[Linux-disciples] The Linux 'revolt'

[Adam Rosi-Kessel]

Stephen R Laniel wrote:
> Slashdot links today to an article about Linux in
> BusinessWeek:
> http://shorl.com/godefrydrejubri
> Check out the first few paragraphs. I'd like a technical
> understanding of what, exactly, people were complaining
> about. Is it that Linus was processing kernel additions too
> slowly?

That's the whole bitkeeper issue. Linus used to hand approve patches; now the entire 
source tree is managed with bitkeeper and Linus has delegated final approval 
authority over different parts of the tree to his 'lieutenants.'

It continues to be a very controversial decision because bitkeeper is proprietary 
software. It is provided free of charge to open source developers, but is not Free.

> Presumably this whole debate happened within Usenet and over
> email, so I'd have to presume that it's archived on the net
> somewhere. Can anyone point me in the direction of
> citations?

Just search the linux-kernel archive for 'bitkeeper'.  Larry McVoy has been fairly 
caustic in the discussion.

See also, e.g., <http://web.mit.edu/ghudson/thoughts/bitkeeper.whynot>, 
<http://lwn.net/1999/features/BitKeeper.phtml/>.
-- 
Adam Rosi-Kessel
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org
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