Re: Warning to Debian Developers regarding BitKeeper
On Sat, Oct 05, 2002 at 11:18:10PM +0200, Russell Coker wrote:
> So does this mean that ALL Debian developers are banned from using BitKeeper?
Some interesting quotes (hopefully not quoted out of context;
read the origional thread to be sure) from the thread:
Larry: "Distributions do not *SELL* CVS, they distribute CVS."
tom_gall@mac.com: "Of course they [redhat] sell CVS. I give them money,
they give me a CD, that CD has CVS on it."
Larry says in response "We're not changing the wording in the license
just because you have a problem with it. Unless some lawyer wants to
explain to me why this wording doesn't do what I want it to do, and
unless I actually believe they are operating in the best interests of
BitMover, the language stands as it is.
> Or just cease using BitKeeper entirely. After all if you stop using it then
> you can't be sued (and ceasing to use it is a lot cheaper than hiring a
> lawyer).
Thats my opinion too.
IMHO, this means: If I work for a company that just happens to also work
on a competitors project (maybe one I am not involved with; maybe one
I am not even aware of), then I cannot contribute to the Linux kernel
(either privately or as paid work for the company) using a free version
of Bitkeeper.
On maybe I have been contributing to Linux with Bitkeeper for
the last X years, and suddenly change jobs or my employer starts
wworking on a new project. Oops, all my repositories suddenly
become unusable.
Larry contradicts himself, so I am unclear at the moment what the
situation is with open source projects:
1. "The clause is specifically designed to target those companies which
produce or sell commercial SCM systems. That's why we explicitly
left out "distribute". The open source developers have nothing to
worry about."
2. "Unless you are competing with us you have no reason to be worried."
3. "You're the guy that refused to help us help the community. And you made
it clear that you'd be delighted if Subversion was made good enough to
replace BK and you were working towards that goal. I can't imagine a
better example of someone who we absolutely do not want to support and
do not want using BK. I am explicitly stating that it is our view that
your use of BK is violation of our license."
My intepretation of each point in turn:
1. Debian is open source, so we have nothing to worry about.
2. Debian could be seen as competing with Bitkeeper by development
of competing software.
3. There is nothing Debian, as a project would like more, then to
have subversion replace Bitkeeper (due to license issues).
Do this restriction exist in the commercial/paid version of
Bitkeeper? In point 3, the implication is yes it does.
One good thing. At least Microsoft doesn't disallow development
on competiting products... Not yet at least anyway. ;-)
Then again, I have tried bitkeeper. Yes, it does have some interesting
features like support for distributed repositories, nice GUI, and
isn't as buggy as, say arch is (I can't rename a file in arch; a bug
report has been on file for some time now). However, I can't say I am
particular impressed. For instance, I often have to resort to using
diffs, because I can't work out how to get the GUI to compare the two
versions I want it to.
Now if it was an open source project, I would feel inclined to send
in bug reports...
My preference at the moment at least is to use arch, despite its
bugs and limitations.
--
Brian May <bam@debian.org>
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