4 ms·

Bit keeper is a great example of what happens when you do not open source your code. I have cited it that way many times.

by ryao 11y ago

luckydude 11y ago
Except that we've been around for 18 years and made payroll without fail that entire time. Supported a team of 10-15 people every year. That's something, many many companies in the valley, including many that open sourced everything, have not done as well. You may have done more by open sourcing whatever it is that you have done; if so congrats.
- ryao 11y ago
  My remark was intended to cite how much farther bit keeper could have gone had it been open source from the start rather than belittle what bit keeper accomplished. At work, many of my newer colleagues have backgrounds in closed source software development. We are developing software that has no exact analog to existing software, and we hope that it will have a big impact. If it becomes as important as we think it could be, then bit keeper vs git is a fantastic example of why our work should be open source from the start.
  - debaserab2 11y ago
    Except you're not Linus and you probably don't have a cult like following for any work you produce. Linus brought DVCS to the masses, but to pretend there wasn't more at play than simply open sourcing a project and hoping it all works out is complete rubbish. People have families to feed. Closed source is not inherently evil. It takes a unique situation to produce something like git that's product is beyond the sum of the project itself.
    - ryao 11y ago
      I wrote enough patches to ZFSOnLinux that I have the distinction of number 2 by commit count. It was a hobby for me at first and quite frankly, I never expected it to make a difference for more than a few hundred people. Now ZoL is on millions of systems through Ubuntu in part because of my work and there are far more places using it than I can count. Open sourcing those patches rather than keeping them to myself made a difference that was greater than anything I imagined. Similarly, the impact of making ZFS open source far surpassed the expectations of the original team at Sun. I think that making any worthwhile piece of software open source will lead to adoption beyond the scope of what its authors envisioned. All it takes is people looking for something better than what previously existed. As for closed source being inherently evil (your words, not mine), how do you fix bugs in closed source software that a vendor is not willing to fix? How do you catch things like a hard coded password that gives root privileges? How do you know that the software is really as good as they say? It is far easier with open source software than with closed source software. Closed source software is a bad idea.
      - luckydude 11y ago
        I still think you need to look at it from the point of view of an employer. Like me. I'm weird, I really care about my people, our company is more like a cooperative than anything else. I grew this to a place where I could pay salaries. Doing so was super super hard. I had a lot of scary nights where I thought I couldn't make payroll. Just building up to a place where the next payroll was OK was a big deal for us. So open source it? When you finally got to the point where you can pay people without worrying all night? I get that you see that open source is the answer, and it is for some stuff. For me, jumping on that years ago was asking too much.
ryao 11y ago
I have no idea why people are down voting this. In an alternative universe, we would all be using bit keeper. The reason we are not is mainly because Larry McVoy ceded the market to git and mercurial because he was afraid of disrupting his existing business. git and mercurial would never have existed had he practiced at Bit Movers what he preached at Sun.

Bit keeper is a great example of what happens when you do not open source your code. I have cited it that way many times.

by ryao 11y ago

Bit keeper is a great example of what happens when you do not open source your code. I have cited it that way many times.

luckydude 11y ago

Except that we've been around for 18 years and made payroll without fail that entire time. Supported a team of 10-15 people every year. That's something, many many companies in the valley, including many that open sourced everything, have not done as well. You may have done more by open sourcing whatever it is that you have done; if so congrats.

ryao 11y ago
My remark was intended to cite how much farther bit keeper could have gone had it been open source from the start rather than belittle what bit keeper accomplished. At work, many of my newer colleagues have backgrounds in closed source software development. We are developing software that has no exact analog to existing software, and we hope that it will have a big impact. If it becomes as important as we think it could be, then bit keeper vs git is a fantastic example of why our work should be open source from the start.
- debaserab2 11y ago
  Except you're not Linus and you probably don't have a cult like following for any work you produce. Linus brought DVCS to the masses, but to pretend there wasn't more at play than simply open sourcing a project and hoping it all works out is complete rubbish. People have families to feed. Closed source is not inherently evil. It takes a unique situation to produce something like git that's product is beyond the sum of the project itself.
  - ryao 11y ago
    I wrote enough patches to ZFSOnLinux that I have the distinction of number 2 by commit count. It was a hobby for me at first and quite frankly, I never expected it to make a difference for more than a few hundred people. Now ZoL is on millions of systems through Ubuntu in part because of my work and there are far more places using it than I can count. Open sourcing those patches rather than keeping them to myself made a difference that was greater than anything I imagined. Similarly, the impact of making ZFS open source far surpassed the expectations of the original team at Sun. I think that making any worthwhile piece of software open source will lead to adoption beyond the scope of what its authors envisioned. All it takes is people looking for something better than what previously existed. As for closed source being inherently evil (your words, not mine), how do you fix bugs in closed source software that a vendor is not willing to fix? How do you catch things like a hard coded password that gives root privileges? How do you know that the software is really as good as they say? It is far easier with open source software than with closed source software. Closed source software is a bad idea.
    - luckydude 11y ago
      I still think you need to look at it from the point of view of an employer. Like me. I'm weird, I really care about my people, our company is more like a cooperative than anything else. I grew this to a place where I could pay salaries. Doing so was super super hard. I had a lot of scary nights where I thought I couldn't make payroll. Just building up to a place where the next payroll was OK was a big deal for us. So open source it? When you finally got to the point where you can pay people without worrying all night? I get that you see that open source is the answer, and it is for some stuff. For me, jumping on that years ago was asking too much.

ryao 11y ago

I have no idea why people are down voting this. In an alternative universe, we would all be using bit keeper. The reason we are not is mainly because Larry McVoy ceded the market to git and mercurial because he was afraid of disrupting his existing business. git and mercurial would never have existed had he practiced at Bit Movers what he preached at Sun.