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More Responses to de Tocqueville Hatchet Job 435

Posted by michael from the happy-birthday-mike-hodnett dept.
akahige writes "Fresh from the debunking of the 'Linus couldn't possibly have written an OS without ripping someone off' book published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, Tanenbaum has published an email he got from the consultant hired to do the code comparison between MINIX and Linux. Among other juicy comments, 'pay no attention to this man.' (There was no stolen code, either.) In related matters, ESR was apparently sent a pre-release excerpt of the book which he completely eviscerates with his usual zeal. Another story on NewsForge." See our previous stories if you're coming to this late.
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More Responses to de Tocqueville Hatchet Job More

More Responses to de Tocqueville Hatchet Job

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  • 'pay no attention to this man' (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mz6 ( 741941 ) * on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:10PM (#9277897) Journal
    Did anyone read that and immediately think of "The Wizard of Oz"?

    "Pay no attentioned to the man behind the curtain..."

    • Re:'pay no attention to this man' (Score:5, Funny)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:33PM (#9278136) Homepage
      Actually, no. I was wondering who this Alexis is, and where I can get some of her world famous tacos.

    • Also on Groklaw (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Xenographic ( 557057 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:56PM (#9278383) Journal
      Heh, you should read PJ's take on it, as this story is also covered on Groklaw [groklaw.net]

      Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed the singular omissions Brown of AdTI is making here? One might think that he was acting with a reckless disregard for the truth [expertlaw.com], which counts as evidence of "actual malice." Not that that should be surprising to us, as those on SCO's side of things have been known for defaming people before (see my sig or journal), but it might be a basis for a lawsuit, even though Linus is likely a "public figure" ... Of course, IANAL.

      • Calm down and move along... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:09PM (#9278530) Homepage
        Yes, yes, I suppose some people with nothing better to do might walk around sputtering incoherently and mentioning "libel" and "slander" now and then. On the other hand, more sensible minds will simply ignore Ken Brown and his "institute", knowing that it is common knowledge that he is just another kind of high-priced prostitute. He provides a service kind of like those people who will write college papers and thesis on whatever subject you tell them. No news here, move along...

        • I refuse to do that. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Xenographic ( 557057 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:44PM (#9278927) Journal
          The fact is that these claims are a well-funded marketing campaign to create FUD about Linux because those entities which are finding themselves less able to compete with it on technical merit have to attack it in other ways.

          There are already a number of IP related attacks--Microsoft's "Shared Source" for one is calculated to give some of the benefits of having the source available, while crippling the ability of anyone who might want to use it in GPL'd software. There are also issues with patented standards, like Microsoft's XML patents. To be fair, this cuts both ways, I seem to remember someone (Lucky Green?) patenting using DRM to control the use of "pirated" software, after a Microsoft speaker claimed to have not thought of doing that. Indeed, on might theoretically patent something and make the *only* way to use that patent to incorporate the GPL'd software one provides. This is certainly somewhat more coercive than the GPL usually is (since generally, if you don't like it, you can write your own damned code instead of taking mine), but it is yet another way to advance the public interest via IP law.

          Back to the point, we're looking at a well-funded character assasination attempt here. And if we're not, it sure as hell looks that way. I'm certainly not convinced that we should be ignoring this, since they're working on convincing the types who don't read Slashdot, and who aren't likely to see all the facts contrary to this insipid book.

          I mean, I'm just waiting for Lyons of Forbes (a scolecophagous scorbutical scoundrel [byliner.com], in my biased opinion), or Enderle to write some poorly-researched prattle about what this "proves." Then, only to turn and complain about the questioning of their reputations, in spite of their being known more for quoting press releases than for doing independent research... And no, calling a company to confirm that it believes its own press releases is hardly Pulizer material.

          But you're right. This isn't new. Lyons wrote an insipid character-assasination piece against PJ, defaming her with spurious allegations and incredibly weak associations to some random troll he quoted off the Internet. Enderle has called those who oppose SCO "terrorists," the crime being pointing out to the media that he has no credibility and talks out his ass half the time. Oh, and some people alledgedly sent him hatemail. That's not right, but it's nothing new, and his article goes far beyond mere hatemail, especially when he invited it with his flamebait writings, painting so many with the same brush, doing worse than the things he accuses others of, in my biased judgement.

          And my favorite, the one enshrined in my slashdot journal, is where SCO set out fake signs to defame the people picketing them--ones claiming to support communism and whatnot. The Groklaw article on that is linked in my journal [slashdot.org], and it even has nice pictures, so you can read them for yourself.

          So no, I have no intention of ignoring this campaign to malign us all. It's not likely to stop on its own. I would hope that anyone with standing to sue would at least consider doing so. I don't think this should be left to stand, even if I find it to be in the credit of Linus and the others that they are not litigious.
          • Besides being well funded it is also ongoing. Anyone thinking that the Torqueville Job is a recent one off is wrong.

            One of the trolls referred to by ESR - The "Pizduk" known as Nikolay Bezroukov was trolling on a similar assignment as early as the beginning of 2002 (obviously being flamed to charcoal by ESR in 1998 did not teach him a lesson). He tried to get my opinion on some of his scribbling, but he did not quite like what he got. At the time he was trying to compare Open Source to Intelligencia as pre

  • ESR got a copy?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by John Hurliman ( 152784 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:11PM (#9277904) Homepage
    Sending ESR an early copy of the book is like asking Sony to do a review of XBox 2
    • Don't you mean Xbox Next?

      In which case it would be more like asking Steve Jobs to do said review.

    • Re:ESR got a copy?! (Score:5, Funny)

      by phearlez ( 769961 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:32PM (#9278117)
      Maybe it falls under the approach of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" - lord knows ESR won't miss an opportunity to write something where he can work in a way to mention "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." I'm amazed it took him over 1,000 words to get around to it this time.

      • Re:ESR got a copy?! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Dun Malg ( 230075 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:21PM (#9278669) Homepage
        Maybe it falls under the approach of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" - lord knows ESR won't miss an opportunity to write something where he can work in a way to mention "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." I'm amazed it took him over 1,000 words to get around to it this time.

        Heh. Personally, I have to give him this one. The book is his manifesto on open source software. It's not like the discussion was about the poor quality of judging at last years Ninepins World Championship Tournament (damn those Norwegian judges!).

    • Re:ESR got a copy?! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Soko ( 17987 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:14PM (#9278600) Homepage
      ESR has had a nasty habit of donning a tin-foil hat, jumping up and down and then ranting like an in-coherent zealot - to the detrement of OSS in the eyes of CxO types. "Look at how this loony, a OSS leader, responds - is this the type of person you want associated with your business?"

      Unfortunately for Mr. Brown, ESR seems to be responding to the critisism of his past rants and couter-productive behaviour. This one, though perhaps self-serving at times, is measured and based on facts. AdTI's strategy of provoking a senseless flamewar with the OSS community is backfiring. If they had of made a more convincing argument, they may have gotten somewhere, but as it is, any of the /. trolls could have done better.

      Soko

  • There's no doubt about it (Score:5, Informative)

    by jg21 ( 677801 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:12PM (#9277910)
    Andy Tanenbaum is a hero. [linuxworld.com]

  • Does anybody else find ESR's writing style odd? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lavalyn ( 649886 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:12PM (#9277911) Homepage Journal
    It's reasonable that he was emotionally worked up writing this reply, but the stuttery nature (so many paragraphs of only two sentences!) made it particularly hard to read. It felt incoherent and rushed, like new insults were going straight from brain to keyboard with no later revision.

    A note to email users - it's very easy to make a bad impression with informal writing style!

  • Hand behind the Hatchet? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bendelo ( 737558 ) * on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:13PM (#9277919)
    I think the main question that should be asked here, is who is behind the Hatchet Job? Best guesses are SCO and/or Microsoft.

    Any further ideas?

    • Re:Hand behind the Hatchet? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by phearlez ( 769961 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:23PM (#9278015)
      Never assume conspiracy when simple malevolence will suffice. Never assume malevolence when simple idiocy will suffice. Although SCO/MS may have a motivation, plain old muckraking has been a profitable institution even when there's no specific axes to grind.
      • AdTI doesn't make it's money of general muckraking, their research is funded by outside parties. There is plenty of evidence of that, and Mr. Brown himself did not deny his research was funded by someone.

        Also, consider that Brown refused to answer a direct question on who was funding his 'research'.

        It is also known that Microsoft has funded AdTI in the past.

        Given that, it does not seem to me that simple idiocy would suffice as an explanation. Unless Red Hat or someone sponsored the research.

    • Re:Hand behind the Hatchet? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:25PM (#9278027)
      A lone moron and his publishist trying to sell copy by being sensational about a fairly popular and current topic?

    • Re:Hand behind the Hatchet? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Nimrangul ( 599578 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:25PM (#9278029) Journal
      You say SCO as an option as if it were not under the control of Microsoft and was infact a seperate entity.

    • I am curious... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by beakerMeep ( 716990 )
      could linus sue these guys for libel? not that I would advocate that but I was wondering whether there would be legal basis for such a suit.

    • Re:Hand behind the Hatchet? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Royster ( 16042 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:00PM (#9278433) Homepage
      Someone told Brown that he would find lots of copied code. This is a very Darl-like kind of lie. Brown believed him and wrote his paper probably having the code comparison done was an afterthought. Here is a "researcher" who is used to having people give him the results he paid for.

      Plus, I think that once MS was exposed as a funder of AdTI, they probably cut Brown off dry. I don't think they like their sock puppets exposed like that.

      My money is on SCO as the funder.
    • With all the recent news about MS and SCO trying to drag Linux down and spread their FUD, as well as AST's [cs.vu.nl] reiteration of the beginning of his interview with Ken Brown, I think it's a safe bet that at least MS is behind this. Sometimes I get the feeling that these guys are the only ones that get press time (the "bad guys"); we're the only ones that read the open emails and find out what really happened, while the CEO's and decision makers believe what they see on TV. But there's one prevailing fact that n
    • No. Thin about it. SCO says "Linus stole our code" because otherwise he couldn't have written a good OS. Now this guy comes up saying "Linus did that with AT's code". It only gives less credit to what SCO's saying, not more.

    • Re:Hand behind the Hatchet? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by scoove ( 71173 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:55PM (#9279057)
      Any further ideas?

      Sun.

      It's too direct for Microsoft (and too bungled too). Their FUD engine is well greased and is quite honestly self-perceived to be too above this troll trash to be implicated. Not that there aren't moneys from Allen being moved around on the side, but that's not official Microsoft policy. Granted, Microsoft has admitted [nwfusion.com]
      to funding Tocqueville but there's a missing beneficiary.

      Sun, on the other hand, is fighting for their life though it's receiving little coverage. Linux has decimated Sun's sales, and their missteps with Java have only frustrated efforts to find a solution - any solution. Perhaps some of the settlement money from Microsoft went here instead of directly to Sun?

      Consider: Who does having Linux portrayed as stolen property push the Linux base to?

      - FreeBSD/OpenBSD/netBSD? Not at all. If it was impossible for Linux to create Linux and therefore Linux is TheftWare, the *BSDs are next in line for accusations and implications.

      - SCO? This fossil? The same fossil one of their largest investors (and slush fund source) says should be canned? The fossil that litigation targets like Daimler Chrysler have confessed to not have used for nearly a decade? Doubtful.

      - Apple? A more interesting theory, but OS/X != Intel *NIX.

      - Microsoft? They're not at all in position to capture the Intel *NIX market. Convert to XP? How?

      Solaris, on the other hand, presents an inviting candidate for migration should the F/OSS *NIX's need a commercial home.

      *scoove*

  • Code obfuscation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) * on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:15PM (#9277938) Homepage Journal
    ESR says:

    In your discussion of obfuscation software, I hope it is simple ignorance rather than intentional deceit that prevents you from noting that open-source code has none of the characteristics of obfuscated code, and that obfuscators are therefore irrelevant to the question you are supposedly addressing.

    Anyone who has the book know what the ADTI's claim on code obfuscation was and why the issue was even mentioned?
    • Obfuscators make compiled code difficult to recompile into a sensible form.

      One possible argument being made by the ADTI is that Linus intentionally reverse-engineered the source code to some other Unix, tidied it up, and published it as his own Linux... possibly re-obfuscating it himself afterwards to make the deed difficult to discover.

      It's a fun idea but bears zero relation to reality.

      • Re:Code obfuscation (Score:3, Informative)

        by mcc ( 14761 )
        One possible argument being made by the ADTI is that Linus intentionally reverse-engineered the source code to some other Unix, tidied it up, and published it as his own Linux... possibly re-obfuscating it himself afterwards to make the deed difficult to discover.

        Uh..

        What would be the point of "reverse engineering" when Linus could just, you know, read Tanenbaum's textbook on operating system design and use that as a basis for how to design a UNIX operating system? Since that would be (1) easier (2) lega

  • Copy of email, /. effect (Score:3, Informative)

    by blakestah ( 91866 ) <blakestah@gmail.com> on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#9277959) Homepage
    A message I received from Alexey Toptygin

    "Around the middle of April, I was contacted by a friend of mine who asked me if I wanted to do some code analysis on a consultancy basis for his boss, Ken Brown. I ended up doing about 10 hours of work, comparing early versions of Linux and Minix, looking for copied code.

    My results are here. To summarize, my analysis found no evidence whatsoever that any code was copied one way or the other. (I realize that Minix predates Linux, but I did the comparison bidirectionally for the sake of objectivity).

    While I was working on this in my spare time, Ken kept pestering me to hurry up and finish. He told me he had a paper awaiting publication, and that my analysis was the las bit of data he needed. I sent the final results (which are, exactly as given to Ken Brown, at the above URL) to him on May 17th.
    When I called him to ask if he had any questions about the analysis methods or results, and to ask if he would like to have it repeated with other source comparison tools, I was in for a bit of a shock. Apparently, Ken was expecting me to find gobs of copied source code. He spent most of the conversation trying to convince me that I must have made a mistake, since it was clearly impossible for one person to write an OS and 'code theft' had to have occured.

    So, I guess what I want to say is, pay no attention to this man; to the best of my knowledge he is talking out of his ass. I apologise for any inconvenience I may have caused you by participating (however indirectly) in Ken's pet project.

    Please feel free to reproduce this email and the contents of my analysis webpage."

    --Alexey Toptygin

    Andy Tanenbaum, 20 May 2004

  • Like it or not, Linux owes a lot to MINIX (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:18PM (#9277968)
    Hi -

    I know there is a tendancy here to deify Linus, and he deserves so much credit, but Linux overall owes a lot to MINIX. I worked with MINIX back around 1989 and Hendricks should be given a lot of credit for helping to get the whole open source movement rolling.

    TWR

    • Re:Like it or not, Linux owes a lot to MINIX (Score:4, Insightful)

      by oevren ( 254752 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:49PM (#9278283) Homepage

      It is quite well known that Linus started developing Linux on Minix, before it was self-hosting. I don't see anybody saying otherwise.

      However, the issue is copy-pasting of source code from Minix, not whether Minix was helpful to the development of Linux or not.

    • Re:Like it or not, Linux owes a lot to MINIX (Score:5, Informative)

      by sbuckhopper ( 12316 ) * on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:51PM (#9278311) Homepage Journal
      I know there is a tendancy here to deify Linus, and he deserves so much credit, but Linux overall owes a lot to MINIX. I worked with MINIX back around 1989 and Hendricks should be given a lot of credit for helping to get the whole open source movement rolling.
      That's not really what's in question with these series of accusations. Linus does not hide the fact that he does have a lot to be thankful about for MINIX in the creation of Linux, which can be seen in Linus' book.

      The real question here is if Linus stole AT's code from MINIX, which both the creator of MINIX and an independant auditor both say he didn't.

  • Ken Brown will always be welcomed by Bush admin (Score:5, Funny)

    by chmilar ( 211243 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:18PM (#9277969)
    Analyst: "There is no (copied code/weapons of mass destruction) in (Linux/Iraq)."

    Great Leader: "That's not possible. Your analysis must be wrong. Do it again, and this time, tell me what I want to hear!"

  • That's a relief. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:18PM (#9277972) Homepage Journal

    I was just getting ready to send out cheques to SCO and Andy Tanenbaum for $699 each.

    • Re:That's a relief. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And I was just getting ready to send out cheques to Alexis de Tocqueville for 30M. But after this job...

      Bill G.

  • minor flaws in ESR's message? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by happyfrogcow ( 708359 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:20PM (#9277979)
    He says,

    Context and interfaces are everything; unless it has been packaged into a library specifically intended to move, moving software between projects is more like an organ transplant, with utmost care needed to resect vessels and nerves. The kind of massive theft you are implying is not just contingently rare, it is necessarily rare because it is next to impossible.

    Then 5 paragraphs down,

    That a piece of code came from a proprietary vendor is no guarantee that it originated there. Proprietary outfits lift code from elsewhere all the time.

    Sort of contradictory, no? To paraphrase, First he says it's very hard to lift code from elsewhere. Then he says, But some people do it all the time.

    • Re:minor flaws in ESR's message? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SheldonYoung ( 25077 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:38PM (#9278179)
      It is not a contradiction at all. In the first part he is stating that unless the code is designed to be used in a library it is difficult to re-use. In the second he says corporations re-use code all the time. The missing link is that the code companies re-use would most often be libraries.

    • Re:minor flaws in ESR's message? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jdunn14 ( 455930 ) <jdunn&iguanaworks,net> on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:43PM (#9278230) Homepage
      I don't think this is contradictory thanks to that first line: Context and interfaces are everything; unless it has been packaged into a library specifically intended to move. A proprietary vendor could simply lift an entire library, thereby steal implementations of entire APIs. In fact, companies that have been caught with their hands in the proverbial GPL cookie-jar have usually been caught with entire libraries or applications (Dell access points, some set-top boxes with mplayer (think that's right), etc.).

      Personally, I don't think I'll ever understand some people's problem with GPL'ed code. I've seen a number of bitch sessions about "but we don't want to release it". Tough shit, you chose to use GPL'ed code so play by the rules. You don't like the rules, don't use the code. It's not like this license sneaks up on you in the night. During design and implementation someone made a conscious descision about where to get code from. If that choice bites you in the ass, you have no one to blame but that guy.

  • copy of comparison analysis (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:26PM (#9278056)
    The comparison analysis linked to in the email (with some long snipets of actual code removed because it violates the slashdot 'postercomment' compression filter when you put it all in).

    comparison analysis:
    The raw comparison files are very large, but mostly full of false positives. This is due to the way SIM handles lists of constants and SIM's inability to distinguish between function calls and certain elements of syntax.
    Only 4 actual similarities were found. They are excerpted in whole, with reference to the respective source files, and discussed. Since the similar code sections are fairly invariant over all versions of minix and linux compared, excerpts will be taken from linux-0.96c and minix-1.2.

    1. in linux, include/linux/ctype.h:
    [code sipped]
    in minix, include/ctype.h:
    [code snipped]

    These are the 'character type' macros. They predate both minix and linux, and are a part of the majority of C libraries. They are specified in the ANSI C standard (ANSI X3.159-1989), and arereferred to in most C textbooks (i.e. "C++ How to Program" H. M. Deitel, P. J. Deitel --2nd ed. ISBN 0-13-528910-6).

    2. in linux, include/linux/stat.h:
    [code snipped]
    in minix, h/stat.h:
    [code snipped]

    Both the names and values of these constants are specified by the POSIX standard.

    3. in linux, in fs/read_write.c:
    [code snipped]
    in minix, in fs/open.c
    [code snipped]

    The behavior of the lseek system call is specified by POSIX. Since it is so simple, practically all implementations will be highly similar.

    4. in linux, in fs/minix/inode.c:
    s->s_imap[0]->b_data[0] |= 1;
    s->s_zmap[0]->b_data[0] |= 1;
    in minix, in fs/super.c
    sp->s_imap[0]->b_int[0] |= 3; /* inodes 0, 1 busy */
    sp->s_zmap[0]->b_int[0] |= 1; /* zone 0 busy */
    This operation is required in order to correctly mount the minix filesystem. All implementations would need this or equivalent code.

    Since, out of thousand of lines of code, only 4 small segments were found to be similar, and since in each case the similarity was required by external factors (the C standard, the POSIX standard, the minix filesystem format), it is highly unlikely that any source code was copied either from minix to linux or vice-versa.

  • And of course MS funds it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by metalhed77 ( 250273 ) <andrewvc@gmaCOUGARil.com minus cat> on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:27PM (#9278068) Homepage
    Microsoft in the past has supplied funding for the institution, which has published anti-open-source papers. In an eWEEK.com interview, senior fellow Gregory Fossedal refused to say who, if anyone, is sponsoring the institution's Linux project. "We don't discuss our funding," he said.


    From here [mediatransparency.org]
  • I love the smell of burning asbestos in the morning.

    Just a question, though, are some of the changelogs ESR mentions available for easy download? The kernel changelogs are easy to find, but what about the changelogs for emacs, Gnome, gzip/gunzip, and all of the other GNU software? If they really want to keep crying "source theft!", it would help to have those handy.

    Just another 2 cents.

  • The sad part (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:29PM (#9278085) Homepage
    The sad part of this is that it really makes little difference just how much people rip into this piese of literary excrement. Since it is "published" the majority of its intended audience will never even hear a whiff of any criticism, no matter how much we holler here.

    Compare to the thriving business of fortune telling or psycics (or evangelists), or of convinced political partisans. Debunking is happening continuously, but it doesn't even make a dent in these charlatans pocketbooks, as their marks do not hear about it anyway. They just aren't consumers of the kind of media that will publish anything critical of their chosen belief.

    • Libel? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by martyros ( 588782 )

      Well, if it's truly false, and the author has been told by several independent sources before the publication, and he still publishes it, how is that not libel?

    • Re:The sad part (Score:5, Informative)

      by pjrc ( 134994 ) <paul@pjrc.com> on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:37PM (#9278847) Homepage Journal
      Yes, the damage has been done. But complaining loudly does accomplish something useful... ruin ADTI's reputation.

      The more pain this causes ADTI, the lower their future credibility sinks, the number of people whose long-term memories record ADTI as the bunch of corporate whores they are... the more damage is done to their prospects of seeking future funding. Even from Microsoft, it won't make sense to pour more money into ADTI if they are widely considered a joke.

      Better yet, if ADTI suffers, the public scandal will help deter other "think tanks" from attacking free software when Microsoft or other proprietary vendors come knocking with "research" dollars.

  • Free Publicity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by earthforce_1 ( 454968 ) <earthforce_1 AT yahoo DOT com> on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:40PM (#9278204) Journal
    If you can't be good, be controversial. All this publicity is just going to sell more books.

    I remember the controversy that existed over "The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie. The novel was proclaimed as blashphemous to Islam, and a fatwah death sentence was pronounced on the author. Of course, the book sold out as fast as they could print copies. A student friend of mine at the time was proudly showing off his brand new hard copy edition he just bought, even though he could hardly afford his next meal. (He considered this a real prize, as they were selling so fast, it was hard to find a copy anywhere) So I started reading. It was an awful, improbable piece of literature, that undoubtably would have sold no more than a few thousand copies if not for the controversy.

    I also remember a story about a US art dealer who was tasked with unloading several thousand prints of a sitting nude from an obsure french painter nobody had heard of. So he displayed the original painting in the front of the store, secretly paid some children a few coins to stand and gawk at it, while calling up the leader of the then equivalent of the "moral majority" with an anonymous tip. He got himself arrested for displaying indecent material, and beat the rap in a high profile trial. Of course the prints all sold out quickly, and the original painting fetched a sizable fortune at auction.

    • Lit Crit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blamanj ( 253811 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:04PM (#9278481)
      Ok, this is a bit off-topic.

      I'll grant you, Rushdie probably sold a lot of books because of the fatwah. On the other hand, he was forced to live in seclusion, couldn't go anywhere without body-guards, watched his marriage break up, etc. He's often stated that if it was merely to sell books, it "wasn't worth it."

      Personally, I heard about "The Satanic Verses" before the fatwah, and had it on my reading list (though I didn't buy a copy 'til it was in paperback). I loved it and think it's great. Yes, some of it is "improbable," there is a whole genre called magic realism that deals in the improbable.

      Moreover, his creditials were established well before "Verses." His novel "Midnight's Children" won Britian's premiere literary award, The Booker Prize, in 1981, seven years before "Verses" was published.

  • Emacs as complex as early Linux? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fratz ( 630746 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:48PM (#9278272)
    Many other open-source projects of the order of complexity of the early Linux kernel predated it; the BSD Unixes, for example, or the Emacs editor.

    I'm a happy emacs user, so I'm not emacs-bashing, but damn. Maybe it is a little bloated :)

  • Microsoft and Legal BSD code (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <mark AT seventhcycle DOT net> on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:51PM (#9278314) Homepage

    From ESR's journal: The point is this: Microsoft (legally) took BSD code, and the only way we know about it is through behavioural analysis.

    I call Bullshit:

    http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2004/2/15/71552/7 795/98#98 [kuro5hin.org]

    To quote the poster for those of you too lazy to click:

    So how can I be so sure about that Microsoft is using BSD licensed code? Well, the BSD license(s) require that the copyright holder is credited in documentation provided with binary distributions of the code. In their release notes for their Windows XP operating system [microsoft.com], Microsoft credits a bunch of well-known copyright holders of open source products. It contains credits not only to the University of California at Berkeley, but also companies such as Hewlett-Packard and to individuals such as Luigi Rizzo and Phil Karn.

    ESR, If you're going to be a proper advocate for free source, please be correct about the information you post. Otherwise, you're not much better than Tocqueville in that regard.

  • If Brown was lying can't Linus sue for slander? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dharma21 ( 537631 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:53PM (#9278335)
    If Linus's reputation is being harmed by patently false and uncorroborated information for the sake of selling books, does that allow him to sue for slander? If so, any lawyers want to take up this case? Brown is getting a lot of free publicity, and other than the messages on slashdot, I don't see articles on CNET or eweek etc. taking up the other side of the story. A lawsuit would shed light on the book's information gathering practices, or lack thereof.

    • Re:If Brown was lying can't Linus sue for slander? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Our Man In Redmond ( 63094 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:45PM (#9279561)
      First off, it's libel when it's printed, not slander. (Although if, for instance, Brown were to spout his nonsense on a talk show, I don't know whether it would be libel or slander. Probably the latter.) Second, to win a libel case you have to prove damages, and you have to prove that the information was both false and malicious.

      In this case, is it false? Yes. Malicious? That's harder to prove, but could be. Damages? There's the rub. Unless this work damages Linus somehow -- he gets thrown in prison because of allegations in the book, or loses his job (which may I remind you is with a group [osdl.org] that is undoubtedly aware of Brown's blatant disregard for the truth), neither of which is likely -- damages would be pretty hard to prove. Especially if sales and usage of Linux continue to climb.

      So I think the best course of action is just to refute the FUD everywhere it rears its pointed little head. If Linus were to sue for libel the most likely result would be to make two sets of lawyers richer.

      Of course I could be wrong. John Henry Faulk [utexas.edu] sued AWARE for libel and effectively ended blacklisting in this country. Something similar might come out of a lawsuit against AdTI, but really only Linus could decide if it's worth the effort.

  • This all sounds like FUD campaign to me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:54PM (#9278353) Homepage Journal
    It all sounds 'fishy' that all of a sudden we have all this debate about Linus, and others like him.. Just makes me wonder what the true reason behind it all is. Sure it sounds like 'conspiracy theory', but with the way things have been in the industry lately, its not that far fetched.

  • No OS (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:55PM (#9278362)
    Well, it turns out that Linus never did make an operating system. Instead, he just created Linux which is a kernel that happens to be used with most of the GNU System to create OSes such as Debian and RedHat. Of course no one person could create an OS by themselves..... Hell, he wasn't even the only one working on Linux.

  • This book: Much about nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:57PM (#9278394) Homepage
    This is the kind of "book" that finds itself being sent to corporate execs by "consultants" hired by people with something to gain by the perspective pushed in the "book." You will not find this "book" on the shelves of any university library or Powell's Books, although in time, it might end up in the 50 cent box at a garage sale in some high end neighborhood. This is not a "study" or "paper" or any other kind of examination. It's a professionally written tome of FUD produced for a specific audience, and will be forgotten by next year.

    By the way, the garage sales in the very upper-crusty 'burbs around Redmond make for great places to pick up fairly new tech books for cheap, and now's the season!

  • The Interesting Bits (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:02PM (#9278458)
    In fact, all hackers condemn IP theft - this is what distinguishes us from the cracker/phreak subculture. Even the FSF faction that thinks proprietary code is evil has repeatedly and publicly condemned piracy and stealing other peoples' code. They want to destroy the proprietary system, but they insist on doing it by their own efforts, not by theft.

    Mostly true, but not intirely. Freesource hackers seem all be against stealing proprietary code but I seem to remember stallman endorsing music "piracy" during one of his speeches.

    You claim that "To date no other product comes to life in this way", presenting Linux as a unique event that requires exceptional explanations. This is wrong. Many other open-source projects of the order of complexity of the early Linux kernel predated it; the BSD Unixes, for example, or the Emacs editor.

    Wow. Stallman never ceases to impress me. I knew that gcc was as large and complex as linux but I never realized that emacs was too.

    Torvalds's ambiguity about "GNU/Linux" in 2001 was not complicated; he dislikes the term rather strongly but was at the time reluctant to get into a political scrap with Stallman, whom he personally dislikes. The dislike has since hardened and become sufficiently public that I am not betraying a confidence by writing this.

    Sad that they don't get along. Linus is such a happy go lucky guy that it seems out of character for him to dislike anything.

  • Ken Brown really doing a social study? (Score:4, Funny)

    by gorbachev ( 512743 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:12PM (#9278565) Homepage
    Reading the review by Jem Matzan at NewsForge, I can't help but wonder, if Ken Brown's goal was to either accelerate building a tighter Open Source and/or Linux community or study the how an (online) community would react to a vicious, if not incompetent, attack on it.

    There is no way he could have thought the book could have been taken seriously, after all. Unless he's one of those incomptetent people who have no idea how incomptetent they really are (witness WB's Superstar "reality" garbage).

  • The text of the original request sent to Alexey (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:13PM (#9278582)
    Dear Sir or Madam:

    I am writing to you with a matter of great importance. My employer has recently acquired the sum of $50,000,000,000 through a series of events and a lax enforcement of anti-trust laws. My employer has offered me a percentage of this money, but I need your assistance in order to complete the transaction. I will receive $10,000,000 for this transaction, and I will gladly share 30% of it with you.
    If you are willing to assist me, please write a letter showing that Linus Torvalds copied Linux from Minix and mail it to:
    MR. KEN BROWN
    Alexis de Nigeria Institute
    Abuja, Nigeria

    I'm sure that you appreciate the need for discretion and that you will keep this transaction quiet, as I have done by only sending it to 1/4 of the world's population.

    Thank you,
    MR. MPERIAL FLUNKEE

  • Butt !??!!!? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Zapdos ( 70654 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:17PM (#9278626)
    Linus wrote MINIX or so it says here [essortment.com]br>

  • No comment (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JohnGrahamCumming ( 684871 ) * <slashdot@jgc.oERDOSrg minus math_god> on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:38PM (#9278849) Homepage Journal
    It strikes me that ESR and others who shout loudly about how awful this book is/is going to be are making a big mistake. In the face of unethical and ridiculous statements from AdTI and SCO silence speaks more loudly than loud protestations.

    If you must say something then how about "I'm not going to dignify that with a response."

    John.

    • Re:No comment (Score:3, Interesting)

      by uncadonna ( 85026 )
      Yeah, it sure would be nice if that worked. However, it's wishful thinking.

      If what you said were true, politics would be about policy, not about innuendo and symbolism. Most people do not have time to critically evaluate most political claims. Just saying something publicly enough (especially with some ideological color added) means that some people will believe it.

      If anything shouldn't be dignified with a response, I agree it's this ridiculous claim that Linus stole Linux from Tannenbaum. Unfortunately

  • So bad it's suspicious (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @01:57PM (#9279076) Homepage Journal
    I'm beginning to think that this couldn't have been done by Microsoft, simply because it's so bad for their position. In order to have effective FUD, you have to make vague claims that people might worry about. If you make specific false claims, they can be refuted. And if you make specific false claims which offend the authoritative sources, you don't have FUD, you have a straw man.

    I think this book, along with the press surrounding it, will do a lot to defuse the FUD that Microsoft and SCO have spread. The vague "Linux may infringe something" claims will be clarified in people's minds to "Linux might have copied Minix". And then they can be countered, because the owner and author of Minix has said that Linux didn't copy it. If anyone knows, it would be him. So now people's vague ideas will be that the "Linux may infringe something" claim turned out to be false. (Of course, the logic here is flawed; just because Linux doesn't infringe on Minix doesn't mean that it couldn't infringe on something else; but people don't think that way, or they wouldn't buy FUD in the first place).

    Microsoft has been good at producing FUD. SCO has even been reasonably good at it (although revealing particular lines of non-infringing Linux code was a mistake there). But this has a serious lack of uncertainty. It gives the impression that, in order to worry about Linux's IP, you'd have to ignore all information remotely relevant, from every possible source, including the ones supposedly wronged. This is like accusing someone of murdering someone who is still alive and willing to testify for the defense. So I think that Microsoft didn't sponsor this, or at least didn't sign off on the result; SCO probably didn't either (although they've messed up worse in the past). I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be someone like Sun, though. They could benefit from Linux looking bad, or from Linux looking good. For that matter, they could really use a justification for their former coldness to Linux, while allowing them to become enlightened about it (considering that they're using it now).

  • Early Linux (Score:3, Informative)

    by pr0f3550r ( 553601 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:19PM (#9279297)
    It's easy to say that Linux was 'stolen' from other code because when you look at the ability that it has to interoperate now the tendency is to say that it was 'taken'. Having used Linux since the early days, I can tell you that it would have been a lot more feature rich, all lot sooner had it been taken.

    My co-workers at the time I got involved with Linux were fond of saying, 'What in the world is that, it looks like crap'. To which I would say...'You don't understand, it's free.' It took a lot of hacking about to get it to run and it took hours and hours just to get simple things to work. That is not the case with 'stolen' goods. It's easy to take modern Linux for granted.

  • Microsoft paying someone to lie? (Score:5, Funny)

    by rspress ( 623984 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:32PM (#9279435) Homepage
    Microsoft is paying someone to lie to make Linux look bad and windows look good? Say it ain't so! Well all know that Linux was hobbled together from stolen code from all over the world and is a pile of junk when compared to Windows.

    Microsoft on the other hand has worked hard to put out a stable, secure OS that they came up with from the start and did not copy any line of code or UI ideas from anyone. Microsofts pledge of using only their own code goes back to the day they sold IBM the rights to their own hand coded DOS operating system. Microsoft worked for years developing this version of DOS for IBM and it was all original work unlike the trash the Linus has hobbled together and unleashed on the world.

    Microsoft is now going after Apple for the iPod design that Steve Jobs stole from them and is going to put those rip offs at Apple out of business once and for all.

    Bill Gates is the most original thinker and fairest person in the world. He goes out of his way to help companies that compete with him and even agrees unfair license agreements foisted on him by computer manufactures.

    Not only that.....but the....I.....think.....uh.. Doctor, Doctor....I think the drugs are wearing off, can I have another shot?

  • One man writes an OS . . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by actappan ( 144541 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @03:01PM (#9279715) Homepage
    You gotta love ADTI's assertion that one person couldn't possibly write and OS. When I was working in a university computing services group - our CS students all had to write their own (however simple) OS as part of an Operating Systems course. They had to do so in order to graduate.

    Of course one man can write an OS. Then, afterwards, thousands of volunteers worldwide can make it a GOOD os.

  • "All hackers condemn IP theft?" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Patrick ( 530 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @04:34PM (#9280556)
    I don't think that's true. ESR really ought to refrain from making statements about all hackers, all libertarians, all gun owners, or any other group larger than himself.

    The term "intellectual property" is vague (here, ESR means copyrights, rather than trademarks or patents), and the term "theft" doesn't apply particularly well. The wordier statement "all hackers condemn the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted works, with the exception of fair and personal use" is somewhat more accurate, though probably still not true. Even better would be "all hackers condemn plagiarism," which is really what putting your name on someone else's code is. Plagiarism is a matter of honor, not law, and is somewhat more likely to be something that all hackers -- a pretty big and diverse group -- might condemn.

    I know at least one hacker (ahem, a libertarian, even) who condemns copyrights and patents altogether and would probably describe ESR's assertion as nonsensical or undefined.

    Condeming IP theft, Eric says, "is what distinguishes [hackers] from the cracker/phreak subculture." Nonsense. Destructive intent is what distinguishes crackers from hackers. Denial-of-service attacks and website vandalism have nothing to do with so-called "IP theft."

    For the record, all hackers also don't use the hacker logo [catb.org], any more than all hackers channel Greek gods [catb.org]. Eric would do well to describe his own opinions and let me describe my own.

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