Re: New BK License Problem?

Larry McVoy
2002-10-07T17:29:54Z

> Could you clarify exactly why it is a problem that someone both uses
> BitKeeper and works on potentially-competing SCM systems, if the two
> activities are unrelated?
...
> Is it that you think that direct
> experience with BK will give someone insight into its pluses and minuses
> beyond what they could get from just reading about it, thereby
> indirectly making their competing product better?

That's it. BK is fairly subtle, it takes a while to wrap your brain around
it. The way it works is hard to see from the outside and it is hard to see
the value. So blind copying is more likely to copy the wrong parts. On
the other hand, if I'm using BK every day and then working on a clone, it's
very easy to "do some unrelated work" to see how BK works.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm