Re: BK Licence: Protocols and Research

[Rory Browne <robro@compsoc.nuigalway.ie>]

I had hoped to bring this discussion to a more private level between
myself and Larry McVoy. 

I am however disgusted to find that he has shared details, which I
explicitly marked as Private, with a third Party, namely One of the
Educational institutes I am involved with.

I find this breach of confidence distrubing.



* Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> [030717 15:55]:
> With apologies to the list for the off topic post (I'm really trying to
> not annoy you guys but some stuff we can't let slide due to legalities).
> 
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2003 at 01:05:05PM +0100, Rory Browne wrote:
> > Would the conduction of research(and publication of results of same) on 
> > the bitkeeper formats/protocols, preclude users from using the Free version 
> > of Bitkeeper, for the research project?
> 
> Yes, for the research project and/or anything else.
> 
> > Would the carrying out of such research using the free version of
> > Bitkeeper, prevent them from developing a product which contains
> > substantially similar capabilities of the BitKeeper Software in the
> > Future, assuming that all copies of Bitkeeper were destroyed before the
> > development started?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > Would previous activity in the area of developing a product which
> > contains substantially similary features to Bitkeeper preclude users from
> > using the Free Bitkeeper software?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> Each question above can be restated as "Would it be OK if we used BK
> in violation of its license?".  The answer is no and if you did that we
> would be forced to come after you, if we don't and some large company did
> the same thing we would have a much tougher time enforcing the license.
> Trademarks and licenses tend to lose their value if you don't enforce
> them.
> 
> Your questions indicate one of two things: you either have a burning
> desire to work on BK itself or a burning desire to copy BK.  If it's
> the former, that's easy, send us a resume and if you are a good engineer
> we'll hire you, we need good engineers with a solid understanding of file
> systems, distributed systems, graphs and sets, and/or human interfaces.
> 
> 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.
> 
> Instead of trying to copy our work in violation of our license, you'd be
> far better served by doing some new work.  If you like SCM then either
> work here, work on some other SCM unrelated to BK, or expect a costly
> discussion with a lawyer.  I realize this is an unpopular position but
> that's tough, it's our code and our license and you obey the rules
> or suffer the consequences.  The license is a contract and it's an
> enforceable contract, we have gone up against a company who spends more
> on lawyers in a week than our annual gross revenues and successfully
> enforced it.
> -- 
> ---
> Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm