BitKeeper licence critic

[M E Leypold @ labnet]

Jeroen Dekkers writes:
 > On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 09:26:19PM +0000, Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha wrote:
 > > On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 10:10:51PM +0100, Jeroen Dekkers wrote:

 > Probably because they aren't needed anymore. And if Linux uses BK he
 > could decide that BK is replacing the prepatches system.

IMHO you're confusing a release strategy (prepatches) with a tool
(BK).

 > > > According to my knowledge vi (at least some implementations)
 > > > and mozilla are free.

 > > So is Linux. And I'm not sure about vi, I could only find a draft of
 > > a licence that wasn't sure about being GPL compatible.

I don't know about vim, but the first original vi is certainly BSD.


 > They do. They give the impression that they can't do everything with
 > free software and have to use non-free software. That isn't really

Well -- ande this is actually true and usually a result of some kind
or other of vendor lock-in. Think about PDF. My god, how I wish to get
that replaced by something free which every windows user can read.


 > > > My biggest reasons for not staying with Linux are technical.
 > > And the biggest reasons for Linux being widely used are technical, as
 > > are the biggest reasons for Hurd not being widely used nor developed upon...
 > 
 > Linux being widely used is a social thing, not a technical. On the
 > technical part, the Hurd has a much better design and the source code
 > is much cleaner.

Well, actually any agreement on what is 'technically better' is also a
social thing (think about KISS vs flexibility/power -- where do you
trade off?).


Regards -- Markus