say things like "It was for the shareholders! they have to make a profit, don't they? they're in the money making business!"

I hate to burst bubble but that's illogical. Being in the money making business, the chicken growing business, a lunar soil vacuum cleaner business, does not place an entity in a special class that can do no wrong. Any entity that is cabable of doing some action is subject to logical consideration as to the merits of that action.

This is becoming common enough that maybe it deserves its own distinct label amongst the logical fallacies. Maybe a subcategory under under appeal to authority called appeal to business.

This isn't like the MSVC EULA

[yerricde]

After all, you don't see people complaining on LKML that Microsoft Visual Studio is not free.

The Microsoft Visual Studio EULA doesn't prohibit licensees from developing GCC. On the other hand, the free(beer) BK license prohibits users of free(beer) BK from developing revision control software, even if they don't use free(beer) BK to develop such software.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected tsarkon dea

[Anonymous Coward]

"blatant post-structuralism"
What on earth does this refer to? Are you referring to linguistics and language theory after the experiments in semiotics? I thought everything that has taken place in language philosophy since Russian formalism and much prior to that was considered post-structuralist. Are you suggesting that you live in a society not tainted by the scholarship accumulated during the twentieth century or are you just using vague obscure references out of context?

Re:Only the gratis [.....]

[ThePeeWeeMan]

I have no idea if you woke up to find that you were missing something, or whether you've been looking at the mirror on the ceiling one too many times. =P

If you have to ask for price, you can't afford it.

[yerricde]

Because this is the FREE license, it means that BM is not violating anti-trust laws by forbidding competition, because you can purchase the product

Oh really? BM's web site doesn't give a price for the full version of BK. I haven't asked BM for pricing information, but last time I tried contacting a company about a software product whose price wasn't listed (some filesystem development library for NT), I got a figure of $100,000 per seat, which is more than most individual developers can afford without getting a second mortgage. By not listing the price, BM may be saying: "If you have to ask, you can't afford it."

Re:Only the gratis license is affected tsarkon dea

[Anonymous Coward]

I take great umbrage at your attempts to deconstruct my long, possibly windy, but heartfelt discontent with Mr. Larry McVoy. My reference to post-structuralist was a reference to post-structualism, a line of thinking which refutes God, the essence of things (aesthetics, beauty, the sense of morals) and refutation of the concept of 'man' as developed by enlightenment thought and idealist philosophy. I don't want my community, the Open Source community, tainted with such Godless (a greedy moneymaking scheme that Mr. McVoy and his cabal of thieves has come up with that show no reverence to anything other than the Greenback) thinking, I reject Mr. McVoy's continued lack of spirit, and his ability to be devoid of the essence of truth and beauty, which a real license is compared to his vile retched dung heap of a license; his inability to be idealistic about open source software, as show here, in a link to a search on Google, where his nihilistic attitude is very clear to all. Now are the darkest times when the prince of darkness himself now hold the keys to the crowning achievement, Open source's opus, Linux kernel source.

Bitmaps are a 2d array

[yerricde]

How are bitmaps two dimensional? Is the data in a bitmap an array of some sort?

Yes. Bitmap data is a two-dimensional array of pixel values, which can be scalars (indexed or grayscale modes), vectors (rgb or cmyk modes), or polar vectors (sih mode). It is then serialized to a one-dimensional stream of bytes.

If that's true then is it true for all bitmap formats?

All lossless-recompression bitmap formats represent a two-dimensional array, perhaps with different packing techniques (BMP and PCX use forms of RLE; GIF uses LZW; PNG uses deflation; TIFF can use several formats). JPEG uses a block transformation (2D DCT), quantization (of scalar values), and then RLE + Huffman packing.

Free tools, Free chips, RMS and LGPL

[Gerry Gleason]

Their site is uncomfortably cagey about the $price. That probably means, some suit dickers with your boss, feeling out "what the market will bear". IE the most money they can get.

You need to understand that it is exactly this issue that causes a lot of the problems. It is really worth reading all of the talk transcript from the guy who is going to debate the RIAA VP next week. It is exactly because of the desire to extract every dime available under the utility curve that leads to the desire to create non-transferable licensing (restrict right of first sale) and a host of other evils that almost everyone objects to.

How awful is it if you actually PAID MONEY for the software? Face it, if your boss doesn't have bucks, you don't have a job. Somebody's paying for the Linux kernel to be developed - if it costs 1% more, is that a big deal?

It isn't that simple. If a commercial tool is needed to participate, it limits the scope. Not everyone working on any given free source project is getting paid. Ok, so you can grab bitkeeper for free to work on the Linux kernel, that's sort of ok, but now they say you can't work on some projects if you do that. Sort of silly if you ask me, since it just gives them (BitMover) a black eye in the community and it won't slow down the development of the free alternative. It is, in fact, pretty easy to argue the opposite based on discussion of the issue here. Lots of people who were on the fence for this issue are going to move away from their product.

The transcript that I linked above makes the point that we don't actually know if BitMover is hurting or helping themselves. If they just GPLed their tool, and charged for support, commercial licenses, and other stuff, they might do better in the long run. It is a leap of faith, but you gotta ask how much the change of EULA language will hurt them in the long run. It will encourage more people to push the free alternative, and work to make that tool competetive. If it was GPLed, they would have the whole community behind them, and a lot of people would buy their books and support in gratitute for the gift of their software.

These issues are even more stark if you want to work on free hardware. The free tools are in a primitive state, so you are in a bind of choosing a less desirable tool vs something free. The producers of the commercial tools are afraid of their business drying up, so they won't do anything if it might help the free tools compete with them. You say, ok, so I'll find a tool I can use for free on free hardware even if it is closed source, but that slows down the free alternatives.

This is where you start to get just how important GPL is and why it is such an important innovation. One of the big problems in the sub-chip level hardware design is that the big tool makers have everything locked up and they don't talk to each other very well.

There are some open standards, but the whole mentality of closed intellectual property creates this situation where the best minds are all working to recreate the same tools and chip functions in each closed universe. This is even worse than it is for software because there aren't nearly as many people working in hardware as with software, and it is getting more complex just as fast.

My gut tells me that any company that makes the leap of faith and frees their intellectual property under GPL or similar terms will get back much more than they give up. It's hard, if not impossible to prove this, but instictively we know this when we look deeply at the issues.

On a side note, RMS doesn't think that the GPL is appropriate for hardware. It's bits all the way down until you start replicating the physical parts, and unlike software, it isn't possible to actually use it until you physically replicate it.

Nothing stops me from downloading the ISO images of RedHat's latest release cutting as many one-offs as I want on my CDR, or even making a run of CDs, and cutting them out of the loop completely. I can even offer my own support services to compete with RH. Doing this with chip or board level fabrication has considerably higher entry barriers, so potential "Red Hat Hardware" vendors would have less to worry about.

As long as I've come this far, I want to finish with a comment about the LGPL. From where I stand, RMS's stance on the LGPL is a take-back that is just as damaging, if not more so, as the EULA change being discussed. LGPL gives you a lot more choice in terms of integrating free and proprietary subsystems and components. Where free libraries have significantly extended functionality, he explicitly recomends GPL over LGPL. As an example if you want all the GNU goodies that make command line work so nice in bash, you have to either write your own or be ready to release your entire project under GPL. I might even agree with his goal of all software being free, but my choice is limited. What if I'm doing this work for an employer who is not ready to release the whole thing? I can't choose GPL, but I could choose LGPL.

This is the one case where I would claim that it goes beyond style, and the message itself actually hurts the movement.

ReIllegal that is such crap blood flows vermillion

[Anonymous Coward]

If green haired people killed him for doing that I wouldn't blame them - but seriously:

So, then, is it okay to have a EULA:
"Jews, Niggers and W.O.P's can't use this software, dang knabbit!"

Sounds ridiculous. I'm sure Microsoft would like to say; Sun Corporation employees may never use Microsoft Windows.

But they can't, not that they won't, there are probably a billion laws in place that protect the consumer. The EULA is a pile of shit, and rarely stands up in court. Copyright stands up just fine [can't pirate, reverse engineer, blah blah], but everyone knows the EULA is a crock of shit.

About a typical EULA, is says this product's license may not be resold or transferred to another person, which would arguably make the software worthless (a valid suggestion). How can Software copyright holders contradict the value of their own software in a EULA by suggesting its worthless? They really cant.

The EULA is a piece of crap, in general, its a bullshit pile of legalese crap and cruft, and no one ever reads them, and when they do, they find all sorts of stupid, irrelevant and contradictory crap. And the states and the federal government, particularly a jury of peers, is likely to override bullshit EULA contracts in favor of laws protecting consumers.

This whole thread is really stupid. McVoy has to know the EULA means shit. He copyrights his works and makes it clear you cant steal it, but you can use it if you don't make money off of it. Kind of classic. The crock is that the guy has exceptions, and all sorts of crap going on and excuses for the Linux kernel and just lame, random precedentless behavior.

This who subsection of law and debate is crap. There is a simple axiom to all this: If you use the software to make money and its not free (like real free, not McVoy free, free like beer, you drink it and piss it out) buy the stuff. The software vendor should set a price (preferably in the affordable range, don't you software pricks scratch your head why shit gets warezed when its 1000-2000% overpriced with NO support and no integration services), and that's the end of it.

I looked at bitcrapper. It's a reasonable product, works, reminiscent of Teamware. Its distribution method is lame, its password to download is stupid, its asking for an email address on download is fucked up, it's an all round pain in the ass. Just use Subversion and avoid retard McVoy. Its okay for him to leverage the kernel for free advertising but he has to waltz around and threaten people and fuck with a ridiculous canned (probably abstracted from one of those EULA's you get at Office Depot) EULA and get into flame wars clarifying ridiculous waste of time shit.

Maybe if retards like this who worked at Sun a while back had actually pulled their weight SUNW wouldn't be $2.50 a share - im sure this dolt was at the water cooler whining about everything and stealing TeamWare source code to re implement later as BitBuchenwald and harass the Open Source types with de Raadt-esqe whining and ranting over things that are so, "been there, done that."

Re:BitMover is NOT the "bad guys" blood vermillion

[Anonymous Coward]

I consistently moderate all moderations that reduce karma as unfair as well, and encourage everyone I know to do so. We were better off with the trolls posting 80 times a day so -1 was what it was for, crap. Now we all have to read at -1 because the kiddies have more points to burn on real people posting real comments with real opinions, and for some reason when the vindictive mob sees something intelligent, the see their penis length as another quarter inch shorter, and accordingly lash out the only way they can, the huddle shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the crazed zealots in there self congratulating horde of mobocratic mediocritomatons, and lash out at the insightful, intelligent and witty. The suppress any 3rd party thinking, slice and divide issues down the middle and dissidents are kicked out. Divide and conquer. So the Slashdotting casual [there is no "community," only a "communisty" to play on words] who posts a gem here and there now suffers, because the foolish editors wanted to stop trolling no one ever noticed anyway. And now moderating points are funneled in droves to suppress any and all non [socialist/communist/mob] think.

Worse...

[botik32]

A project using BK is always in danger of denying a would-be contributor that works in parallel on anything related to CVS.

The things RMS warned of was spefically, DISCRIMINATORY DENIAL OF SOURCE. Which is evil.

Let me put it this way. In the worst case (project uses BK, you are incompatible with the free BK license), you have to purchase a TOOL to be able to contribute to an open-source project.

You CANNOT contribute to some open-source project unless you pay some_company for access to it!

There may be numerous reasons why one would not want to purchase access (it not sold in one's local store, the developer does not trust his/her CC# to the internet, etc. etc.)

So I agree with Performer Guy, for other reasons though. I can see project owners running away from BK from now on.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[khuber]

Linux already succeeded. Why do people keep threatening failure just because I and others don't like the BitKeeper license? BitKeeper is not funding the entire Linux development! How dare I suggest that freedom is more important than profit and that we shouldn't allow companies to get away with ridiculous licensing like this at our expense.

-Kevin

We are not all the same.

[LoonXTall]

Slashdot is not a homogenous herd of clones, despite what moderation may suggest. People are different: we have different opinions, and we disagree with each other. In fact, it's been observed throughout history that once a minority movement gains some success, they fall apart because they're no longer so strongly united by that common goal. Yet those differences were always present.

However, I'm willing to listen to your argument if you can find me some post pairs made by a single person that contradict themselves, and prove that the information they had at the time of the later post was identical to the information they had at the time of the earlier one. It is perfectly reasonable to adapt to changing reality. That is, after all, the nature of survival.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[siphoncolder]

Ya, and commercial software relies on free software to keep it honest enough that computers can actually remain a useful tool to the human race...

Wrong. Commercial software relies on CONSUMERS AND COMPETITION to keep it honest enough that computers can actually remain a useful tool to the human race.

Free software relies on CONSUMERS AND DEVELOPERS WITH FREE TIME TO DEDICATE to keep going.

Quote from Alan Cox

[Sponge Bath]

I like this post to lkml from Alan Cox:

"Linus used to do about a patch every 2 days. Nowdays its a lot slower. I put that down to buttkeeper"

Haw!

And?

[Grimmtooth]

Free Software advocates who were upset when Linus decided to use non-Free software now have the opportunity to say 'I told you so.'"

Well, whoop-dee-doo.

Shatner, on SNL.

Can't Work On Competition...

[MBCook]

One question: if you're making some kind of version controll system, why whould you use BK to develop it? Once it's working, wouldn't you use itself? Before it's working well enough, just do it by hand or with CVS or something.

Re:Can't Work On Competition...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ben Collins was working on a Subversion-to-BK gateway. That's all.

Re: Can't Work On Competition...

[CaptainZapp]

From the Subversion FAQ

Is Subversion stable enough for me to use for my own projects?

We believe that Subversion is stable and have confidence in our code, in fact, we've been self-hosting since September of 2001--eating our own caviar so to speak. We declared alpha because we're ready for the world to try Subversion.

After 10 months of self-hosting, we haven't lost any data at all.

Hope this helps

Re:Can't Work On Competition...

[dvdeug]

One question: if you're making some kind of version controll system, why whould you use BK to develop it?

Note that the license doesn't say you can't use BK to develop the competition; it says you can't use BK if you're developing the competition. So you can't use BK to develop the kernel if you also work on Subversion.

Also, one example was that Ben Collins wanted to use BK to import the kernel into a Subversion system and keep it uptodate with the BK version.

Re:Can't Work On Competition...

[kubrick]

Ben Collins works on Subversion, and packages glibc for Debian, and does work on the Linux kernel. And he didn't send a Netwinder to Larry McVoy.

He was using BitKeeper to work on the Linux kernel, as requested by Linus; now it is impossible for him to do so because of his work on the Subversion project. A number of people feel that the development of an important Free Software project should not depend on a non-Free version management system, especially one where the rules as to who is allowed to use it keep on changing.

I wonder if it's the work on Subversion or the missing Netwinder that caused all this...

Re:Can't Work On Competition...

[Rik van Riel]

He was using BitKeeper to work on the Linux kernel, as requested by Linus;

Please stop lying. Linus never asked anybody to use bitkeeper...

now it is impossible for him to do so because of his work on the Subversion project

Please stop lying. There are a half-dozen other ways to get the latest Linux kernel source code. You don't need bitkeeper to get the latest source.

Take a deep breath...

[alienmole]

Regardless, attacking me was juvenile.

He said "Read my post again". That is not even remotely an "attack". You're being paranoid - get a grip. That's not an attack, just friendly advice.

Re:If you have to ask for price, you can't afford

[XaXXon]

nono. The short answer is that it's $5800 to buy a copy of BitKeeper, and another $1200 / year after the first year if you want to keep support and upgrades. While this is far from $100K, it's still not cheap for individuals.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

"No business in their right mind is going to help a competetor take their market share."

And that's how it starts. "We're gonna make sure they don't mess with us. Our product is better, and this change just ensures they won't catch up"

Then it's "Customers are trying to migrate to their product. Why should we make that easy? Lock them in, make sure they have to throw away code if they don't want to keep paying"

And finally "If you see a customer has their stuff, insist it be removed already. Threaten to eliminate their discounts, talk about lawsuits, go over and personally rip out the power cord. I don't care, and I don't want to hear about it"

BK hasn't begun making its way down the slippery slope yet, but honestly I can't see a way it can avoid it. Once a company starts complaining about how people use its products it's stopped thinking like a business and started thinking like the mob. See also the music & movie industries.

Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper)

[XaXXon]

Here's the actual prices for BitKeeper in PDF as they were sent to me from BitKeeper. I was interested in using it for my personal projects until this licensing garbage came along, and I had inquired on the pricing model..

If you want the short version, it's $5,800 for a single license, and then $1,200 / year starting the second year (the first year's included in the base price) for service and upgrades (and you have to keep it current. You can't just pay $1,200 3 years down and try and get upgrades).

So anyone who says that an Open Source developer should just "buy themselves a copy", isn't really understanding that you don't go to Best Buy and plunk down $50.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper)

[shlong]

$5,800 for a single license, and then $1,200 / year starting the second year...

I'd like to point out that Perforce licenses cost on a fraction of that. Plus, you can request free licenses if you are a private person and developing open source software. Look here. The company that I work buys commercial licenses for the work that my group does, and I have a free licensed server at home for my work. Everybody wins

How do you distinguish

[mindstrm]

between a "competing product" and "competing softwre?"

It would seem one is the same as the other.

Re:How do you distinguish

[sjames]

I do not make such a distinction. They are the same thing.

Bitkeeper is a service, no?

[mindstrm]

Correct me if I am wrong.. but doesn't bitkeeper also involve use of bitkeepers servers to store your repository? Isn't this about more than a software license? It's about a service being provided.. a service that costs money to run.

Stating who can use their service for free within limited terms.. what's so bad about that? You are free to use something else.

Re:Bitkeeper is a service, no?

[ceejayoz]

Nope, that's an optional service - you can run it on your own server as well.

Larry McVoy

[DustMagnet]

I know Larry McVoy (or more accurately knew him). He's brilliant, rash, and arrogant. He can do amazing things, but he's a tough guy to deal with. If you argue with him, you'd better have your facts straight. If you prove him wrong, he'll admit it. He has the biggest ego I've ever seen. When he gets into a project he doesn't stop until it's perfect. He is one truly amazing human. I'm glad to have worked with him.

The problem here is, it's his software and he can do what he wants with it. So you'll never argue him out of it. I just hope Linus will realize he made a mistake. BK is not free as in speech only free as in beer.

Blatant violation of commercial ethics

[Ektanoor]

Sorry to those who buz talk about "beggars cannot be choosers". The philosophy of Open Source and Free Software is not about begging and getting for gratis. It is an exchange, someone offers a service and ethically I have a duty to offer some feedback. It worked very well while we were a few tens of thousands. Today the masses came in and we have lots of seemingly "beggars" around. But this is not the hear of the movement and we shall keep our efforts to show people how things really develope. The problem of having supposedly "beggars" is similar to the problem of Anonymous Cowards in /.. If we take them away, we jeopardise our ideals. "Beggars" and ACs are a side effect of a world that is not perfect and which we should fight for being a little more correct. Not marginalising the masses but bringing to them the real meaning of the Open Source, Free Software and Free Speech is the real duty we shall not ever ever forget.

Now about this blatant monopolistic and ridiculous license. I may understand a commercial interest when someone declares a agreement void because I work on something that may hinder my partner. Development, production are things that are interim to a work where I and my partners should trust each other ofr a common cause. Using or developing some product while I do the same thing "on the side" for a concurrent product, is somehow a dubious behaviour from my side.

However sell/resell? Who's the jerk that wrote this license? Who's the stupid lawyer that forgets centuries of commercial ethics and practices? Who is he to hinder my right of choice and the right of choice of my clients? Any exclusivety on distributing, selling or lending anything is a conception that immediately forces a special agreement of rights and duties between two partners, sharing a common profit. Not something that "I should do or else". This is monopolism and it is ethicaly criminal to state such things in this way. No matter I get this thing for free or under a fee, claiming that I have not a right to choose what is best for me is the worst of dictatorships ever. They hinder the very principal of market with this.

Imagine this situation. I have a market. I try to find the best product so that this market lives on. Under this agreement either I cannot test their product if I sell something similar, I am forced to stop selling it to test their stuff or I have to pay them a fee to test their product. This, I would just call blackmail. If everyone starts doing it, it would be much worse than Windows EULAs.

Re:Blatant violation of commercial ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely correct. If that argument Buttkeeper is trying to push were correct, the whole electronic industry would be forced to a halt.
It's very sad that a proprietary software hate monger can just go a bash Ben Collins out in the open, due to the fact that Linus has agreed to all that shit.
Thank you, it was good while it lasted, GNU/Linux free software days are over. There are other kernels...

Re:Blatant violation of commercial ethics

[JamieF]

I try not to be a grammar nazi, but seriously... your spelling, grammar, and punctuation are so bad that it's really hard to read your post at all. The whole second paragraph is such a mess that I had to read it three times and I still don't know what your point is.

Re:Blatant violation of commercial ethics

[jreames]

Actually this seems in the same vein as the MS visual studio license....

and as MS has shown us recently, you can use monopolistic tactics if you aren't a monopoly.... and it is perfectly legal!

Missing the point..

[lpontiac]

A lot of people seem to commenting that there's nothing wrong with BitKeeper being licensed as it is. This isn't really being argued ..

The argument is that because BitKeeper's license is as it is, that the Linux kernel developers shouldn't be using it.

Re:Missing the point..

[AShadeOfGrey]

Shhh... almost sounds like you're saying rms was right... :)

God forbid... linux is a wonderful thing... and GNU/Linux is an ugly name... but damnit... that long haired hippie has something to BELIEVE IN.

It all started somewhere.... sometimes I wonder if the /. community at large is even aware of this..

(note to parent... obviously this isn't really directed at you... but thanks for the springboard :)

Re:Missing the point..

[Rik van Riel]

And who exactly are you, to tell me which products I should or shouldn't use ?

All my patches are available in other formats too, you don't need bitkeeper to access my stuff. I'm not forcing anybody to use bitkeeper, you shouldn't try to force me to stop using bitkeeper.

Bitkeeper has improved my productivity and my contribution to open source software. Though it's not a necessary tool for my work, I'm thankful that Larry makes my work easier by allowing me to use his program.

Re:Missing the point..

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU are missing the point.
Your use of ButtKeeper sets a very bad example.
Why are you working on Linux, anyway?
Perhaps you would be more comfortable with a closed source UNIX like Solaris or HP/UX.

Re:Missing the point..

[lpontiac]

And who exactly are you, to tell me which products I should or shouldn't use ?

Now, now, I was stating my view on what the issue is - not my view on the issue itself! Perhaps I should have been a bit clearer ... if BitKeeper works for the primary developers, then all the power to them.

Your work is appreciated, btw.

Re:Missing the point..

[Rik van Riel]

YOU are missing the point.
Your use of ButtKeeper sets a very bad example.
Why are you working on Linux, anyway?
Perhaps you would be more comfortable with a closed source UNIX like Solaris or HP/UX.

Personally I like on Linux because I like the system. If you really think bitkeeper users should stop working on Linux, maybe you should ask Linus to stop development of 2.5 ? ;)

As for the "bad example", you've shown a pretty bad one yourself: trying to reduce somebody's freedom of choice, under the guise of some "larger freedom". Can't get much more hypocritical than that...

Re:Missing the point..

[velco]

And who exactly are you, to tell me which products I should or shouldn't use ?

All my patches are available in other formats too, you don't need bitkeeper to access my stuff.

I'm not forcing anybody to use bitkeeper, you shouldn't try to force me to stop using bitkeeper

No, not forcing, but persuading :)

Bitkeeper has improved my productivity and my contribution to open source software. Though it's not a necessary tool for my work, I'm thankful that Larry makes my work easier by allowing me to use his program.

Well, I guess it is time to dissect the supposed advantages of BK over other version control systems.

First, the imporatance of the version control itself. The question is how does using or not using a SCM tool influences the success or failure of a project. Are there any studies, which indicate that software projects generally experience more failures when SCM is not used ? I know of none. And until someone shows my one, I'd stick to my own experience - the SCM tool does not matter at all.

Second - BK advantages. The most cited advantage of BK other other SCM tools are distributed repositiories and the push/pull operations.

Well, I can really see the convenience of using such a tool - but only if the communication between the developers follows thge push pull model.

This is not the case with Linux (the kernel) and Linus.

See these statistics.

Fact - the only pushes into the tree are made by Linus himself. Well, it looks like Linux (the kernel) developers are not using exactly the features they claim they're using BK for.

(This is not unexpected, given the overly centralized nature of the Linux (the kernel) development process. Ironically, BK would be much more useful for a project like GCC, which is much more democratically organized (and bigger too)).

To conclude (argumented IMHO, of course):

SCM does not matter.
BK is not necessary.

Well, then, if it does not matter (technically) anyway, why don't use something free ?

And, BTW, you DO miss the point - the talk is about licenses that sux0rz - not about techical merits of one or another SCM tool.

~velco

Re:Missing the point..

[Rik van Riel]

Well, I can really see the convenience of using such a tool - but only if the communication between the developers follows thge push pull model.

This is not the case with Linux (the kernel) and Linus.

• Linus does pull from bitkeeper trees
• distributed repositories have much more benefits than the push/pull model, they are also needed so every developer can do version control on his/her own tree
• There are a whole number of forks of the Linux kernel tree out there, that wouldn't have been as easily possible without bitkeeper

Given that your conclusions are based on false premises I wouldn't put too much value in them. Having a distributed SCM does matter.

Re:Missing the point..

[velco]

* Linus does pull from bitkeeper trees

Is this the way that some changesets get into the Linus's bk repo ? If so, I stand corrected.

* distributed repositories have much more benefits than the push/pull model, they are also needed so every developer can do version control on his/her own tree

Distributed repositories are not distributed at all if there isn't communication between them. I can do version control in my own tree with every SCM out there. The very essence of being distributed is in the inter-repository flow of changesets.

* There are a whole number of forks of the Linux kernel tree out there, that wouldn't have been as easily possible without bitkeeper

Why so ?

How about "cvs checkout foo; cd foo && find . -name CVS | xargs rm -rf; cd foo && cvs import foo".

Well, "bk clone" is simpler, indeed, but does this matter ? How often you make clones ?

Given that your conclusions are based on false premises I wouldn't put too much value in them.

False or not is yet to be established :)

Having a distributed SCM does matter.

But, yes! I, in fact, very much like BK exactly because of the distributed repositories. My point is that exactly these features are not used by Linus, which renders bogus the argument "use the right tool for the right job" (or, on a second thought, maybe not. Using roughly the "CVS subset" of BK does not make it less suitable than CVS :)

~velco

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[sjames]

So many people here are getting all upset because BitKeeper is not free. Well, there's nothing wrong with trying to make money off of some software, while helping the community at the same time.

The problem is, the 'help' to the community is made to be more like a deal with the devil, complete with the full price not being stated until after the deal is made.

I would strongly suggest to all free software developers that they stay away from BK unless they can tell (by crystal ball for example) they they will NEVER work for anyone who in BK's opinion competes with them in any way AND that they themselves will never work on anything that BK might believe will compete with them, AND FINALLY, that EVERYBODY who might become a valuable contributor to their project at any time in the future will also meet the first two conditions as well. It seems like a pretty bad bet to me.

Change of license terms

[gotan]

This example illustrates a more general problem:
Lately we see more and more license changes for existing software, BitKeeper and various Microsoft products are only the most notable cases. License changes accompany updates and patches, or it's just a document on some website that changes.

Most Software isn't ever a `finished' product, it's subject to changes called `new version', `upgrade' or `patch'. Often the customers depend on having the latest version of a software, be it for security reasons, compatibility issues, or just part of a leasing contract for the software. The software makers use these changes in the software to change the license terms in the software. In the BitKeeper example, someone using BitKeeper in a large project probably depends on it, or it would at least cause a lot of additional work and delay the project to switch from BK to something else.

This means, that even subtle license changes may have a huge effect on anyone depending on that software, done right such a license change might even ruin someones business (imagine someone using free BK on some project competing with BK, and imagine BK had gone one step further and made their "no competition" clause mandatory on all new licenses. Done just a few months before some critical timeline this might have killed the whole project. Even so any project using BK for a competing open-source product would probably have a hard time or even falter).

To protect businesses from being at the whim of software-makers there should be some regulations in place, that only allow license changes within reasonable limits, and demand that such changes are announced some time beforehand, so the customers have time to react. Most companies protect their business by making sure that they can't be cut of from any resource they depend on, they should realize that software is just such a resource and enforce license terms that don't allow for ugly surprises due to one-sided changes. But since few companies have the leverage to change Microsofts license terms i think there's a need for legislation considering software license changes.

And if the other post wasn't enough for you...

[hackwrench]

width* height, enough said.

Re:Only the gratis license is affected tsarkon dea

[Anonymous Coward]

Automatic complaint-letter generator

Theo de Raadt and Richard M. Stallman were right

[mirabilos]

They were right to refuse code with insecure licences
(Theo removed many code from OpenBSD because
of licence issues) and tell us that Linux is non-free
(remember the story about RMS telling us that bitkeeper
and vendor-supplied scsi code are unfree?)

I knew that Theo was right, even if I have my small
struggles with him, too.
If people want to try out free operating systems with
fewer licence issues, try out OpenBSD.

NetBSD still uses IPFilter (by Darren Reed) which
started the licence questioning in OpenBSD, and at
least FreeBSD 4.x has patented SMP code from BSD/OS
in it (that's why they started SMPng IIRC).

Who am I to impose my vision?

[hackwrench]

I'm not the original poster, but that is one of the phrases I find annoying. I exist with the capability to impose. Existence alone is sufficient. I need nothing else.

Re:Who am I to impose my vision?

[Skjellifetti]

I exist with the capability to impose. Existence alone is sufficient. I need nothing else.

You might need a bigger gun than mine. Your existence is one reason I support the 2nd Amendment.

Re:Who am I to impose my vision?

[Lemmy Caution]

What does the size of the gun matter? All that matters is who gets the first clear shot. What, you think most gunplay is High Noon quick-draw crap?

Re:Who am I to impose my vision?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the ? asks why do you think that you have the moral right, not why do you think that you have the capability.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[epine]

People who argue points of the form "sends a message" are generally describing their particular set of emotional filters which are not nearly as widespread as they might imagine. Fortunately, arguments that fail to distinguish pragmatism from compromise are quickly discarded by those who do.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Macrobat]

I'm sorry, this is wrong. The "free beer/free speech" analogy is at work here.

No business in their right mind is going to help a competitor take their market share.

Doesn't matter. If I buy a car from General Motors, GM has no right to tell me I can't taxi Ford workers to and from their workplace. That's "helping a competitor" with a product I bought from them, and if they don't like it, tough. This EULA is trying to prohibit an analogous freedom.

And as far as the "Slashdot hippies" crack and non-free software goes: this isn't about cost, as most of us (not all, but most) didn't complain about Linus using Bitkeeper in the first place. Non-free software prevents what you can do to that software; that's a choice Linus made. But even makers of non-free software don't have the right to tell you what to do with the software. Microsoft has no legal power to stop me from writing an anti-MS diatribe using MS Word, not with a (hypothetical) copy I bought from them. It's mine, that's that.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[mchappee]

>But I still implore all you Slashdot hippies: >do not assume that all non-free software is >evil, and do not make BitKeeper the bad guy >just because they want to make money.

That's ignorant. Calling me a Slashdot hippie because I don't ant my fucking CVS tool dictating what software I'm allowed to write? I don't mind paying for software, and as long as the license doesn't go beyond illegal distribution I adhere to the license, but for a tool to tell me what projects I'm allowed to code for is rediculous. Fine, dude, sign yourself up and slap on the shackels. Let BitMover dictate your coding. Make sure your walking in a perfectly straight line or you're in for it. Eyes forward, mister...

I'd rather be a hippie than a brainwashed corporate pod.

Matthew

SO LONG LARRY AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH....

[borgheron]

Just see if I or anyone else in the Free Software/Open Source community, other than Linus, uses BitKeeper for anything now. I know I won't. Then again having experience with superior Free Software technologies such as Subversions and CVS, I cannot understand why anyone would want to use BitKeeper in the first place, when a comparable *free* alternative exists.

Not even the really large proprietary vendors such as Rational (who makes Clearcase, which I am an expert in, BTW :) ) have this clause in the agreement (last I checked, at least). So using the universal excuse "We're a business" just doesn't cut it.

Have a nice life, Larry. You just insulted your own target market. :)

GJC

Re:SO LONG LARRY AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH....

[Anonymous Coward]

A fucking moron like you should not be allowed to work on software.

This limitation applies only to the free version.
Get it ?
"Beggers can't be choosers".
Does it click in for you now ?

What a fucking moron.

Re:SO LONG LARRY AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH....

[borgheron]

Who's the bigger moron? The person who makes his point with insults and beratement (like you obviously like to do) or the person who makes his point through facts?

Leaving aside the fact the you posted anonymously. .. :) Perhaps a person who leaps into an immediate emotional diatribe, as you just did, should reconsider working on software as you can count on decisions being made on an emotional basis, not a factual one.

My point, in the previous post, was to indicate that a sudden change in licensing on the free version is an unwise manuever for BitMover, Inc. It encourages any software development done using the free version of BitKeeper, *especially* Free and Open Source software given the overly broad terms of the license (as detailed in other posts) to move away from them, potentially costing them customers.

The fact that there are developers here who are disappointed/concerned w/ the change in licensing also speaks to my point.

Even someone who simply wants to vent his/her anger as you seem to want to do should be able to understand that.

GJC

Re:SO LONG LARRY AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH....

[Anonymous Coward]

Larry, you're a fucking pathetic whining loser - and you blew it this time, asshole. People are waking up to your snake oil.

You don't understand freedom.

[hackwrench]

Any granting of freedom deprives others of a freedom. If you grant someone the freedom to not have his face smashed in, you automatically deny everyone the freedom to smash his face in. The only way to ensure any freedom is by taking away other people's freedom.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[XaXXon]

I just got this email from Larry McVoy informing me I had to take down the price listing. Here's the email I received:


That was clearly marked as confidential not to be disclosed. See page 7
right above the price list. Posting it is a blatent violation of our
copyright and causes our company material damage. If our lawyers find
that link still working tomorrow morning at 8am, you'll be the first
entity we have sued for copyright violation. Ask around, what you are
doing is serious with serious legal exposure for you.


I'm not exactly sure why I'm not allowed to post it, as nothing says "you may not post this", but it is copyrighted to them, but I don't really know what that means. They're probably just using the fact that they have more lawyers than me (greater than zero vs. zero) to bully me around.. but ah well. I suppose I don't really care about BK anymore.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, tough luck.
You don't get to decide that one.

Get over it.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking idiot.
You somehow forgot that this limitation only applies to people who want to use the product WITHOUT paying for it.

If you follow the market rules that governed this planet for the last couple of thousand years and purchase product offered by that company, you are free to use it in any way you want.

Perforce for-open-source license OK?

[dbrower]

See this and compare.

Depending on your set of religious tenets, it's either the same thing as BitKeeper, or completely different.

-dB

BitKeeper's the enemy, Stallman was RIGHT

[dh003i]

No court in the nation is going to enforce those kind of EULA terms.

It would be like MS saying you can't use MS Word if your using it to write up a document critical of MS, or to write up source code for something competing with an MS product.

Most of these EULA terms are either unenforcible practically, or simply would not be upheld in a court of law. I believe the anti-competitive terms in this EULA are both. Firstly, as I said before, no court is going to enforce such non-sense. To do so would usher forth an era where every product includes a license forbidding you to use it if you work for or help a competitor. Secondly, this is simply unenforcible, or largely so. Why should anyone abide by this? There are no consequences if they don't, except perhaps being forced to stop using it. This is not a case where any financial damage enters the picture, so there's no potential cost to violating the license. Third, even if it is enforcible within the US, that can easily be side-stepped by hosting one's project outside of the US, where the US has no jurisdiction.

What really annoys me about this BitKeeper people is their audacity to say that they are actually trying to help the community. No, they are not. They are doing this to make money, not to help the community. Its fine that they want to make money, but its not fine that they try to say that a Free Software project isn't trying to help the community, and that they are. The Ben Collins was right not to help BitKeeper, as BitKeeper has now proven by these draconian licensing terms. Helping non-free projects will invariably harm the Open Source (OSI-compliant) and Free Software (FSF-compliant) communities, in several regards. Firstly, it will encourage people to use non-free software. Secondly, as non-free software will become more popular and universal, the community will become more vulnerable to draconian EULA licenses like BitKeeper's.

That aside, this is just proof that Stallman was right. You can't rely on a product with a EULA. They will always include draconian licensing terms. We should be switching over to Subversion and supporting that.

Supporting non-free software will always hurt the cause of Free Software, and will ultimately hurt development of Free Software (which includes the GNU/Hurd; GNU/Linux; and the Free-, Open-, and Net -BSDs.

Re:BitKeeper's the enemy, Stallman was RIGHT

[YoungHack]

It would be like MS saying you can't use MS Word if your using it to write up a document critical of MS, or to write up source code for something competing with an MS product.

Is this a joke? That's apparently exactly the license on FrontPage 2002. You may not disparage Microsoft.

Re:BitKeeper's the enemy, Stallman was RIGHT

[Anonymous Coward]

The EULA which you critqued is for the free version of bitkeeper, not the purchased version. Thus anti-competive/anti-trust issues do not come into play here. Also note that Microsoft has been adding rules into it's EULA not allowing their software they distribute freely to run on non-windows operating systems (thus blocking WINE).

I noticed you used the word 'draconian' 3 times! Good for you, it is quite clear you know what the word means and where it comes from. In fact, i imagine you have studied Draco's code of law in your free time.

Re:BitKeeper's the enemy, Stallman was RIGHT

[richardmguy]

It would be like MS saying you can't use MS Word if your using it to write up a document critical of MS, or to write up source code for something competing with an MS product.

Actually it would be more like MS producing a free version of Word but requiring that if you used that version of Word for *anything* you can't even use a competitors product for criticising Microsoft.

Not even MS goes that far.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Commercial software relies on CONSUMERS AND COMPETITION to keep it honest enough that computers can actually remain a useful tool to the human race.

How do you then explain Miscrosoft? At every corner, they try their damnbest to force you to use a computer their way. They are the single biggest pusher of DRM stuff at the moment, for the sole reason that once DRM is required by Law their products will be the only ones compatible with DRM regulations--furthering their monopoly!

Don't think for a minute that most companies don't wish to be as successful as MS. The only way they will make it is to be as ruthless, if not more so, than MS.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[XaXXon]

So, I sent Mr McVoy an email back stating that wasn't sure exactly why I couldn't post his pricelist. He responded that it was on the price sheet and that I had missed it. He was correct about that. I had checked the top and bottom of the price listing and seen nothing regarding redistribution.

This is one of the emails I got back:


[my email quoted]
> But I suppose I'll take it down. And you're causing your company more
> material damages in what you're doing than what I'm doing.
[his email]
Actually, every time you slashdot kiddies get your undies in a bundie our
sales go up. Thanks.


Just thought I'd share that..

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[EconomyGuy]

This is where I begin to realize just how badly the open source community needs economists to get involved. To say that: "Free software depends on a few companies' ability to actually make money developing and using free software." indicates a misunderstanding of economic principles.

Any action that increases some other action's efficiency could consceivably become a business. This is where the consulting crazy comes from. Now, many /.ers out there seem to really hate consultants... but if they can help a business become more efficient, they help generate new revenue for the company, thus earning their keep in the modern economy.

I believe this is how free software will finally integrate into the common marketplace. It is such an incredibly efficient system that it blows proprietary systems out of the water. Yes programmers will have to be paid (we can't go on forever being volunteers... people gotta eat) but when it becomes apparent that those companies who are utilizing free software are spending less money to achieve the same goal (hence more efficient) everyone who is interested in the bottom line will switch over.

This is where the GPL becomes SO VERY IMPORTANT. As everyone starts using free software, new needs will develop, a company may need some new function. So they hire a programmer to write up some code to extend a GPLed program... and through the magic of RMS, everyone benefits.

This is only a framework for how the free software model might work... and its going to take a lot of economic research to understand the different components. But I maintain that you will not need companies who make free software in the future... you need companies who use free software and are willing to have a few programmers on staff to help contribute back.

But if this is going to succeed, we need to show the world how we can make things more efficient.

completely redundant comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

buying a hammer to manufacture a competing hammer maybe.

I TOLD YOU SO

[Anonymous Coward]

All you lamers think Linus walks on water. Well, suck on this.

And by the way. It's GNU/Linux.

Go ahead and mod me down. You dot-goners don't get it anyways.

Re:I TOLD YOU SO

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be such a pansy... yes.. this is /. so agreeing with rms is an instant karma drop. A religious site not a technical one so yea.. expect a post critizing Linus for making a horrible choice to be quickly hidden by overzealous mods.

But damnit.. take the Karma hit.. for freedoms sake! :)

yes, for the free license dummy

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure RH has enough money to buy decent development tools

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[Synn]

Frankly that doesn't suprise me. From his email to Ben Collins he doesn't strike me as the most mature person in the world.

If you want to survive in business you do it through value-adding, giving the customer more than the competitor. Changing EULA's and keeping your prices "confidential"(because they're rediculously high?) doesn't cut the mustard.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

Take your yearly salary, divide by 2000 hours (ok maybe 1850 for our european friends), that's your hourly rate.

I'm VERY glad to say it isn't. Roughly 260 weekdays (Monday to Friday) in a year, 25 days annual leave, approx 10 days of public holidays give me 225 working days in a year. Times 7.25 hours a day gives 1,631 hours a year.

What insane sort of hours do Americans work to get 2000 hours a year? If I was you I'd be leaving for a job that gave me more time to call my own, even if it means a lower salary at least you'd have time in which to spend it.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[virtual_mps]

keeping your prices "confidential"(because they're rediculously high?)

Actually, companies in that sort of business often don't like to advertise their prices because the price the customer pays is negotiable, and they don't want one customer to have any idea what other customers are paying. (Because they'd all want the same price, of cours.)

Bzzt, thanks for playing

[Xtifr]

Would it sit well with you as a kernel developer if, for instance, microsoft was using linux as their development platform for their next OS?

Bad analogy. This is more like saying that anyone who works for Microsoft or Sun or Apple is forbidden from using Linux. Even if they work in the applications division, or as a secretary or administrator. Or even someone who doesn't work for MS/Sun/Apple, but who happens to helped one of those companies track down a bug in one of their OSes. Or, for that matter, anyone who has worked on, helped with, or who works for a company that has worked on or helped with BSD! (That evil BSD is just too darned free!)

In any case, I assure you that if MS were to consider using Linux as the base for their nextgen OS, most (probably all) kernel developers would sit up and cheer! (As long as MS followed the license terms.)

For a better analogy, imagine if KDE (which used to be non-free on a technicality) became truly non-free by forbidding anyone who has worked on (or who works for a company which has worked on) any competing desktop systems from using the system (note: using, not just redistributing, which is all the GPL ever addresses).

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[gmhowell]

Well, shit, that just cemented it for me. Thanks for the linkage attempt.

RIAA, MPAA, BK.

Re:If you have to ask for price, you can't afford

[puetzk]

$5000 per seat, IIRC.

So plenty :-)

Re:ReIllegal that is such crap blood flows vermill

[mpe]

The EULA is a piece of crap, in general, its a bullshit pile of legalese crap and cruft, and no one ever reads them, and when they do, they find all sorts of stupid, irrelevant and contradictory crap.

A lot of EULAs appear to be made up of boilerplate, which contains a large amount of bluff, in the often correct assumption, that few people know what the actual legal situation is. If people don't know they have certain rights it can be quite easy to fool them in to believing that they don't...

And the states and the federal government, particularly a jury of peers, is likely to override bullshit EULA contracts in favor of laws protecting consumers.

Assuming the case actually got to court. Quite often threats of lawsuits are used or the plaintiff wants to stretch the thing out as long as possible (especially if they have deep pockets).

Too much

[nurb432]

Im sorry, but this sort of stuff is way out of line.

Its as abad as the sun license where you cant give away J2EE stuff..

Its MY code.. MY company..

This is true for pnuematic nail guns

[TooLazyToLogon]

I have a hacked Paslode that can shoot Hatachi nails.

Linus does not seem too concerned

[Anonymous Coward]

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=1 03 388364206058&w=2

In article <1033861827.4441.31.camel@irongate.swansea.linux.o rg.uk>,
Alan Cox <alan@xxxxx> wrote:
>
>Linus used to do about a patch every 2 days. Nowdays its a lot slower. I
>put that down to buttkeeper

Don't be silly, Alan.

I don't do any pre-patches or daily patches any more, because it's all
automated. There are several snapshot bots that give you patches a lot
more often than "every 2 days". You don't need BK to use it, it's there
in the good old diff format.

(I haven't checked whether the auto-patches do a good job of doing
changelogs too, but since all the changelogs I generate for the _real_
releases are also automated and I make the tools I use to generate them
available, that's certainly not anything fundamental).

So yes, you can "put it down to bitkeeper" in the sense that it's
because of the automation that BK allows that I don't _need_ to
personally do pre-patches any more.

"Big boo-hoo, bitkeeper is evil, and Linus doesn't manually do any more
what BK plus a few scripts does better for us automatically."

Linus

Why don't we do what blender did?

[PaddyM]

Why don't we donate until the GPL Bitkeeper?

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[Synn]

5-6K is still extremely high. MS Sourcesafe is only 600 bucks. Hell I can get .NET enterprise architect for a measly 2.5k.

MONO developers take notice....

[Jerry]

Microsoft won't be as "friendly" as McVOY in 'preventing competition', but they won't show their claws until the MONO work is essentially done and lots of Linux coders have followed the pied pipper Icaza into the .NET honeypot. THEN they will release a modified EULA preventing the use of .NET or .NET compatible tools in conjuction with GPL software projects of any kind. They have already done this with a certain SDK.

That's why I won't be using MONO or .NET. I also downloaded BitKeeper, but before I read the entire license, including the non-compete stuff. After I read it I deleted the packaged.

I'm still looking around for a CVS replacement. I will look at Subversion but does anyone know of an FTP for Arch? The Arch site is down permenantly.

A side note: Judging from the number and flavor of posts on this and other topics that diss the GPL and Open Souce, and extoll the virtues of propriatary code and restrictive EULAs, it seems to me that the number of WinXX users are consistantly exceeding the number of Linux users on Slasdot. Anyone else notice this?

Source Control System

[Phenylene]

Does anyone have a decent comparison of the different source control systems (i.e. ClearCase vs. CVS vs. BitKeeper, etc, etc)?

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[hobit]

My first thought was that this whole set of posts from XaXXon was a troll of some sort. But a quick search of bitkeeper's website leads me to believe that the prices he stated are close to reality. The more "basic" version of the tool costs $400-$800 per seat.

Also this page indicates a pricing of about $2000/year/seat for the real tool.

The "panties" quote I can't verify :-)

Mark

Bait-and-switch will get them what they deserve.

[Futurepower(R)]

"The sad part is that many software companies tries to control HOW you use the program, WHO uses it and WHAT they use it for."

Yes, and changing the license AFTER you have already started using the software is bait-and-switch.

Thanks to this abusive policy, Bitkeeper now has tons and tons of bad publicity. With certainty, the bad publicity will cost them more than any extra money they would have made from the bait-and-switch. Incidentally, did I mention bait-and-switch?

Every company that would have paid for the Bitkeeper product interprets this sneaky activity very clearly: If they can do sneaky things to Linus, they can do this to our company, too. We should stay away from them. They are not trustworthy.

This is typical of technically capable people who know nothing about marketing and think there is nothing to know: Work for years to build the product, and sink the company in an afternoon.

Truly innovative industry leaders like Microsoft would never do something so low and mean as change the contract after companies have already decided to use the product: EULA (End User License Agreement) for a security bug fix. (Don't croak, it's a joke. Don't blink, read the link.)

VA Software, owner of Slashdot, uses a sneaky tactic, also. As you can see from the stock price, the VA Software executives are people of great business insight. At the top of every Slashdot article, it says, "The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them." This sounds like you own your comments, doesn't it? However, the OSDN Terms of Service says at section 4, CONTENT, paragraph 6, that they own your comments, too. It's as though Chevy sold you a car, but gave its executives the right to come around and use it, also. (I don't like sneakiness. All my comments belong solely to me. Slashdot would not have the importance it has now if the members knew that they were losing control over their writing.)

It's no fun to work at an abusive company. We are seeing a rise in the number of sneaky contracts. This seems due to, not only technically capable people who are ignorant of marketing, but also the presence of people with no technical knowledge at technically oriented companies. These people cannot contribute to the real work of the companies; all they can do is invent ways to abuse the customer.

As companies become more abusive, it becomes more miserable to work there. If you are good at what you do, quit and get a job somewhere where people are treated like people.

The final EULA: EULAs are becoming more and more abusive. I decided to jump several steps ahead and write the final EULA:

1. I can do anything I like.
2. You have no power.
3. You can't say anything bad about me.
4. Everything belongs to me.

I knew a 3-year-old who said this. He has since become an adult, which is more than I can say for some executives.

OpenSource wants to be free...and IS.

[rgsmith]

How about the SourceForge analogy?
Suppose someone were using SourceForge's free service to develop a product which would compete directly with SourceForge's commercial offering.

You mean like this?

Xoops Forge

Of dikes and fingers....

[wcdw]

This can do nothing positive except possibly generate some short term income for Bitkeeper, while at the same time has enormous negative - and long-term - consequences for same.

Forcing open source projects which are evolved enough to bootstrap onto their own code typically causes a rapid bug-fix cycle (), which is never a bad thing. For those that aren't evolved enough, having to spend unnecessary work (or money) will simply provide motivation to increase those efforts so that said bootstrapping can happen. And closed source efforts are either already licensed or can simply ignore the new dictum (so long as those political realities do not yield internal squealers, anyway).

I, for one, would be interested to see the hard numbers in license acquisition and renewals for BK for say a year in either direction of this moment - but ultimately I think they're pretty predictable.

Perhaps BK will 'merge' with MickeySoft, and disappear like so many before it....

Predictions:

[Futurepower(R)]

Predictions:

Within 18 months, Linus will stop using Bitkeeper. This will get the Bitkeeper company an enormous amount of additional free negative publicity.

Within 3 years, the Bitkeeper company will be on the edge of bankruptcy.

Within 6 years, if someone mentions Bitkeeper on Slashdot, people will say, "Bit Who?"

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[Frater 219]

I'm not exactly sure why I'm not allowed to post it, as nothing says "you may not post this", but it is copyrighted to them, but I don't really know what that means.

The text of the price list can be copyrighted. The fact that company X offered to sell you product Y for price Z cannot, as it is expressions and not facts or ideas that are copyrighted. IANAL, but unless you're under an NDA or another contract not to disclose the prices you were offered, I think you can safely tell someone else what those prices were. Copyright on the price list just means you have to express those facts in your own words.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have modded you up, but I've already posted to this discussion. :) (The other disturbing thing is the way the license terms keep changing as BitMover think of new people/companies/etc. to go onto their shitlist...)

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[bullestock]

But then BK is easily ten times better than SourceUnsafe.

Re:ReIllegal that is such crap blood flows vermill

[Chandon Seldon]

Actually, the scary fact of the matter is that in the EULA cases that *have* resolved through the court system, the courts have tended to uphold the EULAs.

In some states, laws have gone through that *explicitly* back software EULAs.

Now, they're pretty lame and should be ruled invalid, but that's not how the current legal situation is.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[shlong]

Printing all you source onto paper and throwing into a fire is usally safer than SourceSafe. Is it any wonder than MS doesn't "eat their own dog food" in this respect? I'm too lazy to dig up the references, but it's a well known secret that WinNT/2K/etc is developed on Perforce.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[forgoil]

And I who was under the impression that NT/2K/XP was developed using a piece of software that M$ bought and seems to have the same ancestory as perforce does. If someone really wants to know exactly feel free to dig it up on Microsoft's pages. They have a lot of information out there.

Source safe is, and apparently will remain so, a toy that is useful for small businesses. It does what it is supposed to do, but not much more. For hard core development I personally can recommend the excellent piece of software called perforce. Heck, they even give away free licenses to free software developers. Perforce rocks!

yes they are

[MenTaLguY]

BK is in the range of several thousand dollars per seat.

Now that Larry's got the Linux kernel development going through BK, he's trying to hold it hostage and extort money.

Regardless of intent, that's what this amounts to.

Re:Bait-and-switch will get them what they deserve

[justdisguyyaknow]

"(I don't like sneakiness. All my comments belong solely to me. Slashdot would not have the importance it has now if the members knew that they were losing control over their writing.)"

If you believe this, why don't you just send a nasty-gram to VA and claim some sort of DMCA violation for repoducing your owned works? (Or alternatively, claim that the "you own it" language is fraudulent.)

I'm sure a letter to their lawyers will at least get them to change the text that makes you angry (one way or another). Clearly, posting comments in places like this hasn't made you any happier. ;-]

(Actually, it looks like you may be out of luck. It appears that the terms of service say that you _do_ own your comments, just as the footnote says (Section 4, five or six paragraphs in). You just grant OSDN the right to repoduce and do other things with them -- sound like any popular licenses we've heard of? I imagine if someone _else_ were to reproduce your content, you'd still be able to send them legitimate nastygrams as the owners.)

Subversion vs BitKeeper

[aled]

Could someone give us a Subversion vs BitKeeper technical comparision?

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[dubl-u]

No, I am upset because it is used to develop Linux (which is free) and because is the only non free tool used to do it.

Then perhaps you should go out there and write something so that kernel development can go smoothly without the use of commercial tools.

Until you release that, perhaps the Linux kernel team could carry on as it is. Linux benefits millions of people and is the poster child for the open source movement. I'd say tiny questions about its philosophical purity are vastly outweighed by the benefits that come from its progress.

Snapshots

[Anonymous Coward]

One individual posted a friendly notice on the lkml thread: "...Linus snapshots are available on a 3-hourly basis..." I hadn't fully realized the kind of worship this man gets...

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[dubl-u]

RIAA, MPAA, BK

I see somebody had an extra bowl of Drama Flakes for breakfast.

RIAA and MPAA want complete control over all media distribution so that they can extract monopoly rents. They eagerly manipulate public opinion, corrupt our government, and sue anybody they can.

BitKeeper has so far only tried to exercise a modicum of control over the free version of their own software, so that you don't use it to put them out of business. Plus they don't want their price list public, a pretty common thing for businesses to do.

I know this is Slashdot, but you should at least try to keep your hyperbole plausible.

What do you feel is threatening you?

[Uggy]

In my company (Free software based) we get our investors always talking about competition and patenting the living shit out of everything we can get our hands on. They talk about NDA's, closing stuff, hiding stuff, denying access to etc.

My response has been and will always be: "What are you afraid of? Our clear objective is to do it better, keep our lead, solve customers' problems, give good service, and not sit on our asses and collect checks."

Just do it better. There are enough incompetent people in the world. We shouldn't have such a weak view of ourselves that we fear THEM, should we?

Investors don't like to hear that, but then I suppose, it's hard to keep fear from the equation.

If Bitkeeper really wants to be around they should just make sure their product is better than the competition's. If there exists someday a free software alternative that is as good, they they had better make sure they excel in the service area, that they respond quickly and promptly to their clients' needs.

If the free software alternative exceeds their closed source version, then they should switch to it. They could lay off part of their developers, save a bundle, and hire more service folks. They can then happily maintain their extraordinaryily content clients with the high level of support and care to which they have become acustomed.

It's really simple, IMHO. Your fear will end up consuming you until such a time as you end up nothing but an insane reactionary, screaming and hurling insults at your last loyal client.

Re:What do you feel is threatening you?

[Rik van Riel]

If Bitkeeper really wants to be around they should just make sure their product is better than the competition's.

And guess what? This is exactly what bitkeeper is doing. There are a half-dozen other ways to grab the latest Linux kernel source code, you don't need bitkeeper.

The reason people use bitkeeper anyway is that it's the best tool (for them). There is no vendor lock-in or any other reason people should use bitkeeper, except for the quality of the tool.

Don't believe me? Look at my own repository with the latest Linux kernel sources, you can grab all of them without using bitkeeper!

Re:What do you feel is threatening you?

[Vulture_]

Investors don't like to hear that, but then I suppose, it's hard to keep fear from the equation.

That's because investors are bean-counters. Bean-counters are, by definition, paranoid. Paranoid people are, by definition, fearful.

Don't bother with investors. They've become quite useless to ethically managed companies after they got bit by the dot-coms. Even if they do invest in you, they're likely to use their new stake in your company to fire you and replace you with someone as unethical and paranoid as them. They don't trust nice guys like you, because, as the old saying goes, "nice guys finish last".

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[vegetablespork]

Actually, every time you slashdot kiddies get your undies in a bundie our sales go up. Thanks.

It's more likely he was needling you than that there's any truth to that. Sure does show he's someone whose company I wouldn't want to do business with, though.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[vegetablespork]

IOW, they practice price discrimination and don't want to be obvious about it. Thus, part of due diligence is to find out what you can from colleagues informally about what they paid.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[ftobin]

I'm surprised that the PDF hasn't turned up on Gnutella, Freenet, or on newsgroups posted anonymously.

Re:Illegal-Soap Opera:"As the 'license' change."

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, BitKeeper isn't saying they won't -sell- licenses to competitors. Just that competitors can't use the free license. The Commerical license does not have the problem clause."

Yet! There's really no reason from their standpoint to keeping that "addition" from the commercial license. Free software "competition" is what BK is afraid of, and don't wish to help in their "potential" demise. However Free software competes against both the free and the commercial version. Right now BK's assets is brand name, support, and features. Free can undermine the last two, and the first is not really relevent. So the question now is "does the community cut loose now, or later?", because switching to the pay version doesn't come with any guarentees that it will stay the same. Just ask the MP3 people that.

Re:Consider ethics and software freedom.-MP3

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of Irony. Did you even read the link YOU provided? The present situation "abritrary changing of the license" is covered. That fact also covers your "stop being a cheap bastard and pay for an "unrestricted" hammer.". That "hammer" is supject to a companies whim (be it good or bad). Being free or pay will never change that fact, as long as BK exist. Looking at the issue from BK's POV, competition is a bad thing because it implies risk. Free competition has, and will compete against free versions as well as pay versions. You'd think that the MP3 license issue would have taught people something, apparently not.

Re:Bait-and-switch will get them what they deserve

[Blue Stone]

Perhaps it's time that EULA's were seen for the bogus things they are, whereby cretinous morons get their hands on a new power toy, and feel like they're making up new laws for the universe.

Perhaps there needs to be provision in law for open source software, such as a specially formulated copyright-type thing, that costs no money, and needs only be advertised my some alternate "®" or "(TM)" or "©" and a date, instead of an EULA, and isn't revisionable.

There's a law, a human rights law, both UN and EU at least, that says that no law shall be made retrospectively.
(You can't creat a law that would cause someone to be imprisoned/fined, for comitting an act that took place prior to the law's enactment.)

I have no idea, but I wonder if this principle would be applicable to such revisionist statements, made in EULA's, if it ever went to court, since it's a fairly solid ethical protection in law itself (as opposed to a eula "contract.")

Funny comment

[fire-eyes]

http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel /0210.0/1652.html

> Whether you like BK or not, it is the primary source management tool
> used by Linus and others, it is even documented in the source tree as
> such.

I don't care about bk and I wouldn't care about such questions either, if
Larry wouldn't use every such opportunity to publicly jerk off about bk.

bye, Roman

One has a moral obligation...

[hackwrench]

to be themselves, and to use all power at their disposal to bring about the realization of their vision.

Timothy: This needs added to the main story

[fire-eyes]

This little sidestory is important. It needs to be added onto the rest of the story, although I'm not sure how you get that done.

Re:Timothy: This needs added to the main story

[Anonymous Coward]

"-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it."

Its great that you have such an open mind. BTW, if you don't read the reply, how will you know whether or not someone agrees with you?

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[fire-eyes]

Some of us could make it appear on giFT, no idea who those people possibly could be though.

"best tool" is silly

[dkh]

"chose the best tool for the job" is a rather silly notion when you think about...

This shinney widget will do exactly what you want it to do plus it will entertain you grandma. By the way... the price is $1M plus your first born son.

Or...we could use this thingy instead. It does pretty much what we want. We may have to cobble some other utitlies into the mix but it will get the job done well and true. It'll cost you, say, $3.50.

Best tool for the job sounds good. I'll give you that but if you look at it at the extremes it falls apart. A better sentiment would be "Choose the most appropriate tool for the job".

Re:"best tool" is silly

[zsmooth]

It all depends on how you define "best".

Interoperability and/or Migration Tools

[jcavanaugh]

Is this then a strategy to make illegal the use of BK to migrate to another tool?? Very interesting. Bait n Switch, then make it soo difficult to migrate you cant.

If Im reading this correctly. It is now against the license to use BK to facilitate moving from BK to another tool (regardless of what it is).

Is this correct??

This is unbelievably arrogant for a tool vendor. Along the lines of you cant use Word if you are working on OpenOffice.

Frankly Im aghast at this situation. Im all for BK making a buck, but this barrier to moving to other tools crosses the line IMNSHO.

I believe Linus needs to speak up on this topic before things get out of hand.

--John Cavanaugh

Racial discrimination laws are mostly...

[Anonymous Coward]

justified under the Commerce Clause. For instance see Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States et al.

discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

"Beggars can't be choosers"

This is plain ridiculous; If the license said "you can't use it for free if you are a redhead (or vote Democrat, or...)", would you still consider it a right for the developer to say so ?

Even for a gift, you have limited rights.

Linux proliferation

[Chris Johnson]

I was just reading another 'windows will rule for 1000 years' spiel and as always it mentioned 'unless they really do come up with a better user interface paradigm'.

Seems to me that the real silver bullet- and this article reminds me of it for very obvious reasons- will be a better user RIGHTS paradigm.

Interface is a solved problem. User rights is very much in flux. I suggest that Linux should concentrate on guarding the user (and developer) rights paradigm. Under Free Software there's no distinction anyway- you're allowed.

BitKeeper should be spanked- and it should be a wake-up call. Their need for a business model can go pound sand- it does not contribute to the better USER RIGHTS paradigm that Linux needs to be able to offer.

A "take-back"?

[GreyWizard]

From where I stand, RMS's stance on the LGPL is a take-back that is just as damaging, if not more so, as the EULA change being discussed. LGPL gives you a lot more choice in terms of integrating free and proprietary subsystems and components. Where free libraries have significantly extended functionality, he explicitly recomends GPL over LGPL.

Exactly how is this a "take-back" or in any way comparable to the BitMover EULA changes? The closest comparison would be a copyright holder re-releasing a particular library under the GPL rather than the LGPL after a certain version (if indeed that has ever happened), but even that is much less malignant because there is no direct attempt to curtail competition. The GPL and LGPL are concerned with the license of derivative works and are otherwise content neutral.

This is the one case where I would claim that it goes beyond style, and the message itself actually hurts the movement.

How so? It clearly hurts your employer, but the production of a clever proprietary tool cannot -- by definition -- help the free software movement. The higher the quality of such a tool, the less incentive there is for people to assist in the creation of a free alternative. Furthermore, you now have an excellent argument to make to your employer: "if we choose to license our tools under the GPL we can use this body of well-tested and freely available code to get a head start."

Re:A "take-back"?

[Gerry Gleason]

It's a take-back because the LGPL came into being because in many cases strict GPL made it difficult or at least questionable to even use GPL tools in the production of software for sale. Then much later RMS decides that too many people are using LGPL and he doesn't like it. That's a take back as far as I'm concerned. Who really cares to debate which is worse, I don't.

Making something LGPL instead of GPL doesn't make it or any derivatives any less available to the community, but it does mean there are fewer situation that you can use the code in. In my opinion it is a good thing for Free Source libraries to become widely used, and a bad thing to duplicate efforts. Limiting the use of LGPL does bad and limits good. It also makes the GPL is viral arguments true, or at least seem true and that isn't good either.

I don't have an employer to please at the moment, so I have no outside motivation to influence my opinion in this matter. You are free to think differently. The argument that GPL code is 'better' is not persuasive if it doesn't fit in their business model. Not everyone has academic salaries or other means of support, so these are real concerns of people who support the idea of Free Source in a deep way.

The no incentive to create a free alternative is bogus. If you think that, you are too concerned with the short term. In the long term the GPL model will win, and the flexibility of the LGPL is a good thing. Freedom is about choice after all.

Re:A "take-back"?

[GreyWizard]

The no incentive to create a free alternative is bogus. If you think that, you are too concerned with the short term.

Please pay more attention. I didn't say there would be no incentive, but that there would be less. And there would indeed be less, because while there are people (including myself) to whom freedom is important, there are plenty who don't want to think about it. The lower the quality of proprietary tools, the more willing those people will be to assist in the development of free alternatives. I agree that the free software movement is likely to prevail, but I would rather see that happen sooner than later.

Do NOT use BitKeeper: Please read

[Anonymous Coward]

It is common knowledge that BitKeeper has to be nursed to work properly.

Professionals won't use it because support is spotty and it not enterprise ready.

As I said, it doesn't show up on the list of enterprise list from Gartner, Yankee Group or any other tracking entity.

I suppose its mostly used by companies run by 22 year olds who don't understand the huge downside of using this software.

But hey, the owner of the company threatening people for telling other people the price, so *I GUESS THAT MAKES IT OKAY????*

Really, who would use crap like this?

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Nathaniel]

"So many people here are getting all upset because BitKeeper is not free."

I'm not at all upset by this change to BitKeeper, but I am even more sad than I was the last time (months ago) that I heard anything about BitKeeper.

At that time I read the licence and determined I'd be unable (unwilling) to have anything to do with Linux kernel development for the forseeable future because accepting BitKeeper's license was effectively a cost of entry that I couldn't (wouldn't) pay.

This change comes as no surprise to me, but it is pointless to say 'saw that coming', as it doesn't help eleviate the burden others are stuck with.

What makes me really sad is that other people are being forced to decide which free projects they will continue to work on and which free projects they will have to stop working on, and these painful dicsisions are the direct result of what is likely to turn out to have been a bad financial choice on BitMover's part anyway.

So much needless suffering for so little benefit.

Some people like to be sodomized.

[Martin Marvinski]

Most people think something is worthless if it is free. Human psychology makes people need to be sodomized before they can appreciate something, whether it is through high cost (Oracle), or restrictive licensing (MS and Bitkeeper). It takes a rare breed of humans to truly appreciate free software, and that's probably why Linux is used by only 2% of computer users.

Re:Some people like to be sodomized.

[Anonymous Coward]

So true!!! You are 100% right! I can't count how many times my boss didn't go with an open source solution because he didn't think it was "good enough" because of the "if it were so great, why aren't they selling it" mentality. My boss is a nudnik because we are down 2 days a week due to Microsoft servers being down for patching.

Larry's shorts are too tight

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would buy software from a guy like this?

Hey Larry. I would choose 1 size looser on your shorts. Apparently its squeezing the crap from your colon back into your brain.

Honestly, arguing with kids on slashdot. Yet another reason not to use that "software" you sell.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Well of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Larry's had his dirty laundry exposed here on /.

Lets go through it, shall we?

1) He looks bad in the initial article. So he's pissed.

2) Everybody points out that since he won't post his price he wants too much.

3) Subsequently, somebody posts the prices, and Larry gets his shorts in a knot.

4) Larry threatens to sue a bunch of kids.

5) Everybody laughs at Larry.

6) People start pointing out that the company is run by a bunch of incompetents.

7) Who would buy software from these guys?

8) I mean, personally, I don't care. But when I buy software, I try to buy from companies that are run by adults, but maybe if you pay that much for software, you'll accept whatever crap he throws over the fence.

My advice?

Read what Lunkhead Larry wrote and make your own decision? Whoops, didn't mean to say "Lunkhead". I'm sure Larry is doing well for somebody of his ability.

Re:Well of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful, if you are still calling him lunkhead at 8:00 AM he just might sue you.

*snicker*

BK is a toy, too

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it funny that you think BK is enterprise level stuff.

Its on the same level with SS. Seriously.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Nathaniel]

"Their stupid license isn't what's the problem. The problem is people who refuse to consider paying for their software. Not even an option to consider? Nobody on this whole topic has even brought up the actual number of dollars - no need to, because spending money is out of the question. You're willing to hamper your project because you're not willing to even consider paying money. "

The price isn't the main objection I'm hearing people raise, but even that may be a perfectly legitimate objection based on what the price is and how much someone who wants to participate in kernel development can spend. (Remember to consider developers in foreign contries before claiming that any particular price is affordable, no matter how small it may seem to you.)

The main objection people are raising is that the license appears to require that people pick sides in an ideological conflict that shouldn't exist. Either you use BitKeeper and you side with their imposed view of which other projects you may also work on, or you reject BitKeeper's restrictions and you don't get to participate in projects that require the use of BitKeeper in order to participate.

The ideal model (which people are upset with BitKeeper for breaking) is that you may participate in whichever set of projects you wish, without artificial restrictions.

Consider a person you wants to contribute to the development of both Linux and CVS. Before this license change by BitKeeper, there were no obvious restictions on a persons ability to do this. With this new clause, such a person will have to give something up.

My take...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't use BitKeeper. Frankly, I've never heard of it.

But the reaction of Larry somebody-or-other (I guess the president) has the feel of desperation.

Lets face fact here...

The economy isn't great right now. I realize some of you think its horrible. Its not. its just a little tight. But in this economy, Bitkeeper software has to be seen as a luxury (I'm a managing director at a large company, so that is my view right now, and my view is not unique).

That means they aint' selling lots of licenses.

They're probably taking a big hit on the initial purchase price so they can get that $1K annuity from each developer that uses it, but that's precisely why people won't buy it because they don't want to commit future funds right now.

My point is that this is a company that *might* be in trouble. If I was considering buying anything from them (and after this nonsense, I won't), I would ask to see some financials.

Can anyone do a D&B on them to see what their credit is?

Little kids can write fine code

[Anonymous Coward]

And they also act like asses.

BK is exhibit "A".

Every "movement" has one of these...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Amiga, OS/2, BeOS.

There are guys like this.

In 18 months, they'll disappear. You'll only know about this on dejanews/google.

If I thought about it, I could come up with 20 other companies just like this.

I remember going to developer conferences years ago. There was a kook called Leo Schwab. He was known for wearing some weird crap. But he was an utter utter jerk. In hindsight, I think he was emotionally "young" and this manifested itself in odd ways.

That's what we're seeing here. The guy who runs the place probably thinks he's brilliant. Really, he's a guy who runs a 2-bit software company. Guys like him are drawn to "movements".

Who gives a crap about him, really? He's probably still a virgin.

Larry, is this you?

[Anonymous Coward]

larry, why are you on /. hurling the f-bomb at people telling the truth?

sure...that's why

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't use BK.

They have *money* for decent tools. And they don't use BK.

Put that through the computer, Mr. Spock.

Oh c'mon

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just morons.

After reading through all the crap here from BK, why would anyone use anything from this company?

Seriously?

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[tomlord]

> [bk is a toy]

It was certainly designed for another era and, judging by second hand reports (e.g., it uses SCCS as a back end), is not the best foundation for today's economies.

arch is far, far better in that regard. Larry has stated a few times that it would take O($12M) for arch to catch-up with bk. I think that's roughly an order of magnitude too large and that the result would be an arch that surpasses bk.

That was *not* insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

You said:

"How so? I will contract with you if you do not own a firearm. If you do own a firearm, I will not contract with you."

How about:
"I will contract with you if you do not have children"

Or:
"I will do business with you only if you don't join the Democratic (or Republican) political parties"

Or:
"I will only let you eat in my restaurant if you agree not to criticize it to your friends".

Where do *YOU* think the limit of a EULA lies?

Re:That was *not* insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

"I will contract with you if you do not have children"

what law makes that illegal?

"I will do business with you only if you don't join the Democratic (or Republican) political parties"

What law makes that illegal?

"I will only let you eat in my restaurant if you agree not to criticize it to your friends".

What law makes that illegal?

Please let me know, local or federal. If you don't know, that's OK too, but it proves a point.

Of course it is illegal for some people to discriminate. For instance, my employer will happily fire me 'cause I'm a guy with long hair. "I will not hire you because you have long hair".

Why is that legal? Simply because it is not illegal. It MAY be illegal in certain places, but I know of none.

Similarly, it may be legal or illegal to discriminate against gun owners, gays, and others.

Remember, the Equal Rights Amendment was never passed! Hahahahaha.

Re:That was *not* insightful

[NotZed]

Of course it is illegal for some people to discriminate. For instance, my employer will happily fire me 'cause I'm a guy with long hair. "I will not hire you because you have long hair".

Why is that legal? Simply because it is not illegal. It MAY be illegal in certain places, but I know of none.

Well its not legal in any decent country. Unfair dismissal. An employee has a right to their job, they're not slaves.

Still not a "take-back"

[GreyWizard]

It's a take-back because the LGPL came into being because in many cases strict GPL made it difficult or at least questionable to even use GPL tools in the production of software for sale. Then much later RMS decides that too many people are using LGPL and he doesn't like it. That's a take back as far as I'm concerned.

The term "take-back" clearly implies that you were given something by someone who had a change of heart, and that as a result you are deprived of it. In the case of RMS frowning on the LGPL, we have the first and second, but not the third. No one has revoked the LGPL, nor have any projects I've heard of changed from LGPL to GPL licensing terms, so the term "take-back" can't possibly apply. Perhaps you can think of a project where the license was so changed, in which case I'll agree that (though in a somewhat crabbed sense, because you can still use the software versions prior to the license change) a take-back has occured.

I'll address the rest of your post in a separate reply.

Is this enforceable?

[Ninja Programmer]

This license stipulation doesn't sound enforceable. My recommendation: For anyone in the situtation where this applies, just violate the license. I don't think there is anything they can do to you.

CVS isn't usable (Re:Sure are full of themselves!)

[Rik van Riel]

Wow... We use CVS at work and certainly haven't felt it isn't "industrial enough" to handle what we're after. Quite the opposite in fact.

Now try using the same CVS repository with all the Linux kernel developers and part-time developers. Imagine a single CVS server with 10000 users and 3000 branches.

A source control system with a central repository just doesn't scale well enough, you need to have a system with distributed repositories and the ability to send diffs between any random developer. CVS and Subversion just don't cut it for a project as huge and active as the kernel.

Why serve the proprietary software industry again?

[GreyWizard]

The argument that GPL code is 'better' is not persuasive if it doesn't fit in their business model. Not everyone has academic salaries or other means of support, so these are real concerns of people who support the idea of Free Source in a deep way.

Proprietary software companies are not the only employers in the world -- in fact they employ less than 10% of software developers! The rest are working for companies that do something else but need specific software for some internal purpose. The right way to address the concerns of wages for free software developers is to create a robust free software industry, but even in the meantime there is no need to make the free software movement to pander to the interests and business models of proprietary software companies by watering down licenses.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[nolife]

Maybe BitKeeper can't help if Subversion takes that market on its own, but they are not going to help them do it.

What if Chevy forbid you from driving your Camaro to a Ford dealer. What if Cingular Wireless blocked the customer service and sales numbers for Sprint, AT@T, or NexTel?

What if all Compaq computers were forbidden from browsing Dell websites?

You could go on and on with dumb examples.

EULA's are not some type of new law. They can restate parts of the law (copyright notice etc..)but do not make any new ones. If you violate one of the vendors addon's what is the penalty? Voiding the clickthru "contract" and giving your one copy of the software back? Big deal.

The EULA's are all irrelevant

[The Terminator]

At least here in lovely Germany

It's ruling from our equivalent of the Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof)

CU

Whoa. A glitch in the matrix:

[Anonymous Coward]

The final EULA: EULAs are becoming more and more abusive. I decided to jump several steps ahead and write the final EULA:

1. I can do anything I like.
2. You have no power.
3. You can't say anything bad about me.
4. Everything belongs to me.

I knew a 3-year-old who said this. He has since become an adult, which is more than I can say for some executives.


This *exact* message was posted on slashdot before. When people rehash, do you have every post you saved so you can paste it back in and post it again? WTF? Honestly, someone please answer me, what in the fuck?

Thank you, please drive through.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper-removed from Google cache?

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally, docs pulled down by Nazis are available via Google cache, at least for a while. I wondered why the list wasn't available, when I ran across this blurb in a post to lkml:

[lm]: "I also walked away from Google when there were three people there (the full story is that I din't [sic] know it was $60M at Cobalt, I was guessing more like $5-12M million, but I was fully aware of what I was giving up at Google and it was certainly more, at least it is in my opinion)."[/lm]

I guess he didn't give up his contacts there, to make Google cache docs disappear so quickly...

Also, despite his 'SlashDot kiddies' comment, he follows this blog like a lovesick teenager. You'll note that Xaxxon posted his comment about the price list at 10:18AM, and Xaxxon posted that he had taken it down by 11:03. Pretty quick work by 'Larry the Lurker'. I hope he doesn't wear out his 'reload' button.

Do you?

[GreyWizard]

Free software depends on a few companies' ability to actually make money developing and using free software.

No, it doesn't. Software development does cost money, money which must come from somewhere, and profitable companies are one place money can come from, but not the only one. As a general rule, the greater the extent to which companies can make money through developing and using free software the more they will contribute to it. All of this we agree upon. However, this doesn't mean that every contribution should be accepted without thought for the consequences. Companies such as RedHat that manage to contribute without resorting to proprietary software are laudable, but those like Lindows are justifiably regarded with more skepticism.

Free software in general and Linux in particular have been around far longer than BitKeeper, and can thrive without it. While it's true that BitMover is entitled to choose the license they prefer for their product, their "contribution" to Linux is a dubious one for two reasons. First, whatever its technical merits, the philosophy it comes with is fundamentally defeatist. There are some problems, we are told, that free software just cannot address. Actually, there is no reason that someone with the same skills and motivation as Larry McVoy but with scruples couldn't do exactly what he's doing technically using a free software compatible business model. Second, the existance of high quality proprietary tools removes pressure to create good free ones, and is therefore a step backward for free software. Every kernel hacker who uses BitKeeper right now is someone who would otherwise have an incentive to contribute to Subversion otherwise, even if only in terms of testing, feedback and endorsement. A similar case can be made for free software friendly business models, which McVoy refuses even to discuss.

If you compete, why would you want BK for free?

[Kaz Kylheku]

Say I work on a competing version control system. Why would I care that they want to play sour grapes and deny me (so called) free use of their version control system?

I do work on a version control system, as a matter of fact. And indeed my only reason for installing BK would be to examine its good ideas and try to incorporate them into my program. Not that I care to do this, mind you, but hypothetically speaking.

Thus they are pretty damn right to demand payment for that kind of use of their product which leads to the potential erosion of their business.

And for actual version control, I use my own program, of course! I think that my program is the greatest thing; but not only that, I *must* use it so that I discover and fix bugs, and so that my experience with it grows and leads me to new directions. It would be counterproductive of me to work on this program, but then turn around and use BK or any other version control system. So I could not care less that BK doesn't want me to have free stuff; I have cooked my own dogfood and am eating that, thank you very much!

Also note that their clause works both ways. Suppose that I'm a developer working at Rational on the ClearCase product. BitKeeper could benefit from my experience; I could make contributions to their code if it was truly free. But, alas, they want me to pay for the privilege of sending them bug fixes. Oops; they will just have to lure me away from the competitor entirely. Knowledge flows both ways; what impedes one direction tends to impede the opposite one too.

Re:If you compete, why would you want BK for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I care that they want to play sour grapes and deny me (so called) free use of their version control system?

Will you or any of your coworkers ever want to contribute to any project that's managed in BK?

McVoy has always been

[Anonymous Coward]

a complete asshole - but now he has proved it definitively by cowering from free competition and expression. We don't need your technology, you fucking jerkoff. Subversion will do just fine.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[siphoncolder]

Two answers to that, depending how you choose to look at it.

1) They actually make something that the majority of people want. Many people like to use a computer the way they want; many MORE people want to be told how to use a computer. You gotta admit, MS excels at that.

2) People are too lazy to exercise their power as consumers to stop using Windows & other MS products.

Remember, MS DID have to compete early on to get acceptance in the marketplace. Their early competitors were the various other versions of DOS, Apple computers, OS/2, and to this day, *NIX. They competed with Lotus 123, Wordperfect (and their suites), they competed with Netscape, and today they're competing in server markets today. Don't accuse MS of not competing & relying on consumers, because they did and still do (even if it was questionable behaviour, they competed like mad).

Re:Prices for BitKeeper-removed from Google cache?

[acceleriter]

Or there's the non-conspiracy theoretic possibility that the document wasn't up long enough to get cached to begin with. Not as interesting, though, I'll admit.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

40 hrs/wk * (52 wks - 2 wks vacation) = 2000 hrs

Yep. We're wage-slaves over here. Sad thing is most people don't realize it, and most who do think it's a good thing.

Freedom. Ha.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot.

BitKeeper SUCKS!

[rice_burners_suck]

BitKeeper SUCKS! See Linus... We TOLD YOU SO!

Seriously. I hate it when companies put STUPID clauses in their license agreements. What happened to the good ol' days when you bought a piece of software for what it does, regardless of what you wanted to do with it? The next thing you know, we'll have legislation passed that forbids the use of a Craftsman tool in the making of a competing tool.

This is particularly devastating when you consider that every piece of technology this world knows is based on other technologies, other discoveries, and other things done by "the competition." The first hammer might have been a rock. That rock may have been used to form a better hammer. Do you see where I'm going with this? Before you know it, people build computers, rather than hammers, and the first computer operating system probably had to be entered with toggle switches on a panel. That operating system might have been used to make an operating system that was read in with punch cards. That may have been used to create yet another operating system that worked with magnetic tapes. And so on and so forth. An even better example of this is a compiler. If you want to make your own compiler, chances are that you will NEED to use your competition's compiler, at least until your own compiler can compile itself. If using your competition's products to make your own is not allowed, then the advancement of technology in the world will likely grind to a halt. (Because making your own compiler with toggle switches on a panel will put you right back at the beginning, from where it will take you a good 30 to 40 years to get to where we are right now.)

In other words, BitKeeper SUCKS!

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey genius, do you have any idea what freedom is?
the EULA is restricting your rights as
individual..."

No it isn't. It's your choice, use it or not.

"and its actually restricting you from doing
something completely unrelated to the use of the
program. THAT is f-king insane..."

Eh? Nothing insane about wanting you not to
clone their product and put them out of business.
Did you read Larry's comments, because that's
what this guy said he was going to do, thus the
license.

Bk is a great tool, my engineers use it every
day and we pay for it because it's worth it. And
Larry has every right to insist that You not use
it to rip off him and his ideas. He would have
the same right if it was a piece of crap (which
it's not).

You know what is "f-king insane"? Every time
someone makes something the _Slashdot Children
want_ they through a fit and rattle the evil
business stick. It hurts the company they
target, and you know what? OpenSource hackers
working there and their families go hungry.

Grow up and move out of your parent's basement.
This is the real world. People have to get paid
to eat, never mind code. I've heard too many
people in OpenSource companies say they want to
open everything. how many are still in business
that did that? Not one. Only companies people
BUY product from stay in business, everyone else
go under and their employees are out of work or
doing something else so they can _subsidise free
software_.

MAN AM I PISSED OFF. OPEN EVERYTHING YOU CAN,
YES IT'S A GOOD PRACTICE THAT LEADS TO HUGE
GAINS FOR THE COMMONS AND FOR DEVELOPMENT
PROJECTS.

CLOSE WHAT YOU NEED TO EAT, LIFE IS REAL AND
YOU CAN'T LIVE ON FREE SOFTWARE.

Re:Prices for BitKeeper (from BitKeeper) - removed

[Lac]

He probably just means that his sales go up every day.

Re:BitMover is NOmore

[Anonymous Coward]

yo fuck nuts. your analogy blows donkey balls.

first thing i would say if i was Linus, "linux is so good that even microsoft is using it"

period.

Next you know

[BrainInAJar]

Next you know this clause'll be in MS VC++.

You cannot make another IDE if you're going to use visual studio

Re:CVS isn't usable

[shadowtramp]

First of all i should note that i won't put under the question your expirience.

I just want to point on some huge project being in development for long time, that accept entries by numerous developers and blah-blah: www.xfree86.org

Let us put aside comparisons of X and Kernel. There are other projects i know of that are huge and ...

I agree that CVS do have very annoying limitations. I just would like to state that in my not so humble opinion BitKeepr has not so much real advantages over CVS for it to worth so much attention.

Re:Theo de Raadt and Richard M. Stallman were righ

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should get better informed before spreading shit like this.

- The only licensing restriction of IPFilter is more or less that they require some credits in the code if you modify it.
- FreeBSD has _0_ patented SMP code from BSD/OS, this is utterly wrong. BSDi donated the BSD/OS 5.0 code for FreeBSD _5.0_, and this code is _not_ patented.

Re:Bait-and-switch will get them what they deserve

[kyhwana]

"VA Software, owner of Slashdot, uses a sneaky tactic, also. As you can see from the stock price [yahoo.com], the VA Software executives are people of great business insight. At the top of every Slashdot article, it says, "The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them." This sounds like you own your comments, doesn't it? However, the OSDN Terms of Service [osdn.com] says at section 4, CONTENT, paragraph 6, that they own your comments, too. It's as though Chevy sold you a car, but gave its executives the right to come around and use it, also. (I don't like sneakiness. All my comments belong solely to me. Slashdot would not have the importance it has now if the members knew that they were losing control over their writing.) "

Auctally, you DO own your coments and anything you post. Look up the word "non-exclusive" sometime. You give them a non-exclusive license to store/repost/etc your comments. You still own them.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Vulture_]

So many people here are getting all upset because BitKeeper is not free. Well, there's nothing wrong with trying to make money off of some software, while helping the community at the same time.

I agree, but that's not what's happening here. BitMovers is retroactively increasing the restrictiveness of its license. That doesn't help anyone, and it has the potential to hurt the community badly.

I know this only affects the "free" BK license. I don't care. It's still a bait-and-switch tactic, and that's low. Doubly so if you consider the price of the "alternative" (the license you pay for). I challenge you to find twenty Open Source developers with that kind of money to waste.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Vulture_]

I almost forgot. By doing this, BitMovers has demonstrated the willingness and ability to screw over users of BitKeeper. A passage from pages 72-73 of "Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners-Lee tells a strikingly similar tale, as he describes why Gopher was superseded so completely by the Web:

"It was just about this time, spring 1993, that the University of Minnesota decided that it would ask for a license fee from certain classes of users who wanted to use gopher. Since the gopher software being picked up so widely, the university was going to charge an annual fee. The browser, and the act of browsing, would be free, and the server software would remain free to nonprofit and educational institutions. But any other users, notably companies, would have to pay to use gopher server software.

"This was an act of treason in the academic community and the Internet community. Even if the university never charged anyone a dime, the fact that the school had announced it was reserving the right to charge people for the use of the gopher protocols meant it had crossed the line. To use the technology was too risky. Industry dropped gopher like a hot potato."

Owning my comments means...

[Futurepower(R)]

Owning my comments means that I alone can determine how they are used. OSDN, is, sneakily, claiming joint ownership.

evil prick

[Anonymous Coward]

mcvoy is not just a prick, he is an evil prick. now he's forbidding use of bk to folks who don't like his evil license, next he'll be suing them. such an asshole; it was easy to see this one coming. clue up, linus.

Linus showing true lack of leadership

[Anonymous Coward]

on this issue. He obviously should get rid of ButtKeeper, but won't because of some issue of pride or inability to admit he's wrong. He would not have agreed to these new terms when he started using ButtKeeper, but is too stubborn to admit it.
RMS was right all along.

Re: Perforce

[ces]

Perforce is a very nice SCM tool for large-scale projects.

They post their price list, have reasonable prices, have a free(beer)limited user version availible, and from my experience conduct themselves professionally.

Why would I want to deal with Larry and BitKeeper?

Re:Theo de Raadt and Richard M. Stallman were righ

[mirabilos]

- Ad IPFilter:
It was thrown out because of a licence change in
the development version. This was, however, not the
reason.
Darren Reed said that this change was no change,
but rather a clarification, and that this be the
interpretation of his licence from the beginning
(one was not allowed to redistribute modified
versions, but the OpenBSD team has heavily modified
it for security fixes and feature enhancements).

That's why it was removed.
Shortly later Darren made agreements with FBSD and
NBSD, and I don't know the current situation, but
since we have OpenIPF now, I don't care either.

OTOH I don't flame Darren on the OpenBSD lists for
"just" being there, advocating IPFilter and helping
users of DarrenBSD. He may get the one or other funny
or a-bit-flamatory comment though when he is just
trolling...

- Ad SMP in FreeBSD

I think I have made it clear enough that I just have
heard what I posted, and if not, I hope it is clear
now. It was not my information, I just got that
somewhere (don't even know where, I think news:de.asr)

- Hope this helps, HAND

standard salesweasel bullshit

[Doktor Memory]

Sadly, "confidential" price quotes like this are more or less standard practice. The goal is to make comparison shopping impossible: the salesweasel maintains a monopoly on price information by leveraging first copyright and then contract law (post-sale) to make it impossible to find out how much your peers paid for the item that you are purchasing.

In all likelihood, both "copyrights" on price quotations and gag orders in sales contracts would never ever hold up in an actual court of law, but as you noted, he has more lawyers than you, so you lose. Isn't the american legal system wonderful?

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[Anonymous Coward]

>But I still implore all you Slashdot hippies: do not assume that all non-free software is evil, and do not make BitKeeper the bad guy just because they want to make money.

BitKeeper is not evil because they want to make money. They wanted to make money before this change and no one got up in arms about it.

BitKeeper is wrong in seeking to prevent me from working on (for example) the linux kernel just because the company that employs me spends money on a open-source product that competes with bitkeeper.
Keep in mind that BitKeeper is NOT being used to develope subversion. But even if I've never touch ed subversion, if the company that employs me puts resources in that open-source product it means I can't contribute to the linux kernel.
That is way beyond using a product to produce competition.

also, as a seperate topic, for all of those who say that a product shouldn't be used to develop a competing product, (a totally different situation than the BitKeeper one) ask yourself this...
If (theoretically) an OS has a monopoly, and we think that a monopoly is a bad thing, how are you going to introduce competition without using that OS in at least the beginning stages? what if no OS has a techinical monopoloy, but every OS that does exist has a licence preventing competition? extend that to the CPU, or hard drives, or monitors...

it's pretty short sighted to think it's a good thit to prevent competition because you want more money and you know you can't stand up to fair competition on your products features.

Re:Tom Lord out of work & Arch

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been following Arch and Subversion for a while now, and so I've observed Tom Lord for a while now.

For what it is worth, Tom isn't easy to work with -- he doesn't communicate well with others. You may find that unless Tom changes his social skills, he won't ever lead a successful project, let alone be able to pay his bills.

Re:CVS isn't usable (Re:Sure are full of themselve

[ebyrob]

3000 branches?? That sounds like sheer madness... Especially on a project with such a small user base (10,000).

Re:CVS isn't usable (Re:Sure are full of themselve

[Rik van Riel]

The user base of the Linux kernel is MUCH larger than 10000. With the number of active developers on the linux kernel I think 3000 branches would even be on the low side...

Why is Linus silent on this issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is Linus not bothered by the fact that some Linux kernel developers are not permitted to use ButtKeeper? If he had the balls he could force the issue to insist on allowing Linux ButtKeeper exports - even for anyone working on competing CVS systems. But he doesn't. Non-ButtKeeper patches have become a second class citizen in the Linux kernel. Thank you, Linus. You're a king among men.

Alternative Tools

[tpv]

perhaps you should go out there and write something so that kernel development can go smoothly without the use of commercial tool

I'm going to quote someone else on this one:
Kernel development for the first time becomes dependent on a non-free tool. You can pretend that this not so, that Linus could switch to another version management system at any time, but it just ain't so: SCM tools are a major part of a software development effort and replacing them is not easy once they are entrenched.

It is now incredibly hard for anyone else to develop an alternative mechanism for kernel dev.

1. Even if it is just as good as BK, then there is a cost associated with change, and that will mean that the desire to change needs to be greater than the cost of change. Possible, but not guaranteed.
2. If it is as good as BK, but radically different the cost is higher.
3. If it is not as good as BK, but still reasonablly useful, then the cost is higher still.

AFAICT, Linus never really gave opportunity for anyone to get a useful free solution to him.

Everytime anyone wanted him to use a SCM tool, he rejected it. He didn't want one. Although most people disagreed with him, they respected the fact that he didn't want one, and let him be.

But BitMover eventually managed to convince him that he needed SCM, and that BK was painless enough for him to work with.
Congratulations to them - they managed to convince a guy who was stubbornly ignoring the truth that everyone else could see.

But, Linus never put out a "tender" so to speak. He never said "I've decided that I need to improve this process. Can people suggest ways to help me?"
Instead, he (eventually) bought in on the BK idea, and ran with it.

From what I can see, Linus never really gave much option to a free tool, and now it's even harder to get him to use one.

Re:Has no one here any idea of what a "business" i

[tpv]

determined I'd be unable (unwilling) to have anything to do with Linux kernel development for the forseeable future because accepting BitKeeper's license was effectively a cost of entry that I couldn't (wouldn't) pay.

You don't need to use BK in order to do kernel dev. It probably would make you task easier if you were using BK (because the maintainers are using it) but it is not a cost of entry.

That said, I don't think Linus/Rik/etc should be using BK to work on a project that prides itself on being free.

Good idea

[koh]

New tonight ! Try and slashdot the human resources department of a company near you ;p

The nice things I said about Bitkeeper?

[Komodo]

Well, I take them back. Or at least, suspend them until this gets resolved.

Not like it really matters that much, but this kind of shennanigans - whatever the justification - would make me very, very nervous.

I really hate it when RMS is right.