Getting the word out about Bazaar 2.0 - ask your friends to try it!

[Philippe Lhoste]

On 14/10/2009 15:06, Anteru wrote:
> Don't get me wrong, I actually like the fact that a company is giving a
> steering direction as it means that unpopular features (i.e. tedious to
> write) like SVN interop are done, and that docs get written, something
> which you can only do if you have payed full-time employees. On the
> other hand, I also have the impression that Bzr is highly dependent on
> Canonical, which is not a good thing. Again, that's just an impression

I am in the camp of those preferring the current "neutral" URL to one with "canonical" in 
it... Partly to avoid breaking lot of links (although I suppose Canonical can maintain 
current domain name and do redirects), partly for the reasons already explained by lot of 
people. Having a product associated to a commercial company gives somehow a commercial 
tint, even if the product is free, and open.

That said, paradoxically, I don't mind, beside the URL, that Canonical shows prominently 
its involvement in the project, because it adds weight and professionalism to the project. 
After all, Eclipse is backed by lot of companies. But perhaps the 'lot' is key, here...

Anyway, I agree with you, that it allows to get things done (there is also the unit tests, 
more comprehensive than in many other projects).
But I don't feel it is so much dependent. I mean, if Canonical gets suddenly bankrupt (I 
hope not!), the project is still open, and I am pretty sure lot of people would volunteer 
to maintain it.
It might slow down considerably the development (full-time work vs. free time work...), it 
might loose some brilliant minds (if currently involved people just cannot devote free 
time to it; or even are just currently doing it for the money and would drop the project 
if not paid - although I hardly believe this scenario...), but it can still continue to 
advance. After all, that's how other VCS work, more or less, no?

 > for Bzr, the biggest one I could find is MySQL

Well, Ubuntu seems to be pretty big too, no? :-)
But I understand your feelings. Adoption by big projects is a boost, indeed, that's why 
Python's choice of VCS was also scrutinized...

-- 
Philippe Lhoste
--  (near) Paris -- France
--  http://Phi.Lho.free.fr
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