Re: New BK License Problem?

Larry McVoy
2002-10-06T17:52:52Z

> But until Larry retires, I have found it much easier to think of the
> Bitkeeper license as the "don't piss off Larry license". Don't antagonize
> Larry, or directly mess up his business model, and you'll all get along
> find ;P

Another way to say it is "don't bite the hand that feeds you". We work
hard to help the kernel team, we make the decisions we make based on the
premise that we have to be healthy to continue to help the kernel team as
well as our other users, and it's disheartening to get yelled it for it.

It's worth noting that the kernel's use of BK has and will continue to
expose either weaknesses in BK or missing features. We already know
of enough things that need engineering for the kernel (and any other
kernel sized project) to keep us busy for a couple of years. If we
GPLed BK today it would do two things:

1) make you stop yelling at us
2) stop BK development

It costs a lot of money to do what we are doing, we know exactly how
much, and a GPLed answer won't support those costs. We have to do what
we are doing in order to support the kernel team and our other users.
We see no other choice and not one of you have presented a viable
alternative in the last 5 years.

The reason we don't want to help our competitors is that they want
to imitate us. That's fine on the surface, a GPLed clone solves the
immediate problems you see, but it doesn't address how to solve the next
generation of problems. You'd need a team of at least 6-8 senior kernel
level developers working full time for several years to get BK to the
point where it won't need to be enhanced in order to support something
like the kernel for the next 20 years (or more). If we GPL it or we allow
clones, all that does is stop the development. It's not a question of is
there the ability in the community to do what we do, there certainly is.
It's a question of will they. And the answer is no they won't or they
would have already. The problems that we solve aren't new at all.
They just aren't that all fun to solve. Our user base is small, they
are very picky, there isn't a lot of money or fun here, so why would
anyone do what we do?

You can argue all you like that I'm wrong, I'm misguided, I don't have
a clue about opensource or whatever. The problem is that if I did what
you'd like to see, GPL the code, and it turns out I was right, there is no
turning back. That's a gamble I'm unwilling to make because I am positive
of the outcome. And given what I've been doing for the last 5 years,
my knowledge is probably more complete than your for this particular
space. I know it isn't a popular position to take, I'd love to be the
guy everyone loved instead of hated, but I'm not going to screw up BK's
future and our ability to support our users to win a popularity contest.
--
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm