Mercurial loses a developer [LWN.net]

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 1, 2005 19:07 UTC (Sat) by vblum (guest, #1151)
Parent article: Mercurial loses a developer

This stinks unbelievably. Copyright fears would be one issue, and that's legitimate. Preventing someone from taking an idea and implementing it somewhere else is quite another thing. Fine, if patents were involved, that's at least legal.

I used to think Larry was a nice guy, if maybe a bit on the paranoid side regarding his business model Now I do not think so. Demanding that your customers refrain from using their brain, unless in a manner that LM approves of, is not right. It's far worse than what e.g. M$ has demanded so far.

Larry, I might one day have considered using Bitkeeper, it had a good name for me. Now, I don't think so anymore. Never will I touch a product that attempts to restrict my ability to develop what I need later. I just hope that THIS particular business model goes down in flames, as it should.

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Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 1, 2005 19:49 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

The main thing to note is that the proprieter of Bitmover, who is in a postition to know, is increasingly uncertain of Bitkeeper's ability to stay ahead of the competition on its own merits. Otherwise, such heavy-handed actions would not be deemed necessary. Actions speak louder than words, and Bitkeeper has spoken.

The Linux Kernel guys have, remarkably quickly, extricated themselves from Bitmover's tendrils. That example is there for the world to see. Open-Source SCM systems are experiencing a renaisance.

I'm expecting that at some point the rest of us, meaning those who do not happen to be the proprietor of Bitmover, are going to have to wear shades... ;-)

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Oct 2, 2005 1:03 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I used to think Larry was a nice guy

It would seem that he played mister nice guy to free software developers while he had an interest in them. Now that you are of no use to him or his company, he can spend his energies protecting his way of life. While understandable, it is quite disgusting to watch.