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Ken Brown Responds to His Critics
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."
Comparing the MINIX kernel to the Linux kernel is like comparing a microkernel to a monolithic one...Hey wait a minute!
A village is out there, crying, like baby jesus, because it's idiot ran away...please send him back.
Does he not realize that Linux runs on embedded systems. He makes a comment that:
"Software is also embedded in hardware, chips, printers and even consumer electronics. Should embedded software become 'free' too, it would be natural to conclude the value of hardware will spiral downward as well." Let's see....PDA's, routers, cell phones, dvd players....yup, they all run Linux, and I don't see the value of these pieces of hardware spiraling downwards. The "cost" may drop, but the "value" could stay the same, or increase due to the possibly increased functionality (among other things) that running Linux on these devices allows.
Says the article... I'm sure a few round here would disagree.
Its purpose is to provide U.S. leadership with a researched presentation on attribution and intellectual property problems with the hybrid source code model, particularly Linux. It is our hope that leadership would find this document helpful with public policy decisions regarding its future investment in Linux and other hybrid source products.
So they are writing a book of lies to give to non-technical politicians in order to persuade public policy.
So who is going to step forward and write a book, of researched FACTS to counteract this work of FICTION?
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
GNU maintains HURD, which has oh so many users.
Ken Brown was recently offered a position at the Jason Blair Institute for Fabrication and Fraud. Officially duties include making up interview transcripts and inventing names for alleged contributers.
Am I missing something, or is the implication made that Linux became a fullblown and mature OS overnight? The earliest version that Linus put together was incomplete and immature. No one ever claimed that Linus got from version 0.0 to 2.x.y all by his lonesome. We all know (now) that he had plenty of help from Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy...
Isn't fair to question the character and ethics of individuals that espouse contempt for intellectual property? Isn't fair to question their character, when the core of their business strategy is trust?
I certainly agree.
The difference is that I'm smart enough to recognize that when Linus Torvalds is telling a joke it isn't an expression of contempt for intellectual property, but when Ken Brown is viciously slandering an innocent author in order to try and sabotage the use of that authors creation it shows utter contempt for IP law.
Unfortunately, although everyone has questioned Brown's character, Brown doesn't want to answer any of those questions. This is just another "Linus couldn't have written Linux himself!" rant, which posts all of Browns leading questions and attempts to trap people into misleading soundbites, but which doesn't answer the most obvious question everyone has been asking: who is paying him to write this crap?
"Linux is a leprosy; and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector."
I think I read a phrase once that fit quite nicely... what was it again?
Oh, yeah, that's it...
"Tough. Adapt or die."
The Penguin Producer
It's funny. I read this line and wondered to myself...if it is having such a terrible effect on the IT industry, why the hell did my company just spend alomst 1 million dollars on IBM software (websphere, db2, tivoli) and IBM hardware for our new datacenter all running on RedHat Enterprise Linux which we also PURCHASED?
Surely we can't be alone in that regard?
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Mr Brown, seems to have made loads of statements with no real basis to back him up at all - much unlike his critics who have used real facts and figures to build upon. Where did he come up with statements like 'Linux is a leprosy' - and have nothing at all to say as to why he thinks its like that. He has no answer to his critics, so he will evade the real issues and facts, just try to keep people thinking about different things by such a response.
Okay, so he says that Linux might not be good for the s/w industry ( uneducated and uninformed as he is, he is most likely wrong ) - but is that the only industry there is in this whole world ? dont the other industries ( who have been held to ransom, more or less by organisations like MS and Sage ), also have a right to benefit ? If you look at the reality - the user base is many many times higher than the provider base. So how does the economy suffer ?
All in all, its not even worth commenting on this anymore. Mr. Brown is the hall mark of a paid dog, who is going to make a fwe bucks from his backers who want to see Linux down - cause they are incapable of doing that in real terms, tech terms or in direct compeition - so they must resort to people like Ken Brown to create this fascade and false FUD.
Look around you - does any of this work ?
If Linux wasent as big a threat to MS and such companies, they would leave it alone. But they cant, because Linux IS very much a threat - and its breaking them down.
Ken Brown's writings are garbage. By publicising this you're just giving him free press. Ignore him. As Alexey Toptygin said : "pay no attention to this man" ... "he is talking out of his ass".
But GNU also maintains much of the core system. And the part of Linux that Linus maintains (the kernel) is indeed called Linux. Why should Linus get to decide the naming of the entire operating system?
This guy actually uses Newsforge comments as a primary source! He is commenting on Cisco code theft and that open source zealots are happy it happened, his footnote 3 points to a Comments page.
Sooooo gooood.
It's hard to take a guy seriously when in a semi-formal publication he repeatedly uses the non-word 'noone'. Doesn't this guy know english?
If you post it, they will read.
Um, while this is a blatant troll job here, it's certainly not a good one.
The problem is, Ken Brown HASN'T made a great case. The guy contacted a bunch of Unix hackers pretending to be writing a book about the Unix timeline, when in reality his only agenda was to come up with some load of hooey about Linus stealing source from Minix. And the sad part is, he was repeatedly given information quite to the contrary, and completely ignored all of that data. I mean...when Dr. Tanenbaum comes right out and says "Well, while I don't approve of Linus adding tons of functionality to Linux, because I'm a minimalist, I will say that Linus didn't steal any of my source code", and yet, Brown completely disregards Dr. Tanenbaum's answer, you know the guy is hardly a credible author.
No, the only hatchet job I've seen is one carried out by Ken Brown against Linus. Brown set out with an agenda: to try and say that Linux was pirated, so that he could lend credence to the SCO case, to Microsoft, and to all of the anti-open source/free software zealots out there. The guy got lambasted by computer scientists because he was dead wrong, and he should've seen it coming. I mean...his claims are about as good as the wackjobs who routinely crop up to claim that the Earth is flat. Those guys get tons of PR, because EVERYBODY AND THEIR DOG KNOWS THEY'RE WRONG. Then, after they're properly put in their place, they leave the spotlight and we resume our lives, until the next idiot comes along with another worthless and asinine assertation.
This guy has no more credibility than me, the Anonymous Coward.
If you don't believe me, try to find out anything at all about him. Their site isn't offering up any clues about his credentials. Searching for his generic (and IMO probably fake) name along with appropriate keywords hit just about nothing.
Loser, Idiot, Nobody.
Likely bought and paid for by the Conspiracy who created him.
Yet Tanenbaum vehemently insists that Torvalds wrote Linux from scratch, which means from a blank computer screen to most people. No books, no resources, no notes -- certainly not a line of source code to borrow from, or to be tempted to borrow from.
Mr. Brown is deliberately playing his audience for fools. Of course Linus didn't create Linux from tabula rasa. He didn't start with a blank harddrive and manually toggle in hex until he managed to get it booted up to an editor to start typing in Linux source! Duh!
When Linus "used" Minix and GCC, he used them as tools. Is this so hard for Mr. Brown to get through his skull? Apparently so.
Is it likely that a student (Linus Torvalds) with no operating systems experience, a non-Unix licensee, without any use of Minix or Unix source code, could build a functioning kernel in six months
Mr. Brown seems to be making the argument later than Linus couldn't of possibly have written Linux 2.6 in six months. Of course! He came up with version 0.1 instead. Although it was functional, it wasn't terribly useful.
People would take Ken Brown more seriously if he didn't write a book that was nothing more than his attempt to discredit his own erroneous assumtions.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
He shouldn't. That's up to the people who package and/or sell the OS. Using "Linux" to refer to a UNIX-style system built with the Linux kernel, GNU tools, etc. has caught on. It may not be "proper", but it's certainly not illegal. In other words: who cares?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Ken has a funny definition of "from scratch".
I guess in Ken's mind, in order to bake a cake "from scratch", you couldn't use a cookbook to devise a recipe, would have to grow your own wheat, crush it into flour with your bare hands, add sugar from your own sugar beets, and bake it on a rock in the sun.
Previously, I'd just thought him a shill. This is sheer idiocy.
Don't know; Don't care; Don't ask
Haven't we figured that out yet this organization has one goal in mind, which is to spray FUD over open source movement, which we all know funded by a big corp in Redmond ? /.ers) more publicity they get from the not-so-clever mainstream media, authors of which think "oh, since their name is out there so much, they must have a good point in discussion"
More the name gets discussed among the geek squad (a.k.a.
Playing ignoramus against these clowns is the best strategy in my opinion.
These guys are like the talentless idiot who draws Boondocks. Nobody knew neither him nor his strip, until the day he attacked the Sean Hannity in an anti-war interview, where Hannity was absent. The next day, in his program, Hannity chewed him out but he succeeded at his goal. He was known by so many millions of Americans in the course of a few minutes.
Screw AdTI.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Aside from his rants and the conclusions that lack any logical progression, there is a good point underlying much of his "reasoning." Linux is not an entity, and cannot be held responsible any more than "P2P" can.
This isn't just a legal issue; in order to gain significant market share, earn the trust of potential users, and develop with a strong backbone in a reliable direction, Linux must be accountable. Users have to be able to turn to someone/somewhere for support, for resources, for guidance; because there is no single authority over Linux, many companies and users are uncomfortable with it.
As for the legal issues, we've seen this play out already. SCO claims to own IP, and without a single entity to fight back it has been difficult to put and end to that nonsense. Because there's nobody to sue directly, SCO resorts to picking on individuals/corporations. The RIAA sued Napster, MP3.com, Kazaa, etc. because they put a face to a problem (P2P). While P2P thrives on the "anonymity" factor, Linux does not. This Ken Brown realizes this, perhaps unconsciously, and while he does not attack that directly he does recognize the consequences.
What's the solution? I dunno. But companies like RedHat are a traditional solution - form an entity that can be held responsible, and hope that the rewards are worth it.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Please... noone visit the AdTI website... we wouldn't want Mr Brown to think that his web site is being attacked again, would we? :)
But as soon as we DO find the sharpest knife, I can guarantee you we'll make sure it gets to him. >:)
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that it is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth. So now you know where they got the name. We live in a world of greed and spin, and AdTI is out to make a buck... brainwashing the people... being paid to hide "complex truths" from their view, replacing them with whatever simple lies the people will prefer to believe.
They aren't very original in this respect, but they should be feared rather than scorned.
You never know exactly how many influent people will buy this crap, not to mention the masses.
People cling to silly myths and urban legends for decades!
Here is a bit of speculation. One guess and two don't count.
"The United States is the home of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an internationally respected agency which contributes to the worldwide effort to protect and govern intellectual property."
It may have been respected in the past but now with the USPTO issuing patents without proper review I'd say it isn't worthy of respect today. Also, wasn't the intention of patents to give the inventor a 17 year limited period of protection? Its main goal, however, was to have the invention end up in the public domain for the benefit of its citizenship. He doesn't seem to understand that and I'll bet he doen't understand the concept of public schools or libraries either. Ken Brown has a very pueril view of the purpose of goverenment.
... would be the subject of some national investigative news show, if I had my wish come true. Just think... national, prime-time coverage of how, if you have enough money, you can get a "highly respected conservative/liberal/defense/technology think tank" to say pretty much whatever you want them to.
Perhaps, just perhaps, this would lead to more critical examination of the 'studies' coming out of all of the think tanks....
[I wish]
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
to dispute points made by Ken Brown. The AdTI is nothing more than a conservative "think tank," which means they come up with ideas, some of which, or all, are not worth the paper they are printed on.
Devoting any time to dispute the Brown POS is foolish, given the place it comes rom. One needs to merely read a few paragraphs to determine that the writers have no interest in the truth, but see themselves as some sort of policy makers, twisting facts and making unsupported statements purely for the benefit of what they see as "their" society. A little too much Socrates, and not enough hemlock, I think.
It is not trivial, but neither really that hard. The reason why GNU/Hurd takes so long is that coding micro-kernels is hard (and so said AT in his own replies on this topic). I guess RMS' quote might have been tricked from "building a micro-kernel" to "building a kernel".
Maybe Ken Brown isn't even aware that Minix is a micro-kernel, and thus a completely different architecture from a monolithic kernel. Does he even know the difference ?
This is a vocabulary issue. He's obviously not saying he's not the author of Linux, as Brown wants us to extrapolate.
Didn't he mean that Linux is the cancer of the software industry ? Reminds me from something
Ken Brown's article is really, really lame, filled with wrong arguments, misquotes and lies. He's really trying to burn the latest tiny pieces of respect someone could hold for him.
theefer
More importantly he owns the trademark, so in the worse case couldn't he tell people that GNU/Linux is just as bad trademark dilution as Lindows?
1. Observe thousands of geeks rage-filled reaction to SCO Linux IP claims. 2. Write poorly-researched, inflammatory book claiming Linus the Chosen One did not, in fact write the Linux kernel. 3. Thousands and thousands and thousands of pissed-off Linux zealots buy said book, in order to debunk it, burn it, sit it on the shelf and laugh at it, whatever... 4. Profit!!! I think the author probably saw an exploitable reaction in the Linux community and wrote this book in order to, um, exploit it... I wonder if the same strategy would work in other formats? I could write a book called "Eating Puppies", do the talk show circuit, and as long as I was not shot or something, the book would sell a million copies! I'm a genius! *starts typing up first draft*
Styrofoam IS biodegradable, you're just impatient!
I want to highlight some of Brown's flawed logic:
"The Samizdat report recommends that the U.S. government should invest $5 billion in research and development efforts that produce true open source products, such as BSD and MIT license-based open source."
Interesting, his choice of BSD, considering that Microsoft has used BSD code in Windows before. Getting the U.S. government to pay for research that will benefit Microsoft ($60 billion in the bank) is nothing short of corporate welfare, especially when said corporation pays so little tax to the U.S. Government with the exception of campaign contributions for the Capitol Hill gang.
Then the author (similar to SCO) shoots his own foot with the following statement:
"The disturbing reality is that the hybrid source model depends heavily upon sponging talent from U.S. corporations and/or U.S. proprietary software."
How is the *hybrid source* of Linux being more of a sponge than BSD? Linux requires the community to give back improvements so the entire Linux community profits. Anyone can use BSD without giving anything back (thankfully some companies like Apple do, and unlike MSFT). So how does BSD get a free sponging pass in this guy's logic?
So I propose that Brown (in my opinion) is an imbletard. That is the byproduct of a union between an imbecile and a retard.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Have a look at Tanenbaum's web site, where he discusses this. He believes that the ideas came from MINIX (which is almost certainly true), but is quite convinced that none of the code was stolen (which is the issue at hand).
Cheers,
Mouser
There is no reason to doubt that Tanenbaum wrote that. However, what he surely meant was mainly that the OS that Linus used to develop on was Minix. To infer that this means some automatic heritage, as Brown does, is about as bright as claiming that Harry Potter would be based on Windows, if Rowling uses a word processor under XP.
OK, it's obvious that Ken Brown is out to do a hatchet job on Linus and Linux. Can you blame Microsoft? They have a tremendous market position and cash hoard. Why take any risk whatsoever? Spend some of your damn money to put this genie back into the bottle.
Realize that we haven't seen *ANYTHING* yet. Just imagine the death throes of one of the most profitable companies that every existed. EXPECT character assassination. EXPECT lobbying. EXPECT fronts like SCO. EXPECT software patenting and litigation. EXPECT FUD books, FUD articles, and FUD conferences.
The best thing the open source community can do is to be as squeaky clean as it can be. Open source legal teams need to be formed to independently review code carefully for patent infringement and at least be aware of the problem. Better yet, either remove the risky code or break it off into a separate module. Patent law will kill open source companies if Microsoft prepares a mega-case that only the likes of an IBM can take on.
The other approach is to have Microsoft's customer's throw down the gauntlet. "Either back off of our open source alternative or get the hell off of our servers and desktops. We won't be bullied." Once real business starts walking out the door, Microsoft will have to back down. It's probably the only thing that's prevented them from getting more aggressive up till now.
Minux was a model operating system included with a textbook on operating system design.
Linus, since he was trying to make a "UNIX-like" operating system and definitely owned a copy of that textbook (since he owned a copy of Minux and used it to compile the early Linux versions on), almost certainly took ideas from this textbook; and, thus, from Minux (since that's what the textbook was about). Assuming he read it.
But that doesn't mean that anything illegal, bad, or "case" worthy came in. I mean... if this is true, it means.. that Linus took ideas from a college textbook. Oh gee, people taking IDEAS from TEXTBOOKS?? WHAT'S NEXT??
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
One of the many things that Brown ignores is that the question whether Linus had a copy of the Lions book is entirely irrelevant. The book is a historical gem, but the hardware it targets and the programming language used (an utterly archaic and fairly anarchic dialect of C) are so far removed from PC hardware and ANSI C that it's pretty much impossible to learn anything from it about OS design.
Tanenbaum's Minix book is obviously much better suited to learning about operating systems, but the book was always legal and learning concepts from it was never illegal (there are plenty of atrocities in copyright law, but making students licensees of textbook publishers luckily isn't among them -- yet).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm sorry, but that should be "GNU/X". If X is a part of "The GNU System", then we have to give credit to GNU by calling it "GNU/X".
We can do whatever we want. And if the GNU project didn't want their code to be used without that sort of titular attribution, then they shouldn't have released it under the GPL.
BA-DUM CHING!
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Why all the attacks are happening now on Linux?
Is this all about greed and fame ? I think so.
I mean...when Dr. Tanenbaum comes right out and says "Well, while I don't approve of Linus adding tons of functionality to Linux, because I'm a minimalist, I will say that Linus didn't steal any of my source code", and yet, Brown completely disregards Dr. Tanenbaum's answer, you know the guy is hardly a credible author.
The thing that jumped out at me when I read Brown's little diatribe is that the man loves to rave about intellectual property, but clearly has no understanding of IP law.
A few examples.
Where to begin?
In the first place, the certification doesn't have to hold anyone accountable, because the *law* does that. If I contribute code that I don't have a right to contribute, I'm violating someone's copyrights and can be sued for my lawbreaking. The point of Linus' new patch labelling process is to make it easier to automate the tracking of who contributes what and, incidentally, to make sure contributors understand that they must have the legal right to contribute. The contributions can be tracked with or without the labels, and the contributors *are* liable under the law, with or without the certificate statement, but Linus' changes help to make sure that everybody's clear on how things are.
Second, what's the crap about 'clean rooms'? "Clean room reverse engineering" is an unnecessary, even silly process. The only reason it was invented was because Compaq's lawyers wanted to make absolutely and completely certain that IBM's lawyers wouldn't have any way to complain about Compaq's version of IBM's PC BIOS. Legally, the Compaq engineers could have studied the IBM BIOS, put it away and written their code and been in the clear. The whole "virgin programmer" nonsense was just overkill to make it utterly and completely clear that a lawsuit would fail.
But I think Brown actually *believes* in the contamination theory of IP.
Here Brown is talking about attribution, acknowledgement and credit, and implying that they matter. While it's nice and it's polite to acknowledge your inspirations, this sort of relationship between works has no legal force whatsoever. Just because your favorite band idolized Jimi Hendrix when they were kids does not mean they owe any money or control of their music to his estate, unless they actually use his music or his lyrics.
Lots of people get irritated with RMS' refusal to use the term "Intellectual Property" but you know what? He's RIGHT. Talking about IP as though it's some amorphous set of property rights that mysteriously rub off on anything that is influenced or inspired by something else is a fantastic way to build FUD, to concoct ridiculous theories that lead to all software being owned by Microsoft, or to just plain confuse people.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I've heard about "Apple" computers, but never "Orange" computers. Or are they painting computers in bright colors now?
He's not an idiot, he's a paid stooge.
After reading Ken Brown's response, I can only say this: I have never in my life read something written by someone so obviously and transparently dedicated to ruining someone's reputation on the basis of arbitrary speculation and doubt. This is major-league political-type mudslinging, and it's painfully obvious that the only reason he's doing it (barring some personal vendetta, which I doubt) is to cast doubt in the community on Linux vs. SCO .
If this man came up to me, handed me a hundred dollar bill, and used the same type of arguments he used in his "response" to convince me that the hundred dollar bill was freely and legally mine with no strings attached, I'd cram the bill back into his hands, run away, and call the police.
He is reportedly "not the sharpest knife in the drawer," but nevertheless is able to converse with many intelligent people, and is accepted at fine restaurants and hotels around the world.
Mr. Brown is clearly the drawer itself, rigid and defiant in the face of well-informed and well-argued counterpoints to his (especially in the light of the sheer amount of critcism) pathetic straw grapsing.
His point -- ironic that he, the alleged "dull" knife should have one -- is almost hysterical in its adherence to semantics: he is "right" simply because a "blank screen" could not have been Linus' starting point. In the parlance of the vulgarian: no shit sherlock. Every programmer builds upon the collective works of the other (even his surely esteemed Mr. Gates wrote BASIC from existing specifications) and the line between "stealing" and "innovating" is thicker than he would care to admit.
Please. Let us leave Mr. Brown alone and collecticly close this drawer. His dellusional arrogance -- as if the U.S. Government would stop and listen to his shrill "arguments" -- betrays his objective: to attack what he does not understand, to malign what he can't comprehend and to dimiss what he cannot possibly accept: open source is here to stay, and all the covertly funded "studies" to work against the tides are surely for naught.
AdTI has now been exposed in the same light as this fishy "research" that recently surfaced; Ken Brown took the bait and shoved it down his very own throat. Now, Mr. Brown, please try to remain quiet while your book lingers on the shelves.
This is tough, isn't it? Suppose you learn to build GUI's from a specific textbook, along with 200,000 other programmers. You might continue to build GUI's that way from then on, unless you learn something new that's better. But the code is going to be similar in all of them precisely because of the structure of the language! Nobody expects you to learn a new language to solve familiar problems. But even more interesting is that if you use something like Rational Rose, design a solution and then generate the code, the code for similar problems is going to be very similar. Is this "copying code?" Standards in hardware and software practically require that any software developed to exploit the same specific features/stadards/limitations will look pretty much the same. Is this "copying code?. All accounting software works on a set of principles that must be adhered to. Any accounting software I write can have similar features to, say, Great Plains, but I wouldn't consider it "copying" or "infringement" unless the "look feel" was somewhere just short of counterfeiting. It seems to me that this community could help define the limits for ourselves and for the public. The article does not define the limits well enough to be useful.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Brown says that Linux should be called GNU/Linux because Linus used GCC. He goes on to say "Without the compiler, it is very likely that the Linux project would not have succeeded." This is implying to those who do not understand such things that Linux somehow illegitamately used GCC to make Linux. Linus was using GCC exactly as GNU (Richard M Stallman) intended. If GNU wanted any program compiled with GCC to be named GNU/{program name}, RMS would have written it into the license.
It may be true that Linux may not have succeeded without GCC. While Linux could have been written for other C compilers, GCC is the ubiquitous, free, standard.
He doesn't know copyright/trademark/patent law. He doesn't know the history of Unix. He probably doesn't program, and now he can't spell. What are the job requirements for a stooge?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
A troll, more like it. What do we do with a troll with money, who's going to use it to publish the book. Argh, it pisses me off.
It's an annoying troll article, the 2nd paragraph begins with a hilarious inaccuracy: "The United States is the home of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an internationally respected agency", respected? Buahahahaa..
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
OK, this was probably a waste of time. Ken Brown is so over the top that he has to have an agenda. But for what it is worth, here is a copy of an email I sent him (with minor changes)
Dear Mr. Brown:
I am a software engineer with over twenty three years of experience. Much of my background is in the design and implementation of system software, including compilers and runtime support. If you are interested you can find my resume at my domain.I am not in the Linux fanatic camp. I use Linux, but in many ways I am disappointed with its popularity. I would much rather that the freeBSD operating system, which I regard as superior, had Linux's popularity. But popularity is the result of many factors, some of which have nothing to do with technology.
As a highly experienced software engineer and someone who is not a Linux fanatic, let me state that I absolutely believe that Linus Torvalds wrote Linux. And I also fully believe Prof. Tanenbaum when he states that Linux was not "stolen" from Minux.
Linux has been many years in development. The initial operating system was not the operating system that exists today. Linux has evolved over the years and many people have contributed to this evolution. As you note, Linus was young when he wrote Linux and I have no doubt that he too has evolved into a skilled and expert operating system designer and implementer. Linux is now far better for this experience and the work of its many contributors.
I find it rather odd that you, who are not an expert in software, are arguing against a large community of people who are experts, that Linus did not write Linux. I would hazard a guess that most UNIX systems programmers find your arguments silly. I also find it interesting that many of your arguments mirror those that have been put forward by Microsoft, a company that clearly finds Linux a threat.
Yours,
Wintermute
"Hybrid source code" is a phrase coined by former Tocqueville Chairman Gregory Fossedal. The term refers to any product with a license that attempts to mix free and proprietary source code at the same time.
Okay. I cannot imagine what he's talking about here, though. The GPL explicitly forbids such a license being used with any GPLed code, so unless he's just trying to mislead people or doesn't understand the legal nature of the GPL, he's not talking about the GPL.
The only people I can think of that mix "closed" and "open" code would be closed companies. Microsoft, for instance, used the BSD TCP stack.
I get the impression that Mr. Brown is trying to make people make the association between this "hybrid" business and the GPL, which is nonsensical -- of all the people involved, GPL users are the *least* likely to fit under his definition of "hybrid".
While hybrid software appears to be the same as open source, it isn't.
I can't agree -- I don't think that anyone would think that Microsoft's software is open.
Hybrid source code can never be true intellectual property.
Not true. Microsoft's software is presumably their own intellectual property.
The actual purpose of hybrid source is to nullify its value as private property, which makes the hybrid source model significantly different from true open source.
Microsoft has made billions with their IP. I doubt that Ken Brown is correct.
Noone can ever truly accrue any value from owning hybrid source software, because everybody (and anybody) has the rights to every line of improvement in it.
I don't have rights to Microsoft's software.
It sounds like he's talking about the GPL -- but the GPL does not allow mingling of closed and open source. The BSD license at least allows code licensed under it to be placed under such a "hybrid" license -- as Microsoft did. The GPL does not.
Worse, many argue that if hybrid source is used the wrong way, it can make other source code hybrid source as well.
Notice that he said "many argue". This is clearly legally wrong -- there is no legal basis for "accidentally" licensing something under the GPL. If you steal GPL code and put it into your closed-source product, you may be guilty of copyright infringement, but the remainder of your code will not be automatically licensed under the GPL.
The only relevance that GPL-licensing one's code would have is that it would be a guaranteed way to avoid the copyright infringement. This is *more* permissive than the case if a closed company stole source from another closed company -- it would have no such guaranteed out. I guarantee that any company that finds out that Microsoft stole its code and put it into Office is going to have a *field* day suing Microsoft.
I can only guess that he's trying to spread fear about getting anywhere near the GPL.
The hybrid source model negatively impacts the intellectual property model for all software, and inevitably the entire IT economy.
Again, the "hybrid source" argument is just plain silly.
As long as the value of the IT economy is dependent on the preservation of intellectual property, it is counterproductive for the U.S. government to invest in Linux.
Okay, *now* we have a more interesting argument. This may or may not be true. It is true that Microsoft maintaining a monopoly has the potential to bring a huge amount of wealth into the United States. However, even for us USians, there are significant efficiency advantages to allowing anyone, anywhere to be able to freely use and modify their computer's software.
I do not have evidence to rebut this point. On the other hand, I claim that Ken Brown has no evidence to support this point either.
My suspicion would be that "chaper, more open, more widely available" actually globally increases the quality of life of people to such an extent that the loss of local
May we never see th
Your oddest bit: Users have to be able to turn to someone/somewhere for support, for resources, for guidance; because there is no single authority over Linux, many companies and users are uncomfortable with it.
Having a "single authority" over Linux is no useful goal. The entire point of the history and value of open source is that there is no such point. A single authority is granted draconian control. When Microsoft decides, as the signle authority over Windows, that Win2K is no longer to be sold, distributed, or supported, where will the comfort go? How happy will your business be?
Where can I go for support? Resources? Guidance? Well, if not to myself, then to *ANY* *KNOWLEDGEABLE* *PERSON* *ANYWHERE* willing to act as guide, resource or structural span 8-).
To date, companies have become used to the idea that software is a secret art paracticed by some new preisthood. This is expected. It is, indeed, the foundation of every technophobic movie from the fifties and sixties. (Can you say "Colossis: The Forbin Project"?)
The surreal position that we somehow magically benefit from having an almighty dictate how our things should be is, perhaps, useful as an article of faith in a religion, but it is anathma to every other human persuit.
Would you, even for a moment, consider accepting a position in life where you just had this one credit card controlled by some finincial manager you never met? Every so often, when your maganger decided you needed more money, he would recharge your card. You can't check your balance. You cannot find out when or if you will receive a deposit. You cannot find out how much your employer is "paying you" and how much of that actually makes it onto your card. You cannot take out cash and you can only lease or rent but never buy. At any time, you may be temporarily or perminantly out of money. And if the card gets declined, you can't find out whether it will be declined for a day or for the rest of your life. Would you accept this?
And would you be happy when you suddenly discovered that you have nothing to eat?
These are *exactly* the rules you agree to every time you click that EULA. Sure, it's your Novel, or Dissertation, Family Photo Album, or whatever. But it is M$ Office or whatever that says that you can print or use or look at it. But that's fine. If they decide to take their ball and go home you could... sue... if you could only open Outlook and find your lawyer's phone number...
The simple fact is that a large number of sheep^Wpeople feel more comfortable if they can just ignore things and do what everybody else is doing. Especially if everybody else is also agressively failing to "look behind the curtian." It is, however, dumb.
And DUMB is VERY BAD for BUSINESS.
So I wouldn't put too much stock or desire into giving someone single authority over your computers and such. Someone will take you up on the offer, and it won't be out of altruisim.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
80+ percent of all programmers work exclusively on software for "In House" uses... NOT retail sales.
Linux/Open source software (can) make them MANY TIMES more productive.
The GPL ALLOWS this use... The code "borrowing" is EXPLICITLY allowed, as long as they do not distribute binaries.
I expect the next installment of this shill will move from calling Linux a "leprosy" to simply using the troll term "open sores".
I almost expected it in the article... Looked like a professionally written troll.
Cn I call him a Nazi so this can end?
That seems to be only the tip of the iceberg of where his reasoning falls short. I got a personal reply from him today when I sent a message expressing my concerns. He seems to be one genuinely deluded individual. He acknowledged that Dennis Ritchie response on Groklaw and does not see anything 'incorrect, wrong or invalid' about the way he is presenting the material.
Besides all the email he responded to today, he had time to put forth the garbage being exposed here. He tries to take the high moral ground and talk about 'trust' but it looks more like a hatchet job.
To write Samizdat, I worked with (and quoted) many individuals directly or indirectly familiar with Linux development. AdTI will continue to interview people within the open source profession about open source. It would be skewed and bias to only quote people that are anti-Linux or anti-open source. I have done this for years, and will continue to do so, regardless of what a source thinks of my theories.
It seems like he enjoys playing word games as evidenced by his need to talk about "Hybrid source code" which is a term they invented. His described purpose for writing this book is to suggest a better way for the legal community, the science community, the business community, and government to get along.
If he is sincere in wanting to get along better maybe Slashdot could send him the 10 highest moderated questions.
He treats Linux as if it emerged, fully formed back in 1991. It wasn't. What Linux was back then was a crude monolithic kernel that was "inspired" by Minix (though implemented in a much less elegant fashion), was based on public information about Unix interfaces and structures, and was nothing more than the germ of an OS.
The reason Linux overcame that to become a viable OS is simple - unlike all the other Unixes that existed at the time, it was Free (GPL) software, Linus actively solicited input and help, and the underlying GNU system was reaching a corresponding level of maturity sufficient to let Linux be the kernel to complete it.
Essentially, that first draft of Linux was crud, but thanks to some foresight on Linus' part and a lot of good timing coincidences it became the mighty penguin we see today. Had the Hurd been ready back then, this might have happened differently. If Tanenbaum had changed his Minix license to encourage development with it, Minix might be the OS we all use today.
But Linus was in the right place at the right time with enough of a kernel to capture developer interest. And the rest is history, however much Mr. Brown would like to change it to suit his political goals.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I've just finished reading the piece and can only conclude one thing:
Arguing with this guy is completely pointless. He is constantly mixing the legal protections afforded by copyright, trademark, trade dress, and patent. He bounces off every logical fallacy in the book. It's like the open letter wars with SCO, but with a guy who is clearly far more versed in rhetoric.
There is only one clear response to this in my opinion; force him to address the real issue. Point blank: What code are you alleging has been infringed, and by what code in the Linux kernel? The entire history of the Linux kernel is available for public review - if he is going to make slanderous accusations about Linus, he had better be ready to back them up in court.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
He doesn't and he never has. Indeed, IIRC, "Linux" was coined by the admin that was hosting the early code. Surely he embraced the word the way one might appreciate a flattering nickname, but he's never claimed to have written anything more than a kernel. It is the distributions and users who have opted to forgo the ungainly "GNU/Linux" (with the exception of Debian at least). Honestly now, if you heard that spoken without prior knowledge of the subject wouldn't you spell it "New Linucks" and wonder WTF? In any event, you don't hear kernel developers asking Stallman to call it Linux/glibc even though that library is useless without Torvald's kernel.
Orange Micro was in the business of making add-on cards for the Apple ][. I can't remember if they ever got mixed up with the motley fruit-monikered Taiwanese Apple ][ clones. (The Banana, the Pineapple, etc., many of which got blocked by customs when no one could show that the ROM's were "clean-room" developed. I guess the Laser II was clean, though.) I do seem to remember them hawking PC clones in the then-phonebook-sized Computer Shopper in the late 80's when everyone & his brother got in the clone business.
Nowadays they have a line of whacky peripherals, often prominently billing Mac support.
As a cursory read of, say, this would have discovered, the original version of Unix was in PDP-7 assembler. While the overall design might be somewhat similar, there is no way in the world that "Linux 1.0" written in (mostly) ANSI C, and a little x86 assembler, would have detail similarities at the line-by-line level.
Not to mention the fact that Linux 1.0 was very far from Torvalds' earliest versions :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Sitting Walrus Blog
How's about we coin a new term: "kenbrown". Usage:
kenbrown, n.: a person with no real idea of what he or she is talking about. Kenbrowns usually have ulterior motives and are fond of using quotes out of context. Eg. "The kenbrown just kept droning on and on, I couldn't talk any sense into him."
kenbrown, adj.: lacking scruples, misinformative, dishonest to the point of absurdity. Eg. "The marketing speech was totally kenbrown."
Brown: No one could have created an entire OS by themselves.
Tannebaum: Um, five people did it independently of each other.
Brown: Exactly! Those five people were computer experts not some wet-behind-the-ears kid.
Tannebaum: By that time, Unix specifications were well known. Anybody could have done it with my book, the POSIX standard, and other Unix books.
Brown: See! He copied code, didn't he!
Again and again, Brown sticks by his argument that Linux is so complex that no one could have done it all alone. He doesn't see the 14 years of development it took for Linux to be what it is. He doesn't see that Linux has been re-written over the years as Linus and others expanded it. He doesn't understand Linux is a movement started by Linus and maintained informally by him, but the work done in it has been done by practically thousands of people.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
... it's like comparing one project's code base with a totally different one written by someone else. That's what Alexey Toptygin did with MINIX and Linux. His results are here . His commentary on the results are illuminating since he made the comparison specifically for Ken Brown's pamphlet only to find that his conclusion wasn't appreciated.
(yes, I really did end it abruptly like that - unfortunalty, I forgot to end the mail and include a signature)
Dear Mr Brown,
I would like to address a few things in your reply to critics made
available on . I have not addressed every claim you make, as I am without sufficient knowledge and time to respond to all of them. I do, however, make a best effort to provide some commentary and criticism of your article, in the hope this e-mail, complemented with similar commentaries made by others who have read your article, will give you some insight into the reality of the claims you make.
You are repeatedly claiming that an MIT or BSD style license is some kind of "true open source". "Open Source" is a trademark owned by the Open Source Initiative. The term "open source" is specifically coined to cover GPL, MPL and similar license, in addition to the BSD and MIT licenses you refer to.
> The United States is the home of the United States Patent and
> Trademark Office, an internationally respected agency which
> contributes to the worldwide effort to protect and govern
> intellectual property.
On the contrary, the United States Patent and Trademark Office is
among many seen as an anti-example of IP protection bureaucracy. It is
commonly known that the USPTO repeatedly has accepted many patent claims
with little or no credit and invention value.
> "Hybrid source code" is a phrase coined by former Tocqueville
> Chairman Gregory Fossedal. The term refers to any product with a
> license that attempts to mix free and proprietary source code at the
> same time.
I fail to see where you can attribute this property to the GPL (or
similar licenses). The GPL explicitly forbids mixing of propriety and
free source code.
> Hybrid source code can never be true intellectual property.
Whatever license you choose for the redistribution your piece of art, as
long as you retain your copyright (which you must in order to enforce a
license on the redistribution), you never lose your intellectual
property, since the copyright is still yours, and you are, for example,
free to also redistribute the same artwork under different conditions.
See, for example, MySQL for a successful business that releases its
database source code under GPL as well as sells it to partners under
other license conditions.
> The actual purpose of hybrid source is to nullify its value as
> private property, which makes the hybrid source model significantly
> different from true open source.
I cannot see where in your text you have the basis for this accusation.
The GPL (nor any other OSI certified license) does not force the
copyright owner to waive any of his or her rights to the art work.
On the contrary, the _actual_ purpose of Open Source, and GPL
specifically, is to increase its value as it enables external entities
to contribute to your artwork. The contributors may retain their own
intellectual property rights (copyright) and rest assured that thanks to
the GPL, their private property may never be misused without their
knowledge. If someone wishes to use a GPL-licensed artwork in conditions
that the GPL does not satisfy, they are free to negotiate other license
conditions with the copyright owner, as they are with any copyrighted
work. MIT and BSD licenses, however, does not give any guarantee that
your property will not be used without any form of compensation (in the
GPL case, the compensation is the GPL compliance in itself: as long as
the GPL retains, proper attribution is retained and credit is where
credit is due).
Although I personally use the MIT license for my own Open Source
projects, that style of software licensing is the only case where I can
see the term "hybrid source" actually apply to the current set of Open
Source licenses.
> The hybrid source model negatively impacts the intellectual property
LOL, I'm only halfway through, and already this "response to critics" is nothing more than a pile of invective and blatant FUD. Not even clever FUD, the dumb "how can we trust them" kind.
This quote is beautiful though:
> The point of the paper is to magnify potential problems associated with this type of software development.
Key word there is "magnify". Not impart, not highlight, not discuss. Magnify!
I barely know where to start with such rampant twaddle as this. I'll try to go through it line by line...
Linux is a leprosy
no, no, no, Ken. Check your song sheet again. It's cancer remember?
and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA...
Whatever could you mean, Ken? Could you be possibly be talking about our friends in the North I mean, North West? I think we should be told. Ken, just because some companies find it hard to compete with something that provides the same thing they do at lower cost, why is that necessarily bad?
because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector
I'm not sure what you mean here. You seem to have put an economics for dummies book in a blender and selected some random effluent thereof. Do you really mean value here, or the ability of some particular companies to make money with their old business model? News flash: this is what happens to industries that can't or won't change their business model when a lower cost paradigm for doing the same thing comes along. They die. I don't know of anybody who talks about this kind of disruptive influence as destryoying value; it is, in fact, exactly the reverse. It reduces cost, and prices - but it increases the value.
Software is also embedded in hardware, chips, printers and even consumer electronics. Should embedded software become 'free' too, it would be natural to conclude the value of hardware will spiral downward as well.
Well, your premise is wrong, as described above - but even if it wasn't, this is a completely ridiculous leap. Once again, you are confusing (deliberately?) the concepts of value, cost and price. They are not the same thing. In fact, free software (what you like to call "hybrid" software for reasons known only to you) is routinely used today by hardware manufacturers in exactly the kinds of devices you describe. They run, not walk, to use it. Why do you suppose that is? Are they stupid? Or is it perhaps because they understand the difference between the concepts that you so readily confuse? Hardware manufacturers use free software in such embedded applications because it reduces the cost of their products, while at the same time actually increasing the value, because they can devote their software resources to developing value-added applications (which don't have to be released under the GPL as you have inferred) instead. You're also ignoring one rather important distinction between software and hardware: whilst the marginal cost of manufacturing software approaches zero, the same is not true of hardware. The price of each item is dictated by the market, and, in a maximally efficient market approximates the lowest price at which any manufacturer can sell the product. Embedded software having a marginal cost approaching zero will certainly encourage their competitors to seek similar zero-cost embedded software in order to compete - but it has no bearing on the market price of the hardware. That market pressure only occurs when your competitors find ways to reduce the cost of their hardware and lower the price accordingly. There simply isn't any connection between the software and hardware pricing.
I would write a critique of the rest of the "article", but frankly the idiocy-per-paragraph density makes this a rather onerous task. Just pointing out the nonsense in one short paragraph took a rather voluminous amount of text.
His flawed reasoning and poor judgement are too extensive for me to go into detail. I think the best way to summarize the error of his position is to compare him to Ebeneezer Scrooge, the greedy miser whose excessive concern with wealth blinded him to the truly important things in life.
The growth of information technology is part of a greater world of creative activity that includes science, art, music, literature and more. A critical requirement for continued creative work and innovation is an environment which enables the healthy flow of ideas between people.
Capitalism and the profit-motive play a part in enabling such creative activity, by helping to channel resources more effectively, but I maintain that the role of business and profit is strictly secondary. The true source of innovation starts with people who are passionate about creativity and discovery.
The great success of Science in the last several centuries has been critically dependent upon open communication and a free flow of ideas. The great success of software development in the last several decades has likewise been dependent upon an open environment for exploration and communication of new ideas.
Both of these creative activities are threatened by legal mechanisms such as patents and copyrights, which were originally intended to promote and reward innovation, but lately are mostly a means of protecting entrenched economic power.
I am not against Capitalism or rewarding creative endeavor, just as I presume Ken Brown is not against creativity or technological innovation. It all comes down to where you focus your energy. In Ken's (and Ebeneezer's) world, there is an obsessive emphasis is on building legal mechanisms and protecting corporate profits, at the expensive of an environment that can give birth to new innovations.
In my world, the focus is on the conditions that foster creativity and innovation, and subsequently deriving profit from the fruits made possible by those conditions.
Which world do we want to live in?
mhack
Building a better ribosome since 1997
The timing of the attacks is obviously being paid for by someone.
Someone who has previously funded discredited research through the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.
Someone who previously invested large sums of money in SCO, leaving a debt to be called in the future.
Someone who is busy patenting common-sense user interactions using mice and GUI's.
Someone with the clout to buy a reprieve from justice, and treat the penalties as merely the cost of doing business, and likely calculated into the projected expense budgets.
I mean come on -- why settle for mere greed or glory-hounding when there is a perfectly good conspiracy theory out there.
Besides, the tack Brown has taken is entirely self-destructive. Glory hounds want attention, not to paint themselves as the village idiot, repeating blatant lies as if they're a defense against the criticisms levied by respected members of the IT community. If the man truly believes his "response" appears like a rational defense, he seriously neds help, and I hope he gets it soon.
Yes, I read the whole article. The use of buzz-phrases is interesting.
What happens when you Google those phrases? Has the reference to the report shown up in the search results yet? How long until it does, with all the news sites cross-referencing the trash information?
Fast forward a few weeks when the furor dies down and an "apology" is issued. Someone searches for those key phrases -- is this "reasoned argument" response still visible in the search results? Maybe long enough to influence a few people to accept it as fact because it achieved such a high Google ranking with all the cross-references?
Remember the people doing those searches likely don't have technical knowledge to realize the "research" is virtually non-existant. They've heard about this Linux thing, and SCO, and look -- here's a high-rated "Institution" report.
I think the combination of SCO and Brown's report are the most elegantly crafted FUD attack I've seen to date, and one of the most subtle. It even uses the OSS community's own outrage to boost it's ranking and visibility.
Now just imagine you could actually control a search engine and make sure only the "right" links show up in the results, with one or two mild detractions to appear balanced. How much Google stock would one need to buy to ensure that kind of control?
Sure it's all ranting conspiracy stuff, but it's amazing how such theories fit sometimes, isn't it?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
...he's a very wiley and literate twit. The prose he makes up (and it is really no more than that) does have a certain self consistency which reads very convincingly if you didn't know any of the background.
I have to admire the careful way he dances around the issue of Intellectual Property Rights. It's a fact of life that when your IP hits digital media, it becomes very easy to make perfect copies on an individual basis for next to nothing besides the cost of bandwidth.
Unfortunately, that fact of life is becoming a serious concern to everyone with a stake in intellectual property of their own. Ken Brown uses this fear very adroitly by saying that giving away software for free devalues other software.
What he doesn't realize is that the software industry really isn't about software. It's about service. Anyone who has ever had a plumber visit their house to make repairs knows that the vast majority of the bill has almost nothing to do with the parts, and everything to do with getting someone there armed with tools and experience to fix the problem.
Similarly, the RIAA would have us think that it's all about the parts, not the performers. But ask any professional musician across the economic spectrum and they'll all tell you that they make their real money going on tour.
Ken Brown would have us think it's about the parts, not the people. He may be pushing an agenda full of half truths, but he's not stupid.
His view is panders to those who insist on thinking that the plumber is just selling them bits of pipe, a valve and a washer or two; the electrician is just selling wire, boxes, outlets, and wire nuts; and the software industry is selling a box with a CD in it.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
We all know that this is a massively flawed document, and any one of us could rip it to pieces on dozens of points. But handed over to someone of influence, who isn't armed with the understanding of open source, UNIX history and the way software development works, couldn't it appear credible? Handed to a person of influence in the government along with another hundred documents, couldn't the truth simply now shine through? I worry about this.
Most programmers don't even figure this out, so non-programmers are a lost cause, but I'll keep patiently repeating this:
The makeup of the Software Industry is that 95% (or more) of the software developed in the world today is sold to single buyers. The remaining 5%, which most analysts mistakenly characterize as the ENTIRE software industry, is shrinkwrap software like Windows or Adobe Photoshop.
While open source directly threatens the shrinkwrap (5%) software industry, it has enormous positive impact on the custom software (95%) sector. Remember, since it's sold to single buyers (developed in-house by the company or under contract) so if it incorporates GPL or BSD licensed code, IT IS IRRELEVANT! Custom systems are almost never resold because a) the client is usually not in the software business, and b) the software is usually useful only in the original buyer's environment, and is custom tailored for their individual needs.
GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS, OPEN SOURCE IS ONLY A REMOTE THREAT, AND ONLY TO SHRINKWRAP SOFTWARE VENDORS! Microsoft is worried, Oracle is concerned, Siemens, IBM, and consultants like me who write and sell code every day sure aren't.
Furthermore in almost every interview with experienced computer science professionals, almost all said that they personally had a copy of the Lions notes, an illegal distribution of Unix source code.
Either Brown is an idiot or a liar, since he left some interesting information out of his report. This once illegal distribution was eventually published as a book, which I'm holding my lap right now. Here's an excerpt from the preface:
It's truly amazing how far the name SCO has fallen since then, and how this shill can make such a blatant misrepresentation, and how much money he probably made doing it.
I wish someone would pay me to tell outrageous lies.
Ken Brown is a Creationist. Like Christian Creationists, he misunderstand, lie, twist quotes, engage strawman arguments, pepper his writing with fallacies, redefines common terminology, and finally; refuse to provide any evidence for his outlandish claims.
For instance:
Christian Creationist: The human eye is too complex to have been created via evolution!
Operating System Creationist: Linux is too complex to have been written by one person from scratch!
In both contexts, the Fundy is not only wrong, they also add a twist to their wrongness. CC will always claim that evolution is "something from nothing", basically confusing abiogenesis with evolution. The OSC, likewise, will twist 'written from scratch' to mean 'written in a vaacuum with no tools and with a clean brain that's never been exposed to any information'
Another:
Christian Creationist: You weren't there, so you experts don't know -- but we home-schooled fake-PhDs do!
Operating System Creationist: You weren't there, so you computer science experts don't know -- but we English Majors do!
Ken Brown, OS Creationist.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
What's clear is that like all True Believers, Ken Brown will do anything possible to win, and he will never give up. He will not rest to his dying days to fight what he has started. He has put himself in a position he must defend. He is going to shout what he wants to anyone who will listen, and as most people are ignorant of the issue, many of them will.
I don't think you should assume that Brown is a True Believer.
A story about the "Whores for More" who pollute our public policy process.
In the late 1980's, I interned at a small but locally prominent "Beltway insider" political organization that was essentially a conservative/Republican foundation set up as a 501(c)(3) educational organization.
I was given a bird's eye view of how these groups, groups like ADTI, operate. Party or ideology aside, they all seem to work the same way.
It is all about money, ego, and, sometimes, ideas, precisely in that order.
I was amazed at how much time, effort, and energy was spent in the drive for getting money. Why did they need the money? To expand. For what purpose? To have more prominence and influence. Why? Well..it makes fundraising easier.
Don't misunderstand. I understood then and now that you need to raise money in order to operate. But I wasn't comfortable with the tactics used to obtain the money. The letters were frequently inflammatory and, I was surprised to find, sometimes simply wrong. The organization I was with wasn't the worst offender on that point, either. I saw some terrible stuff coming out of groups who were supposedly on the same side we were. There was certainly a lot for them to complain about, so why not keep it straight?
Moreover, I had open eyes, and I soon saw that there was a LOT of hypocrisy inside the Beltway. Many of these people pushed agendas that they didn't even come close to following.
Ego played a big role in all this. These "public policy" organizations are really an incestuous little bunch, where name-dropping, fancy titles, and building organizations with large fund-raising arms counted for more than substantive results. Any ideas that didn't come out of your "clique" were automatically bad. If you were part of the "clique", kissed the right asses, etc., you got ahead. If you weren't, don't bother, they weren't interested.
Appearances mattered. Real principles were a less important. When an Ohio congressman who was a noted conservative had to resign after being busted for having sex with a 13-year old black girl, there was a sympathy party for his staffers. All well and good, but for all the clucking of tongues, most of the comments were about how unfortunate it was that he'd done something that would hurt him politically. There was little comment on the fact that this married father had had sex with a young girl, and how just plain damn wrong that was. And nobody seemed to notice the hypocrisy. Why? Because of one too many people living in glass houses, preaching one thing for money and influence, and living another.
Where there ideas? Sure. There was a lot of talk. But the prevailing viewpoint was that principles should be compromised when it came time to "deal", because it was better to have something than nothing, right? And this is no doubt true, so long as compromise actually advances your ideas, but I noticed that many of the principles that these organizations pulled so many dollars from donors to support ended up in the waste basket when the time came to "deal".
I observed that this was a problem that crossed lines of party and ideology. Finding that policy wonking inside the Beltway was high-school magnified, played with millions of dollars and by people older than my parents, was disheartening to say the least.
"Whores for More" was and is my take on that experience after the fact. It is a take-off on the famous line by Bogart in Key Largo when he describes what motivated Edward G. Robinson's char
Is this the best M$ can buy, a rehash of ancient GPL FUD? It's pathetic. It's so bad, Al Gore would recognize it as bullshit. There are no clear definition of terms, most of the statements contradict reality and it's clear that Ken Brown is a ranting lunatic without any kind of "intellectual" backing. The bozo can't even clearly summarize his arguments.
IBM, HP and others are making billions of dollars on Linux, but Ken tells us that Linux will ruin the US IT industry and destroy the US government's "IP" holdings. Right... Any government leader worried about wasting taxpayer dollars has only to call IBM and quit buying the eXPensive software offered by the sponsors of Tocqueville.
While he never mentions it, the GPL is the real object of his attack. It's so tiresome to read the same nonsense again and again. Free software is adding tremendous value to the US and world economy. No practical person can have failed to notice this by now. Besides insults and and old dire predictions that have failed to come true, Ken also never mentions specific drawbacks of free software nor tells us how non free source code does anything any better. While all charges of code theft that have been leveled at Linux have proved unfounded, many commercial companies have admitted to stealing free code. The whole notion that people who openly publish their code are theives somehow trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes is preposterous. We are supposed to trust people who hide their source code like a dirty secret instead?
Ken really had an impossible task, but it's one of his own making. All of his experts are calling his opinions for what they are. How can he do anything but shift around when confronted with it all? He tells us, " AdTI will continue to interview people within the open source profession about open source. ... I have done this for years, and will continue to do so, regardless of what a source thinks of my theories. " Ken, baby, why bother asking questions if you are not going to listen to the answers?
Oh yeah, namecalling. "Linux is a leprosy.", "sponging", "'three monkeys' policy", "boasting about stealing, reverse engineering, and illegal copying", "theft of the Lions notes", give me a break. At least he's consistent with the mud he wants to throw at just about everyone in computer science.
The only real theft going on right now is Microsoft's attempt to extort money from Linux users through it's SCO proxy. How does that fit into Ken's worldview?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
does this wreak of Bill Gates (self-proclaimed computer scientist/architect since the famed days when he made a name for charging to use his code versus his colleagues who gave it away) jealous of Linus Torvalds for being more technically sound, literate and a better professional keynote speaker?
I mean Bill always could whip out the programming card against Steve Jobs, but of course knew when to keep his manhood in his pants by comparison to Steve's charisma, wit, naturally engaging public speaking abilities, and generally excellent tastes in all things aesthetic. So now comes a man who can be coined the UberGeek for the programming world, that even women will think is cool and I don't think William's ego can handle it.
Paying third party propaganda publications to write about the credentials and origins of Linux all in an attempt instead of producing an innovative product to keep ahead of the curve sure sounds like it can only come from one Institution.
Who here has seen the early 1980's gang movie titled, "Warriors?" If not the entire premise is about one gang shooting the appointed voice of all the gangs and then blaming it on the Warriors, in hopes to later lay claim and control of all the gangs. Bill reminds me of that runt with the beer bottles connected to the ends of his fingers, hunched over saying, "Warriors... Come out and playyyyaaaay."
SCO reminds me of the Baseball Team that goes running around in their "official outfits" thumping on weaker gangs until it gets its own bats used against itself.
Linus gets to play the role of the Warrior that gets blamed for all that is wrong within the code of gangs.
The Federal Government is exactly like the citizens of New York during this movie, ABSENT.
Richard Stallman is making more sense by the minute.
Well, well. Yet another Microsoft-sponsored article with FUD!
First of all, the article is ignoring a simple fact: Linus did not write Linux as it is today in that couple of months. He only wrote the core of the kernel, and improved gradually upon that. The community was there helping in programming and sending in changes ever since he publicized Linux.
However, the Samizdat paper IS correct in the sense that the Open Source development model (called a "hybrid model" in the paper in order to dilute the idea) is inherently faster and better than any cathedral-like development models of the proprietary software industry. They base their argument around that, but twist it around like any good spin doctors.
Much of this questionable borrowing is a) not in the best interest U.S. corporations b) not in the best interest of IT workers in America c) at a serious expense to the investment community, an entity betting on the success of intellectual property in the marketplace.
Notice the a) and c). This is the crux of the issue and the reason why we see such Microsoft-sponsored FUD appear. The a) and c) do not give a rats ass about b), but they must mask their attempts to be such. The b) is a decoy. The real issue here is money. The real issue is about people who would rather get themselves rich than to see something which benefits all people.
And the argument about Linux developers not being legally accountable as their contributions are based on trust... As far as I know, there is an EULA in all Microsoft (and other proprietary) software, which reject any legal responsibility. So how does the Microsoft way of "software is provided as-is, with NO WARRANTY of any kind, express or implied" differ from similar Linux statement?
I think that the Open Source community should respond to all these allegations by making a site which outlines the war between Microsoft and free software. Starting from the depths of history, covering the SCO offensive, going through the black ops of crackers breaking into certain free software sites, examining the massive anti-Linux, anti-Open Source advertisement campaign by Microsoft, dissecting the various paid articles appearing in computer magazines worldwide and analyzing the AdTI research funded by Microsoft.
Make it factual, and don't offend with style when you can offend with substance.
I do not moderate.
I'm genuinely concerned by Brown's article, but even more so by the community's response, which is to call Ken Brown an idiot and laugh the thing off. Even the Slashdot story begins: "Yes, I know it's getting boring by now..." as if every intelligent person can immediately see the gaping holes in Brown and AdTI's case.
The problem is that the community has almost entirely missed the thrust of AdTI's argument, and, worse, has failed to notice the danger it represents. The community has attacked the technical details of AdTI's argument while mostly ignoring the ideology. But Brown's new article clearly identifies AdTI's target--policymakers in the US Government--and these people will do the opposite: ignore the technical details and ponder the ideology. And to them, there will be an arresting argument here.
The key point AdTI makes is this: you can't trust OSS unless there's a big company or institution behind it. This is why Brown questions Linux's authorship; not to prove Linus is a fraud, but to muddy the waters sufficiently so that the answer is unclear. They are demonstrating not that Linus did not write Linux all by himself, but that we can't know for sure exactly who did.
And let's be clear: although Linux is the example, it's really the entire OSS movement in the sights here. AdTI wants to take software creation out of the hands of individuals and put it in the hands of corporations and institutions. It clearly draws an ideological line: software created by companies can be true open source, but software created by informal groups of individuals is "hybrid source," which means potentially stolen.
If the US government agrees, expect legislation that puts the onus on software creators to prove that their code is not stolen (in contrast to the current situation, in which the onus is on an infringed party to prove someone stole it). This would be a trifling matter for an organization with salaried employees, but onerous for groups of unconnected individuals. It could severely damage OSS projects that rely on code contributions from the general public, and make it much harder for new projects to ever get started.
Of course, when I say this is "what AdTI wants," I really mean that this is what the companies who fund AdTI want. They're talking about diverting billions of dollars, so the companies who stand to gain from this will make sure Ken Brown's words are heard in the right places in government. On the opposing side, however, we the community have very little money and influence. So our voice is at risk of going unheard in the places that matter.
The community needs to realize it can not laugh away Ken Brown. It must understand that the issue is not whether Linus wrote Linux, but whether any group of individuals should be allowed to come together, write code, and release it. That is one of the most vital issues we have ever faced.
I should buy some cement.
I realize that with 400+ comments that this has probably been said already, and perhaps even more cogently. But I thought I'd get my opinion down regardless. This is from Brown's response at ADTI Brown seems to consider that the value of software comes not from the utility it provides for the posessor, but from the posessor's ability to deprive others of that utility. He appears to believe that only scarce things have value.
In a related story, the IRS has recently ruled that the cost of Windows upgrades can NOT be deducted as a gambling loss.
- The book was published in 1976
- The book was banned in 1978
- By 1990 / 1991 it had been out of print for 12 years and was really hard to obtain.
- Bandwidth outside the US was incredibly paltry, so downloading it would be very difficult. Australia (the entire country) had a single unreliable link of under 500 kbits in 1991, which was probably more than Finland.
Of course it is unserprising that all the people 10 - 15 years older than Linus who were licencees had copies: they were around when it was in print, or worked at AT&T / Bell, or knew people who did. I knew lecturers who had copies of the Lions book, but they sure wouldn't photocopy it for an undergrad (well, not me, anyway).And as others have pointed out (including Linus), pre-1.0 versions of Linux were, well, crap. I tried it a couple of times in that period, and was less than impressed compared to the BSD derived UNIX systems we had access to at university, ignored it, and used pirate copies of 386 BSD.
Writing Linux (Freeix) 0.01 didn't require genius. Project managing 0.01 into 2.X did.
I didn't read his entire "response", just about 10 or 20 paragraphs from various parts, but it is SO blatantly obvious that the guy has no idea about what he is talking.
(a) he obviously doesn't understand the extent of the UNIX/POSIX specifications.
(b) he clearly doesn't know anything about software engineering, getting source code, architecture, framework, interfaces, etc. all mixed up
(c) he hasn't even understood what his critics are saying. They are saying that Linus wrote the code but based it on the specs and architecture of previous Unices. The conclusion he jumps to is that he stole code.
It's really sad that this publication is going to be believed 100% by politicians, probably mostly because of the whole American Patriotism thing he's got going on in there. If you want the US government to believe you, you apparently only have to say that anything else is un-American. Bah.
"Linux is a leprosy; and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector."
In other words: "WEE WANT OUR MONEY, and linux is destroying our evil capitalistic way of living!"
IIRC, the original AmigaDOS was written by a master's student in Britain for their thesis in something like 6-9 months.
Granted it was a leaner, cleaner system than current Linux, but the same is true of most software -- one person with vision, a lot of coffee, and a suicidal bent for long hours at a monitor can create what seems an impossible amount of code.
Average coder stats are heavily biased by the 9-5 support and maintenance programmers. Hard core developers often write code 3-4 times as fast, sometimes more.
The only thing that is "impossible" is for some companies to accept that the "product" model of software is dying. IBM, HP, et. al. can afford this change because they already have huge consulting and hardware divisions. Others have focused their business careers on "product" and are ill-prepared for the pricing model shift.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
In related news, AdTI announces more shocking research results. "After our discovery of the hybrid source nature of Linux we extended our research into other fields," an AdTI spokesperson said. He continued: "In the beginning we were just curious whether hybrid source concepts could be found in other fields as well. But soon we learned that the entire history of mankind would have taken a different turn, had hybrid source not been allowed to spread for so many years." While only excerpts of AdTI's upcoming book have been published yet, one can see the big picture already.
The shocking findings of AdTI include:
Where would mankind stand today if there had been appropriate protection of intellectual assets throughout history? The AdTI spokesperson refused to comment on this question, emphasizing that AdTI is doing sound research, not writing science fiction. However, their results give "clear indication that hybrid source is linked to war, murder, and terrorism. For instance, Adolf Hitler impossibly could have invented mass murder and world war from scratch, and Osama bin Laden is not the inventor of terrorism."
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
People that wish to share information instead of hoarding it to weave some trivial one-off basket are depicted as communists, of putting knowlege before objects; i.e. putting Descarte before the horse, which everyone knows will just lead to us all driving about in devils chariots on roads that allow commoners despite the wealthy paying for the majority of them.
This guy is just another pointy haired barbarian in a suit - talking about theft comes easily to such types since the mindset is to take and not to produce. His writings say a lot more about him than the subject matter.
It looked like this:
Subject: Linux
Text:
Heh.
Shallow end Deep end Mr. Brown
I I I
I I I
V V V
oooo\
\
oooooooooo\ O
\ I
\oooooooooooo
Sure, it may not be the most constructive criticism he receives, but at least it's got pretty pictures on it. I'm sure he can enjoy visual art just like a normally developed individual.
His article was quite amusing in the way it tried to twist the words of the 'contributors', but fortunately it's sadly apparent even to a non-initiated person.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win."
While none of us Linux/OSS fans will appreciate Brown's book, it certainly seems to fit Gandhi's brilliant observation.
Winning can't be too far off.
AdTI did not publish Samizdat with the expectation that rabidly pro-Linux developers would embrace it
Name-calling "rabid"
Its purpose is to provide U.S. leadership with a researched presentation on attribution and intellectual property problems with the hybrid source code model
The worst fears are confirmed. This is an assassination attempt on F/OSS using the political vector
The actual purpose of hybrid source is to nullify its value as private property
(ignore the provocative "open source" vs. "hybrid source" labels for a moment) Here comes trouble...
The hybrid source model negatively impacts the intellectual property model for all software, and inevitably the entire IT economy. As long as the value of the IT economy is dependent on the preservation of intellectual property, it is counterproductive for the U.S. government to invest in Linux.
Complete and utter FUD!!!
The "hybrid source" label is being used to invoke a psychological response in the politicians who are not familiar with the computing industry. "Hybrid" is a term that gives them headaches--hybrid cars, hybrid crops, hybrid tissues, hybrid vaccines, hybrid banks, hybrid businesses.
AdTI's hybrid source, as near as I can tell, is F/OSS as in GNU. Their open source is F/OSS as in BSD. I personally feel that they've mixed things up. Freedom, I feel, naturally strives to preserve freedom as in GNUs GPL stipulation that GNU GPL code can only be included with GNU GPL code. I feel that freedom is naturally at odds with greed. Freedom, according to AdTI, preserves the freedom to be greedy. This only ensures that, politically and legally, the upper levels of corporate America will always have a stranglehold on the wage slaves and Universities who are really writing good code.
F/OSS software is only a threat to MS because the selling price of $0.00 is forcing the upper levels of corporate America to turn the blistering eye of Quality Control on proprietary software. This is not something that proprietary software has ever experienced. Previously they have always been able to hide behind EULAs, smoke, mirrors, and play on the ignorance of the customer. The outlandish price of proprietary software has been justified by a witty saying (which proves nothing),"You get what you pay for." This is not to say that F/OSS inherently has no value. This is our last-ditch effort in a war that began 15 years ago--the infuriation, indignation, and humiliation of watching MS and their alliances live luxuriously on a good marketing pitch while many superior programmers, and their products, were left to watch a light bulb swing from the ceiling.
GNU GPL seeks to allow real free-market capitalism to set the price of software. The industry, and AdTI, is quite happy with the current model which allows them the freedom to pilfer code from any available sources, fund the marketing, and charge outrageous prices for poorly hacked together crap. I don't agree that all software under GNU GPL would be free because, if people weren't being raked over the hot coals for crap software, there would be enough fair-minded people who would have the available resources to contribute back to the projects that they use.
I dunno, maybe not. It's possible that an IT admin in a large corporate setting would have trouble convincing the executive board that yearly donations should be sent to F/OSS projects. The default setting is "No" and, unless the executive is a computer programmer, making a donation to a F/OSS project is perceived as little better than giving money to a beggar on the street. The upper echelon of corporate America has a beautiful corporate pyramid scheme running as long as they continue to side with proprietary software vendors. Company money is dumped into proprietary software, and MS, Norton, McAfee, etc. stock has a good return every year. Selling F/OSS as a cost-cutting measure isn't really the Right Thing (tm) to do because it doesn't
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Dennis Ritchie is not a Unix Celebrity.
He is a Unix *GOD*.
Please get this straight for the future
We all know, of course, that Mozart was much too young and unsophisticated to write any of that music attributed to him. Wasn't it all really stolen from someone else?
Just kidding.
Even the most trivial of Mozart's familiar works shows more creativity and genius than any derivitive Unix-like kernel. Reimplementing the kernel is NOT rocket science. It takes some taste, sophistication, skill, and LOTS of time on your hands, but it doesn't require some exceptional degree of genius (well, it needs that 99% perspiration part). That's why there are at least a half-dozen Unix kernel clones out there right now.
Rick.
The sad fact about this story is that in the political arena it often works. Remember all those smear stories about John McCain being 'angry', those were planted by Karl Rove. Rove is currently trying the same scheme using a GOP operative from the Nixon era to smear Kerry, claiming to have 'served on the same boat' as Kerry, which he did, but long after Kerry and his crew had been reassigned. Even so said operative is considered an 'expert' on Kerry's leadership by the Wall Street Journal editorial pages and other far right hack rags (Faux News, Washington Times).
Brown is right in one respect. A teenager could not have written Linux by himself in a few months. But that is not what anyone who knows the history of Linux says happened. Several hundred people made substantial contributions to Linux over a period of ten years.
The Linux that Linus uploaded to an FTP site bears very little relationship to modern Linux. About all that could be said for it was that it booted (sorta) and it ran for a while (sorta). It is not at all surprising that Linus could produce a program that could serve as the starting point for a collaborative effort.
Even if Ken Brown was right and all Linus had done was to create a bootable version of MINIX that does not make him a plagarist. The MINIX legacy has always been acknowledged but MINIX was a program printed in a book and would have stayed that way if a Linus had not come along.
UNIX is not a particularly complex operating system. Compared to the kernels of MULTICS or VMS, UNIX is a simple hack job, originally written on some very klunky hardware by a couple of guys in a skunkworks project. The idea that this could be duplicated a few decades later by a student using modern programming tools is not at all surprising.
One interesting question though is whether Linus would have been as motivated to produce a better O/S if the MSDOS/Windows of the day had supported features like true multi-tasking etc. For instance if OS/2 had been released in viable form...
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
that "noone" is not a word? He uses it repeatedly, so it's clearly not a typo.
Perhaps he and I can meet at Ye Olde Sandwyche Shoppe at noone to discuss this, as well as his interesting discussion of "hybrid source".
I like it how open source is dangerous because we have to have some degree of "trust" that developers aren't adding in other people's IP. Whereas private corporations developing closed source applications, with a financial incentive to steal others' IP and no easy way to get caught will be struck down by God if they do it, so we don't need to depend on "trust".
Nice.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
"Linux is a leprosy"
I thought Linux was a cancer? Apparently the medicinal sciences are still in their infancy.
While he never mentions it, the GPL is the real object of his attack.
Examine his argument that "hybrid software" is not really "open source". He clearly states that "open source" is only the BSD or MIT licenses.
I also enjoyed the "hybrid source software can infect other software by some uses". Well, DUH!!!! The use, which he doesn't specify, is from directly using the source code.
Yeah, it's so obviously the old "Microsoft says GPL bad, BSD good" argument that it's pathetic.
To understand the importance of the GPL, everyone who doesn't know Microsoft continually copies from BSD, raise your hands. Nobody? Good. Lesson learned.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Adti has examined the pyramids in Egypt and has not found anyone in Egypt, or in fact anywhere in the world that can provide a clear explanation of how a society without power tools and machinery could build the pyramids.
Further study has shown an uncanny parallel between those pyramids in Egypt and various modern structures whose designs and construction techniques are clearly documented. These pyramids all required the used of computers and the best power tools and machinery modern society has to offer.
To quote adti's Brown, "Clearly these copies in Eygpt are illegal copies of these modern builder, obviously produced by time traveling extraterrestrials. While many people dismiss our conconclusions, we have talked extensively to many people who have been abducted by aliens or have seen so called UFOs."
Brown continues, "Yes, many have argued that the reports have more mundane explanations, but we will not limit our reports to those who insist that scientific methods provide no support for our conclusions. But to dismiss extraterrestrials would seriously limit the opportunity for profit to just the Earth."