Code Repository Atlassian Buys Competitor BitBucket 150
Roblimo writes "Wow. Atlassian sent press releases out about this, and we're happy for them. But isn't Git easy to install and use — for free, even if your project is proprietary and secret, not open source and public? Whatever. Some people seem to feel better about proprietary software than about FOSS, and the majority of Atlassian's business comes from meeting the needs of behind-the-firewall, proprietary code repositories. At least Atlassian has free versions of its repository for FOSS and small-scale proprietary developers. Which is sort of nice."
Oh yeah, I had to google them (Score:3, Interesting)
I have seen their name inside a huge mess of java COTS which I was shovelling around as a part of a my day job. I doubt their main business is going to be operating bitbucket, more likely charging ten thousand bucks a seat for use of a copy of bitbucket inside corporate intranets, probably with some useless eclipse integration thrown in.
Re:Why does the fact Git is free matter here? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes.... and until there's a cheap hosting provider that offers WebDAV, Bitbucket is a good option. However, if you're an enterprise, such as a bank, you might be concerned about the risk of your code repository site getting hacked.... in that regard, Open Source projects are more amenable to services like this... at least until DVCS clients support host-proof encryption of files on the server.
OTOH they can offer web-based tools that make it easy to visualize changes and other things that would be a pain to setup.
Every minute you or people in your organization are dicking around with the DVCS and scripts on your PC that you're trying to use as an ad-hoc web server for code hosting, is a minute that you are not coding.
There's some value to having a code repository provider do all the heavy lifting.... just make sure you keep backups of your own.
Git lacks tracking capabilities (Score:2, Interesting)
Developers can push arbitrary data and metadata into the repository. The standard server does not map branch updates to user accounts. Here's an example: Suppose developer A merges the master branch into a development branch (which is not ready for merging into the master). Git will record a merge commit, attributed to developer A. Developer B then accidentally pushes the development branch onto the master. This is now a fast-forward merge, so no additional commit will be created, and the mistake is not attributable to developer B (and it will look like developer A's mistake, because their commit will appear at the tip).
In some (mostly corporate?) environments, this can be a problem. This is something which can be fixed with additional bookkeeping on the server side and out-of-band user interface. I believe most of the Git hosting platforms out there have this functionality, and they keep it proprietary to them.
Horde of shit (Score:3, Interesting)
So all you need to do to get an article on the front page of Slashdot these days is a factually incorrect, barely coherent rambling shite of text, provided it bashes proprietary software and sings the praises of FOSS.
Slashdot: news for narrow minded, deluded nerds
kdawson, master of useless summaries (Score:5, Interesting)
Atlassian makes code tracking and corporate-friendly wiki products. They're pretty nice, actually. It's pretty easy to write plugins that add flexible functionality to their products. I was and am a pretty big fan of Jira and Confluence, and they're pretty responsive to their customers. Their products are (last I checked) pretty reasonably priced, and integrate into Subversion, CVS, and other source control products pretty easily - including Git.
Last I checked, Git didn't really lend itself to project issue tracking - which is what Jira does. So if you must bitch about non-free Jira, you could at least make an *intelligent* article comparison to a open-source issue-tracker like Trac (another excellent product).
Alas, we're unlikely to see any intelligent comparisons from kdawson. The "lazy-shrug" dept is all too relevant here, but not for the reasons kdawson used it.
Re:kdawson, master of useless summaries (Score:2, Interesting)
Also: way to change the article summary without an "Edit" notation, guys. That's awesome work, /. The summary is still incoherent.