Re: [ANNOUNCE] BK->CVS (real time mirror)

John Bradford
2003-03-12T17:45:11Z

> > This sounds like the old GPL argument.
> >
> > The GPL'd redistributor has to supply the source, they don't have to
> > supply it in the format that's best for you, being an 80mm tape drive
> > cuz you're stuck in the punch card age.
> >
> > Seriously, if CVS loses all that data, is that BK's fault? BK's so
> > powerful because it has more information than anyone else, but it's
> > not their fault (and it's not proprietary data) that no-one else can
> > deal with the data when it's exported, now is it????
> >
> > It's not a significant data loss when you try to view a 24bpp image
> > on an 8bpp display, so it's not a significant data loss that CVS can't
> > handle the BK. If it could, Linus would've switched to CVS instead....
> >
>
> You're missing the point completely.
>
> Of course it's not BK's fault that CVS can't represent the data.
> However, one of the (valid!) selling points of BK was "we won't hold
> your data hostage." That requires that you can export both the data and
> the metadata into some kind of open format. Since CVS clearly can't be
> that open format (CVS being insufficiently powerful), the additional
> metadata needs to be available in some kind of auxilliary form. It's
> then, of course, not BK's fault that CVS can't possibly make use of that
> auxilliary metadata.

I thought that BK has been able to export everything to a text file
since the first version.

(Ah, but of course, unless that text file is available in EBCDIC, we
still have a problem...)

John.