Re: [PATCH] Remove Bitkeeper documentation from Linux tree

Jeff Garzik
2002-04-22T17:03:32Z

On Sun, Apr 21, 2002 at 04:53:05PM +0200, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> You seem to think I'm against Bitkeeper, or its use, or that I think
> Bitkeeper isn't helping linux. You're wrong. I am against carrying what
> *appears* to be a big advertisement for Bitkeeper itself in the Linux
> source tree. This I see as akin to putting up a commercial billboard in a
> public park. Would you be comfortable with that?

No, poor analogy -- the doc has proven useful time and time to kernel
developers. It's in the kernel source because of that.

Let us separate that fact from the notion that it is a BK
advertisement, and discuss that part, since that seems to be the
important issue. As the author of the doc, I state the doc was
not written as an advertisement, and was not paid for, directly
or indirectly.

That said, it certainly can been seen as an advertisement. I like BK,
and like to encourage others to use it.

So let us term the BK doc as, "not intended as an advertisement,
but can easily be considered such." I hope we agree so far? :)

Now that we have that...

Q. What is the justification for removing an admittedly-useful
advertisement?
A. Some people disagree with the author's point of view
(that POV being, "it's ok to use BK in the open source Linux project")

There is no dispute that the doc is useful, only dispute with certain
beliefs. Disagreement is fine... encouraged, even. But that's a
poor justification to remove the doc from the tree.

I hear your point, I really do. I just feel very strongly that
removing the BK docs from the tree is the worst way to go about
supporting this point of view.

Jeff