Slashdot Mirror
More Responses to de Tocqueville Hatchet Job
akahige writes "Fresh from the debunking of the 'Linus couldn't possibly have written an OS without ripping someone off' book published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, Tanenbaum has published an email he got from the consultant hired to do the code comparison between MINIX and Linux. Among other juicy comments, 'pay no attention to this man.' (There was no stolen code, either.) In related matters, ESR was apparently sent a pre-release excerpt of the book which he completely eviscerates with his usual zeal. Another story on NewsForge." See our previous stories if you're coming to this late.
"Pay no attentioned to the man behind the curtain..."
Hmmm.
Sending ESR an early copy of the book is like asking Sony to do a review of XBox 2
Andy Tanenbaum is a hero.
It's reasonable that he was emotionally worked up writing this reply, but the stuttery nature (so many paragraphs of only two sentences!) made it particularly hard to read. It felt incoherent and rushed, like new insults were going straight from brain to keyboard with no later revision.
A note to email users - it's very easy to make a bad impression with informal writing style!
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
I think the main question that should be asked here, is who is behind the Hatchet Job? Best guesses are SCO and/or Microsoft.
Any further ideas?
Anyone who has the book know what the ADTI's claim on code obfuscation was and why the issue was even mentioned?
A message I received from Alexey Toptygin
"Around the middle of April, I was contacted by a friend of mine who asked me if I wanted to do some code analysis on a consultancy basis for his boss, Ken Brown. I ended up doing about 10 hours of work, comparing early versions of Linux and Minix, looking for copied code.
My results are here. To summarize, my analysis found no evidence whatsoever that any code was copied one way or the other. (I realize that Minix predates Linux, but I did the comparison bidirectionally for the sake of objectivity).
While I was working on this in my spare time, Ken kept pestering me to hurry up and finish. He told me he had a paper awaiting publication, and that my analysis was the las bit of data he needed. I sent the final results (which are, exactly as given to Ken Brown, at the above URL) to him on May 17th.
When I called him to ask if he had any questions about the analysis methods or results, and to ask if he would like to have it repeated with other source comparison tools, I was in for a bit of a shock. Apparently, Ken was expecting me to find gobs of copied source code. He spent most of the conversation trying to convince me that I must have made a mistake, since it was clearly impossible for one person to write an OS and 'code theft' had to have occured.
So, I guess what I want to say is, pay no attention to this man; to the best of my knowledge he is talking out of his ass. I apologise for any inconvenience I may have caused you by participating (however indirectly) in Ken's pet project.
Please feel free to reproduce this email and the contents of my analysis webpage."
--Alexey Toptygin
Andy Tanenbaum, 20 May 2004
mirror please, anyone?
Hi -
I know there is a tendancy here to deify Linus, and he deserves so much credit, but Linux overall owes a lot to MINIX. I worked with MINIX back around 1989 and Hendricks should be given a lot of credit for helping to get the whole open source movement rolling.
TWR
Analyst: "There is no (copied code/weapons of mass destruction) in (Linux/Iraq)."
Great Leader: "That's not possible. Your analysis must be wrong. Do it again, and this time, tell me what I want to hear!"
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
I was just getting ready to send out cheques to SCO and Andy Tanenbaum for $699 each.
Trolling is a art,
He says,
Context and interfaces are everything; unless it has been packaged into a library specifically intended to move, moving software between projects is more like an organ transplant, with utmost care needed to resect vessels and nerves. The kind of massive theft you are implying is not just contingently rare, it is necessarily rare because it is next to impossible.
Then 5 paragraphs down,
That a piece of code came from a proprietary vendor is no guarantee that it originated there. Proprietary outfits lift code from elsewhere all the time.
Sort of contradictory, no? To paraphrase, First he says it's very hard to lift code from elsewhere. Then he says, But some people do it all the time.
Actually, this strongly resembles the process I've seen when an Open Source project dissects a tricky bug. Everybody posts their opinion and analysis on it, and eventually, someone figures out the exact answer and the problem is solved. Kind of like scientists figuring something out too.
Of course, something like this is so fuzzy that there isn't really 'a solution'. But the process is still similar.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Methinks you doth protest too much.
I do, thou dost, he/she/it doth, we do, you do, they do. Geeze, if you're going to troll, at least try to troll grammatically...
That reminds me of the exact time I realized that Linux would overtake MS. It was while reading an article the Economist published a few years ago that profiled something related to Linux. Their summary conclusion was it's small but we wouldn't bet against it as this is the same method that scientists have been using for the last few centries.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Is it me, or did ESR contradict himself early on? First he says massive theft is rare and next to impossible... then he casually goes on to accuse MSFT of swiping the BSD code for their TCP/IP stack. One of the rare occurances perhaps, or is he insinuating that commercial companies do it all the time?
comparison analysis:
The raw comparison files are very large, but mostly full of false positives. This is due to the way SIM handles lists of constants and SIM's inability to distinguish between function calls and certain elements of syntax.
Only 4 actual similarities were found. They are excerpted in whole, with reference to the respective source files, and discussed. Since the similar code sections are fairly invariant over all versions of minix and linux compared, excerpts will be taken from linux-0.96c and minix-1.2.
1. in linux, include/linux/ctype.h:
[code sipped]
in minix, include/ctype.h:
[code snipped]
These are the 'character type' macros. They predate both minix and linux, and are a part of the majority of C libraries. They are specified in the ANSI C standard (ANSI X3.159-1989), and arereferred to in most C textbooks (i.e. "C++ How to Program" H. M. Deitel, P. J. Deitel --2nd ed. ISBN 0-13-528910-6).
2. in linux, include/linux/stat.h:
[code snipped]
in minix, h/stat.h:
[code snipped]
Both the names and values of these constants are specified by the POSIX standard.
3. in linux, in fs/read_write.c:
[code snipped]
in minix, in fs/open.c
[code snipped]
The behavior of the lseek system call is specified by POSIX. Since it is so simple, practically all implementations will be highly similar.
4. in linux, in fs/minix/inode.c: in minix, in fs/super.c This operation is required in order to correctly mount the minix filesystem. All implementations would need this or equivalent code.
Since, out of thousand of lines of code, only 4 small segments were found to be similar, and since in each case the similarity was required by external factors (the C standard, the POSIX standard, the minix filesystem format), it is highly unlikely that any source code was copied either from minix to linux or vice-versa.
Writings of Mass Duplication?
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
From here
Photos.
I love the smell of burning asbestos in the morning.
Just a question, though, are some of the changelogs ESR mentions available for easy download? The kernel changelogs are easy to find, but what about the changelogs for emacs, Gnome, gzip/gunzip, and all of the other GNU software? If they really want to keep crying "source theft!", it would help to have those handy.
Just another 2 cents.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
The sad part of this is that it really makes little difference just how much people rip into this piese of literary excrement. Since it is "published" the majority of its intended audience will never even hear a whiff of any criticism, no matter how much we holler here.
Compare to the thriving business of fortune telling or psycics (or evangelists), or of convinced political partisans. Debunking is happening continuously, but it doesn't even make a dent in these charlatans pocketbooks, as their marks do not hear about it anyway. They just aren't consumers of the kind of media that will publish anything critical of their chosen belief.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Way before Linux was on anyone's radar, Eric S. Raymond was Usenet's resident expert on Unix opreating systems for the IBM PC and other personal computers. He published a FAQ regularly and reviewed all the personal i386 Unix systems of the day such as Esix, uPort, and SCO. Eric has been at it a long time, and really knows the his stuff.
could linus sue these guys for libel? not that I would advocate that but I was wondering whether there would be legal basis for such a suit.
meep
Don't forget that he also added blindfolds to Nethack! Where would we be without this tremendous contribution?
I don't think you're serious but I'll reply anyway.
No. Its one of the strengths. Anyone can look at OSS and see if there is copied code. The proprietary vendors are the ones that have the problem with illegally copied code since it will not be easily detected. There is also more of an incentive for an hourly employee to cheat then there is for someone who is contributing code for personal satisfaction.
They must be smoking something good!
Insightful, I'd say.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
a freecache link
If you can't be good, be controversial. All this publicity is just going to sell more books.
I remember the controversy that existed over "The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie. The novel was proclaimed as blashphemous to Islam, and a fatwah death sentence was pronounced on the author. Of course, the book sold out as fast as they could print copies. A student friend of mine at the time was proudly showing off his brand new hard copy edition he just bought, even though he could hardly afford his next meal. (He considered this a real prize, as they were selling so fast, it was hard to find a copy anywhere) So I started reading. It was an awful, improbable piece of literature, that undoubtably would have sold no more than a few thousand copies if not for the controversy.
I also remember a story about a US art dealer who was tasked with unloading several thousand prints of a sitting nude from an obsure french painter nobody had heard of. So he displayed the original painting in the front of the store, secretly paid some children a few coins to stand and gawk at it, while calling up the leader of the then equivalent of the "moral majority" with an anonymous tip. He got himself arrested for displaying indecent material, and beat the rap in a high profile trial. Of course the prints all sold out quickly, and the original painting fetched a sizable fortune at auction.
My rights don't need management.
The third paragraph says that software can't be moved, "next to impossible". Then shortly after says that MS swiped the TCP/IP stack from BSD.
I sorta lost interest after that...
Not to say code was stolen or his other points are wrong, but his assertion that code can't be lifted I completely disagree with and to start a response with such a crappy premise and then contradict yourself right away doesn't seem like a good plan of attack.
Keep in mind who that letter was directed to. I would have gone for the modern equivilent of "I am seated in the smallest room in my house. Your article is before me, soon it shall be behind me."
It is possible that you can be an expert on the death penalty without ever having been executed yourself.
You're mixing your generalized term 'OSS' with GPL. OSS does NOT mean GPL; GPL is OSS but OSS is NOT just GPL. So before you post your lack of intelligence next time, maybe think about that. NOT all OSS projects use GPL - hence, not all have such a poor development and control model. Think about that...
I find ESR slightly more scary then RMS (Since ESR likes guns a lot) but his post from the link is quite good at destroying, piece by piece, most of the arguements this anti linux book has.
My favourite quote:
"If the inventor of Minix agrees with the inventor of Linux that Linux is not a derivative work of Minix, who are *you* to claim otherwise?"
I also liked this one:
"Really, there are only two factions. One says Theft is wrong. Proprietary software is also wrong. Don't do either. The other, which I belong to, says Theft is wrong. Proprietary software is mostly crap. Therefore, we don't need to either steal it or condemn it as wrong, just write better code. ";
---
hr@maficstudios.com
Eric ! Stop posting as Anonymous Coward ! :)
if you cant read the page since its ben ./ed, it basically says that some guy searched for similarities between minix and linux code and found none.
now if the book is not objective, shouldnt they mention it??
you know, at the very least a line like "we did some tests and have not been able to locate the exact position of the copied code" or something?
So how do I get to be paid millions for ruining my reputation with re-engineering the past?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm a happy emacs user, so I'm not emacs-bashing, but damn. Maybe it is a little bloated :)
-- Fratz, human
But Linus IS based on Minix, that's been known since the early slackware stuff ('91?), where it hard to hide since it was so much smaller then.
just in case I run out of toilet paper. Oh wait, I take that back, why would I want to wipe my ass with more crap?
This is so obvious for what it is, just another MS attempt to discredit Linus and rubbish the name of Linux. I didn't work with SCO and its not going to work paying some consultants to try dig some dirt. Poor Microsoft, it must be starting to hurt now, and theres noone just to buy out or copy.
;)
First they laugh at you, Then they ignore you, Then they fight you, then they lose
From ESR's journal: The point is this: Microsoft (legally) took BSD code, and the only way we know about it is through behavioural analysis.
I call Bullshit:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2004/2/15/71552/7 795/98#98
To quote the poster for those of you too lazy to click:
So how can I be so sure about that Microsoft is using BSD licensed code? Well, the BSD license(s) require that the copyright holder is credited in documentation provided with binary distributions of the code. In their release notes for their Windows XP operating system, Microsoft credits a bunch of well-known copyright holders of open source products. It contains credits not only to the University of California at Berkeley, but also companies such as Hewlett-Packard and to individuals such as Luigi Rizzo and Phil Karn.
ESR, If you're going to be a proper advocate for free source, please be correct about the information you post. Otherwise, you're not much better than Tocqueville in that regard.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
If Linus's reputation is being harmed by patently false and uncorroborated information for the sake of selling books, does that allow him to sue for slander? If so, any lawyers want to take up this case? Brown is getting a lot of free publicity, and other than the messages on slashdot, I don't see articles on CNET or eweek etc. taking up the other side of the story. A lawsuit would shed light on the book's information gathering practices, or lack thereof.
... AdTIs "read more here" site?t es.html
http://www.adti.net/samizdat/samizdat.upda
Nice!
my
It's public knowledge that Microsoft originally licensed a third party TCP/IP stack based on BSD code for Windows 95, but that they wrote a new one from scratch for Windows 95 OSR2. So the claim that Microsoft's TCP/IP stack is based on BSD code is incorrect.
It's easy enough to find out what Microsoft code is based on BSD code, but that is currently limited to simple auxiliary programs such as their command line ftp client.
It all sounds 'fishy' that all of a sudden we have all this debate about Linus, and others like him.. Just makes me wonder what the true reason behind it all is. Sure it sounds like 'conspiracy theory', but with the way things have been in the industry lately, its not that far fetched.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
From the Newsforge article:
>Brown repeatedly refers to Linus' work with Andrew Tanenbaum's Minix operating system as an example of some kind of wrongdoing. I'm not sure if Ken Brown wants us to think that Linus stole some of Tanenbaum's Minix code or whether he wants us to think that it's wrong to create a workalike program. The latter is definitely a theme throughout the book; time and again Brown implies that workalikes are somehow morally and legally wrong.
It IS wrong; just look at the way Microsoft ripped off Apple.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Well, it turns out that Linus never did make an operating system. Instead, he just created Linux which is a kernel that happens to be used with most of the GNU System to create OSes such as Debian and RedHat. Of course no one person could create an OS by themselves..... Hell, he wasn't even the only one working on Linux.
Apparently though that link is bad.. If you can please provide a link that links to something relevant please. I'm sure many of us are curious to see.
I believe ESR was inferring what I see in many typical helpdesk/tech support situations: if one person calls in with a problem, you can be sure there are at least 10 more others out there that had the same problem; they just figured it out themselves or decided to ignore it.
With apologies to our obfuscatory Secretary of Defense - the 'known knows' are just the tip of the iceberg. BSD code is almost certainly (and legally) in the Microsoft TCP/IP stack. What else is in there that we don't know about?
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Eric! Stop replying to your own posts, too!
Eric, really, you are incorrigible
-Eric
Heh, you should read PJ's take on it, as this story is also covered on Groklaw
... Of course, IANAL.
Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed the singular omissions Brown of AdTI is making here? One might think that he was acting with a reckless disregard for the truth, which counts as evidence of "actual malice." Not that that should be surprising to us, as those on SCO's side of things have been known for defaming people before (see my sig or journal), but it might be a basis for a lawsuit, even though Linus is likely a "public figure"
ESR gets to talk up how clever and important he is
.7 of an ESR.
Yes, that article certainly rates at least
Because the most complex piece of open source code you've written if "fetchmail", Eric.
Don't forget his mighty pythonated kernel configuration system!
By the way, the garage sales in the very upper-crusty 'burbs around Redmond make for great places to pick up fairly new tech books for cheap, and now's the season!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Feh.
What about the pr0n, man? WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE PR0N?
: I thought that book was already debunked?
: No, its totally bunk.
(disclaimer: if you don't watch Sienfield, this makes absolutely no sense.)
I've been around as long as ESR has and I simply don't recognise half of what he describes as the hacker culture. His butchery of the Jargon File is evidence of this.
His knowledge of UNIX history is pretty much spot on, but then again so is the knowledge of thousands of others, why do we listen to him? He's a self publicist and little else.
In fact, all hackers condemn IP theft - this is what distinguishes us from the cracker/phreak subculture. Even the FSF faction that thinks proprietary code is evil has repeatedly and publicly condemned piracy and stealing other peoples' code. They want to destroy the proprietary system, but they insist on doing it by their own efforts, not by theft.
Mostly true, but not intirely. Freesource hackers seem all be against stealing proprietary code but I seem to remember stallman endorsing music "piracy" during one of his speeches.
You claim that "To date no other product comes to life in this way", presenting Linux as a unique event that requires exceptional explanations. This is wrong. Many other open-source projects of the order of complexity of the early Linux kernel predated it; the BSD Unixes, for example, or the Emacs editor.
Wow. Stallman never ceases to impress me. I knew that gcc was as large and complex as linux but I never realized that emacs was too.
Torvalds's ambiguity about "GNU/Linux" in 2001 was not complicated; he dislikes the term rather strongly but was at the time reluctant to get into a political scrap with Stallman, whom he personally dislikes. The dislike has since hardened and become sufficiently public that I am not betraying a confidence by writing this.
Sad that they don't get along. Linus is such a happy go lucky guy that it seems out of character for him to dislike anything.
Why arguments coming from Tenenbaum should value more than the ones of Ken Brown and his institution?
They are both human and both should be considerated as equal.
Jesus loves us all
Ok, this is a bit off-topic.
I'll grant you, Rushdie probably sold a lot of books because of the fatwah. On the other hand, he was forced to live in seclusion, couldn't go anywhere without body-guards, watched his marriage break up, etc. He's often stated that if it was merely to sell books, it "wasn't worth it."
Personally, I heard about "The Satanic Verses" before the fatwah, and had it on my reading list (though I didn't buy a copy 'til it was in paperback). I loved it and think it's great. Yes, some of it is "improbable," there is a whole genre called magic realism that deals in the improbable.
Moreover, his creditials were established well before "Verses." His novel "Midnight's Children" won Britian's premiere literary award, The Booker Prize, in 1981, seven years before "Verses" was published.
Everybody posts their opinion and analysis on it, and eventually, someone figures out the exact answer and the problem is solved. Kind of like scientists figuring something out too.
You are, of course, describing some of the process called "scientific method".
Now, notice the last line of the original post:
MCSD, MCSE, Office Guru, Well-Known VB Scripting Genius
He's obviously a fscking moron! What makes you think he ever heard of the scientific method?
SHUT THE FUCK UP! I'm sick of hearing this over and over again. Enough is enough. Just because you weren't the maker of Linux doesn't mean Linus isn't.
Yes, yes, I suppose some people with nothing better to do might walk around sputtering incoherently and mentioning "libel" and "slander" now and then. On the other hand, more sensible minds will simply ignore Ken Brown and his "institute", knowing that it is common knowledge that he is just another kind of high-priced prostitute. He provides a service kind of like those people who will write college papers and thesis on whatever subject you tell them. No news here, move along...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Reading the review by Jem Matzan at NewsForge, I can't help but wonder, if Ken Brown's goal was to either accelerate building a tighter Open Source and/or Linux community or study the how an (online) community would react to a vicious, if not incompetent, attack on it.
There is no way he could have thought the book could have been taken seriously, after all. Unless he's one of those incomptetent people who have no idea how incomptetent they really are (witness WB's Superstar "reality" garbage).
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Well, if it's truly false, and the author has been told by several independent sources before the publication, and he still publishes it, how is that not libel?
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
This indignant blowhard is the biggest black eye for opensource in existance. Why _anyone_ listens to him is a mystery.. it is certainly NOT because of factual accuracy or relevance.
I mean surely the MS TCP/IP stack, which is heavily multi-threaded and optimized for multiple CPU boxes, MUST have been a port-it-only lifting of the BSD stack, which at the time didn't support SMP at all. Naturally coming up with a high performanc tcp stack that uses multiple processors to work packets across multiple interfaces with next to zero blocking is what you'd get by looking at 15 year old BSD code and just changing the make flags.
Give me a break.
Finding the UCB banner in ftp.exe is one thing.
FTP isn't a TCP/IP stack.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Linus wrote MINIX or so it says herebr>
Get a free ipod.
I think it's a bit more complicated than
that.
There's definitely more than one hand up the arse of the SCO sock puppet.
Microsoft, the Canopy group and the Baywhatchamacallit investment group are all stretching the SCO rectum pretty tightly.
In fact, considering the nature of honour (note Canadian/British spelling, eh?) among thieves, it amazes me that none of these... gentlemen... have found a profitable way to stab one or more of the others in the back.
If it drags out long enough I suspect we'll see some amazing whistleblowing from somebody somewhere along the scrotum pole.
If you can't be good, be controversial. All this publicity is just going to sell more books.
While there is some truth to this there is a big diffrence between religion and IT. Relition by it's very nature has so many ways of even telling the same story that it's impossable to say with any certainty which one, if any, might be correct.
And while there has been a massive attempt to FUD up the OSS movement it's been countered quite powerfully by some equally massive anti-FUD. In addition majority of the people directly involved are still around and can easily claify things that are impossable to do with religion.
As for your 2nd example you again cite something that has to do with issues that are not quanitfiable. Morality is very much in the eye of the beholder and has little to do with the issue of how the OSS/FSF community does it's work.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I think ADTi will take the newspaper approach of "just reporting". Every once in a while a newspaper gets tagged for slander but there've got to be some pretty big legal loopholes since it doesn't happen often and usually only when the victim can afford an enormous legal team.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
from the Newsforge article:
But here again we have Microsoft attempting to use unethical guerrilla marketing tactics to influence public opinion and public policy by funding dishonest studies. I must be getting old -- I still remember the days when a superior product and corporate accountability determined public opinion and policy.
Do anything, anything, ANYTHING to win except develop a better product.
Eric contributed blindfolds to Nethack!
If that's not significant, I don't know what is.
Nobody is going to hear about this. Has the open source side of this story gone any farther than Slathdot or Linux news sites?
No, but he has a libel case. ;)
It strikes me that ESR and others who shout loudly about how awful this book is/is going to be are making a big mistake. In the face of unethical and ridiculous statements from AdTI and SCO silence speaks more loudly than loud protestations.
If you must say something then how about "I'm not going to dignify that with a response."
John.
That's the one I had in mind :) Awesome study, unlike dear Ken's.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
BZZT! thank you for playing. :
You were doing well until the last sentence
"I'm not saying the case for WMDs wasn't overblown, but let's face it: they had them."
Your conclusion is not supported by the lead-in.
A defendable statement would be : I'm not saying the case for WMDs wasn't overblown, but let's face it: the possibility of WMD existed, and they had used poison gas in the past."
The difference between the two is that, while I would still object to the war, with the second example, I would have been able to acknowledge your position as valid.
The fact is that these claims are a well-funded marketing campaign to create FUD about Linux because those entities which are finding themselves less able to compete with it on technical merit have to attack it in other ways.
There are already a number of IP related attacks--Microsoft's "Shared Source" for one is calculated to give some of the benefits of having the source available, while crippling the ability of anyone who might want to use it in GPL'd software. There are also issues with patented standards, like Microsoft's XML patents. To be fair, this cuts both ways, I seem to remember someone (Lucky Green?) patenting using DRM to control the use of "pirated" software, after a Microsoft speaker claimed to have not thought of doing that. Indeed, on might theoretically patent something and make the *only* way to use that patent to incorporate the GPL'd software one provides. This is certainly somewhat more coercive than the GPL usually is (since generally, if you don't like it, you can write your own damned code instead of taking mine), but it is yet another way to advance the public interest via IP law.
Back to the point, we're looking at a well-funded character assasination attempt here. And if we're not, it sure as hell looks that way. I'm certainly not convinced that we should be ignoring this, since they're working on convincing the types who don't read Slashdot, and who aren't likely to see all the facts contrary to this insipid book.
I mean, I'm just waiting for Lyons of Forbes (a scolecophagous scorbutical scoundrel, in my biased opinion), or Enderle to write some poorly-researched prattle about what this "proves." Then, only to turn and complain about the questioning of their reputations, in spite of their being known more for quoting press releases than for doing independent research... And no, calling a company to confirm that it believes its own press releases is hardly Pulizer material.
But you're right. This isn't new. Lyons wrote an insipid character-assasination piece against PJ, defaming her with spurious allegations and incredibly weak associations to some random troll he quoted off the Internet. Enderle has called those who oppose SCO "terrorists," the crime being pointing out to the media that he has no credibility and talks out his ass half the time. Oh, and some people alledgedly sent him hatemail. That's not right, but it's nothing new, and his article goes far beyond mere hatemail, especially when he invited it with his flamebait writings, painting so many with the same brush, doing worse than the things he accuses others of, in my biased judgement.
And my favorite, the one enshrined in my slashdot journal, is where SCO set out fake signs to defame the people picketing them--ones claiming to support communism and whatnot. The Groklaw article on that is linked in my journal, and it even has nice pictures, so you can read them for yourself.
So no, I have no intention of ignoring this campaign to malign us all. It's not likely to stop on its own. I would hope that anyone with standing to sue would at least consider doing so. I don't think this should be left to stand, even if I find it to be in the credit of Linus and the others that they are not litigious.
Really? And here I thought that he just wrote the Guidebook...
How nice of the trolls to mod someone overrated who shows with quotes that people didn't RTFA. They must do that because one cannot metamod them.
Oh well, I guess we already know that no one reads the fine article.
How is parent interesting?
It's a slam at ESR that at least in this case is unjustified.
ESR's response to the report was reasonable and logical, and his boasts about himself weren't boasts as much as they were supports of his credibility to make the statements about the report he made.
His comment about publishing his change logs is very valid. With a complete, open audit trail, the ethics of OSS developers is usually on display for the world. This is in great contrast to proprietary software, which just based on lawsuits alone we can estimate has frequent theft of code from others.
His statement about being able to write it himself is reasonable. I'm no rocket ship (to quote Butthead), but even I could write a kernel if I had the drive. Using Tanenbaum's own books on computer architecture, as well as other books and examples. It's not magic. The magic comes much later in the tuning and improvement. Even then, that magic is really just very smart people getting involved.
On top of all that, parent poster personally has zero credibility ( Anonymous Coward ).
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Actually, in his haste to reply, he forgot to mention the most famous heist of all, and possibly the most costly: that, according to the author of CP/M, Bill Patterson, Bill stole the code for the original DOS from CP/M. Read Robert X. Cringley's excellent book on the subject.
Google this Sandra Shirlow! She really seems to know a lot about linux. This reminds me of a former girlfriend of mine. She wrote "Paint for dummies" style computer books. Of course she used other publishers books for it and an illegal copy of the program for the screenshots. After writing a book she still had no clue whatsoever about the subject.
I seem to understand your post as "Why bother?"
You seem to have fallen into the "How do I make them pay" mode. Get into the "How do I protect the innocent" mode.
Such matters need to be discussed. If anyone hears about the book in the future and wants to research it even lightly, an internet search would probably rank this (and similar discussions debunking it) very high on the list.
Just like the time I got an email about the jdbmgr.exe virus warning.
But if no one says otherwise, then an observer can assume that no one disagrees, or nobody knows.
This is not my sig.
I'm beginning to think that this couldn't have been done by Microsoft, simply because it's so bad for their position. In order to have effective FUD, you have to make vague claims that people might worry about. If you make specific false claims, they can be refuted. And if you make specific false claims which offend the authoritative sources, you don't have FUD, you have a straw man.
I think this book, along with the press surrounding it, will do a lot to defuse the FUD that Microsoft and SCO have spread. The vague "Linux may infringe something" claims will be clarified in people's minds to "Linux might have copied Minix". And then they can be countered, because the owner and author of Minix has said that Linux didn't copy it. If anyone knows, it would be him. So now people's vague ideas will be that the "Linux may infringe something" claim turned out to be false. (Of course, the logic here is flawed; just because Linux doesn't infringe on Minix doesn't mean that it couldn't infringe on something else; but people don't think that way, or they wouldn't buy FUD in the first place).
Microsoft has been good at producing FUD. SCO has even been reasonably good at it (although revealing particular lines of non-infringing Linux code was a mistake there). But this has a serious lack of uncertainty. It gives the impression that, in order to worry about Linux's IP, you'd have to ignore all information remotely relevant, from every possible source, including the ones supposedly wronged. This is like accusing someone of murdering someone who is still alive and willing to testify for the defense. So I think that Microsoft didn't sponsor this, or at least didn't sign off on the result; SCO probably didn't either (although they've messed up worse in the past). I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be someone like Sun, though. They could benefit from Linux looking bad, or from Linux looking good. For that matter, they could really use a justification for their former coldness to Linux, while allowing them to become enlightened about it (considering that they're using it now).
If you post a comment here and there's no one reading it, does it make any difference?
So... nothing to see here.. just the usual ... move along.
While the debate will continue on whether LinuX was based on Minix, I can say with complete confidence that LinuS was based on Momma and Poppa Torvalds!
This could possibly be some open source proponent(s) funding a study so obviously false as to heap bad PR on well known enemies of open source. It would make sense to choose some connection that could be directly linked to Microsoft, since they are the largest enemy and the easiest target.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
Where does it say anything about the TCP stack? All it say is that portions of software are under the BSD license.
The only way to tell that the TCP stack is one of the portions used is through behavorial analysis.
Bill Scrowlins ... Well-Known VB Scripting Genius
and a complete zero to google.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I subscribed to the Economist. They sold my address to the RNC, I got a photograph of Bush. At least that is what the envelope said (along with "don't fold"), I threw it out without even opening it. Yes, I used a "unique" address for tracking purposes so I know it was the Economist and not NPR that sold me out...
http://www.aardman.com/wallaceandgromit/feathers.a sp
Take off the rubber glove, fatten him up a bit??
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
His stuttery nature (a two sentence paragraph, one with a parenthetical exclamation!) made it hard to read. It felt incoherent and rushed, as though he were rushing for first post. A note to slashdot posters - it's very easy to make a bad impression with informal writing style!
Bush must be spending a lot to get address. I've been getting a lot of nice signed pictures also, but they conviently come with postage paid return envolopes. I suggest you help by opening the envelope and send out the postage free envelope with your junk mail of the day. I even printed all of my junk email and sent it along too.
... you steal the entire body.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So he found a similarity in ctype.h. Of course that could not have been stolen from Minix. It was stolen from SCO. Unless there is another explanation for the similarities.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
yea AC, nice way to pull out your choice bits and ad d taglines.
I see that we have no way of examining your past remarks or where you are coming from or where you currently stand.
so from one AC to another:
I hope you get run over by a car tomorrow.
Did anyone else notice that they use BSD for there webserver?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
My co-workers at the time I got involved with Linux were fond of saying, 'What in the world is that, it looks like crap'. To which I would say...'You don't understand, it's free.' It took a lot of hacking about to get it to run and it took hours and hours just to get simple things to work. That is not the case with 'stolen' goods. It's easy to take modern Linux for granted.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
For being a truly stand-up kinda guy, I am all the more pleased to have chosen Tanenbaum's "Modern Operating Systems" (2nd. ed., Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0130313580) as the text for my upper division OS class this Fall. (Aside from that, it's a great book anyway.)
Microsoft is paying someone to lie to make Linux look bad and windows look good? Say it ain't so! Well all know that Linux was hobbled together from stolen code from all over the world and is a pile of junk when compared to Windows.
Microsoft on the other hand has worked hard to put out a stable, secure OS that they came up with from the start and did not copy any line of code or UI ideas from anyone. Microsofts pledge of using only their own code goes back to the day they sold IBM the rights to their own hand coded DOS operating system. Microsoft worked for years developing this version of DOS for IBM and it was all original work unlike the trash the Linus has hobbled together and unleashed on the world.
Microsoft is now going after Apple for the iPod design that Steve Jobs stole from them and is going to put those rip offs at Apple out of business once and for all.
Bill Gates is the most original thinker and fairest person in the world. He goes out of his way to help companies that compete with him and even agrees unfair license agreements foisted on him by computer manufactures.
Not only that.....but the....I.....think.....uh.. Doctor, Doctor....I think the drugs are wearing off, can I have another shot?
Look, the bottom line is this:
From the point of view of the proprietary software companies, writing code costs money. So how do they avoid spending that money? Borrow/steal/copy the code from somewhere else.
But the GPL doesn't allow code licensed under it to be borrowed/stolen/copied unless it's part of another GPL product. So it can't be truly "proprietary" then, and the company won't make as much money. If patents and secret techniques are involved, that just makes things worse.
So how do they get around this? By trying to eliminate the GPL, on the theory that code that would otherwise be under the GPL will be released under a license (like BSD) that allows the proprietary companies to use it.
Otherwise, why care? If you need some code to do something, ignore the GPL and all it's issues, and pay someone to write it.
From their point of view, code under the GPL is 'wasted' because THEY can't use it to make or save money. Other viewpoints, including the wishes of the poor guy who wrote the code DON'T MATTER! You see it all the time in interviews where CEO's are just ASTOUNDED that someone could spend months or years working on a product, and then just "give it away"!
So their logic is, "well if YOU don't want to get rich off this thing you wrote, why shouldn't WE?"
"And we would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for that meddlesome GPL!"
What the ADTI book advocates is exactly what the PSC's want: An unending source of completely free code so they can avoid employing programmers as much as possible.
If I had one with me I wouldn't post AC either, so as to get the karma.
/. needs special AC moding. Starting at 0 just isn't enough. I propose that moding AC post at 0 should be done for free by moderators. Also, there should be a limit to the number of AC posts from a single account, or maybe treat it a little like moderation. You have to earn your right to post AC.
Karma whore.
Posting a message to the discussion as an AC instead of yourself just because you don't think it will be moded up is proof that AC is overused for all the wrong reasons. If your going to past as an AC, you must either flame someone, post fact sparse comments, advertise something, be totally off topic, or any combination of these. Do we also need guidlines for AC posters.
I am living proof of the Peter Principle
First off, it's libel when it's printed, not slander. (Although if, for instance, Brown were to spout his nonsense on a talk show, I don't know whether it would be libel or slander. Probably the latter.) Second, to win a libel case you have to prove damages, and you have to prove that the information was both false and malicious.
In this case, is it false? Yes. Malicious? That's harder to prove, but could be. Damages? There's the rub. Unless this work damages Linus somehow -- he gets thrown in prison because of allegations in the book, or loses his job (which may I remind you is with a group that is undoubtedly aware of Brown's blatant disregard for the truth), neither of which is likely -- damages would be pretty hard to prove. Especially if sales and usage of Linux continue to climb.
So I think the best course of action is just to refute the FUD everywhere it rears its pointed little head. If Linus were to sue for libel the most likely result would be to make two sets of lawyers richer.
Of course I could be wrong. John Henry Faulk sued AWARE for libel and effectively ended blacklisting in this country. Something similar might come out of a lawsuit against AdTI, but really only Linus could decide if it's worth the effort.
Someone you trust is one of us.
It is true. I concur with expressed thoughts.
You gotta love ADTI's assertion that one person couldn't possibly write and OS. When I was working in a university computing services group - our CS students all had to write their own (however simple) OS as part of an Operating Systems course. They had to do so in order to graduate.
Of course one man can write an OS. Then, afterwards, thousands of volunteers worldwide can make it a GOOD os.
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
But it's FREE publicity, bad but who cares ??
Slashdotters, we've stumbled across a major obstacle the way of liberty. This lying paper about false origins of Linux is met with derision and factual debunking here at /., and elsewhere on the Net as we freely express the truth about those origins. But the AdT Institute publishes widely, where our choir's voice is not heard. How do we successfully counter the FUD of this specific paper in the ears of the powerful who it does reach? And how do we counter the inevitable followup from AdTI, which will, of course, reflect their agenda which produced this paper?
--
make install -not war
Hello, I'm Nek Brown, Ken Brown's brother. I don't like him either, so I'm offering $100 Million in a context for the people who first write the following Unix operating systems:
- $1 Million, if you write a unix kernel in C
- $2 Millions if you write a unix kernel in C++ and port Gnu for it
- $10 Millions if you write a unix operating system in BASIC
- $15 Millions if you write a unix operating system in Prolog
- $20 Millions if you write a unix operatig system in bash shell script
And finally,
- $50 Millions if you write the boot loader in Java !!!
But wait ! Those prizes don't sum up to $100 Millions ! Oh, sh** !
Has anyone noticed that the "Institute" web site is a Geocities page?
Or that Jack Kemp is one of the esteemed writers mentioned.
Sounds like Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is another far-right looney farm. Ever notice how the right wing claims to be patriotic when the 'conservatives' were known as Tories during the American Revolution. Traitors back then, and still now.
Fight Spam! Join CAUCE! == http://www.cauce.org/
I know Raymond is right about his criticism of Ken Brown. He's nowhere near as interesting as PJ, of course, but this is an easy one. But ESR's longstanding political naivete and ranting is enormously annoying.
In the latest, we get the assertion: "I am a libertarian who believes in strong IP rights."
Does ESR have the slightest idea what the term "lbertarian" means?! I think he thinks it just means someone who obsesses about acquiring an arsenal of guns to make them feel macho.
But in reality, Libertarians are not people who support broad government-imposed monopolies!
Buy Text Processing in Python
"Eric Raymond"? Who he? Ah, I think you must mean... ESR!
(Chorus:) I am EEE ESS ORR, elite hack-ORR, hear me ROAR!
1.
I am of the hacker elite, can't you see?
fetchmail, blindfolds in nethack, er... (hum-hum diddle dee)
Bow down on your knees, don't you diss me!
(chorus)
2.
I am an author, I "wrote" New Hacker's Dictionary
Well, in fact I done stole it from MIT
I didn't get in there, so I figured they owed me!
(chorus)
3.
I am founder and leader of OSI
Now my Open Source show is really on the road!
Free Software? Hah! Show me dat code!
(chorus)
4.
I am ESR Skywalker, elite Jedi Knight
I'm packing mah gun and I'm ready to fight
You diss me and I'll send you to eternal night!
(chorus)
5.
I am wealthy board member, VA Something-or-other
Got plenty dollar bills, at least on paper
What's that? Dot.com crash? Oh fuck! See you later!
(chorus x 2)
Note how the Minix code is so much better commented than the Linux code.
Paul Beardsell
I wonder if the people who funded, or provided an advance for the book were M$hit themselves...?
My web domain.
I am a professional writer and editor. ESR's writing is, on a scale from 1 to 10, easily 8 or above. He handles complex sentences correctly, selects words carefully and correctly from his large vocabulary, and makes transitions from one point to the next gracefully.
He's also using a high-grade vitriol for his pen, and I'd like to know where I can get some.
Maybe she is also interested in doing another Brown book? ;)
Moderating 101
The term "intellectual property" is vague (here, ESR means copyrights, rather than trademarks or patents), and the term "theft" doesn't apply particularly well. The wordier statement "all hackers condemn the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted works, with the exception of fair and personal use" is somewhat more accurate, though probably still not true. Even better would be "all hackers condemn plagiarism," which is really what putting your name on someone else's code is. Plagiarism is a matter of honor, not law, and is somewhat more likely to be something that all hackers -- a pretty big and diverse group -- might condemn.
I know at least one hacker (ahem, a libertarian, even) who condemns copyrights and patents altogether and would probably describe ESR's assertion as nonsensical or undefined.
Condeming IP theft, Eric says, "is what distinguishes [hackers] from the cracker/phreak subculture." Nonsense. Destructive intent is what distinguishes crackers from hackers. Denial-of-service attacks and website vandalism have nothing to do with so-called "IP theft."
For the record, all hackers also don't use the hacker logo, any more than all hackers channel Greek gods. Eric would do well to describe his own opinions and let me describe my own.
Fetchmail is not trivial, and is widely used. I would characterize it as a category killer. In addition to that, Eric's development process exemplifies good open source practices.
"Your book is unpublishably bad. "
At last! A subject on which Eric is indeed an expert. Bad writing.
I beg to differ. I consider Eric's writing style in The Cathedral and the Bazaar a model of good essay style.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
Well, we always have the third term, defamation, which can be used whether the material was written, spoken or otherwise transferred.
Secondly, I believe that "reckless disregard for the truth" establishes "actual malice," which is what a public figure like Linus would need to show to prevail in a defamation suit. One might think that AdTI's disregard for their own analyst in favor of ill-supported assertions injurious to Linus' professional reputation would count as a "reckless disregard for the truth," thus establishing "actual malice," but I am not a lawyer, and I cannot say anything for certain save that I have read a fair amount of material on this and I personally would think that Linus would be able to file a credible lawsuit over this.
For GNU software? savanna.gnu.org should have most of them.
For example, here's is the wincvs repository for emacs
Also, most GNU projects have public mailing lists which are automatically fed the CVS checkins. Here is gcc's
The most annoying thing about GNU projects has always been the whole copyright-assigment thing.
The FSF makes sure that everything is out in the open and that there is a paper trail.
The funny thing is that a couple years ago RMS was been flamed for the whole thing and everybody admired Linus for not giving a damn. Now times have shown that there's a good reason for doing things their way. Maybe RMS wasn't wrong after all, just ahead of his time (No, I'm not idolizing him, it's just that he saw SCO coming a decade or two before it happened, he just thought it would be IBM instead).
but it is yet another way to advance the public interest via IP law
You got to be kidding. Say, I sell my own closed-source software and re-discover your idea independently. Then you come weilding your patent and force me to either go out of business (because my software is not of the nature that lets me make money on support) or release an inferior product by not using results of my own hard work. Which public interest was advanced? Remember my customers already had a choice of using your open source software.
Require the use of "open-thought software" instead - that is I can use your patents as long as I refrain from using my own software patents in an obnoxious way - and we are getting somewhere.
Oh please. 8 or above? How did you get to be a professional writer without ever reading good writing by the likes of Faulkner or Joyce?
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
"Just a question, though, are some of the changelogs ESR mentions available for easy download? The kernel changelogs are easy to find, but what about the changelogs for emacs, Gnome, gzip/gunzip, and all of the other GNU software?"
Does someone know better web-CVS repositories than I can find in a 3-minute google search?
[*] EMACS ChangeLog on the web
[*] GNOME ChangeLog on the web
[*] GZIP: Download it
[*] Other GNU software? See Savannah
Bonus points for anyone who can link to the Internet Explorer changelog...
Has anyone noticed that their claim is irrelevant? With the exception of a few slips of the tung and a bit of ego stroking Linus has never claimed to have written an operating system. He just wrote a kernel, so he is hardly relevant to the question of whether a single individual can write an OS. That said, didn't the gentilman that wrote CP/M write the whole thing on his own?
-troy
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.
unless it is relased as open book someday.
Windows Update
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Damages?
Why not damage to his reputation. Maybe it's not so tangible but other people has sued over it and won. SCO is suing Novell for slander of their product aren't they?
I hope Linus sues. I hope he sues everybody who lies about him in order to defame him. It's the only way to stop this shit. Imagine if Ken Brown had to pay a million dollars out of his own pocket, you can bet your ass he'd be more cautious about muckraking the next time.
Of course people will probably post his name, address and phone number here soon after the book is published so other types of punishment will be visited on him but that's not good news. People will seek vigilante justice and that will make everybody look bad. Better to sue I say.
evil is as evil does
Ken, Ken, Ken. Poor Ken... you have been trolled.
Have a nice day.
if one wants to play at being the moral high ground
Here is the morality scenario posed by this advisary:
They are coming for your family. They want you dead. Nothing you offer them other than your blood will satisfy. No law or treaty you offer will stop them. Make a law outlawing my actions and protecting civilians and they will use them as a shield. They will conceal themselves. They will hide their weapons. They will blend in.
Your nihlism, lack of conviction, sloth and other philosophical luxuries of democratic life render you impotent. When they get close to you, they will strike. Their own life is forfit, but their goal is reached.
And you want what, moral high ground? More likely a high ground burial plot. No wonder they call you cattle fattened for the slaughter.
You got to be kidding. Say, I sell my own closed-source software and re-discover your idea independently. Then you come weilding your patent and force me to either go out of business (because my software is not of the nature that lets me make money on support) or release an inferior product
This is a problem with patent law, not with my construction. My construction would only make it more evident to those who want to proprietize my IP (in this case, my hypothetical patent). Ignorance of a patent is not a defense--patents are published for a reason. Of course, willful infringement (if it's known that I knew of the patent and infringed upon it anyhow) is another matter.
Moreover, the software maker would still have an option--they could GPL their software with my patent, make use of my code (which would contain a special license to use the patent), and make their money via support contracts. Thus, I would be using them to push to make things more open, for everyone, not just a select few.
Actually, that is not necessarily the error.
... back when "doth" was the verb form for "you", "you" was "ye" (being the subject) and "methinks" was "methinketh".
In early Middle English, -th WAS the plural verb form - as in the phrase "Manners maketh the man". It was the original Old English plural verb ending: we writath = we write.
BUT
So the poster should have written: Methinketh ye doth protest too much.
But 'tis all one. The original quote is:
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." in Hamlet (Act III, scene ii) . No plural - no "you" - not Middle English.
I am anarch of all I survey.
SCO is suing Novell for slander of their product aren't they?
"Slander of title". It's a bit of copyright law where two people both claim to be the copyright holder on the same work. It's almost unrelated to usual slander.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
AdTI seems to be pretty much diametrically opposed to the principles most highly praised by Alexis himself.
For example, they advocate removing the power to invent from the hands of random individuals and placing it in the hands of selected colossal corporations, and vigorously oppose any attempt to intervene on behalf of said individuals. This makes them pretty much the sworn enemies of Open Source, whereas Open Source is an industrial principle which de Tocqueville himself would have enthusiastically supported.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
But he is doing Libel. What about the principle? He is casting doubt on professional integrity not on a public figure. With the SCO issue and the dubious funding it has real relevence. And since he was "paid" to do so if the book is published in the UK he may come under the Defamation Act of 1954. See s.4n the facts:
and the reference at http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/codecomparison/
O
It is not a innocent misrepresentation. On the facts IT IS A CRIME! It may be a misrepresentation for commercial purposes.
Mebbe Ken Brownoser was looking to impress MSFT and SUNW...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
True; damages are the rub. Don't forget they likely have to be specified in terms of USD to be relevant for a US federal or state court. Civil courts can't compensate for non-material losses, which is why to persons unfamiliar with this fact wrongful death suits often make the plaintiff look like moneyhounds when parents sue for the death of a child (but I digress).
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Learn to conjugate.
-th is the correct ending, but only for the third person singular.
Second person singular ends with -st.
<troll>anyway, english is just a corrupt form of dutch</troll>
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.