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LINUS SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE FOOT?

Brian Grainger

brian@grainger1.freeserve.co.uk

It has not been a good week for Linus Torvalds and the Linux movement. It would appear Linus appears to misunderstand a fundamental concept of software development.

With something as complex as Linux, version control software has to be used to maintain the development process. Then, at any time, the current master copy of the software is known to all the developers and proposed amendments are not implemented by accident until Linus says so.

Linus has been using software called Bitkeeper for such a task. Unfortunately, it was not open source software. It just happened to be good for the job. Apparently, Linus came in for a lot of criticism when he made the decision to use Bitkeeper three years ago. If the open source movement cannot use open source software how can they persuade others to do so? It would seem Bitkeeper has now bitten him!

Bitkeeper was licensed in such a way to make it freely available to the Linux development team, although it was a proprietary product. A couple of weeks ago the man behind the Bitkeeper software, Larry McVoy, announced that the 'free' license is to be withdrawn in July and that his company, Bitmover, would concentrate on the proprietary version of the software. Linus had to make a decision. The decision had to be to look for something else that is 'free'. The whole development team need the client side version of the software and you cannot expect them all to pay for a license.

The problem is that if you get different software, then how do you migrate all your existing data to the new software? Because Bitkeeper is not open source there are no details of the inner workings and protocols used by the software. It is a problem well known to users of Microsoft software, for example, who want to move to open source. One would have thought that Linus would not have dug such a hole for himself.

In the last week some further details have appeared regarding the reason for the change of heart of Bitkeeper's developer. Apparently, the author of the open source Samba file sharing software had been working on an open source replacement for Bitkeeper. To do so, he needed to know the protocols. What he has been doing is to use reverse engineering to work out the protocols being used. It is this process that McVoy has taken exception to. In retaliation he has removed the 'free' licences.

One can argue that McVoy can do what he likes and that Linus Torvalds critics were right to warn him off using Bitkeeper. However, this week Linus issued an e-mail, which sided with McVoy and decried reverse engineering! This has not gone well with the community. The author of Samba is well respected and reverse engineering is seen as a valid tool. It is said that Larry McVoy is a friend of Linus and some wonder whether the friendship is overruling the logic of the argument.

Methinks this problem has further to develop, but clearly Linus Torvalds reputation has gone done in the last week. It does beg the question of what would happen to Linux if Linus met with a change of heart regarding development.

There is a wider lesson to be learned here. One of the accusations often laid against the use of free software is the question, "What happens if the development stops?" The implication is that the business user of open source software is up a gum tree because there is no longer support. The argument is that with proprietary software the developer is obliged to support. Well, here is an example of what happens in the real world, rather than the 'what ..if' world. A developer of proprietary software has withdrawn support. The user is up a gum tree and why? Because it is not easy for someone else to take over the development. In the free software world it is different. If your open source developer decides to stop, someone else can take up development.

It is this threat of proprietary software owners that make me uneasy when such an organisation champions open source software. If they pull the plug someone else can take up the development, but if the development team have got used to the support/money of the sponsor the development environment is suddenly thrown into chaos. I feel use of Debian based Linux is intrinsically safer, than say SUSE or Red Hat, for this reason. In the same way, I am wary of the reliance Open Office Org has on the Sun organisation. In this case we have no choice. Open Office Org is the ONLY office Suite that is comparable with the Microsoft alternative. Nevertheless, when I see Sun has made another loss, or hear that Microsoft has passed money Sun's way, I get concerned.

I just hope that the search for a Bitkeeper alternative does not hinder the development of Linux. Now the momentum has built up it would be a shame to see Linux stall because of a proprietary software problem.

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