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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.
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?
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.
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...
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
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.
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.
Actually, no. I was wondering who this Alexis is, and where I can get some of her world famous tacos.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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.
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."
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
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.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
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.
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"
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
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.
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.
I think he has got a job at Iraq as new administrtor of information and news.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
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
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 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.
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.
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?