Slashdot Log In
Linus Defends Proprietary File Formats [Updated]
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:17 PM
from the to-each-his-own dept.
from the to-each-his-own dept.
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.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Dupe and a lie (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, editors need to keep tabs, but asshat submitters need to shape up as well.
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Funny)
C'mon, /. .. I rely on you people!
Parent
Go back to Pipedot. (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent
My God, That Explains Everything! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
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!"
Parent
More Decent Submitters, then (Score:4, Insightful)
Then submit unasshatted stuff yourself. You have the opportunity to fix something that annoys you, so do so.
Parent
Re:More Decent Submitters, then (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Lets have a vote! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Yes, and thanks to the wonders of Google (Score:5, Insightful)
This story should be yanked now.
Parent
The headline is not false (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:The headline is not false (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, I did the same thing. Appearently they just don't care.
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Interesting)
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:
- 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.
- Reverse engineer Bitkeeper, using the information to write compatable clients.
- 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?
Parent
How else do you get device drivers? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Dupe and a lie (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot's new slogan: "News for the Naive. Stuff that's made up." (attributed to slashdot editors as reported on slashdot)
Parent
Misleading headline... RTFA editors! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Headline is OK; quote is not (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent
Re:Misleading headline... RTFA editors! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
Parent
Saving Throw... (Score:5, Funny)
I feel the the opposite... (Score:4, Insightful)
Before you get upset... (Score:5, Informative)
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
RTFA! (Score:5, Funny)
Lovely (Score:5, Insightful)
Reverse engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
This points out Linus' inconsistency very well (Score:5, Interesting)
Bruce
Re:This points out Linus' inconsistency very well (Score:5, Insightful)
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:
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?
Parent
Grow up. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
GG (Score:5, Insightful)
Totally unforgivable! (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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! (Score:5, Funny)
I cant believe how dumb you guys are... (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot, the Weekly World News of tech journalism.
Re:I cant believe how dumb you guys are... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent
Register is playing with our emotions! (Score:5, Funny)
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!!!
Proprietary File Formats = BAD (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Don't you just hate it... (Score:5, Funny)
And then it turns out they were totally right, and not only does she leave you, she ends up giving you VD.
reading and writing are not the same (Score:5, Interesting)
Writing is another matter. It's not so critical. It matters only if your peers require a particular data format.
Re:Linus did NOT say that, RTFA! (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Parent