The new restrictions on Bitkeeper, saying that people who contribute
to CVS or Subversion and even companies that distribute them cannot
even run Bitkeeper, have sparked outrage. While these specific
restrictions are new, their spirit fits perfectly with the previous
Bitkeeper license.
The spirit of the Bitkeeper license is the spirit of the whip hand.
It is the spirit that says, "You have no right to use Bitkeeper, only
temporary privileges that we can revoke. Be grateful that we allow
you to use Bitkeeper. Be grateful, and don't do anything we dislike,
or we may revoke those privileges." It is the spirit of proprietary
software. Every non-free license is designed to control the users
more or less. Outrage at this spirit is the reason for the free
software movement. (By contrast, the open source movement prefers to
play down this same outrage.)
If the latest outrage brings the spirit of the non-free Bitkeeper
license into clear view, perhaps that will be enough to convince the
developers of Linux to stop using Bitkeeper for Linux development.
On Sun, 13 Oct 2002, Richard Stallman wrote:
> If the latest outrage brings the spirit of the non-free Bitkeeper
> license into clear view, perhaps that will be enough to convince the
> developers of Linux to stop using Bitkeeper for Linux development.
What would be even better is if it convinced free software people
to develop a tool as good as, or better than, Bitkeeper.
Until such a tool exists I'll tolerate Bitkeeper's licensing, since
my use of bitkeeper seems to increase rather than decrease the amount
of free software that's available.
regards,
Rik
--
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".
http://www.surriel.com/ http://distro.conectiva.com/
Current spamtrap: <a href=mailto:"[email protected]">[email protected]</a>
On Sun, Oct 13, 2002 at 06:48:22PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> The new restrictions on Bitkeeper, saying that people who contribute
> to CVS or Subversion and even companies that distribute them cannot
> even run Bitkeeper, have sparked outrage. While these specific
Outrage == non kernel hacking related flamewar. I was not particularly
happy with that fluff flying across the list (and quickly procmailed
that thread to /dev/null), and I'm not particularly happy with your
new message on that subject appearing here. In fact, I had my own
questions about BK, and I prudently directed them elsewhere.
Please keep traffic on this list technical in nature. If you've got
actual code or a discussion thereof to post, I'd be happy to see it.
Thanks,
Bill
Our position:
1) No free licenses for our competition, they can buy them if they like.
2) The software is not open source because the open source business model
doesn't have a prayer of supporting the development costs.
3) If you had built a decent system instead of sitting around and whining,
we could be doing something else instead of sitting around listening
to your whining.
On Sun, Oct 13, 2002 at 06:48:22PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> The new restrictions on Bitkeeper, saying that people who contribute
> to CVS or Subversion and even companies that distribute them cannot
> even run Bitkeeper, have sparked outrage.
> restrictions are new, their spirit fits perfectly with the previous
> Bitkeeper license.
>
> The spirit of the Bitkeeper license is the spirit of the whip hand.
> It is the spirit that says, "You have no right to use Bitkeeper, only
> temporary privileges that we can revoke. Be grateful that we allow
> you to use Bitkeeper. Be grateful, and don't do anything we dislike,
> or we may revoke those privileges." It is the spirit of proprietary
> software. Every non-free license is designed to control the users
> more or less. Outrage at this spirit is the reason for the free
> software movement. (By contrast, the open source movement prefers to
> play down this same outrage.)
>
> If the latest outrage brings the spirit of the non-free Bitkeeper
> license into clear view, perhaps that will be enough to convince the
> developers of Linux to stop using Bitkeeper for Linux development.
> -
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> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm
Sun, 13 Oct 2002 18:48:22 -0400: Richard Stallman (Richard Stallman
<[email protected]>):
> The new restrictions on Bitkeeper, saying that people who contribute
> to CVS or Subversion and even companies that distribute them cannot
> even run Bitkeeper, have sparked outrage. While these specific
> restrictions are new, their spirit fits perfectly with the previous
> Bitkeeper license.
I would think that if there were a list of people who shouldn't need to
be told "If you don't like licensing, build a better replacement", RMS
would be at the top of that list- After all, isn't that why GNU was
made?
The GNU foundation has given the world MANY good GPL'd replacement
software for plenty of unix utilities, a bunch of which have your name
on them. That's good, we're appreciative of that, but unfortunately,
none of those can do for the kernel what BK has been doing, as it's
advocates have said many times.
So, get out there and provide us with another quality replacement. You
of all people should know where to start.
--
< There is a light that shines on the frontier
And maybe someday, We're gonna be there >
<Rando Christensen>
<[email protected]>
<software - http://babblica.net>
<personal - http://digiwano.org>
<monkeys - http://illuzionz.org>
On Sun, Oct 13, 2002 at 05:18:40PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 3) If you had built a decent system instead of sitting around and whining,
> we could be doing something else instead of sitting around listening
> to your whining.
Larry, rest assured that exactly this is happinging right now
all over the world. You are not feeling the backlash now,
because it takes time, but it will happen, and you made pretty
much sure of that.
You are pulling a Qt. By changing the license to BK to
discourage development of BK alternatives you made sure that
Subversion and other projects get plenty of new and highly
motivated developers - you actually encouraged the development
of BK alternatives just like the non-free license of Qt as the
foundation of KDE spawned the Gnome project.
The clock just started ticking and when we reevaluate this
discussion in one or two years time, the complete strategic
stupidity of this particular license change from BKs POV view
will be evident.
Kristian
Le lun 14/10/2002 ? 01:00, Rik van Riel a ?crit :
> On Sun, 13 Oct 2002, Richard Stallman wrote:
>
> > If the latest outrage brings the spirit of the non-free Bitkeeper
> > license into clear view, perhaps that will be enough to convince the
> > developers of Linux to stop using Bitkeeper for Linux development.
>
> What would be even better is if it convinced free software people
> to develop a tool as good as, or better than, Bitkeeper.
>
> Until such a tool exists I'll tolerate Bitkeeper's licensing, since
> my use of bitkeeper seems to increase rather than decrease the amount
> of free software that's available.
Maybe we should start using Intel's compiler in place of gcc for x86
arch ? After all there's no such good free compiler ..
> The clock just started ticking and when we reevaluate this
> discussion in one or two years time, the complete strategic
> stupidity of this particular license change from BKs POV view
> will be evident.
...and I would have gotten away with it, too, if not for you meddling kids
and that pesky dog of yours!
Kristian Koehntopp <[email protected]> writes:
>You are pulling a Qt. By changing the license to BK to
>discourage development of BK alternatives you made sure that
>Subversion and other projects get plenty of new and highly
>motivated developers - you actually encouraged the development
>of BK alternatives just like the non-free license of Qt as the
>foundation of KDE spawned the Gnome project.
No. SCM simply isn't sexy enough to keep people interested. (See:
"Mozilla"). Even Gnome didn't invent its own Qt. They used already
existing Gtk.
Larry is completely right here and his business model works find for
such a piece of vertical software like SCM.
Regards
Henning
--
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
INTERMETA - Gesellschaft fuer Mehrwertdienste mbH [email protected]
Am Schwabachgrund 22 Fon.: 09131 / 50654-0 [email protected]
D-91054 Buckenhof Fax.: 09131 / 50654-20
Larry McVoy <[email protected]> writes:
>Our position:
>1) No free licenses for our competition, they can buy them if they like.
free beer, not free speech, right? :-)
Regards
Henning
--
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
INTERMETA - Gesellschaft fuer Mehrwertdienste mbH [email protected]
Am Schwabachgrund 22 Fon.: 09131 / 50654-0 [email protected]
D-91054 Buckenhof Fax.: 09131 / 50654-20
On Sun, Oct 13, 2002 at 06:48:22PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> If the latest outrage brings the spirit of the non-free Bitkeeper
> license into clear view, perhaps that will be enough to convince the
> developers of Linux to stop using Bitkeeper for Linux development.
It's still linuxand not GNU/Linux, so I'd suugest you troll with your
advice on some FSF list.
On Sun, Oct 13, 2002 at 05:18:40PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > 3) If you had built a decent system instead of sitting around and whining,
> > we could be doing something else instead of sitting around listening
> > to your whining.
>
> Larry, rest assured that exactly this is happinging right now
> all over the world. You are not feeling the backlash now,
> because it takes time, but it will happen, and you made pretty
> much sure of that.
>
> You are pulling a Qt. By changing the license to BK to
> discourage development of BK alternatives you made sure that
> Subversion and other projects get plenty of new and highly
> motivated developers - you actually encouraged the development
> of BK alternatives just like the non-free license of Qt as the
> foundation of KDE spawned the Gnome project.
>
> The clock just started ticking and when we reevaluate this
> discussion in one or two years time, the complete strategic
> stupidity of this particular license change from BKs POV view
> will be evident.
I agree 100%; I'll just add one word:
OpenSSH
--
Pekka Savola "Tell me of difficulties surmounted,
Netcore Oy not those you stumble over and fall"
Systems. Networks. Security. -- Robert Jordan: A Crown of Swords
Richard,
By this point, BitKeeper users will continue to be BitKeeper users and
BitKeeper haters will continue to be BitKeeper haters. No one's mind is
changing about BK these days -- either they like it or they don't. The
debate has reached the level of emacs vs. vi, pro/anti-abortion, gun
control, <insert favorite political issue here>.
No one's mind is being changed, there's just a lot of energy wasted on
pointless ranting.
Thus, you should have seen even before hitting 'Send' that your message
was nothing but a lot of hot air, slashdot fodder and a troll. Would it
not be logically more productive to direct FSF efforts instead towards
funding Arch or SubVersion development?
Jeff, a humble BitKeeper user and kernel developer