In the last exciting episode, pgman@candle.pha.pa.us (Bruce Momjian) wrote:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> writes:
>> > Oops! reinoud.v@n.leeuwen.net (Reinoud van Leeuwen) was seen spray-painting on a wall:
>> >> Why? I understood that using BitKeeper for free for Open Source projects
>> >> is allowed. (but IANAL).
>>
>> > Ah, but there's a problem with BK _actually seen in production_ in
>> > that people that work on competing products are not permitted to use
>> > it.
>>
>> In particular, I would have to resign from the project if we went over
>> to BK, as my employer (Red Hat) is affected by this restriction. BK
>> does not meet the accepted definition of Open Source because of this
>> unfriendly license clause.
>
> How do the Linux kernel developer guys go from no revision system (just
> Linus's hard drive) to Bitkeeper and requring a signed authorization
> letter from each contributor? They went from too little to too much,
> and never hit the happy medium.
What happened was that Linus Torvalds essentially said "what are the
features I need to better merge together contributions?" and Larry
McVoy responded with "We'll build what you need!" (There was
certainly a lot of back and forth conversation, but that's the short
answer as to how it happened...)
It is pretty interesting how successful BK turned out to be for the
purpose. But definitely "some rights were VERY MUCH reserved."
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