Re: password protect a directory?
%% Brendan Cully <brendan@kublai.com> writes:
>> What is BitKeeper? Is it DFSG? What are the benefits of it over CVS
>> for "more complex organisations"?
bc> It's Larry McVoy's source management system, which he has been pushing
bc> on linux-kernel for quite some time, and which does sound nice. I'm
bc> not too up on either its license or DFSG, but I don't think it
bc> makes the cut (it reminded me of the original Qt license when last I
bc> looked at it, actually more restrictive than that).
Um, I think BitKeeper's license is not that bad. Not DFSG (they freely
admit that), but not too bad.
With BitKeeper you get the source, you can modify the source, and you
can freely distribute the modifications--with two caveats. The first is
that all modified source you distribute must still pass their regression
tests.
The second caveat is the interesting one. BitKeeper has a "logging"
function that logs all source changes (that is, the change comments, #
of lines changed, filename, etc. Not the diffs themselves, as I
understand it). The free copy of BitKeeper sends these logs to an "open
logging server", which is maintained by the BitKeeper folks. They are
free to publish these logs (and they are doing so). The other thing you
cannot do is modify or interfere in any way with this logging
capability.
Basically, you can use BitKeeper as a "mostly" open source product, but
all your changelogs, etc. are public. If you want to not make those
public (presumably you're doing some kind of proprietary development)
you need to purchase the alternatively-licensed version.
One interesting thing: the BitKeeper license says it reverts to being
GPL if the open logging servers are ever down for more than 180
consecutive days (presumably the company goes out of business and shuts
down...)
bc> It's nicest feature as I recall is that it makes hierarchies of
bc> repositories possible. You don't have to have commit access on the
bc> main tree to be able to make your own branches on your tree,
bc> import other people's changes and merge changes to the master tree
bc> into your own. I always thought having only one master CVS
bc> repository was a real pain for distributed (no, I won't say
bc> "bazaar"... argh, I said it!) development...
BitKeeper has a lot of other advantages over CVS: for one thing, it
supports reasonable directory versioning, which IMO is an absolute
prerequisite for any SCM tool for "more complex organizations".
--
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Paul D. Smith <psmith@baynetworks.com> HASMAT--HA Software Methods & Tools
"Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
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These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.
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