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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.

2 of 197 comments (clear)

  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.