Re: New BK License Problem?

Larry McVoy
2002-10-05T19:09:56Z

> I'd suggest that you need to have an interoperability clause for Open Source
> software. Otherwise using BK for kernel development suddenly seems like a very
> bad idea, because the community has suddenly been locked out of developing a
> free SCM (ie, working on CVS, Subversion etc); he couldn't be an effective
> kernel developer today (ie, using BK) and also continue working on the other
> open source project...
>
> You know I am rather fond of BK and your goals in general, but that would just
> suck.

BitKeeper is a *business*. What you are saying is "it would suck if
you wouldn't allow the use of BitKeeper in the development of products
which would make that business die."

It may suck that Ben can't use BK to try and put BK out of business.
It would suck a whole lot worse, in our view, to allow him to do so.

I'm sympathetic to the fact that this means that people who are both
working on the kernel and competing with us can't use BK, that does suck.
But we thought of that, that's why BK is so friendly to external systems,
it's why BK is happy to both import and export regular patches. If you
think about it, Ben is absolutely no worse off than he was before BK
was used. He can get the same patches he always got. He can work the
same way he always did. The only thing that has changed from Ben's point
of view is that Linus is a little less stressed out and somewhat less
likely to drop a patch. It's a net positive for Ben. Not as big of
one as being able to use BK, perhaps, but it hasn't hurt Ben's ability
to contribute to the kernel one iota.

It's Ben's choice to compete with us. Yes, we're forcing you to choose
between competing with us or using BK as a way of contributing to
the kernel. I could see that that would suck if Linus refused to take
regular patches, or even if he slowed down on taking regular patches.
But he doesn't, he hasn't, he's actually sped up. And he's committed
to taking regular patches, there are people out there who oppose the
BKL on grounds that they want a completely free tool chain. Both
Linus and I respect that, take a look at bk-3.0 when it comes out,
it's got much improved (both performance and reliability) GNU patch
import abilities. We've spent money to support people who don't
want to use BK, it's not just lip service.

I'm not against people having a go at reimplementing BK. But you had
better believe that I'm against helping them, they are actively trying to
destroy our company. No company is under any obligation, moral, ethical,
or legal, to be self destructive when they are doing nothing wrong.
What you are saying is that it sucks that we don't want to help put
ourselves out of business. If that sucks, so be it.

I think some people here are under the mistaken impression that BK is
my hobby sort of like LMbench was my hobby. It's not a hobby. It's a
business. It would take medium sized bus to hold all the people who
depend on BK for their livelihood. What you are asking for is for us
to allow and aid in work which would materially damage our business.
That's nuts, it's absolutely out of the question, it's way past the
point of being a reasonable thing to expect. If you can't see that,
I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.
--
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm