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Story: BitKeeper: No holds barred open source infighting

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First, Linus' response to Tridge's actions was uncalled for and over the top. He accused Tridge of "tearing down" Larry's work, which it has been established was NOTHING of the kind. This was obviously an intemperate comment on Linus's part due to his irritation over having to change his method of operation.

Second, Linus was criticized early on for requiring people to use BitMover, a proprietary product, simply for his own preference. I suspect much of his irritation comes from being hoist with his own petard.

Third, Ovum's spokesman claims that there is nothing wrong with using proprietary software and OSS together. Only a few OSS ideologues believe there is. The problem is when proprietary software is used to make OSS dependent on it. The result in this case demonstrates why this is not a good idea. This has nothing to do with being "childish" and everything to do with being pragmatic - something Linus obviously was not in this case, despite his claims to the contrary.

In any event, the speed with which Linus has come up with an alternative - git (even though Linus calls it "stupid but fast") - demonstrates that there always an alternative to using proprietary software.

Finally, the OSS community needs to drop the whole thing and get on with it - while remembering the consequences of trying to tie proprietary software to OSS projects.

As Bruce Perens has said, "Linus needs to chill out."

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