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OSDL Denies Rewriting Kernel
yootje writes "Although there were rumours saying that OSDL writes a version of the Linux kernel that doesn't infringe patents (an argument that was used by Microsoft), OSDL denies this: 'OSDL officials have said that the report was not accurate, and that while Beaverton is putting $1.2m into economic development around open source software, this is not connected to rewriting the Linux kernel.'"
They should rewrite the kernel.
IP issues aside, it's > 10 years old, when code gets that old, it's due for a good overhaul, if nothing else.
Don't kid yourself into thinking the kernel is without it's flaws.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"Although there were rumours saying that OSDL writes a version of the Linux kernel that doesn't infringe patents (an argument that was used by Microsoft), OSDL denies this: "OSDL officials have said that the report was not accurate, and that while Beaverton is putting $1.2m into economic development around open source software this is not connected to rewriting the Linux kernel.""
OK. So why exactly is rewriting the kernel a problem?
Oops, never mind. /dumb, but had to be done
It was Maureen O'Gara, a writer without an ounce of credibility or ethics. She's been a huge part of the MicroSCOft campaign against Linux all along, this is just another bow shot.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
But given the current state of things, I'm pretty unsure that you can write any computer program of complexity beyond 'hello world' without infringing on at least one software patent.
In other news, FIPFS (Fictitious Initiative for Patent-Free Software) has incredible difficulty writing an operating system due to all practical functionality of operating systems being patented...
Comment is too sensible for slashdot.
Umm, why not maintain an alternate kernel that uses all the best technologies, copyrighted, patented, or not, and let people compile it themselves? Store it on a server in one of the many countries that doesn't give a rip... b
PJ over at Groklaw has a nice write up on this. Is it just me or is Maureen O'Gara just part of the FUD-machine funded by SCO?
Hmmm... I wonder how much reporter integrity goes for on the open market?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
It was really overhauled. From 1.2 to 2.0, from 2.0 to 2.2, from 2.2 to 2.4 and from 2.4 to 2.6. That's the odd/even thing.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
There you go folks, Linux is dead...
All you have to do is look at the author of the original LinuxWorld story. Yes, that's right. It's everyone's favorite journalist/paid SCO shill Maureen O'Gara. That should have been enough to convince anyone with half a brain cell that this wasn't legit.
Wise men learn more from fools than fools learn from the wise.
The article at the centre of this particular storm-in-a-teacup was written by the infamous Maureen O'Gara, who regularly gets dumped on over at groklaw for the quality and balance of her linux reportage and whose company (G2 computer intelligence) is behind a motion in Utah connected to the SCO IBM case to unseal submissions to the Court by both parties. Summary: Nothing to see here.
Then, if there's a patent that they think MS might try to stick them with, re-write/change only that part of the kernel that's affected.
Am I the only one that thinks an entire re-write for operating system technologies that have been around long before MS is a little silly?The Linux kernel is a living codebase. It's constantly scrutinized and updated. The nature of it being open source guarantees this. To say it should be rewritten simply because it is 10 years old is a hollow statement. If you know of a module that's needs updating, point it out.
Sounds like an awful lot of work to achieve the same aim. And if what is being done here is effectively reverse-engineering, isn't there the risk of falling into the same trap again, i.e. inadvertently writing into the kernel patent-infringing code?
Meh, the whole kernel is stuffed with x86 specific cruft. Despite people constantly cheering all the platforms it "runs" on (IMO there's more to running than just bootstrapping), the focus has been on x86 from day one. Much of it is just too ingrained, and entire subsystems could do with a brand new design.
There's no point on discussing stuff like this on slashdot, hardly anyone here knows shit about linux, or computers in general.
Bunch of know-nothing know-it-alls.
Step 1: cp -R kernel.orig kernel.infringement-free
Step 2: There is no step 2. Alas, there is also no Step 3: Profit.
I can just see the fud-meisters now.
"They aren't going to rewrite the kernel to take out our patented stuff. So it must be in there!"
While not the gist of any of the statements, that viewpoint can be made to fit.
Ah, the power of spin.
"How fine you look when dressed in rage."
OSDL, god praise it's name, wishes to send out noice that there is no re-writing of Linux kernel, nor has there ever been any attempt to re-write it. These are the truths! Even if there were attempts to re-write it, which ther are not, it would only be by word of our great master, IBM.
Only the infidels at Microsoft could create such lies, and surely would admit it if they were not such cowards, hiding in thier cubes like the unholy nerds that they are. God willing, capitalist proprietary software will fail under the great crush of thier devil-like closed-source policies. Indeed, I do not doubt this. Praise OSDL.
"OSDL officials have said that the report was not accurate..."
I always hate in when PR types use this phrase. Mind you, I like the OSDL, I just hate the "was not accurate" thing. For example...
"The report that Mr. Jones embezzled $10.5 million was not accurate." REASON: Mr. Jones actually embezzled $10,548,984. Its the classic non-denial denial where you deny something in super-general or super-specific terms, while not adding anything meaningful at the same time. It is more about perception than truth.
I don't know if the OSDL is playing perceptions vs. truth here, but I don't like things that are phrased in that particular manner for those reasons.
Beaverton
I used to live in Beaverton. It wasn't as much fun as you'd think.
And: OSDL writes a version of the Linux kernel that doesn't infringe patents
So its the same as the official kernel then!!
Well, instead of trolling, do something about it. If you belong on the pedestal you put yourself on, then please do the world some charity and assist in this unworthy cause we "know-nothing know-it-alls" absent mindedly toil with.
Otherwise, you are just another troll among "know-nothing know-it-alls".
Instead of Time To Live, packets should be given TTF - Time To Float....
Or to be more accurate, I sit corrected. :-D
I was attempting to convey the meaning of a warning shot, but never stated the caliber or airspeed of the projectile! Think of it as a kid with a pellet gun firing across the bow of an AEGIS destroyer.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
...if the Linux kernel could be rewritten to compile in Microsoft C? Could it then be interfaced under the Windows GUI to provide the best of both worlds? A rock solid kernel with a rock solid UI? Dump all that ugly Bash, sh, ksh, Bourne Shell, csh crap and put the much nicer CMD or COMMAND on top of it for CLI freaks. Maybe drop IE and replace it with the Linux program Firefox. The same with Outlook. Replace it with Linux Evolution. A lot of stuff from the Linux project (GIMP, Xine, Ogg Vorbis and Theora) could be added to this new frankenWindows. Since Macintosh is now Linux as well, you could probably get the code for some of the projects from the Darwin project. I think that iCal, iTunes and the new iWork projects are all part of the Darwin kernel. To be honest, I think you'd wind up with the most usable, stable and secure OS ever. But you know why it wil never happen? Because none of these businesses want to work together. Linus is only interested in his own company's profits. The same with Bill Gate and Steve Jobs. They won't work together because they are trying to smash each other so they can own the world.
The whole concept of a kernel which doesn't infringe patents is ridiculous. You don't decide what is and is not infringement by reading through source code in some magical process. You decide it when some patent holder says "this piece of code here infringes on my patent!" and then both parties either agree or go to court and then the court comes up with some resolution. There are millions of patents out there and there are millions of lines of code in the kernel. There's no such thing as a magical search engine that you can plug a piece of code into and see which patents apply to it. Even things that are heavily promoted as "patent-free" such as PNG, Ogg, and others, might be infringing some patent. There is just no way to say with certainty in this. The patent office grants so many crappy patents all the time that it's hard to say that any very large body of code (like the kernel) doesn't possibly infringe on something.
This is all why big companies tend to enter into cross-licensing agreements with eachother. They know that it's almost inevitable that if you write enough code, you will write something that could reasonably be argued to infringe on some patent that no one has ever heard of. In fact even the companies that hold enormous numbers of patents don't have the ability to check all the code that is out there.
This area of law is only defined and made certain in practice involving specific patents and specific code. For someone to make claims about some code not infringing is completely bogus.
I remember all the arguments about PGP vs. the RSA patent and how much time was wasted arguing about that patent and worrying about it, when a) it was never clear that it was a valid patent and b) RSA never enforced it up until the time it expired.
The right thing to do is to be fearless about these things. If there is an infringement, let the patent holder notify the kernel developers about what the patent is and which regions of code are infringing. The ODSL should then get a lawyer to talk with the developers, look over the patent and the code in question, and see if the patent holder's claim makes sense. If it does, then it is time to think about coding around the patent, but until that set of things has happened, trying to code around patents that may or may not be enforceable is just a waste of time.
Patents are not at all like copyrights. Copyright is usually pretty clear: there's a piece of work authored by someone and that work is or is not similar to some other work. If it is too similar there is infringement and it's pretty easy to see usually. Patents just aren't like that at all.
To my knowledge the current 2.6 Linux kernel does not infringe on any patents. I have done alot of reading while the SCO case was going on but so far I haven't come across one single patent that the Linux kernel would infringe on.
Like Ann Coulter is to Democrats and Michael Moore is to Republicans Maureen O'Gara is to Open Source Only the weak minded, lazy, and easily led will beleave a word she says. But, unfortunately, the majority of the populace is one of the above...
I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on disk somewhere.
Good point, except Coulter is clearly completely insane while the other two are just hucksters.
PS: I'm a registered Republican. But Coulter is a nutbag, even we know it.
Given the nature of the USTPO, where any obvious or ancient idea (like swinging on a swing sideways) gets a patent, how can you possibly rewrite something that you can guarantee wont infringe on some over broad chicken scratch filed in the 70's when they had wire wrapped electronics and nixie tubes in cash registers.
By the time you are done whats to stop someone from patenting the code you are working on. Even if its invalid, you get tied up in court either way.
The problem is the system, and the system alone.
That's an interesting question that I'm surprised no one has answered yet.
The number 8 is considered lucky. 88 is very lucky and 8888 even moreso. 288 might be read as 2 88s or 8888. Was that coincidence or fairly artful? Dunno!
You need to do a bit more research. Michael Moore does not lie. He spins the truth to support his views, but he does not lie. Maureen O'Gara lies though her teeth.
It's logically the same as saying it was wrong. In this case, they specifically said they were not rewriting the kernel; e.g. they gave the reason why it was wrong, not just that it was wrong, which would seem to be the source of your complaint.
You're not thinking like a PR drone. You're thinking like a logical human being who talks in specifics.
From the article: "Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) [....] has denied that it plans to rewrite the Linux kernel to combat claims that it infringes some software patents." And "But the OSDL has denied that it is planning to rewrite parts of the kernel."
Lots out outs here. Perhaps OSDL themselves aren't doing the rewrite. Perhaps it IS doing the rewrite, but isn't doing it to combat _claims_. Perhaps they aren't planning it, but they have already planned it.
Compare/Contrast: CEO Speak. The way that CEOs get away with telling lies because, technically, they're not actually lies, even though they totally lead you to a wrong conclusion.
First of all, the Linux kernel has not been proven to violate any patents yet!
Secondly, if proven to violate patents, will the patents so violated really hold up in court?
Frankly, I think that any knee-jerk reaction to the vast FUD machine that is Microsoft by rewriting a kernel that has stood the test of time is way too drastic.
IANAL, but it doesn't take one to read what other companies are doing. Are IBM, HP, Red Hat, and Sun slowing down due to SCO....nope. They are actually speeding up! Anyone who has any inkling of fear over SCO needs to get a hug and some hot cocoa and go worry about things that matter.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
[...] Although there were rumours saying that OSDL writes a version of the Linux kernel that doesn't infringe patents (an argument that was used by Microsoft), OSDL denies this: 'OSDL officials have said that the report was not accurate, [...]
OSDL themselves are unhappy that they don't infringe the kernel? Are they striving to infringe patents now??? ..I hope this is a typo..
A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to.
Personally, I don't care about the edits - the difference between a "stable" release and an "unstable" one is the number of characters you choose to represent it with. It's just a label, it doesn't confer any magical properties.
Some of the networking code is getting a little old - there are sections of the IPv4 code which haven't been touched in 2-3 years. You can have a lot of new ideas on how to improve something, in that kind of timeframe.
A complete rewrite is unlikely at present. The kernel is still evolving too rapidly. Nobody would be able to keep up with the changes. Now, once we reach Linux 3.0 or 4.0, things might settle down some. Then, a rewrite might be smart. Code that evolves is inherently going to have inefficiencies and redundancies, because nobody can track every possible interaction between every possible combination of blocks of code.
In consequence, yes, I think it would be smart to stop at Linux 4.0, deconstruct the kernel and then reassemble. That would be a good time to do a thorough security audit, too. Then we've got a stable base to start the rapid evolution all over again.
The problem with evolving code is that the number of potential interactions rises with the factorial of the number of blocks of code. This means that, beyond a certain point, it's impossible to maintain. By "resetting" the code to a stable state, you can get round that problem to some degree. You still can't increase complexity forever, but you can raise the upper limit.
The problem with a purely designed piece of software is that it's very hard to change the design midway. This means that it's great for producing static results, or a stable starting point, but it is useless for dynamically updating the code.
Finally, OSDL doesn't have the money or the manpower to do a rewrite of the Linux kernel. Do you realise how large the kernel is, these days? Linux 2.6.11-pre1-mm1 is 22,892,878 lines long. Every block of code in that would need to be cross-referenced with every patented algorithm, to be sure Linux was IP-violation-free. I don't know how many patents there are for algorithms, software and "business methods", but it's probably in the hundreds of thousands, maybe the millions.
Let's say that there's an average of a thousand lines per block, and ten thousand business methods. Then you'd need to perform almost 229 million comparisons. By hand, as a computer can't compare two abstract concepts for similarity.
If OSDL employed 10% of the entire population of America, they could probably manage it within a year and keep in step with all the patches that are being submitted. If OSDL could afford to hire 10% of the entire population, they could afford to buy SCO. And IBM. And Microsoft. And every other damn computer software and/or hardware manufacturer in the US. At which point, why would they care about patents? They'd own them all.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
yet...
Cause I've just patented ALL "hello world" programs... let me se... 1.Patent trivial program 2.??? 3.Profit!
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
What the hell is an"OSDL official"?
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
I wouldn't call 88 really unlucky :] It is often used my new nazis in their nicks; e.g. Velmont88, 88 -> HH, -> Heil Hitler.
Well. That's just a use. But it is to signify something secretly..... Or maybe it's just a bunch of guys born i 88' who tend to be very nazi :p
"Hola mundo"
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Really ? So what are the specific issues on non-x86 systems that prevent anything besides bootstrapping on those systems ?
And this is bad because ?... x86 family of processors do run most desktops in the world, you know. And before someone starts trolling about Linux not being ready for desktop, I'd like to point out that I'm writing this very message on a GNU/Linux system, so it's ready for my desktop, at least...
I, for one, welcome development focus and optimizations for my specific platform.
Witness the difference between words and deeds of the Anonymous Coward.
Watch it with the flamebait, you trolls are vulnerable to fire.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Chauvinist pig!
Um, did you actually RTFA? There's no actual denial from anyone from OSDL, despite what the misleading headline says. It's all he-said she-said they-said junior-high crap.
He lies non-stop and spins the truth. Plus he's a fat douche bag.
This guy is way out there
I remember win98 when everybody said dump netscape and use IE it's so much better "loads so much faster", (now it sucks) most of you did change browers and thought IE was awesome. Fast forward to 2005 now it's firefox, same story different browser(or os, 95-98 was cool the whole world should change to what you use).
"You just don't get it do you Earl"
You think you're so cool because you post to slashdot. You're just so techy(tacky).
By the way the story was bull, but don't you think it's awsesome that if oss is infringing on anyone's patents it can be changed to take that company out of the oss equation. (free and open "not as in beer" software)
I for one welcome our new linux overlords
Just my 2 senses
Gunillablue
It won't even bootstrap on my TI-99/4a. So I'd say that's a pretty big issue...
The Farewell Tour II
Several honest lawyers are trying to make a patent that does not infringe on any known computer program.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
what reason do I have to take PJ's word over O'Gara's?
Any literate person can read articles written by both of them, see which ones have references and are internally self-consistent, and pretty easily decide who is lying thru her teeth.
Anyone who considers O'Gara reasonable probably also thinks Fox is fair and balanced.
Infuriate left and right
http://www.travelocity.co.uk/ are using "hello world" as their ad slogan.
they are probably going to start suing programming books soon....
By the time discovery is finished in the lawsuit, the code
will have been changed/replaced anyway. You can't
sue a boson, it doesn't live long enough.
- who gives a fuck about patents, etc.?
what arch are you talking about? some patch sets don't do well on other archs... but I have gotten linux to work well on x86, amd64, ppc, and sparc...that's pretty damn good if you ask me (preemptive kernel sometimes will make things more unstable though)
It's called VMWare
I've used vmware, but find it to be just a bit on the pricey side, and not a perfect solution. I've also run win4lin, and while it was pretty nice, it was dependent on a kernel patch, and IIRC was limited to win98...
OK. This HAS to be said. How many guys here on Slashdot are into female domination? It's obvious that someone here is posting what they believe to be female domination troll fantasies. So, thinking about what geeks tend to like, I have to guess that a lot of them like femdom? I was hoping this wasn't true because frankly I find it frightening that so many men would want to have a woman treat them in such a denigrating manner. Especially when a lot of geeks tend to be the "nice guys". On the other hand, I'll bet a lot of dommes would easily let a jerk of a guy treat them like shit. It doesn't make sense. Not one bit. I will go first. I'm not into femdom at all. I think it's a sick and degenrate practice that is the revenge for the way jerky men have treated women for years. So now, the nice geeky guys have to pay the bill for the assholes? Not me. I'm perfectly happy to keep things as traditional as possible. Femdom is just for sickos in my book.