Some are forbidden [LWN.net]

Some are forbidden

Posted Feb 13, 2003 6:03 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165)
Parent article: Getting at the BitKeeper repositories without BitKeeper

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.

to post comments

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.