Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone

Jamie Lokier
2003-04-09T01:33:13Z

Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 09, 2003 at 12:19:49AM +0100, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> > Larry McVoy wrote about unreleased improvements to Bitkeeper:
> > > [...] we're worried about the open source guys stealing them.
> >
> > Seriously, do you see it as "stealing" if someone mimics your best ideas?
>
> Yes. It is not clear to me that open source community has realized that
> it is much harder to come up with the ideas than it is to copy them.
> Much of the activity in open source community is copying, providing a
> GPLed version of some commercial tool.

I think that some in the community fully realize this, but
nevertheless think it is worth it for them to build clones after their
own cost-benefit analysis.

> The problem is that that those things which you wish to copy represent
> easily 10x-100x more work than it would take to copy them. So we spend
> the order[s] of magnitude more money to get a good answer and you copy it.
> In many cases, before we can recoup our investment.

That last line is probably the most important.

> The short answer is yes, it's stealing in our eyes. If you're such a
> good programmer, how about you go figure out the SCM answers without
> leveraging our work?

How is it even possible for someone to not leverage your ideas, after
you've done such a great job telling everyone exactly what they are?

That's the problem with disseminating ideas - you infect everyone who
hears you. They can't undo that, nor is it possible for them to
develop their own ideas independently from then on.

(And they say the GPL is viral, sheesh :)

> By not honoring that request, you are begging us to stop improving
> the free version of BK. Also known as "cutting off your nose to
> spite your face".

There are pros and cons. Declining to copy good, well tested ideas is
also "cutting off your nose to spite your face".

But anyway, I think this L-K community has more or less settled on the
compromise we have, and the SCM folk are, in their own slow way,
trying to work out something that is different from BK yet just as good.

That BK->CVS gateway was a *smart* move.

Cheers,
-- Jamie