BitKeeper

BitKeeper is a software tool for revision control (configuration management SCM etc) of computer source code. A sophisticated distributed system, BitKeeper competes largely against other professional systems such as Rational ClearCase and Perforce. BitKeeper is produced by BitMover Inc., a privately held company based in San Francisco, California and owned by CEO Larry McVoy. Larry McVoy previously designed TeamWare, and BitKeeper builds upon many of the TeamWare concepts.

BitKeeper is a closed-source product, and is normally sold or leased (as part of a support-package) to medium or large corporations. The precise cost varies with individual customer, but the per-developer cost is estimated to be over one thousand dollars.

BitMover had also featured access to the system for certain open source or free software projects, the most famous (and controversial) of which was the source code of the Linux kernel. The license for the "community" version of BitKeeper had allowed for developers to use the tool at no cost for open source or free software projects, provided those developers do not participate in the development of a competing tool (such as CVS, GNU Arch, Subversion or ClearCase) for the duration of their usage of BitKeeper plus one year. This restriction applies whether the competing tool is open/free or proprietary. This version of BitKeeper also required that certain meta-information about changes be stored on computer servers operated by Bitmover (www.openlogging.org), an addition which means that it is impossible for users of the community version to run projects of which Bitmover is unaware. BitMover has scheduled end of support for their "Free Use" version for July 1, 2005 and will be migrating users to either commercial BitKeeper or CVS.

Contents

1 BitKeeper and Linux 2 Footnotes 3 See also 4 External links

BitKeeper and Linux

The decision made in 2002 to use BitKeeper for Linux kernel development was a controversial one. Some advocates, most notably GNU founder Richard Stallman, expressed concern about proprietary tools being used on a flagship free project. While project leader Linus Torvalds and other core developers adopted BitKeeper, several key developers (including Linux veteran Alan Cox) refused to do so, citing the Bitmover licence, and voicing concern that the project was ceding some control to a proprietary developer. To mitigate these concerns, Bitmover added gateways which allowed limited interoperation between the Linux BitKeeper servers (maintained by Bitmover) and developers using CVS and Subversion. Even after this addition, flamewars¹ occasionally broke out on the Linux kernel mailing list, often involving key kernel developers and Bitmover CEO Larry McVoy, who is also a Linux developer.

Later, in April 2005, BitMover announced that it would stop providing a version of BitKeeper free of charge to the community, the reason being alleged reverse-engineering efforts by Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell, a developer employed by OSDL on an unrelated project. Although BitMover, Inc. will be providing free commercial BitKeeper licenses to some kernel developers, it is refusing to give or sell licenses to anyone employed by OSDL, including Linus Torvalds and Andrew Morton. The project called git will replace the linux kernel's source configuration management software.

Footnotes

Note 1: example thread (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/linux.kernel/browse_thread/thread/a98de7edab73f365/7d68ee9f364e93f6)

See also

• Git

External links

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• BitKeeper homepage (http://www.bitkeeper.com/)
• BitKeeper's note about the Nov 2003 security breach (http://www.bitkeeper.com/press/2003-11-10-0001.html)
• "Not quite Open Source" (http://lwn.net/1999/features/BitKeeper.php3) Article on Linux Weekly News, circa 1999, discussing features, licensing, Larry McVoy, and OSI.
• "No More Free BitKeeper" (http://kerneltrap.org/node/4966) Discusses BitMover's decision to phase out the gratis version of BitKeeper
• "BitKeeper and Linux: The end of the road?" (http://os.newsforge.com/os/05/04/11/118211.shtml?tid=2&tid=25&tid=3) discusses the BitKeeper fiasco from three viewpoints: Linus Torvalds, Larry McVoy, Andrew "Tridge" Tridgell (the alleged reverse-engineer who offers a short explanation of the situation)
• SourcePuller (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sourcepuller/) is the result of tridge's efforts
• News Forge (http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/04/25/130207) Richard Stallman on the Linux/BitKeeper fallout
• The Age (http://www.theage.com.au/news/Soapbox/Crunch-time-for-Linus/2005/04/14/1113251731624.html) Crunch time for Linus