Re:Linus Torvalds's first public mention of git (2005)
by npsimons on Wednesday March 25, 2015 @03:22PM
(#9265285)
Actually, I could much rather believe that 'git' referred to Larry McVoy, Mr. Bitkeeper himself. I've never met the man, but the fact that the license was onerous and he basically took his ball and went home speaks volumes. Also, and again hearsay, but I've heard stories about him.
That being said, I'll take BitKeeper over Perforce any day of the week.
Re:Linus Torvalds's first public mention of git (2005)
by jordigh on Wednesday March 25, 2015 @03:34PM
(#9265364)
Unlikely. Linus praises Larry several times and said that he had absolutely no problem with Larry making Bitkeeper non-free:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/11/torvalds_attack/
On the other hand, he was quite angry with Tridgell:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/14/torvalds_attacks_tri...
Re:Linus Torvalds's first public mention of git (2005)
by dwyer on Thursday March 26, 2015 @07:49AM
(#9268882)
> McVoy was adamant: "sorry, we're not in the business of helping you develop a competing product," he replied.
This business model is precisely what lead to a killer competing product being developed. Good job.
BitKeeper originally offered free licences to Linux developers, with one of the conditions being that they don't reverse engineer it.
One of them did, and BitKeeper revoked that licence. That's what prompted Linus to write Git, and also why it is named "Git" (an mild insult aimed at the person who reverse engineered it).
I believe Linus has said that "git" was referring to himself rather than the guy who reverse engineered BitKeeper, but I don't believe him.