Linus Defends Proprietary File Formats [Updated]

Simon (S2) writes "Torvalds launched a blast against OpenOffice.org, and defended Microsoft's right to keep its binary Office formats proprietary. 'I'm happy with somebody writing a free replacement for Microsoft Office. But I'm not fine with them writing a free replacement just by reverse engineering the proprietary formats,' said the Linux founder. 'Microsoft has its own reasons for keeping them proprietary, and I can't argue with that.' At the heart of Torvalds' decision to refrain from using Bitmover's BitKeeper source code management tool last week, a day after BitKeeper decided to drop its limited functionality free client, is a dispute between BitKeeper developer Larry McVoy and Samba developer Andrew 'Tridge' Tridgell. It has subsequently emerged that Tridgell was working on a clean room reverse engineered implementation of McVoy's proprietary software, and Torvalds has come down on the side of his friend McVoy." Update: 04/13 17:24 GMT by T : As reader Daniel Callahan points out, this is a goof. "The Register article made up the Torvalds quote. The article offers the quote and then continues: 'Actually he didn't - we just made that quote up. But what Torvalds really did say this weekend is only slightly less bizarre.'"

Comments

Dupe and a lie

[Sanity]

This is essentially a story about the last time Slashdot posted a story about this.

The only addition is the false quote from Linus, I think it is pretty unforgivable that CowboyNeal would put a deliberately false quote in the blurb of a story, but its not surprising given that slashdot editors really don't appear to give a flying fuck any more (even after I sent an email to the "on duty editor" after seeing this in the "mysterious future").

Re:Dupe and a lie

[tehshen]

But dodgy summaries like this one are what makes life on slashdot exciting!

Re:Dupe and a lie

[stinerman]

Anyone who RTFA will find that the quote in question is false. Its spelled out in the page that it is a false quote.

Indeed, editors need to keep tabs, but asshat submitters need to shape up as well.

Re:Dupe and a lie

[maotx]

(even after I sent an email to the "on duty editor" after seeing this in the "mysterious future")

yeah, I did the same thing. Appearently they just don't care.

Re:Dupe and a lie

[rossifer]

The slashdot summary is definitely incomplete, and represents a falsehood by omission. On the naming of this article as a dup, I think this is a worthwhile followup because TFA effectively reframes the issue, and clarifies the clean-room aspects of Tridge's implementation.

In this reframing: Linus has clearly come down against reverse-engineering. TFA is further correct in pointing out that this is inconsistent with what Linux, OpenOffice, gcc, and a bunch of other open source projects are all about.

So, Linus is inconsistent and chose to side with his friend over his principles in this case. I can understand that even if I don't agree with it. Even Linus is entitled to make mistakes now and then :)

Regards,
Ross

Re:Dupe and a lie

[TyfStar]

you know it's misleading stories like this that make me want to switch my homepage from /. to Foxnews. At least there I KNOW every article is a slanted half-truth.

C'mon, /. .. I rely on you people!

Re:Dupe and a lie

[null etc.]

Man, is /. becoming a hotbed of hostility or what! Pretty soon we'll need some new mod categories. I propose:

• Score:5, Good Flame
• Score:5, Poster RTFA and Parent Poster Didn't
• Score:5, Sarcasm Directed at Newbie
• Score:5, First to Notice Dupe Post
• Score:5, Twenty or More Occurrences of Five Syllable Words
• Score:-1, Poster Just Angry that His Submission was Rejected, but this Story was not

Re:Dupe and a lie

[jfengel]

Unfortunately, you can't assume that submitters will shape up. Trolls can troll the slashdot editors just as easily as they can troll the rest of us. But unlike ordinary posts, they don't get modded down once somebody discovers an obvious mistake. They don't disappear off the front page; the best we can hope for is a retraction.

So what do I recommend? Nothing, really. The editors, if they wish, could work a lot harder to verify the summaries, and Slashdot would be somewhat more valuable. Or they can continue to do what they do and trust their readers to figure it out. If they do, I'll keep doing what I do, and treating each Slashdot article with a serious grain of salt until I read the original source. Which is OK with me; I get what I pay for.

Sad that in this case it comes from an actual quote from The Register, a reputable news source. They made it easy to take the quote out of context, and that's bad writing. I'd expect to see this from J. Random Blogger and repeated on Slashdot, and I'm disappointed to see it in The Register.

Re:Dupe and a lie

[jidar]

Don't be an idiot. Relying on the masses to send you stories is one thing, but relying on them to do all the editorial legwork (fact checking for instance) is just naive. Even if every submitter is making a genuinely good effort to provide nothing but good stories (and believe me, that's not that case) you're still going to get a lot of crap. The fault here lies with the editor.

Re:Dupe and a lie

[saforrest]

Sad that in this case it comes from an actual quote from The Register, a reputable news source. They made it easy to take the quote out of context, and that's bad writing. I'd expect to see this from J. Random Blogger and repeated on Slashdot, and I'm disappointed to see it in The Register.

Whatever. They did it for effect, it's a question of style.

I don't think it's fair to require that writers do all kinds of things to avoid their writing being "easy to take out of context". Good writing usually isn't easy to take out of context, sure, but I think journalists ought to be allowed to pull the sort of things that the Register pulled here.

At some point you have to just force someone to accept responsibility for what's being resyndicated and RTFA in its entirety.

Re:Dupe and a lie

[nordicfrost]

This place is going south, fast. I have paid my last subscription since I can no linger justify even 5 USD on this site. This just confirms my theories that the editors won't even bother to read to paragraph 3 in an article. And won't even do it when people spell it out for them via e-mail. Slashdot has become a shadow of its former self.

Re:Dupe and a lie

[rossifer]

This has nothing to do with what Open Source is all about.

Correct, but there are many open source projects that rely on reverse-engineering to duplicate the features of another system, which is why I said, "...a bunch of other open source projects..." and didn't claim the value for open source as a whole.

GCC wasn't created by examining the bytecode output of an Intel compiler.

True, but several of the optimizations that used to be found only in commercial compilers were figured out through a reverse-engineering process.

[Linus] is not in favor of reverse-engineering someone elses implementation against their wishes.

1) When would anyone ever be in favor of someone else reverse-engineering their work?
2) Linus is inconsistent with his principles.
3) Linus is inconsistent with current law and the current ethics surrounding reverse engineering.

4) Linus is going after the wrong guy. He should be acknowledging that his decision to go with BitKeeper was always at odds with much of the Linux development community and was bound to eventually blow up in his face. Which it has.

As it turns out, all of these things are okay. Linus seems to have some very good skills that, along with the work of other kernel developers, benefit millions of people every day. This doesn't mean that he should be infallible or that anyone should take his advice when he speaks outside his area of expertise. As for the ill-fated decision to go with BitKeeper, there was value, but there is now cost.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Dupe and a lie

[1u3hr]

Journalists have a rule that anything between quotation marks has to be an exact quote. You're not even allowed to correct the grammar or make irrelevant changes to help it fit into your sentence better.

Yes you are. I was editing a book some years ago and the author was apparently taking delight at quoting grammatical mistakes his non-English speaking subjects made, which I thought a cheap shot. Looking up some reputable texts on journalism supported my view that minor errors can be silently corrected in quotes unless it's from a published text, and this is common practice. Actually listen to what someone says in an interview and compare with a written article -- you won't see the "ums" and false starts that almost everyone makes, unless they're trying to make the subject look like an idiot. Of course, trying to make any sense of what GWB says off the cuff may require more than that.

Both Slashdot and the poster also screwed up, but The Reg is the one who really blew it, IMHO.

I don't know if you're a regular reader of the Reg, but pisstakes are a feature of their writing. Their logo is a vulture; their slogan is "Biting the hand that feeds IT". They don't post lies but they sometimes do sex things up a bit. The poster is obviously a troll, he knew what he was doing. However, there is no excuse at all for Cowboy Neal. The "we just made that quote up" is prominently in the third paragraph. CN is just lazy and sloppy, like they all seem to be now. They collect a salary for editing this, they should be ashamed. But they're not -- I've sent several messages to him via the editor's address on similar issues, and they all bounce, he doesn't even want to know when he fucks up.

Re:Dupe and a lie

[squiggleslash]

Take a look at the filesystems supported by Linux, together with device drivers with little apparent official documentation, and see how much of the kernel is actually dependent on reverse engineering.

And Tridgell didn't reverse engineer something that already had a capable Free Software client. You know, the PC actually has a "capable and popular" operating system. So, presumably, it's absolutely wrong for the Linux developers to continue to use reverse engineering to develop a Free Software alternative. Right?

Wrong. This is about freedom. The Bitkeeper people had no business discouraging those who want to use free tools yet who want to interoperate with those who lack the same standards from writing free tools to spec. It was bad enough that the protocols were undocumented and proprietary to begin with. It's worse that this kind of vengeful stance was taken against third parties for daring to have an association with someone trying to create those free tools.

Im hardly shocked that Linus came out with a stance that pretty much noone expected him to take, and I have great respect for him doing it. He doesnt really care much for the FOSS philosophy, and that is entirely his right to do so, although I am shocked by the number of people who expected Linus to have a similiar outlook as RMS or Alan Cox.

I'm absolutely amazed. He may not be the loudest proponent of FOSS in the world, but he's at least made himself look like such a proponent, and he has relied upon the very people he attacks doing exactly what he's attacking them for doing to make his kernel usable and what it is today.

Your respect for him may have risen, mine has dropped. I was prepared to handle the fact he adopted BK in the first place because, well, people do often see themselves as pragmatic when making decisions that essentially defy good practices. He should have learnt something from this lesson, but essentially it looks like he's merely digging himself into a deeper hole while yelling "You all suck!" at those trying to get him out.

Re:Dupe and a lie

[squiggleslash]

And they'd be able to interoperate with Linus Torvalds how exactly if they wrote an incompatable SCM system?

The bottleneck here is that Linux is currently maintained by Linus Torvalds. Linux is currently the kernel for the GNU operating system. It has mindshare and it's going to be hard to replace. If Linus continues to use proprietary products for maintaining Linux as managements and submissions become more and more complex, it is going to become increasingly difficult for the Free Software community to contribute.

Right now, the options aren't a ground up new SCM system (of which many already exist). The options are:

1. Persuade Torvalds to move away from the dark side. Ask him to stop using Bitkeeper. Point out the many ethical problems other contributors have been having with him doing this. This has been pretty much the strategy of the last three years, and far from actually making a difference, has actually made none whatsoever. Linus prefers, as he's demonstrated here, to attack his contributors - attack the very people who have made Linux usable, made it interoperate with Windows networks for example - rather than address their concerns.
2. Reverse engineer Bitkeeper, using the information to write compatable clients.
3. Dump Torvalds. Fork the kernel. That's radical, and it's going to be hard to get people on board with a single fork.

I'm not going to rule out (3) from happening eventually, but having failed with the first, we're now seeing people resort to the second, which despite the bloody-minded behaviour of the BK people, is probably going to be successful.

I can't blame them, and I can't see anything remotely unethical about what they're doing. I am staggered that anyone sees reverse engineering in the hysterical terms you do. Far from it being unethical, the question should be why these protocols need to be reverse engineered in the first place. Why aren't they documented?

Re:Dupe and a lie

[0x20]

Why are Fox "beating the pants off" the other networks? I've got my own hypothesis: because the average-to-dumb outnumber the smart by a wide margin. This is no secret: look at IQ statistics for the general population. Got a lot of money and Want a successful TV network? Write dumb, loud, shiny content which appeals to the cross-section of the population covering "average" down to "foolish mush brain", and you are guaranteed the widest audience. And you get to perpetuate that audience by filling their heads with your mush! Bonus!

It's the same reason that PBS and NPR historically must struggle to survive, while the Dr. Phils of the world turn into megamillionaires. There just aren't enough smart people to go around, and the dumb ones multiply faster than the smart ones to boot.

So congratulations, stupids, you're extinguishing your best hope for long-term survival. Who wants their kids to get physics degrees, when everybody else's kids are becoming latte-slurping pinheads
with MBAs?

At least you can take solace in the probability that when the end comes, you'll probably all be - statistically speaking - too stupid to realize it.

"Oh brave new world, that has such people in it!"

Misleading headline... RTFA editors!

[garcia]

Torvalds launched a blast against OpenOffice.org, and defended Microsoft's right to keep its binary Office formats proprietary. "I'm happy with somebody writing a free replacement for Microsoft Office. But I'm not fine with them writing a free replacement just by reverse engineering the proprietary formats," said the Linux founder. "Microsoft has its own reasons for keeping them proprietary, and I can't argue with that."

Actually he didn't - we just made that quote up.

Well, thanks for another misleading headline Slashdot! While I applaud your recent efforts to fix crappy editorial comments and duplicate removal you still are showing that you refuse to even read the articles that users submit. Now on to the rest of the article...

You know Linux is a clone of Unix because Linus couldn't run Unix on his 386 machine. He wasn't pleased that he couldn't do something and he worked around it. Why can't someone be displeased with other proprietary systems and create workarounds for them?

I'm preaching to the choir here but reverse engineering is a Good Thing for all communities. There is absolutely no reason that we should not support working around what others have obfusticated to make money for themselves.

Linux wouldn't have nearly the same capacity in the Windows world we live in if it wasn't for Samba. Yeah, there is NFS for Windows and various other file sharing protocols that could have been used but Samba makes it easy for anyone to fit their Unix clone right into their pre-existing Windows network without much trouble.

The free client was costing Bitmover $500,000 a year, explains McVoy. "At that point we started looking at what it would be like to discontinue the free BK.

So? It's obvious that the pay-for client offered nothing worth what you were asking if the free client can do the job. Either price properly or make the pay-for product much better. I'm not talking about crippleware or nagware. I'm talking about creating a much more superior product that entices people to buy rather than hobble along with what the free version offers.

Plenty of companies out there have been doing it just fine by basing their business model on Linux. Why can't McVoy find the same happy existence?

"What Larry is not fine with, is somebody writing a free replacement by just reverse-engineering what he did. Larry has a very clear moral standpoint: 'You can compete with me, but you can't do so by riding on my coat-tails. Solve the problems on your own, and compete honestly. Don't compete by looking at my solution.'

They are competing honestly. They are doing it in a clean lab. They aren't trying to steal your code and use it themselves but they are trying to take a great idea and make it better. Welcome to the real world. Crying doesn't do anything but piss people off. Do something to your own software that will make it stay one+ steps ahead of the reverse engineered competition.

Saving Throw...

[airrage]

Saving throw of "Tempest in a Teapot" ... failed.

Before you get upset...

[ceswiedler]

Before anyone who didn't RTFA gets up in arms: No, he didn't say that, and the article header really should explain. The Register is drawing a comparison with his attitude towards BitKeeper. s/BitKeeper/Microsoft and s/Tridge/OpenOffice.org.

Were the submitter and editor confused, or are one or both intentionally trying to provoke a reaction by providing an inaccurate summary? At least the Register article has a clear "No, he really didn't say that" line. The /. summary acts as if it's a real Linus quote.

RTFA!

[Anonymous Coward]

lol... i predict RTFA to be written at least 200 times.

Lovely

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot: News for Trolls, Stuff that's Bullshit.

Reverse engineering

[CatGrep]

What's wrong with reverse engineering? In the past it's been considered legal if it is done in a 'cleanroom' type environment, meaning that none of the participants had or have any connection with the company that originated the format (in this case Microsoft). Of course laws like the DMCA cast some legal doubt on some reverse engineering... But ethically it seems just fine.

Yes, and thanks to the wonders of Google

[killmenow]

the false headline will hit google news and spread further, whereas the correction in the comments will go unnoticed.

This story should be yanked now.

This points out Linus' inconsistency very well

[Bruce Perens]

Linus didn't blast OpenOffice, but doing so would have been consistent with what he's been saying about Bitmover, and this story hoists Linus by his own petard. Tridge did not attempt to reverse-engineer the internals of the Bitmover program. He reverse-engineered its over-wire protocol in order to produce a program that would interoperate with it over the net. This was a perfectly moral and reasonable act and parallels what Tridge did to make Samba compatible with Windows file and printer sharing.

Bruce

Re:This points out Linus' inconsistency very well

[internic]

I wish the article had spent a bit more time justifying the analogy, as you have done. The way it's written, it seems to conflate three things:

1. Writing a work-alike
2. Reverse engineering for compatability (e.g. file formats and netowork communication)
3. Reverse engineering functionality (actually attempting to determine specifically how functonality is implemented in the code)

Perhaps people with more experience in writing software can correct me, but it seems like these are three distinct, inequivolent things. From what I know Linux is an example of #1; Samba, Gaim, and Open Office are examples of #1 and #2. I guess what McVoy is claiming is that Tridge is doing #3, while Bruce seems to be claiming it's actually #2. It would seem Linus can only consistently object to #3. Can one draw a clear, unambiguous division?

GG

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, submitter! It's not every day you can successfully troll on the front page. Ten points to Slytherin.

Totally unforgivable!

[saforrest]

This is really unforgivable: to quote the 'Linus quote' from the Register verbatim, and then to not quote the bit immediately after:

Actually he didn't - we just made that quote up.

It doesn't matter how well the quote summarizes Linus' position. The Register makes it very clear that the quote is not really Linus' by denying it right afterward. Slashdot should too.

This is worst kind of out-of-context quoting I've seen in here quite a while, in a story at least. Both the submitter and CowboyNeal should apologise.

Linus never was a representative

[AirLace]

People will argue about whether the quotation is accurate, but there's no doubt that Linus right now has more conservative views on intellectual property and the development of ideas than many in the software community, even proprietary software developers. You might call this hypocritical, considering how early releases of Linux were so closely modelled along the lines of Minix, including components like the cloning of the Minix filesystem with absolutely no modification or improvement on its design.

I don't really care. He's a kernel engineer and as long as his kernel continues to kick ass, I'll use his software. In the same way, I don't use GNU's silly excuse for a kernel, but think a lot of their politics is insightful and their userspace software unrivalled.

Brought to you by Microsoft!

[CatGrep]

"Look, even Linux Torvalds supports our right to innovate!"

More Decent Submitters, then

[Yolegoman]

Indeed, editors need to keep tabs, but asshat submitters need to shape up as well.

Then submit unasshatted stuff yourself. You have the opportunity to fix something that annoys you, so do so.

Re:More Decent Submitters, then

[Ithika]

Last time I tried to submit something (analysis of the validity of the GPL in the UK for a law journal, by an IP lawyer) it was rejected. I watched the submissions which made it through at the same time and wondered to myself, "why??".

Re:I cant believe how dumb you guys are...

[Tenebrious1]

I mean, shit, I'm very tempted to stop reading this site. Slashdot, the Weekly World News of tech journalism.

Seriously. I can understand if the editors don't read an article about some guy who creates a walking robot in Japan, but really, how could they post something, anything about Linus without even taking a glance at the article?

Register is playing with our emotions!

[quakeroatz]

Register Ed #1: Hey, watch this, we'll post a fake anti-opensource, pro-microsoft quote from Linus and those Slashdotters will have a hissy fit!

Register Ed #2: But if the quote is fake, we can't post it!

Register Ed #1: We'll just state that it's a fake quote, right after the quote. Do you think Slashdot readers or editors actually read _complete_ articles!

Both: MUAHAHAHAAAH FOOOLS!!!

Grow up.

[Bruce Perens]

Parody is an appropriate tool for social commentary.

Re:Linus did NOT say that, RTFA!

[Wateshay]

Really? I would have thought that that's exactly what Linux is.

Please explain how Linus writing Linux was not reverse-engineering of Unix.

Because Linus didn't snoop out undocumented proprietary formats in order to figure out how to make Linux compatible with Unix operating systems. He simply built a free operating system that conformed to the published and open Posix standards. If he had examined Solaris binaries to figure out how to make Linux a binary compatible Solaris clone, that would have been reverse engineering. Implementing a published standard is not reverse engineering.

Don't get me wrong, I disagree with Linus' opinion here. I don't think there's anything wrong with reverse engineering, as long as you don't steal trade secrets or perform some other such corporate espionage tactic to facilitate the reverse engineering. That doesn't make Linus a hypocrite, though. It just means that he's not in line with the predominate opinion in the open source world (which anyone who follows Linus' opinions already knew anyway).

Re:Misleading headline... RTFA editors!

[_Sprocket_]

They are making the honest effort of manually reproducing the source code from the binary as best they can.

No they're not. They're attempting to figure out how the binary behaves under all applicaple conditions, and then produce their own code that mimics that behavior. What you're describing is decompiling.

This is nothing more or less than an end-run around copyright. It may be legal, but it's not honorable.

Again - no it's not. Copyright has nothing to do with actual functionality. You're confusing copyright with patents.

If you have a problem with the morality of this process, you may want to take a hard look at the IT industry. Reverse engineering has played a key role in the advancement of technology. Numerous times.

Headline is OK; quote is not

[jfengel]

The article actually is about Linus Torvalds defending proprietary file formats. It's just that he's talking about a different format from the almost-made-up quote.

I say "almost made up" because it's got a grain of truth. The original quote is:

"Larry is perfectly fine with somebody writing a free replacement...What Larry is not fine with, is somebody writing a free replacement by just reverse-engineering what he did."

The made-up quote has the same gist, even if it's critically wrong in (a) the file format, and (b) the fact that Linus is talking about somebody else's beliefs, not his own. This gist, however, is clear that Linus believes roughly the same thing:

"It says: 'Get off my coat-tails, you free-loader'. And I can't really argue against that."

So I'd say the score is:

Headline: 1 point (for being accurate)
Summary: -2 points (for repeating a false quote without the retraction)
Submitter's final score: STFU

Slashdot: -2 point (for not verifying the quote)
Slashdot: +1 point (for the retraction on the front page)
Slashdot: +.5 point (for posting an article that's kind of interesting with an accurate headline despite a bad summary and bad editing)
Slashdot's final score: try to do better next time

Register: -2 points (for making up the quote)
Register: -1 point (for putting the retraction after the advertisement)
Register's final score: Really stupid, but they're usually reliable, so I'll let them off with a warning.

Proprietary File Formats = BAD

[Dhaos]

I haven't yet RTFA, but since the issue of file formats is near and dear to my heart (and what I do professionally), I figured I should say something.

I'm working on a Digital Archiving project for a government agency. And what we have determined thusfar is that proprietary file formats are -very bad- for long term preservation.

Now, you may ask, who cares about long term preservation? To which I would respond, clearly you are not a fan of history- or at least, good history. Innocuous documents end up being primary sources! People find new uses for and interest in old documents!

Still you seeem doubtful. Fine. But, should Microsoft disappear (unlikely as it may seem) or otherwise leave us with a bunch of proprietarily-formatted files that we cant read save through- shudder- emulation of something like Windows XP, a lot of people will be unhappy. And a lot of data may not be fully recoverable.

You may say that if such things really bother people, then they should only purchase software using open standards. I sort of agree. But we are dealing with a field in which -certain- companies are convicted monopolists, so....

Proprietary formats are still the bane of my existence.

Open Source is not for everyone...

[kronocide]

I was product manager for 2½ years at a software company, whose product was partly open-source based (it was our own OS webserver). I was in the business when Eric Raymond tried to convince s/w companies to "go open source." "It's much better, bugs get fixed, security holes shut much faster." And so on. But the truth is that open source is about free (gratis) software, and software companies are about selling software. There are one or two exceptions, those who can sell support and so on, but the whole _concept_ of having a software company is to charge people for the software you develop. This doesn't mean that I'm against open source, possibly I'm more against software companies.

The bottom line is that open source may one day cover all possible software need for every person, but it will come out of academia, non-profit organizations, and hobbyists. Software companies will not be the primary drive behind open source. I think Stallman has known this for a long time. And if you _do_ have, or plan to start, a software company, there is nothing wrong with keeping some parts of your code proprietary. Alternatively, just don't start a software company.

Don't you just hate it...

[spun]

Don't you just hate it when you start going out with some girl, and your friends are all like, "She's a tramp, don't go out with her, she's just using you to get popular. She's gonna dump you and break your heart, just you watch." Then you say, "No way! She loves me. Besides, she does things the other girls won't do. It's true love, just YOU watch!"

And then it turns out they were totally right, and not only does she leave you, she ends up giving you VD.

The headline is not false

[JoeBuck]

Linus did indeed defend a proprietary file format, so the headline is correct. The quote is made up, but this is to show the inconsistency of Linus' position.

The proprietary file format in question is that of BitKeeper; Tridge reverse-engineered it so that people can have access to their own data when BitMover pulls the plug on the free-as-in-beer BitKeeper (which hadn't happened yet at the time he did it, but which was inevitable as Larry kept changing the license and threatening people with losing their rights to use the software). Linus sided with Larry, despite the fact that Linux, GNU, Samba, and everything else we run has had to rely on reverse engineering of proprietary formats, devices, and protocols since forever just to function.

Re:The headline is not false

[Da VinMan]

Linus sided with Larry, despite the fact that Linux, GNU, Samba, and everything else we run has had to rely on reverse engineering of proprietary formats, devices, and protocols since forever just to function.

Enlighten me here... Linus focuses on Linux. He doesn't work on Samba, WINE, or anything else that attempts to emulate something else in order to function. He doesn't really even reverse engineer (to my knowledge) any specific flavor of Unix. He just works on improving Linux.

The heart of this conflict is the idea of using reverse engineering to ride on the research and development of an industry player who has chosen to remain proprietary in order to compete with that entity. Granted, defending against this is really the domain of patents, but I think I understand where Linus is coming from here by defending Larry.

To answer to your examples - Samba was needed to get interoperation with the product of a company that exerts an effective monopoly. Reverse engineering of existing device drivers has been done in order to interoperate with those drivers, not compete with those driver makers.

BitKeeper has no monopoly. It may in fact be THE best of breed implementation, but that's irrelevant. Samba had to be done. A reverse-engineering of the BitKeeper protocol just to save time on developing a good approach using OSS is an endeavor with questionable ethical status and really isn't necessary. Also, reverse engineering BitKeeper just so people can access the data is obviated by the fact that they can (someone correct me here if I'm wrong as I haven't tried this myself) use CVS instead to access that data. BitKeeper doesn't need to be reverse engineered to get to the data. Right?

Now, please tell me how Linus is acting inconsistently?

In short, I would say that reverse engineering something in order to interoperate with it is a completely different ethical matter than trying to reverse engineer something in order to effectively clone it then compete with it. Saying that Linus' position is "inconsistent" because he does not approve of all uses of reverse engineering does not show an appreciation of the fact that not all uses of reverse engineering are ethically equivalent (just as not all uses of firearms, chemicals, matches, etc. are ethically equivalent).

If one of the goals of OSS is to effectively steal the R&D of industry players, then it will receive the fate it would so richly deserve. But, if the goals of OSS include making established non-novel technologies widely available to everyone (e.g. Linux), or even promoting new R&D to create new novel technologies (e.g. BitTorrent), it will thrive and be better than what could possibly be achieved in a proprietary environment.

reading and writing are not the same

[r00t]

You damn well need the right to read any format you wish to read, and this is 100% ethical. Anything less would mean that your data is locked up, along with properly licensed 3rd-party data.

Writing is another matter. It's not so critical. It matters only if your peers require a particular data format.

Lets have a vote!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

What do you want to keep/support?

BitKeeper

Samba

That was great!

Now, who has devoted more time, energy and resources to community development of software?

BitMovers

The Samba Team

You know, I think you really have this thing down by now. Last one:

Who would you rather be stuck in an elevator with?

Larry McVoy

Andy Tridgell

Wow! 100%
I'm sure glad that Andy did raise his hand in class and ask to go to the potty in Professor Bill Gates' class. And I have to wonder how many Samba installations are cooking on the machines of BitKeeper employees.

Go back to Pipedot.

[tepples]

it's misleading stories like this that make me want to switch my homepage from /. to Foxnews. At least there I KNOW every article is a slanted half-truth.

It's called /. because the / is slanted, just like the news. If you want straight news without a pro-commons slant, go to Pipedot.

How else do you get device drivers?

[tepples]

I personnaly don't have much respect for the reverse engineer

If you do not respect reverse engineers, then you do not respect the people who bring you the documentation necessary to add support for new hardware in operating systems published by entities other than Microsoft Corporation and Apple Computer Inc. Why do you want GNU/Linux and *BSD to have poor hardware support?

Linus

[omb]

I have, like most others, a huge respect for Linus, he is both a superb developer and has a unique ability to "herd cats" in the development community.

He also has a proven track record of sound common sense.

This does _not_ however imbue him with infalibility.

We have two issues, and a side point, here:

(1) is reverse engineering wrong, HELL NO, it is the basis of most human scientific progress, in fact, you do the research, publish the paper and wait for collaborators to reverse engineer aka confirm your results.

(2) are Corporations unconditionally entitled to develop, or incompatibly extend, data formats or protocols and then claim them as patents, trade-secrets, or Intellectual Property, or semble to claim Copyright protection for them HELL NO.

The side issue is, was Andrew Trigel morally entitled to take the view he did.

So, if you try to extend an existing format or protocol, if you document it it is a _derived_work_ and your publication is infringing, unless it is fair use, so the M$ Kerberos extension fails.

To have a trade secret you must keep the secret.

Reverse Engineering is legal almost everywhere.

To protect against Reverse Engineering you need a patent.

If you are a monopoly, so M$ is, and Bitmover is not, different rules apply. Sherman & Mann, acts; see existing settlement(s) and the compliance process in the US and EU.

So, if the EU requires M$ to disclose its Office Formats, for example, then that will mean that they are in the public domain and can be used anywhere, whether Linus likes it or not.

All the above, simply restate the law.

Now, as a matter of opinion, I believe Andrew was: (a) fully within his rights, and (b) the resulting furore was a consequence of Linus lack of legal and commercial accumen in accepting Larry's licence with its in-built poison pill

He should have demanded that the 'free-licence' was irrevokable and that the BK source was in escrow before confering the benefits on Bitmover.

If you work in a large company, and made that sort of mistake, you would be be big trouble.

My God, That Explains Everything!

[HopeOS]

And backslashdot would have Pro-Microsoft articles.