MESSAGE
| DATE | 2005-05-01 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Linus announced new tool for version control
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Torvalds Creates New Linux Development System By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
April 22, 2005
Linux founder Linus Torvalds has reluctantly created his own software
configuration management system, Git, to oversee Linux kernel
development.
Previously, Torvalds had been using BitMover Inc.'s BitKeeper SCM
(software configuration management) to manage Linux. "I'm pretty well
known for not being a huge fan of source control that gets in the way
and makes it harder to merge with all the people I work with all the
time," Torvalds said in a statement last year.
"BitKeeper is different. It's made me more than twice as productive,
and its fundamentally distributed nature allows me to work the way
I prefer to work—with many different groups working independently,
yet allowing for easy merging between them."
Not everyone in the free software/open-source community was as happy
as Torvalds about BitKeeper because it is a proprietary program. Flame
wars quickly erupted over the use of the proprietary program to manage
the creation of the open-source software poster-child project: Linux.
PointerTorvalds talks about Git.
In essence, it was a debate between open-source pragmatists such as
Torvalds, who believes in using the right tool for the job regardless
of whether it's proprietary or open source, and free-software purists
like Richard Stallman, who believes that using proprietary programs
is contrary to what free software should be about.
"This problem, like the decision to use BitKeeper, reflects the
attitude of the original developer of Linux, a person who thinks that
'technically better' is more important than freedom," wrote Stallman
in a 2002 criticism of Torvalds' use of BitKeeper.
This could have stayed a tempest in a teacup in Linux development
circles, but recent events forced the matter to a boil.
After much debate over whether an open-source attempt should be made to
reverse-engineer BitKeeper, Andrew Tridgell, co-founder of the popular
Samba CIFS (Common Internet File System) server project, created a
new program, SourcePuller, that could work with BitKeeper data.
Tridgell was the OSDL's (Open Source Development Lab) second appointed
Fellow; Linus Torvalds was the first. These positions are designed to
enable strategic developers to focus on their development and coding
contributions to the open-source community.
At this, Larry McVoy, BitMover's founder, decided to pull the
non-commercial version of BitKeeper, which had been used for Linux
development, from the market. At the same time, McVoy released a less
powerful open-source version.
McVoy has long held the position that "you can't use BK if you are
developing a similar system, i.e., a clone."
After still more heated discussion, Torvalds decided that Linux
development and BitKeeper would have to part ways.
But Torvalds was careful to praise McVoy for his efforts to defuse
the situation. "Don't blame BitMover, even if that's probably going to
be a very common reaction. Larry in particular really did try to make
things work out, but it got to the point where I decided that I don't
want to be in the position of trying to hold two pieces together that
would need as much glue as it seemed to require."
Torvalds said he doesn't care for any of the existing SCMs, so he
created his own: Git.
As for his conflict with Tridgell over BitKeeper, Torvalds said, "I
don't hate him, if that's what you're asking. I'm very disappointed
by this whole brouhaha, but my whole life I've been writing my own
tools for my own use. I'll survive. It's just sad, because I really
did like BK."
"We've never had a 'working relationship,'" Torvalds added. "Samba and
the kernel are just so independent that we've never worked together. So
it's been purely social. Now it's just a bit less so."
--
__________________________
Brooklyn Linux Solutions
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