Pavel Machek recently announced a new project on the lkml called BitBucket. This project aims to provide read only access (at least for now) to a BitKeeper repository. I asked Pavel why he started this project, to which he explained, "There were way too many flamewars on l-k already, so I felt it was time to do some coding." As is usual when BitKeeper is discussed on the lkml [story], a lengthy debate followed.

When I asked Pavel what BitBucket currently does, he answered, "It can get an up-to-date copy of Linus' tree, and I hope to be able to get diff between two versions in near future." However, as noted by BitMover founder Larry McVoy [interview], Pavel's new project is not a clone of BitKeeper, so far only an attempt to export a current source tree. Regarding the subject tag of Pavel's announcement email, Larry noted, "that implies that BitBucket does what BitKeeper does and nothing could be farther from the truth.".

Complying with BitKeeper's free BKL license, Pavel noted that he does not use BitKeeper himself. Additionally, this current effort does not use BitKeeper's http interface to extract changesets as was the case with Andrea Arcangeli's earlier scripts [story]. Ben Collins also replied to Pavel's announcement, posting further helpful tools. When I asked Pavel what kind of response he got after announcing BitBucket, he replied, "Full mailbox over weekend ;-) and very nice stuff by Ben Collins." A large sampling of the lengthy discussion follows.

From: Pavel Machek
To: andrea, Linux kernel mailing list
Subject: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 21:02:12 +0100

Hi!

I've created little project for read-only (for now ;-) bitkeeper
clone. It is available at www.sf.net/projects/bitbucket (no tar balls,
just get it fresh from CVS).

Part of readme follows.

Install CSSC from http://cssc.sf.net/ (it is also available as

Debian package). You may need to apply cssc.diff.

Here you get following tools:

bcheckout_HEAD:
        extracts files from BK repository. You can get repository
        by rsync -zav --delete nl.linux.org::kernel/linux-2.5 .

bpull:
        pull new version of repository, compute differences from
        the last time and apply them to directory with *your*
        sources.

bdiff:
        compare two versions (specify versions from top-level
        s.ChangeSet)

To get a list of all changesets, do prs linux-2.5/SCCS/s.ChangeSet.

Enjoy, and help me make it usefull,
								Pavel
-- 
When do you have a heart between your knees?
[Johanka's followup: and *two* hearts?]



From: Larry McVoy
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 07:28:20 -0800

BitKeeper is a trademark, please don't use the BitKeeper name when
describing BitBucket.  Thanks.

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm



From: Ben Collins
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 11:02:22 -0500

On Sat, Mar 01, 2003 at 07:28:20AM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
> BitKeeper is a trademark, please don't use the BitKeeper name when
> describing BitBucket.  Thanks.

I think he's allowed to use the name so long as he only uses it to
describe what the purpose of the tool is and recognizes in the same
document who the holder of the trademark is. Just the same as someone
can write an article about Windows and Microsoft, or a software product
can claim that it runs under Windows or MacOS.

He's allowed to say "This tool allows you to access a BitKeeper
repository".

-- 
Debian     - http://www.debian.org/
Linux 1394 - http://www.linux1394.org/
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/
Deqo       - http://www.deqo.com/



From: Larry McVoy
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 08:11:44 -0800

He's not allowed to say "BitBucket is a GPL-ed clone of BitKeeper"
because that implies that BitBucket does what BitKeeper does and nothing
could be farther from the truth.

How about we not turn this into a debate?  I politely requested that
people not confuse the world into thinking Product A is the same as
Product B, that's all I requested, it's a reasonable request, we don't

need to debate it.  If you feel the need to do so, go for it, but do so
knowing that my silence in no way means that I agree or disagree with you.

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm



From: Alan Cox
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: 01 Mar 2003 17:30:42 +0000

On Sat, 2003-03-01 at 16:11, Larry McVoy wrote:
> He's not allowed to say "BitBucket is a GPL-ed clone of BitKeeper"
> because that implies that BitBucket does what BitKeeper does and nothing
> could be farther from the truth.

Something is wrong, I agree with Larry.

He should instead say "A tool for accessing bitkeeper repositories" or
"bitbucket compatible proprietary tools are available from .. " ;)



From: Pavel Machek
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 00:40:18 +0100

> BitKeeper is a trademark, please don't use the BitKeeper name when
> describing BitBucket.  Thanks.

Sorry, I should have been more carefull about wording. Sourceforge
page states that 

Goal of this project is to create version managment system compatible
with BitKeeper.

I hope that's okay with you.
								Pavel
-- 
Horseback riding is like software...
...vgf orggre jura vgf serr.

From: Pavel Janík
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 19:05:35 +0100

   From: Pavel Machek
   Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 21:02:12 +0100

Pavel,

   > I've created little project for read-only (for now ;-) kitbeeper
   > clone. It is available at www.sf.net/projects/bitbucket (no tar balls,
   > just get it fresh from CVS).

I think that it is waste of your valuable time to create clones of
proprietary software like KitBeeper (I do not want to infringe on Larry's
trademark) is. It is not worth the effort and in fact your work supports
using that proprietary tool. I suggest to completely remove the project.
-- 
Pavel Janík

In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is nothing
left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
                  -- RFC1925: The Twelve Networking Truths



From: Christoph Hellwig
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 18:39:29 +0000

> I think that it is waste of your valuable time to create clones of
> proprietary software like KitBeeper (I do not want to infringe on Larry's
> trademark) is. It is not worth the effort and in fact your work supports
> using that proprietary tool. I suggest to completely remove the project.

I totally agree.  We should stop developing Linux now and remove all source
code from kernel.org because it's reimplementation and further development
of the APIs of the propritary "UNIX" operating system is just a waste of
time.



From: Pavel Janík
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 23:43:23 +0100

   From: Christoph Hellwig
   Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 18:39:29 +0000

   > I totally agree.  We should stop developing Linux now and remove all
   > source code from kernel.org because it's reimplementation and further
   > development of the APIs of the propritary "UNIX" operating system is
   > just a waste of time.

You misunderstood my reply. We do have many source control management
software around. Instead of developing something to be able to work with
proprietary systems, we should concentrate on adding missing pieces to
existing software and trying to convince people to not use proprietary
systems because of their freedom. E.g. Linus and other people exercising
"free" KitBeeper license now can not develop SCM software even if they want
to. I think this is really bad for their freedom.

And what will be the next thing?

-- 
Pavel Janík

I wouldn't like to have something like fetchmail for the kernel
configuration.
                  -- Martin Dalecki in LKML about CML2



From: Christoph Hellwig
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 09:11:30 +0000

> You misunderstood my reply. We do have many source control management
> software around. Instead of developing something to be able to work with
> proprietary systems, we should concentrate on adding missing pieces to
> existing software

Well, that's the same argument as we don't need UNIX we have DOS.

But anyway, don't you think Pavel is free to develop whatever free software
he likes to develop instead of following you political agenda?



From: John Bradford
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 09:30:00 +0000 (GMT)

> But anyway, don't you think Pavel is free to develop whatever free
> software he likes to develop instead of following you political
> agenda?

What is the goal of the BitBucket project, though?

To develop a version control system, or to annoy Larry?

I haven't seen a single post to the list saying, "If we were designing
a version control system dedicated to the Linux kernel, what would you
like to see in it?".  Before I started work on my bug database, I
spent a week or so discussing it on the list with people.

Why doesn't somebody start working on a dedicated kernel version
control system?

John.




From: Pavel Machek
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 13:39:07 +0100

Hi!

> > But anyway, don't you think Pavel is free to develop whatever free
> > software he likes to develop instead of following you political
> > agenda?
> 
> What is the goal of the BitBucket project, though?
> 
> To develop a version control system, or to annoy Larry?

To be able to access kernel version history without touching
bk. Annoying Larry is just a side effect, altrough I agree selection
of project name was "interesting" ;-).

> I haven't seen a single post to the list saying, "If we were designing
> a version control system dedicated to the Linux kernel, what would you
> like to see in it?".  Before I started work on my bug database, I
> spent a week or so discussing it on the list with people.

Apparently Linus, DaveM and Larry did just this, 2 years ago and
offline. bk is result of that discussion.

> Why doesn't somebody start working on a dedicated kernel version
> control system?

That's way harder than accessing kernel version history. I do not have
time for *that*. 
								Pavel
-- 
Horseback riding is like software...
...vgf orggre jura vgf serr.



From: Alan Cox
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: 03 Mar 2003 14:12:55 +0000

On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 09:30, John Bradford wrote:
> I haven't seen a single post to the list saying, "If we were designing
> a version control system dedicated to the Linux kernel, what would you
> like to see in it?".  Before I started work on my bug database, I
> spent a week or so discussing it on the list with people.

Larry spent a lot of time talking to people directly about such things.

From: Ben Collins
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 00:04:20 -0500

On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 09:02:12PM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I've created little project for read-only (for now ;-) bitkeeper
> clone. It is available at www.sf.net/projects/bitbucket (no tar balls,
> just get it fresh from CVS).

In case it may be of some help, here's a script that is the result of my
own reverse engineering of the bitkeeper SCCS files. It can output a
diff, almost exactly the same as BitKeeper's gnupatch output from a
BitKeeper repo.

[bitsubversion.pl]

-- 
Debian     - http://www.debian.org/
Linux 1394 - http://www.linux1394.org/
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/
Deqo       - http://www.deqo.com/



From: Ben Collins
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 00:10:10 -0500

On Sun, Mar 02, 2003 at 12:04:20AM -0500, Ben Collins wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 09:02:12PM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > Hi!
> > 
> > I've created little project for read-only (for now ;-) bitkeeper
> > clone. It is available at www.sf.net/projects/bitbucket (no tar balls,
> > just get it fresh from CVS).
> 
> In case it may be of some help, here's a script that is the result of my
> own reverse engineering of the bitkeeper SCCS files. It can output a
> diff, almost exactly the same as BitKeeper's gnupatch output from a
> BitKeeper repo.

Might aswell supply my hacked sccsdiff script aswell.

[sccsdiff]

-- 
Debian     - http://www.debian.org/
Linux 1394 - http://www.linux1394.org/
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/
Deqo       - http://www.deqo.com/


From: Pavel Machek
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 00:53:18 +0100

Hi!

> > > I've created little project for read-only (for now ;-) bitkeeper
> > > clone. It is available at www.sf.net/projects/bitbucket (no tar balls,
> > > just get it fresh from CVS).
> > 
> > In case it may be of some help, here's a script that is the result of my
> > own reverse engineering of the bitkeeper SCCS files. It can output a
> > diff, almost exactly the same as BitKeeper's gnupatch output from a
> > BitKeeper repo.
> 
> Might aswell supply my hacked sccsdiff script aswell.

There's a problem with this: it changes CSSC, and its GNU (read: needs
copyright assignment to apply changes). I can't really push your
changes to CSSC :-(. [What I can do is add .diff file into
bitbucket...]
								Pavel
-- 
When do you have a heart between your knees?
[Johanka's followup: and *two* hearts?]



From: Ben Collins
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed BitKeeper clone
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 19:53:59 -0500

On Mon, Mar 03, 2003 at 12:53:18AM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > > > I've created little project for read-only (for now ;-) bitkeeper
> > > > clone. It is available at www.sf.net/projects/bitbucket (no tar balls,
> > > > just get it fresh from CVS).
> > > 
> > > In case it may be of some help, here's a script that is the result of my
> > > own reverse engineering of the bitkeeper SCCS files. It can output a
> > > diff, almost exactly the same as BitKeeper's gnupatch output from a
> > > BitKeeper repo.
> > 
> > Might aswell supply my hacked sccsdiff script aswell.
> 
> There's a problem with this: it changes CSSC, and its GNU (read: needs
> copyright assignment to apply changes). I can't really push your
> changes to CSSC :-(. [What I can do is add .diff file into
> bitbucket...]

I'm putting my changes to CSSC into the public domain. The FSF can do
whatever it wants.

-- 
Debian     - http://www.debian.org/
Linux 1394 - http://www.linux1394.org/
Subversion - http://subversion.tigris.org/
Deqo       - http://www.deqo.com/

From: Adam J. Richter
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:11:55 -0800

Pavel Machek wrote:
> I've created little project for read-only (for now ;-) kitbeeper
> clone. It is available at www.sf.net/projects/bitbucket (no tar balls,
> just get it fresh from CVS).

	Thank you for taking some initiative and improving this
situation by constructive means.  You are an example to us all,
as is Andrea Arcangeli with his openbkweb project, which you
will probably want to examine and perhaps integrate
(ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/andrea/openbkweb).

	bitbucket is about 350 lines of shell scripts, documentation
and diffs, the most interesting file of which is FORMAT, which
documents some reverse engineering efforts on bitkeeper internal file
formats.  bitkbucket currently uses rsync to update data from the
repository.  openbkweb is 500+ lines of python that implements enough
of the bitkeeper network protocol to do downloads, although perhaps in
inefficiently.  That sounds like some functionality that you might be
interested in integrating.

	I think the suggestion made by Pavel Janik that it would
be better to work on adding BitKeeper-like functionality to existing
free software packages is a bit misdirected.  BitKeeper uses SCCS
format, and we have a GPL'ed SCCS clone ("cssc"), so you are
adding functionality to existing free software version control
code anyhow.

	However, I would like to turn Pavel Janik's point in
what I think might be a more constructive direction.

	Aegis, BitKeeper and probably other configuration management
tools that use sccs or rcs basically share a common type of lower
layer.  This lower layer converts a file-based revision control system
such as sccs to an "uber-cvs", as someone called it in a slashdot
discussion, that can:

	    1. process a transaction against a group of files atomically,
	    2. associate a comment with such a transaction rather than
	       with just one file,
	    3. represent symbolic links, file protections
            4. represent file renames (and perhaps copies?)

	You might want to keep in the back of your mind the
possibility of someday splitting off this lower level into a separate
software package that programs like your bitkeeper clone, aegis could
use in common.  If the interface to this lower level took cvs
commands, then it could probably replace cvs, although the repository
would probably be incompatible since the meaning of things like
checking in multiple files together with a single comment would be
different, and there would be other kinds of changes to represent
beyond what cvs currently does.  Using a repository format that is
compatible with another system (for example bitkeeper or aegis) would
make such a tool more useful, and if such a tool makes it easier for
people to migrate from a prorprietary system to a free one, that's
even better, so your starting with bitkeeper's format seems like an
excellent choice to me.

	Thanks again for starting this project.  I will at least
try to be a user of it.

Adam J. Richter     __     ______________   575 Oroville Road
[email blocked]         /                  Milpitas, California 95035
+1 408 309-6081         | g g d r a s i l   United States of America
                         "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."



From: Arador
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 01:49:15 +0100

On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:11:55 -0800
"Adam J. Richter" wrote:

(Just a very personal suggestion)
Why to waste time trying to clone a 
tool such as bitkeeper? Why not to support things like subversion?

Diego Calleja



From: Alan Cox
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: 02 Mar 2003 02:15:36 +0000

On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 00:49, Arador wrote:
> On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:11:55 -0800
> "Adam J. Richter" wrote:
> 
> (Just a very personal suggestion)
> Why to waste time trying to clone a 
> tool such as bitkeeper? Why not to support things like subversion?

Because the repositories people need to read are in BK format, for better
or worse. It doesn't ultimately matter if you use it as an input filter
for CVS, subversion or no VCS at all.



From: Jeff Garzik
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 20:19:52 -0500

Alan Cox wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 00:49, Arador wrote:
> 
>>On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:11:55 -0800
>>"Adam J. Richter" wrote:
>>
>>(Just a very personal suggestion)
>>Why to waste time trying to clone a 
>>tool such as bitkeeper? Why not to support things like subversion?
> 
> 
> Because the repositories people need to read are in BK format, for better
> or worse. It doesn't ultimately matter if you use it as an input filter
> for CVS, subversion or no VCS at all.

"BK format"?  Not really.  Patches have been posted (to lkml, even) to 
GNU CSSC which allow it to read SCCS files BK reads and writes.

Since that already exists, a full BitKeeper clone is IMO a bit silly, 
because it draws users and programmers away from projects that could 
potentially _replace_ BitKeeper.

	Jeff



From: Pavel Machek
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone

Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 01:10:32 +0100

Hi!

> >>(Just a very personal suggestion)
> >>Why to waste time trying to clone a 
> >>tool such as bitkeeper? Why not to support things like subversion?
> >
> >
> >Because the repositories people need to read are in BK format, for better
> >or worse. It doesn't ultimately matter if you use it as an input filter
> >for CVS, subversion or no VCS at all.
> 
> "BK format"?  Not really.  Patches have been posted (to lkml, even) to 
> GNU CSSC which allow it to read SCCS files BK reads and writes.
> 
> Since that already exists, a full BitKeeper clone is IMO a bit silly, 
> because it draws users and programmers away from projects that could 
> potentially _replace_ BitKeeper.

Read-only access to the bk repositories is the first goal. Then, I'll
either add write support (unlikely) or feed it into some existing
version control system to work with that. I'm still not sure what's
the best.

[bk's on-disk format is quite reasonable; it might be okay to reuse
that.]

								Pavel
-- 
When do you have a heart between your knees?
[Johanka's followup: and *two* hearts?]



From: Andrea Arcangeli
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed *notrademarkhere* clone
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 02:40:39 +0100

On Sat, Mar 01, 2003 at 08:19:52PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Alan Cox wrote:
> >On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 00:49, Arador wrote:
> >
> >>On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:11:55 -0800
> >>"Adam J. Richter" wrote:
> >>
> >>(Just a very personal suggestion)
> >>Why to waste time trying to clone a 
> >>tool such as *notrademarkhere*? Why not to support things like subversion?
> >
> >
> >Because the repositories people need to read are in BK format, for better
> >or worse. It doesn't ultimately matter if you use it as an input filter
> >for CVS, subversion or no VCS at all.
> 
> "BK format"?  Not really.  Patches have been posted (to lkml, even) to 
> GNU CSSC which allow it to read SCCS files BK reads and writes.

you never tried what you're talking about.  there's no way to make any
use of the SCCS tree from Rik's website with only the patched CSSC. The
whole point of bitbucket is to find a way to use CSSC on that tree. And
the longer Larry takes to export the whole data in an open format (CVS,
subversion or whatever), the more progress it will be accomplished in
getting the data out of the only service we have right now (Rik's
server). Sure, CSSC is a foundamental piece to extract the data out of
the single files, but CSSC alone is useless. CSSC only allows you to
work on a single file, you lose the whole view of the tree and in turn
it is completely unusable for doing anything useful like watching
changesets, or checking out a branch or whatever else useful thing. As
Pavel found _all_ the info we are interested about is in the
SCCS/s.ChangeSet file and that has nothing to do with CSSC or SCCS.

> 
> Since that already exists, a full BitKeeper clone is IMO a bit silly, 
> because it draws users and programmers away from projects that could 
> potentially _replace_ BitKeeper.

Jeff, please uninstall *notrademarkhere* from your harddisk, install the
patched CSSC instead (like I just did), rsync Rik's SCCS tree on your
harddisk (like I just did), and then send me via email the diff of the
last Changeset that Linus applied to his tree with author, date,
comments etc...  If you can do that, you're completely right and at
least personally I will agree 100% with you, again: iff you can.

Andrea



From: Jeff Garzik
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed *notrademarkhere* clone
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 20:45:08 -0500

Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> Jeff, please uninstall *notrademarkhere* from your harddisk, install the
> patched CSSC instead (like I just did), rsync Rik's SCCS tree on your
> harddisk (like I just did), and then send me via email the diff of the
> last Changeset that Linus applied to his tree with author, date,
> comments etc...  If you can do that, you're completely right and at
> least personally I will agree 100% with you, again: iff you can.

You're missing the point:

A BK exporter is useful.  A BK clone is not.

If Pavel is _not_ attempting to clone BK, then I retract my arguments. :)

	Jeff



From: Pavel Machek
Subject: Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed *notrademarkhere* clone
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 01:13:33 +0100

Hi!

> >Jeff, please uninstall *notrademarkhere* from your harddisk, install the
> >patched CSSC instead (like I just did), rsync Rik's SCCS tree on your
> >harddisk (like I just did), and then send me via email the diff of the
> >last Changeset that Linus applied to his tree with author, date,
> >comments etc...  If you can do that, you're completely right and at
> >least personally I will agree 100% with you, again: iff you can.
> 
> 
> You're missing the point:
> 
> A BK exporter is useful.  A BK clone is not.

I meant exporter.
								Pavel

-- 
When do you have a heart between your knees?
[Johanka's followup: and *two* hearts?]

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