Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

11 Years After Git, BitKeeper Is Open-Sourced (phoronix.com)

Posted by msmash on from the a-day-late-and-a-dollar-short dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Eleven years after Linus Torvalds developed Git after a falling out with BitKeeper for managing the Linux kernel source code, BitMover Inc has finally decided to open-source the BitKeeper VCS. The latest BitKeeper release has made the code open-source under the terms of the Apache 2.0 license. The community edition code is available from BitKeeper.org. Does BitKeeper now stand a chance against free software systems like Git and SVN?To offer some context, Larry McVoy, the CEO of BitMover -- the company that makes BitKeeper -- offered free BitKeeper licenses to various open source projects -- Linux kernel utilized it as well. However, later, Australian computer programmer Andrew Tridgell reverse engineered BitKeeper protocol in an attempt to make his own client. Torvalds didn't like this practice, and accused Tridgell of "playing dirty tricks with his proprietary source code tool of choice," and as a result, he wrote Git.

4 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Too little, too late by etinin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Torvalds claims, somewhat exaggeratedly, that he did write the core of git in two weeks, and, for any software developer, it's easy to see that git is a far more valuable tool to developers than any of its predecessors. After initial issues with bad command-line tools and crappy mswin compatibility, I think there are few reasons to complain about git nowadays.
    It's a perfect *NIX source control system, doing one thing and doing it well.
    To those who don't mind Linus's typical arrogance and want to see his side of the whole story, I recommend the following talk he gave at Google: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...

    --
    "I decided I could write something better than everything out there in two weeks. And I was right." - Linus Torvalds
    1. Re:Too little, too late by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I remember him taking around 5 weeks off from kernel development. So, 2 weeks for the core is plausable. It proved that he's no one-hit wonder.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
  2. Re:Larry McVoy threatened to sue me on /. years ag by John+Sirpa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Since this is Larry McVoy I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. A different story, but related:
    http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.mercurial.devel/3481

    I have seen and accepted many non-free licenses over the years and I'm fine with most of of them. But Larry McVoy and BitKeeper stepped over the line. I will never under any circumstance defend him or his work, his actions have been downright harmful to creation of free software at a lever which is simply unacceptable.

  3. BitKeeper is the reason to avoid proprietary by edtice1559 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I remember this saga pretty well. McVoy was pissed that Tridgell wrote an interoperability tool, so he pulled the license for all open source use including the Linux Kernel. This is the type of thing that RMS often warns us about. Don't use closed-source software to build open-source software. And don't use closed-source software in mission-critical applications. I don't think you can get a better example than this.