Re: Bitkeeper

From: "Trever L. Adams" <tadams-lists@myrealbox.com>
To: rms@gnu.org
Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Bitkeeper
Date: 18 Jul 2003 16:09:42 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1058558982.2479.28.camel@aurora.localdomain> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <E19dbGS-00026T-9R@fencepost.gnu.org>

On Fri, 2003-07-18 at 15:51, Richard Stallman wrote:
>     > If you are trying to copy BK, give it up.  We'll simply follow in the
>     > footsteps of every other company faced with this sort of thing and change
>     > the protocol every 6 months.  Since you would be chasing us you can never
>     > catch up.  If you managed to stay close then we'd put digital signatures
>     > into the protocol to prevent your clone from interoperating with BK.
> 
> I think it would be appropriate at this point to write a free client
> that talks with Bitkeeper, and for Linux developers to start switching
> to that from Bitkeeper.  At that point, McVoy will face a hard choice:
> if he carries out these threats, he risks alienating the community
> that he hopes will market Bitkeeper for him.

I can't believe I am going to do this.  Especially, where most of my
contributions to OSS/Free Software are not known on this list and the
argument is stupid.

McVoy, changing the protocol would be extremely stupid.  However, it is
your product, so do as you wish.

Stallman, believe it or not, you used to be someone I looked up to a
great deal.  I still think some of your ideas are great and I would love
to see the entire world as open source.  However, to encourage people to
do things that are known to antagonize others is crazy.  CVS is crap.  I
haven't used Bitkeeper but I have tried a lot of others, and they are
junk.  So, if Bitkeeper is as good as Linus et al think it is, then it
would be insane to do anything to ruin the relationship they have with
Bitkeeper.  Ideology is great, but it does have to be tempered and meted
out so that it can be implemented in a way that brings the most good to
everyone.  At this point, ticking off McVoy will likely do the opposite.

McVoy, thank you for helping Linus, Cox, Miller et al scale better.  As
I have said before, I hope there is some way your software can become
more open, but I will leave that up to you and your team to figure out
when and how.

Have a good one everyone.

Trever
--
"All this technology has somehow made you a stranger in your own land."
-- Robert M. Pirsig