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ESR to Shred SCO Claims?
webmaven writes "According to this article in eWEEK, ESR has released a utility called comparator for analyzing the similarity of source code trees. The technical details are interesting, in that ESR says he is using an implementation of a refined version of the 'shred' algorithm, with higher performance (on machines with enough RAM) than other versions. ESR won't say whether he intends the comparator to be used to compare older Unix code to Linux so as to be able to refute SCO's claims, but it's obviously well suited for such a purpose. Interestingly, as the shred algorithm can run reports on source trees using only the MD5 signature shreds (once generated), it is possible to use it to compare trees without direct access to the source code itself, leading to a possible use in comparing various proprietary source trees with each other and with Freely available code bases such as Linux and *BSD without requiring actual disclosure of the proprietary source code (a neutral third party could generate the shreds on a company's premises, and leave without taking a copy of the source with them). I'll be interested to see if (or which of) the proprietary vendors allow their source trees to be 'shredded' for such comparisons, and whether this becomes a standard forensic technique in source-code copyright and trade-secret disputes."
microsoft can just shred their source tree and start anew. maybe...
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Of course, we can just trust SCO to show the right hashes. Why would they lie?
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
If there is, why couldn't MD5 shreds be used as a lossy compression scheme for code?
Go here to create your own Slashdot dis
This will only serve as another black eye on the Open Source community. ESR should know better that to shred SCO material prior to a trial.
Did he write it in Python? And did he complete it in under 6 hours?
This just in. SCO to sue ESR for patent infringement over "comparator", a software package that performs comparison between different sets of source code to determine if any code is copied between them.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
"...has two advantages: one, it's amazingly fast..."
Guess not. ;-)
ESR is ok you know, but lately he has just been doing lots of ranting and soapboaxing and no hacking.
Finally he comes out with some hack action. About time man, I was beginning to view him as just some big windbag who hacked a little back in the day. Well I still sorta do, but this is at least pretty cool, you know.
Bruce Perens:
Three. Three. And we'd better not risk another frontal assault. Their legal team is dynamite.
Linus:
Would it help to confuse it if we run away more?
Bruce Perens:
Oh, shut up and go change your firewall!
Alan Cox:
Let us taunt it! Darl may become so cross that he will make a mistake.
Bruce Perens:
Like what?
Alan Cox:
Well... ooh.
ESR:
Have we got bows?
Bruce Perens:
No.
ESR:
We have the Holy Hand Grenade.
Bruce Perens:
Yes, of course! The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! 'Tis one of the sacred relics Brother Richard carries with him.
Brother Richard! Bring up the Holy Hand Grenade!
MONKS: [chanting]
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
Bruce Perens: How does it, um-- how does it work?
ESR:
I know not, my liege.
Bruce Perens:
Consult the Book of Armaments!
RMS:
Armaments, chapter two, verses nine to twenty-one.
OPEN SOURCE ZEALOT:
And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.'
And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--
RMS:
Skip a bit, Brother.
OPEN SOURCE ZEALOT:
And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.'
Richard:
Amen.
KNIGHTS:
Amen.
Bruce Perens:
Right!
One!... Two!... Five!
Alan Cox:
Three, sir!
Bruce Perens:
Three!
[sco dies]
Yeah, that'd be great. In my anthropology class we've been studying that sort of stuff, but with DNA...there are some tree diagrams of primates, so why not Unices?
KDE GUI version should be called Krang since Shredder would obviously be used from the command line (shell). Maybe it should have helper apps called Bebop and Rocksteady. And if the need should arise, the project shouldn't fork...it should splinter.
I'm just glad that I finished college before they had this technology otherwise I might have been caught for cheating. Although I was really good at renaming variables.
Thanks ESR. You've just put a team of mathematicians at SCO who were somehow related to MIT out of their jobs.
int main()
{
printf("These source trees appear to be entirely different!\n");
return 0;
}
Have any of those techno-Rabbis run a comparison search with their "Bible Code" program on SCO? Did it come up with the phrases "bankrupt in 2004," "full of camel dung," and "Serpent of Utah"? How about running the "Bible Code" on Unix System V. code? Considering SCO's fondness for converting code over to Greek symbols for their presentations, converting to sanskrit, Hebrew or Aramaic shouldn't be a problem...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Don't call it the "SCO kernel".
OK then, the GNU/SCO kernel.
At the same time though, the OSS community are rather more rapidly changing their clothing of choice from a light cotton shirt to Kevlar body armour.
create a C language parser that reduced the C-code down to op codes
like gcc?
...how to write good user interfaces. With coders like you we will never achieve complete world domination. The correct program is, of course, s.th. like this:
int main()
{
int i;
printf("Comparing source trees...\n");
sleep(2);
printf("Check started.\n");
for (i = 1000; i--;) {
printf(".");
sleep(1);
if (i % 100 == 0)
printf("\n%d0 percent remaining\n", i / 100);
}
printf("\n\nThese source trees appear to be entirely different!\n");
return 0;
}
Look how Slashdot turned this into another SCO article.
The news was a simple source tree comparison tool. Why is the headline "ESR to Shred SCO Claims?" He didn't mention anything about SCO whatsoever.
Just noticing. Now we'll have yet another few hundred SCO bitch posts. The Darl McBride troll will post and get modded up, people will try to act like intellectual property experts, and we'll all go about our day as usual. There is nothing new here but another attempt for more page hits on the part of corporate-owned Slashdot...
"Sufferin' succotash."
They would be divulging SCO's biggest trade secret, that all their claims are just FUD.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It makes as much sense as anything SCO's said.
Hey, I just realized -- I'm typing this. I don't have to keep a straight face!
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
Even a potential Lawsuit is just another reason to write grooooovy software.. *evil grin*
GO ESR!!
-- All That's Evil in the Geek Space