Mercurial loses a developer

Mercurial loses a developer

Posted Dec 21, 2005 6:31 UTC (Wed) by amikins (subscriber, #451)
In reply to: Mercurial loses a developer by piman
Parent article: Mercurial loses a developer

> 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.

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