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Linus Not The Father Of Linux, According to Report
MrIrwin writes "According to this article on Yahoo, Linus is not the real father of Linux and Open source software is really just code nicked from other sources. " Groklaw has done a dissection of the press release. It's a press release by the Alexis de Toqueville Institution, who gets funding from MSFT, as well as believes that US IT troubles are because of free software. Oh, and terrorism works better because of open source, and the "Star Wars" program was a good idea.
.....and seeing as how they have such close ties to MS, perhaps they could run a study as to how Microsoft came to be born.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
TFA also mentions that Kenneth Brown (braindead author of the book about the study) interviewed RMS, but I fail to see any references to GNU/Linux in the write-up. I call shenanigans. Is it April 1st?
And finally, cheers to Hemos. There five times as many links in the editorial insert than there are in the actual submission. Someone buy this man a beer.
"No... I am your father!"
Read to the bottom of the article:
Brown's study is part a book he is writing on open source software and operating systems. Excerpts from the book will be published at www.adti.net on May 20, 2004.
That says it all. Inflammatory statements preceding the release of a new book. This latest FUD is nothing more than a book promotion in the guise of a press release.
Trolling is a art,
Thou shalt be excommunicated from the church of *nix!
-Imidazole2
Acutal out loud laughter. I don't think that I need any more proof that Microsoft feels very threatened when I see puff pieces like this.
Yeah, and Gates is not the father of the BSOD.
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
Isn't Darl McBride the true father of Linux? This is why he wants his $699. Effective immediately, Linux will be renamed to Darlsux.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
They're obviously trolling. Don't feed.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Interesting how the whole report seems to be one big straw-man argument.
(i.e. claiming the other is saying something they're not, and then showing that it is false)
Their straw-man seems to be the idea (which noone, of course, has claimed) that Linux somehow was created in a vacuum.
From there they proceed to show how Linux was (*shock*) a clone of Unix!
(Probably leaving out the fact that there are literally dozens of them.)
and the "Star Wars" program was a good idea
...but not the "Christmas on Endor" version.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
As far as I can tell, the true father of Linux is in fact Al Gore. He invented it shortly after his fledgling idea of a net-inter caught on and became what we know now as the internet. It was originally called Alix, but had to be renamed due to copyright issues involving a book about wonderland....
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
De Tocqueville was a late French Enlightenment writer who traveled America and wrote in praise of American civil society, as opposed to French (which after having just gone throught the first revolution, and the dictatorship of Napolean, was looking pretty shitty.)
Anyway, it's way too early in the morning for me to pull out a page reference, but one of the major themes in his _Democracy in America_ is that American society functions well due to the large number of volunteer organizations that Americans joined in, fire departments, sewing circles, sports clubs, free publications and that sort of thing. These things raise community awareness, and allow the democratic process to work, since he believed that it would fall apart if all democracy was was everyone voting their own pocketbook.
Anyway, I'd say the Free Software movement in America is certainly a continuation of that civic spirit.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
While you cannot group all open source programmers and programs together; many are rigorous and respectful of the intellectual property rights, while others speak of intellectual property rights with open contempt.
Here's one immediate problem with the way this guy thinks - the two groups of programmers he mentions are not mutually exclusive as he implies. One can speak out about the problems with IP rights and still be respectful and careful about not violating them.
And since Lemma 1.7 says "no communist is worth his own weight in dog excrement," it naturally follows that Linux must have originated elsewhere.
I propose one of the following:
I think you'll see the logic in all of this immediately.
After many interviews with astronauts and rocket scientists, I have determined that the moon is probably made of cheese.
I tell all in my soon-to-be-released book.
Find out how NASA lied!
Excerpts to be published on my website.
(Note: This is not a shameless self-promotion gimmick. It's not. Really.)
um.. DOS was written from scratch by Tim Paterson. it was originally called qdos, which stood for "Quick and Dirty Operating System." MS bought the rights to it and renamed it MS-DOS. It looks similiar to cp/m but its an entirely different OS. look here http://www.patersontech.com/Dos/Micronews/paterson 04_10_98.htm
people have chosen to scrupulously borrow or imitate Unix.
I guess he's saying this to contrast the way Microsoft unscrupulously imitated CPM/DOS, Lotus 1,2,3, Macintosh, WordPerfect, Stac . . .
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
_Star Wars_ was a good idea. The same way successive U boat campaigns against the British were a good idea, the same way Sherman's march to the sea was a good idea. IOW, hit them in the wallet or flatten their production capability. Because of the great debate on Star Wars and the intransigence of the Reagan administration on the issue, the Sovs had to take it as something plausible, and thus we were able to force them to divert funds and resources to a possible chimera.
It doesn't matter whether you think Star Wars can work now or not, it's been almost 20 years since it was first proposed, so the reality now has no bearing on then. For what it was used to accomplish, Star Wars was a great idea.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
And Honda cars are a 'stolen product' because they have steering wheels and gearshifts just like Fords.
Linux started out as a Minix clone. Though it is more than that now, it's roots lie much closer to Andy Tannenbaum than they do to the Finn.
... not using a single line of Tannenbaum's available, but not open source or free, source code.
... that is to say, partially true, but also not really correct, and an overall mischaracterization of the effort (an OS written completely from scratch, not copied from another) and the goal (a usable, free UNIX-clone, not a usable, free, specific-UNIX-implimentation clone).
There is nothing to "admit." Linus wrote Linux as a i386 replacement for MINIX (which only ran on 80286 machines) because he wanted a UNIX he could use and play with on his hardware. He wrote the entire thing from scratch
Anyone looking at the old Tannenbaum book (which has the source code to MINIX in it) and the early Linux kernel code can easily tell they were written independently of each other. Anyone, that is, without an anti-free software agenda and ax to grind...
Calling Linux a MINIX clone is about as accurate as calling Linux an AT&T Sys V or generic UNIX clone
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I love the Linux Mainframe comparison, they compare Linux on an IBM mainframe to Windows 2003 Server on a dual Xenon server. Then cite the Linux machine as having a higher TCO becuase of the cost of the mainframe, the power bill, the maintenance contract, etc.
Or how about the Windows vs. Linux report that does not put a cost on the security breaches and malware attacks on Windows systems?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
If you RTFA, you'll see there's a whole lot of conditionals in there. AdTI might be a bunch of idiot sheep, but I bet they have a halfway competent legal department that would make them stop short of anything that could get them sued. And we don't know the sources. I mean, I could go find a bunch of conspiracy mags and websites and use them as a source to write a press release that says "Surgeon General might be controlling minds with flu shots". Heck, I have my "sources". And I didn't make any accusations, just threw the idea out there. I'm pretty sure the surgeon general can't sue me for that. (The government can throw me in Guantanamo Bay, but that's different).
What Linus _should_ do is write a well-thought-out rebuttal and get it into the major news outlets to let everyone know how ridiculous these claims are. This is one of the few times when something ridiculous does merit a response. If it was from some wacko on Usenet, sure, ignore it, no one will care. But rebutting their claim and providing solid proof will help publically discredit this istitute, which is exactly what is needed.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Uh, I think Linus's claim to the first Linux kernel is quite valid and he cited prior art:
c t5.0541 06.4647%40klaava.Helsinki.FI
"As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I'm working on a free version of a minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers."
I think the lineage to Unix via minix is obvious. Linus wrote his own kernel. The other pieces may have already existed, but the kernel was new. Unless he stole it from another Linus who conveniently named the project "Linux" after himself.
Over the last 13 years, many others contributed to the kernel and development which, according to SCO, may have included some questionable copy-paste commands, but I think the beginning is clear and the origins are clearly cited.
See here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991O
I'm not sure the author of the article really understands what Linux is and what Linux is not. He is right about varying degress of fanaticism and the very loose definition of "open source." No matter where you get your software, you're at the mercy of the developer to maintain it--commercial or open source. For example, I think the Linux community has been very good about responding to security issues compared to much larger corporations who have a very loose definition of quality control. When those corporations begin to loose money to smaller groups who out perform, then those corporations pay for studies that skew the truth and spread FUD.
Read the article--the math isn't all that fuzzy.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Fact: AdTI employs John Norquist [adti.net], the not-so-big-time younger brother of big-time conservative activist Grover Norquist [mediatransparency.org].
Using John Norquist as the example here is a bad idea, since (even though his brother may be conservative) John Norquist is in fact quite the liberal (Up until a few months ago, he was mayor of Milwaukee, where I live, for many,many years).
Hardly the "Neocon" you claim him to be.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
I don't think Linus should bother. As it is, everyone who matters can see how ridiculous that is. If Linus places a rebuttal in major news outlets, it'll give credibility to these people (or at least more public controversy, as they will post a response themselves, then Linus will have to reply, and this will continue to go on fueling publicity for Brown's book). They WANT people to take them seriously and reply. They're powerless if we don't.
Really...I'd just rather see Linus's usual witty replies in a board somewhere, definitely not in a major news outlet. It won't give them fuel to their campaign and I'll be able to laugh, perhaps as much as I laughed after reading their press release.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
At first reading I saw this as a deplorable move to sway public opinion against Linus, Linux, and other open source providers. After a few moments of thought, however, I see that this may be the forefront of a larger, even more deplorable, endeavor. Consider the following quote:
-----
"The report," according to Gregory Fossedal, a Tocqueville senior fellow, "raises important questions...While you cannot group all open source programmers and programs together; many are rigorous and respectful of the intellectual property rights..."
-----
Could this be a movement to undermine Linus' right to release Linux under GNU/GPL? Could this even be the beginning of legal research to undermine GNU/GPL itself?
If enough lawyers and businessmen can be swayed to believe that Linux itself is a product of UNIX then, though a convoluted interpretation of patent law and prior art, is it possible to invalidate GPL as it applies to programs written to conform to POSIX standards? Can the publishing rights for POSIX compliant programs then be assigned to the creators of the POSIX standards or the organizations that have implemented them first: ie. Bell Labs, AT&T, and UNIX?
Consider that MS didn't invent HTML, TCP, SMTP, or other common standardized protocols yet they seem to have an enormous amount of intellectual property assigned to them which prevents other people from producing software which competes with them in those arenas on the MS platform. I don't know the nature of the POSIX organization, where it's funded, or how cohesive it is with respect to legal and business support. However it does seem possible that malicious lawyers could argue that *NIX type operating systems, patented by corporate entities, are the first major implmentation of POSIX standards and that any products which come afterwards are an infringement of those intellectual property rights. This then leads to the arena of the status and age of the patents and how willing the original patent holders would be in funding the legal endeavor to pursue this track.
It sounds far-fetched but we all know that this similar roundabout claim of intellectual property has been pursued by SCO. With MS grasping for straws to slow the advance of Linux it could be a legal filibuster to sandtrap Linux. MS and their allies can afford enormous teams of lawyers that can turn out legal briefs by the thousands and the stories of their rapid acceleration of patent submission have also become popularly known. With enough patent filings and a popularly accepted, however untrue, argument about the nature and origin of Linux and its right to be distributed under GPL it might be their strategy to legally discourage organizations from adopting it.
With enough legal clout it is conceivable that, if the legal community could assign POSIX standards and *NIX operating systems as prior art preceding Linux, that they could force Linus to legally accept being bought out by the major operating system vendors who could choose to shelf it or turn its direction into nonproductive, bloating development.
The 100 mpg carburetor may be tin-foil but this situation is certainly real.
Consider this analogy: intellectual property is like a liquid beverage. It's everywhere and everyone has some. One day a large corporation patents lemonade. A week later a local company begins producing lemonade and giving it away for free charging only for the cost of distribution and the container (a cup, glass, mug, whatever). A month later the large corporation claims that its lemonade patent incorporates the property of any similar beverage based on lemons and sends a team of lawyers to shut down the local lemonade company. In this analogy software is a beverage. POSIX is a lemon based beverage. The large corporations would be those who made *NIX type operating systems and the local distributor would be Linux.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
There is a creative process involved with writing software, but its no more invention than the act of writing music is called "inventing music".
Music is "composed".
Software is "developed".
There's nothing "inventable" about software.
Unless you think Hayden should have took out a patent on the "Symphony"
"Collection of music that is played by many musicians such that music is broken into theme, counterpart, resolution in 1 to multiple parts. Music is group together to form a sound picture which is then used to inspire both performer and audience. It includes the following elements:
1) White pages with black dots on them to represent exact musical score
2) Wood or metal instrument which is plucked or blown to create sound
3) Sound in claim #2 is used in accordance with claim #1 to produce sound that has coherence
4) Each musician has a slightly different copy of the music
5) The claims in #4 when performed in exact time increments produces sound variations that are impossible with a single instrument.
6) Additional performer (known as conductor) will stand and wave arms
7) Said conductor in claim 6 will wave arms in unique motion depending on type of time in part 5 above such that there is a distinct way of waving arms according to number of beat in measure
8) As music is broken into movements, time may be taken to give audience a rest. Audience may leave to get drinks in the lobby at this time.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
> I was reffereing to the fact that Paul Allen and Bill Gates started Microsoft porting Basic interpreters from a "borrowed" open source base.
.Net authentication protocols, DRM.
.Net), possibly CodeWeavers (promoting MS Office on Linux, and ActiveX on the Internet), possibly Xandros and a couple of other Linux distributers (proprietary Linux admin tools, Qt-only desktop environment, promoting MS Office on Linux, etc.), possibly Macromedia (Flash), and who knows who else.
Why stop there? Almost every victory that Microsoft can claim has been achieved through dishonest, if not criminal means. Consider...
MICROSOFT DEFEATS DR-DOS BY:
- Fraud: Windows issues a warning about DR-DOS that MS knows is false.
- FUD: The DR-DOS evidence includes Microsoft memos planning the FUD campaign.
- Sabotage: Windows 95 has secret calls to prevent it from running on DR-DOS.
- Sabotage: MS purposely keeps DR-DOS out of the Windows Beta-test program (also documented by evidence).
MICROSOFT DEFEATS GEOWORKS BY:
- Sabotage: New MS-DOS release causes Geoworks to fail.
MICROSOFT DEFEATS WORDPERFECT BY:
- Fraud: MS publicly announces that OS/2 is the future direction.
- Sabotage: MS provides WordPerfect with faulty Windows APIs.
MICROSOFT DEFEATS OS/2 BY:
- Fraud: Microsoft pretends to support OS/2, then abandons it.
- FUD: Microsoft pays people to disparage OS/2 in posts in forums, letters to the editor, etc.
- Suspected Theft: Microsoft is believed to have borrowed OS/2 IP to use in Windows 3.1.
- Suspected Sabotage: Microsoft is believed to have provided less than their best code for OS/2.
MICROSOFT DEFEATS AMIPRO BY:
- Sabotage: Windows 95 causes AmiPro function-keys to break.
MICROSOFT DEFEATS NETSCAPE BY:
- Contract Interference: Microsoft pays sites to stop using Netscape (thus "cutting off Netscape's air supply").
- Extortion: Microsoft threatens VARs who preload Netscape.
- Extortion: Microsoft threatens Apple with the cancellation of MS Office for the Mac, unless Apple drops Netscape.
MICROSOFT ATTEMPTS TO DEFEAT JAVA BY:
- Sabotage: Microsoft tries to "kill cross-platform Java by growing the polluted [J++] Java market."
- Fraud: Microsoft memo shows plan to keep quiet about the incompatibilities so that J++ users will unintentionally create Windows-only code.
AND NOW MICROSOFT IS ATTEMPTING TO DEFEAT LINUX BY:
- Fud: Obviously.
- Fraud: False claims, planted by partners like Toqueville.
- Legal Attacks: Microsoft funded the SCO attack.
- Patents: Future.
- Legislation: DRM, etc.
- Proprietary Internet Protocols: MS Multimedia formats,
- Secret Hardware Protocols: Working with partners like NVidia (closed source drivers), ATI (closed source drivers), and AMD (the unpublished memory-access fix).
- Locking-in Linux: Working with partners like NVidia and ATI (closed source drivers), possibly Trolltech (the proprietary version of Qt, Qt support for
- Infiltration: MS plants joining Open Source projects to cause interference, wearing out the leaders through constant complaining, driving away other developers by acting like jerks, pushing the project in bad directions, etc.
- Infiltration: MS plants joining Open Source projects and pretending to be die-hard supporters, then pushing for overly-tight licensing, convincing others to add special restrictions that limit the software's use (possible examples: DotGNU, XFree86), using LGPL for what should be BSD (CodeWeaver's Wine), using GPL for what should be LGPL (MySQL), and so on.
AND JUST GENERAL DESTRUCTION...
"Popular but controversial 'open source' computer software, generally contributed on a volunteer basis, is often taken or adapted from material owned by other companies and individuals, a study by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution finds."
I think the whole point of this was to get out the adjective "but controversial". The adjective was repeated verbatim in the Yahoo article without a quote attribution. That means that everyone who read it on Yahoo thinks that the reporter is making that characterization.
I think MS has a new strategy, one borrowed from the Bush administration: In the run-up to the Iraq war Bush and his cronies would answer every question about Iraq using the words 'war on terrorism' and 'september 11th'. Even though they never once claimed that Iraq was involved in 9-11, just from word association 53% of Americans believe Hussein was personally involved in it and 44% believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqis.
I think MS wants to put this word-association strategy to work for itself. By getting attack dog think-tanks to put out press releases connecting Linux with words like 'controversial' or 'unscrupulous' in the first paragraph, MS would be able to damage Linux's credibility without having to put forth an actual argument. If they can get their blurbs read often enough, it might even stick.