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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."
Having quickly read the RTFA, it looks like the motivation behind BitMover's hissy-fit was that a contractor of OSDL was working on reverse engineering BitKeeper's protocol in his spare time, and OSDL must have refused to, or failed to make him to stop (ouch, threatening someone's job to make them stop doing open source in their spare time, not cool!). BitMover's CEO claims to be on the side of open source, yet last time I checked interoperability was a good thing, and reverse engineering was a legitimate way to achieve it. Not according to CEO Larry McVoy, to him reverse engineering is evil, and those that do it are "bad apples" that should be punished by the rest of the open source movement.
Of course, lots of this is my own suppositions based on reading between the lines of the article, I am sure if I have got anything wrong people will be quick to correct me.
I told you so. Did I not tell you? WHAT DID I SAY? It's bad enough they don't put a GNU/ in front of the thing, but NOW this happens. I told Torvalds, you will rue the day, you will rue the day you used BitKeeper, but noooooo. He called me a crack addict and used it anyways. I get no respect. -- RMS
Note that Larry McVoy has pointed out that the number of improvements to the commercial version due to suggestions from Open Source developers has been dropping sharply. To me, that means "giving free copies to these guys has been beneficial to my bottom line, but isn't doing much for me lately, in the financial sense". It sounds like this reverse-engineering issue is a smokescreen, a scapegoat for cutting off the "freeloaders" (those contributing to improving the product).
So, he's in it for the money. Is anyone surprised?
I always equivocate. Well, almost always.
I've become a recent fan of Martin Pool, and I've been keeping tabs on his work with Bazaar-NG, his next generation version of Bazaar, as a distributed free source code control system, for Ubuntu. It's early in development yet, but if there's one thing I've learned from Martin Pool, is he does great work! Keep tabs on him. :)
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KickingDragon
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.
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.
Nah. I was won over to free software because it's practical. I've never seen handing your data over to be managed by proprietary software product as "practical".
I'm kind of bitter that way as I've been using computers for a long time, since the early eighties, and have had too much experience of what happens when proprietary vendors do not support you any longer, even often with no malice intended, as the manufacturers of the Dragon 32, Sinclair QL, and Commodore Amiga can demonstrate. I switched to GNU/Linux. Because it was practical. Because I knew that I didn't have to rely on a third party for support, because I could help others and get the information I need to support others, because no matter what happened, I'd be able to continue with what I had.
Practical? You bet. Ideological? Perhaps, but only the same way as my dive instructor was "ideological", I mean he was obsessed with safety, obsessed I tell you! All I wanted to do was go down 60 feet and look at coral, but oooooooo noooooh! It's all "Buddy System" and "nitrogen levels" and other stuff.
Ok, that's facetious. The latter is about life and death. But there's no reason that the less serious nature of proprietary vs open and free should make me unconcerned about the issue.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
Linus was dropping important patches - cos his versioning was done from a mail spool.
Larry was writing Bitkeeper and had been pushing this for a couple years. Finally Linus gave in - saying there was a problem - and agreed to use a vcs that didn't get in his way. Then Larry made his pitch...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
About 50 posts and nobody has suggested the possibility that M$ could have paid off Bitkeeper in a move to "hurt" linux, has everyone left their conspiracy hats at home today?
The question is where to go now? My preference would be GNU Arch, as it's more decentralized.
Hi Bruce,
You want to keep an eye on Monotone. Recently, it has gone through a redesign specifically aimed at making it changeset-oriented, with a view to replacing BitKeeper. It has a ways to go, but the project is active and the work is professional. Arch and Subversion are both worthy and usable systems right now, and many projects are already working happily with one or the other.
Regards,
Daniel
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
As another reply, this quoting Linus himself: ;)"
"PS. Don't bother telling me about subversion. If you must, start reading up on "monotone". That seems to be the most viable alternative, but don't pester the developers so much that they don't get any work done. They are already aware of my problems
Seems he is already looking into using it.
> 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.
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.
Have you considered that you might be gay?
XML causes global warming.
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
There was never a chance that this relationship could work, because of the lack of an Open Source license and the mercurialism Larry regularly displayed.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
If they're looking for a replacement I hear Visual SourceSafe is supposed to be quite good.
Actually, I think he did.
Here's what Linus had to say about it today.
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.