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Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 03:30 PM EDT

More critical reaction to Ken Brown's "Samizdat", this time by Richard Stallman, who was inteviewed by Brown for his book, and by historian Peter H. Salus, author of the acclaimed "A Quarter Century of UNIX".

Stallman says Brown misused words to create FUD. Stallman is quoted in LinuxInsider:

"The purpose of this report is to confuse, to cause fear, uncertainty and doubt," Stallman said of a draft of a report by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute. 'These people have taken money from Microsoft, they've tried this before, and now they're trying to do it again.' . . .

"Stallman also said Brown himself misuses words in the report to tarnish both Torvald's Linux kernel work and Stallman's own Free Software Foundation (FSF) efforts, such as when Brown alleges Torvalds didn't 'invent' Linux. 'You don't "invent" an operating system or a kernel, you write it,' Stallman told LinuxInsider. 'Copyright doesn't cover ideas; it's your expression of those ideas.

"'And the open-source and free-software movements are very different,' he added, arguing that the latter has a set of values codified by Stallman's oft-quoted 'four freedoms,' while the former is primarily commercial in its aims. 'By misusing those terms, it's meant to confuse people who don't know any better,' he said."

Salus, who is also technical and historical adviser to Groklaw's Grokline project, says Brown should be ashamed, in an article in UNIX Review, The Tide of FUD:

"Alexis de Tocqueville observed that it is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.

"So there's a painful irony when we're forced to recognize the validity of de Tocqueville's remark in a May press release from the head of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, Ken Brown."

First, he points out that Linus never claimed to "invent" Linux. For that matter, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson didn't "invent" UNIX either. Their 1983 Turing Award, Salus points out, was for "the development and implementation of the UNIX operating system," not for invention.

Salus elaborates and shows how UNIX was developed not in a vacuum but building on the knowledge that came before it:

"Knowledge builds on previous knowledge.

"Operating systems build on one another. . . . Dennis and Ken built Unics (its original name) on their experiences with Multics, following Bell Labs' withdrawal from the Multics project in spring 1969. Many important features (like | 'pipe') were suggested by or instantiated by others. Pipe was suggested by Doug McIlroy and coded by Brian Kernighan.

"For several years, UNIX was confined to Bell Labs. Then it spread to other parts of AT&T and, following the presentation by Ken and Dennis at the ACM Symposium on Operating System Principles in October 1973 and publication of their paper in CACM in July 1974, to research and academic institutions all over the world.

"[I don't want to go into great detail here, but those of you who are interested can read my A Quarter Century of UNIX (1994).]

"UNIX received input from folks in Austria (job control) to Australia (port to the Interdata 7/32). . . . At the 1979 USENIX Conference in Toronto, AT&T announced its new licensing fees, including $7,500 per CPU for academic institutions. This led Andrew Tanenbaum of the Free University in Amsterdam to create Minix.

'I decided to write a new operating system from scratch that would be compatible with UNIX from the user's point of view, but completely different inside. By not using even one line of AT&T code, this system avoids the licensing restrictions, so it can be used for class or individual study. (A.S. Tanenbaum, Operating Systems, Design and Implementation, 1st Ed., 1987)'"

I certainly recommend that Mr. Brown read Salus' book. He might learn something. He might learn that knowledge builds on knowledge. It has to. Thus, if SCO were to be successful in expanding the definition of what constitutes a derivative work under copyright law to include ideas, methods, and structures, I believe they will find UNIX itself would also then be a derivative work.

Brown tells LinuxInsider that the book's publication has been postponed. I expect they are rewriting so as not to get sued, but here is what they have said publicly about the delay:

"Current plans are to incorporate material discussing both Brown's responses to his critics and the impact of Torvalds' recent announcement that, in the future, Linux kernel contributors will have to certify the origins of their code before it can become part of the kernel."

I see Mr. Brown is already askew on his characterization of what the new policy is. What Linus actually proposed is this:

"So, to avoid these kinds of issues ten years from now, I'm suggesting that we put in more of a process to explicitly document not only where a patch comes from (which we do actually already document pretty well in the changelogs), but the path it came through."

They already know the authors of the code in the Linux kernel. Don't believe me? Just look for the Credits file on your Linux distro, and you can find the list of contributors yourself. What they are doing now is adding every person in the chain, including people who didn't write or change the code, but just passed it up the line after approving it. The purpose is to make it easier to find such info, should there be future SCO-like lawsuits someday and to reassure those stricken with SCOFUD. Here is the OSDL announcement of the tweak in the process.

Of course, the AdTI website still does not provide any of the criticisms of his "work", because the supposed links to statements by Torvalds and Tanenbaum still do not resolve to anything but an "Under Construction" notice. This is in spite of the fact that AdTI managed to add a link to an article about Linus' change to the code process, which was published after Torvalds and Tanenbaum made their remarks. I have no doubt the new book will be comparably incomplete and dishonorable, as I notice it says it will include Brown's answers to his critics, but it doesn't promise to include the actual criticisms. I have no doubt the book will be a beaut.

List of Reactions to Samizdat:

For the record, and so as to give AdTI a helping hand, here are the reactions to "Samizdat" AdTI can't seem to get on to its web site:

  • Linus Torvalds -- "Ok, I admit it. I was just a front-man for the real fathers of Linux, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus."

  • Tanenbaum -- "By the time Linus started, five people had independently implemented UNIX or something approximating it, namely, Thompson, Swartz, Holt, Comer, and me. All of this was perfectly legal and nobody stole anything. Given this history, it is pretty hard to make a case that one person can't implement a system of the complexity of Linux, whose original size was about the same as V1.0 of MINIX. . . .

    "Thus, of course, Linus didn't sit down in a vacuum and suddenly type in the Linux source code. He had my book, was running MINIX, and undoubtedly knew the history (since it is in my book). But the code was his. The proof of this is that he messed the design up. . . . but producing a system that was fundamentally different from the base he started with seems pretty good proof that it was a redesign. I don't think he could have copied UNIX because he didn't have access to the UNIX source code. . . .

    "My conclusion is that Ken Brown doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. I also have grave questions about his methodology. . . .

    "[N]obody stole anything from anyone. Brown's remark that people have tried and failed for 30 years to build UNIX-like systems is patent nonsense. Six different people did it independently of one another. . . . I think Brown owes a number of us an apology."

  • Tanenbaum followup -- "I really think Brown's motivation should come under scrutiny. I don't believe for a nanosecond that Brown was trying to do a legitimate study of IP and open source or anything like that. I think he was trying to make the case the people funding him (which he refused to disclose to me despite my asking point blank) wanted to have made. Having an institution with an illustrious-sounding name make the case looks better than having an interested party make the case. . . .

    "I would now like to correct an error in my original statement. One of the emails I got yesterday clarified the origins of Coherent. It was not written by Bob Swartz. He was CEO of the Mark Williams Company. Three ex-students from the University of Waterloo, Dave Conroy, Randell Howard, and Johann George, did most of the work. Waterloo is in Canada, where they also play baseball I am told, but only after the ice melts and they can't play hockey. It took the Waterloo students something like 6 man-years to produce Coherent, but this included the kernel, the C compiler, the shell, and ALL the utilities. The kernel is only a tiny fraction of the total code, so it may well be that the kernel itself took a man year. It took me three years to write MINIX, but I was only working at it only in the evenings, and I also wrote 400 pages of text describing the code in that time period (also in the evenings). I think a good programmer can write a 12,000 line kernel in a year."

  • Alexey Toptygin email to Tanenbaum. Toptygin was hired by Brown to compare Minix and Linux code - "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).

    ". . .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 . . . "

  • Richard Stallman - "The purpose of this report is to confuse, to cause fear, uncertainty and doubt. . . .You don't 'invent' an operating system or a kernel, you write it. Copyright doesn't cover ideas; it's your expression of those ideas."

  • Eric Raymond - "Judging by these excerpts, this book is a disaster. Many of the claimed facts are bogus, the logic is shoddy, some of the people you claim to have used as important sources have already blasted you for inaccuracy, and at the end of the day you will have earned nothing but ridicule for it. . . .

    "Your account of the legal disclosure history of the Unix source code is seriously wrong. Persons authorized by AT&T did, in fact, frequently ship source tapes which contained no copyright notices — I know, because I still have some of that source code. . . .

    "Furthermore, from a very early stage those tapes contained material contributed by others in academia and various non-AT&T labs. AT&T may not even have had legal rights to distribute this code, and certainly had no ethical right to distribute it except as part of the commons which all parties understood they were co-developing.

    "Both these things were already true when the Lions book leaked. This is why the the Unix developers at Bell Labs itself approved of the book — they saw it not as theft from them but as a sign of healthy community, and knew perfectly well they were getting back huge amounts of value from outside contributors. . . .

    "Linus Torvalds and Andy Tanenbaum have both rejected your storyline that Linux is a derivative of Minix. Even if you suppose Torvalds is lying, the fact that Tanenbaum (the wronged party in your narrative) has condemned you in public for inaccuracy and distortions should tell you something.

    "If the inventor of Minix agrees with the inventor of Linux that Linux is not a derivative work of Minix, who are you to claim otherwise? . . . .

    "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. Torvalds was operating within an established tradition with well-developed expectations.

    "'Is it possible that building a Unix operating system really only takes a few months —and, oh by the way, you don't even need the source code to do it?' Yes, it is possible, because there are published interface standards. I might have done it myself if it had occurred to me to try — in fact, I have sometimes wondered why it didn't occur to me.

    "As for whether it was possible to produce Linux in the amount of time involved — it is never wise to assume that genius programmers cannot do something because the incompetent or mediocre cannot. Especially when, as in Linus's case, the genius already has a clear interface description and a mental model of what he needs to accomplish."

  • Peter H. Salus - "Operating systems build on one another. . . . Dennis and Ken built Unics (its original name) on their experiences with Multics, following Bell Labs' withdrawal from the Multics project in spring 1969. Many important features (like | 'pipe') were suggested by or instantiated by others. Pipe was suggested by Doug McIlroy and coded by Brian Kernighan.

    "For several years, UNIX was confined to Bell Labs. Then it spread to other parts of AT&T and, following the presentation by Ken and Dennis at the ACM Symposium on Operating System Principles in October 1973 and publication of their paper in CACM in July 1974, to research and academic institutions all over the world. . . .

    "UNIX received input from folks in Austria (job control) to Australia (port to the Interdata 7/32). . . "

  • Jem Matzan -- "In the history of publishing there has never been a less scrupulous work than this book. It's a stinging insult to real books and genuine authors everywhere, harming the credibility of all of us who write for a living. . . .

    "The concept of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is not new, but it has become such a popular battle tactic on the Internet that you can hardly read tech news anymore without seeing it somewhere. Ordinarily, most people recognize it for what it is -- corporate propaganda meant to stop a genuine grass-roots effort -- and ignore it. But with Samizdat we have a whole new kind of attack. Instead of aiming at the end-users and potential customers of the world -- which has proven ineffective thus far -- the target is now the United Stated government and those in charge of determining public policy. Having lost the battle for public opinion, the war has now gotten more desperate and moved on to attempting to influence the laws that we live by. This goes beyond the usual lobbying that corporations do because it's disguised as an independent study by an impartial third party and published as a book instead of a bound report, white paper, or traditionally published study (in a peer-review publication). . . .

    "The only shocking aspect of Ken Brown's book is that it contains not one shred or iota of evidence to back any of his implications. While he doesn't directly accuse, he also doesn't present any good reasons to believe that we should listen to him. The bibliography, for instance, has 81 items of reference, less than five of which are traditionally recognized reference sources. The greater part of Brown's sources are personal Web pages of people who are not considered experts in the field of Unix, Linux, GNU, or other related subjects, home pages of people who are considered experts but were speaking generally about the subject of the history of Unix, and quotes taken grossly out of context from interviews that Brown did not conduct or take part in.

    "You don't have to be an author or professional writer to know that when presenting an argument professionally, the strength of your sources is the strength of your position. With no reliable sources, a position paper, thesis, or essay carries no more weight than the Anonymous Coward comments on weblogs and message forums -- in other words, it's bunk. For entertainment purposes only. Read at your own risk. Worse than bunk, it's FUD because it pushes an agenda without presenting any proof. . . .

    "Any reasonably intelligent person would figure that such a bold endeavor as this book would include compelling and convincing evidence to give weight to the kinds of questions that Brown raises to cast doubt on his subjects. Appallingly, there is no evidence, no interview, no paper trail, photograph, or substantiated reference to support any of Brown's negative assertions and in fact most of his references do more to hurt his stance than support it. It is the worst journalism, the worst research, the worst case of abuse of the literary and technical world that I have ever had the profound displeasure of reading. Ken Brown would make Michael Moore, Jayson Blair, and Darl McBride blush with the kind of shoddy, irresponsible work that he's published in Samizdat. Truly this book is a test of the tolerance of free speech in America."

  • Tanenbaum's "Legal Status of Minix" - "Although MINIX is supplied with the complete source code, it is copyrighted software. However, the copyright owner has granted everyone the right to redistribute or sell it, with or without source code, in unmodified or modified form. For all practical purposes, MINIX can be treated as if it were in the public domain."

  • Toptygin's Minix/Linux code comparison

  • Minix license

  • Dennis Ritchie

To complete the record, here is their press release and a published remark by AdTI's Gregory Fossedal: "'Among the conclusions is that there is a high probability that Linux is a derivative work, based on previous operating systems -- including, but not limited to, Unix and Minux,' Fossedal told NewsFactor." Here is Wired's article mentioning Microsoft funding.


  


Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat" | 219 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections here please
Authored by: PJ on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 06:38 PM EDT
Please put any corrections here for me.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Links and new topics go here
Authored by: grundy on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 06:55 PM EDT
So as to not mess up the main thread

[ Reply to This | # ]

Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 07:06 PM EDT
In light of SCO claiming copyright violations, I found this rather interesting:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7578&mode=thread&order=0&
;thold=0

[ Reply to This | # ]

Matzan and credibility
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 07:15 PM EDT

Jem Matzan: "In the history of publishing there has never been a less scrupulous work than this book. It's a stinging insult to real books and genuine authors everywhere, harming the credibility of all of us who write for a living..."

Unfortunately, Matzan harms his credibility all on his own here with his hyperbole. I'm as cheesed off as the next Linux user, but do SCO's antics really exceed those seen in the entire "history of publishing", including, say, "Mein Kampf" (just to mention the first thing that pops into my head)?

By implicitly invoking Godwin's Law, Matzan loses the argument. (Fortunately, we have many cooler heads making the same argument more credibly.)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: eamacnaghten on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 07:19 PM EDT
"Current plans are to incorporate material discussing both Brown's responses to his critics and the impact of Torvalds' recent announcement that, in the future, Linux kernel contributors will have to certify the origins of their code before it can become part of the kernel."

I was under the impression that the code was already "certified" as such - complete as in using digital signatures, and that the changes that Linus was advocating was to place the hierarchy of maintainers and administrators in the code to find it easier for the head maintainers to identify which branch it came in under.

But hey - maybe I am mistaken - maybe Ken Brown does not practice FUD as much as that.....

[ Reply to This | # ]

Halloween
Authored by: kberrien on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 07:47 PM EDT
This "Brown" story just keeps going. I'm kinda waiting for a Brown
Halloween memo to be released.

What kind of organization is AdTI? Any chance there is public scruteny of their
books, donators?

And let's assume for argument, that this is another MS sponsored hit. Given
their monopoly troubles, has any company recieved sanctions of some sort - in
relation to their monopoly status - for this kind of activity (adTI, Baystar,
Sun agreements)?

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT why "Samizdat" ?
Authored by: grumpy on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 07:54 PM EDT
"Samizdat" for people from Easter Europe, where the term was coined,
means 'underground', 'grassroot', 'against the (official} wind', and 'brave' -
hardly the case of the Brown publication.

It is the Russian for "selfpublished" (by the author), because in a
State run economy and poitical system all publishing houses were owned an
operated by Government and controlled by the party - the one and only political
party. Those publishers, of course, published nothing that confronted the
official party line. Samizdat authors used their own machinery (generally of
stone age technology) their own time, and received no payments but bore all
costs themselves. They risked - toghether with volunteers who were willing to
disseminate the publications via conspirational channels - loss of employment,
loss of passport, heavy fines and imprisonment.

Samizdat authors, publishers and distributors deserve more respect form the
Groklaw community.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: Nick_UK on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 07:55 PM EDT
These types of people really are now getting into the 'book-burning' (or trying
to) era again as once jested when all this SCO crap started.

Lucky FOSS/OSS/Linux coders are free to speak and tell the truth (and it seems
only when the most nasty and vicious untruths are spouted) - but the problem now
is getting a 'free' press that actually reports the story and not what is funded
by M$ et al.

Politicians use the same hoodwinking ideas.

This is the first time I believe I have seen RMS comment on the current issues.

Nick

[ Reply to This | # ]

Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: The Mad Hatter r on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 08:03 PM EDT


Wow - the monitor was smoking after reading that one!

BTW, if you try to email ADTI you get this:

-----
thank you for your interest.

i will respond to you personally at the earliest opportunity

appreciatively,
Gregory Fossedal
Senior Fellow
-----

They never do reply (or at least they haven't since this thing broke. I'd really
like to ask them some questions...


---
Wayne

telnet hatter.twgs.org

[ Reply to This | # ]

AdTI
Authored by: Dan M on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 08:09 PM EDT
There was a long thread on the SCOX message board, at Yahoo Finance, researching
_tokeville_.

A quick summary:

The notification addresses given in various documents turned out to be UPS
private mailboxes (maildrops in UPS stores).

The company phone number is a DC area cell listing.

They were recently a 501(c) with declining particular information in their
filings.

They share directors with a vc firm, DCFund.

Directors and management over the past several years is a verital who's who of
DC players.


I can only hope that someone will corelate the mass of data that it can be
presented in a meaningful form. I am not a member of the Yahoo message board,
but, I recognize some of the posters here.

[ Reply to This | # ]

History re-writing
Authored by: brian on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 08:14 PM EDT
Books such as this falls into line with what SCO and MS
want; namely, to re-write history in favor of their
various positions. PJ commented on this in a previous
story when links that were perfectly valid come up missing
the day after she posts a story. You have to ask why is
the history of Unix being re-writen? What is there to gain
by it? SCOX (and MS by proxy) would like you to believe
that Linux is a derivative of Unix and that Unix itself is
original to the current SCOX. I think the reason we are
seeing so much history re-writing is to get as many
"experts" saying the same thing and get it into court. I
can't think of any other reason.

B.

---
#ifndef IANAL
#define IANAL
#endif

[ Reply to This | # ]

Fossedal said - "Buy SCO" they are a fiesty open source company
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 08:18 PM EDT
It's rather interesting that Gregory Fossedal (a close associate of Ken Brown in ADTI) recommended buying SCOX stock on the basis that they are a "fiesty open-source servicer"

In the footnote of the article in question, it says "chief investment officer of the Democratic Century Fund, managed by the Emerging Markets Group. His firm may hold some of the securities mentioned his articles."

Here are the relevant quotes

UPI 10 October 2003

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031003-052555-4332r

Sun and Oracle remain good shorts, as they have for more than a year. Microsoft is becoming a good short, too; at these levels, it is already time to start nibbling. On the buy side, there are dozens of feisty young companies -- Red Hat, Sco Group, and VA Software -- that are already taking advantage of the new global paradigm.

...

Sell the proprietary software makers, buy the feisty open-source servicers. If the software behemoths awake, you'll read about it first here. In the meantime, that low rumble you hear from Santa Clara, Redwood City, and Redmond isn't a giant stirring. It's just a loud snore.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: producer on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 09:05 PM EDT
"would make Michael Moore, Jayson Blair, and Darl McBride"
We are presented with recognized and respected names from the industry in order
to etablish and discuss a common point. The opinions regarding Darl and now Ken
Brown are well known to Groklaw readers and worthy of mention to make the point
in reference to the lack of integrity of some writings and authors. But,other
than myself, would anyone really care what my thoughts are regarding Jayson
Blair or Michael Moore? Nor should you. Not here.
We have politics to the power of ten going on in the world today. Only my
thoughts but I didn't need a personal political outlook from MR. Matzan right in
the middle of a good read. It put a bit of a damper on his technical one.

Then again....what do I know?

Tom

[ Reply to This | # ]

Matzan has it all wrong
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 09:11 PM EDT
"With no reliable sources (..) it's bunk"

This make no sense at all. Just as a metaphysical statement can be interesting
and/or true even though it is not testable (the error of neopositivism!), in a
similar way a statement can be true (correspond with actual facts), and carry
its *full value*, even if you cannot give any supporting evidence. It may be
new/brilliant/interesting enough that other people start looking for proof and
eventually find it. The history of science is full of great theories that were
advanced without any proof at all, and only proven centuries later.

So, in a court of law you must have proof. Also, if your name is Brown and what
you want is to spread FUD and win people to your side, you probably would like
(perhaps this is what Matzan meant) to have something which can pass for
evidence, so that you can make a stronger case.

But I'm sure that Linus, for instance, does not feel the need to give proof of
anything he says. He is probably more interest in his his work that in winning
public opinion. It's enough for him to know that some proof can probably be
found if needed. For if it is the truth, it's going to be accepted eventually,
usually by the efforts of many people.

Assuming one should be able to prove every statement one makes would be arrogant
too, because it can be difficult, and take a long time. Who remembers Mach's
observation that scientific theories do not die out when they are demonstrated
false, they only die when the last of their (academic) supporters dies?

The Anonymous Cow whose opinion is worthless

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Matzan has it all wrong - Authored by: bstadil on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 10:03 PM EDT
  • hmmmm - Authored by: bitfuzzy on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 10:50 AM EDT
    • hmmmm - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 01:58 PM EDT
    • hmmmm - Authored by: CPD on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 07:13 PM EDT
      • hmmmm - Authored by: bitfuzzy on Tuesday, June 01 2004 @ 01:19 PM EDT
Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: blacklight on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 09:13 PM EDT
"I have no doubt the book will be a beaut." PJ

It will be an electronic book that will be worth every cent of the paper it is
printed on.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Brown should fix this while he still can
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 29 2004 @ 09:19 PM EDT
I would say that if Mr. Brown wants the opportunity to spin the matter of who
paid for his study, he'd better disclose it earlier rather than later and make
his excuses now. ;)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus
Authored by: jiri on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 12:54 AM EDT
Would that be Santa Claus Operation?

Jiri

---
Please e-mail me if you reply, I usually read with "No comments".
jiri@baum.com.au

[ Reply to This | # ]

Another Tactic against SCO?
Authored by: davcefai on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 01:09 AM EDT
PJ wrote:

I certainly recommend that Mr. Brown read Salus' book. He might learn something. He might learn that knowledge builds on knowledge. It has to. Thus, if SCO were to be successful in expanding the definition of what constitutes a derivative work under copyright law to include ideas, methods, and structures, I believe they will find UNIX itself would also then be a derivative work.

Could this be a way of taking the war into the enemy's camp? Show that UNIX is itself derivative?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Who, really, _was_ the person that the wonderful ADTI is named after?
Authored by: eddsouza on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 02:49 AM EDT
ROTFL
Googling for this (yea, a little perverse, possibly), search term:
("de Tocqueville"|"de Toqueville")
(arrested|arraigned|indicted)
led me to this book review at Book Owl:
http://www.bookowl.com/search/reviews.php?isbn=0075542730
Clickable link

I'm including a quote from the page; if we're talking about the same AdT, this is amazing... of course, judging by the conduct of some of the latter-day ..ummm..gentlemen/ladies producing studies under the AdTI's masthead, it seems fitting...:-))

--verbatim quote--
Many believe De Tocqueville to have been what he claims to have been, a gentleman, statesman, diplomat, and liaision for France to the United States. De Tocqueville was none of the above, in fact he was a petty criminal from Marseille who was arrested in 1832 for stealing horseshoes from a prominent businessman's steed. While in jail he was mixed up with political prisoners from a recent revolt and sent to Martinique to serve a sentance of 5 years hard labor. Unfortunately, De Tocqueville had a hot temper and allegedly killed an Arawak Indian in a fight, and being that this was the last known Arawak Indian on the island was sentanced to life in prison. It was here that he met a young Victor Hugo, a criminal justice student studying colonial jail system and theory, who De Tocqueville befriended. Hugo taught him to write, which Alexis did to pass the time and to allay his growing madness. Upon his death, guards found thousands of pages of text stuffed under his soiled mattress, some of which we now know to be Democracy In America.
--endquote--

SROTFL

Eddie
---
T he questions remain the same. The answers are eternally variable.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Press release from web site
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 03:22 AM EDT
The press release can also be found at adti site.
Goto
here
and click on
"samiz.release.html"

Also note the wrong titel. The web master or editor grabed
a page from the web site and edited it without looking to much on the result.
This is one example of the sloppy web mastering at adti.

Jer

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This has to be a hoax
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 03:40 AM EDT
It has to be-

Clue #1: There is no book yet, just tasty trolls dished out in abundance. I bet
there is no book.

Clue #2: Mr Brown's assertions are so ludicrous, and so easily disproven, it has
to be just a big funny practical joke. Haha, we're all foaming at the mouth, and
he is laughing "made you look."

Clue #3: the "Alexis de Tocqueville Institution" appears to be 2 or 3
guys who can't afford a decent Webmaster, or an office, just a maildrop. Or
maybe all the broken links are more subtle humor.

I know, after a year of Darl and his other brothers, anything is possible. But
this guy even out-Darls Darl.

--
Carla the country geek

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Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 03:55 AM EDT
Relevant to the issue of knowledge building on previous knowledge, just a
reminder that Windows NT is, of course, a direct descendent of the VMS line
which is approximately as old as UNIX.

e.g. see "Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story," by Mark
Russinovich, Windows NT Magazine, December 1998.

http://www.winntmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?IssueID=97&ArticleID=4494

[ Reply to This | # ]

I'm still worried
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 05:14 AM EDT
I mean, this book casts some doubt over the legality of Linux. I think that I
should hire a lawyer to look at my use of it.

Then I should hire another lawyer to look at the book, and if^H^H when it turns
out to be grossly negligent in its checking of basic facts, I hire a third
lawyer to bill the author, his editor(s) and the publisher for the time of all
three lawyers.

Freedom of speech and of the press gives you the right to *say* anything you
like without prior restraint. But it doesn't give you the right to lie without
consequence.

How does that sound?

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Is Robert X. Cringely speaking positively about Linux??
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 09:20 AM EDT
linuxdevices.com writes

The ever-disruptive Robert X. Cringely has published a lively editorial at
PBS.org describing how embedded Linux and mesh network micro-franchises will
forever change the Internet and telephone access markets. The article is called
"The Little Engine that Could: How Linux is Inadvertently Poised to Remake
the Telephone and Internet Markets."

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS6374151062.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: Nick Bridge on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 01:15 PM EDT
It has just occurred to me that those opposed to Open Source are trying to
adjust public opinion to their view of the meaning of "derivative
work".

If they can get enough people to think that copying methods and functionality is
wrong, they stand a chance of winning - however small.

They are embarking on a mission to include "methods" and
"function" etc. under the bar that defines what is copyrightable.
That would disallow work-alikes.

We need to make a very clear statement that shows exactly what may be
copyrighted, and where copying is illegal - and use it everywhere to clarify.

Copying ideas is spacifically allowed by law - but it's not the law that's
important with the public - what's important is morality: We need to show that
copying ideas is normal, needed and ethical; and that we oppose copying their
expression.

The function should be (must be) copyied, the code must not be copied.

We believe that copyright is good, and important. We also believe it must not
encompass ideas - however they are defined (methods, function, etc...)

[ Reply to This | # ]

FWIW: I wrote Cnet again!
Authored by: ray08 on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 07:35 PM EDT
"why aren't you covering the AdTI , Ken Brown's book debacle with regards
to Linux???? He is SO full of it! There are ALL sorts of industry experts to rip
his FUD to pieces! And not one word of it on Cnet! SHAME ON YOU!!!"

<sigh>

---
Caldera is toast! And Groklaw is the toaster! (with toast level set to BURN)

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: Is SCO case against IBM copyright-related? Yes according to SCO
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 09:46 PM EDT
With respect to IBM's 10th counterclaim (declaration of non infringement of copyrights regarding IBM's Linux activities)...

SCO now contends that this is action is not part of the core issues of the case, which SCO claim are essentially contract related.

Let's see what SCO told the world in May 2003, http://www.caldera.com/scosource/letter_to_partners.html

T his communication is about recent efforts SCO has made to license and protect our patents, copyrights and intellectual property pertaining to the UNIX® operating system. As you know, on March 7, 2003 SCO announced that it filed legal action against IBM in the State Court of Utah, for misappropriation of trade secrets, tortuous interference, unfair competition and breach of contract. The complaint alleged that IBM made concentrated efforts to improperly destroy the economic value of UNIX, particularly UNIX on Intel, to benefit IBM's new Linux services business.

As we have progressed in our discovery related to this action, SCO has found compelling evidence that the Linux operating system contains unauthorized SCO UNIX intellectual property (IP). Due to this discovery, we are taking three immediate courses of action.


I find it quite interesting that the cite IBM action as part of "recent efforts SCO has made to license and protect our patents, copyrights and intellectual property"

I also find it interesting that they state in "discovery related to this [SCO v IBM] action" that they claim to have "found compelling evidence that the Linux operating system contains unauthorized SCO UNIX intellectual property (IP"

In other words SCO themselves characterized the IBM case being about "IP" including specifically "copyrights".

Furthermore SCO themselves characterize their alleged discovery of alleged infringements in Linux as flowing from their "discovery related to this action" where "this action" specifically refers to SCO v IBM.

This is of course somewhat hard to reconcile with their current court filings relating to IBM's 10th counterclaim.

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Suggestion: web forum for OT stuff
Authored by: Khym Chanur on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 10:02 PM EDT
How about something like a phpForum for all of the OT stuff. Not only will it help a little in reducing clutter, but people who want to follow a specific OT thread won't keep going to an unrelated post and then scroll down to the thread they want.

---
Give a man a match, and he'll be warm for a minute, but set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Paraphrased from Terry Pratchett)

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Stallman and Salus Also Contradict Ken Brown's Discredited "Samizdat"
Authored by: RSC on Sunday, May 30 2004 @ 10:55 PM EDT
It seems to me that they are making a rod for there on back by letting this book
be published...

Is it just me, or is greed becoming the be all and end all of human existance?

I can not wait for the next exciting chapter in the MS vs. the rest of the work
saga.

Quodos to you P.J. for bringing at least a little truth to this money driven
society we now live in.

RSC



---
----
An Australian who IS interested.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Brown pollutes the meaning of samizdat!
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 31 2004 @ 02:16 AM EDT
It is plain clear that Brown pollutes the original meaning of Samizdat. I can't
even count the number of books published this way in the Soviet Union. One very
famous example (if anybody is familiar with this) is "Master and
Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. Btw, it is now a mandatory reading in the
Russian high schools.

Mr. Brown must have avoided using this word, as he obviously misses its real
meaning.

[ Reply to This | # ]

The merest propaganda
Authored by: mbd on Monday, May 31 2004 @ 02:59 AM EDT
Although it's necessary to rebut the conclusions Brown reaches so they don't go
unanswered, I can't get too worked up about the logic he uses to get to
them--because there isn't any, really. This attack is the purest propaganda:
opinion blandly stated as fact, factual distortions, twisted quotations, all
couched in language carefully crafted to imply rather than state so that intent
can be denied after the fact without having to refute the implications. In so
doing, Brown is following in the long tradition of those who offer deception in
the guise of analysis.

I personally think it's a weak effort. The innuendo and the faulty logic are
just too transparent. The delay in the book's release in the face of criticism
by Professor Tanenbaum, et al, would seem to support that. Frankly, I wouldn't
be surprised if the book never hits the streets. And even if it is issued, it
expect it will fail in its object under the shower of facts that the FOSS
community has proven it can turn on.

The spirit of Mr. Brown's tract is, perhaps, best described by the Master
himself: Goebbels. Now, there was a man who knew how to lie. Get is straight
from the horse's mouth at
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb54.htm

---
Russ

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why in the World...
Authored by: jkondis on Monday, May 31 2004 @ 03:13 AM EDT
does a non-profit such as Alexis de Tocqueville, which draws no substantial
respect in the field of IT or other technology, involved in writing
"whitepapers" and "books" about Unix and Linux, two of the
most ill-understood topics in tech?

Maybe Britney Spears can lecture us on Quantum Field Theory, or perhaps Mike
Tyson can teach us about International Finance Law...

---
Don't steal. Microsoft hates competition.

[ Reply to This | # ]

It is easier to make an OS that is interoperable...
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 31 2004 @ 01:13 PM EDT

....and that uses those standard interfaces, than one that isn't, like Windows.

Obfuscation against competitors and customer lock-in may take billions of dollars, but it's worth the investment (VERY WORTH IT) for Microsoft.

I've not read every single one of the plethora of responses to this book, but if anyone has, do any of the rebutters[sp?] raise this point against Brown?

party on, pj.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Annotea
Authored by: sjgibbs on Monday, May 31 2004 @ 03:08 PM EDT

This is another reason to support and endorse Tim Berners Lee's historic feature proposal "multi-way linking" for the World Wide Web (which was first implemented in "Enquire"). he believed that hypermedia should present inbound as well as outbound links to pages.

In such a regime it would be easy to spot rebuttals since they would be highlighted in the browser window containing the FUD.

I haven't seen much in-browser activity of this sort but I am familiar with a similar proposal from the same stable called Annotea. It seems dead (no news this year) but there are Mozilla based implementations available.

[ Reply to This | # ]

crackpot
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 31 2004 @ 04:16 PM EDT
many people here seem to be focused on the view, that ken brown is a high class
swindler and doesn't mind the public bashing because of the money he recieved
for his 'study'. i think he is quite a different kind of guy - a grade a
crackpot. being a theoretical phycicist, i think i have some experience with
these sort of people - actually there is quite a range of them. they usually are
attracted by words like 'einstein' 'quantum' or 'black hole'. some are actually
a bit educated in the subject, but others wouldn't be able to tell you newtons
first law if you asked them. but there are some unmistakable traits that all of
them share.
1.) they are sure (in a religious sort of way) that they have discovered one if
not the fundamental secret of nature
2.) if there is contrary evidence, they ignore it.
3.) if you point them to contrary evidence, they dismiss it by stating that it
contradicts their 'theory'
4.) if you then tell them, that this is unscientific, they will tell you, that
galileo suffered for his theories and einstein was ridiculed and therefore it is
no wonder that they get the same treatment.
5.) their 'theories' are usually reiterations of already well known stuff with a
'spin' on it.
6.) they don't take their time studying the subject. their 'theory' does not
depend on prior work any more than it depends on actual facts.

well, to me it sounds like ken brown and his 'theory' that linus did not
'invent' linux fulfill all of the above criteria. and to be sure, he seems to be
of the very worst sort. he is clearly incompetent. i wonder, if he ever wrote
even a hello world program. furthermore, he obviously is not afraid to expose
his incompetence (because he had this ingenious theory and that puts him above
all others). and he for sure is not ashamed for the public bashing. remember,
that's what they did with galileo, too.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Clickable link from above post
Authored by: Larry West on Monday, May 31 2004 @ 07:05 PM EDT

Not sure why your link didn't come out right(*), but here it is in clickable format: http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm

(*) There is some sensitivity to spaces or wrapping, it took me a couple tries to get the link to show properly in the preview.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Woody Allen did it first, and better......
Authored by: valdis on Monday, May 31 2004 @ 08:22 PM EDT
"As a matter of fact, I happen to have Marshall McLuhan right
here...."

[ Reply to This | # ]

in re: Ken Brown's Professionalism
Authored by: Superbiskit on Tuesday, June 01 2004 @ 03:24 PM EDT
Now then, what's that word for someone who sells their virtue for a price?

Oh, yeah, this guy is such a . . . . .

[ Reply to This | # ]

Windows a derivative of Unix?
Authored by: Eeyore on Tuesday, June 01 2004 @ 05:12 PM EDT
Thus, if SCO were to be successful in expanding the definition of what constitutes a derivative work under copyright law to include ideas, methods, and structures, I believe they will find UNIX itself would also then be a derivative work.
Hmmm... using SCO's definition of "derivative work" it could be construed that Windows is derivative of Unix and as such is owned by SCO (they both use the | sysmbol, so they have to be based on the same code.... right?). ;)

Now if we could just get SCO to go after Microsoft...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Wiki page for AdTI
Authored by: jre on Tuesday, June 01 2004 @ 06:24 PM EDT
Several posters have expressed an interest in finding out more about AdTI.
Out of curiosity, I checked whether iwethey.org had a related Wiki page.

Sure enough, they do.

This might be an excellent central point to exchange information.

[ Reply to This | # ]

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