Re: [RFC] Linux Kernel Subversion Howto

[lm@bitmover.com (Larry McVoy)]

On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 06:17:30PM +0100, Roman Zippel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> > I think you are dreaming.  You've gone from wanting enough information
> > to supposedly debug your source tree to being explicit about wanting to
> > recreate the entire BK history in a different system.  The former is a
> > reasonable request, I suppose, but the latter is just a blatent request
> > for us to help debug and stress test a competing system.  
> > 
> > The answer is no, that's a clear violation of the license.
> 
> You do realize what this practically means?

It means exactly what it says, we're not going to help you work on
a competing system.  You are welcome to do that on your own, you are
welcome to download all the patches you want from bkbits.net and figure
out how to place them in your system, but we aren't going to help you
any further than that, it doesn't make business sense for us to do so.

We have to do things which make business sense because it is our business
which provides you with the technology and the infrastructure you use.
It costs money to do that, squeeze off the supply of money and the free
ride goes away.

I understand that you are unhappy with BK not being open source but
unhappiness doesn't pay the bills.  We are providing you with a great
tool, good support, and excellent infrastructure.  Not only do you not
have a replacement for all of that you are actively trying to damage
our business which provides you with all of that.  That may force an
open source answer but it would also do a lot of damage to the kernel
development in the process.
-- 
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Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com