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...is cheap. Is AdTI not able to hire competent secretarial staff? Ken Brown's reply borders on illiterate.

The AdTI has a survey asking people to report factual inaccuracies in the "Samizdat". But don't send your data to the AdTI - you've seen how they twist facts. Instead someone should quickly set up a similar site with results posted publicly for the benefit of truth. We'd end up with a very thorough rebuttal of the entire aggregation of manure. Any takers?

Here's the text of the survey:
Report "Samizdat" inaccuracies
A due-diligence review on behalf of the directors of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. If you would like to report more than one inaccuracy, please submit one entry and then use a fresh form -- multiple entries are allowed.
Have you located any inaccurate statements in Kenneth Brown's report, "Samizdat"?

Yes
No

Please enter the page number of "Samizdat" on which the inaccuracy occurs:

Please quote exactly the section of Samizdat that you wish to report is inaccurate:

Please enter any information you wish to supply which demonstrates that the section of "Samizdat" you cite is incorrect.

Please enter your email address below. Thank you for participting.

I don't know, maybe i'm missing out on a key piece of the puzzle, here, but why do you guys care so much? Honestly, i don't understand why you're getting worked up by what this idiot has to say. :/


Aside from being sad, this is actually quite important. The purpose of this Fake Research is to create a "research work" that can be handed to lawmakers by corporate lobyists as they are considereing policy.

If this Fake Research isn't challenged in the strongest and most public way, it is going to get out there as research by a respected organization and will be used as cover for making horrible policy.

It is extremely important that this Fake Research gets branded for what it is. (Fake Research)

I don't know, maybe i'm missing out on a key piece of the puzzle, here, but why do you guys care so much? Honestly, i don't understand why you're getting worked up by what this idiot has to say. :/


Aside from being sad, this is actually quite important. The purpose of this Fake Research is to create a "research work" that can be handed to lawmakers by corporate lobyists as they are considereing policy.

If this Fake Research isn't challenged in the strongest and most public way, it is going to get out there as research by a respected organization and will be used as cover for making horrible policy.

It is extremely important that this Fake Research gets branded for what it is. (Fake Research)

I don't know, maybe i'm missing out on a key piece of the puzzle, here, but why do you guys care so much? Honestly, i don't understand why you're getting worked up by what this idiot has to say. :/


Aside from being sad, this is actually quite important. The purpose of this Fake Research is to create a "research work" that can be handed to lawmakers by corporate lobyists as they are considereing policy.

If this Fake Research isn't challenged in the strongest and most public way, it is going to get out there as research by a respected organization and will be used as cover for making horrible policy.

It is extremely important that this Fake Research gets branded for what it is. (Fake Research)

I don't know, maybe i'm missing out on a key piece of the puzzle, here, but why do you guys care so much? Honestly, i don't understand why you're getting worked up by what this idiot has to say. :/


Aside from being sad, this is actually quite important. The purpose of this Fake Research is to create a "research work" that can be handed to lawmakers by corporate lobyists as they are considereing policy.

If this Fake Research isn't challenged in the strongest and most public way, it is going to get out there as research by a respected organization and will be used as cover for making horrible policy.

It is extremely important that this Fake Research gets branded for what it is. (Fake Research)

You forgot the link: Fake Research

All we need now is for a bunch of other bloggers to link to Fake Research :)

OK. What's with the Fake Research links? I mean? What is the point of putting multiple Fake Research links in a single message. I don't understand your Fake Research links.

Fake Research Fake Research (drat you lameness filter!)

OK. What's with the Fake Research links? I mean? What is the point of putting multiple Fake Research links in a single message. I don't understand your Fake Research links.

Fake Research Fake Research (drat you lameness filter!)

OK. What's with the Fake Research links? I mean? What is the point of putting multiple Fake Research links in a single message. I don't understand your Fake Research links.

Fake Research Fake Research (drat you lameness filter!)

OK. What's with the Fake Research links? I mean? What is the point of putting multiple Fake Research links in a single message. I don't understand your Fake Research links.

Fake Research Fake Research (drat you lameness filter!)

OK. What's with the Fake Research links? I mean? What is the point of putting multiple Fake Research links in a single message. I don't understand your Fake Research links.

Fake Research Fake Research (drat you lameness filter!)

Many of the recent Slashdot comments regarding the ADTI President Ken Brown's defense of his controversial tome noted that his principle audience was not the Linux community, or even the IT industry. His target audience is the policy-makers in Washington D.C. How is that group informed about issues surrounding open source in general and the Linux kernel specifically? One 'trade' publication, FCW Media Group, "produces information resources that help government IT buyers... form an integrated information system to help them purchase, build and manage technology in government." They are 'our' target audience in defending the concept of software libre, in advancing open protocols and other standards, and in correcting FUD. The May 3rd online issue provides one such opportunity to advance Linux in government research.

Nothing stops the flow of FUD like well-positioned information.

Should embedded software become 'free' too, it would be natural to conclude the value of hardware will spiral downward as well.

everyone here is going to snicker and roll their eyes about how this guy is obviously an idiot since he questions linus, the gpl, linux, etc.

That's not the point. Questioning is good: did Linus really write Linux is a perfectly acceptable question. Is the GPL good and (seperate question) enforcable is a good question. It only becomes foolish when, having gone to your sources and gotten your answers, you still cling to your asinine premise.

I couldn't have summed it up better myself :)

Oh, I note on their home page that you can submit a study idea to them. How about a study into why Ken Brown is an incompetent researcher?

cLive ;-)

For those of you just tuning into this soap opera, here is a brief summary of the plot so far. Ken Brown, president of a Washington think tank called the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution has written a book claiming open source using GPL is a bad idea and that Linus Torvalds stole Linux from MINIX, which I wrote. Linus, the alleged stealer, responded. As the alleged stealee I also felt the need to respond. Now Ken Brown has reacted to my responses. I very much doubt that when he came to visit me, he was expecting me to (1) defend Linus in our interview and then (2) do it fairly publicly later.

I was planning to spend my Sunday afternoon doing something useful, but since Brown has directly challenged me in his posting cited above, I feel I should respond. I will do this in the form of commenting on his posting. His comments are set off typographically like this:

"Samizdat is a series of excerpts from an upcoming book on open source and operating systems that will be published later this year. AdTI did not publish Samizdat with the expectation that rabidly pro-Linux developers would embrace it."

I have to give credit where credit is due. Brown got that one completely right.

"The United States is the home of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an internationally respected agency which contributes to the worldwide effort to protect and govern intellectual property."

***EVERY*** country has a patent office. The United States is not unique in this respect. Furthermore, many people think that patenting software is a terrible idea. The subject of software patents is a very controversial issue in Europe right now.

"The Samizdat report recommends that the U.S. government should invest $5 billion in research and development efforts that produce true open source products, such as BSD and MIT license-based open source. Government investment in open source development will accelerate innovation."

I can live with this. Professors are always on the lookout for new sources of research funding.

"The disturbing reality is that the hybrid source model depends heavily upon sponging talent from U.S. corporations and/or U.S. proprietary software. Much of this questionable borrowing is a) not in the best interest U.S. corporations ..."

Excuse me? A Finnish student writes some software (in Finland) that a lot of people like and he is accused on sponging off U.S. corporations? And last time I checked, quite a few U.S. Corporations, such as IBM, seemed quite happy with Linux. And a very large number of U.S. corporations seem to be using the (open source) Apache web server. And even if open source weren't in the best interest of U.S. corporations, where is it written that all activities everywhere in the world must be done with the interests of U.S. corporations as their primary goal?

"Linux is a leprosy; ..."

This statement is not grammatically, politically, or factually correct. Does he mean "Linus has Hansen's disease"? I hope not. But if he does, fortunately, it is highly treatable these days. If he means Linux is wasting away, the facts speak otherwise. If he means "Linux is very contagious" this is true, but a better wording could have been chosen.

"... and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector. Software is also embedded in hardware, chips, printers and even consumer electronics

For those of you just tuning into this soap opera, here is a brief summary of the plot so far. Ken Brown, president of a Washington think tank called the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution has written a book claiming open source using GPL is a bad idea and that Linus Torvalds stole Linux from MINIX, which I wrote. Linus, the alleged stealer, responded. As the alleged stealee I also felt the need to respond. Now Ken Brown has reacted to my responses. I very much doubt that when he came to visit me, he was expecting me to (1) defend Linus in our interview and then (2) do it fairly publicly later.

I was planning to spend my Sunday afternoon doing something useful, but since Brown has directly challenged me in his posting cited above, I feel I should respond. I will do this in the form of commenting on his posting. His comments are set off typographically like this:

"Samizdat is a series of excerpts from an upcoming book on open source and operating systems that will be published later this year. AdTI did not publish Samizdat with the expectation that rabidly pro-Linux developers would embrace it."

I have to give credit where credit is due. Brown got that one completely right.

"The United States is the home of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an internationally respected agency which contributes to the worldwide effort to protect and govern intellectual property."

***EVERY*** country has a patent office. The United States is not unique in this respect. Furthermore, many people think that patenting software is a terrible idea. The subject of software patents is a very controversial issue in Europe right now.

"The Samizdat report recommends that the U.S. government should invest $5 billion in research and development efforts that produce true open source products, such as BSD and MIT license-based open source. Government investment in open source development will accelerate innovation."

I can live with this. Professors are always on the lookout for new sources of research funding.

"The disturbing reality is that the hybrid source model depends heavily upon sponging talent from U.S. corporations and/or U.S. proprietary software. Much of this questionable borrowing is a) not in the best interest U.S. corporations ..."

Excuse me? A Finnish student writes some software (in Finland) that a lot of people like and he is accused on sponging off U.S. corporations? And last time I checked, quite a few U.S. Corporations, such as IBM, seemed quite happy with Linux. And a very large number of U.S. corporations seem to be using the (open source) Apache web server. And even if open source weren't in the best interest of U.S. corporations, where is it written that all activities everywhere in the world must be done with the interests of U.S. corporations as their primary goal?

"Linux is a leprosy; ..."

This statement is not grammatically, politically, or factually correct. Does he mean "Linus has Hansen's disease"? I hope not. But if he does, fortunately, it is highly treatable these days. If he means Linux is wasting away, the facts speak otherwise. If he means "Linux is very contagious" this is true, but a better wording could have been chosen.

"... and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector. Software is also embedded in hardware, chips, printers and even consumer electronics

For an even funnier laugh, I recommend reading this one Is Brown Really the Father of Samizdat? - A Parody by Justin Moore to counter the Fake Research, hmm did I mention about their Fake Research?

For an even funnier laugh, I recommend reading this one Is Brown Really the Father of Samizdat? - A Parody by Justin Moore to counter the Fake Research, hmm did I mention about their Fake Research?

http://www.adti.net/samizdat/open.contradictions.h tml references an ESR quote from Cathedral.

Of course - i'm not sure they're aware that Minix isn't exactly Solaris-level UNIX that Linux is approaching rapidly...

Where the idea that the go-cart of Linux 0.1 - which borrowed the ideas of 4 wheels, axles, steering wheel and brakes from Ford cars - is the same thing as stealing Fords from the lot remains to be still explained by AdTI.

[...]
True Open Source vs. Hybrid Source
[...]
While hybrid software appears to be the same as open source, it isn't. Hybrid source code can never be true intellectual property. The actual purpose of hybrid source is to nullify its value as private property, which makes the hybrid source model significantly different from true open source. Noone can ever truly accrue any value from owning hybrid source software, because everybody (and anybody) has the rights to every line of improvement in it. Worse, many argue that if hybrid source is used the wrong way, it can make other source code hybrid source as well.

Anyone knows how much it costs to go from Washington DC to Redmond?

the more I laugh. Check out http://www.adti.net/samizdat/samizdat.updates.html . Of four "updates" to the swirl surrounding "Samizdat" two are still "under construction" and one is a report on a DOS attack written in the third person (Crazy Eight doesn't like it when people talk about themselves that way) that can't help inventing an opportunity to use the phrase "hybrid source"!

That seems to be only the tip of the iceberg of where his reasoning falls short. I got a personal reply from him today when I sent a message expressing my concerns. He seems to be one genuinely deluded individual. He acknowledged that Dennis Ritchie response on Groklaw and does not see anything 'incorrect, wrong or invalid' about the way he is presenting the material.

Besides all the email he responded to today, he had time to put forth the garbage being exposed here. He tries to take the high moral ground and talk about 'trust' but it looks more like a hatchet job.

To write Samizdat, I worked with (and quoted) many individuals directly or indirectly familiar with Linux development. AdTI will continue to interview people within the open source profession about open source. It would be skewed and bias to only quote people that are anti-Linux or anti-open source. I have done this for years, and will continue to do so, regardless of what a source thinks of my theories.

It seems like he enjoys playing word games as evidenced by his need to talk about "Hybrid source code" which is a term they invented. His described purpose for writing this book is to suggest a better way for the legal community, the science community, the business community, and government to get along.

If he is sincere in wanting to get along better maybe Slashdot could send him the 10 highest moderated questions.

From the bottom of the article:

He is reportedly "not the sharpest knife in the drawer,"
I think we knew that already.

but nevertheless is able to converse with many intelligent people,
And this gives him credentials how? "Converse" does not necessarily mean "understand". And why the "many" qualifier? I would hope (language problems barred) that he would be able to converse with all people, intelligent or not.

and is accepted at fine restaurants and hotels around the world.
That shows real credibility for writing a report on kernel authoring. Fancy hotels let him in.

Why did he allow this to be printed? If anything, it discredits him by showing a lack of good reasons for his credibility.

While I'm at it, from the front page, emphasis mine:

Experts from Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds
I thought he didn't get to talk to Linus, no matter if he tried or not?

agree: a. they are much smarter than AdTI's Kenneth Brown,
He allows himself to be called not the sharpest knife in the drawer. That shows a lack of even a blade. Besides, why can't he go write his own kernel and sell it commercially? And they're experts; they're smarter in the field than non-experts.

b. IBM is good, Microsoft is evil,
Appeal to distaste of moral absolutes. I think we can all, including Mr. Brown, agree that Microsoft has been convicted of anticompetitive practices and campaigns against Linux, and IBM supports Linux and is therefore good for Linux. Anyway, how is this against Ken Brown...unless Microsoft in fact supports AdTI?

and c. Brown's theory of how Linux was probably written is dead wrong.
I for one cannot see how if Torvalds, Tanenbaum, and everyone else involved, who are "experts", claim one story of Linux's evolution, Ken Brown, an outsider, can have a "theory" of a "probabl[e]" story be correct.

(Dog bites man.)
Ad hominem. FLOSS is not a mad dog. And we didn't do anything to provoke Brown. More like man sees innocent friendly stray puppy that's playing with kids (while he charges for kids to play with his own puppy) and attacks the former, and puppy tries to defend itself.

Brown says their accounts are hopelessly shifting and contradictory -- not only against the historical record, but in recent weeks.
Uh...I thought he said experts "agree" earlier. How can the accounts then be contradictory?

(Man bites back.)
Is he admitting rabies or something? That's not exactly how I'd go about managing a rabid dog.

attachments, &tc.

As anyone familliar with typesetting and Latin can tell you, the ampersand is actually a ligature for the Latin digraph et (examples of ampersands can be found here). As such, the proper abbreviation for et cetera, etc., should be rendered as &c.

&tc. would expand to the nonsense et tcetera. You just can't trust AdTI!

Samizdat's critics... (Score: -1, Troll )
by Kenneth Brown on Friday June 04, @20:35
(Last Journal: Friday June 04, @16:11)

Get yer hot SCO-warez!

Brown/AdTI tries to counter-reply criticism from Linus, Tannenbaum and more. It's a train-wreck!

Teaser:

AdTI and Tanenbaum do agree on one point: To have accomplished the Linux kernel, from scratch, Torvalds would have had to have been among the top 1-10% of programmers in the world. We collected evidence. Afterwards, we humbly concluded that it was highly doubtful, thus AdTI reported that the origin of the kernel is questionable.

Get it fast, before it's removed.

Basically they try to invent the new concept "Hybrid Source" which they mean Linux is. This is all out FUD, this is the FUD gates blown open!

(I don't care that it's OT, so fire away)

Next Weeks Episode

POW!!

ZAP!!!

KRACK!!

That's right, it's supposed to be Bat Man. But wait it gets worst! Ken Brown also sponsored this video game where your goal is to kill a penguin. Oh the humanity! :o)

I've exchanged email with Mr Brown. His reply gave me the impression that he set out with the intent to damage the Free software movement. If you want to get the words direct from the horses mouth (so to speak), his email address is on the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution website. He's listed as 'President' on their contacts page.

I dropped by adti.net and read some of Brown's other stuff. I think it's safe to say he simply doesn't understand the technologies that he writes about. His description of VoIP at http://www.adti.net/voip_primer.html is a confusing mess of buzzwords that as often as not seem to explain things exactly backwards, but once he finishes the technology explanation and starts discussing public policy, it gets less confusing, and perhaps more accurate. My favorite quote from his VoIP paper, by the way, is "What the Bells Are Arguing Regarding Long Distance?". I must assume your base are belong to Bell.

People and corporations change all the time. Remember the old evil The SCO Group? No more. They're now embracing linux again. I've got the evidence right here.

"As a corporate sponsor of Linux International, SCO is a strong proponent of the Open Source movement, citing it as a driving force for innovation. Over the years, SCO has contributed source code to the movement, and currently offers a free Open License Software Supplement CD that includes many Open Source technologies."

See? :-)

I expect AdTI to change soon also. Mr.Brown is going to apologize to Torvalds, Tanenbaum and the whole community, don't you think?

One of the world's most respected computer scientists just TRASHED the integrity of the guy who interviewed him. I'm sure the whatchamacallit institute [Alexis de Tocqueville Institution] will be a long time living this down.

This reflects on integrity and competence of the author of the "Brown book",
The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, and the lengths that Microsoft will go to obtain favorable "independent" results.

Professor Andrew Tanenbaum is a professor who has written some great books. I'm very happy to have read read them. One of his books was Operatin g System Desgin and Implementation in which he describes operating systems with a toy, minimal, Unix-like operating system for the 8088 called Minix. It wasn't a really useful OS, but it was small enough to take a look at the code to any particular subsystem and learn how it worked. As an example of its mimilalism, it did have some hardware memory protection between processes, but did so with segment registers. That limited the size of each program to 64k.

Minix wasn't free or open source software. (ideas that were pretty much in their infancy) Tanenbaum sold it through his book publisher. Not for much, probably just enough to make it worth Prentice-Hall's time. Without the Internet as a cost effective distribution medium, someone had to take the orders and mail the disks. People loved tinkering with Minux, though. They ported it to other platforms, (Atari ST, Amiga, Sparc, 80306, etc.) They added to it and started distributing patches. Linus was using Minix-386 before he managed to get Linux to be self-hosting. In some reports, it was Linus' annoyance at having to pay for Minux that inspired him to make Linux free software.

Ken Brown, on the other hand, is someone whose name isn't very recognizable in technical circles. I'm tempted to say that he is a nobody, but maybe I just don't hang around the right circles. (Or on the other hand, maybe if I've never heard of him that means that I hang around the right circles.) I first read about the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution a couple of years ago when they published a paper questioning the security of free and open source software, and sold the paper in a through a system that allowed people to download the paper without purchasing it. Most of the links on their site are either links to articles from news sites about the institutes press releases, or links to papers that they promise will be ready soon.

In a paper to be released next week, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution outlines how open source might facilitate efforts to disrupt or sabotage electronic commerce, air traffic control or even sensitive surveillance systems.

Ken Brown's Motivation, Release 1.2

Background

On 20 May 2004, I posted a statement refuting the claim of Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, that Linus Torvalds didn't write Linux. My statement was mentioned on Slashdot, Groklaw, and many other Internet news sites. This attention resulted in over 150,000 requests to our server in less than a day, which is still standing despite yesterday being a national holiday with no one there to stand next to it saying "You can do it. You can do it." Kudos to Sun Microsystems and the folks who built Apache. My statement was mirrored all over the Internet, so the number of true hits to it is probably a substantial multiple of that. There were also quite a few comments at Slashdot, Groklaw, and other sites, many of them about me. I had never engaged in remote multishrink psychoanalysis on this scale before, so it was a fascinating experience.

The Brown Book

I got an advance copy of Ken Brown's book. I think it is still under embargo, so I won't comment on it. Although I am not an investigative reporter, even I know it is unethical to discuss publications still under embargo. Some of us take ethics more seriously than others. So I won't even reveal the title. Let's call it The Brown Book. There is some precedent for nicknaming books after colors: The International Standard for the CD-ROM (IS 10149) is usually called The Red Book.

Suffice it to say, there is a great deal to criticize in the book. I am sure that will happen when it is published. I may even help out.

Brown's Motivation

What prompted me to write this note today is an email I got yesterday. Actually, I got quite a few :-) , most of them thanking me for the historical material. One of yesterday's emails was from Linus, in response to an email from me apologizing for not letting him see my statement in advance. As a matter of courtesy, I did try but I was using his old transmeta.com address and didn't know his new one until I got a very kind email from Linus' father, a Finnish journalist.

In his email, Linus said that Brown never contacted him. No email, no phone call, no personal interview. Nothing. Considering the fact that Brown was writing an explosive book in which he accused Linus of not being the author of Linux, you would think a serious author would at least confront the subject with the accusation and give him a chance to respond. What kind of a reporter talks to people on the periphery of the subject but fails to talk to the main player?

Why did Brown fly all the way to Europe to interview me and (and according to an email I got from his seat-mate on the plane) one other person in Scandinavia, at considerable expense, and not at least call Linus? Even if he made a really bad choice of phone company, how much could that cost? Maybe a dollar? I call the U.S. all the time from Amsterdam. It is less than 5 cents a minute. How much could it cost to call California from D.C.?

From reading all the comments posted yesterday, I am now beginning to get the picture. Apparently a lot of people (still) think that I 'hate' Linus for stealing all my glory (see below for more on this). I didn't realize this view was so widespread. I now suspect that Brown believed this, too, and thought that I would be happy to dump all over Linus to get 'revenge.' By flying to Amsterdam he thought he could dig up dirt on Linus and get me to speak evil of him. He thought I would back up his crazy claim that Linus stole Linux from me. Brown was wrong on two counts. First, I bear no 'grudge' against Linus at all. He wrote Linux himself and deserves the credit. Second, I am really not a mean person. Even if I were still angry with him aft

I really have to figure out how to do this scam. Get money from big corporations

They started off taking money from the Swiss. The process seems to go something like this:

1. Get some hack-journalist experience (overfunded and obscure policy journals publish damn near anything; ditto for the Washington Times, as long as it purports to be conservative).
2. Get to know rich people
--a. get cushy internships in college
--b. marry a lawyer at a Big Firm
3. Convince the rich people you know to pay you for hack journalism.
4. Use hack journalism to push dubious foreign-investment schemes
5. PROFIT!!!

The key is that business, academia, law, journalism and government don't really know how to function with one another. They want to, for both good and bad reasons, so a lot of the time they're willing to throw big money conferences, fellowships, publications and "research institutions" that are supposed to grease the wheels.

Added to this, washed-up bigwigs usually want some place to go, and their former friends often set up make-work jobs for them. Lose an election? Why don't you give a lecture once a month at my public policy school. Get shitcanned from your CEO job? Why don't you sit on my government advisory committee. Newspaper column dried up? How bout you be a fellow at my think-tank. And of course, all of these people need gophers, personal assistants, research aides, etc. - a whole industry of suckups scurrying around washups.

The pay is peanuts for the honorees, sometimes even nonexistent. But they like the honorary titles. In exchange, the institution that hands out the titles gets more prestige from having Big Names attached to it. Look at the name-dropping on AdTI website: Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich (Republicans), John Norquist (Democrat). In turn, the aura of Big Names clustered around an institution makes it easier to sucker donors.

That's basically the scam: laundering prestige for money. All you have to do is Know People(tm).

In case you have any questions about his book, Ken Brown can be found here or here. (Source.)

Has anyone noticed that the original link to the press release has been password protected?

The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information.

Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.

Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:

AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"
KB: We do public policy work
AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?
KB: Sort of
AST: What does it do?
KB: Issue reports and books
AST: Who funds it?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is Microsoft one of them?
KB: We have multiple funding sources

He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28 (and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.

UNIX and Me

I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger, among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.

Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then was compilers, since I was the chief designer of the the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (see Commun. of the ACM, vol. 26, pp. 654-660, Sept. 1983.). I spent some time there discussing compile

I think it says something that the link to "Accomplishments" at the AdTI website is broken... (see here)

The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a
book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved
in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious
errors. But first some background information.

Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was
writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been
involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many
people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and
magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.

Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to
Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:

AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"

KB: We do public policy work

AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?

KB: Sort of

AST: What does it do?

KB: Issue reports and books

AST: Who funds it?

KB: We have multiple funding sources

AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?

KB: We have multiple funding sources

AST: Is Microsoft one of them?

KB: We have multiple funding sources

He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing
a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the
history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least
go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28
(and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any
jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a
long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.

UNIX and Me

I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to
ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew
Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob
Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger,
among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell
Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.

Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and
published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then
was compilers, since I was the chief de

The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information.

Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.

Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:

AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"
KB: We do public policy work
AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?
KB: Sort of
AST: What does it do?
KB: Issue reports and books
AST: Who funds it?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is Microsoft one of them?
KB: We have multiple funding sources

He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28 (and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.

UNIX and Me

I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger, among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.

Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then was compilers, since I was the chief designer of the the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (see Commun. of the ACM, vol. 26, pp. 654-660, Sept. 1983.). I spent some time there disc

But the website has changed layout recently. From April 27, 1999 through to June 21, 2003,, the website has looked very simmilar, untill today (Website down), or the last google cache visit.

Seems like Linus was right about some kind of takeover. Alexis de Tocqueville Institute website seems to be down currently. This might be for reasons of heavy traffic though but we'll find out soon enough.

The Alexis de Toqueville Institution website seems to be down.
Where am I gonna get my daily jokes now :-(

Bullshit. You're soaking in it!

Linus said that he thought adti.net might have been hijacked or let their DNS lapse. Interesting because its down now.

Site Temporarily Disabled

This site has been temporarily disabled. If you are the owner of the site, please contact customer care.

is the the same as a UPS Store. No doubt #119 is just a PO Box.