Getting at the BitKeeper repositories without BitKeeper [LWN.net]

Andrea Arcangeli, with a statement that he prefers coding to participating in flame wars, recently released a script which can pull code from a BitKeeper repository without the need to actually run BitKeeper. The script makes use of the web interface to the repository running on bkbits.net. It looks like a great way for developers who do not want to run proprietary software to get access to Linus's current tree. There is only one problem, however: the BitMover folks are very concerned about the amount of bandwidth that could be burned by extensive use of this script, and have promised to shut down the web interface if the bandwidth bill gets too high.

The issue of access to the BitKeeper repositories via free software will not go away, however; there is a determined subset of the kernel hacker community that simply does not want to use proprietary code. Fortunately, there appears to be an answer on the horizon: BitMover has promised to make Linus's repository available as an automatically updated CVS repository. That repository, presumably, will be hosted at kernel.org. At that point, a lot of minds should be eased about access to the repository - and about long-term preservation of the kernel's revision history in an open format (not that the BitKeeper format, which is based on SCCS, is particularly closed).

Incidentally, it has been just over one year since Linus let the world know he was trying out BitKeeper in the 2.5.4-pre1 announcement.

to post comments

Some are forbidden

Posted Feb 13, 2003 6:03 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (2 responses)

Not all the kernel developers who don't run Bitkeeper are avoiding it for ideological or other voluntary reasons. Some are forbidden to run it, by the Bitkeeper license. This license was changed retroactively, after Linus was persuaded to commit to using the software.

Any kernel developer who (or whose employer!) contributes to development or maintenance of CVS, subversion, arch, or other "competitor" to Bitkeeper is among the forbidden.

Some are forbidden (the FREE version)

Posted Feb 13, 2003 16:18 UTC (Thu) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] (1 responses)

AFAIK, this applies to the FREE BK license only. IMO, it's perfectly
reasonable for LM & Company to restrict the FREE version from people
who are trying to compete with them. If someone wants to develop a
competing product, nothing prevents them from BUYING a copy of BK and
going at it. But BitMover is not going to provide a copy for free in
that situation.

Some are forbidden (the FREE version)

Posted Feb 13, 2003 22:42 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

You misstate the problem.

Like you stated: If a company wants to work on a competitor, they are forbidden to use the free version to go at it. That's fine and reasonable.

What you omitted: If an employee of that company wants to work on the kernel, he is also forbidden to use BitKeeper. His or her contributions to the kernel might have nothing to do with configuration management; he still is not allowed to use it. And that is not reasonable.

It's stretching restrictions concerning configuration management work to something unrelated like kernel-work -- and do that retrospectively -- that got many people upset. Just like the license change of Microsoft when they released an update to their new Media Player.