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Linus Drops BitKeeper
ravenII wrote in to mention a story running on CNet, which discusses Linus Torvald's decision to no longer use BitKeeper. From the article: "Linus Torvalds is looking for a new SCM for his project's source code after a conflict involving the current management system, BitKeeper. 'I've decided to not use BK (BitKeeper) mainly because I need to figure out the alternatives,' Torvalds said in a posting. 'Rather than continuing things as normal, I decided to bite the bullet and just see what life without BK looks like.' Coverage on the BitKeeper announcement from earlier this week is also available. Update: 04/10 16:36 GMT by Z : Updated to reflect the story's origin.
I remember reading this article and leaving comments on it. RMS was quite clear:
JA: What about the programmers...
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job.
My answer to that was not quite polite.
BTW. don't be surprised to get -2Troll in a short while here.
You can't handle the truth.
coming from MY BUTT
It may look like they screwed over the author of the Linus kernel, but what happened was that the BitKeeper free license prohibits working on alternatives to BitKeeper. Fair enough--but an OSDL employee was trying to reverse-engineer it, paid by OSDL. BitMover had them stopped, but they found out the employee was still trying to reverse-engineer the protocol after it had been settled. Hence the ban on selling licenses to OSDL.
The kernel developers were using the free version and hadn't paid any money. However, several of the developers ended up buying licenses anyway, as have many others outside kernel development, and I've not heard any complaints from them. There's a difference between abusing paying customers and stopping a free version that was being reverse-engineered even after multiple attempts to stop it and a license that restricts it. Of course, the "non-free" nature of the license and software was the source of the controversy to begin with.
"... but clearly something as wonderful as subversion.."
As I've pointed out before....
Until the Subversion folks learn about a little thing called "Security"*1 Subversion is pretty much unless for the real world.
Until Subversion has the ability to use a repository a bit more robust than sleepycat's db *2 (hey, sorry I'm corrupt, think I'll just go wipe 3000MB of commits now...) Subversion is pretty much unless for the real world.
notes:
1. Layering something as weak as HTTP AUTH/Basic on top of the Apache2 interface is not creating a "Secure" Subversion.
2. I know they have some sort of Filesystem repository now, but honestly, after watching Subversion's db repository "eat" several gigs of data in trials, I'll pass...
Bugs Bunny was right.
Software: If you charge for it, they will flee. Paying for software is so 1980, and why should we, someone is more then willing to make a free version of anything important in their spare time.
Humans will only pay for food, shelter, and entertainment (i.e. sex, drugs, and rock and roll). NOTHING ELSE!
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
If this whole absurd scenario is not an object lesson on why not to choose proprietary software nothing is.
Imagine that Linux is writing commercial software, and for competitive purposes decides to keep the source for himself. Suddenly all of the makers of GPL software libraries come running, arms in the air screaming about thawing and re-activating the Stallbot. If that isn't a lesson on why not to choose GPLd software nothing is.