Re: Petition Against Official Endorsement of BitKeeper by Linux Maintainers

[Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2002 at 11:54:43AM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> That being said, I don't see any need for additional development, 
> unless people actually want increased functionality over that
> which we've traditionally had.  Things generally will appear to
> be unchanged for non-bitkeeper users because Linus will continue
> to push out the regular prepatches.  This *has* to be done anyway,
> so the testers can get at the tree promptly.
> 
> Also. The things being discussed here *matter* to some people.  Some
> of the comments made by Larry, David, Cort, Rik and others have
> coarsely sought to deligitimise the very reasons why a significant number
> of kernel contributors and users are here at all.  Those comments
> are monumentally insulting.

It's also "monumentally insulting" to be asking for BitKeeper to be able
to do what it already can do, exactly for the reasons you outlined.
We have done piles and piles of work to make sure that we can export
and import patches, so that if you want, your work habits do not change
one iota.  We did all that work.  It's done.  It's in the system.
Linus uses both import and export.  And we continue to fix things as it
becomes apparent that they need to be fixed.  We're busting our asses to
keep you happy and we get flamed.  And the flamers seem to think that
we are getting some great financial benefit by having the kernel crowd
use BK.  It's certainly true that BK is improving because the kernel
crowd demands enhancements.  It's not true that that has turned into
any financial benefit to us, we haven't made a single sale as a result
of Linus using BK.  That's OK, that's not why we did it.  But don't use
that as a justification to beat us up, it's simply not true.

The thing that seems to escape you is that BK came into existence because
I was scared to death of Linus burning out.  I still am.  I see no Linus
replacement on the horizon.  BK exists because I hope it will make him
able to last longer as the leader here, I do not foresee good things
happening if he goes away.  Our goal is to get him more relaxed.  Try and
remember that we are trying to help.  You can hate the fact that BK isn't
open source, I don't blame you one bit.  If I had stayed at Cobalt and
cashed out my millions, BitKeeper would be open source.  But I didn't.
So it isn't.  Get over it.  It can help now, we're trying to help now,
we make it easy to get out of BK, so if/when a better open source answer
arrives, you can get out.  What more can you possibly ask for?  I'm giving
you an answer which helps, with no lock in, and the most extensive set of
tools designed to make it so you can get out with all of your data intact.
And you say you are insulted.  I'm not sure it is you who should be insulted.
-- 
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Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm