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Ken Brown Responds to His Critics

Posted by michael on from the nothing-but-flamebait dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yes, I know it's getting boring by now, but the truth must be told... the latest Unix celebrity to come forward and criticise Ken Brown/ADTI is Unix pioneer Dennis Ritchie. The gist is that Brown is claiming an 'extensive interview' with Ritchie but this was actually limited to a single email exchange and a follow-up call from one of Brown's lackeys checking one or two facts." Reader markrages writes "Ken Brown (of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution) replies to his critics. Dr. Tanenbaum is an 'animated, but tense individual about the topic of rights and attribution'. The GNU/Linux naming issue also makes an appearance."

5 of 579 comments (clear)

  1. What a fucking idiot. by sulli · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    That is all.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  2. Re:second post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    you must be gnu here

  3. The GNU/Linux naming issue, as I see it. by byolinux · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    GNU project sets out to create Free Software OS.

    Various parts are already complete, a la X.

    Kernel needed, as GNU project kernel not finished... ... along comes Linux kernel, under GPL.

    GNU project could have just taken this as their official kernel, but they'd put too much work into Hurd to stop really, and Hurd is a better design, so they choose GNU/Linux, to offer credit to themselves and all the work they've done in creating a Free Software OS, but also to Linus Torvalds.

    It's not X/GNU/Apache/MySQL/Linux/etc because non of those other things ever set out to make a Free Operating System, not even Linus.

    --
    Join the Free Software Foundation
  4. But the world is flat! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    it just happens to be an n-sided polygon...yeash...dont they teach anything in schools these days :)

  5. Re:I hope people do read this shit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Moderators: Please note that "twitter" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft bashing. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, twitter is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.

    I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.

    If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.

    To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. I mean, this is an article about email disclaimers, right? The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx. WTF?

    Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.

    More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.

    More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, twitter wants to be RMS, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?

    FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and mo