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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."
Can anyone comment on the possible ramifications of having all these large-scale commercial contributors using a tool that Linus & Co no longer use/have access to?
RTFA. Larry McVoy explains that the reason he's no longer giving Linux devs free copies of bitkeeper is because their needs are so different from what paying customers would want.
BK's advantage was in loosely-coupled projects, without the infrastructure for a central source repository. The only groups that really need that functionality are large open-source projects. Small open-source, or small-to-large commercial projects can afford (and prefer) their own main server.
On the other hand, moving away from bitkeeper expands the kinds of features Linux can accept. Previously, a networked filesystem with versioning metadata would've been a license violation. (Not that such would necessarily be a good idea for Linux, but it is now an option)