This is a textbook case for a business school [LWN.net]

This is a textbook case for a business school

Posted Apr 6, 2005 23:09 UTC (Wed) by darthmdh (guest, #8032)
In reply to: This is a textbook case for a business school by mcelrath
Parent article: Linus on the BK withdrawal

Easy. BitKeeper existed long before it was adopted by Linus. Linus adopted it because it was technically superior (and still is technically superior) to anything else that existed, and it was gaining popularity because of that (in a time when CVS was pretty much unmaintained, was failing security audits and wasn't up to the task of modern software development, and anything else in a usable state was proprietary)

All the crap about licences and so forth only started because certain so-called open source developers, who were more like information superhighway robbers, wanted to steal Larry's technically superior product.

And now, thanks to these thieves, we now no longer have a free BK tool. First we lost the source code (yes, BitKeeper used to be distributed with the entire source code back in the day). Now we've even lost the binaries. When we've lost twice, how can anyone claim we're winners?

There's no marketing ploys here, no malice, no excuses. Bitmover were getting constantly screwed by the community they loved and stuck around much longer than any other business would have. Thanks Larry & team, you have done gallantly and I wish you success for the future.

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This is a textbook case for a business school

Posted Apr 7, 2005 0:22 UTC (Thu) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link]

actually the real story is that bitkeeper was developed FOR Linus to use. that's what shifted Larry from his current projects to full-time work on SCM's.

as part of the process Larry had to figure out how he would pay for the development costs and developed the bitkeeper options we all know about.

I want to add my thanks to Larry. he did a lot of good in the process and I hope that kernel development doesn't suffer too much before something new gets good enough to use.

This is a textbook case for a business school

Posted Apr 7, 2005 1:21 UTC (Thu) by darthmdh (guest, #8032) [Link]

No, it was developed because Larry had a passion for SCM tools, and a heck of a lot of experience in writing them, and wanted to contribute a decent one to the community and hopefully get rich on the side ;)

It was not developed specifically for Linus. When Linus adopted it for the kernel, it already had a rapidly expanding userbase. Bitmover promised and delivered free support to him, no doubt knowing full well that the Linux kernel is the dream test case for any distributed SCM development - an arseload of developers and others spread all over the planet and an extremely active tree with many branches. That being proactive in supporting Linus here would improve BitKeeper is a given.

Bitmover also had at that time (and I assume still do) many commerical clients paying for support - they didn't have to give Linus any help whatsoever - but what software engineer in their right mind is going to forsake the dream test case for their pet project? Especially one mutually beneficial?

I can't recall any options of note being added since the adoption by Linus, just a lot of polishing in the backend (eg improving the protocol to make updates much faster). But maybe my own use of SCM functionality isn't deep enough to notice everything so I'll believe you.

Bitmover already used revenue from support contracts and custom consulting to pay for development costs (like most software houses) and I assume this will go on regardless.

I know I've been somewhat negative in a few posts on the various articles in LWN on this topic today, I guess the bright side to the story is that BitKeeper is still around, still the best, there's a very good incentive for Open Source SCM alternatives to get their acts together (adoption by Linus Torvalds and possibly hundreds of thousands of others), and the usual anti-BK trolls now have to crawl back under their bridges and find something else to whine about meaning we won't see them for a while hopefully. I especially like the new kick in the pants for SCM developers which will hopefully benefit the open source community, and the opportunity to look at eg Monotone and Bazaar, neither of which I'd heard of until now. What can I say, I like new toys :)

This is a textbook case for a business school

Posted Apr 7, 2005 1:37 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

Nobody claims BitKeeper was written especially for Linus, so I don't really see your point.

I agree with the kick though. ;-)

This is a textbook case for a business school

Posted Apr 7, 2005 2:26 UTC (Thu) by darthmdh (guest, #8032) [Link]

Nobody claims BitKeeper was written especially for Linus, so I don't really see your point.

dlang wrote in the comment I replied to, in fact, opened it with "actually the real story is that bitkeeper was developed FOR Linus to use. that's what shifted Larry from his current projects to full-time work on SCM's."

I was addressing this mis-truth (apologies for not quoting it originally)

This is a textbook case for a business school

Posted Apr 7, 2005 9:04 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

See your original post, to which dlang responded... There are many accounts of how BitKeeper was developed and adjusted to Linus' needs (google for "Larry McVoy Linus Torvalds Dave Miller").

This is a textbook case for a business school

Posted Apr 7, 2005 6:41 UTC (Thu) by irios (guest, #19838) [Link]

> And now, thanks to these thieves, we now no longer have a free BK tool.

What exactly makes these people thieves that makes the Samba or NTFS teams heroes? After all they are all reverse-engineering proprietary protocols for their perceived benefit of the free software community.

Are we all thieves, in your eyes? You too?