Re: Never ever use word BitKeeper if Larry does not like you

Florian Weimer
2003-03-14T21:38:08Z

Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com> writes:

> Thus, even to have an open source BK export tool requires that key
> BK algorithms be open sourced.

You can't "open source" algorithms. Unpatented algorithms are always
free to use.

It's sufficient if somebody looks at the algorithms employed by BK and
documents them in plain English at a very abstract level. (Reading
your properly licensed copy of the BK source code and writing down
your thoughts can't be illegal, can it?) Somebody else can go ahead
and implement them, unencumbered by the BK copyright and BK license.

(This is not legal advice, it's just the way it is done in the
industry if you have to reverse-engineer the product of a competitor
for interoperability reasons.)