Mercurial loses a developer [LWN.net]

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 1, 2005 4:01 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767)
Parent article: Mercurial loses a developer

Larry, despite his past care-free statements regarding how impossible it was for any open-source project to catch up with Bitkeeper, seems to have a very real worry about the possibility today. Perhaps Bitkeeper getting replaced by "git" in just a few weeks got his attention.

The message going out is that while it might take millions of dollars and years of time to come up with a generalized solution, developing a specific solution to a specific problem, or even a "good enough" solution to most problems, can take a few weeks, and be more cost effective. (And more effective, for that matter.)

Bitmover's legitimate business is all about corner cases. The rest Bitmover has roped in through other means.

McVoy may be in for a his worst nightmare. (And that does seem to be on his mind quite a lot.)

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Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 1, 2005 4:23 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

It's the classic developement in-house vs get a off-the-shelf product. Been going on for years. People get tired of supporting their own buggy creations made by overworked staff, then it becomes fasion to buy big projects, then the cost overruns, overhype, and empty promises drive them back to in-house solutions. rinse, repeat.. All very expensive, all a pain in the ass.

Maybe that's the partially why open source development model is such a success. You get a product that is probably still fairly small, or hopefully modular, that you can modify to fit your needs easily and quickly. In addition it's backed up by the distinct likelyhood that you'd be able to hire outside developers or, god forbid, consultants that are familar with it if need be.

So it's maybe the best of both worlds and avoids most of the pitfalls of either.

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 1, 2005 5:27 UTC (Sat) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

Actually this isn't the first time he's enforced these rules and he's been saying they would be enforced for a while so there's no reason to be surprised. Though I agree he may now have more motivation than ever to do so.

I really wonder if he can pursue this developer legally. My question above about who exactly is a party to the EULA is really the key. Might be worth talking to a lawyer... especially if this developer ever leaves his current position and wishes to restart participation in SCM projects.

Also, is there a termination clause or is a person forever prevented from competing with BitKeeper if they use it, even once? Contracts which last forever have been found to be invalid, and many states have laws restricting non-compete agreements to short periods of time without fair compensation to the person who can't work in their field.

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 1, 2005 12:24 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

Good SCM is important enough that it would not be too surprising if the bigger, deeper pocketed OSS players decided to get involved if Bitmover goes too far. (I believe that in the past they have talked about pressing patent suits if anyone gets too close, or even implementing encryption so that they can use the DMCA.)

It would be interesting to see Bitmover on the bad end of a flurry of patent violation suits from, say, IBM.

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 3, 2005 7:14 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

Note he did say "he wouldn't work on Mercurial while his employer used BitKeeper".

In other words he doesn't feel beholden to any non-compete that goes even minutes beyond the cessation of the relationship. If his employer dumps BK one day, he'll be back with Mercurial the next.

At the end of the day, whether we like Larry's stance, my feeling is that he has been open and consistent about what his intentions and motives are, and he's acted on them. This sort of thing was pretty obvious from day one, and nobody should be saying they're surprised.

Cheers,
Wol

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 3, 2005 18:21 UTC (Mon) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

> whether we like Larry's stance, my feeling is that he has been open and consistent about what his intentions and motives are, and he's acted on them.

Which is why he change the license repeatedly to make it more restrictive, eventually dropped the free version, and then started going after commercial users.

Larry's only been open and consistent if you classified him into "software hoarder" from the start, and few people did.

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Dec 21, 2005 6:31 UTC (Wed) by amikins (guest, #451) [Link]

> Which is why he change the license repeatedly to make it more restrictive, eventually dropped the free version, and then started going after commercial users.

There is a consistency here; he changed the license repeatedly to remove what were effectively loopholes in his very clearly stated purpose. The removal of the free version was because he found that there was no way to prevent someone from accomplishing what he didn't want accomplished as long as there -was- a free version.

Ultimately, this path only happened because McVoy was too -optimistic- that people would do things 'his way' without a chain link fence with barbwire on top.

While I don't agree with the steps he's taken, they are logical reactions to events that have occurred given his goals as a proprietary software developer.

Ultimately, the problem is that he was trying to convince everyone -- even himself -- that he wasn't a proprietary software developer, and that's why we are where we are.