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RMS Weighs In On BitKeeper
An anonymous reader writes ". . . and boy, is he pissed! The BitKeeper license, he told the Linux kernel mailing list, is 'the whip hand' of proprietary software. His brief but pungent comment is carried by Linux and Main."
Just the kind of worthless tripe they love to carry! It'd be nice if dep could try to go a couple of days without trying to fan the flames of another minor squabble, but I guess he's busy trying to be the Jerry Springer of the open source world...
if they agree to rename it to GNU/Bitkeeper, everything will be allright. :)
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
If RMS speaks, but nobody listens, does he make a sound?
What RMS is doing his best to ignore is that these restrictions are lifted if you (gasp!) buy a commercial license.
I realise what point he is trying to make, but I think it is unfair of him to cloud the issue like that.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Maybe I don't understand the issue, BitKeeper is a private company, they make a product that they don't want their competitors to use for free. What's the harm in that? Ford doesn't donate cars to Chevy neither does McDonalds give Burger King free food, why is this different?
Well spoken, Rik. Until RMS can propose an alternative to BitKeeper, he's just pissing in the wind.
Of course, he has every right to piss in the wind as much as he likes.
--
pants ahoy
Isn't he supposed to be saying that "If the latest outrage brings the spirit of the non-free Bitkeeper license into clear view, perhaps that will be enough to convince the developers of GNU/Linux to stop using Bitkeeper for GNU/Linux development"?
It seems reasonable enough that Larry would want to prohibit people from using bitkeeper to compete against bitkeeper.
However I think it is telling that the license goes a step further and disallows any person or entity who ever works on a competitor from ever using bitkeeper. So Larry is essentially helping to see that many people (Linux kernel hackers using bitkeeper) are unable to ever compete with him, even if the kernel hacking and open-source-SCM hacking are in no way related. Way to drive a wedge through the free software community.
Larry McVoy of BitKeeper said: "2) The software is not open source because the open source business model doesn't have a prayer of supporting the development costs."
To which I ask:
WHAT IS YOUR DEVELOPMENT COSTS?!? And can't you dual-licence?
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Calling your customer "whiners" is always a sure bet.
Larry McVoy of BitKeeper:
"Our position:
"1) No free licenses for our competition, they can buy them if they like.
"2) The software is not open source because the open source business model doesn't have a prayer of supporting the development costs.
"3) If you had built a decent system instead of sitting around and whining, we could be doing something else instead of sitting around listening to your whining."
He doesn't give a flying fuck about open source, he only wants to sell his product. People like this are the opposite of the open source philosophy.
Stallman was sort of out of place bringing this up again on the LKML, which is supposed to be about technical discussion, but his points are, as always, valid.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Code something GPL that performs equal to or better than BitKeeper.
I'm not familiar with the arguments of CVS vs BitKeeper. If it is a philosophical argument about a way to do things, then fine. Someone take the CVS code, fork it, and modify it to do what BitKeeper does.
It is a question of the "Software as Religion" vs "Software as Tool".
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that Linus and the other kernel hackers were pretty proficient with CVS and knew what they were doing. If they are more productive with BK, then there is something wrong with CVS.
Productivity is what counts. This isn't an addiction -- if people want to they can switch back to CVS at any time.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
but I think we all shouldn't get too upset about this regarless of how we feel. Linux and Main hasn't exactly had a good record the last couple of weeks...
RMS has an opinion, and has expressed it... I don't see where all the ad hominim vitriol is coming from.
Like him or not, RMS is one of the Free Software movement's Great Thinkers (TM).
Sheesh... let him expound upon his point, and if you don't like it, ignore it.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
That couldn't have been RMS in that quote. He didn't say GNU/Linux.
Is this thing on? Hello?
As usual, RMS gets little or no respect around here, despite the fact that, as usual, he's right.
/. to listen more to RMS when he speaks and suppress your obvious desire to bash a man because he has a certain set of ideals.
Those of you saying that the restrictions RMS mentions would be lifted if you bought the commercial version are missing the point. The point by RMS is that all of the licenses under which you can use BitKeeper are draconian, as they're EULA's. The problem with EULA's is that they can be changed at any time by the developer, thus creating an unfair situation; BitKeeper could just as easily include such restrictions on its paid-for version. The other problem is that accepting them is mandatory, thus creating another power imbalance.
That said, this is all the more reason for developers to switch from BitKeeper to alternatives. BitKeeper can impose any draconian restrictions on you they wish, and you'd best not wait until you're trapped into using BitKeeper and dependant on it to change.
I'd advise the rest of
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Firstly, this isn't your project. Mr. Torvalds has made his points and position quite clear, and it's time that you and the rest of the Free Software people leave the kernel hackers well enough alone.
Also, do you have no respect what's so ever? What are you doing posting on the LKML, which is not meant to be political.
Also, it would be nice if you would get your facts straight. Bitkeeper (the gratis version, anyway) only restricts you from using it to develop a competing project, not from using one.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
I preface this by saying that I'm a big fan and proponent of open source but anyhow...
:)
:).
If free software really is better then why do people like RMS need to come out ranting about giving into the evils of proprietary software. Either it's a better model of development or it isn't, and if you have to brow beat people into using it, maybe it's not a better way of doing things. It always seems to me that the people most afraid that their beliefs are wrong are the ones screaming the loudest that they are right.
As long as we have the freedom to write free software and use free software, then I don't really see the point of such ranting. Let the software itself speak quietly of the benefits of being free rather than screaming about the evils of proprietary software.
I'm sure that Linus would be happy to use a more free product if he felt it was suited to the task. Linus, unlike RMS, has never, to my knowledge, been much of a politician. He wrote open source software because it made sense to do so. He's made his choices for the same reason anybody should, because they made good sound technical sense. (if I'm wrong here, please don't hesitate to point it out
Either it will survive and thrive because it has benefits or it will shrivel up and die. Evolution marches merrily on. I mean the process, not the mail client. Though I LOVE the mail client
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
To use Microsoft. Sure it's reasonable that he'd want that. But is it reasonable that standard law should grant it to him?
Would it be reasonable to insert "give me your first born" deep in a liscense agreement?
As far as I know from reading the first slashdot story, the Bitkeeper folks are not saying that "companies that distribute [subversion, et al] cannot even run Bitkeeper." Rather, it's only programmers who are actively participating in the development of Bitkeeper replacements that cannot take advantage of the free license. In the words of Larry McVey speaking on behalf ob Bitmover, In my opinion, that makes the situation considerably less imperative. Sure, it's a real wrench in the works, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be -- BK is not preventing Redhat, Suse, Mandrake (et al) employees from using BitKeeper, only those who actively develop Subversion or arch.
Flame away.
According to RMS: If you even run bitkeeper, you can't contribute to CVS or other competetors.
That seems to be quite a restriction. Imagine a Microsoft EULA that says: if you run Windows, you can't contribute to Linux.
RMS has a point. Licenses like these are there to kill free software alternatives.
Goddamn, but what has happened to slashdot? Judging by the posts from the majority of the slashdot crowd, I think that they'd be happier if slashdot started reporting every new Microsoft Update patch instead of new Kernal releases.
He doesn't give a flying fuck about open source,
That's bullshit. I read a good portion of the thread where they first discussed this and Mr. McVoy was pretty receptive to everything that the kernel people were saying. Did you read any of the threads or are you just flaming?
Stallman is correct. Bitkeeper is a proprietary product
produced by a commercial company and that commercial
company has the legal means (whether right or not)
to suddenly change their license terms.
I quite understand Linus' and Rik's aversion to
puritanical arguments against their use of proprietary
products when such proprietary products keep
them productive.
McVoy is a good guy as far as the
Linux kernel hackers are concerned, but what will
happen if a certain Mr. Bill Gates offers
loads of cash to Mr. McVoy for his company?
Steve: Hey Bill, do I have a deal for you.
Bill: Yeah?
Steve: What do you say to spending just a little over
50 million dollars to derail Linux development
on its tracks?
Well seeing as RMS wants GNU/Linux because it hilights the contribution of GNU to the overall linux environment, I wonder if Bitkeeper will be asking similar soon :). Before long it'll be:
IBM/Sun/SGI/Bitkeeper/GNU/Linux
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
rms is a commi!
We will never know the answer to this puzzler because he is the only person in the world to get slashdot headlines by posting flamebait to the wrong news groups. Anyone else would either be ignored, flamed for cross-posting, or deleted by the moderators.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
While you're all busy insulting RMS, think about this...
Have you contributed more to the Free Software community in terms of software than RMS?
Have you contributed more to the spirit & philosophy of the OSS & FS software communities than RMS?
Are you smarter than RMS? Ok, this one here's subjective; but I doubt most of the people criticizing RMS have an IQ of 170.
Until you can answer affirmative to all of the following questions, I'd suggest you be more respectful to one of the founding fathers of our community.
Without RMS and the FSF, there would be no GNU/Linux...Linux-based OS' would be some obscurity with little or no useful tools on them.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
RMS is said that using proprietary software is ok if it is used to make better free software.
If BitKeeper goes away, the worst that could happen is that the kernel tree goes back to cvs, or some other system. So, using BitKeeper harms nothing, no one is _dependent_ on it, it just helps to make better free software.
It just comes down to this. The current kernel developers don't have the same views that he has and they are angry that he expressed his views on their mailing list.
We might get annoyed at the likes of RMS but we need people like him around. And as far as those people who would want to criticize RMS for not putting out code to have a better source control then CVS, remember that the man has written quite a lot of software in his time.
Molog
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
Normally I don't mind RMS spouting off about something when he has a decent leg to stand on or is using his own forum. In this case, he really doesn't.
First, he didn't seem to choose the right forum to speak in. A listserv for kernel development is not the correct space to bring political speach into. RMS's post was very possibly off topic to the list.
Second Linux is not his project, and he is not managing it. Torvalds has expressed his opinions on the Free Software movement. He doesn't believe in Free Software as an all important political idea, thus he has not don anything wrong by using Bitkeeper. Torvalds chose Bitkeeper, and that's what the project uses. Period.
RMS should attempt to open a serious technical discussion directly with Torvalds. RMS should say "What do you need?" and then deliver it. Or RMS should violate the license in a clearly absurd manner and let Bitkeeper take him to court to test the validity of the license.
If the his claims that the open source model doesn't have a prayer of supporting the development of BitKeeper, then I say proove him wrong. Somebody write an equivalent product that is open source.
I think it's legit that some products can't survive on an open source business model. Maybe bitkeeper is an example of this.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
There's a solution. Buy out BitKeeper and GPL it.
The kernel developers are a bunch of dipshits. They should spend their time improving Subversion to replace this crap.
what's funny and/or interesting about this is that bitkeeper's business is likely to increase a great amount just for the fact that it's used for the linux kernel.
i know i've never heard of them before...
You are half right on this. You are correct in saying that many people automatically bash RMS no matter what. I myself am often guilty of that, but that doesn't make it a good thing. He deserves to have his arguments heard and examined.
At the same time, not one of his points should even be considered in your head until you think them through. Just deciding that a person (or group of people) has your ideals and that they should be able to speak for you unquestioned is just plain stupid. I quite honestly don't care what his, or anyone elses, ideals are. What I'm getting at is that you need to think for yourself. Blinding agreeing with someone over ANYTHING is how idealistic disputes get started. Please, HELP YOURSELF TO A HEALTHY DOSE OF REALITY. Think for yourself, come up with your own decisions. Take everyone elses opinions, and FUCK THEM. Opinions, positions, political views, and anything which should involve making a point should be thought out for yourself.
To re-state my previous point, you are correct, some people do blindly bash RMS. But that doesn't mean blindly following him is any better.
Or, to re-phrase this for all you people used to normal slashdot traffic, fuck off, I hate your guts, blah blah blah blah blah...
Don't you like the truth???
The problem is that all to often people come off with the attitude that free software is all the same as licensed software, it's just a matter of your choice. Many people don't seem to understand that many people who advocate free software consider this like a slap in the face.
You might want to recall 150 yrs ago when some were saying "if you don't like slavery - don't own slaves, otherwise mind your own business. it's all up to whoever chooses" , there problem was that there was no equivalency relationship back then and there is none now.
Copyrights are abusing peoples right to copy, and free software is a response to that. Mixing, matching, and choosing is not the answer, because people are using copyrights to controll me even if I don't wish to exercise them myself. It is very harmfull to try and promote some type of equivalency relationship, and IMHO this is a great example of why.
A man's accomplishments do not put him above critique, questioning, or insult.
If you can live with being controlled under the terms of the license then, by all means, use "free" BitKeeper. This is a free country. I personally will never use BitKeeper (free, pay or otherwise) after this, even if Larry McVoy changes the license back.
While CVS and Subversions may not have some of the features that the BitKeeper has. If the team were to use Subversions, they could easily make suggestions for features which are needed. This is how software in general evolves. Additionally, using the "free" version of BitKeeper endangers Free Software and Open Source software development in general.
The change in licensing is a typical tactic for proprietary software companies. Be mindful as well that this could portent a change in the for-pay BitKeeper as well. So radical a change in the free license might lead to changes in the for-pay license in a similar fashion if it's percieved that the change was accepted by the community.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
"Besides, McVoy has shown that his company cannot be trusted. Any company that would seek to restrict your how you use their software is pretty slimy."
Yeah! How dare those GPL folks tell me I can't use open source code in my commercial products.
No, this would be "software communism" if we put a gun to Larry's head and made him release Bitkeeper's source. RMS is advocating a voluntary switch to software more consistent with Linux's philosophy. He is free to advocate it, Linus is free to switch or not, as he chooses. What's to argue about?
As for the typical Windows rant: hey, remember all the movies rendered on Linux? Or, um, the enormous chunk of the server market that runs on it? Openness has its practical merits, and XP isn't so "rock solid" if you try and run any type of server on it.
Look, it is as simple as this: you don't like the copy protection, patent protection, whatever you have every choice NOT to buy or watch or listen to a product
All Stallman is doing in this case is showing people the consequences of choosing to use this product.
No one (no reasonable person at least) is expecting or asking McVoy to open source his product. Sure, it would be a good way to end this mess, but it's more reasonable to just stop using his closed product.
No one ever said you couldn't use closed source software, we just want to make sure that people understand the inherent risk in any closed solution with bad EULAs.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
You forget, the GPL has a nice little clause that says the software may be used under any version of the GPL of the one included or newer. Which means if stallman releases version X which has the clause "i own everything, fuck the world", he does. Yes, I know its unlikely, but so is the idea of someone posting any restrictions worth noticing. Face it, the GPL may be more favorable for now, but in the end, its got all the same loopholes as any other modern license. I blame the lawyers.
Note to all lawyers: You bastards are almost as evil as I am. I applaud you. Especially the ones that wrote Sun's binary license.
Beeezt! Sorry try again. This is about using the software, the finished product, not copying the code and using it in another project.
Molog
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
There is a very real danger in commiting to use non-free software in the production of free software. I think this is due, in equal parts, to licensing and training issues. The fact that many people were unaware of some of the licensing details is perhaps the most disturbing thing about it..
IMHO, it is an ongoing commitment to free tools that keeps the free software out of licensing traps. It is precisely the people that see the advantages of BitKeeper over CVS that are most likely to code an alternative. Thus, having a license that says what types of software they can and cannot code should be unacceptable (offensive!) to all of us.
I agree it does, my rant was about the extremists who say it has to be ALL FREE. See, Open Source is good but it doesn't have as much impetus to keep "trendy." If it wasn't for Adobe needing to make a buck with Photosop 7 when might I have gotten the Healing Brush tool? That is now the tool I use the most. I actually use GIMP for Windows and am trying to install Film GIMP on Cygwin. I find UNIX systems very hard to deal with personally and I haven't gotten this thing installed yet. See, I would rather get to work on a project than try to get the software to work. I am a boutique studio, me doing video and my partner doing audio using ProTools TDM. I don't have a team of people keeping our system runnings. Just the two of us. When I got Adobe After Effects I instlled it, it worked. For Film GIMP I need to track down GTK and install it. I also feel that patents have a use as well, though most of the patents I see being given out for "processes" are complete BS. Like the Amazon patent on on click payments- completly rediculous. The patent office need to be completely reworked and, like probably 90% need to be thrown out.
Now all the contributors cannot help out on a bitkeeper replacement.
From reading slashdot over the years and such
and just how i react to RMS i have a question
How many people out there would like to see RMS be completely isolated away from the opensource movement?
When I read what he says such as this it makes me not want to have anything to do with opensource, "free" software , GNU.
He seams to be one of the most detrimental forces around. His idea's of having freedom by only wanting people to do as he says just send chills down my spine.
Also does he ever use any closed source software? or has he? does he alow for any such usage?
This is sorta a trick question since he does if he has say a car built in the last 15 years and a few other things since they have closed source software in them. How does he feel about that?
Another example of what happens when 12 month old puppies are dealt moderation points.
Keep the animals in their respective cages por favor.
Unfortunately, he is a crank - but a crank who often has some good points.
Let's create a club, called the no Homers.. uh.. the NO RMSs CLUB!
I support RMS in many ways, he's the driving force which got us most of the free software we use today, indirectly or directly. But he fails to understand that freedom doesn't come all at once.
Think of trying to implement democracy in Iraq after Saddam's fall, or even better, in some far more impoverished nation with much less technology. You can't just put up voting booths and say you have a democracy. Democracy requires an informed citizenry, it requires literacy, it requires a stable social climate, it requires reasonable expectations of the citizens that their vote might matter, and it requires them to have their immediate concerns taken care of, like stable income and work, safe from government persecution, safe from crime.
Same with free software. I think BitKeeper's license sucks in many ways, but perfection is the enemy of good enough, and right now, BitKeeper's license is good enough for the kernel folks, so RMS should just butt out, work on an alternative if he wants, but butt out of something that is none of his business.
Infuriate left and right
But people everyday here write how they oppose protections for copyrighted material like movies and music. How is it that my product differs in spirit to BitKeeper?
When Ford gives away cars FOR FREE, do you not think they might want to only give them to non-competitors?
Infuriate left and right
My sis-in-law works for Chrysler-- sorry, Daimler-Chrysler. In her building, the non-Chrysler cars get parked in a separate lot. For the cars' protection, mostly.
Is this thing on? Hello?
But people everyday here write how they oppose protections for copyrighted material like movies and music.
Don't mind those people. Also don't assume that people who advocate free software are always of that belief. We aren't all communist. I'd even go as far to say the real communists are in the minority.
I admit there is a lot wrong with our current system of copyright, but I am not in favor of eliminating it, and I don't think many reasonable people are. Most of us do want to see widespread IP reform, but eliminating all IP is not the goal for most of us.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Well said. Bravo, bravo.
;-)
Let me know when your movie is done. I'll buy a ticket.
I write in my journal
Sigh. This is just another nail in his credibility-coffin. Why does it seem like he spends more time picking fights, pushing people to name things the way he wants them to, or to use software the only matches his ideology? For christ's sake (pun intended) he's gotten so damn bad that it's probably just as bad as it was when the first Christians (Or muslims, or jews...) came on the scene ranting about how THEIR god was going to kick everyone ELSE'S god in the ass.
Yes, RMS has contributed far more than I'll ever even DREAM of. Yes, RMS has a super-genius IQ and a -highly- admirable vision of what the future should hold. But goddamit, he needs to start working on some POSITIVE SHIT otherwise he's just going to make the entire Open Source community look like squabbling fools that can't cooperate and will never be able to compete feature-for-feature with commercial software. He wants to prove that Open Source is better, then DO it. Don't just bitch about who gets the credit for the kernel.
Stop picking fights and start being productive in a way that actually inspires everyone, rather than irritates most.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Here's one.
One wonders what version management software the Bitkeeper authors used when they were writing their product. RCS? Visual SourceSafe? Or, gasp, CVS? No one starts at zero. Even compilers for new architectures are built using a cross compiler on a foreign system first.
Not that it makes a bit[keeper] of difference, since there's no law that they have to practice what they preach WRT their own software, but it's an interesting thought. Those who benefited from open-source software, or even a competitor's product, shouldn't openly disparage that vendor's product (though they don't appear to have done that here).
Companies should remain competitive by making a better product, not by writing legalese that prevents you from using others' products.
-Scott Hutton
It's amazing that the same people who put themselves in a bad position with their pictures and music would again willingly do so with their kernels.
Bitkeeper could easily change their license with after an acceptable amount of market share, just as GIF, JPEG and MP3 did before them. RMS, as usual, is dead on target here.
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
I use free software to produce proprietary software everyday......
Larrie McVoy says:
"2) The software is not open source because the open source business model doesn't have a prayer of supporting the development costs."
On the whole, I've found commercial software support to be far worse than OSS, and development to be much slower - if they even continue to develop the product at all instead of de-supporting it to force a change to some entirely different product.
Does anyone have any experience with Bitkeeper's support? Is it any better than the oft-heard "it'll be fixed in the next release" mantra? Is the product being developed very actively?
There's only one problem with the statement about "Linux's Philosophy". Linus is Linux. His philosophy is "Use what works", which is why he chose BitKeeper. Linus was kind enough to use the GPL and allow his little kernel to grow into a full OS with the help of GNU.
:)
What's at issue is RMS's philosophy, not Linux's. And there's nothing wrong with stating one's opinion, but what RMS does is try and state his opinion in an only slightly less aggressive and sometimes offensive manner than the preacher standing outside a porn shop waving a bible and screaming at "sinners". That kind of obnoxiousness on -any- side pisses me off.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Safedisc licensing agreements are also pending.
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
One important reason to keep in mind:
This is what scares me. I haven't read RMS's article yet. He tends to post off-the-cuff, and in inappropriate contexts; but he's doing the best job he knows how. (Somebody please get this guy a P.R. manager, a personal groomer...)First, nothing begins if not opening
People say make something better/similar to BitKeeper but what`s to stop BitKeeper`s creators patenting the all features that make the product popular and so stimy competition ?
It's the part about being able to control the software on my PC. It's about being able to modify the code or make bug fixes that are important to me. It's also about being able to install the code on my computer and not have it running all sorts of process in the background, or tracking my online behavior or whatever.
Next time you buy proprietary software just ask yourself the question: Would I buy a car with a hood welded shut? How would you feel if there was a law that prevented you from changing your own oil, or if there were no independent mechanics, or if you could not learn about how cars work in school because all the textbooks were copyrighted and had controled distribution.
Peace, or Not?
Hey YOU! Put down that bible!!! You might hurt somebody with it! (thump thump)
RMS is truly a great visionary - i find that everything he has written about free software has been truly prescient, and penetratingly insightful.
Again, on the matter of BitKeeper, as far as i am concerned he is completely right. It's not a question of 'best tool for the job' - the creed of the technocrat - but the best tool if and only if that tool respects the user's freedom.
Interestingly, the movement to downplay RMS's role in the free software movement and his instigal role in the development of the GNU/Linux system is mirrored many times in history where the true visionaries and revolutionaries are brushed aside by later-comers who sell-out on the founding principles of a movement - and Linus Torvalds for all his strong contribution towards the linux kernel is rapidly coming into danger of falling into this camp.
As an example, and one i hope you do not find to off-topic, i ask this mainly american audience on slashdot to tell me who was america's first president?
If you answer george washington you are incorrect - george washington was the leader of a counter-coup after the first revolution.
As my supporting documentaion i give you this from the introduction to the brilliant alternative history of america called the Tribes and the States (written by william james sidis, on several objective grounds considered america's greatest genius of the 20th century).
Don't stand by and let our new john hancock (RMS) be replaced in history by the new george washington (torvalds).
Mod this comment up!
;) It's also easier to train people on for some reason, I guess it's just so few things to remember, "cvs co, cvs add, cvs update, cvs commit" That's enough to get someone through their first month.
I don't want to use bitkeeper because their license is so anti-free, but subversion needs to be tested on smaller projects before we really can switch something as large as Linux over.
CVS is not so good mostly because it can't version directories. You can of course delete a directory and create another one and rename all your files into the new directory, but it's still ugly enough that I try very to get my directory structure right the first time, and only move files to new directories after a major version release in a branch. There are some other things missing like checkin lists, that allow you to work on different things within a source tree without checking out a parallel tree, it's not as safe, but essential if it's 4-5 Gigabyte source tree(I've worked on such a beast.) Those types of features could be added, as could an rsync type feature, also essential. But the for the directories CVS can't be nicely extended to do it.
I'm trying subversion on for one of my projects soon, and I've heard NetBSD folks talk about trying it. If it works well enough I might even add some of those other features we need so one day I'll never be tempted by perforce or bitkeeper.
BTW My first real vc experience was using RCS, and CVS is much better. RCS files are pretty clever themselves. Later I used Perforce, then I went back to CVS cuz I work on opensource things and everyone can use CVS
McVoy doesn't seem to be very supportive however of the GPL, which is understandable considering that few if any companies have managed to post strong profits off of GPL'd software. That doesn't mean there won't be some eventually, or that the GPL isn't the best licence, just right now it is not always feasible for the small business.
And as far as people choosing software (or refusing to use software) because of the nature of the EULA seems to me to be shortsighted. Sure, if I to choose between two similar programs, I'd choose the OSS solution, but if there is a feature I need, or that will drastically improve productivity I'm going to have to eventually use the non-OSS solution, no matter how much I might prefer not to.
I respect RMS for what he has helped to create, but too often I feel like he is just a little too desperate for attention and respect.
just my two cents...(wow that was way too long)
It's better when RMS is NOT involved!
Good points, no wonder you were modded down as a troll. The hordes of /. do not like to have little problems like "truth" thrown in their collective face. No matter how right you are, no matter how true your words, you will be modded down becuase you have failed to adhere to the hive mind principle of of the hordes. No worries though, keep using the software you prefer, continue to ignore the rantings of the horde, pause not to ponder their collective beltch of heady ideals. They will go away soon enough, this is a group of people that is so abrasive and combative that no one could ever embrace them or take them seriously. Sure Linux rocks on the server, sure the Gimp is a decent tool for casual use, but is Linux really competitive on the desktop or against something like Photoshop? Of course not, you are capable of making an intelligent non-religous evaluation and you have seen this is simply not true. Voice that type of thought on /. though, and you will ( as you have ) recieve the usual summary troll moderation because the horde can not bear the truth. Keep posting, keep making your movie, and charge any damn thing you want for people to view it. You have every right to do so, much to the chagrin of the hivemind. Peace.
He said "Kick your ass", not "Lick your ass". Pervert.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Well I don't like RMS due to many reasons, mainly that he follows his ideas like a religious fanatic altogether with some very faint ideals on how the world should be. It reminds me those hippy, extreme left revolutionaries that raised Che to the level of a saint, considered Mao's sentences the Bible and USSR a traitor to communist ideals... Meanwhile there are many things on RMS that deserve some high respect. Here is one of them, because, RMS is absolutely right...
I may understand the reasons kernel developers point to hold up to BitKeeper. However they can't and shouldn't ignore the consequences of ignoring the legalities of their move. The fact that BitKeeper is factually an EULA much worse than M$ is something that may put into question the future of Linux. Yes, it is much worse because ethically violates some principals of market, things that were formed not yesterday but millenia ago. It is much worse because it is clearly not a commercial license but a typical feudal decree of the worst kind, in common terms: "you can't do that or do this while you are under my service". This is what is inside this license and it is so superficial that any deviation may turn it void. For some you may have had the chance to read documents from the V up to IX centuries, one may note that feudalism started this way. First they said "while", then they said "because" and later they didn't say nothing as everyone considered it natural...
And to consider things worse:
Larry McVoy of BitKeeper:
"Our position:
"1) No free licenses for our competition, they can buy them if they like.
"2) The software is not open source because the open source business model doesn't have a prayer of supporting the development costs.
"3) If you had built a decent system instead of sitting around and whining, we could be doing something else instead of sitting around listening to your whining."
If we look at the reaction of BitKeeper's owner, we can see that we are really going the worst way. He is ultimative, he is arrogant, for him OSS lacks prayers. But this is not the worst. The worst is that we are a mass of apatic whinners, but he stands higher and listens to the crowd of gentiles. And he only can listen whinning, nothing else, because the brilliance and crystal sound of BitKeeper's castle blinds and deafens everything else.
This is not OSS, this is not Free Software. This is not even the M$ Empire. This is the Black Cathedral.
It's also about BitKeeper wanting to get some revenue and stay in business.
That wont happen if they say "Here, we've spent 80+ hours a week developing this piece of software. Here's the source for it; go do whatever you want with it. You can even change it or modify it or give copies to all your friends. We dont care, we didn't expect to eat or pay rent or anything like that anyway."
The "hood-welded-shut" analogy sucks because automotive companies make money whether or not you can dink with the car. Everyone has to buy their own car to dink with -- you can't just make copies of vehicles like you can with software.
Normally I do not agree with RMS at all. In this particular case, though, he is flat out right.
BK is infrastructure for the kernel development. This is not something that you happen to rip out and replace on a moments notice in case the license changes to something unacceptable. changing infrastructure is a painful process in which more often than not valueable metadata is lost and in which you have to change processes and retrain people.
In fact, this is precisely the reason while Linus is still using BK despite the controversial license: Convenience vs. da pain of changing.
Now, consider the license change BK put through, and what it mandates: It basically says that you cannot use the free license for Bitkeeper to use Bitkeeper for anything including Kernel development if you or your company happen to work on a version control system.
Can Bitkeeper legitimately impose such license restrictions? Yes, they can - it is their product and they can do whatever they fucking want with it.
Is such a license acceptable for Linux kernel development? Not at all. Despite the fact that there are Bitkeeper-to-CVS and Bitkeeper-to-Subversion and Bitkeeper-to-tgz-Gateways all over the place now, Non-BK users are second class citizens in Linux kernel development. They do not have realtime access, and they do not have proper access to BK metadata at all. Also, patch submissions that do not come in via BK are treated worse than patches that come in via BK - Linus and friends may say they aren't, or they aren't intentionally, but they are - again matters of convenience and infrastructure working against Non-BK users.
Switching from BK to a different systems becomes harder the longer you use them, because the systems accumulates metadata and processes center around BK - the infrastructure mechanics I explained above at work.
Finally, is this situation sane at all? That is, is there at least one party that wins because of this license change?
Well, the people who cannot use the free BK license are certainly not winning. They are shut out and have to use second-class systems to contribute to the kernel. Their enthusiasm and energy that could be used for Linux kernel development is diverted to integrating into a principally broken infrastructure.
The Linux kernel development process certainly is not winning at all. There is war and blodshed on the list, and people are switching or turning their back on kernel development out of principle, others defend Bitkeeper out of purely technical reasons, shutting out all the process problems and political outrage BK creates.
Bitkeeper, the company, certainly isn't winning, too. They created this license in order to discourage the development of BK alternatives. Well, that backfired big time. I couldn't have devised a better Subversion promotion campaign than this particular license change.
Basically, BK has pulled a Qt. That is, they created a great product that is important infrastructure for other projects, with a license that is unacceptable for many people. This is just what Qt was in the beginning of the KDE project: a truly great product in an pivotal infrastructure role for an important project (the Linux Desktop). And just like the license to Qt forced many people to create an alternative to Qt, spawning the Gnome desktop, the BK license change will be a great incentive for many to work on Subversion, Arc and related projects.
So BK actually achived the opposite of what they intended with the license change.
Is there any other party that might be winning? Well, yes. Microsoft. But you already knew that. And hey, they even have a version control system.
RMS doesn't give a damn about convenience, especially for his own sake. He cares about ideals, and challenges everyone else to do the same. Most of his life has been spent trying to make living with his ideals more convenient. Most of us losers spend our lives rationlizing about our ideals until our ideals are convenient. I hope this explains where RMS is coming from and why he says the stuff he does.
Linus Torvalds is more like the majority of people whose ideals meld (by design or otherwise, I don't want to guess) with convenience. This is probably part of why he is fairly popular and seen as a regular guy (unlike RMS). For instance, Torvalds feels the "best" tool for the job should be used regardless. Unfortunately, Torvalds has never taken the time to describe for us exactly what "best" means. I'm sure he doesn't mean anything so sinister as "if unpaid child labor makes the tool cheaper, then it's better!", or so naive as "I'll pay anything for the best, screw value/dollar!".
RMS doesn't give a damn about Larry McVoy's company succeeding with propietary software. I believe (I don't want to put words in RMS' mouth) this is because RMS feel propietary software is worthless in the long run, and hence a waste of society's time, energy, and money. I believe he could win this argument, should he choose to make it. Torvald's feelings on the subject are useless until he defines what he means by "best".
My second personal interjection for this post is about competition versus scratching itches. It's not clear to me that the "competition" from BitKeeper is what will spur the creation of a Free package with similar features -- Torvalds doesn't seem motiviated by competition with Microsoft (he's said such several times), so it's not obvious to me that software authors will be motivated to compete with BitKeeper for the sake of competition alone.
The people in the Free and Open Source communities most affected by the lack of Free BitKeeper alternatives are the Linux (i.e. kernel) developers. Most others seem to be happy enough with existing tools, with just enough disgruntelment that subversion is finally emerging. Thus BitKeeper is providing non-Free itch-relief for the only people in the communities who are have this particular itch. Rik and Linus are dreaming if they think I care about their itches more than I care about mine. Essentially, the only people who are likely to produce BitKeeper alternatives are those kernel developers who refuse to use BitKeeper because of their ideals (if they don't use BitKeeper because they don't like source control, or because they're lazy, then they're unlikely to write a replacement).
That is, only people with strong ideals about Free software are likely to write a replacment for BitKeeper. That means people more like RMS and less like Linus.
-Paul Komarek
This is different because occasionally, a Chevy worker will drive a Ford to work; and a McDonalds worker will eat Burger King food. Neither activity is restricted by their job.
Nor is it restricted by BitKeeper. What they say is that Burger King won't feed McD staff its burgers for _free_, and the Chevy worker won't get a brand new Ford for _free_.
However, they're free to buy them if they want, like the rest of the world does. They always have been free to buy them. Nothing special here.
There are plenty of open source systems for version control and configuration management. Furthermore, they way open source works, if you need an unusual tool for your project, you create it yourself and share it.
It's funny how much people will bitch when they're not the ones that have to deal with the inadequacies of $OSS_SM_TOOL when it comes to kernel development.
There are plenty of huge open source projects, and they work fine with CVS. GNU Hurd is being developed with CVS. BSD is. To me, the real question is: what is going wrong with Linux kernel development that CVS is not sufficient?
1. Bitchslap dirty communist hippies.
2. ???
3. Profit!
You obviously don't know Larry McVoy.
I first met Larry McVoy on usenet. He was highly cogent in his arguments, and generally a very intelligent guy. Unlike a lot of the idiots who came in after the NSF quit running the Internet, you could actually hold a technical discussion with him, after which you would have a solution, or an approach to a solution, for the problem at hand.
I've talked with him on the telephone on several occasions, when issues have come up that merited a telephone conversation; I've called him, and he's called me, though it has been a while since our last voice conversation.
When Larry McVoy left Sun, he wanted to take the SunOS 4.1.3_U1 code (U2 has not yet come out), and release it under the GPL. This was quite visionary, given the amount of competition that Linux is now giving Sun, even internally, within their own engineering staff, these days. Sun would not do the release, because it would cannibalize their SVR4-derived "Solaris" market.
Larry's motivations in this case were, I think, base... in that he wanted to "rescue" the important work which had been done on the BSD dervice Solaris (SunOS) code base. He saw the GPL as a way to do that.
Larry was an early GPL advocate, in this sense. Frankly, I'm glad he failed in this endeavor; it wporbably would have meant the end of BSD derived OSs, which generally exist only because the GPL is too draconian for people who need to do business.
Larry became an outspoken Linux advocate; he authored the "lmbench" suite of micro-benchmarks, all of which show Linux in a good light, compared to its competition. One can argue that these tools drove a number of the important design decisions in the Linux kernel itself, which, among other things, led to the current threading model and code, which *depends* upon the fact that process context switch overhead is minimal, and there is very little difference between it and thread context switch overhead.
Larry advocated Open Source software, in general: BitKeeper, by it's nature, *from the beginning*, offered free licenses those people who woul publish their source archive, as the cost of the license.
Thus, by its nature, BitKeeper encourages free software by providing economic incentive.
But, like the GPL itself, it is an instrumentality, and the instrumentality must not obey the same rules as that on which it acts.
The GPL carries a prohibition against modification: it is not itself under the GPL. Ask yourself "Why?".
For this same reason, good or bad, BitKeeper can not itself be Open Source software. Yes, there are economic issues. Despite people's intentional misinterpretation of the word "support" in Larry's statements to mean "technical support" rather than "economic support", Larry's correct: the Open Source model is not economically self supporting for stategic projects... it only supports itself for tactical projects.
That RMS is complaining about BitKeeper now is, I think, sour grapes. That's the kind interpretation. The unkind interpreation is that BitKeeper is a more effective mechanism than the GPL itself for achiving the goals of the GNU Manifesto, of which the GPL is an instrumentality.
So before you call Larry an idiot, or blindly GPL or even BSDL your next set of source code, understand the long term consequences of the license.
Frankly, I'm glad he's let go of the understandable bitterness that comes from pouring your soul into a product, only to have it hidden away in a vault by an employer with goals other than advancement of the art and science of computer science.
I think this license demonstrates that he's come to his senses, on strategic issues -- a painful lesson. Would that RMS would so the same.
Thanks,
-- Terry
In the case of MS, the ammended EULA is forced upon you when you download updates.
1. Wage holy jihad on closed source.
2. ???
3. Profit!
I think the word you're searching for is preceding.
"Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
No, I believe this is incorrect. Actually the little known revolutionary John Hanson was the first president! Hancock was the fourth president from 1785-1786. George Washington was actually the 8th president. See the link below:
t m
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/hanson.h
isn't revisionist history so much fun!
I agree with you on the most part however I find it that idealism doesn't really accomplish anything other then logically consistency. Which really doesn't mean anything either since you can construct a logical consistent argument for anything. No, its the pragmatic people who are to able to bend and find solutions to problems. Bitkeeper is only an idealogical problem at this time if it becomes a problem that deters effciency then it becomes one of pragamatism.
RMS can rant and rave about how BitKeeper is idealogically inconsistent, but who cares? Also its not like BitKeeper owns the linux kernel it's just a tool. If the licensing truly becomes a nuisance then just use another tool.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
...they can. Anyone can. If they purchase a commercial license for BitKeeper. Then the product belongs to you, fully and completely, and you can do anything you want with it, short of copying and redistributing it, since it will still be a copyrighted work.
I think this is the point everyone seems to be missing. Larry McVoy sells BitKeeper commercially to pay for its development, and possibly to even make a little profit (the philistine!). He doesn't feel like letting people use his product FOR FREE to develop a competing product. But he isn't attempting to dictate what you will do with the product after you buy it.
This is a long way from the kind of insane grabastics we've seen from Microsoft et al, where they ignore the 1st Amendment and try to tell you that you can't talk about their products without their permission (Frontpage, anyone? SQL Server?), and that's with products that you've paid good money for the privilege of owning. (How is that even legal? I never did figure that one out.)
IMNSFHO, Mr. McVoy has a quite reasonable license attached to his commercial product, which he has graciously allowed the Open Source community to use for free. Maybe even because he wants to (wait for it) support Open Source! (DOH! Really?) If you actually take a look at what kind of guy he is, as obviously Linus has, I don't think anyone here (except the true zealots) would think for a moment that Mr. McVoy would try to stick such draconian requirements into the commercial version of the license. All he's saying is, "If you want to work on a replacement for BitKeeper using BitKeeper, at least pay for a license, so I can afford to keep BitKeeper going until you're done developing the replacement." So, to reiterate, every single developer using BitKeeper is free to develop a replacement for BitKeeper, just not with the FREE version. Using the free version of a commercial product is a privilege, not a right. If you want to have rights, buy the damn thing.
I haven't read the article so I won't comment on that, but the people posting here have definitely gone off the deep end, dumping on Mr. McVoy like he's some kind of "Microsoft, Junior" in disguise, while giving no consideration to his character, the character of his company, the professional judgement of Linus Torvalds and company, and the immense benefit the Open Source community is currently receiving from this "evil capitalist bastard" who dared to attach a restriction to the FREE use of his COMMERCIAL product. Geesh.
Disclaimer: None of this has much to do with whether Proprietary software licenses are good or bad. Obviously, they can be quite bad, since abusive companies can abuse them. But this license and these terms aren't unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination, and will probably never become so as long as Larry McVoy is at the helm. Whether such a proprietary license could ever be used in a bad way by a future owner of the company is another matter, as is the question of how far software licenses will hold up in a court of law, be they reasonable or unreasonable. Those are all separate questions.
I send you this post to ask your advice. Have a nice day. All your opinions are belong to Microsoft.
Imagine Bill Gates realising that his real cash cow is Microsoft Office, and that MS Windows is just the technology that keep MS Office ahead of the competitors, by having early access to new or secret API's. In that case, it might make perfect sense to license MS Windows gratis in order to keep off any competitors. And of course, not license it gratis to people who worked for companies who contributed to software that compete with Microsoft offereings.
Suddenly, any company that used Linux/Samba/Apache on their servers, and occationally contributed a bug fix to either of these, would have to pay for all their MS Windows desktop licenses, which could be arbitrary high as most customers would not be affected.
In other words, MS could make it arbitrarily expensive for companies to participate in the development of free software that competed with Micosoft products.
The BitKeeper trap would be an excellent way for Bill Gates to kill of the competion from free software. We just have to hope he doesn't realise this, or that he have a higher sense of business ethics than Larry McVoy.
Let's see.. a few years back Linus just used CVS. Developers began complaining about shortcomings since Linux became too big to be handled in plain CVS etc.
Since CVS is a different beast then the Linux Kernel they did not try to develop something themselves. Besides, that would only distract them from kernel development. To make things worse the competitor, subversions, wasn't much usefull eather since it was still in development (and still is).
So Linux chose BitKeeper. Not because he was pushed or otherwise but because it was, and still is, the best alternative offered then and now. Not because out of convenience but to keep the development going in a strong pace lest it become, like the HURD, a product which seems to be never finished.
BitMover provided the software for free to kernel developers. The only real restriction is that you ae not allowed to use BitKeeper to create a competitive product. Why? Because that's the way BitMover earns it's money to pay it's employees and to fund development for BitKeeper.
So, to be able to use a good product (BitKeeper) which in it's turn made it possible to create a good product (linuxkernel) Linus agreed on the terms that were layed out. If they should have to go back to CVS (which is technologically still possible although people claim otherwise) they would also have to go back to all the problems there were before they started using BitKeeper.
And may eventually a better product come by which is OSS then i would have no doubt everyone would switch to using that.
I can understand RMS's opinion. He sees the flagship of the FSF being "corrupted" by closed source software. This is of course a big blow to him. The FSF always tried to create the tools to do the job themselves. Apparently their jobs were not as big as the Linux kernel though. So their tools became inadequate. However, instead of arguing he could also try to understand the forces that work here. If he could start up a project aiming to replace BitKeeper i think alot of people would jump right in. But if he does not then please be a bit more polite against the people working on the Linux kernel.
So far for this not entirely coherent post...
Who would have thought RMS would be against software you have to pay for?
Say what you want, but the man shure has one hell of an impact. :-).
He get's pissy on some issue (for valid reasons too), drops a word on it and all of a sudden even slashdot has some really intelligent controversial discussion going on.
It is really all what someone like RMS could want and bargain for, and if I judge him right it's just what he intended.
Presumtion:
From what I gather the kernel group can use a little self reflection to. Because: If kernel dev is actually stalled by this BitKeeper vs. OSS Tool debate (I hope not so hefty) it is in a state where carrying on with buisness as usual would have driven Linux into a messy corner.
I predict that, within a relatively short term, either Bitkeeper will see a chance for cool PR and modify their license to 'free for free Software products' or something or just now some people are firing up a VCS project that is to Emporer Linus' likeing and thus will be prefered
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
As a preemptive strike against microsoft doing the same thing and then changing the EULA/license to temporarily derail kernel development. They should grab 12M out of the 500M they claim to have invested in Linux and do something that would help secure the uninterrupted development of the kernel and benefit the whole community but most importantly IBM.
If Linus hadn't chosen to GPL his kernel, Linux would not exist. Something else, however, would exist in its place.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If RMS cares that much (which is fine IMO, just in another forum) he should just get a group together and fork the Linux kernel using GPL tools.
That is the freedom he's helped establish. If you don't like a project or how it's being run, rather than just bitching about it, you can change it.
Geez. It's the -least- complicated part of the GPL.
IMHO, it is not a problem of free/commerical software. It is the problem of licensing. Why should the software maker can put this statement in their license? If we think the software makers have too many power on the software, why don't we do it on legislative way other than blaming the developers? If RMS don't like the way of software licensing, he should fight against it rather than forcing all the others under his GNU hood.
> Well I don't like RMS due to many reasons, mainly that he follows his ideas like a religious fanatic altogether with some very faint ideals on how the world should be.
Whether one likes him or not is irrelevant.
There may be after all, similarities between religion and free software. Judeo-Christian religions (for an example I know) pre-supose that every human being is a sinner. Nevertheless each one of these religion keep on holding a strict position on the guidelines their followers should comply with.
To a certain extent RMS is acting in the same way. It is then your choice to be or not a sinner. However it is crucial having some moral authority giving a general direction even if none of us take the straight path.
As far as I am concerned, it is RMS approach of software that has lead me to using GNU/Linux, not hatred of proprietary software, and even if I do not agree with every philosophical point of vue RMS may have, I am greateful to him for expressing it, as it at least remains good food for thought.
May I use your sig please?
For saying what has to be said.
While every business must make a profit to survive,
the argument that 'we must close and control this software
for everyone's good' has been discredited long ago.
Free software is not about compromise. That simply does not work in this context.
Stallman is a visionary and a prophet. He has seen a fundamental truth and we hate him for it.
BitKeeper is obviously a good product. But like all closed-source work, it can only survive at the expense of the community's well being.
Free software is not an eccentric notion, it is as fundamentally important as free speech and human rights.
This is not yet obvious today but it will become so, in years to come.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
The scenario wouldn't be Ford Donating anything to Chevy. The scenario would be like you signing a paper that says by driving this ford for free (the EULA doesn't apply to the purchased ver AFAIK) you agree to never use it to drive to work at a Chevy plant. Taken a bit further, you may not drive the car to work at a garage that works on anything but Chevy vehicles since everyone knows used car sales compete with new cars sales.
Also you may never re-sell the car to anyone who would drive it to work at a Chevy plant.
Or to go a little further down that road.... you can never use the Ford to get parts for the homebrew car you're building out in that garage that you plan to donate to Sally Struthers.
You may not use that car to drive to work at the golf cart factory since golf carts could conceivebly compete with cars. Same with scooters, bikes motorcycles, planes, trains, helicopters... you get the idea. This sounds absurd but not nearly as crazy as some of the lawsuits we've heard about in the last few years.
RMS posted his comments to the wrong list and should apologize to the list (but not on the list). But he's still right. Your comment missed the mark a bit, but is excusable, heat of the moment and all, the insightful moderation however was just nuts.
Now it's the kernel hackers right to do what they will... it's Stallman's right to bitch about it, (but not on the dev list), it's your right to make a bad post and my right to try to get you to think about Stallman's message and life's work in your own terms and it's Slashdot's right to give us a place to have this discussion.
It is also most certainly BitKeeper's right to make whatever EULA they like, however that right has nothing to do with anyone donating hamburgers or cars between companies.
Imagine this... I write the ultimate BitKeeper replacement.. I take the linux kernel, some gnu stuff and create a distro entitled Byte Arranger. It's a totally gpl'd bootablle ISO. You stick it in your PC and voila you're arranging Bytes/keeping bits, so to speak. Does this mean that any of the kernel hackers that continue to use the free version of bitkeeper have now violated the EULA because their work has gone into a system that competes with bitkeeper?
I agree a linux kernel has nothing todo with a userland app that keeps bits, but it'd be a good enough argument to drag a few developers to court.
Once we come to accept this type of license because it's free, we are then another step closer to accepting even stronger versions of this type of license on stuff we pay for. Imagine the EULA of a Windows product first saying
"By installing this software you must agree to never use this software to contribute to Linux."
Version2 states "By installing this software you must agree to never contribute to gpl'ed software." Seems kinda the same at first glance but NOT the same.
G
To be dependant on any single company when doing open software is not that good. Changing licenses and strategies from comercial companies should not intervene with development.
To mix and blend GPL and proprearity software in kernel development is dangerous and can lead to lawsuits stopping up development. Im one of those that thinks keeping the kernel clean is uttely important.
HTTP/1.1 400
I think he sums it up pretty well with that comment.
Not to troll here or anything, but aren't these postings of RMS rants a tad redundant? We all know the man isn't going to like anything that's not open source, and we all know what he has to say (well, anyone that really cares anyway.) He's on the fringe anyway, the GNU-nazi camp is a vocal minority of the Linux community (hence why the stupid GNU/Linux thing never caught on.)
:P)
Besides, a tad more on topic, Bitkeeper does what the kernel developers need it to do. Other open source alternatives do not. From what I've read, they've basically said that if there's an open source alternative to bitkeeper that does what they need it to, they'd use it. I very often see people bending their projects to fit open source tools, when it should be the other way around (tools made to fit the projects.) This is obviously a bit counterintuitive.
The niche for hardcore zealots is closing as the "open source" world heads toward the mainstream. RMS and his rhetoric are part of that group that needs to go if anyone is going to take Linux or open source seriously.
Mod me down, I got karma to burn. But at least give me some decent replies (not flames
1. Patent lots of business plans
2. Sue the hell out of someone who works for a living
3. Profit!
Moral of the story: if it involves fucking someone else, it actually will make money!
Did you mean, a "Brave GNU World"? I'm sorry Mr. Huxley, but it's just so appropriate.
I know more than you drink.
RMS doesn't get it, users want the freedom to choose the best value. The GPL is great and it adds value, but isn't the only factor. There can also be good value in having a solid product that is paid for and uses a commercial license. More cost or license restrictions can lower the value. In the end the user decides at what level those factors eliminate it from consideration.
Assuming that one single criteria (GPL/Open Source) should be the only or even primary deciding factor is _way_ too restrictive, it limits freedom to choose. Linus made it really clear that right now BitKeeper offers the best overall value for what he wants to do. He also made it really clear he is not forcing BK on anyone else. If BK's license gets more restrictive in the future and it is no longer the best overall value he can switch to something else (he's really smart like that). All the rest of this panic is just FUD.
-- Marck
I'd love to comment on ol' RMS (who doesn't), but unfortunately all I get when I go to the page is:
"Sorry, this Module isn't active!"
Anybody have a mirror?
RFC2119
It would make everones life so much more annoying. Fancy attending a Harpsicord/Fortepiano/Pianoforte concert or tracing back your pet dogs entire evolutionary cycle into an immence darwinian nightmare where previously three letters would do.
And some day you might have to trace back your friend's geniology as far back as it goes every time you address them just so your stalmanesque ancestors don't feel like their work is going unnoticed.
don't you think Linux is concise and catchy? Why can't RMS be content. Plus the OS bar the kernel is pretty much done by GNU and nobody talks about Apple/MacOS or the like in a slash separated format why should the LINUX (-see that) community?
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
[The original]
"Besides, McVoy has shown that his company cannot be trusted. Any company that would seek to restrict your how you use their software is pretty slimy."
[My reply]
"Yeah! How dare those GPL folks tell me I can't use open source code in my commercial products."
[Yours]
"Beeezt! Sorry try again. This is about using the software, the finished product, not copying the code and using it in another project."
This is about licenses and what they can dictate. Both the BK license & the GPL dictate to anyone downstream what one can & can't do with the "product". The original author seems to think it's a bad thing for a company to *restrict* what one can & can't do. While in the same breath ignores the fact that the GPL puts down restrictions as well on what one one can and can't do. Like I said one can't take GPL code & turn around and incorporate it in commercial offerings without following the rest of the terms in the license. We may not like what he's doing, but as long as he's doing it within the boundaries of the law. All we can do is what others have suggested. Play by his rules ("he who writes the code,writes the rules") or go and make our own "ball".
I think the website was having troubles. Try again. I just did and it worked fine.
But even better, here is the kernel archives URL for RMS' comments and the response.
Kirk
"If you had built a decent system instead of sitting around and whining, we could be doing something else instead of sitting around listening to your whining."
Man, did that quote put me off. I wonder, for instance, what compiler Larry uses to build BitKeeper. Or what version of shell utils. Or what editor. Or what MTA. Or what DNS server.
RMS and friends *did* build a decent system, which is exactly the reason that Larry is getting all of this publicity for BitKeeper. Think anyone would have heard of BitKeeper if Linus didn't endorse it? Think anyone would have heard of Linus if it weren't for RMS' "decent system"?
-Pez
I might be more inclined to care what he has to say if he wasn't such a hypocrite.
Sure it seems cute to use today's copyright laws to protect his anti-copyright license.
But all his ranting about GNU/blah proves that he does believe in intelectual property rights. He wants to be recognized for HIS work.
Is he the only one that deserves some sort of property rights, since he is the father of open source? No, you either believe in property rights, and all that entails, or you believe in exercising your property rights (in what ever fashion) is immoral.
Apparently BitKeeper has some great features unavailable in OSS products. So what?
Windows and its applications have long had great features unavailable in OSS products. That hasn't stopped me from using Linux and other OSS products as much as *I* felt was possible for 8 years. Have I used some proprietary software? Sure, TurboTax once a year, and occasionally software on customers' desktops. But 99% of my work was using OSS. I lived without this feature and that constantly. I lived without this *product* and that, such as a C++ IDE. Am I a saint? (Yeah right
There's a payoff for compromising principle (or worse, inventing new principles to avoid admitting we're compromising old ones). It's convenient in the short run. But there's a bigger cost. It's only human (hopefully "human" is an evolving, improving concept) to compromise principles. We all do it some, I suppose. The moral measure of a man is, how easily did he compromise? and for what payoff?
Why are you so all-fire sure that nobody's going to create an alternative to BitKeeper? Look at the outrage that sparked the development of GNOME. The QT license got people's dander up, and eventually Red Hat started the GNOME project. BitKeeper seems to have a much worse license.
I'll make you a bet: by the end of the year there will be more BitKeeper-killer projects going than you could count on both hands. One of them will eventually be adopted. And BitKeeper's creators will find themselves with a product that nobody wants to use. Not even Linus.
Trust the Bazaar. If given a choice between Software Libre and Free-As-In-Beer products that are equally good, the community will grab the Libre choice. This is the free/open software community we're talking about, folks! Principle matters to most of us.
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
Take what I am about to say with a grain of salt. I am no conspiracy theorist, but in the last 5 years I have seen so many shady actions by big companies, one in particular, nothing would surprise me.
You really have to wonder if Microsoft has their eye on BK, as a financial investment. They could afford to purchase BitKeeper, and from the sound of McVoy, he is no friend of Open Source and would jump at the chance to make a buck. So MS owns BK, maybe quietly, and starts doing their EULA magic on it, hoping nobody will notice. Whoops, suddenly MS owns the rights to the Linux kernel. Frogs, locusts, moon turns red, etc etc.
Yeah, pretty far fetched, but it would be worth a shot, don't you think? What would MS have to lose? Reputation? Hah. They might be taken to court? Ooooooo, scary. If they can thumb their nose to the DOJ, do you think anyone else will scare them in the courts?
Yeah, I am probably just paranoid.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
What a load o' crap. Larry McVoy basically says three things:
;)
1. We very much like to give both the poor and the rich the option of using our software (without illegally using it), the only thing we disagree with is that our competitors use it for free. While it may be short-sighted, in no way is this worse than Perforce or any of the other commercial versioning tools which cannot be used by anyone for free.
2. We don't believe that an open source product can financially be succesful in this market segment (that is what he actually said, not that all OSS is hopeless). You call this arrogant, but where o where is this money making open source versioning tool to disprove Larry? Besides, there is no reason to call someone arrogant for a honest opinion (unless you are part of the thought police).
3. You have every right to create your own ultracool open source product, but don't claim that you have any right to use our work for free unless you follow our rules. If you want a versioning tool that doesn't have these restrictions, build your own instead of whining.
I certainly don't think that Larry is against OSS or its proponents. What he is against, is people who blame him when he is ten times nicer to users than most other developers. Because no matter how you twist the argument, a commercial license is all your gonna get with almost every other commercial product. BitMover gives you another option, one which you may accept or not, but it can never take anything away from the basic proposition that you get with most commercial products: pay to use it. Besides, the commercial license they use is not a shinkwrap EULA, but a legitimate contract that you must sign. So all in all, BitMover doesn't seem to be any more evil than other commercial developers (probably much less actually). I agree that Larry could have used a bit more tact, but the same can be said for RMS. That's why they should both stick to coding IMHO
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
GNU Linux the kernel as opposed to GNU/Linux the OS? :)
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/021
In case this get slashdotted, here is RMS' post (and I quote):
The new restrictions on Bitkeeper, saying that people who contribute
to CVS or Subversion and even companies that distribute them cannot
even run Bitkeeper, have sparked outrage. While these specific
restrictions are new, their spirit fits perfectly with the previous
Bitkeeper license.
The spirit of the Bitkeeper license is the spirit of the whip hand.
It is the spirit that says, "You have no right to use Bitkeeper, only
temporary privileges that we can revoke. Be grateful that we allow
you to use Bitkeeper. Be grateful, and don't do anything we dislike,
or we may revoke those privileges." It is the spirit of proprietary
software. Every non-free license is designed to control the users
more or less. Outrage at this spirit is the reason for the free
software movement. (By contrast, the open source movement prefers to
play down this same outrage.)
If the latest outrage brings the spirit of the non-free Bitkeeper
license into clear view, perhaps that will be enough to convince the
developers of Linux to stop using Bitkeeper for Linux development.
- Vincit qui patitur.
the link seems to be dead.
I and many others do read articles before commenting. I happen to agree with many of Rick's philosophies, but not the way he has been presenting them over the past 4-5 years.
His fame and founding-father status with GNU mean that he gets a lot of respect and press, even from those who disagree with his ideals. But when he ignores whether a forum is appropriate and storms on with his idealistic rants, he provides the anti-open-source community with a poster boy to paint the community as a bunch of fanatics.
Some claim that his persistant ranting is a "challenge" for us all to follow our ideals and morals regardless of the consequences. While this is a terrific sentiment for those who wish to be seen as dedicated religious icons, it is hardly a suitable approach for those who don't live in their office as RMS does.
But in a world where "reality" TV is so popular, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Realism is the last thing the sound-bite hungry populace seems to want, and a few "sure win" discussions like this ensure that the page counts stay high enough to improve the eyeball stats for advertising.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
KDE, GNOME and XFree86 are not precisely small projects. They all use CVS.
Well, subversion will support those two, and also be almost compatible with CVS (except when there is a strong reason not to). A compromise solution would be: use CVS and then switch to Subversion. They are going golden early next year it seems.
I met him at H2K 2 years ago the guy was walking around without shoes (he wore socks) he looked like he hadn't showered in about a month. Mind you I think he was a brilliant programmer in his day and we all owe him a lot for writing Emacs etc... but if I want to here the ranting of a smelly old socialist I'll read Marxs thank you very much.
mod parent up
Shows you his priorities. The whingeing about GNU/Linux is icing on the cake, and is forgotten when the REAL issues come up. Anything you see RMS arguing that people should use GNU/something as a name, you know that there obviously isn't any real problem happening.
With Bitkeeper, the potential for a real problem (or at least a hell of an inconvenience) is right there, and so you see RMS not even thinking of naming conventions because his concern is about something a lot more important.
This analysis is completely flawed. From the GNU/Linux FAQ:
Obviously, RMS is talking about just the kernel.
I don't understand why everyone loves to speculate on RMS's personality and motivations, when they can't even be bothered to read and understand his arguments in the first place.
And would I buy a car with a hood welded shut? Probably not. But if it met my needs, and all the vehicles with non-welded hoods were go-carts and Pintos, I might consider it.
Actually it IS an eccentric notion. Most people today couldn't care less about the whole free software issue and it will always be that way. I simply do not see in the future a higher proportion of tech litertate people who are knowledgeable enough on the issue to care than there are today.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
When you get older you will stop caring about trivialities of teen angst like worrying over freedom of software, manufactured bands like Britney Spears or the "evil" Microsoft.
Teen angst is something that results when you realize that the whole world is screwed up and you only have a few useful years to do anything about it before you get sucked into being a part of why its so messed up. Post-teenage angst is that hopelessness that you feel when you realize you wasted your only chance to change your miserable little corner of the universe on keg parties and chasing after females that rejected you anyways, and now you've been sucked into the whole machine and must grind out your remaining years as another redundant cog that perpetuates the whole thing.
I know. I was you, now I am the cog in the machine content in my own little niche and see absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Metal Gear Solid 2 used CVS on a Linux system. I wouldn't call that small. Check out the PS2 DVD "The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2" for more interesting info on the development of the game, it's got some pretty sweet info.
Upgrade your grey matter, cause one day it may matter
Business plans are cult humour.
I hereby invoke the USENET Nazi Rule, to wit: any mention of 'Nazi', 'Holocaust', or 'Hitler' in a thread immediately and completely destroys the usefulness of any further conversation in that thread. Unless of course the thread started out as a discussion of same.
It's like nuclear war, man... once you get so far, there's no turning back.
OpenCM
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Oh look! there is someone practicing their freedom to choose to not buy that proprietary software for just the reasons you say it is bad. You will show EVERYONE how foolish it is to even ALLOW people to make any choice in the matter. By ejaculating your acid of "Choice" you will destroy any obsticles to your quest to punish anyone who dares to try and live off their work. While pointing at the far end of the line containing examples of greed, incompetence and malice you will refuse to see how it is the human element that remains the same regardless of whether there is a fee or not. By removing any desire to compete you reduce the pool to a simpering puddle of muck that has few to contribute or use its "wealth." Fight on brother!
Hey! There are some people who on their own time have written some software from scratch and now wish to offer it to the public but first you must pay to use it? How horrid! How dare they refuse to give it away. How dare they not allow us to exercise our "right" to their labors for absolutely nothing. As they have to work to live I suppose they will stop writing such software because they have not the time. After all, how can one afford all the social programs taxed and leeched from them if they do not have a job to pay it?
Oh beautiful theoretical (but yet in reality proven ineffective) Utopia of socialism! If we but could just wander aimlessly in life but somehow magically have our needs cared for... Look someone is charging for software again! BEAT THAT MAN DOWN! How dare he?!
If people do not like bitkeeper or any other proprietary system then do not use it. If you wish to make an ass of yourself by saying that any such actions as you don't like are what symbolizes proprietary software, then you had best look at non proprietary systems that have not only exhibited even more restrictions but then denied choice. Many enjoy open source because they can use and contribute to something relatively easily without having to worry about licensing and such. However if that is superior then like all competition it will eventually beat out the rest. If you have to force the issue and resort to attacks then it is a sign of not only your own doubt of its worth and your complete lack of integrity and honor but a sign of mental instability.
While I certainly don't agree with RMS's point of view on everything by a long shot, I think it is valuable to have his opinions around for discussion. The FSF has been a seminal contributer to the Open Source movement, and many of use use their software on a daily basis.
I also think that a lot of us find BitKeeper's anti-competitive free-beer license troubling, although nobody should be particularly shocked since there are other components in the BitKeeper license that are clearly not 'Open Source'. If for whatever reasons you feel that the use of Bitkeeper is inappropriate for your work, fine. I have severe doubts that the anticompetitive clauses are tolerable in a project like the Linux kernel since they might prevent some entities from making what might be a valuable contributuion to the project, or prevent somebody from working on another project in addition to the Linux kernel. That is a very dubious situtation for an open source project like the kernel to be in.
I hope that the upshot of this will be rapid progress on an open alternative to BitKeeper - I expect that it will be. I've long felt that CVS is a rather crude system, and open source development, especially large projects like Mozilla and the Linux kernel deserve better. Ultimately I think the Bitkeeper license will backfire, and there will soon be an open source choice with a similar or better feature set.
And that's why Joe Sixpack doesn't give two wet shits about Linux, and never will. If Linux wants to ever have a snowball's chance in Hell of unseating MS Windows its developers need to start focusing on the user end of things.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
This is about licenses and what they can dictate. Both the BK license & the GPL dictate to anyone downstream what one can & can't do with the "product".
Not true. The GPL states that you can use the product any way you want. You can crack government agencies with it, use it to develop proprietary software or what ever. The restrictions are only on redistribution of software and code from the product. You are not limited in use of the the application. You can use it anyway you want, but you can not take the code, modify or incorporate it into something that does not conform with the GPL and distribute it. That sounds reasonable to me. With BitKeeper, they tell you how you can use the software, you don't get to look at the code, and you can't distribute it at all.
We may not like what he's doing, but as long as he's doing it within the boundaries of the law. All we can do is what others have suggested. Play by his rules ("he who writes the code,writes the rules") or go and make our own "ball".
I have no problem with the developer of the software. He can make it anyway he wants. I am concerned that software with these restrictions is being used to develop Free software.
Molog
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101 552903701385&w=2
And I personally refuse to use inferior tools because of ideology. In fact, I will go as far as saying that making excuses for bad tools due to ideology is _stupid_, and people who do that think with their gonads, not their brains.
This argument does not hold water. Why did Linus create the inferior Linux of 1991 at all? There were many superior UNIXes at that time.
Go back in time and substitute "BitKeeper" with "Minix" to see the hypocracy of his statement.
The most productive thing people could do might be to just do a BK->CVS
gateway, if you really feel like it. Or just go on and ignore the fact
that some people are using BK - you don't actually have to ever even
know.
Linus
The BK->CVS gateway is now explicitly prohibited by the BK license. The only way around it would be a non-realtime solution whereby one individual makes available BK->patch files and another individual makes a patch->CVS gateway. This solution is a non-solution - it's slow and awkward and is not protected from a future licensing whim change of Larry McVoy.
Linus does not realize that this is more than a productivity issue. Aspiring free software authors are greatly influenced by his decisions. He is sending the wrong message.
People change over time and their ideology also changes. Perhaps Alan Cox or someone else might be a better maintainer for the official Linux tree?
Yep, RMS, you're right again.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Why do people hate?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
What if RMS were persuaded by these arguments that BK is actually a good licensing scheme? Then the FSF, as the sole gcc copyright holder, could add a license restriction to gcc saying "can't be used to compile Bitkeeper." I don't think BK could win that licensing war. The only reason they can survive currently is that the FSF has some ideals they uphold on their licensing.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The true irony is your line about learning from history. People like RMS and his supporters are obviously not fans of reality or history, and thus the lessons that they teach.
Oh, you mean like KDE ?
The LKML archive I use dosn't preserve headers. Does anyone have the headers from the origional message?
He refers to "Linux development" not "GNU/Linux". That in itself gives me reason to suspect that it's a forgery.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Free as in beer and speach.. just to make myself clear...
I want the code so I can recompile on my system and optomise for my systems querks.
I don't want to fork it over for utilitys.
If software is preticularly powerful or on the inverse specturm purely entertainment I'll make an exception.
BUT any time the liccens includes language that says how I can use it or what I can't do with it... byond the obligitory "don't steal" stuff that's in every software liccens sence the 1980's I won't even bother.
I don't know what Bitkeeper is and now I'll probably never bother to find out.
I don't actually exist.
I have a simple concept: If you don't like that Linux Kernel (note the deliberate omission of GNU/) is developed with Bitkeeper, use BSD or something else!
You know, I thought abortion activists were airheads God help us if the Linux (again note the prominent omission) community joins with the anti-fur or abortion league...
Here's to the "Mind your own godamn business" Faction! Power to the people!
"It's not stealing if you don't get caught!"
Sure, you can do that. But I don't think you should have to if there's an alternative you're happy with. If you're focused on whatever is your baby, building your own tools when there are alternatives which work for you are a distraction, and not the point of what you're doing.
If BitKeeper weren't available, perhaps the Linux project would develop its own version control system either from scratch or as an improvement on an existing one. But that's not the situation - Linus et al aren't in the business to build version control software but Linux.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Can't RMS just realise he is
.... and we liked it that way!'
GOSUL = Grumpy Old Seventies Unix Lamer
I can just hear him: 'Wheeellll, back in my day, we didn't have no virtual memory. We had to write every 1 and 0 on a toilet paper roll and run them through a clothes wringer to compute the square root of 2.
Maybe, it's because RMS is seeing the pool of coders that could work on this replacement being wittled down by bk's EULA - to wit, anyone who uses bk while doing Linux kernel work, is now not allowed to help on coding a replacement for bk (even in their spare time).
The very people who use bk, are exactly the sort of people who would possibly look to make improvements to a SCC if it were open source (since they are already proven to do open source work, and this work requires a SCC).
It seems clear to this layperson that the closed and open source communities rely, at least in part, on each other. The situation is much the same in the university vs. industry setting. Only an ideologue (RMS, Bill Gates?) would think that only half of the equation makes sense.
I'll bite.
It's Whisky if it's distilled twice.
It's Whiskey if it's distilled thrice.
1 - "Hey, I'm working on that paper for tomorrow, mind if I use your computer?"
...
./ - "Shut up RMS!"
2 - "Go ahead"
2 - "Hey, nice work, you're almost done. But you can't hand that in, it looks better than mine.. Unless you want to spot me $50.."
RMS - "I told you not to use his computer."
I don't agree with RMS's ideals. But I won't touch BitKeeper with a 10ft pole. I can't depend on software with that kind of licesing which is why I never used the product (it might be great, i wouldn't know. I couldn't swallow the license). My open source project would be in serious trouble because the way BitKeeper is they could just suddenly decide that it's not okay for me to use it anymore. BLAH! There are plenty of other choices out there that do a decent job and are truely free.
The GPL/BKL are exactly analogous.
The GPL is an instrumentality of the GNU Manifesto: it exists to achive the goals of the GNU Manifesto, and to help the world envisioned by RMS, when he set those goals, to come into existance.
That is the reason for the existance of the GPL.
Likewise, the BKL is an instrumentality of the same philosophy, but with a somewhat narrower scope of operation. It intends to make source code available, and gives economic incentive for that to happen, by providing a service for free which would otherwise have a high price attached to it, in exchange.
The interesting thing here is that the GPL does not work, if the source code is available under terms other than the GPL.
The BKL doesn't work if the service it provides in exchange for making source code available is available under other terms.
Consider that, with a comparable product available, there is no need to accept the GPL restrictions placed upon you for redistribution and source availability that use of GCC contractually requires.
Similarly, with a comparable product available, there is no need to accept the BKL restrictions placed upon you for source availability that use of BitKeeper contractually requires.
Both achieve their goals through force of contract, and both achieve their goals through the unavailability of alternatives. This unavailability is through an enforced barrier to entry.
In the GCC case, the barrier to entry is that one is not permitted to make derivative works which are not also under the GPL; in the BitKeeper case, it is that one is not permitted to use BitKeeper itself in the creation of derivative works.
In both cases, what is being controlled is derivation.
In fact, the GPL is not a very effective instrumentality of the GNU Manifesto; it fails to address patent and other issues addressed by the M
nifesto, and it's emergent properties are not precisely aligned with the results the GNU Manifesto claims it wants. A better instrumentality would be something like the Cygnus eCOS license. I think the GPL is a trade-off, required by a complexity barrier: any more complex, and it would be a better instrumentality, but it would be harder to get programmers to attach it to their code, without them feeling the need to consult a lawyer first.
On a side note, your Microsoft argument is specious; assuming wide deployment of a "trusted computing environment", Microsoft no longer has an incentive to keep their source code to themselves in order to achieve their own barrier to entry: the barrier is replaced with the fact that you can not digitally sign the resulting code in order to get the hardware to run it, only Microsoft can, so the source code no longer needs obscurity protection.
At this point, it is all about controlling barriers to your competition, and it doesn't matter if you are the FSF, BitMover, or Microsoft.
The net effect of all this is that it destroys the intellectual commons, no matter how you look at it. The FSF is just as guilty as Microsoft, in this regard.
-- Terry
GNU SourceHurder of course. Yes to be written but to follow the same Hurd goals it will be better than everything else whenever someone does bother to pretend to write code for it.
Seems that people's posts are missing an important detail. RMS does not use any proprietary software to do anything ever. For instance there was a long time when he could not browse the web. He does this because he believes that he cannot stand for Free Software and use proprietary software at the same time.
Any projects which are moved into BitKeeper become unavailable to him. This is why the idea of a Free Software project in a proprietary version control system would really bother him.
mozilla uses cvs.
"Well, $foo will support $bar, and also be almost compatible"
Hello. This is today speaking. Wake the fuck up and look at a calendar. By the time this hypothetical system will be online the actual production system will have another year of development behind it. Some games are lost when you fall behind. Some aren't.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
I just did. In its entirety, it now reads, "Sorry, this Module isn't active!"
Imagine a Free and Open Clearcase workalike:
(G)nutcase, from irrational software.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt
the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.
-- George Bernard Shaw
I'm with RMS on this one: without GNU there would not have been any Linux. I hope BK is a temporary solution.
The spirit of the Bitkeeper license the same as that of the GPL: the spirit of the whip hand. It is the spirit that says, "You have no right to use GNU software, only temporary privileges that we can revoke. Be grateful that we allow you to use GNU software. Be grateful, and don't do anything we dislike, or we may revoke those privileges." It is the same spirit as proprietary software, because I and the FSF want to dominate the world just as much as Microsoft. The GPL is designed to control the users, the market, everything... more and more. If people ever got outraged at this spirit, I would have to change the GPL so that it isn't a viral "roach motel" for software. But they're so gullible, before long there will be no choice but GNU. GNU/Linux, GNU/Everything.
Is this not obvious? If the BK license prohibits ANYONE from ever contributing to a BK-controlled project (like Linux) if they ever try to build a BK competitor, then can all the people whining "go build your own! go build your own!" please shut the fuck up?
Think about it: of course whining about BK makes no sense. What makes most sense is developing a free alternative to BK. Well... the BK license prohibits people from doing that. So... Stallman is right, it *is* an outrage.
Interesting... I smell a new O'Reilly book, CVS for Game Developers!
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
This is the 900th comment in this pointless story.
If you were working on a competition to BitKeeper, will you use BitKeeper to manage it?
Of course not!
You would use THE SOFTWARE YOUR WORKING ON to manage it. If YOU can't use your software to manage the project, who will!?
So, practically this EULA has no effect.
My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as
Africa. Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31.
We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in
Africa. Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule: Up at
6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00. Pretty soon we were back in bed by
6:30. Now Africa is full of big game. The first day I shot two bucks. That
was the biggest game we had. Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose
and Knights of Pithiests.
The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their
annual conventions. And you should see them gathered around the water hole,
which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water. They
weren't looking for a water hole. They were looking for an alck hole.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my
pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. That's a tough
word to say, tusks. As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were
imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out. But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa,
but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.
We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.
So we're going back in a few years...
-- Julius H. Marx [Groucho]
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...