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.

Comments

'pay no attention to this man'

[Mz6]

Did anyone read that and immediately think of "The Wizard of Oz"?

"Pay no attentioned to the man behind the curtain..."

Re:'pay no attention to this man'

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Actually, no. I was wondering who this Alexis is, and where I can get some of her world famous tacos.

ESR got a copy?!

[John Hurliman]

Sending ESR an early copy of the book is like asking Sony to do a review of XBox 2

Re:ESR got a copy?!

[phearlez]

Maybe it falls under the approach of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" - lord knows ESR won't miss an opportunity to write something where he can work in a way to mention "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." I'm amazed it took him over 1,000 words to get around to it this time.

Re:ESR got a copy?!

[Soko]

ESR has had a nasty habit of donning a tin-foil hat, jumping up and down and then ranting like an in-coherent zealot - to the detrement of OSS in the eyes of CxO types. "Look at how this loony, a OSS leader, responds - is this the type of person you want associated with your business?"

Unfortunately for Mr. Brown, ESR seems to be responding to the critisism of his past rants and couter-productive behaviour. This one, though perhaps self-serving at times, is measured and based on facts. AdTI's strategy of provoking a senseless flamewar with the OSS community is backfiring. If they had of made a more convincing argument, they may have gotten somewhere, but as it is, any of the /. trolls could have done better.

Soko

Re:ESR got a copy?!

[Dun Malg]

Maybe it falls under the approach of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" - lord knows ESR won't miss an opportunity to write something where he can work in a way to mention "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." I'm amazed it took him over 1,000 words to get around to it this time.

Heh. Personally, I have to give him this one. The book is his manifesto on open source software. It's not like the discussion was about the poor quality of judging at last years Ninepins World Championship Tournament (damn those Norwegian judges!).

There's no doubt about it

[jg21]

Andy Tanenbaum is a hero.

Re:There's no doubt about it

[irokitt]

No, Linus came out bad too. Tanenbaum appeared to be dissing Linux because he felt it was inferior. Linus took the bait and replies, something he shouldn't have done. And when Linus was ready to end the thing (the "Flamewar over" post), Tanenbaum couldn't let go and just continued the thing. He came off as an arrogant bastard ("If you were my student you'd get an F"). Overall the whole thing was ugly, but the point is that Tanenbaum is no angel where Linux is concerned.

Re:There's no doubt about it

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's a hero for utterly destroying Brown's book. The book tries to imply that Linux took code from Minix.

Linus says that didn't happen. Fine, but he could be lying. Now _Andy_ says it didn't happen, and they both have no problems with each other.

So the book is utterly pointless. There's no needle, no copying, nothing -- and BOTH sides have stated that!

Andy is a hero (well, a bit of a hero!) for coming out, being talkative and laying these issues to rest.

Re:There's no doubt about it

[jg21]

whoever startd it or didn't start it, it's clearly at an end now - from that same LinuxWorld piece by Tanenbaum:

Clearing Up Some Misconceptions

I would like to close by clearing up a few misconceptions and also correcting a couple of errors. First, I REALLY am not angry with Linus. HONEST. He's not angry with me either. I am not some kind of "sore loser" who feels he has been eclipsed by Linus. MINIX was only a kind of fun hobby for me. I am a professor. I teach and do research and write books and go to conferences and do things professors do. I like my job and my students and my university. If you want to get a masters there, see my home page for information. I wrote MINIX because I wanted my students to have hands-on experience playing with an operating system.

After AT&T forbade teaching from John Lions book, I decided to write a UNIX-like system for my students to play with. Since I had already written two books at this point, one on computer architecture and one on computer networks, it seemed reasonable to describe the system in a new book on operating systems, which is what I did. I was not trying to replace GNU/HURD or Berkeley UNIX. Heaven knows, I have said this enough times. I just wanted to show my students and other students how you could write a UNIX-like system using modern technology.

A lot of other people wanted a free production UNIX with lots of bells and whistles and wanted to convert MINIX into that. I was dragged along in the maelstrom for a while, but when Linux came along, I was actually relieved that I could go back to professoring. I never really applied for the position of King of the Hackers and didn't want the job when it was offered. Linus seems to be doing excellent work and I wish him much success in the future.

While writing MINIX was fun, I don't really regard it as the most important thing I have ever done. It was more of a distraction than anything else. The most important thing I have done is produce a number of incredibly good students, especially Ph.D. students. See my home page for the list. They have done great things. I am as proud as a mother hen. To the extent that Linus can be counted as my student, I'm proud of him, too. Professors like it when their students go on to greater glory. I have also written over 100 published research papers and 14 books which have been translated into about 20 languages. As a result I have become a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the ACM, and won numerous other awards. For me, these are the things that really count. If MINIX had become a big 'commercial' success I wouldn't have had the time to do all this academic stuff that I am actually more interested in.

Re:There's no doubt about it

[Sloppy]

Yeah, I read the flame war. And Tanenbaum was right and Torvalds was wrong.

From the funniest movie of all time:

Sonja: "Sex without Love is an empty experience."
Boris: "Yes, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."

Linux's design is obsolete. But as obsolete designs go, it's doing quite well.

Re:There's no doubt about it

[argent]

I was part of the discussion, and I still say they're both wrong about each other's systems.

It's a lot harder to get decent performance out of a microkernel, so Linus wasn't wrong to build Linux as a monolithic kernel, and Andy's criticisms of that aspect of its design were over the top.

But Minix' performance problems were due more to its goal as a teaching system than the fact that it was a microkernel, so Linus was wrong to so vehemently attack microkernels... and he's wrong to continue doing so today.

Re:There's no doubt about it

[bofkentucky]

Andy teaches operating systems theory and design. The monlithic *NIX kernel had been tweaked and perfected for 21 years at that point, its interfaces were well designed and (reasonably) well documented, it was not interesting from a pure research or teaching perspective. 13 years later, some things have changed, but still the actual linux kernel work is "polishing the turd" that Thompson and Ritchie created at Bell Labs. The linux kernel is now a base for some of the more promising research in CS theory (the O(1) scheduler comes to mind), but linux is not a pure research OS by any streach of the imagination.

Look at where we are heading now on the hardware side, NUMA, Async Processors, and Multi-core processors all have interesting side-effects when you look at micro vs monolithic kernels. When one looks at Sun's "FireMan" next-gen TCP/IP stack, it has elements of a microkernel personality siting on top of the Sun kernel. OSX/darwin's development also seems to favor moving to a pure microkernel arch in the future as Power5 and Power6 are developed. Imagine if the Quartz layer was simplified down to another microkernel running on the base Niwrad kernel.

I guess what I'm saying is that you have two different worldviews represented in that flamefest between Andy and Linus. Andy's itch to scratch was theoretical, Linus's proved to be practical. Both are valid and both are important to this young science, so don't be so quick to judge the good doctor for being honest about his student's work.

Re:There's no doubt about it

[Linux Ate My Dog!]

The hysterical paert for me is, having taken both Mr Tannenbaum's Networking and OS course in the late eighties, early nineties, was that it was stupefyingly simple to get a passing garde, if not a 10 (scale 1 to 10, 10 good) in the book courses. The books were a pleasant and fast read, and, according to college culture in the Netherlands at the time, nothing on the tests would not be in the books (So I stopped going. Duh; they were morning courses.) The test for both these introductory courses would consist of five relatively simple essay questions requiring a, maximum, 5 sentence answer, out of a standard pool of, oh, say, 25 questions at most and all the previous tests and correct answers were archived and retrievable at the faculty student union.

In other words, to ace the test you had to memorize not even the whole wonderful books, but 25 very clearly explained features of networks or OSes, along the lines of "list the 7 layers if the OSI model".

If you couldn't ace either of those tests in the first of the allowed three hours, you were a slow writer, or you just simply hadn't done your legwork to the copying machine. It never took me more than a week to study for either, and I didn't get 10s on them because I was on Usenet too much. The practical section of the work for either course consisted of having eight weeks to modify his clearly written C code for Minix or a networking stack. If you were new to C and compiling your OS for the first time like most of us were, you could actually get in trouble and be confused and be late, otherwise it was pretty straightforward. (Mind you, the times were such we were doing everything on 5.25" floppys, and 3.5" floppys were these things only the macheads had seen.)

In short, as far as undergrad life went, if someone went all happy happy joy joy that s/he passed a course by the great Tannenbaum, the appropriate reaction was to cock an eyebrow and wish them the best of luck in the rest of their computing career: s/he'd need it. Maybe things got way way tougher once you became a grad student with him, but an undergrad Tannenbaum grade just didn't mean that much.

Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd?

[lavalyn]

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!

Re:Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd?

[g00set]

I think that is what I like about this style. It is *unrevised* and raw. Note to email users? I don't think this guy is applying for a job. He is letting things flow to the keyborad.

Re:Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. It reads like a /. post.

Re:Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd?

[Mikkeles]

Yes, I think he should have taken a deep breath and counted to ten before replying :^) For example:

Proprietary outfits lift code from elsewhere all the time. It is known from behavioral analysis of the Microsoft TCP/IP stack, for example, that they swiped their code from BSD. So there may well be be immense amounts of stolen IP in proprietary code, hidden by commercial secrecy.

Given that the BSD TCP/IP stack was released under the BSD licence and that MS provides the proper acknowledgements in their documents, this is a red herring. Thus, ESR's concluding sentence does not follow, although it may be correct for other reasons.

Re:Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd?

[SoTuA]

And if you keep reading until the end, he acknowledges that the word "swiped" creates a bad impression/implication, and that Microsoft legally used BSD code.

Re:Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd?

[finkployd]

I didn't read it that way at all. It sounds like he is saying "We know corporations legally use open source software, but is there any way to know that they don't also illegally use it?" And the answer really is 'no'. Unlike open source projects, (which are quite easy to audit the source of) we really have no idea if corporations are illegally copying open source code or not.

Finkployd

Re:Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd?

[maximilln]

How about the search of many of the network binaries which returns "Regents of California"? Unless MS decides to bare out all of their source code then the only evidence is behavioral analysis.

Proprietary software companies could pirate the entire GNU/FSF/Linux/OSS library, charge $500/copy for it, never credit, employ, or even acknowledge the original authors, and the burden of proof would lie with some high school kid who can't even afford to have a consultation session with an IP lawyer--much less be taken seriously. Yet the trolls will argue to their death that there's nothing wrong with the current system of IP, copyrights, and patents.

Re:Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd?

[pyrotic]

Fisking is probably the opposite of blogging. Blogging involves sitting on your ass behind a computer speculating about places you're never been to. Fisking involves getting lynched by angy Afghans, shot at by Israelis, or actually talking to people on the ground. Fisk may not always be right, but he has balls.

Hand behind the Hatchet?

[bendelo]

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?

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[phearlez]

Never assume conspiracy when simple malevolence will suffice. Never assume malevolence when simple idiocy will suffice. Although SCO/MS may have a motivation, plain old muckraking has been a profitable institution even when there's no specific axes to grind.

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[afidel]

A lone moron and his publishist trying to sell copy by being sensational about a fairly popular and current topic?

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[Nimrangul]

You say SCO as an option as if it were not under the control of Microsoft and was infact a seperate entity.

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiocy wouldn't explain why someone would fly to the Netherlands first-class (and to Norway) when reading a book would have given him more information (see the second rebuttal of Tannenbaum).

Idiocy would't explain continuous attacks, so to say, to Microsofts main threat.

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[capt.Hij]

And another question is "why?" The whole thing is silly and will eventually be discredited and forgotten in short order. The problem is that it takes a great deal of time, emotion, and energy to do the discrediting. It is great that people are coming out of the woodwork to explain why this is so bad, but their time could be better spent spreading good news rather than discounting bad news.

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[Royster]

Someone told Brown that he would find lots of copied code. This is a very Darl-like kind of lie. Brown believed him and wrote his paper probably having the code comparison done was an afterthought. Here is a "researcher" who is used to having people give him the results he paid for.

Plus, I think that once MS was exposed as a funder of AdTI, they probably cut Brown off dry. I don't think they like their sock puppets exposed like that.

My money is on SCO as the funder.

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[falconed]

With all the recent news about MS and SCO trying to drag Linux down and spread their FUD, as well as AST's reiteration of the beginning of his interview with Ken Brown, I think it's a safe bet that at least MS is behind this. Sometimes I get the feeling that these guys are the only ones that get press time (the "bad guys"); we're the only ones that read the open emails and find out what really happened, while the CEO's and decision makers believe what they see on TV. But there's one prevailing fact that no amount of FUD or muckraking can change: the hackers writing linux are going to keep writing linux. Microsoft can't stop them; they're writing it because they *want* to, not because they're getting paid to. It's going to keep getting better, and more and more people are going to find out about it and use it.

Now that I've said that, it occurs to me that there is something MS could do to put a significant chink in Linux's armor: submit code that gets distributed in the kernel that was deliberately copied from somewhere else and hope Linus, et al takes the fall for it. Hopefully Linus' new tracking process will mitigate that risk.

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[Crizp]

What would really be embarrasing: Get hundreds of really good kernel fixes from Microsoft coders paid by Microsoft to code on the Linux kernel for a while :)

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[jmv]

No. Thin about it. SCO says "Linus stole our code" because otherwise he couldn't have written a good OS. Now this guy comes up saying "Linus did that with AT's code". It only gives less credit to what SCO's saying, not more.

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[scoove]

Any further ideas?

Sun.

It's too direct for Microsoft (and too bungled too). Their FUD engine is well greased and is quite honestly self-perceived to be too above this troll trash to be implicated. Not that there aren't moneys from Allen being moved around on the side, but that's not official Microsoft policy. Granted, Microsoft has admitted
to funding Tocqueville but there's a missing beneficiary.

Sun, on the other hand, is fighting for their life though it's receiving little coverage. Linux has decimated Sun's sales, and their missteps with Java have only frustrated efforts to find a solution - any solution. Perhaps some of the settlement money from Microsoft went here instead of directly to Sun?

Consider: Who does having Linux portrayed as stolen property push the Linux base to?

- FreeBSD/OpenBSD/netBSD? Not at all. If it was impossible for Linux to create Linux and therefore Linux is TheftWare, the *BSDs are next in line for accusations and implications.

- SCO? This fossil? The same fossil one of their largest investors (and slush fund source) says should be canned? The fossil that litigation targets like Daimler Chrysler have confessed to not have used for nearly a decade? Doubtful.

- Apple? A more interesting theory, but OS/X != Intel *NIX.

- Microsoft? They're not at all in position to capture the Intel *NIX market. Convert to XP? How?

Solaris, on the other hand, presents an inviting candidate for migration should the F/OSS *NIX's need a commercial home.

*scoove*

Re:Hand behind the Hatchet?

[k98sven]

AdTI doesn't make it's money of general muckraking, their research is funded by outside parties. There is plenty of evidence of that, and Mr. Brown himself did not deny his research was funded by someone.

Also, consider that Brown refused to answer a direct question on who was funding his 'research'.

It is also known that Microsoft has funded AdTI in the past.

Given that, it does not seem to me that simple idiocy would suffice as an explanation. Unless Red Hat or someone sponsored the research.

Code obfuscation

[prostoalex]

ESR says:

In your discussion of obfuscation software, I hope it is simple ignorance rather than intentional deceit that prevents you from noting that open-source code has none of the characteristics of obfuscated code, and that obfuscators are therefore irrelevant to the question you are supposedly addressing.

Anyone who has the book know what the ADTI's claim on code obfuscation was and why the issue was even mentioned?

Re:Code obfuscation

[David McBride]

Obfuscators make compiled code difficult to recompile into a sensible form.

One possible argument being made by the ADTI is that Linus intentionally reverse-engineered the source code to some other Unix, tidied it up, and published it as his own Linux... possibly re-obfuscating it himself afterwards to make the deed difficult to discover.

It's a fun idea but bears zero relation to reality.

Re:Code obfuscation

[mcc]

One possible argument being made by the ADTI is that Linus intentionally reverse-engineered the source code to some other Unix, tidied it up, and published it as his own Linux... possibly re-obfuscating it himself afterwards to make the deed difficult to discover.

Uh..

What would be the point of "reverse engineering" when Linus could just, you know, read Tanenbaum's textbook on operating system design and use that as a basis for how to design a UNIX operating system? Since that would be (1) easier (2) legal (3) and Linus already had a copy of said textbook, whereas he doesn't appear to have had access to the source of any commercial Unices?

When the "Linux infringes on the UNIX ABI" thing was briefly floated by SCO, Linus responded with a long complaint explaining that even if that were a valid legal complaint it wouldn't matter, because Linux didn't follow those ABIs-- Linux doesn't follow the POSIX standard in a number of ways because at the time he first wrote it Linus had no access to a copy of the POSIX standard! The POSIX standard was rather costly to buy a copy of at that point, so Linus had to just make stuff up. One example he gave was that the values of signals in Linux are not the same as they are in UNIX, and this became a big pain later. In short, had Linus been copying from a UNIX, he would have gotten the UNIX parts right because he wouldn't have been forced into so much guesswork.

Copy of email, /. effect

[blakestah]

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

Re:Copy of email, /. effect

[AKAImBatman]

I hope Mr. Brown is getting compensated well, because he's soon going to find that's he's completely destroyed his career. I seriously doubt that anyone will wish to obtain his services after this fiasco.

Re:Copy of email, /. effect

[0racle]

I'm sure that the people that employ this 'institute' will either never hear about this or wont care. In short nothing will come of this.

Re:Copy of email, /. effect

[cyfer2000]

I think he has got a job at Iraq as new administrtor of information and news.

Re:Copy of email, /. effect

[k98sven]

I seriously doubt that anyone will wish to obtain his services after this fiasco.

Do you think anyone obtaining his services wants a good, impartial report? Well, a good one probably, but definitely not an impartial one.

I'm afraid there is no shortage of fields in which this guy is a self-pronounced researcher.
Just look at the dang AdTI homepage: Economics, Taxation, Education, Technology, Defense..

Hey, the guy has a bachelor's degree in Litterature -doesn't that automatically qualify him as an expert on everything under the sun?

(Hmm... Hey Taco! Re-brand Slashdot! We're not a geek news blog, we're a "think-tank" now! We've got plenty of people here prepared to expound their opinions on stuff they know nothing about. )

Like it or not, Linux owes a lot to MINIX

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Like it or not, Linux owes a lot to MINIX

[oevren]

It is quite well known that Linus started developing Linux on Minix, before it was self-hosting. I don't see anybody saying otherwise.

However, the issue is copy-pasting of source code from Minix, not whether Minix was helpful to the development of Linux or not.

Re:Like it or not, Linux owes a lot to MINIX

[sbuckhopper]

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.

That's not really what's in question with these series of accusations. Linus does not hide the fact that he does have a lot to be thankful about for MINIX in the creation of Linux, which can be seen in Linus' book.

The real question here is if Linus stole AT's code from MINIX, which both the creator of MINIX and an independant auditor both say he didn't.

Ken Brown will always be welcomed by Bush admin

[chmilar]

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!"

That's a relief.

[grub]

I was just getting ready to send out cheques to SCO and Andy Tanenbaum for $699 each.

Re:That's a relief.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I was just getting ready to send out cheques to Alexis de Tocqueville for 30M. But after this job...

Bill G.

minor flaws in ESR's message?

[happyfrogcow]

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.

Re:minor flaws in ESR's message?

[SheldonYoung]

It is not a contradiction at all. In the first part he is stating that unless the code is designed to be used in a library it is difficult to re-use. In the second he says corporations re-use code all the time. The missing link is that the code companies re-use would most often be libraries.

Re:minor flaws in ESR's message?

[jdunn14]

I don't think this is contradictory thanks to that first line: Context and interfaces are everything; unless it has been packaged into a library specifically intended to move. A proprietary vendor could simply lift an entire library, thereby steal implementations of entire APIs. In fact, companies that have been caught with their hands in the proverbial GPL cookie-jar have usually been caught with entire libraries or applications (Dell access points, some set-top boxes with mplayer (think that's right), etc.).

Personally, I don't think I'll ever understand some people's problem with GPL'ed code. I've seen a number of bitch sessions about "but we don't want to release it". Tough shit, you chose to use GPL'ed code so play by the rules. You don't like the rules, don't use the code. It's not like this license sneaks up on you in the night. During design and implementation someone made a conscious descision about where to get code from. If that choice bites you in the ass, you have no one to blame but that guy.

Re:minor flaws in ESR's message?

[finkployd]

Just because you get paid to write OSS code does not mean that you are, coloquially, a "pro".

Of course not, but just because you write OSS code doesn't mean you do not also write code "professionally". Some of us code professionally and write OSS code either in our spare time or as part of our job. Are there more inept amateur open source coders than inept professional coders? Almost certainly, since anyone can do the former. However they are of little consequence. The real question is are the "cream of the crop" programmers in OSS better than the purely professional coders? The question actually could be phrased as "what is the better motivator for quality? money or doing something you love?. The music industry has clearly answered this question in my opinion, but the market still has to answer it for the coders. Right now there is no clear answer, looking at the top programs out there sometimes OSS is a clear winner, sometimes something proprietary is. It all depends on what your specific needs are.

It also depends on the goals of the program, I don't think anyone would consider AOL's IM to be the best AIM client. It's goals are to display ads to you. Gaim does the instant messaging thing much better (so do most client, open or not). One clear advantage of OSS is that it is designed only to meet the needs to the users, not anything ulterior. Mozilla blocks pop up ads, IE and Netscape didn't not because their users didn't want this, but because it was politically a problem for them to do. OSS also generally has better interoperability with other programs because it is not part of the model to attempt to lock people into using only a specific author's stuff.

Finkployd

Re:Sorry but

[Omnifarious]

The way you are all so frenzied trying to defend from this accusation, only convinces me that there is something to it.

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.

Re:Sorry but

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Sorry but

[nelsonal]

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.

copy of comparison analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

The comparison analysis linked to in the email (with some long snipets of actual code removed because it violates the slashdot 'postercomment' compression filter when you put it all in).

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:

s->s_imap[0]->b_data[0] |= 1;
s->s_zmap[0]->b_data[0] |= 1;

in minix, in fs/super.c

sp->s_imap[0]->b_int[0] |= 3; /* inodes 0, 1 busy */
sp->s_zmap[0]->b_int[0] |= 1; /* zone 0 busy */

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.

Re:copy of comparison analysis

[14erCleaner]

If the Linux ctype.h is so similar to the one in Minix, that can only mean one thing...

Minix was pirated from SCO! Quick, contact Darl!

Re:copy of comparison analysis

[_xeno_]

The site is slow, but you can still get through. I dunno if my site will be any better, but I still have like 39GB of transfer I can use that expires at the end of the month, so:

Mirror of the comparison report.

WMD?

[FerretFrottage]

Writings of Mass Duplication?

And of course MS funds it

[metalhed77]

Microsoft in the past has supplied funding for the institution, which has published anti-open-source papers. In an eWEEK.com interview, senior fellow Gregory Fossedal refused to say who, if anyone, is sponsoring the institution's Linux project. "We don't discuss our funding," he said.

From here

Great way to start the day.

[irokitt]

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.

The sad part

[JanneM]

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.

Re:The sad part

[List of FAILURES]

Why not publish a book containing much of the useful criticism the criticism and sell it as a companion to "The Brown Book"? Give it a similar enough name and appearance so as to cause confusion, but keep enough humor in it to say that it is just a parody. That's sure to give Brown and the intstitute conniptions.

Re:The sad part

[pjrc]

Yes, the damage has been done. But complaining loudly does accomplish something useful... ruin ADTI's reputation.

The more pain this causes ADTI, the lower their future credibility sinks, the number of people whose long-term memories record ADTI as the bunch of corporate whores they are... the more damage is done to their prospects of seeking future funding. Even from Microsoft, it won't make sense to pour more money into ADTI if they are widely considered a joke.

Better yet, if ADTI suffers, the public scandal will help deter other "think tanks" from attacking free software when Microsoft or other proprietary vendors come knocking with "research" dollars.

Re:slashdotted alread? mirror please

[tsadi]

here.
posted almost at the same tiem as your post.

Re:How long...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:ESR contradicts himself

[David Gerard]

The BSD TCP/IP stack is quite reusable. Most code isn't.

I am curious...

[beakerMeep]

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.

Re:slashdotted alread? mirror please

[frankie]

I tried to post a mirror of http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/codecomparison/ alexey.html

But the lameness filter refused several attempts with varied formatting and ecode. Executive summary: out of tens of thousands of lines in Minix and pre-1.0 Linux, there were four similar sections:

1. in linux, include/linux/ctype.h:
in minix, include/ctype.h:

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 are referred 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:
in minix, h/stat.h:

Both the names and values of these constants are specified by the POSIX standard.

3. in linux, in fs/read_write.c:
in minix, in fs/open.c

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.

Re:How long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Usenet's resident expert on Unix opreating systems for the IBM PC and other personal computers.

Err, no. Like most of the open source projects he likes to connect himself with, was largely written by someone else. (In this case, Jason Levitt). Note that ESR, resident expert, says

"I've found that the technical merit of each of these eight products (insofar as I have data to judge; I haven't used any of them yet)"

Some expert.

Free Publicity

[earthforce_1]

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.

Ok, so I started reading ESR's response..

[cjwl]

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.

Re:How long...

[Anonymous Coward]

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."

ESR

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:How long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eric ! Stop posting as Anonymous Coward ! :)

Emacs as complex as early Linux?

[Fratz]

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.

I'm a happy emacs user, so I'm not emacs-bashing, but damn. Maybe it is a little bloated :)

Microsoft and Legal BSD code

[DarkHelmet]

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.

Re:Microsoft and Legal BSD code

[Anonymous Coward]

You misunderstood. ESR said that the only way we can prove that MS used BSD;s TCP/IP stack is by behavioural analysis.

The fact that MS credits Berkeley doesn't tell us that it used the TCP/IP stack -- only that it used SOME code.

So we know there's BSD code in there, but don't always know where. The relnotes don't state that the TCP/IP stack is BSD, just that there's BSD code therein.

So the only way to find out if the TCP/IP stack IS from BSD is by behavioural analysys.

Comprende?

Re:ESR contradicts himself

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Yes.

The way I read the article, he's saying that massive code theft is rare and next to impossible for open source developers, because the nature of OSS makes it very hard to conceal such theft; but that closed source developers (i.e., proprietary software companies) can and do steal code frequently, because it's so hard to prove they did it.

If Brown was lying can't Linus sue for slander?

[dharma21]

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.

This all sounds like FUD campaign to me

[nurb432]

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.

No OS

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:No OS

[Zebbers]

Richard? Is that you?

Also on Groklaw

[Xenographic]

Heh, you should read PJ's take on it, as this story is also covered on Groklaw

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" ... Of course, IANAL.

This book: Much about nothing.

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

This is the kind of "book" that finds itself being sent to corporate execs by "consultants" hired by people with something to gain by the perspective pushed in the "book." You will not find this "book" on the shelves of any university library or Powell's Books, although in time, it might end up in the 50 cent box at a garage sale in some high end neighborhood. This is not a "study" or "paper" or any other kind of examination. It's a professionally written tome of FUD produced for a specific audience, and will be forgotten by next year.

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!

The Interesting Bits

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The Interesting Bits

[wk633]

Of course emacs is larger and more complex than linux. It has to be, with its linux kernel emulation mode.

Lit Crit

[blamanj]

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.

Calm down and move along...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

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...

Ken Brown really doing a social study?

[gorbachev]

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).

Re:Ken Brown really doing a social study?

[Jerf]

Unless he's one of those incomptetent people who have no idea how incomptetent they really are

Ah, time to trot out one of my favorite links:

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessment - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, December 1999 Vol. 77, No. 6, 1121-1134

An entertaining read.

The text of the original request sent to Alexey

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing to you with a matter of great importance. My employer has recently acquired the sum of $50,000,000,000 through a series of events and a lax enforcement of anti-trust laws. My employer has offered me a percentage of this money, but I need your assistance in order to complete the transaction. I will receive $10,000,000 for this transaction, and I will gladly share 30% of it with you.
If you are willing to assist me, please write a letter showing that Linus Torvalds copied Linux from Minix and mail it to:
MR. KEN BROWN
Alexis de Nigeria Institute
Abuja, Nigeria

I'm sure that you appreciate the need for discretion and that you will keep this transaction quiet, as I have done by only sending it to 1/4 of the world's population.

Thank you,
MR. MPERIAL FLUNKEE

Libel?

[martyros]

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?

Butt !??!!!?

[Zapdos]

Linus wrote MINIX or so it says herebr>

Microsoft's one rule for success

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

No comment

[JohnGrahamCumming]

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.

Re:No comment

[maximilln]

Sure, and then get blasted by the industry trolls who will say,"See? We expose them and now they clam up!"

Re:No comment

[uncadonna]

Yeah, it sure would be nice if that worked. However, it's wishful thinking.

If what you said were true, politics would be about policy, not about innuendo and symbolism. Most people do not have time to critically evaluate most political claims. Just saying something publicly enough (especially with some ideological color added) means that some people will believe it.

If anything shouldn't be dignified with a response, I agree it's this ridiculous claim that Linus stole Linux from Tannenbaum. Unfortunately, once you're playing in the political arena, dignity doesn't enter into it.

I refuse to do that.

[Xenographic]

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.

Re:I refuse to do that.

[arivanov]

Besides being well funded it is also ongoing. Anyone thinking that the Torqueville Job is a recent one off is wrong.

One of the trolls referred to by ESR - The "Pizduk" known as Nikolay Bezroukov was trolling on a similar assignment as early as the beginning of 2002 (obviously being flamed to charcoal by ESR in 1998 did not teach him a lesson). He tried to get my opinion on some of his scribbling, but he did not quite like what he got. At the time he was trying to compare Open Source to Intelligencia as presented in trash quality English translations of 19th century Russian novels.

In btw, he did not have a clue about the culture and traditions of Russian Science and Engineering as well.

Mods? Parent Troll and Offtopic

[blunte]

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 ).

So bad it's suspicious

[iabervon]

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).

I call *your* bullshit

[InfiniteWisdom]

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.

Re:MSFT DOS stolen from CP/M?

[Master of Transhuman]

Well, actually, DOS was written by Seattle Computer Products, and the RIGHTS to it were "stolen" - i.e., by contract trickery and Bill's failing to inform Seattle that he had been approached by IBM to buy rights to it - which he did not own at the time.

While it is true that one can say Bill had no obligation to inform Seattle of the value of their own product, his behavior in crossing out all the "lease" language in the contract and substituting "buy" and then informing Seattle that they could still "have nonexclusive rights" was disingenuous to say the least - if not outright fraud.

You read the way this asshole does business - he once told Heidi Rozen, "Never tell me anything I can use against you." - and you'd know never to do business with him. Sadly, a number of companies have made that mistake and paid for it with lost sales and lawsuits and bankruptcy.

Early Linux

[pr0f3550r]

It's easy to say that Linux was 'stolen' from other code because when you look at the ability that it has to interoperate now the tendency is to say that it was 'taken'. Having used Linux since the early days, I can tell you that it would have been a lot more feature rich, all lot sooner had it been taken.

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.

Microsoft paying someone to lie?

[rspress]

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?

Re:If Brown was lying can't Linus sue for slander?

[Our Man In Redmond]

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.

One man writes an OS . .

[actappan]

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.

Nigerians

[scavenger87]

Maybe she is also interested in doing another Brown book? ;)

"All hackers condemn IP theft?"

[Patrick]

I don't think that's true. ESR really ought to refrain from making statements about all hackers, all libertarians, all gun owners, or any other group larger than himself.

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.