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No More BitKeeper Linux
An anonymous reader writes "KernelTrap has a lengthy article detailing BitMover's recent decision to drop support for its free version of BitKeeper. Linus Torvalds began using BitKeeper back in February of 2002, a decision that has resulted in frequent flamefests, but also in increased kernel development productivity. Evidently the recent decision was due to OSDL's decision to keep paying a developer who was working on reverse engineering BitKeeper... What tool Linus will move to is still being determined."
Man, remember all those people "flaming" over the freedom of tools on the lists? What was with them, anyway? Aren't they just starting a "religious war?" Who cares if this tool is free. It didn't cost me anything. Those crazy license zealots.
But wait.
Now, look what happened. The company (or individual) that was your friend a couple of years ago, decides today that you've offended them. Now they are taking their ball and going home.
Now you are stuck. You need to replace what they gave you. Oh, it'll cost you: manpower, lost opportunities, potentially a pile of pesos... Get ready for a painful transition. And as annoying and dangerous as this is for source control in mainline kernel development, there are many, many scenarios where this kind of manuevering will screw you much worse - alienating your customers, stranding years of development, the whole works.
This is why freedom matters.
And what is BitMover so upset about? That anyone would dare compete with them?
The audacity!
Does any vendor of a commercial product have a moral high ground to complain when a competitor appears? And whose problem is it if they are trying to charge money for something other will do for free?
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Considering what has transpired, the obvious choice is subversion:)
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Wow, non-free software vendor decides to drop support for a piece of software leaving their loyal users out in the cold. Thanks BitMover for proving why Linus' decision to rely on a non-free version control system was a mistake.
How has this left Linux out in the cold? Because he now has to pay to use BitKeeper? What's wrong with that? BitMover feels that OSDL broke faith with them by having a developer who was reverse engineering their product.
If BK is such hot stuff, then it will be worth some money to Linus. If it isn't, I guess he'll find something else to use.
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
Subversion, of course. What else is there? RCS? CVS?
OSS communities tend to settle on one project, and nothing or noone ever seriously competes with it. Ie; the linux kernel, SAMBA, OO.o, Mozilla, GIMP, eventually either KDE or Gnome (heck, used to be lots of desktops), etc..
In the source control realm, it seems to be all about subversion. It seems to have the mindshare and community behind it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"If that's what he feels most productive using, what difference does it make?"
Indeed. If he decided tomorrow that future kernels would all be compiled in Microsoft Visual C++, what would be the problem? After all, it's not as though his choices on tools affect anyone but him, is it?
Oh, except that all the other developers are forced to either use the same tools he does or find workarounds to allow them to use different tools.
Personally I've always felt that relying on a payware source control program for kernel development was a big risk, and removed much of the stimulus to create really first-class open source source control programs: I guess that's now been clearly demonstrated. And regardless of who's in the wrong here, I can't help but feel that the Bitkeeper folks are going to lose a lot of sales due to programmers regarding them poorly as a result of this action.
What's wrong with the free version he already has? Does it require replacement?
I don't see this as a problem for the time being.
It is important to other people working on the kernel though.
Doesn't BitMover realize that companies license their products due to Linus using it? Linus's sarcastic comments about BitMover just pushes companies away, as probably intended. Won't that just screw themselves over?
-b0lt
got sig?
Although it may be offtopic, but non-free software vendors aren't the only ones dropping support for popular products and disappointing their loyal users. Mozilla recently did that with Seamonkey, so that they could focus on Firefox.
Actually, it's very relevant, because it's exactly the point: since Mozilla is open source, if enough people are interested, it's easy for the browser suite version to live on even if the original maintainers are no longer pursuing it. And, it turns out that enough people are, so we get a solid maintainer transition plan and a workable future for Mozilla SeaMonkey. No such thing is possible with BitKeeper.
But it's true, linus didn't consider the nature of what he was using and got burned.
While everyone has a fit when stallman is mentioned, it's true that the people who don't consider the politics of licences are often burned.
Look at how much MS or Apple have given back to BSD as opposed to how much linux has got from IBM. Who has the better dynamic community of sharing?
Seriously, there are many reasons FOR the GPL. I am sick of people who aren't political having an allergic reaction to it, while you might not value the reasons for the GPL there *ARE* perfectly legitimate and powerful reasons for believing in it.
There is tons of hateful propaganda against the GPL. I don't mind the BSD guys* doing what they do, it's cool. I have respect for them. But I don't like the hate that gets sent back. It's one thing not to agree, it's another thing to just characterise other people as "weenies" and "hippies" or whatever.
*Fully comprehending that there are pro-BSD trolls that don't represent all of BSD community. Just talking about impressions.
It's a bit silly to say 'I told you so" - especially since I didn't actually say it. I thought the arguments made by Linus had some logic behind it too (the technical-merrit-before-anything-else approach). Often I thought both sides (Stallman and Linus) had some valuable viewpoint on it, and it was difficult to say who actually was right on the matter.
It seems now, after all, it was R.Stallman all along. Yes, Linus has a good point in chosing for technical superior alternatives...BUT, in the end, as is clearly shown now, you can't just devide the political/ideological/proprietary issue from the mere technical one. When push comes to shove, an alternative that isn't really free, isn't really an alternative. You are always dependend on the goodwill of whomever owns the product- even when buying it, I may add.
So, it would seem the viewpoint of Linus, in this instance, is the weaker one, because now he doesn't have a 'tecnological superior' product anymore, and what is he going to do? Go for another proprietary product, because it's technologically better? And have the same thing happen to him again? I don't think so. I think he learned his lesson, and he will go for the really free alternatives that R.Stallman suggested, which, albeit not as good, at least allow you to continue with it as you see fit.
Stallman can be a nag sometimes because of his gnu/linux diatribe, but in this instance, he was right.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
If this is true, BitMover should expect a big financial hit.
BitKeeper's main claim to fame was that Linus and the kernel folks used it. That's the kind of endorsement that you can't buy for any amount of money. Without that, most people would never even know BitKeeper exists.
Its a really stupid move. An open source competitor might have taken some of their business, but most of the open source users would probably be using something else free anyway. 90% of corporate customers would rather pay for something. An open source clone would probably validate BitKeeper.
Not to mention the ill will they will generate.
I guess freedom is actually way more important than function now isn't it.... Had the developers not fallen into the non-free trap a alternative would have already existed by now do to need.
Got Code?
...in the commercial community binary managment is critical. For example, someone may be tracking a 1 MB word document that goes through hundreds of revisions resulting in consuming 1 GB of space.
That may be the stupidest things I've ever heard. Clearly, Word-formatted documents are the wrong format to be using.
Software Wars
The question is where to go now? My preference would be GNU Arch, as it's more decentralized. But it may not be ready for this heavy a use, and I am hardly an expert in revision control.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Did your grocery store ever offer you free bread and milk? Did they imply that this would be an ongoing offer? Was there ever a concern that your household was becoming dependant on that free bread and milk? And once you did become dependant on that free bread and milk, did your grocery store now demand the 4 bucks because they discovered one of your household members was learning how to bake bread?
Let's hope that the impending avalanche of negativity will influence BitKeeper to reconsider at least a token giveback to the Linux community.
Let's hope that it doesn't.
The open source position on this one is not outrageous: they want a client which can't be taken away from them.
Larry, responds by *TAKING THE CLIENT AWAY* thus proving exactly what people were saying in the first place -- we've indirectly put Larry in a position of power as he controls the only tool we can now use: not only are we ethically opposed to this, but he seems to be a dick to.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
He goes on to compare the activities of an individual deleoper to a "bad apple" in the Marine Corps!
Rhetorical fussilades like this really expose what an unbearable asshole he is.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I think it's a demonstration that Open Source is more dependable. We understood that, but it seems paradoxical to outisders that it is the exclusive rights-holder, the very company that purports to support the software, that reduces dependability.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Are you suggesting that OSDL should be responsible for what its employees do while not on the clock?
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
Together they put pressure on each other and arrive at a reasonable medium.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I know there is a group of developers who will continue to maintain Seamonkey. I happen to be one of them.
However, my point was that ignoring loyal users is not the sole domain of non-free software vendors, as the OP seemed to imply. Even though open-source developers can continue to develop a product after it is no longer supported, it still doesn't make it right.
Rather than marketshare, software vendors, both open- and closed-source, should be focusing on their loyal customers/users. However, they are managed by business school graduates, to whom, profit is everything.
I hadnt actually looked at Monotone yet. But from a cursory look at the website it seems to fill a void, or will once it is mature enough.
The problem I see here is the level of fragmentation in the open source SCM world. Monotone looks like it is designed from the ground up to be distributed. CVS and Subversion were not, but are both much more mature projects on the standalone side. Then you have arch which seems to fit somewhere in the middle. It would be nice to have some of these teams working together since something like a subversion with the distributed nature of monotone is what we really want here.
"this is really an open source community problem and I have to say that the open source community couldn't have failed more than they have." He pointed out that as a long-time open source fanatic and the CEO of BitMover, "we represent as open-source friendly a commercial organization as you are *ever* going to see"
"Unlike the Marine corp, the open source community is more than willing to ignore their bad apples as 'not my problem' (the Marine corp punishes the group for the behavior of the bad apples, pretty soon there are no bad apples)."
This supposed open source fanatic obviously doesn't have a frickin clue. Comparing OSS developers to the Marine corp makes no sense, as there is no single organization that all OSS programmers belong to. Even if you had the desire to do so, you can't sit and police a group when you have no authority. OSDL quite simply wasn't going to stop doing business with a guy because of what he does in his free time, nor should they have to. It is none of their business, nor is it McVoy's.
He's got to be delusional if he thinks he's got the most open source friendly commercial organization out there. There are a lot of companies that work in the OSS world without bullying other developers. McVoy has turned his company into a joke amongst the OSS crowd, and will probably promptly run it bankrupt too. And I have to say, it looks good on him.
What consequences? Having the kernel be way better than it would have been if Linus had listened to you people and not used BitKeeper?
Sure, BitKeeper might be going away--but the things Linus accomplished while it was here will NOT go way.
Disclaimer: No, I have not RTFA...
There is no "theft of MitMover's work". The independant contractor in his own free time was working on creating a competing product.
By your logic, Open Office is stealing the work of MS on its Office suite...
Further, when I contract with a company, they have NO influence on what side projects I do. I would probably be offended if they even asked me to stop working on a personal project.
You have less respect for OSDL since they basically said "What an employee does on his own time is his own business?"
I'll answer the next three responses here:
"If you follow some of the links from the article, it talks about productivity doubling since using BitKeeper."
There is, ofcourse, always the matter that there might be a relation noted, but therefor not a causality. Is there really a heightened production? Is it due to Bitkeeper? Is it *all* due to Bitkeeper?
Those are reasonable questions, and I think, even the neutral Linus could be biased a bit in this regard, because after all, he has made and kept to this decision for 3 years, contrary to much critique.
"Even if there is a cost now moving to something else, it may still work out better in terms of productivity to have used BitKeeper for the three years. Also the use of BitKeeper in Linux seems to encouraged a lot of work on open source alternatives, so they may well be better now than they would have been had BitKeeper not been chosen."
The cost will not be minute, I assure you. Yes, it *might* have been worthwile, but I have problems with this 'might' because it is largely based on speculation. If it really is all that much beneficial, he (Linus) would obviuosly chose another technological superior, yet proprietary system. I doubt that he will, however. Well, we'll see.
"So from the practical, rather than ideological, point of view, even with dropping it now it may still have been the best choice."
See above.
"When you are provided a powerful tool for no cost under the condition that you don't fund the creation of a competing tool based on that technology you are not at the whim of someone's goodwill."
Ermm...yes, you are. I don't follow you: you just describe a situation where, at least in that instance, you are at the whim, and you claim it's indicative that you aren't? Unless you equal 'whim' with totally unreasonable demands, this makes no sense. however, being depended on the goodwill of someone does not infer being unreasonable: they can have very good reasons (even economical ones are good too, in a sense); but still it remains a fact you are at their mercy.
"When they approached OSDL and said you have a employee doing this (reverse engineering our technology), please have them stop and OSDL says it's not our problem."
See above. Besides, reverse engeneering isn't illegal per sé, so they were right to say it's not there problem.
"Its not like they all of the sudden started says hey OSDL/Linus you now need to start paying for this since you like it. They said we are giving you free access to our tool but you have staff that are now striking at our revenue line, which happens to be how we fund this tool you like. Please have them stop and we will continue to provide this tool."
That's very amicable (or not) of them, but it still means one is not free to use the tool; thus, one is dependend on their goodwill.
"When you still thumb your nose at the company who has employees to support and revenue to generate you are only putting them under the gun."
See above.
"So based on this evidence you can see this isn't a RS versus Linus issue versus a OSDL taking responsibility issue. If OSDL came back to the table and said Ok, mea culpa, we will make this right then the problem wouldn't be there."
Yes, it would, since it would still be clear that they are not really free. If they can say 'do not do this" they can say "do not do that" neither. Whether it is reasonable from their perspective or not doesn't enter the picture: it still makes it clear that they can't use the tool totally free.
"Make Sense?"
Not really, when you look at it strictly from the viewpoint of whether or not they are delivered to the goodwill of the owners of Bitkeeper. This shows they aren't, whether Bitkeepers owners were reasonable in their demands or not.
"RMS was not necessarily right. In TFA Linus is quoted as saying "three years of using BitKeeper has made some profound improvements to the workflow""
I answered this already at th
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
>BitMover wrote their free-use license in such a way that the gratis use of their software would benefit the user and not harm BitMover.
Benefit the users? By restricting their freedom to create a tool like BitKeeper?
>What exactly is wrong with that? Its their software, and they don't have to let anyone use it without paying.
Granted. But they can't lie either. They can lie to politicians and the average american, but they can't lie to geeks. Geeks write things down and have long memories.
>Why should they allow someone who freeloads to reverse engineer their software?
If the guy saw the source, he's not reverse engineering, he's copying from memory. If the guy didn't see the source, he's not freeloading.
Again, tell me how a license between Corp A and Corp B can stop US Citizen C from reverse-engineering something?
"Piter, too, is dead."
> If RMS had his way, [...] nobody would
> be able to make a living writing software (bad).
RMS has himself never said that, in fact he says exactly the opposite. You should read the GNU philosophy pages before spouting such nonsense, in particular this particular aspect.
The FSF says that you should charge as much as you possibly can for Free software. Redhad in particular is demonstrating this point very well.
Presumably you know that RHEL is more expensive than Windows yet is distributed under the terms of the GPL, and therefore the freeest form of Free Software according to Stallman.
A lot of employees have been fired for what they do in their spare time. They might not be paid by the company, but they are still an employee. Employers will not just let slide if their employees are working for their competition in their spare time, and it's pretty understandable if a company's supplier gets miffed that they have an employee working in their spare time to compete against the supplier, especially with an non-compete agreement between the 2 parties
The universe is held together with duct tape and karma. What goes around, comes around, and gets stuck to your forehead.
*Sigh* After almost two decades of Free (OS) Software, you still don't get it. Even considering the fact that most FOSS programmers (who are writing software after all) are still around and so far haven't starved to death, you, amongst so many others, still believe that it's impossible to make a living out of it.
Who do you think is most qualified to deliver (meaningful) support, fixes and enhancements to any kind of software? Right, the original developers. While everybody may look at the (open) source code, the original developers are most qualified to do anything with it in a timely fashion. This one alone opens up possibilities for revenue creation.
What about hardware drivers? IBM does pay their developers to work on (GPL'd) Linux drivers so that that it can sell it to their customers, no? Or do you really think that Big Blue tells its software engineers that they will have to work for free while hacking FOSS drivers?
Just because you are too daft to figure out a viable business model doesn't mean it can't be done.
Sorry if this sounds too harsh for you, but you made a fine example of not getting IT.
I feel so sig.
I'm not a kernel developer, but it seems to me Perens and RMS were right from the start. Good riddance and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
grammar-lesson free since 1999. (rescinded - 2005)
Surprisingly enough, almost exactly this scenario really happens, and results in children dying.
Companies (specifically Nestlé) give free infant formula to mothers in third world countries, marketing it as better than the free alternative. The mother uses the free milk, and her natural supply dries up. Then suddenly the rules change, and Nestlé demands cash for more milk. To add to the problem, she has to find a supply of clean water to mix the formula with, which can be problematic.
Even though Nestlé never say up front that they are offering an ongoing free supply of milk, they still get boycotted by many people who find their behavior immoral in the extreme.
So your attempt to show by analogy that BitKeeper have done nothing wrong, in fact fails to convince.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
If RMS had his way there would still be plenty of people out there making a living writing software. Don't buy into that anti-OSS FUD
Not just writing software - writing it better and more efficiently because they don't have to constantly re-invent the wheel nor worry about violating patents they aren't even aware of.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I've got no dog in this fight, I don't develop on Linux, use Linux, just a techy and businessman who gets to watch from the sidelines and been around Slashdot for about seven years.
Perhaps I do not get the religous thing, but as the simple business person I am struck at the audacity of the free software communitity sometimes. This was an individual and company that doubled the output of main-line Linux development over a couple year span and the only thing asked was not to try to reverse the product.
Personally, I do not think that was too much to ask. At this point, the way I read yours and other responses is that the Linux faithful have NO trust in the mores and motivations of anyone. After reading the argument its sounds like there was a very symbiotic relationship to quote the book "Getting to Yes", a win-win for each side. I think you and others in this group should take a very good look in the mirror because it was decisions made by individuals that share your viewpoint that ended this relationship because you cannot and do not trust anyone to do the right thing.
My question is where is the outrage at the OSDL for going back on its word. All I hear is bad-mouthing saying "I told you so." The reason everyone is saying I told you so is because the community broke the rules of the game is now going to pay for it. Either grow-up, trust others to do the right thing, and invite commerical enterprises into Linux passed just the shops that develop the big iron or doom yourselves to an existence where Linux only runs on servers and has no commercial packages avaliable.
These sorts of actions by the community always trouble me because I will be creating software as a commercial enterprise one day but when certain factions within the community can't respect the agreement well that makes you less likely to write for Linux. Unlike most arguments the community does not hold the moral high-ground on this one.
BitMover's core problem has nothing to do with supporting Linux for free. Their problem is that they absolutely refuse to compete on price for commercial business. I really wanted to use BitKeeper when I convinced by employer that VSS was destroying productivity,however, BitMover was totally unwilling to match the price of Perforce. End of story. We are a perforce shop now, and probably always will be. They could have had an extra $15,000 per year now, and more over time as our development team grows, just by being competitive, and they turned it down. The 'cost of sales' was practically nil as well since I found them (I had worked on Sun's Teamware, the precursor to Bitkeeper so I already knew about the product). It would have taken 1 sales day to close the deal. I willing to bet that scenario has played out dozens, if not hundreds of times. Everybody would use bitkeeper if the price was right. It isn't, so they don't.
There is no "evaluation" version with a 30 timer that starts to nag you. You can download RHEL and make and distribute your own version such as Whitebox Linux. The only real restriction is that you cannot call it Red Hat Linux since that is a trademark of Red Hat. The main thing you get with RHEL is the enterprise grade support. If you called Red Hat and asked for support for Whitebox Linux, you would be told to go jump in a lake or something. Here is the source to RHEL 3. Go have a ball!
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
The majority of paid programmer get paid by a company that does not sell software. There will always be jobs for programmers like me. I work for a fortune 500 that has nothing to do with the Tech industry and has never sold one line of code. I get paid to develop in-house applications that are for use only by the company. Even if all commercial software went away and it all became GPL'ed/LGPL'ed, there will be plenty of jobs for programmers to work for companies making custom software to help companies to perform their day-to-day business.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
If BitMover stated up front that all licenses would be withdrawn from all Linux developers in the event that any single Linux developer tried to reverse engineer BitKeeper, then Linus was a total idiot for agreeing to that license.
If BitMover did not state those conditions up front, then they are being evil and manipulative in yanking licenses from unrelated parties in a fit of pique over what one person is doing in his own time.
Is that balanced enough for you?
Personally, I'm struck by the audacity of a software company trying to control what someone uses a piece of software for, after giving it to him. If Microsoft said you were prohibited from using Windows to write articles critical of Microsoft and contrary to their interests, you would presumably have no problem with that?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
So you think the entire 'software economy' (barf) is based upon reimplementing crap that has already been done?
Man, if all you do is rewrite things that already exist, you deserve to lose your job.
The rest of us will be glad we're not wasting our time, and have a large pool of code to draw from to, you know, solve problems
I'm sorry you feel that way about commercial ventures on Linux. I must say, that expecting that no one will try to duplicate the feature set of a successful program is unrealistic, in any market. Closed or Open source, it makes no difference. If your competitor has a feature that makes it successful, you better have that feature in your own product, or you start falling behind. If you think that closed source competitors won't do this to you, then you are just naive.
IANAL... But I play one on
Do you forget so soon that 95% of computer jobs are in house jobs, and aren't being sold outside the company? That means if GPL destroyed 'for pay' software, a minimum of 95% of the job would still be there.
Larry's comments seem not to disagree with this reasoning. From TFA:
It will also be nice if their future features will eventually become available in the form of an equally compelling open-source RCS, but if the past five years are any indication, we can expect not to see truly innovative features on the FLOSS side for a long time. And that is really unfortunate, but hopefully the monotone people will pick up the slack.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
BitMover received an immense marketing boost from Linus' adoption of BitKeeper. The company founded by Larry McVoy would probably not be viable today without Linus' implied endorsement of their product. So please don't pretend that BitMover was doing Linus a favor -- the reality was very much the other way around.
When BitMover was just getting started, nobody knew what BitKeeper was, and nobody had any idea whether it was a reliable program. Because an archive of source code is the repository of the corporate jewels, reliability is crucial. Cautious sysadmins want a revision control system to have a long track record for dependability, and they would not have touched a newbie program like BitKeeper with a ten foot pole. So BitMover's survival in a crowded market was very uncertain from the start.
Linus' adoption of BitKeeper lent it enormous credibility, and is probably the most important reason why Larry McVoy's company continues to exist today. Linus benefited somewhat from BitKeeper, but BitKeeper benefited vastly more from Linus.
And MS said that's ok, because really, the employee is doing... "other" work for us, and only doing the Cherry-OS-thing on his "own-time".
Do you really expect the GPL folks who's code it was based on to buy that, and think MS might not have had some bit in it? And don't you think they'd quickly deny MS all rights to use the GPL code for any reason based on their employees breaking their license?
What does "untold number" mean? That's the weasely argument that the MPAA and RIAA use to determine that they're losing billions of dollars to piracy.
In this case there's the set of people that stated that they wouldn't contribute to the linux kernel because of the Bitkeeper decision. There's also the set of people capable of contributing to the linux kernel. The intersection of these two groups is the impact on kernel development and it's offset by increased productivity due to Bitkeeper. I don't know if it's a net positive or a net negative, but neither do you.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
There's an instant "-1 Flamebait" target if ever I saw one.
Listen up. Software doesn't need support, ever. Users need support, to varying degrees. So your fundamental premise is a misleading straw man.
Free Software neither eliminates or increases the need for user support. Good software, regardless of how it's licensed, is easier for the user to use without hand-holding. Free Software increases the options available to the user, and eventually market Darwinism will tend to narrow the field to the packages which best meet the users' needs. Not the market monopolist's need, mind you: the true needs of the real users. Niche minority software packages will continue as long as someone is interested in it, even if it's just the solitary unwashed hippy developer.
In short, developers should develop what the damn hell they feel like, and the users should use whatever they feel comfortable with.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.