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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.'"
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.
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.
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.
That's something made me laugh this week. NO, the code isn't 10 years old. One of the core developers said this week that the kernel is getting 4mb of patches every week. Now, lets compute a bit:
/usr/src/linux-2.6.7
# du -hs
290M linux-2.6.7
# bc
(...snip...)
290/4
72
This would assume that in a little bit over 1 year, the kernel is totally replaced. I know its logically flawed, but it means in my interpretation that there is no obsolete code in the kernel that would be >10 years old, or maybe with a few exceptions. I think it's safe to assume that most parts of the kernel aren't older than 2-3 years. Your logic is flawed.
Personally i think the kernel is perfectly good without a rewrite.
Legal issues shouldn't be a consideration neither, since SCO-code in the linux kernel is something in one class with Santa Claus. Linus stated on multiple occasions that he doesn't believe sco code could be in the kernel. I don't have evidence who generates those rumours, but i got a hunch it's from the SCO,Microsoft side of the barricade.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
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.