The grand irony is that Larry was one of the earliest advocates of open sourcing the operating system at Sun[1] -- and believed that by the time Sun finally collectively figured it out and made it happen (in 2005), it was a decade or more too late.[2] So on the one hand, you can view the story of BitKeeper with respect to open source as almost Greek in its tragic scope: every reason that Larry outlined for "sourceware"[3] for Sun applied just as much to BK as it did to SunOS -- with even the same technologist (Torvalds) leading the open source alternative! And you can say to BK and Larry now that it's "too late", just as Larry told Sun in 2005, but I also think this represents a forced dichotomy of "winners" and "losers." To the contrary, I would like to believe that the ongoing innovation in the illumos communities (SmartOS, OmniOS, etc.) proves that it's never too late to open source software -- that open source communities (like cities) can be small yet vibrant, serving a critical role to their constituencies. In an alternate universe, might we be running BK on SunOS instead of git on Linux? Sure -- but being able to run an open source BK on an open source illumos is also pretty great; the future of two innovative systems has been assured, even if it took a little longer than everyone might like.
So congratulations to Larry and crew -- and damn, were you ever right in 1993! ;)
[1] Seriously, read this: http://www.landley.net/history/mirror/unix/srcos.html
[2] The citation here is, in that greatest of all academic euphemisms, "Personal communication."
[3] "Sourceware" because [1] predates the term "open source"
So congratulations to Larry and crew -- and damn, were you ever right in 1993! ;)
[1] Seriously, read this: http://www.landley.net/history/mirror/unix/srcos.html
[2] The citation here is, in that greatest of all academic euphemisms, "Personal communication."
[3] "Sourceware" because [1] predates the term "open source"