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Stallman vs Ken Brown
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Stallman has become the latest person to speak-out about Ken Brown's "independent" study of Linux, which accuses it of being a Minix/Unix rip-off. Stallman says Brown deliberately confused the Linux kernel vs the GNU project, although I suspect Brown simply didn't know enough to be able to differentiate between the two."
"The actual words I used were quoted correctly, but [author Kenneth Brown] deliberately confuses his terms, like 'Linux.' He confuses the Linux kernel, which I had nothing to do with, and the GNU OS project, which I launched," said Stallman, who characterized such mistakes as "deliberate."M
I believe that Brown is probably far more knowledgeable about the differentiation between the kernel and the GNU project but for the masses it is certainly not something that most people know or care to know.
Perhaps Stallman doesn't realize that it isn't a single person making the confusion it's everyone. The whole GNU/Linux bullshit doesn't help a bit either. Anyone not in the know is going to say, hmm, GNU/Linux, all one thing.
It was certainly FUD but what MS funded "study" isn't?
Brown's worst crime is confusing "Linux" with "GNU/Linux" ;-)
Is Ken Brown pregnant with Linus' love child?
*Dun Dun Dun*
How does it end? Tune in next week!
Hmmm.
Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
I'm just dying to see this so called "academic study" of the history of Linux and the Open Source community get to see the light of day, and get tarnished so badly by everyone.
Mr. Brown is up for the ride of his life (probably the last one as I can't imagine anyone taking him seriously after his paper gets out).
Stop being afraid of reviews and books - the truth will let itself be seen...
(sorry for the karma whoring - this just drives me nuts!)
Is there any chance Brown will just scrap this misbegotten report? When you look at the critiques that have already been made, there's no way he can possibly revise the report to accommodate them. Maybe he should just not publish the report.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
Cynicism Personified got a hold of a pre-release copy of it, and we posted some similar editorial.
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglas Adams
...can be found here (it's inlined in the article). Not bad, for RMS. He kinda looks Jedi-ish. Or like a philosophical gnu ;)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Nice title for the book... So the author's implication is that open source is also communist?
Yeah, because doing something for the betterment of society without wanting to get rich off of it is just un-American...
I can't believe I'm reading comments complaining about Stallman's use of the "GNU/Linux" moniker, when this whole Brown debacle highlights how important it is to differentiate between the GNU system and the Linux kernel.
Typical Slashdot reaction to a post about Stallman without understanding a single thing the man says.
Am I the only one that thinks of Root Mean Square when I see RMS? I mean, math is way less confusing than Stallman can be.
Ken Brown will make lots of money from this book because of the massive free publicity.
I hope the mainstream media's reviewers of this book are decent enough to mention that EVEN THE AUTHOR OF MINIX disagrees completely that Linux is a ripoff of Minix.
*Sigh* but he'll make money anyway. Sucks that you can proclaim a big lie and make mad cash from it.
Another point where this is a problem is when people say "Linux is too fragmented", because Red Hat is different from SuSE is different from Mandrake is different from Debian, etc.
Linux is not an OS! It's a kernel. Red Hat is an OS, and so is Debian, and neither Debian nor Red Hat is fragmented. Sure, they're different, but then a 747 is not the same as an A300 and you don't hear anyone complain about that either. As long as you can switch reasonably easily from one Red Hat version to another, there is no fragmentation.
And really, is it all that hard? Linux is a kernel. GNU is a set of userland utilities. Red Hat is an OS, one that includes both Linux and GNU, and a whole lot of other software, some of which is Red Hat specific. Think about what you really want to say exactly and the right way to say it is obvious.
And if you want to generalise all the distributions that use Linux as a kernel, try "Linux-based OSes".
Lourens
One thing that stood out to me in this article:
"Torvalds' recent announcement that, in the future, Linux kernel contributors will have to certify the origins of their code before it can become part of the kernel."
Why?
Why do open source projects have to prove this for each piece of code? Proprietary projects dont have to do this right? But open source projects always have the code available for the world to check over.
Surely Linus should just accept any code and leave it up to any companys who own and IP it may infringe on to chase it up? Thats why we have patents, copyright etc right?
I cant believe that the SCO lawsuit and MS FUD has lead to this... extra work for Linus.... he should be left to concentrate on producing kernel code not dealing IP issues.
Fine, MS can continue to charge as much as they like for their OS, but from now on it should include the source code so we can check the codes "origins".
What is the big deal here? From my reading of the history of Linux and the statements of Torvalds, the entire point of linux was to reverse engineer Unix so that Torvalds could have an affordable personal unix.
That was also the point behind the development of Minix as well.
Bear in mind that at the time Unix licenses cost many thousands of dollars.
The thing that boggles my mind about all of this is that it seems like Brown thinks or wants to convince others that Linux ``magically'' appeared in a robust form.
I started using Linux in December 1991 with version 0.11. Stable and mature aren't quite the words I would use for that version, especially when you consider that I had to reinstall it about twice a day and it didn't even have login or a proper shutdown command.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
So why does it matter?
Why should we even bother reading such FUD if we already know the author doesn't posses the capability to make a reasoned argument? And whose fault is it if we get mad at what they say?
It is pieces like this which say far more about Microsoft than they do about Linux. This is as bad as people criticizing Microsoft carte-blanche with no rationale whatsoever.
I suppose these articles are useful as flame-fodder, but they do very little toward actually providing enlightment concerning the issues facing both Windows and Linux.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
A. Tanenbaum has recently posted an email he received. Interesting stuff, in which you'll discover the way K. Brown does his analysis.
stuff here
blah
... I thought it was going to be a WWF match. I could only imagine what the commentary would sound like with interviews from their sponsors/trainers.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
It's being "rewritten", apparently. Was mentioned in an article a couple of days ago. Allegedly to add in Browns answer to the criticism he's recieved, and the news of Linus wanting more source history control in his tree.
My guess is that it will lose all the debunked bullshit and instead consist of "Look, Linus Torvalds want better source history control in the Linux OS (confusing the kernel with the OS, again), therefore we were right all along no matter what we said! Based on this we draw the conclusion that so there! Greetz to Team McBride and Billy The Goatsex"
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I wish that Linus, Tannenbaum and the whole damn FSF crew would finally go see a lawyer and sue these people for libel. Given that both Tannenbaum and Linus agree on this point they might even be able to subpoena Alexis de Fuckville's mail correspendence with repsect to Microsoft.
I pray for this, in all honesty.
Can you name ONE SINGLE THING that RMS has predicted years before it happen, that had gone wrong?
Did he not say before that the Linux generalization term will confuse and will be used by the proprietary companies to muddy their not so just arguments against the GNU/Linux OS?
Did he not say before that patents are an Evil Thing(tm)?
Did he not forsee the abuse the BSD license will get from uncrupulous coporate entities, producing the GPL?
Tell me, mister wise guy, where RMS has said something wrong about what He has dedicated his life for?
I am not a Zealot, I am using Linux at home, at work sometimes. And I am gratefull for RMS CONSISTENCY in what He is doing.
assert(expired(knowldege)); core dump
Want proof? In the entire review copy there isn't A SINGLE WORD that hasn't been used by other writers, sometimes writing on the VERY SAME TOPICS that Ken Brown writes on.
By the way, I'm trying to be "Insightful" more than "Funny"....
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
To avoid horrible confusion perhaps we should call him GNU/RMS.
an ill wind that blows no good
The Clinton plan included an increase in taxes on cigarettes from 24c per pack to 99c. Understandably, PM was not in favour of this, so a Philip Morris executive suggested an astroturf campaign, writing to one of his people:
If you want some astroturfing done, who you gonna call? The Alexis de Tocqueville Institute: And here is their proposal: And over the next two months ADTI ran a PR campaign against the Clinton plan. For the benefit of PM they documented all their activities. All the details are here.I thought my writing and grammar were bad.
Wow.
Lisa Stapleton should consider a night course or two if she continues to write professionally.
Steve
The point RMS is trying to make is that Linus did not write an operating system, but only a kernel. This distiction is important and shows that Brown is jumping to conclusions on the basis of false assumptions.