[darcs-users] [OT] Larry McVoy on the Bitkeeper licence

[David Roundy]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 02:40:33PM +0100, Erik Bgfors wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 08:31:27 -0500, David Roundy
> <droundy at abridgegame.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 12:06:41AM +0100, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:
> > > > It's possible that we'll be changing the BK license [...]  What we
> > > > would like to do is change the language to say that if you use BK
> > > > you are agreeing that you won't work on another SCM for 1 year
> > > > after you stop using BK. -- Larry McVoy, 13 February 2005
> > 
> > What I wonder about is whether submitting bug reports on darcs would
> > count as "working on another SCM"...
> 
> I don't think so..  What he looks most affraid of is someone
> copying/reverse enginering BK.

Right, but he seems to think that even providing the graph of the linux
kernel repository would give away too much information about how BK works
to competing developers.  It doesn't seem to be possible, for example, to
develop a script that would convert directly from the BK kernel repository
to a darcs repository using darcs.  Debugging such a script would reveal
too much of BK's internal workings--at least that was what Larry has
hinted.

Of course, he's always *also* said that one could legally use BK itself to
get data out of BK, but he just hasn't explained how one could legally do
this.  I imagine one would have to do it without contacting me, lest one be
tainted as a contributor to darcs.
-- 
David Roundy
http://www.darcs.net