Linux Weekly News, BitKeeper Feature Linux Weekly News Contact us Not quite Open Source Larry McVoy is out to change the way cooperative software development is done , and he may just pull it off. But he also seeks to make a living from his work, and his way of achieving that goal has put him in conflict with the Open Source Definition.
Some background is in order.
Larry has built up an impressive r sum over the years, with stints at places like SCO, Sun, SGI, and Cobalt. Much of that time has been spent hacking on one kernel or another, and, at Sun, putting together configuration management tools. So when he set out to create a new free tool to address some of the problems that have come up in the Linux kernel development process, he had a lot of experience to bring to the task. The result, a system called BitKeeper, is now nearing readiness. BitKeeper provides all of the features of systems like SCCS or CVS, and a lot more.