McVoy on BitKeeper, Linus, and Perens

Joe Barr writes "The story of how BitKeeper has come to be Linus Torvalds' (and many other kernel hackers) tool of choice in maintaining the Linux development tree is worthy of a book. Here's the Cliff Note's version of McVoy's contribution to Linux kernel development, BitKeeper, and countless hours of flaming on the role of open source and proprietary software."

Comments

interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

McVoy seems very reasonable in this interview. He's a smart guy, and, like he says, a little insecure.

However, it would be best if someone came up with a Free alternative to BitKeeper as quickly as possible.

Proprietary source code management is a little too dangerous in my opinion. It gives the code owners unilateral power over your project, even if they don't choose to exercise it today, they might tomorrow. You might be forced someday to choose between accepting their new terms, or moving your project to a new system (which might take months of time).

It's pretty stupid to choose your software ONLY on technical merit (the "best tool for the job" mentality that engineers and technical folks have). Remember that the license and the business model of the company offering the software might have a material impact on YOUR business someday!

When your code is tied up inside of another company's product, it's best to stick with Free software if possible.