Re: RFC - tarball/patch server in BitKeeper

Tupshin Harper
2003-12-15T06:07:54Z

Larry McVoy wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 14, 2003 at 04:19:35PM -0800, Tupshin Harper wrote:
>
>>> I'm sure you do, I've read your postings on various SCM mailing
>>> lists. You'll have to get your test data elsewhere, sorry,
>>> we're not in the business of helping you develop a competing
>>> product. Using BK to do that is a violation of the free use
>>> license and I'm sure you are aware of that.
>>>
>> Of course...that's the only reason why it's an issue.
>
>
> Great, glad you understand that you are crossing the legal line.

??? what line am I crossing? Or do you mean that I would be if I were
to do something, and if so, what is that something? I informed you the
day that decided I was interested in exploring the internals of other
SCM products, and deleted the bk binaries from my machine at the same
time.

>
>> What are are effectively doing, then, is creating vendor lock-in
>> based on file format...a very Microsoftian approach. You are
>> encouraging developers to adopt your tool, but then telling them
>> that if they ever want to adopt a different tool, then they will
>> have to forego using some of the information that they created
>> using your tool. So the decision of which tool to be used becomes
>> based on pain of switching, and not based on technical merit.
>> Hmmm.
>
>
> What a pile of nonsense. Let's translate this to reality. You
> can't figure out how to build the right answer and you have decided
> you need access to internal information created by BitKeeper to
> reverse engineer BitKeeper and you are complaining because we don't
> feel obligated to give you that.

That's nonsense. There are plenty of bk changesets that I could
download from numerous public sources. They would provide just as much
information about bk internals as any other bk changesets. There are
complete (non-Linus) linux trees available in changeset form. If
reverse engineering were my goal, then those would be sufficient. The
question is one of ownership. Does bitmover own the changeset or does
the developer own the changeset?

> If you think you can create a better answer on your own, by all
> means, do so, nobody is stopping you. But whining that you aren't
> being helped by the people who have figured it out is not exactly
> inspiring. I can assure you that I am not inspired to help you and
> I'm disgusted that yet again an you have taken something that we
> are trying to do to help people and turned it into a whine fest for
> your personal agenda.

You specifically asked if it would address people's issues. I could
only speak for myself...and I did.

-Tupshin