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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.'"
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.
Yes, it's 10 years old. Rewrite it and get rid of 10 years worth of testing, 10 years worth of bug fixes, 10 years worth of great security. This is exactly what Microsoft is running into with Longhorn. Buggy as Windows may be sometimes, rewriting the Linux kernel would put it behind Windows.
10 years isn't old. It's mature.
The Linux kernel is just getting to the point where it doesn't completely suck ass.
This isn't to disparage where things are at, going, or have been. But you dont just scrap something like the kernel just because its a decade or more old.
That's how you get versions that are "newer" with half the features.
Kernels are time expensive and iterative. You just can't go from nothing to a working production kernel in one or a few releases. It's a big job to do it right.
The linux kernel is finally to a place where you have a good mix of micro and monolithic design principles (not a lot of bloated message passing, loadable modules). It's finally got some really decent SMP, and the VM issues are finally being addressed.
...
"OK. So why exactly is rewriting the kernel a problem?"
Because it's not needed. The kernel is being constantly rewritten via incremental (hopefully better) changes.
I would imagine that there is very little code in the kernel that has never been changed.
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.
Because "rewriting the kernel to avoid patent infringement" implies that you knew about the infringements before, which makes you legally liable.
It would be admitting that kernel developers knowingly used patented methods in the kernel, which would open them to willful infringement lawsuits.
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.
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 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.
And: OSDL writes a version of the Linux kernel that doesn't infringe patents
So its the same as the official kernel then!!
Seriously. There was a great article posted some months ago here about this very issue (the rewrite-everything vs. don't-fix-if-it-ain't-broken argument), and i agreed with it's conclusions: rewrites should be done when they're needed and no when they can be done.
The Linux kernel is very good as it is, why rewrite it from scratch? It's been evolving these past 10 years, it's not like no one touched the code ever since.
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.
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.
If Linux is proven to infringe on IP's, than it is really essential that those are taken out. But the infringements must be proven with hard facts. But anyways, when I first heard of the rumors I dismissed them myself due to their nonsensical nature. That being, if there was a plan to rewrite the code that was infringing on IP's, it would be done through www.kernel.org since Linus Torvald is employed at OSDL and heads that website. You would have definitely heard something from Linus on the kernel development mailing list also. I would highly doubt that OSDL along with Linus would rewrite the kernel code outside of www.kernel.org and its contributors.
For what?
du
I've been looking for years for an app to do that. The functionality is in Konqueror, but only one directory at a time, through the 'Properties' dialog. I thought Konq accomplished it by recursively doing 'ls -l' and adding everything up, something I wasn't prepared to duplicate.
This keeps happening to me.
The last time was with 'screen'. Before that it was 'df'.
The pattern seems to be:
1) Need something done
2) Google furiously, scour sourceforge, (in desperation) man -K "$function"
3) Give up, do it the hard way or not at all
4) Months to years later, discover that a programmer scratched that itch back in 196?, the function was duplicated by the GNU project twenty years later, but retained its original, short, cryptic, UNIX name
5) do: locate, man $short_cryptic_UNIX_name, discover that it's been installed on this box since I installed Mandrake 8.1
6) kick self, vow to read more early UNIX history, get on with things