I've never liked the term "computer science." The main reason I don't like it is that there's no such thing. Computer science is a grab bag of tenuously related areas thrown together by an accident of history, like Yugoslavia. At one end you have people who are really mathematicians, but call what they're doing computer science so they can get DARPA grants. In the middle you have people working on something like the natural history of computers-- studying the behavior of algorithms for routing data through networks, for example. And then at the other extreme you have the hackers, who are trying to write interesting software, and for whom computers are just a medium of expression, as concrete is for architects or paint for painters. It's as if mathematicians, physicists, and architects all had to be in the same department.
I'd apply the same principles to cooking. Alton is a culinary chemist, maybe. A culinary hacker, never.
I am not certain what the intent of your post is. Is it to confirm my points, or to argue against them?
I have, of course, read Linus' biography. Linux is indeed a clone of Unix. As I mentioned, Linus was impressed by the elegance of Unix, and clearly he used it at school, and at home. However, it remains true that Linus did not use or develop with Unix _source code_. Using Unix is not the same thing as studying Unix source code.
It is also true that Linux development was hosted on Linus' MINIX partition until it was mature enough to host itself (if I recall, a certain disk-crash helped move this progression along). This doesn't mean Linus used MINIX code in Linux. He said as much when he introduced the project on the Internet. MINIX code is proprietary anyway, so Andrew Tanenbaum would have had a fit. Linus used completely different kernel strategies too: MINIX uses a microkernel approach, and Linux was a terminal program that "grew legs," as Linus puts it. Linux is a monolithic kernel.
Linus himself states that the most profound influence he had was Andy Tanenbaum's book on operating system design. Tanenbaum's own MINIX seems to have been derived from ancient Unix (System III, if I recall), so it would be natural if Linus had some indirect influence from that, and from the book.
Tanenbaum knew about Linux, and he criticised it for this monolithic design strategy. I am certain that he would have raised a stink had there been actual MINIX code in Linux. Anyone can look at Linux code, remember? What good does it do to steal other people's work, and then show everyone what you did?
It is also evident that, were it not for the BSD case in '92, Linux might not be as popular as it is now. However, AT&T's involvement in this litigation against BSD does not make Linus an intern at AT&T. I do not see how this relates to the discussion.
Finally, design influences implementation. If you are implementing a clone of another system, chances are some of your work will be homologous (especially if you code to a standard). Obviously, Linux has features that are homologous to Unix. I've heard that some Linux code is taken (lawfully) from BSD, so there are other similarities with Unix there.
None of this changes the fact that Linus built Linux from scratch, and that original Unix source code played no part in it. Linus developed Linux, but he didn't invent the idea of an operating system, nor the concepts behind Unix. But Linus did what he said he'd do: build a better MINIX than MINIX, and ultimately, a better Unix than Unix.
You're funny. Of course, ignorant people won't see your joke, so I will lay to rest any unease that might arise when someone who is not acquainted with actual facts reads your little gem.
Linus was never an intern at Bell Labs.
Linux was originally written in Linus' bedroom at his mom's apartment in Helsinki, Finland. Linus was attending University at the time.
Linux started out as a little terminal program for reading Linus' email - I believe he could boot right into it without having to load MINIX. Linus kept adding features to it until it became more of an OS Kernel, and then other people started helping out with development.
Linus was impressed with the Unix philosophy and design, but saw limits in MINIX.
Linux never had MINIX code in it.
Linux was already very popular by the time Linus moved from Finland to California. Linus went to work for Transmeta. More recently, Linus moved to OSDL.
As far as we know, Linus has never worked around actual Unix System V source code, nor with AT&T or Bell Labs.
Linux was written to published POSIX standards.
There is no reason to believe that Linux contains anything but 100% original code, donated by Linus and a group of volunteers around the world. It does look like SGI once mistakenly contributed a small amount of System V code in one of their hardware drivers, but that code was redundant and soon removed from the kernel.
Audits on Linux code have now been performed by SGI and by a an open-source "insurance" firm. Probably others have also done audits.
These comparisons done between Linux and Unix have revealed very little similarity at the code level. Even SCO's lawyers now admit that there are no significant code similarities between Linux and System V. You will recall that SCO was not able to produce the apparent "millions" of lines of stolen code when ordered to do so by the Judge. Of course we can't find the code, SCO, said, because it's from AIX, not from System V.
And that's the real problem -- we've seen the UNIX contract, and it's assumes a level of confidentiality about contributed code. Lots of people wrote SysV UNIX under the assumption that it would never just be given away. That would not preclude Novell from selling it (not saying they did).
It seems that the judge in '92 offered some skepticism regarding the enforceability of AT&T's copyrights. To me this points to some difficulty in identifying for a certainty which code belongs to who. Clearly, it is not all AT&T's code. That's why I think that Novell can't simply say, here are the copyrights; because Novell needs to be sure of what the copyrights are first. It's not cut and dry, like a book or a movie. Lot's of 3rd party contributions have made their way in. Whoever gets the copyrights need to exactly what they own.
Suppose SCO gets the copyrights and says, look, this bit of code infringes. It turns out that the code could have come from BSD, and the code is in System V as well. How certain are we that all BSD contributions are sufficiently documented? Plus, a lot of copyrighted System V code grew up out of old sources that were widely distributed before Unix went commercial. Say the code is published in a book, and perhaps shows up similarly in BSD, but was apparently copied from System V (much like the SGI contribution). Obviously there was an infringement, but what are the actual damages of that when the code is 95% identical to public code?
The pre-commercial development of Unix was a big mistake for AT&T because it diluted their copyrights. That's why I think the judge warned USL and facilitated the settlement. We've seen the value of Unix IP decline steadily since then.
I don't disagree that System V contains copyrighted materials exclusive to the owner of System V.
I think it comes down to whether or not SCO can get the case argued as a contract case, where they might have better chances, or if Novell can get the case argued as a copyright case, where it will lean in Novell's favor.
The contract says, OK, we'll give you the copyrights; but the copyright law says you have to at least say what copyrights you are giving away. So maybe SCO can prevail on the contract issue and get Novell to transfer the copyrights, as promised. But what does that mean? It means that Novell still needs to follow through with that obligation contractually, and SCO has no right to claim copyright until that happens.
It will be an interresting case, however, I suspect the copyright issue won't affect much else regardless of how it turns out. Even if SCO gets the copyrights, they haven't been able to show infringement (other than the SGI contribution, which was rather minor, and remedied quickly).
SCO does not have documents that "appear" to show an actual copyright transfer under any interpretation of the law. Superficially, to an observer ignorant of copyright requirements, the APA ammendment may appear just as you suggest.
What SCO does have are documents that specifically _deny_ copyright transfer, and then an ammendment that shows intent to transfer unspecified copyrights as needed. As Novell has said, copyright law requires that a copyright be transferred with specificity. There are absolutely no documents in SCO's possession that do this. According to the law, it takes more than intent to transfer a copyright.
Anyway, Novell can't just go and transfer System V copyrights because it is unclear who owns copyright on what. Is it BSD code? Is it public domain code? Is it 3rd party code? System V is a copyright minefield. This is probably why Novell explicitly did NOT transfer copyright, but attached a promise of copyright transfer based on specific needs.
Remember that Ransom Love, assuming he had System V copyrights at the time, noted that SCO couldn't open up Unix (other than ancient Unix, which was already effectively public domain); because SCO wasn't sure what 3rd party proprietary code was in there. So there was this talk of opening up System V, and back then, SCO seemed willing - but unable - to do it.
I guess that this is most likely the intent of the Novell ammendment to the APA: To only transfer a copyright once it has been cleared of any outside claims (remember USL vs. BSD in '92). Clearly Novell was open to copyright transfer to SCO, and very possibly that was the intent (over at Groklaw, PJ surmises that SCO might even have Novell witnesses willing to testify to this intent). However, as I mentioned, it takes more than intent and promise to satisfy the law.
But I agree: The SCO copyright dispute must be resolved before any declaratory judgement. My only issue is that SCO documents don't "appear" to show anything other than intent.
I'm doing a research paper in OO (word processor) right now, and I'd agree that it is still not quite there. OO can't seem to get my formatting right, especially with outlining and numbered headings.
OO sometimes doesn't know when to break out of outline/list mode, can't get number sequences quite right, and sometimes does crazy indenting that I can't figure out. It's also a pain cutting and pasting from web pages when OO tries to preserve the HTML formatting (badly), and I wanted just the text anyway.
However, the export and import for Word documents works surprisingly well, and I never have had any problems submitting documents saved to Word format from OO (plus, there's always PDF, which also works really well).
It won't be much longer before Word has a serious open source contender. The features are there, they just need to stabilize. The fact that MS feels they need to compare themselves with OO says that they think OO is now a contender to MSWord. The time is soon coming when you will want to start looking at OO again.
Even if MS released the specs, many of the format issues are tied to MSWord features that may not exist in other word processors, or may work differently.
The only way to be truly compatible with MSWord is to match MSWord's feature set. Simply put, clone MSWord.
You're also trying to put the chicken before the egg before the chicken... First you talk about putting out an album to consider an investment that won't directly make any money. Then you talk about ALWAYS getting paid first before you release the goods. So which is it?
OK, here is our disconnect. Yes, I am saying that you should take payment before giving up the goods. However, I am also saying that your must first invest in your business before you can have your business. In other words, you have to prove that you have the goods before you can sell them! Here is what I think you don't understand about my argument: I suggest selling the actual idea, not copies of the idea. I maintain that in order to sell an idea, you've got to give one away first. The first idea is the only one you ever give away - it's the investment you put into your business to encourage interest. It's advertising, if you will. You might provide tantalizing snippets of future ideas, but you refuse to let those ideas out until you get what you think they are worth.
So my parallel is between the initial investment in a startup (which is the capital used to finance the operations and produce the first goods) and initial investment in an IP venture, where the goods are intangible. My observation is that the only way to make IP successful is to make IP subject to the same laws of availability that tangible goods are subject to.
As it turns out, the RIAA and MPAA have the same idea as I do, only they want to make IP scare by putting artificial constraints on the copies of it. They want to make IP difficult to copy and distribute, so that only they can do it. I say this is bogus. That is not the right way to do it. DRM is clearly a power-grab and way oversteps its stated use by giving huge power to publishing houses. Watermarking and copy protection have been repeatedly proven to be ineffective.
All we really have right now are laws that say that making copies is wrong, and so please don't make copies or you will go to jail if you get caught. To me, that sounds like the honor system: big business has legislated IP laws, and we, the people, promise to obey them. The problem is that most people don't see the ethical problems in making copies of things that are trivial to copy.
And so I am pointing out the fact that you can't make a copy of something that exists only in the artist's head. There is you bulletproof IP protection.
What does this mean?
1) It puts the power back in the hands of content creators (artists), and takes control away from publishers who currently decide what gets published and who gets paid. Creators should pay publishers a cut of the profits, not the other way around.
2) It provides incentive to produce the best quality work because nobody is going to pay for junk. So, yeah, some artists are going to fail and say that the system doesn't work because they refuse to see their own shortcomings.
3) It eliminates the honor system, because nobody gets your idea until after you have decided that it has been paid for. You have only provided a reason for the payments by proving you have the goods. People aren't paying for what they got from you, they are paying for you alone have, and what they want.
4) It eliminates piracy and lawbreaking and all of the associated overhead incurrend with these new sorts of criminals we have created because of IP law. It eliminates the idea of DRM and other draconian measures that could be just as easily used to take rights away from the many as they could be used to grant rights to the few.
There is a semi-good example of my idea at work. A company called NaN produced a shareware 3D modelling and rendering program called Blender. The shareware version was crippled, but there was a full commercial version available for pay. NaN made a little bit in their commercial venture, but did not really do too well selling this program in the traditional way. Shareware
No, no, nonono. Both of my posts are in perfect agreement.
Let me ask you this. You want to start a business. What do you use to start it with? You haven't sold anything. So you borrow money! You get an investor! You use your own money! Thousands, millions of dollars, even. You hope that your business is good enough to recoup the costs, but chances are you will lose everything. Most startups do.
This is simply what I am suggesting with the IP biz. Nothing different. You put in your initial investment, and it either succeeds or fails. If it fails, you STOP DOING IT.
I don't know what it is with you music people. You think that because you spent some effort making something, that people should pay you to keep doing it. You expect them to work on the honor system, and to not copy it.
NORMAL business rely on the scarcity of their goods to make money. So if you are a famous artist and not making money, then make your work SCARCE. If people REALLY like it, they will pay you for it.
You do not understand what I am saying. In every other scenario where money is exchanged for goods, you ALWAYS pay before you get the goods. Why do artists let their goods out before they have been paid? You should work on commissioned works or on merit payments ONLY! It's crazy to publish something and expect consumers to repect your IP on the honor system. No other industry is crazy enough to do this.
If you insist on releasing your work for the love of it, then you qualify as a donor, ala the Open Source crowd. You either work for the love of it, or the money of it. That's economics. The RIAA doesn't get it.
Perhaps you should look more closely at my argument: It isn't remotely based on the honor system. The CURRENT system of Intellectual Property is based on the honor system. My system is based on logic.
Let me reiterate my logic to you: Ideas, once they have been let out, are essentially commodities, and are worth nothing. This is because, once an idea is out, there becomes (effectively) an infinite supply of that idea. This is a fact that can't be denied (music, books, programs, data; all of these things are trivially copied and distributed).
My suggestion has to do with ideas that are still property. Now, how can an idea be property? Only if the idea belongs to one, and only one, person. Property, by definition, can only belong to a single proprietor. The ridiculous IP laws pretend to give out "rights" to ideas as property. These rights (which are actually priveleges) are based on the honor system! People REALLY can't steal your music, because YOU STILL HAVE IT! People can only deprive you of an artificial right that has been granted by legislation.
Now think about something. How can someone copy your idea if you haven't divulged it? They can't! A person might be fortunate enough to independently think of the exact same idea; a difficult thing indeed if your idea is truly unique. That is the key. You say: I have an idea. The public says: Let me have your idea. You say: Pay me first.
Now, tell me: How is that the honor system? Either people pay you, or they don't. If people don't pay you, they don't get your property. For some reason we are operating under a false assumption that ideas, once they have been divulged, are still property. That doesn't work, and you have just described the reason why. It can only work on the honor system that yout describe.
My suggestion eliminates the honor system all together. My suggestion works on the proven concept of supply and demand, but you must first prove that you have something worth paying for. There is no Marxism in my suggestion.
Why can't independents thrive off of the merits of their work?
Scenario:
You publish some of your creative content. Once published, content is essentially accessible to the general public at no cost. That's the nature of it. Your ideas become public property because ideas, once released, force themselves onto everyone who comes in contact with them, just like Jefferson said.
Now, your copyright identifies you as the original creator and the source for potential future works. Perhaps copyright will protect you from parasites who might try to hijack your work for their own exclusive gain, but nothing more.
You have made little or no money from your initial offering to the public. Your work, so far, is merely an investment. If you are any good, people will appreciate you. They will hope for more.
You will say: I own other ideas; ideas that are uniquely mine, and that nobody else has but me. These ideas are worth something to the public, and I will release them to you if you make it worth my effort.
If the public, based on the merits of your previous ideas, would like to be edified by your continuing work, then they will support you in your work. And if you become so astoundingly popular, why not hire a publishing house to get the word out to the masses? They could even take a small cut of your earnings. What a novel idea.
How can this go wrong? Why not use a system that actually cultivates excellence by feeding the true masters? Why not let the mediocre find something else they truly excel in? Why do we celebrate mediocrity? If the people still want the latest sexed-up teenage sensation, why, they can still vote with their money.
Isn't it time for people to think about what they really want? Why is it that we are force-fed our culture, as it were, through an I.V.?
You make many excellent points. The example of Scientology is a good one. I remember as an LDS missionaty in Brazil, I watched some news exposure about "A Igreja Universal de Deus" in which that particular church carted bags of cash out of a stadium; later on, a secret camera caught the church's founder acting in a lewd and irreverent manner. The church was exposed as a fraud, and yet still many believers would not leave it. So, yes, you are right that it is possible for a huge fraud to go on undetected for a long time. Generally, though, these blatant frauds get busted. Usually they began with fraud in mind, and operate with fraud in mind. The management rarely contains an honest man.
The LDS church is full of honest people. Take the bishop who works full time, yet volunteers many hours of his weekday to minister to his congregration. He may be asked to give up many of his possessions and serve a mission, or take on more responsibility as a stake president. I know many of these men, and can speak for their honesty and faithfulness in the church. Now suppose one of them is asked to give more, and to move away from his home and his work, and to devote his energies proselyting, and to live modestly, and lead as an area or regional authority. The man, believing he is called of God, leaves his work for his church in good faith. Suppose this man is now told to lie and to cheat and mislead, because now he has got some real power. Wouldn't that shatter his faith? And if his integrity were truly important to him, would he be able to carry on in such a position? I believe that such a man would blow the whistle. I would certainly not remain quiet if I were in that situation.
Our general authorities are taken from among our people. Some I have met, and known of their backgrounds. Many are regular people. Most others I don't know so well. So, I really don't think that this organization is efficient for wide-spread and egregious fraud, as many people allege of it. There are too many well-meaning men in the church who could not reconcile their own personal morality with the sort of fraud that supposedly goes on.
But here we have a test. What of Darl McBride? I, for one, am watching this closely. I have read and heard many of this man's speech, and I am offended by it; because it is so obviously arrogant, misleading and dishonest on many counts. This is not something that I was taught at church. Now, suddenly, what happens to McBride's standing in the church? He has said some things in public that I think must be repented of publicly. Will the church look the other way? Does the church even understand the gravity of the situation? Will Darl suddenly become a church leader because he has proven his corruption? Some of us are watching closely.
Now, regarding your other observations on Mormonism. To me, I think you confuse much of our culture and tradition with our theology and church. I happen to agree that too few Mormons make the effort to think critically. I think many of us are afraid. We don't possess the "testimony" that we would like, so we fear that by thinking outside of the safe little box, we might lose our faith. Some of us do. So we close ourselves off. However, I am not aware of any specific church policy that prohibits reading certain literature, or discourages non-member relationships. Certainly this is not _my_ personal policy, but I think it is more of a cultural taboo. I look at it as a form of protection against losing something that we cherish, or that would set us apart from our peers in the church. I am not justifying this as right, mind you, but I do think that it doesn't necessarily mean that we are all brain-washed automatons. I think that is a challenge of any religion, and that some religions are worse than others when it comes to overt control of the minds of the people. Yes, this is manifest in the LDS church, but we also try to encourage the people in all manner of secular education.
It is interesting that when I read the works of our best scholars, I don't see this g
There are two things that I think make the anti-mormon conspiracy sentiment in this thread rather unlikely:
1) The Mormon church is not necessarily the good ol' boys club where you pick the top brass from the old school power. Most of the top management trickled up from the lay clergy over the years. That is, the current church leaders were once non-paid volunteers, and it's just too improbable that every single one of them is a corrupt power-grabber. If there is even a single honest one in the bunch, the whole racket would have been blown years ago. It's too hard, logistically, to put one over on that many people.
2) Responding to every allegation on exmormon.com is like responding to every troll on slashdot. No doubt there have been rotten things that have happened. I am not surprised that disaffected mormons want to vent their anger. Many people turn against the church when they have been wronged. The chuch does have a number of what you might call "apologists," but they focus mainly on organized opposition, such as the countercultists and so forth. Exmormon.com is certainly biased by its membership of disaffected mormons, and doesn't therefore provide an acurate picture of the mormon church.
1) You make reference to a Dr. Dobbs article, but we have no way to independently verify your reference; because it is too vague. We can't go and look at the article to determine if your paraphrase of Mr. Stallman is acurate. Certainly his recent behavior does not back up your claim (as has been pointed out by others in this thread), so your citation is merely manipulative and can't be taken as serious.
2) I have studied Kant, and I am not familiar with any so-called philosophy of anti-self. Kant's well-known contribution to philosophy was his a-priori metaphysics, which was a brilliant and thoughtful counterpoint to the empiricists. Perhaps you could recommend one of Kant's writings in which the theory of anti-self is presented and discussed?
I find your argument manipulative because of its weak backing. The references to Dr. Dobbs and Immanuel Kant do not make me comfortable as to your authority in making such assertions regarding Mr. Stallman.
Perhaps you could enlighten us with some more tangible evidence?
I've thought of this very thing. I couldn't find a program to read.chm files on my pocket PC without paying for it, in spite of a nice GPL library for working with these files. So I decided to make my own reader, and GPL it (I need to do a little more research first - typically IE will read these formats, but apparently not on PocketPC).
I also thought it would be fun to make and release some PocketPC games under an open license.
Problem is that I have mighty little time, so it'll be a while before I get around to these projects.
Interesting you should bring up the subject of stress and technology.
There is an article in the latest Communications of the ACM with some excellent research that examines the causes of stress in IS workers.
If you subscribe to the ACM, you can read the article online at the ACM Portal.
This is from the March 2004 issue, so it's hot off the presses.
One of the sources cited in the paper was a study from a 1999 ComputerWorld publication that found non-U.S. programmers to be far more productive than their U.S. counterparts (more than 100% more productive than U.S. programmers in terms of number of lines of code written). The implication in the article is that stress is a large factor in this difference, but I found it interesting that programmers seem to be more productive offshore; it doesn't bode well for the plight of U.S. programmers.
I am a devout Utah Mormon. I believe there are a number of us who frequent Slashdot and are Linux and Open Source enthusiasts.
I find Mr. McBride's behavior really very unfortunate. In Utah, we do consider each other to be good, upstanding people. We like to think that our Church gives us a certain quality by virtue of membership, and we expect that other Mormons try to live as best they can. We support each other based on this assumption.
As Mormons, our reputation with the rest of the world is very important. We like to make a good impression because we think our message is important, and we think that others would benefit if they listened to what we have to say. I know that we have critics and detractors, but there is also a significant good that we try to stand for.
I am concerned that Mr. McBride, by his association with the LDS Church, has poorly represented my religion to uncounted millions of Open Source enthusiasts around the world. I get this feeling each time I read an article like this one, which metions the Mormon Church. In my opinion, McBride has no business aligning himself with such a cause when he is publically dishonest.
I do not know of any other LDS Linux enthusiasts who support SCO in any way. We do not feel that SCO's behavior merits any excuse, and we do not seek to justify the misrepresentations and falsehoods that SCO has propagated to the public.
I don't speak for the LDS Church at all, but this is my opinion on the matter. I trust that the Church will behave morally and responsibly as far as this matter is concerned.
Ever wonder why you rarely see a lot of media attention to these types of stories? It's a good question since a lot of these stories, if true, would be top news.
There are two possible reasons for this neglect:
1) There is a massive right-wing conspiracy, which only ultra-leftists can see through. Somehow the evidence only falls into these leftist's hands, and they are the only people who can expose these issues to the public.
2) The sources for this evidence are suspect, biased, unreliable or disputed. They don't hold up to the media's requirements for responsible reporting, other than for the occasional viewpoint or opinion piece.
I'm not saying there is no merit to any of this stuff, but I suggest that this site is run by a group of thinkers who lean decidedly to the left.
Last I knew, not everybody agreed on the leftist conspiracy model for reporting on facts. It is surely interesting material, but I'll bet there are other good theories out there too.
The effect of the "Big Lie", as Hitler put it, is to suggest to reasonable minds that they must be in err. The claims are so preposterous, so fantastic, that we suppose we must have overlooked some critical piece of evidence. Therefore, we question ourselves and our conclusions. We say things like "I don't understand how we can be so confident about this."
This was a Nazi propaganda tool, and it was very effective. I see a lot of similarities today in the SCO case.
Part of our responsibility as reasonable thinkers, is to remove any bias we might have, and evaluate assertions on their factual merits. By removing our bias, we seek to give each side of the argument equal footing.
Many people believe that, if they are unbiased, then they are thinking reasonably. What we fail to realize is how facts and evidence can prove the truth of any assertion beyond reasonable doubt. People have a hard time with facts because facts tend to restore bias in favor of the truth. Reasonable people are uncomfortable being biased, and are therefore more susceptible to the Big Lie.
There are two sides of the SCO issue. The SCO side is supported entirely with allegations, without a single shred of factual evidence that has been disclosed to the public.
The other side has a mountain of facts to refute every allegation that SCO has made.
I suggest that it is unfair to give SCO an unbiased benefit of the doubt when all of the facts clearly contradict everything they have said. That would be like presenting a Suicide Cult as a reasonable doctrine for society to consider.
We have no reason to not be confident in our position. SCO has no proof of their claims, not a single bit.
As a Utahn, I didn't find myself particularly offended over this. Most Utahn's who are aware of the SCO "problem" share the view of the open source community. I doubt McBride has much support at home (look, Novell is a Utah company too...).
Anyway, ESR is just venting his anger. I think this response is mostly aimed at debunking the IBM conspiracy comments. ESR does this by writing a rant that is so inflamatory, there is no way that IBM would sanction it.
Slashdot Mirror
My favorite part:
I'd apply the same principles to cooking. Alton is a culinary chemist, maybe. A culinary hacker, never.
I am not certain what the intent of your post is. Is it to confirm my points, or to argue against them?
I have, of course, read Linus' biography. Linux is indeed a clone of Unix. As I mentioned, Linus was impressed by the elegance of Unix, and clearly he used it at school, and at home. However, it remains true that Linus did not use or develop with Unix _source code_. Using Unix is not the same thing as studying Unix source code.
It is also true that Linux development was hosted on Linus' MINIX partition until it was mature enough to host itself (if I recall, a certain disk-crash helped move this progression along). This doesn't mean Linus used MINIX code in Linux. He said as much when he introduced the project on the Internet. MINIX code is proprietary anyway, so Andrew Tanenbaum would have had a fit. Linus used completely different kernel strategies too: MINIX uses a microkernel approach, and Linux was a terminal program that "grew legs," as Linus puts it. Linux is a monolithic kernel.
Linus himself states that the most profound influence he had was Andy Tanenbaum's book on operating system design. Tanenbaum's own MINIX seems to have been derived from ancient Unix (System III, if I recall), so it would be natural if Linus had some indirect influence from that, and from the book.
Tanenbaum knew about Linux, and he criticised it for this monolithic design strategy. I am certain that he would have raised a stink had there been actual MINIX code in Linux. Anyone can look at Linux code, remember? What good does it do to steal other people's work, and then show everyone what you did?
It is also evident that, were it not for the BSD case in '92, Linux might not be as popular as it is now. However, AT&T's involvement in this litigation against BSD does not make Linus an intern at AT&T. I do not see how this relates to the discussion.
Finally, design influences implementation. If you are implementing a clone of another system, chances are some of your work will be homologous (especially if you code to a standard). Obviously, Linux has features that are homologous to Unix. I've heard that some Linux code is taken (lawfully) from BSD, so there are other similarities with Unix there.
None of this changes the fact that Linus built Linux from scratch, and that original Unix source code played no part in it. Linus developed Linux, but he didn't invent the idea of an operating system, nor the concepts behind Unix. But Linus did what he said he'd do: build a better MINIX than MINIX, and ultimately, a better Unix than Unix.
You're funny. Of course, ignorant people won't see your joke, so I will lay to rest any unease that might arise when someone who is not acquainted with actual facts reads your little gem.
Linus was never an intern at Bell Labs.
Linux was originally written in Linus' bedroom at his mom's apartment in Helsinki, Finland. Linus was attending University at the time.
Linux started out as a little terminal program for reading Linus' email - I believe he could boot right into it without having to load MINIX. Linus kept adding features to it until it became more of an OS Kernel, and then other people started helping out with development.
Linus was impressed with the Unix philosophy and design, but saw limits in MINIX.
Linux never had MINIX code in it.
Linux was already very popular by the time Linus moved from Finland to California. Linus went to work for Transmeta. More recently, Linus moved to OSDL.
As far as we know, Linus has never worked around actual Unix System V source code, nor with AT&T or Bell Labs.
Linux was written to published POSIX standards.
There is no reason to believe that Linux contains anything but 100% original code, donated by Linus and a group of volunteers around the world. It does look like SGI once mistakenly contributed a small amount of System V code in one of their hardware drivers, but that code was redundant and soon removed from the kernel.
Audits on Linux code have now been performed by SGI and by a an open-source "insurance" firm. Probably others have also done audits.
These comparisons done between Linux and Unix have revealed very little similarity at the code level. Even SCO's lawyers now admit that there are no significant code similarities between Linux and System V. You will recall that SCO was not able to produce the apparent "millions" of lines of stolen code when ordered to do so by the Judge. Of course we can't find the code, SCO, said, because it's from AIX, not from System V.
They need a week to fix it before they say what it is.
McBride's is the typical fallacy:
If you don't agree with me, you aren't smart. Only dumb people would think otherwise.
McBride ignores the issue in a textbook Ad Hominem fallacy. If you can't prove your opponent wrong, at least you can call him stupid.
Not a good way to gain credibility.
It seems that the judge in '92 offered some skepticism regarding the enforceability of AT&T's copyrights. To me this points to some difficulty in identifying for a certainty which code belongs to who. Clearly, it is not all AT&T's code. That's why I think that Novell can't simply say, here are the copyrights; because Novell needs to be sure of what the copyrights are first. It's not cut and dry, like a book or a movie. Lot's of 3rd party contributions have made their way in. Whoever gets the copyrights need to exactly what they own.
Suppose SCO gets the copyrights and says, look, this bit of code infringes. It turns out that the code could have come from BSD, and the code is in System V as well. How certain are we that all BSD contributions are sufficiently documented? Plus, a lot of copyrighted System V code grew up out of old sources that were widely distributed before Unix went commercial. Say the code is published in a book, and perhaps shows up similarly in BSD, but was apparently copied from System V (much like the SGI contribution). Obviously there was an infringement, but what are the actual damages of that when the code is 95% identical to public code?
The pre-commercial development of Unix was a big mistake for AT&T because it diluted their copyrights. That's why I think the judge warned USL and facilitated the settlement. We've seen the value of Unix IP decline steadily since then.
I don't disagree that System V contains copyrighted materials exclusive to the owner of System V.
I think it comes down to whether or not SCO can get the case argued as a contract case, where they might have better chances, or if Novell can get the case argued as a copyright case, where it will lean in Novell's favor.
The contract says, OK, we'll give you the copyrights; but the copyright law says you have to at least say what copyrights you are giving away. So maybe SCO can prevail on the contract issue and get Novell to transfer the copyrights, as promised. But what does that mean? It means that Novell still needs to follow through with that obligation contractually, and SCO has no right to claim copyright until that happens.
It will be an interresting case, however, I suspect the copyright issue won't affect much else regardless of how it turns out. Even if SCO gets the copyrights, they haven't been able to show infringement (other than the SGI contribution, which was rather minor, and remedied quickly).
SCO does not have documents that "appear" to show an actual copyright transfer under any interpretation of the law. Superficially, to an observer ignorant of copyright requirements, the APA ammendment may appear just as you suggest.
What SCO does have are documents that specifically _deny_ copyright transfer, and then an ammendment that shows intent to transfer unspecified copyrights as needed. As Novell has said, copyright law requires that a copyright be transferred with specificity. There are absolutely no documents in SCO's possession that do this. According to the law, it takes more than intent to transfer a copyright.
Anyway, Novell can't just go and transfer System V copyrights because it is unclear who owns copyright on what. Is it BSD code? Is it public domain code? Is it 3rd party code? System V is a copyright minefield. This is probably why Novell explicitly did NOT transfer copyright, but attached a promise of copyright transfer based on specific needs.
Remember that Ransom Love, assuming he had System V copyrights at the time, noted that SCO couldn't open up Unix (other than ancient Unix, which was already effectively public domain); because SCO wasn't sure what 3rd party proprietary code was in there. So there was this talk of opening up System V, and back then, SCO seemed willing - but unable - to do it.
I guess that this is most likely the intent of the Novell ammendment to the APA: To only transfer a copyright once it has been cleared of any outside claims (remember USL vs. BSD in '92). Clearly Novell was open to copyright transfer to SCO, and very possibly that was the intent (over at Groklaw, PJ surmises that SCO might even have Novell witnesses willing to testify to this intent). However, as I mentioned, it takes more than intent and promise to satisfy the law.
But I agree: The SCO copyright dispute must be resolved before any declaratory judgement. My only issue is that SCO documents don't "appear" to show anything other than intent.
I'm doing a research paper in OO (word processor) right now, and I'd agree that it is still not quite there. OO can't seem to get my formatting right, especially with outlining and numbered headings.
OO sometimes doesn't know when to break out of outline/list mode, can't get number sequences quite right, and sometimes does crazy indenting that I can't figure out. It's also a pain cutting and pasting from web pages when OO tries to preserve the HTML formatting (badly), and I wanted just the text anyway.
However, the export and import for Word documents works surprisingly well, and I never have had any problems submitting documents saved to Word format from OO (plus, there's always PDF, which also works really well).
It won't be much longer before Word has a serious open source contender. The features are there, they just need to stabilize. The fact that MS feels they need to compare themselves with OO says that they think OO is now a contender to MSWord. The time is soon coming when you will want to start looking at OO again.
Even if MS released the specs, many of the format issues are tied to MSWord features that may not exist in other word processors, or may work differently.
The only way to be truly compatible with MSWord is to match MSWord's feature set. Simply put, clone MSWord.
OK, here is our disconnect. Yes, I am saying that you should take payment before giving up the goods. However, I am also saying that your must first invest in your business before you can have your business. In other words, you have to prove that you have the goods before you can sell them! Here is what I think you don't understand about my argument: I suggest selling the actual idea, not copies of the idea. I maintain that in order to sell an idea, you've got to give one away first. The first idea is the only one you ever give away - it's the investment you put into your business to encourage interest. It's advertising, if you will. You might provide tantalizing snippets of future ideas, but you refuse to let those ideas out until you get what you think they are worth.
So my parallel is between the initial investment in a startup (which is the capital used to finance the operations and produce the first goods) and initial investment in an IP venture, where the goods are intangible. My observation is that the only way to make IP successful is to make IP subject to the same laws of availability that tangible goods are subject to.
As it turns out, the RIAA and MPAA have the same idea as I do, only they want to make IP scare by putting artificial constraints on the copies of it. They want to make IP difficult to copy and distribute, so that only they can do it. I say this is bogus. That is not the right way to do it. DRM is clearly a power-grab and way oversteps its stated use by giving huge power to publishing houses. Watermarking and copy protection have been repeatedly proven to be ineffective.
All we really have right now are laws that say that making copies is wrong, and so please don't make copies or you will go to jail if you get caught. To me, that sounds like the honor system: big business has legislated IP laws, and we, the people, promise to obey them. The problem is that most people don't see the ethical problems in making copies of things that are trivial to copy.
And so I am pointing out the fact that you can't make a copy of something that exists only in the artist's head. There is you bulletproof IP protection.
What does this mean?
1) It puts the power back in the hands of content creators (artists), and takes control away from publishers who currently decide what gets published and who gets paid. Creators should pay publishers a cut of the profits, not the other way around.
2) It provides incentive to produce the best quality work because nobody is going to pay for junk. So, yeah, some artists are going to fail and say that the system doesn't work because they refuse to see their own shortcomings.
3) It eliminates the honor system, because nobody gets your idea until after you have decided that it has been paid for. You have only provided a reason for the payments by proving you have the goods. People aren't paying for what they got from you, they are paying for you alone have, and what they want.
4) It eliminates piracy and lawbreaking and all of the associated overhead incurrend with these new sorts of criminals we have created because of IP law. It eliminates the idea of DRM and other draconian measures that could be just as easily used to take rights away from the many as they could be used to grant rights to the few.
There is a semi-good example of my idea at work. A company called NaN produced a shareware 3D modelling and rendering program called Blender. The shareware version was crippled, but there was a full commercial version available for pay. NaN made a little bit in their commercial venture, but did not really do too well selling this program in the traditional way. Shareware
No, no, nonono. Both of my posts are in perfect agreement.
Let me ask you this. You want to start a business. What do you use to start it with? You haven't sold anything. So you borrow money! You get an investor! You use your own money! Thousands, millions of dollars, even. You hope that your business is good enough to recoup the costs, but chances are you will lose everything. Most startups do.
This is simply what I am suggesting with the IP biz. Nothing different. You put in your initial investment, and it either succeeds or fails. If it fails, you STOP DOING IT.
I don't know what it is with you music people. You think that because you spent some effort making something, that people should pay you to keep doing it. You expect them to work on the honor system, and to not copy it.
NORMAL business rely on the scarcity of their goods to make money. So if you are a famous artist and not making money, then make your work SCARCE. If people REALLY like it, they will pay you for it.
You do not understand what I am saying. In every other scenario where money is exchanged for goods, you ALWAYS pay before you get the goods. Why do artists let their goods out before they have been paid? You should work on commissioned works or on merit payments ONLY! It's crazy to publish something and expect consumers to repect your IP on the honor system. No other industry is crazy enough to do this.
If you insist on releasing your work for the love of it, then you qualify as a donor, ala the Open Source crowd. You either work for the love of it, or the money of it. That's economics. The RIAA doesn't get it.
Perhaps you should look more closely at my argument: It isn't remotely based on the honor system. The CURRENT system of Intellectual Property is based on the honor system. My system is based on logic.
Let me reiterate my logic to you: Ideas, once they have been let out, are essentially commodities, and are worth nothing. This is because, once an idea is out, there becomes (effectively) an infinite supply of that idea. This is a fact that can't be denied (music, books, programs, data; all of these things are trivially copied and distributed).
My suggestion has to do with ideas that are still property. Now, how can an idea be property? Only if the idea belongs to one, and only one, person. Property, by definition, can only belong to a single proprietor. The ridiculous IP laws pretend to give out "rights" to ideas as property. These rights (which are actually priveleges) are based on the honor system! People REALLY can't steal your music, because YOU STILL HAVE IT! People can only deprive you of an artificial right that has been granted by legislation.
Now think about something. How can someone copy your idea if you haven't divulged it? They can't! A person might be fortunate enough to independently think of the exact same idea; a difficult thing indeed if your idea is truly unique. That is the key. You say: I have an idea. The public says: Let me have your idea. You say: Pay me first.
Now, tell me: How is that the honor system? Either people pay you, or they don't. If people don't pay you, they don't get your property. For some reason we are operating under a false assumption that ideas, once they have been divulged, are still property. That doesn't work, and you have just described the reason why. It can only work on the honor system that yout describe.
My suggestion eliminates the honor system all together. My suggestion works on the proven concept of supply and demand, but you must first prove that you have something worth paying for. There is no Marxism in my suggestion.
Why can't independents thrive off of the merits of their work?
Scenario:
You publish some of your creative content. Once published, content is essentially accessible to the general public at no cost. That's the nature of it. Your ideas become public property because ideas, once released, force themselves onto everyone who comes in contact with them, just like Jefferson said.
Now, your copyright identifies you as the original creator and the source for potential future works. Perhaps copyright will protect you from parasites who might try to hijack your work for their own exclusive gain, but nothing more.
You have made little or no money from your initial offering to the public. Your work, so far, is merely an investment. If you are any good, people will appreciate you. They will hope for more.
You will say: I own other ideas; ideas that are uniquely mine, and that nobody else has but me. These ideas are worth something to the public, and I will release them to you if you make it worth my effort.
If the public, based on the merits of your previous ideas, would like to be edified by your continuing work, then they will support you in your work. And if you become so astoundingly popular, why not hire a publishing house to get the word out to the masses? They could even take a small cut of your earnings. What a novel idea.
How can this go wrong? Why not use a system that actually cultivates excellence by feeding the true masters? Why not let the mediocre find something else they truly excel in? Why do we celebrate mediocrity? If the people still want the latest sexed-up teenage sensation, why, they can still vote with their money.
Isn't it time for people to think about what they really want? Why is it that we are force-fed our culture, as it were, through an I.V.?
It is not a hard issue. Why is there such debate?
You make many excellent points. The example of Scientology is a good one. I remember as an LDS missionaty in Brazil, I watched some news exposure about "A Igreja Universal de Deus" in which that particular church carted bags of cash out of a stadium; later on, a secret camera caught the church's founder acting in a lewd and irreverent manner. The church was exposed as a fraud, and yet still many believers would not leave it. So, yes, you are right that it is possible for a huge fraud to go on undetected for a long time. Generally, though, these blatant frauds get busted. Usually they began with fraud in mind, and operate with fraud in mind. The management rarely contains an honest man.
The LDS church is full of honest people. Take the bishop who works full time, yet volunteers many hours of his weekday to minister to his congregration. He may be asked to give up many of his possessions and serve a mission, or take on more responsibility as a stake president. I know many of these men, and can speak for their honesty and faithfulness in the church. Now suppose one of them is asked to give more, and to move away from his home and his work, and to devote his energies proselyting, and to live modestly, and lead as an area or regional authority. The man, believing he is called of God, leaves his work for his church in good faith. Suppose this man is now told to lie and to cheat and mislead, because now he has got some real power. Wouldn't that shatter his faith? And if his integrity were truly important to him, would he be able to carry on in such a position? I believe that such a man would blow the whistle. I would certainly not remain quiet if I were in that situation.
Our general authorities are taken from among our people. Some I have met, and known of their backgrounds. Many are regular people. Most others I don't know so well. So, I really don't think that this organization is efficient for wide-spread and egregious fraud, as many people allege of it. There are too many well-meaning men in the church who could not reconcile their own personal morality with the sort of fraud that supposedly goes on.
But here we have a test. What of Darl McBride? I, for one, am watching this closely. I have read and heard many of this man's speech, and I am offended by it; because it is so obviously arrogant, misleading and dishonest on many counts. This is not something that I was taught at church. Now, suddenly, what happens to McBride's standing in the church? He has said some things in public that I think must be repented of publicly. Will the church look the other way? Does the church even understand the gravity of the situation? Will Darl suddenly become a church leader because he has proven his corruption? Some of us are watching closely.
Now, regarding your other observations on Mormonism. To me, I think you confuse much of our culture and tradition with our theology and church. I happen to agree that too few Mormons make the effort to think critically. I think many of us are afraid. We don't possess the "testimony" that we would like, so we fear that by thinking outside of the safe little box, we might lose our faith. Some of us do. So we close ourselves off. However, I am not aware of any specific church policy that prohibits reading certain literature, or discourages non-member relationships. Certainly this is not _my_ personal policy, but I think it is more of a cultural taboo. I look at it as a form of protection against losing something that we cherish, or that would set us apart from our peers in the church. I am not justifying this as right, mind you, but I do think that it doesn't necessarily mean that we are all brain-washed automatons. I think that is a challenge of any religion, and that some religions are worse than others when it comes to overt control of the minds of the people. Yes, this is manifest in the LDS church, but we also try to encourage the people in all manner of secular education.
It is interesting that when I read the works of our best scholars, I don't see this g
There are two things that I think make the anti-mormon conspiracy sentiment in this thread rather unlikely:
1) The Mormon church is not necessarily the good ol' boys club where you pick the top brass from the old school power. Most of the top management trickled up from the lay clergy over the years. That is, the current church leaders were once non-paid volunteers, and it's just too improbable that every single one of them is a corrupt power-grabber. If there is even a single honest one in the bunch, the whole racket would have been blown years ago. It's too hard, logistically, to put one over on that many people.
2) Responding to every allegation on exmormon.com is like responding to every troll on slashdot. No doubt there have been rotten things that have happened. I am not surprised that disaffected mormons want to vent their anger. Many people turn against the church when they have been wronged. The chuch does have a number of what you might call "apologists," but they focus mainly on organized opposition, such as the countercultists and so forth. Exmormon.com is certainly biased by its membership of disaffected mormons, and doesn't therefore provide an acurate picture of the mormon church.
I think that's the Brigham Young statue you refer to, although I don't recall its exact configuration.
There are two problems with your argument.
1) You make reference to a Dr. Dobbs article, but we have no way to independently verify your reference; because it is too vague. We can't go and look at the article to determine if your paraphrase of Mr. Stallman is acurate. Certainly his recent behavior does not back up your claim (as has been pointed out by others in this thread), so your citation is merely manipulative and can't be taken as serious.
2) I have studied Kant, and I am not familiar with any so-called philosophy of anti-self. Kant's well-known contribution to philosophy was his a-priori metaphysics, which was a brilliant and thoughtful counterpoint to the empiricists. Perhaps you could recommend one of Kant's writings in which the theory of anti-self is presented and discussed?
I find your argument manipulative because of its weak backing. The references to Dr. Dobbs and Immanuel Kant do not make me comfortable as to your authority in making such assertions regarding Mr. Stallman.
Perhaps you could enlighten us with some more tangible evidence?
I've thought of this very thing. I couldn't find a program to read .chm files on my pocket PC without paying for it, in spite of a nice GPL library for working with these files. So I decided to make my own reader, and GPL it (I need to do a little more research first - typically IE will read these formats, but apparently not on PocketPC).
I also thought it would be fun to make and release some PocketPC games under an open license.
Problem is that I have mighty little time, so it'll be a while before I get around to these projects.
Interesting you should bring up the subject of stress and technology.
There is an article in the latest Communications of the ACM with some excellent research that examines the causes of stress in IS workers.
If you subscribe to the ACM, you can read the article online at the ACM Portal.
This is from the March 2004 issue, so it's hot off the presses.
One of the sources cited in the paper was a study from a 1999 ComputerWorld publication that found non-U.S. programmers to be far more productive than their U.S. counterparts (more than 100% more productive than U.S. programmers in terms of number of lines of code written). The implication in the article is that stress is a large factor in this difference, but I found it interesting that programmers seem to be more productive offshore; it doesn't bode well for the plight of U.S. programmers.
Funny, but also true.
Since when does competent management employ poor programmers?
Isn't it almost always because of incompetent management?
I am a devout Utah Mormon. I believe there are a number of us who frequent Slashdot and are Linux and Open Source enthusiasts.
I find Mr. McBride's behavior really very unfortunate. In Utah, we do consider each other to be good, upstanding people. We like to think that our Church gives us a certain quality by virtue of membership, and we expect that other Mormons try to live as best they can. We support each other based on this assumption.
As Mormons, our reputation with the rest of the world is very important. We like to make a good impression because we think our message is important, and we think that others would benefit if they listened to what we have to say. I know that we have critics and detractors, but there is also a significant good that we try to stand for.
I am concerned that Mr. McBride, by his association with the LDS Church, has poorly represented my religion to uncounted millions of Open Source enthusiasts around the world. I get this feeling each time I read an article like this one, which metions the Mormon Church. In my opinion, McBride has no business aligning himself with such a cause when he is publically dishonest.
I do not know of any other LDS Linux enthusiasts who support SCO in any way. We do not feel that SCO's behavior merits any excuse, and we do not seek to justify the misrepresentations and falsehoods that SCO has propagated to the public.
I don't speak for the LDS Church at all, but this is my opinion on the matter. I trust that the Church will behave morally and responsibly as far as this matter is concerned.
Ever wonder why you rarely see a lot of media attention to these types of stories? It's a good question since a lot of these stories, if true, would be top news.
There are two possible reasons for this neglect:
1) There is a massive right-wing conspiracy, which only ultra-leftists can see through. Somehow the evidence only falls into these leftist's hands, and they are the only people who can expose these issues to the public.
2) The sources for this evidence are suspect, biased, unreliable or disputed. They don't hold up to the media's requirements for responsible reporting, other than for the occasional viewpoint or opinion piece.
I'm not saying there is no merit to any of this stuff, but I suggest that this site is run by a group of thinkers who lean decidedly to the left.
Last I knew, not everybody agreed on the leftist conspiracy model for reporting on facts. It is surely interesting material, but I'll bet there are other good theories out there too.
The effect of the "Big Lie", as Hitler put it, is to suggest to reasonable minds that they must be in err. The claims are so preposterous, so fantastic, that we suppose we must have overlooked some critical piece of evidence. Therefore, we question ourselves and our conclusions. We say things like "I don't understand how we can be so confident about this."
This was a Nazi propaganda tool, and it was very effective. I see a lot of similarities today in the SCO case.
Part of our responsibility as reasonable thinkers, is to remove any bias we might have, and evaluate assertions on their factual merits. By removing our bias, we seek to give each side of the argument equal footing.
Many people believe that, if they are unbiased, then they are thinking reasonably. What we fail to realize is how facts and evidence can prove the truth of any assertion beyond reasonable doubt. People have a hard time with facts because facts tend to restore bias in favor of the truth. Reasonable people are uncomfortable being biased, and are therefore more susceptible to the Big Lie.
There are two sides of the SCO issue. The SCO side is supported entirely with allegations, without a single shred of factual evidence that has been disclosed to the public.
The other side has a mountain of facts to refute every allegation that SCO has made.
I suggest that it is unfair to give SCO an unbiased benefit of the doubt when all of the facts clearly contradict everything they have said. That would be like presenting a Suicide Cult as a reasonable doctrine for society to consider.
We have no reason to not be confident in our position. SCO has no proof of their claims, not a single bit.
As a Utahn, I didn't find myself particularly offended over this. Most Utahn's who are aware of the SCO "problem" share the view of the open source community. I doubt McBride has much support at home (look, Novell is a Utah company too...).
Anyway, ESR is just venting his anger. I think this response is mostly aimed at debunking the IBM conspiracy comments. ESR does this by writing a rant that is so inflamatory, there is no way that IBM would sanction it.