Weekly edition	Kernel	Security	Distributions	Contact Us	Search
Archives	Calendar	Subscribe	Write for LWN	LWN.net FAQ	Sponsors

Free software to the rescue.

Posted Oct 10, 2002 11:07 UTC (Thu) by leandro (guest, #1460)
Parent article: The BitKeeper non-compete clause

Now we see RMS wisdom in action.

I never understood why Linus never evaluated Aegis, and why Subversion is being pushed so hard. AFAICS, Aegis does most or all of what BitKeeper claims to do and Subversion targets, and could be used by Linus with similar results and less controversy.

Also I am amazed to see that, if Linus had applied to Linux the reasoning he uses to justify BitKeeper usage, Linux would never have seen light. The better tools to the task at the time Linux got started were the BSD Unices...

(Log in to post comments)

Free software to the rescue.

Posted Oct 10, 2002 12:07 UTC (Thu) by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048) [Link]

> Also I am amazed to see that, if Linus had applied to Linux the reasoning
> he uses to justify BitKeeper usage, Linux would never have seen light.
> The better tools to the task at the time Linux got started were the BSD
> Unices...

While I agree on many worries about the bitkeeper license... I think that
at the time he started (with his brand new 386) Linus didn't want to use
"the best tool for the job": he was interested in developing such a tool
(operating system) himself.

Now, with a SCM, his position is different: he is not interested in writing
one (he is still busy with his OS), so he just looks for "the best tool for
the job".

Of course, I wish we had a free SCM with all the features BitKeeper has,
and I will take a look at Aegis soon... for now, I stick with CVS, keeping
an eye on Subversion.

Ciao,
Massimiliano

Free software to the rescue.

Posted Oct 10, 2002 17:36 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

Also I am amazed to see that, if Linus had applied to Linux the reasoning he uses to justify BitKeeper usage, Linux would never have seen light. The better tools to the task at the time Linux got started were the BSD Unices...

At the time, BSD was under a legal cloud, so he couldn't use it.

Free software to the rescue.

Posted Oct 17, 2002 8:32 UTC (Thu) by leandro (guest, #1460) [Link]

> BSD was under a legal cloud, so he couldn't use it.

He could, just as the GNU people used. He couldn't be sure of his legal status, so he perhaps would have to analyse his own patches to BSD before deciding if he could share them or not, or even refrain from publishing them at all.