Fathers of Linux Revealed: Tooth Fairy & Santa Claus

An anonymous reader writes "The Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, which published the results of their very thorough investigation today, turned out to be right. Linus really isn't the father of the Linux operating system. After having been found out, Linus had no choice but to admit -- this is what he has to say: 'Ok, I admit it. I was just a front-man for the real fathers of Linux, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.'"

Comments

Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

I gnu it!

Familiar pair for atheists.

[Thinkit4]

Linus is on the Celebrity atheist list. I had a hunch when I heard the tooth fairy and Santa Claus being mentioned together. They are often examples given of non-existent beings (that grant wishes).

Re:Familiar pair for atheists.

[UserGoogol]

Larry Wall invented Perl. If that doesn't show the mind-twisting effect that religion can have on some people, I don't know what does.

Of course, Knuth is an absolutely wonderful computer scientist, so clearly religion goes either way.

Re:Familiar pair for atheists.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

having compassion for those around you, which is something that a lot of scientists could sorely use.

OK, this is just an ignorant thing to say.

The fact that you're posting that ignorant comment means that neither you nor your parents died from a childhood disease. Thank a scientist.

In fact, it's not likely that you had any siblings that died in infancy. Thank a scientist.

And you probably more had more fat kids than undernourished in your school when you were a kid. Thank an agricultural scientist.

You probably had the opportunity to know your grandparents, since they probably lived to be about 75 years old or so. Thank a scientist.

You never had to worry about getting yellow fever from a mosquito bite. Thank a scientist.

When it gets dark out, you don't need to go to bed. You can stay up and read to get an education. Thank a scientist.

Hell, you can fricking educate yourself all day long. You don't have to scratch in the dirt just to eat. You've got the luxury of spending the first couple decades of your life just feeding your brain. Thank a whole shitload of scientists

I could go on and on and on, but it's the unvarnished truth that BILLIONS of people are alive today because of what scientists have done. On the other hand, religion's track record is so poor that when Mother Theresa provides a place for poor people to DIE, she's considered a saint.

I think you owe a lot of scientists quite a lot more than an apology, but I doubt they'll get it from you. Just like a bully in grade school, it's just too much damn fun to beat up the smart kid.

Re:Familiar pair for atheists.

[s20451]

You're starting out by assuming the thing you mean to prove or support.

The reason it doesn't work is that you are mistaking burden of proof.

Tell you what. How about you go look up "axiom".

Did someone say "intellectually lazy"?

Humour is a sophisticated weapon

[Space cowboy]

Only when you are sufficiently confident in your premises do you venture to be droll to your enemies, and make no mistake, the AdTi is Linus' enemy. The use of humour is simultaneously the ultimate statement of confidence and the ultimate put-down - it's a pre-generated sound-bite. It's a kick in the vitals. To all on the (winning) side of Linux, it's a rallying cry. Go Linus.

There's nothing more satisfying than placing your critics up on a pedestal and ripping them to shreds - the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, and it doesn;t depend on pointiness :-)

What will be interesting is just how long the AdTI will remain a serious news source - the ultimate goal is obviously to get them to discredit themselves to such an extent that they can be held up as an example of how *not* to do it. Given their paymaster, the hopeless nature of their case, and the imperatives they must put forward each time, I think we have a significant chance of a sacrificial lamb in Linux' cause... Rope to hang themselves is what we want... Remember that :-)

Simon

It makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

who else would give away free software?

not too sure about the tooth fairy...his prices are kinda steep...

Linus first step in creating linux

[Neil Blender]

# ftp ftp.sco.com

20 ProFTPD 0.0.1 Server
Name (sco:admin): anonymous
331 Anonymous login ok, send your complete email address as your password.
Password:
ftp> prompt
Interactive mode off.
ftp> mget *

The flaw in this argument...

[LinuxParanoid]

It's true that Linux is an imitation of prior Unixes.

But remember folks,

Linux copying the behavior of various UNIXes is stealing, but Microsoft copying the behavior of the Mac or Xerox Star is not. And Compaq's reverse engineering of IBM PC BIOS is what caused the death of the PC industry!

Oh wait.

--LP

P.S. I'd be nervous if the press release said AdTI president and pundit Kenneth Brown was tracing the code... but it says he "traces the free software movement over three decades". Hrm, good luck there, Ken!

mod DOWN the duplicate post Posters

[dnotj]

This isn't a dupe, we don't read the articles anymore, now we don't even ready the Posting. Wake up people, this is Linus' rebuttal.

Article Text: LW Slashdotted already

LinuxWorld Exclusive: Linus Torvalds Makes Startling Admission, Discloses *Real* Fathers of Linux May 17, 2004 Summary As only Linus Torvalds can, the undisputed - except by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute - inventor of Linux has as promised let LinuxWorld have his immediate comment on the AdTI's president's claims this morning that the parentage of Linux is in doubt. Read his startling admission exclusively here.

"Ok, I admit it. I was just a front-man for the real fathers of Linux, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus."

Thus begins a characteristically Torvaldsian e-mail to LinuxWorld News Desk sent by Linus Torvalds in response to our invitation to comment on the sensationalist claims this morning that he isn't, after all, the inventor of Linux.

"They (for obvious reasons) couldn't step forward to admit that they had gotten bitten by the computer bug, and had been developing a series of operating systems on their own during the off season. But when they started with Linux (which they originally called Freax - they do feel like outsiders, you know, and that's a whole sad story in itself), they felt that they could no longer just let it languish in obscurity. They started to look for a front-man, and since Santa Claus is from Finland and thus has connections to Helsinki University, and the tooth fairy claimed 'He's got good strong teeth,' I got selected."

"Since then," Torvalds continues, "I've lived a life of subterfuge, always afraid that somebody would find out the truth. I'm actually relieved that it's over, and that the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute has finally uncovered the lie. I can now go back to my chosen profession, the exploration of the fascinating mating dance of the common newt."

In a PS he adds:

"Btw, did you know that newts have more offspring if you play the harmonica to them during their mating rituals? It's true."

And in a PPS:

Btw, I do believe that somebody took over adti.net.

I don't think the Alexis de Tocqueville institute ever had humor (they certainly used to take themselves very seriously), but their site today is filled with jokes.

Maybe they forgot to pay their DNS registration fee, and some enterprising person decided to play a joke on them? Or maybe their clocks are running a month-and-a-half late?

Or is it really unintentional?

Linus

what they will say

[JoeBuck]

The Toqueville people say they are going to quote people like Dennis Ritchie and Richard Stallman. What those Ritchie and Stallman almost certainly told them is that Linux is a faithful re-implementation of Unix and thus not highly original or ground-breaking; also that Linus is often given credit for functionality that is not in the kernel (you know, the whole GNU/Linux flamewar). And all that's true. The problem is that the Toqueville people don't get that this is perfectly legitimate; the Posix standard that specifies the behavior of Unix-like systems is a public standard, the code is all original and there were no patents in the way.

Finally some truth from ADTI...

[Anonymous Coward]

At the Tocqueville Institution site here, try clicking accomplishments. ;)

I've worked as a consulatant

[Space cowboy]

... and we didn't try and tailor the report (3 months work for 5 people including world-wide travel) to our paymasters. Our view was that we were being paid to produce a report on what is (for a fairly major computer manufacturer) rather than what they would like things to be. They already know what they would like things to be...

On the other hand, "hired guns" are mercenaries - they will do as you wish, when you wish, how you wish. The AdTI are hired guns. Some of us (the others :-) still have some self-respect and integrity - please consider each case on its merits...

Simon.

Re:Fathers?

[RatBastard]

It's long been known that the Tooth Farie is a drag queen. Santa and Toothy got married today in Boston.

Famous scientist believers [Re:Familiar pair...]

[j.leidner]

By most surveys, more than 90% of professional scientists don't believe in a personal god.

Except for the best ones. Like Stanford's Donald Knuth , for example.

Or take the case of Reverend Thomas Bayes, the parish priest who discovered Bayes' theorem, on which modern machine learning/data mining relies so heavily, including spam filters named after him.

Study not authored by Alexis de Tocqueville Inst.

[Kakurenbo Shogun]

A careful analysis of the study reveals that it was not authored by the The Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, but actually cobbled together using words stolen from the English language.