BitKeeper
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| Original author(s) | BitMover Inc. |
|---|---|
| Stable release |
7.3.1ce / September 30, 2016
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| Repository | repos |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | AIX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Windows |
| Type | Distributed revision control |
| License | Apache 2.0 |
| Website | www |
BitKeeper is a software tool for distributed revision control of computer source code. Originally proprietary software, it was released as open-source software under Apache 2.0 license on 9 May 2016. BitKeeper is produced by BitMover Inc., a privately held company based in Los Gatos, California and owned by CEO Larry McVoy, who had previously designed TeamWare.
BitKeeper uses history files that are based on delta tables and interleaved deltas from Source Code Control System but uses an incompatible magic number (0x01 0x48 instead of 0x01 0x68) at the beginning.
BitKeeper was first mentioned as a solution to some of the growing pains that Linux was having in September 1998. Early access betas were available in May 1999 and on May 4, 2000 the first public release of BitKeeper was made available. BitMover used to provide access to the system for certain open source or free software projects, one of which was the source code of the Linux kernel. The license for the "community" version of BitKeeper had allowed for developers to use the tool at no cost for open source or free software projects, provided those developers did not participate in the development of a competing tool (such as Concurrent Versions System, GNU Arch, Subversion or ClearCase) for the duration of their usage of BitKeeper plus one year. This restriction applied regardless of whether the competing tool was free or proprietary. This version of BitKeeper also required that certain meta-information about changes be stored on computer servers operated by BitMover, an addition that made it impossible for community version users to run projects of which BitMover was unaware.
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