Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 9 Mar 2003 14:48:20 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 9 Mar 2003 14:48:20 -0500 Received: from bitmover.com ([192.132.92.2]:12955 "EHLO mail.bitmover.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sun, 9 Mar 2003 14:48:18 -0500 Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 11:58:52 -0800 From: Larry McVoy To: Zack Brown Cc: "Martin J. Bligh" , Roman Zippel , "Eric W. Biederman" , Linus Torvalds , Larry McVoy , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone Message-ID: <20030309195852.GA6647@work.bitmover.com> Mail-Followup-To: Larry McVoy , Zack Brown , "Martin J. Bligh" , Roman Zippel , "Eric W. Biederman" , Linus Torvalds , Larry McVoy , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References:

<8200000.1047228943@[10.10.2.4]> <20030309172045.GP4170@renegade> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030309172045.GP4170@renegade> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-MailScanner: Found to be clean Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 3430 Lines: 58 On Sun, Mar 09, 2003 at 09:20:45AM -0800, Zack Brown wrote: > People in the know hint at these features ("naming is really important"), > but the details are apparently complicated enough that no one wants to sit > down and actually describe them. What part of "40 man years" did you not understand? Do you seriously think that it is easy to "sit down and actually describe them"? And if you think I would do so just so you can go try to copy our solution you have to be nuts, of course we aren't going to do that. It took us year to figure it out, we're still figuring things out every day, if you want a free SCM you can bloody well go figure it out yourself. The whole point of the non-compete clause in the well loved BK license is to say "this stuff is hard. If you want to create a similar product, do it without the benefit of looking at our product". That seems to be lost on you and a lot of other people as well. It's perfectly OK for you to go invent a new SCM system. Go for it. But stop asking for help from the BK crowd. Not only will we not give you that help, we will do absolutely everything we can to make sure that you can't copy BK. Everything up to and including selling the company to the highest bidder and letting them chase after you. Get it through your thick head that BK is something valuable to this community, even if you don't use it you directly benefit from its use. All you people trying to copy BK are just shooting yourself in the foot unless you can come up with a solution that Linus will use in the short term. And nobody but an idiot believes that is possible. So play nice. Playing nice means you can use it, you can't copy it. You can also go invent your own SCM system, go for it, it's a challenging problem, just don't use BK's files, commands, or anything else in the process. We didn't have the benefit of copying something that you wrote, you don't get the benefit of copying something we wrote. You don't have to agree with us, you can do whatever you want, but do so realizing that if you become too annoying we'll simple decide that supporting the kernel isn't worth the aggravation. As for you armchair CEO's who think we're racking in the bucks because of the kernel's usage of BK, think again. That is not how sales are made in this space, sales are made at the VP of engineering, CTO, CIO, and/or CEO level. If you think those guys read this list or slashdot or care about the kernel using BK, think again, they don't. All they care about it is how much it costs and how much effort it will save them. And they all know that their development model is dramatically different than that of the kernel so any BK success here is of marginal interest at best. BK is made available for free for one reason and one reason only: to help Linus not burn out. That's based on my personal belief that he is critical to success of the Linux effort, he is a unique resource and has to be protected. I've paid a very heavy price for that belief and I'm telling you that you are right on the edge of making that price too high. -- --- Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/