Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S270578AbTGTAgV (ORCPT ); Sat, 19 Jul 2003 20:36:21 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S270577AbTGTAgU (ORCPT ); Sat, 19 Jul 2003 20:36:20 -0400 Received: from smtp.bitmover.com ([192.132.92.12]:7391 "EHLO smtp.bitmover.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S270578AbTGTAfr (ORCPT ); Sat, 19 Jul 2003 20:35:47 -0400 Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 17:50:43 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Bitkeeper Message-ID: <20030720005043.GF28055@work.bitmover.com> Mail-Followup-To: Larry McVoy , Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <20030718204405.GA658@work.bitmover.com> <20030718222702.GC658@work.bitmover.com> <20030719204219.GG7977@fs.tum.de> <20030719215740.GD24197@work.bitmover.com> <20030719222838.GB6942@fs.tum.de> <20030719223956.GG24197@work.bitmover.com> <20030719234519.GC6942@fs.tum.de> <20030720000232.GA28055@work.bitmover.com> <200307200030.h6K0UsbF018196@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200307200030.h6K0UsbF018196@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam (whitelisted), SpamAssassin (score=0.5, required 7, AWL, CASHCASHCASH, DATE_IN_PAST_06_12) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2084 Lines: 37 On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 08:30:53PM -0400, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote: > So Larry - *IF* funding was there, would you consider a business model similar > to Hans Reiser's? I'd consider anything which resulted in a healthy business. The choices we've made to date have been 100% focussed on staying healthy so we can grow as a company and continue to support Linux (and the other open source guys, but I personally only care about Linus - he's unique), and our commercial customers. We've been approached by investors and companies which wished to buy us outright and I passed on both because it was clear that they wanted one thing: money. They would have shut down the free use of BK in less than a day after the deal was done. The thing you need to consider is that the Linux community is not that different than our commercial customers - both need us to be healthy so that we can support them. Healthy costs a lot of money. Part of the problem is that people are extremely short sighted. Until we gave you BK nobody had any idea that a system like this was possible. We can see a lot of problems with BK and a lot of problems in the development process of Linux (and other systems) that maybe we can help make easier. When people think about funding us they think about the $$$ it would take to have a couple of guys doing bug fixes. That's not good enough. We need the dollars to do the next thing that helps make development work better. BK is fine but it is not the end all answer. There is a lot of work in bug tracking, project management, review tools, web interfaces, etc. We're not going to be interested in any business model that means we get enough money to fix some bugs but not enough to solve the next set of problems. -- --- 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/