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Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown |
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Saturday, June 12 2004 @ 11:13 PM EDT
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The remarkably inept research of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is highlighted once again, this time by Bruce Perens, who apparently unbeknownst to AdTI, turns out to also be series editor of Prentice Hall's Bruce Perens Open Source Series. Yes, that Prentice Hall. Is that not funny? He has a word for them. I also have heard from Robert Swartz, the founder of Mark Williams Company, which developed Coherent. He pointedly rebuts Ken Brown's assertion that it would be impossible for Linus Torvalds to have written Linux on his own so fast.
First, Swartz and then Perens:
"Ken Brown claims that Linus could not have written Linux in a year on his own.
As the founder and President of Mark Williams, the company that developed Coherent,
(an early Unix clone) I assert that it is not only possible but that we did it.
"First, as Andy (Andrew Tanenbaum) points out at ,
this argument is silly on the face of it. No major software project is written
from scratch, we all use tools and ideas of others. As Newton said, 'We all
stand on the shoulders of giants.'
"At Mark Williams, we implemented Coherent from scratch in about year. In addition,
we implemented most of the utilities of Version 7. Dave Conroy, Randall Howard and
Johann George were responsible for the major work and their performance was phenomenal.
The kernel was written primarily by Randall Howard, in keeping with my philosophy of
'one programmer, one project' which was possible with Unix.
"We have none other than Dennis Ritchie to validate the fact that Coherent was not
based on Unix code. Ritchie was sent by AT&T to investigate Coherent and he said
'...looking at various corners convinced me that I couldn't find anything that was copied.'
"Brown's contention is simply wrong. Without at all lessening Linus' accomplishment,
he had a number of things that made his life easier. There were a large number of
books and papers describing Unix and operating system internals. There were also
a large number of tools available. The essential ideas in Unix had long ago entered
the public domain. Don't forget that every major and most smaller universities had
source. Writing an operating system may be hard, but the architectural design of an
operating system is much harder. That is why Unix is so attractive, it was small,
simple and elegant. It was designed as a reaction to the beached whales of OS/370
and Multics. The whole point was 'Small is Beautiful'. Perens rebuts the statements about Prentice Hall, which published Andrew Tanenbaum's book, "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation", perhaps being in a position to sue Linus. In his book, Tanenbaum provided source for what Perens describes as "an educational toy OS called Minix". AdTI accused Linus of using Minix code when he wrote the Linux kernel, a charge that has already been denied by Tanenbaum and the expert AdTI hired to try to find stolen Minix code in Linux (he didn't find any). The AdTI logic apparently is that being the publishers of a book that had Minix code in it means that if Linus stole Minix code (which he didn't), then Prentice Hall can sue him. Perens rebuts this as follows:
"Like all technical book publishers, Prentice Hall is in the business of distributing ideas. They have copyrighted their books, but the express purpose of those books is for readers to use the ideas that their text communicates. Before Linus Torvalds created Linux, one of the ways he learned to build operating systems was by reading Tannenbaum's book and working with the Minix source code. Authors and publishers are proud of the role our books have played in developing the professional skills of Torvalds and the Open Source developer community. We should not, do not, and can not claim as our own the creations of the many millions of people who use our books as a reference in their work every day." The point he is making, which Larry Lessig mentions also in his book, "Free Culture", is that copyright law doesn't cover what you have inside your brain and happen to have learned. I know that will come as a great disappointment to the unhappy folks at AdTI, but what can you do? This Bruce Perens Open Source Series looks great, by the way. I just downloaded a copy of a book on Snort, which you can legally download too right here. You can also buy it in dead tree form, which you likely will want to do if you like the book and intend to actually use it as a reference work in an ongoing way. Perens notes about the series: "With ten books published so far, this series is unique in that not only are the books about Open Source software, the text of the books is under an Open Source license. They can be copied and redistributed freely in the same manner as the Linux kernel - it's even legal to sell the copies. The series has shown that a publisher can be commercially successful with Open Source text, as IBM, Red Hat, and other companies have been successful with Open Source software." Or, if you are a developer, you might prefer to get the book, Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager, which Perens says "is meant to be used directly by the Linux kernel developers in their work, and uses the Linux source code as a reference for tomorrow's computer scientists." So, we have two more rebuttals for our growing collection. If this keeps up, maybe we'll put out a book ourselves, "The Free and Open Source Answer to Samizdat". Feel free to come up with a better title. Dr Stupid has some wonderful software for formatting an ebook. Of course, we'd want to wait until they actually publish an official, book version of Samizdat, which I'm beginning to wonder about. It may, in the end, live up to its name after all, with no actual book ever materializing, and only samizdat copies of the prepublication draft being handed from person to person. To use one of Ken Brown's favorite words, wouldn't that be ironic? Don't ask me for a copy. I won't download their review copy, because of their EULA. I can't agree to this: By clicking here, I indicate that I will respect the copyright on
"Samizdat." I will not redistribute or republish it, or make it available
for viewing, in part or whole, to any other individual or institution.
[ ] I agree to respect the copyright of "Samizdat" That is their concept of copyright? Read their book, tell no one, guard it with your life, and then take it with you to your grave so nobody else can read your copy, even after you're dead. I guess it'd be OK if you burn it as you read it, like King Jehoikim in the Bible book of Jeremiah taking a knife and burning pages as the book of the law was read to him. I guess there was no AdTI version of Copyright Law back then, and people could read aloud to each other. Or, if you don't want to destroy it as you read, leave instructions in your will about burning your books upon your death. Otherwise your heirs and offspring might think they have the legal right to read your copy of your books. What kind of world would that be? People sharing thoughts and ideas? Why, it's positively shocking. What some enterprising innovator needs to invent is a way that a digital work can self-destruct just as soon as one pair of eyeballs has read it. I'll tell you what, it's not easy being proprietary in a digital age. Actually, they likely know that copyright law includes fair use rights. By asking you to click on the "I agree" sentence, they are trying to get you to enter a contract with them instead, whereby you agree to give up your fair use rights. They are, obviously, terrified that someone will quote them in public. I would be too, if I were Ken Brown, terrified that a process server would soon be knocking at my door. No reviewer would put an entire chapter up, but how could you review a book without quoting from it, and thus making portions of it available for viewing? So I passed on that invitation. Anyway, the word is, from a lot of people whose opinions I value, that it is full of inaccuracies and isn't worth reading. Of course, I might buy a copy when it is published and review it then, with my fair use rights intact. If you'd like to see how they are quoting some email they imply they received but which I suspect they may have found on the Internet, here is a nauseating collection: "Open contradictions: compilation and invitation
"The selections below quote leaders of the open- and hybrid-source movement on the origins of Linux and subsequent developments, going back as far as the early 1990s. Perforce, they are taken out of context.
"If you would like to complain that AdTI's selection takes the material out of context unfairly, or offer an explanation of how the remarks are can be squared with recent and historical accounts of the origin of Linux, please go to AdTI's survey page for this feature: please click here. Serious replies only, please."
Here are the "leaders" on the list, with the @ symbol spelled out, so the poor folks (if they are real people and AdTI didn't make it all up) don't get spammed out of their minds, a courtesy AdTI did not afford them. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt, that they are technologically ignorant and don't know about bots and are not being intentionally malicious: - tg at redblufftech.com
- hopeless at pacifier.com
- arnold at mailinator.com
- blivengood at gci.net
- brukster at yahoo.com
- John.Luke at bmwna.com
Recognize any "leaders" on the list? If you happen to find yourself on the list and wish to be removed, I'd suggest you have your lawyer contact them on your behalf. There is one quotation from Eric Raymond's The Cathedral & the Bazaar, but nothing from his recent remarks about Samizdat, and a snip from a Wired article. I believe I may safely say that Wired is not a leader of the free or open source community. There is no hybrid-source community. That isn't even a word, just something AdTI made up. There is not one word from any of the actual leaders and scientists who have thoroughly discredited their so-called research. They don't list or respond to Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Andrew Tanenbaum, Dennis Ritchie, Eric Raymond, historian Peter H. Salus, the man hired by AdTI to compare Minix and Linux code, Alexey Toptygin (who found no copied code), or Ilkka Tuomi. Andrew Tanenbaum has responded more than once. Of course, they would like all you "leaders of the open and hybrid source community" to click to add your further comments and refinements. And if you are out of your cotton-pickin' mind, you'll oblige them. If this is the best ammo they can come up with, I'd say they are in serious, serious trouble. Because they apparently can't answer the scientists who have spoken against their book, instead they seem to be putting together a lame list of things they found once upon a time in the media -- and we know how reliable those media mercenaries always are, NOT -- and counterpointing them with comments they fall over somewhere on the Internet in modern times by people nobody knows, except their family and friends. I'm not knocking not being famous, by the way. Fame is nothing to want and means nothing to me. I'm just saying their list of "leaders" left me laughing or spitting. Laugh? Spit? Laugh? No...spit. On the ground. Ptew! Greek fashion. Their next book, I'm guessing, will be something like, "Contradictions of the Open and Hybrid Source Movement. -- How Can You Trust Them?" If they are tempted to use anything from Groklaw in their quest for FUD and money, I would ask them to respect my Most Holy copyright. Notice: I give no permission for anything from Groklaw, including any of my comments, to be used by AdTI in any way. I make one exception. They may use the following review of their web site but only if they quote it in its entirety: "I believe they are at times remarkably wrong, at other times cunningly misleading, and sometimes intellectually dishonest. I have drawn the conclusion that they know nothing about the origins of Linux and are unqualified to speak to that issue." -- PJ, Groklaw You've lost this FUD war, guys. The first rule of holes is: when you find yourself in one, stop digging.
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Authored by: PJ on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 02:58 AM EDT |
Please put any corrections in this thread. Also, ignore trolls, please, as we
can expect them to appear and opine on my use of words or how I am now
too much this way or not enough that way, blah blah.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Corrections here please - Authored by: Harry Clayton on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:03 AM EDT
- one "a" too many - Authored by: stevem on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:16 AM EDT
- Corrections here please - Authored by: fLameDogg on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:24 AM EDT
- Corrections here please - Authored by: qu1j0t3 on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:26 AM EDT
- their/the/AdTI - Authored by: stutchbury on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:29 AM EDT
- "review on" vs "review of" - Authored by: Cassandra on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:41 AM EDT
- Corrections here please - Authored by: magusbaal on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:41 AM EDT
- Corrections here please - Authored by: fLameDogg on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:45 AM EDT
- Corrections here please - Authored by: magusbaal on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:47 AM EDT
- Corrections here please - Authored by: Tomas on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:55 AM EDT
- "Institution" instead of "Institute" - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:11 AM EDT
- Corrections here please - Authored by: studog on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:26 AM EDT
- Missing hyperlink? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 12:02 PM EDT
- Corrections here please - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 12:03 AM EDT
- MSFT distances itself from Brown - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 04:59 PM EDT
- Now here's a connection to "hybrid-source" - Authored by: rezende on Tuesday, June 15 2004 @ 01:56 AM EDT
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Authored by: Harry Clayton on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 02:59 AM EDT |
---
Linux: There is no infringing code or Manuals.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Now it all makes sense :-) - Authored by: emmenjay on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 08:58 AM EDT
- A SCO Consumer Protection Complaint - Authored by: ChrisP on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:46 AM EDT
- Please don't denigrate the real Samizdat - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:50 AM EDT
- Darl McBride - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 12:34 PM EDT
- IANAL parody - Authored by: vruz on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 01:29 PM EDT
- Stolen code found in early Unix!! - Authored by: Larry Blunk on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:16 PM EDT
- OT, links, Internet Explorer Removal - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:18 PM EDT
- Handsome, yes... but the smell... - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:36 PM EDT
- First US Govt GPL Software??? - Authored by: PSaltyDS on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:47 PM EDT
- True Samizdat - Authored by: vruz on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 07:32 PM EDT
- Link to Linus's version of the development process - Authored by: Peter Simpson on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 02:15 PM EDT
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Authored by: codswallop on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:32 AM EDT |
I was wrong about Brown he's not a hired flack. Unfortunately, he has a coherent
political agenda. I went and read some of his older articles. He is an ideologue
with an obsession about American competitiveness.
He thinks that as time passes a larger percentage of the value of productive
assets is IP. Given the necessary IP, companies anywhere in the world can
compete with us. It is thus dangerous to destroy our stock of IP.
This means that closed source is good, because the IP stays here. Completely
open source is paradoxically good, because it can be used as a basis for more
economical closed source works. The GPL, however, is the work of the devil.
Since he puts words in the mouths of others, I'll put some in his and say he
believes that shading the truth and engaging in propaganda and misrepresentation
is a case of the ends justifying the means. He thinks we are at a crucial point,
and if the GPL trend isn't stopped, US industry will be destroyed.
What he doesn't see is that the GPL isn't the problem. If a program costs
$5,000, I can buy it with some pain and my Chinese counterpart can't. He can't
compete with me. Now if it's free he can compete, and he charges less, because
his other costs are lower. However, I've saved $5,000. If I make good use of
this $5,000, then I can hope to benefit from the concept of comparative
advantage by employing the money somewhere else, where I have such an advantage.
If I use it only to by plasma TVs from him, I'm going to be in trouble.
Say there's no Linux. The Chinese would just write one - in Chinese. How long
would it take, 2 years, maybe? Even if it was free to me, all the documentation
would be in Chinese.
How would I be better off in this scenario. I wouldn't be. Economic security
through obscurity isn't significantly better than the computer version. Why
should it be.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Not a hired hack - Authored by: Trepalium on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:50 AM EDT
- You are joking, right? - Authored by: jkondis on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 05:20 AM EDT
- He has a point - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 08:18 AM EDT
- He has a point - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:04 AM EDT
- He has *no* point - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:29 AM EDT
- It doesn't matter - Authored by: Jude on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 08:35 AM EDT
- IP creation = not a zero sum game - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 09:54 AM EDT
- Not a hired hack - Authored by: fxbushman on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:00 AM EDT
- This sort of thing has been around for centuries - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:21 AM EDT
- Not a hired hack - Authored by: inode_buddha on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:31 AM EDT
- Ken Brown IS a hired FLACK... - Authored by: Tim Ransom on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:48 AM EDT
- What's worse than a shill? - Authored by: Jude on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:30 AM EDT
- Not a hired hack - Authored by: Don on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:30 AM EDT
- Not a hired hack - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 01:22 PM EDT
- what happened to this: - Authored by: Tim Ransom on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 01:55 PM EDT
- Not a hired hack - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:01 PM EDT
- Perhaps this post from 2002 w/ lots of links - Authored by: Tim Ransom on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:47 PM EDT
- AdTI is consistant all right. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:23 PM EDT
- how is closed source safer? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 07:45 PM EDT
- He admitted his is a hired hack on Usenet - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 09:45 PM EDT
- The US can benefit as well. - Authored by: Franki on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:45 PM EDT
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Authored by: geoff lane on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:54 AM EDT |
Unfortunately the best, "Lies and the lying liars who tell them",
appears to have been used recently :-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:29 AM EDT |
Are you carving an exemption in your license for ADTI?
Free licenses should allow derivatives that the original authors disapprove of.
There's not much point, otherwise.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Creative Commons License, except for ADTI? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:37 AM EDT
- Creative Commons License, except for ADTI? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:55 AM EDT
- Creative Commons License, except for ADTI? - Authored by: PJ on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 05:10 AM EDT
- Creative Commons License, except for ADTI? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 05:17 AM EDT
- You own it, you call the shots - Authored by: RedBarchetta on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 05:18 AM EDT
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 05:17 AM EDT |
The interesting thing about all these attacks on Linux - those coming from Brown
and Darl and Enderle and Didio ad nauseum - are that Linux is currently being
attacked full force by the enemy's C-team.
Linux' first major battles are being fought against incompetents.
Against the enemies' most disposable troops.
Mere cannon fodder.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
In a real sense, this is a fortunate thing for Linux. Building defenses against
these minor incursions has awoken the Linux community to examine and strengthen
it's defenses.
A stronger wall here. An additional alliance there. Other preparations -
looking to the future.
Learning who your friends really are.
The thing that concerns me is that these current attacks are the equivalent of
lightly armed scouting parties, probing and testing Linux' defenses.
The real battles - the battles against the enemies' A-teams - against the worthy
opponents to Linux who are well-funded, skillful, who actually know what they
are doing and who are in the battle for the long, long haul - is yet to be
joined.
It is important that we prepare - and that we not get cocky when we win these
minor battles.
We are supposed to win these minor battles.
Enjoy the victories that come, but don't get complacent.
We are not going to win every battle we face - and we are not going to win many
of the future battles nearly as easily as we have been winning against the likes
of SCO/Brown et. al.
Most any community can kill off a pack of rabid dogs.
My concern is the powerful armies gathering their strength against us - on all
sides - just beyond the horizon.
Good night,
Epaminondas[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: NemesisNL on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 05:21 AM EDT |
I'm not a copyright expert but can you copyright my comments?
So if brown where to contact me and ask my permission to quote a comment i made
on groklaw I am not in the position to grant him permission?
Not that i would want to just asking because I'm a bit surprised. I can not
remember signing something that took away my copyrights and transfered them to
you, hey..... where did I hear that before :-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 05:34 AM EDT |
microsoft want's legal trouble for GPL'd Open Source
software. However litigation is expensive and microsoft
don't want to use too much of their own money in this
fight, they have to invest in creating new software and
expanding business in new areas, otherwise they may go out
of business in the future.
This is why they want to find some fools who are ready to
give up their cash for the good of microsoft. This is what
happened with sco, microsoft found some fools to pay for
microsofts figh. The adti book is an attempt to stir up
legal trouble for Linux. They want other companies to start
to pick Linux apart. The samizdat book is an attempt to
point to other companies, look here are some people that
stole your code, march your litigation armies this way. Of
course microsoft hopes that a lot of fud is born in the
process too.
Mikael [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: micheal on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:09 AM EDT |
Ken Brown does not "copy" anything from anybody else. He did not copy
anything from any books, papers, or computer programs. He went out of his way to
interview some knowledgeble people so that he would not accidently use any of
their thoughts. Why, just to be on the safe side, he did not even use anything
from Alexey Toptygin (which was probably a work for hire by AdTI)! He
made^H^H^H^H thought up everything.
---
LeRoy
Retired computer programmer/physicist.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Hut_Mul on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:15 AM EDT |
On the front page of AdTI I noticed the 'Open Source tip of the day'. In it they
are bashing LinuxToday for linking to Wall Street Journal writer Lee Gnomes.
AdTI is lamenting how readers of LinuxToday are stealing.. err reading,
copywrited articles from WSJ. See, WSJ is a pay for content site and some of
Gnomes articles get re-posted to other sites, like ZDnet, Excite.. etc. The
AdTI's blurb goes on to use the term 'pirated Journal content'.
I didn't know that ZDnet pirated content. Someone should inform them.
Brown is such a weasel.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: dopple on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:28 AM EDT |
Here are the "leaders" on the list[...]
I could be wrong, but it
looks like the only one of that list that is on the "quoted leaders" side of the
column is tg at redblufftech. The others are on the side that is marked as
commentary on the quotations (complete with a way that anyone can submit
commentary to add). The table is poorly designed, but there is at least an
attempt at a header, numbered rows to associate the left and right cells
together and some stylistic differences between the two columns to attempt to
get the point across.
It's very odd that they chose to use the same
table to make their own response to a message board comment, and I'd hardly put
Wired Magazine high on my list of "leaders of the[...] movement". But I still
wouldn't accuse them of trying to pass off the people on the "commentary" side
of the table as leaders, especially when they have one of their own people in
that column.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:34 AM EDT |
When you say "The point he is making, which Larry Lessig
mentions also in his book,"Free Culture", is that
copyright law doesn't cover what you have inside your
brain and happen to have learned."
I think there are people looking very much to legally
extend copyright as if this were possible. If one looks
at a modern employment contract, for example, one might
conclude that not all forms of slavery ended some 140
years ago in this country.
And I love SCO's deritive works theory as well. If we
follow this theory correctly, if my mother happened to be
Mrs. Unix, then both I and my father become derivitive
works of my mother. Like a jury can fall for thatone.
But it get's better; if daddy divorces Mrs. Unix, and has
some additional kids elsewhere, those too become a wholely
owned derivitive of the first wife by applying SCO theory
to a realworld example. Yea, right...I would like to see
that successfully argued before a jury. It doesn't even
pass the idiot test.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: cybervegan on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 07:07 AM EDT |
... to be printed, DECSS style, on a tee-shirt:
Alexis de Toqueville Institution
"I believe they are at times remarkably wrong, at other times cunningly
misleading, and sometimes intellectually dishonest. I have drawn the conclusion
that they know nothing about the origins of Linux and are unqualified to speak
to that issue." -- PJ, Groklaw
Classic.
-cybervegan
---
Software source code is a bit like underwear - you only want to show it off in
public if it's clean and tidy. Refusal could be due to embarrassment or shame...[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: futureweaver on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 07:14 AM EDT |
Mailinator is a spam-avoiding throwaway address service. Here's their spiel:
"Welcome to Mailinator(tm) - Its no signup, instant anti-spam service. Here
is how it works: You are on the web, at a party, or talking to your favorite
insurance salesman. Wherever you are, someone (or some webpage) asks for your
email. You know if you give it, you'll be on their spam list. On the other hand,
you do want at least one message from that person. The answer is to give them a
mailinator address. You don't need to sign-up. You just make it up on the
spot". Well, fair enough - ADTI seems to have made up much of their
book, so using a made-up mail address to communicate with them is simple
reciprocity. There's no security, anyone can read the messages (yes, you agree
to this by using a mailinator address), so I checked "arnold's" mail.
Disappointingly, there was none. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: the_flatlander on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 07:39 AM EDT |
So, have a thousands?, hundreds?, tens?, of us already written to the IRS about
AdTI?
I am no expert on U.S. Tax Law, though I am a good, tax-paying citizen, but I
don't see why an [inept] advertising agency should be able to hold tax exempt
status. Their correspondence with the cigarette manufacturer doesn't really
make them look like a charity...
The Flatlander
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: brian on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 07:57 AM EDT |
Why is it that companies always equate value with money?
There are other source of value than money. As an author
of software, it is up to me to decide what value my work
has. The value I put into code I write is beyond money and
enters the realm of knowledge. I don't write code for
money but for the knowledge the writing gives me. To me,
that is more powerful than money can ever be. If my code
is modified I want to see how it was modified to enrich my
knowledge. That is far more rewarding than any amount of
money and the reason I choose to use the GPL as my
license. It is this thinking that I think closed source
money oriented folk can't grasp. The concept that I may
code for knowledge instead of money is foreign to them. I
enjoy a good puzzle and writing working code is the
biggest puzzle on the face of the globe for me.
This whole thing of the only valuable "IP" (whatever that
is) is "IP" that is being sold is rubbish. To assume that
I am the only one who can have an idea is even more
rubbish. That is why I reject totally what Ken Brown has
to say. Well, this is the last time I will comment on
anything AdTI, Ken Brown, or anyone else that assumes that
money is the only measurement system for value.
B.
---
#ifndef IANAL
#define IANAL
#endif[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: rben13 on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 08:41 AM EDT |
One of my best friends wrote an operating system in Z80 assembly code in
about a year in the early 80's. He, like Linus Torvalds, hadn't completed his
education in computer science, but he's a brilliant individual and rose to the
challenge. The other day, he and I talked about the contention that Linus could
not have written.
One important factor in the ability of Linus to write
the original kernel reasonably quickly was the incredible increase in computer
power available to him over what was available to Ken Thompson and Dennis
Ritchie. Since the creation of the first microprocessor in the mid 1970's the
power of microprocessors was doubling every 18 to 24 months. Linus's
microcomputer was substantially more powerful than the PDP-7 that UNICS was
written on.
When I was learning to program, during the early 80's, I was
taught to desk check my work. I would carefully examine every line for errors
and syntax problems because each compile of my program could take up to an hour
because I had to share resources with other students. At home on my personal
computer, I often did the same thing, again because the time to compile the
program compared to the time it took to desk check it made it more efficient for
me to painstakingly examine my code before compiling.
Within a couple of
years that had changed. Better compilers and faster machines made it possible
for me to let the computer check the syntax of my program. This greatly
increased my ability to produce code. I was now spending my time productively
writing new code rather than pouring over printouts of the code looking for
syntax errors.
By the time Linus was writing Linux using Multic, he has
a far faster machine that I had started on and one far faster than any PDP-7.
He also had good text editors, compilers, and, as has been pointed out, a solid
specification from which to work. It is little wonder that he was able to write
Linux in the time he did.
It's easy to forget just how quickly
technology has advanced over the last 30 years. It's really amazing when you
take the time to look around and note how much has changed. All of our lives
have been changed and I'd bet that most of us are able to work more efficiently
than was possible 30 years ago.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 09:00 AM EDT |
>> Recognize any "leaders" on the list? <<
Well, the way the table is organized, the only person AdTI is representing to be
a "leader" (in the left column) is tg at redblufftech.com. All of the
others are in the right column simply as individuals responding to comments.
And all of those who responded in the right column are "good guys",
rebutting ESR's apparent statement in CatB that Linux used Minix code as the
basis of Linux. I don't have my copy of CatB handy, but according to Brown, on
page 34 ESR says:
"Linus Torvalds, for example, didn't actually try to write Linux from
scratch. Instead, he started by reusing code and ideas from Minix, a tiny
Unix-like operating system for PC clones. Eventually all the Minix code went
away or was completely rewritten -- but while it was there, it provided
scaffolding for the infant that would eventually become Linux...."
If ESR was quoted accurately, that was obviously a factual error on his part,
and the responses in the right column rebut that error.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 09:12 AM EDT |
If you un-obscure the email addresses, Google can only find one (hopeless at
pacifier etc) anywhere except AdTI's web page. Curiouser and curiouser!
Judging from the short tenure on the various jobs listed on his 2001 resume, he
is more like a traditional proprietary software consultant than any sort of open
source or "hybrid source" expert. His only so-called contribution to
open source seems to be that he runs (or ran) an broken archive of the OpenDivx
mailing list..[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 09:33 AM EDT |
I can't beleive they were stupid enough to include a
mailinator address!
Mailinator is an instant throw-away address that you can
use when you need to submit a valid address in a webform,
especially if you need to read a reply back to that
address, but don't want to use your real account. You can
make up any username you want. Accounts are automatically
generated whenever an email arrives at the mailinator
server, if one doesn't already exist. Then you (or anybody
else, for that matter) can go to mailinator.com and read
the email for madeupusername@mailinator.com.
It's an excellent, useful, and free service, but I wouldn't
use a mailinator address to refer to somebody I'm quoting.
Anybody can put any message they want on mailinator. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Tsu Dho Nimh on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 09:40 AM EDT |
Brown is applying a stringent definition of "from scratch" ... one
that he would not apply to other activities.
My grandmother was a superb cook: would Brown insist that she domesticate her
own wheat, grind her own flour, churn her own butter, and build her own oven
before she could claim to have made a pie crust or batch of biscuits "from
scratch"? I doubt it. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:00 AM EDT |
I think there is only one way to settle this "linux was stolen" story
once and for all.
Somebody should ask Bill Gates :
"If you were twenty again and an undergraduate with no other obligations,
could you write 12,000 lines of Linux V0.1 in a year ?"
I am fairly sure he would have enough personal integrity to answer
"yes" without hesitating.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:22 AM EDT |
As for the upcoming software patent contention and for the
accusation, Linux would use Unix methods, here a matching
a story from 1545.
It was about how to solve cubic equations in general. At
that time, a general solution of the problem was an open
question and mathematicians used to meet in contests
busily solving such equations.
A man named Tartaglia found part of a general solution
but attempted to keep it as a sort of class secret.
He told it to Cardano under oath, who finally published
a complete solution of the problem.
Cardano was prosecuted by Tartaglia for theft and perjury
with quite some success and was thrown into the cellar of
the inquisition, but released on an intervention of the
archbishop of Scottland, who he had healed, earlier.
Well knowing the whole story, the solution was finally
named after Cardano. It is "Cardano's formula".
"Possesion" of knowlegde is ways more tricky (and
therefore more "ironic") as some would believe. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:27 AM EDT |
I was merely pointing out that PJ should not have criticized everyone on her
list, all but the first of whom were jumping to the defense of Linux, *not*
supporting AdTI's position.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:29 AM EDT |
Is Ken Brown a protectionist? We've seen his nonsense
shredded by <b>everyone</b> who knows <b>anything</b>
about Open Source or Free Software, but is the man just
one of those slightly cracked my country first types?
We protect the steel industry here in the United States.
That saves 5k worth of high wage steel worker jobs ... and
costs us 75k worth of decent paying manufacturing jobs due
to the high cost of steel in the U.S. making foreign
companies more competitive.
Let the U.S. Congress fall for this nonsense. Let the
Pacific rim and the Indian subcontinent ignore this
nonsense. See more and more U.S. call centers migrate from
a high cost environment, both in terms of wages and
proprietary desktop software with its associated TCO, to a
lucky, progressive country ... like Bangladesh.
Thank god for porous borders, of which the internet is
the very best. Pandora's box is <b>open</b> and all of the
frenzied efforts to close it will accomplish nothing more
than slowing the FOSS hurricane a tiny bit.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:29 AM EDT |
PJ said:
"Don't ask me for a
copy. I won't download
their review copy, because of their EULA. I
can't agree to
this:
By clicking
here, I indicate that I will respect the
copyright on "Samizdat." I
will not redistribute or
republish it, or make it available for
viewing, in part or
whole, to any other individual or institution.
[ ] I agree to respect the copyright of
"Samizdat"
That is their concept
of copyright? Read their book,
tell no one, guard it with your life,
and then take it
with you to your grave so nobody else can read your
copy,
even after you're dead. I guess it'd be OK if you burn it
as you read it, like King Jehoikim in the Bible book of
Jeremiah taking a knife and burning pages as the book of
the law
was read to him. I guess there was no AdTI version
of Copyright Law
back then, and people could read aloud to
each other. Or, if you
don't want to destroy it as you
read, leave instructions in your
will about burning your
books upon your death. Otherwise your heirs
and offspring
might think they have the legal right to read your
copy of
your books. What kind of world would that be? People
sharing thoughts and ideas? Why, it's positively
shocking.
PJ, you should tone down
your rant here. Since this is
a pre-publication copy of a
manuscript, the terms
that are being placed on it are there simply
to preserve
any value the manuscript might have to a
publisher, if it is ever accepted for publication.
Conditions like this are likely standard in the
publishing
industry. Imagine that an author wants to
allow a publisher to
review his work without the risk that
the publisher (or anyone else)
steals or otherwise
capitalizes on his or her work such that it
cannot be
offered to a competing publisher. Copyright law provides
some protection against that, but not enough. The
additional secrecy terms are simply part of the agreement
-- the
quid pro quo -- that gives someone the right to
review the work in
exchange for the author making his work
available. It probably
happens all the time, and probably
not just in the publishing field. If you
don't want to
agree to these conditions, that's fine. You have a
perfectly good right not to agree. But the author doesn't
have to make his
manuscript available to you, either, and
in that case, you'll just have to
wait for the manuscript
to be published (if it ever is).
Now, you can argue all day long that ideas are not
copyrightable
and that everything, even pre-publication
works, should be released
under a GPL license or a
Creative Commons license. But the world
doesn't work that
way. There is still plenty of room for authors who
want
to release their works in all kinds of different ways, and
not all of them deserve the condemnation you have heaped
on the
author in this case. That is, unless you believe
that no one
should be entitled to profit by selling
an exclusive right to his or
her work to a publisher. I'm
not ready to go there yet.
The question of whether the content of the "Samizdat"
work
has any merit at all and whether any publisher would
ever want to publish
the work are totally separate from
how the author chooses to protect the
work before
publication. I think it would enhance the credibility of
the Open Source community to keep these issues separate.
I think it is
important that you keep these issues
separate, as many people now seem
to view you as one of
the leaders of that community.
There may
be a legitimate issue here, which I see as
how widely does a work have to be
made available before it
ceases to be an "unpublished" work such that the
author is
no longer able to claim rights to any secrets within it.
I would
very much like to follow a discussion on
that issue, if you choose to
raise it, as it may
have some bearing not only on the conditions being placed
on "Samizdat," but also with industrial trade secrets and
with conditions
placed on some types of proprietary
software.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 10:41 AM EDT |
I find PJ's writings... informative AND entertaining.
PJ, when can we expect you to do a monologue on Saturday Night
Live? I suspect even Dennis Miller'd feel inadequate.
(All right, I'm used to listening to "English Humor" and, to me,
sarcasm
has a British Accent.)
"If you think you can find stolen code in Linux... you just might be an
incompetent. Even RedNecks ain't that gullible." [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:16 AM EDT |
PJ wrote:
> What some enterprising innovator needs to invent is a way that a digital
work can self-destruct just as soon as one pair of eyeballs has read it.
Actually, MPAA may have done it. You can find articles about "DVD
rot" - a physical process that causes DVDs to fail quickly (months to few
years). They are unrecoverable. RIAA has been toying with copy-protected CDs,
which simply don't play validly purchased CDs on a huge number of validly
purchased CD players. MPAA and RIAA are also trying to have Broadcast Flag and
other anti-copy (read: anti-your-rights under Copyright law) methods put into
law, even for purposes of a personal backup. Microsoft is helping, pushing the
DRM to go with it.
First they sell you CDs and DVDs with today's usual garbage output from many
producers, rehashed TV series, etc. Then, they put it on garbage media that
can't go the distance, "protected" by software that one company is
pushing through by monopoly, a company that wouldn't know "rights" if
they bit them. And if all that fails, they've probably already bought the
legislators and senators, probably including Utah's own singing senator with a
close relative on the SCO case, who are passing laws to shut down even more of
your basic rights every day. And quoting RIAA (at least) in their bogus case.
Unholy alliances by any measure.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:48 AM EDT |
Here's something I think Ken Brown is completely forgetting or plain ignoring.
Many people have written OS's in shorter time than Linus did.
In 1989, when I was a Freshman in Computer Science at Marist College in NY, the
Senior capping course for Comp Sci was to write your own OS. Granted, it was all
done an an IBM 3070 mainfraime, but it didn't make the task any easier. I had
friends who were seniors who spent a semester and a half (far short of a whole
12 months) Writing 10,000 lines of code that compiled and ran as their own OS.
Now, If I were Freshman in 89, that means our Seniors were using a College
catalog for 86-87. This would have had to have been laid out before then so I'd
wager it's safe to assume the faculty put this requirement together in 1985.
If a small colege that specializes in a good Comp Sci program, was requiring
this long before Linus wrote Linux, why does Ken Brown have such difficulty in
believing that it can be done 6 years later with far better computational
resources? I mean, the school was cranking out dozens of students a year that
had this ability.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: jmart on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:53 AM EDT |
They may use the following review of their web site but only if
they quote it in its entirety:
"I believe they are at times
remarkably wrong, at other times cunningly misleading, and sometimes
intellectually dishonest. I have drawn the conclusion that they know
nothing about the origins of Linux and are unqualified to speak to that issue."
-- PJ, Groklaw
PJ, you should clarify the "they" in this
sentence you gave them. AdTI could easily put it in a context where "they"
refers to "us".
-John [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:58 AM EDT |
>is that copyright law doesn't cover what you have inside
>your brain and happen to have learned.
The whole 'intellectual property' thing is an attempt to
do just that. To own thoughts of other people. Free
software is a direct challenge to that notion, hence we
see the apoplectic responses. How dare they devalue what
we have worked for years to establish as a value!
Ideas are valuable. They allow people and companies to
solve problems, develop new products, make money. But to
try to contain an idea is almost impossible because once
you start using it, the idea is spread.
The real difficulty with owning ideas is that they aren't
quantifiable or containable. They are in the heads of the
people who devised or saw them.
Derek [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 12:16 PM EDT |
The key claim of Ken Brown is that no one could write 12000 lines of code a
year. However, 12000 / 365 is about 33 lines of code per day.
Writing and testing 33 lines of code a day does not seem prohibitive.
Rob Wheatley[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 12:52 PM EDT |
Linux is not UNIX, Minx, or coherent..... That is that ... Linux is Linux... The
best OS in the world....
Sorry McBride, Gates, and the rest .... you loose...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 01:02 PM EDT |
Just wondering if you're talking about using Docbook or something else. Of
course, now that Open Office supports PDF, that may even be better.
Just a couple of thoughts.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 01:20 PM EDT |
If you guys are tired of reading heavy legalese - put Groklaw through the Snoop
Dog Shizzolator, and have a laugh..
http://www.asksnoop.com/shizz_frame.php[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: kawabago on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 02:37 PM EDT |
I just received this email:
I wrote linux. In the beginning I said, "Let there be linux." Light
was a transcription error. You might ask why it took 14 billion years for linux
to actually appear in the universe? I am not constrained by time so it's all
the same to me. Questions can be directed to prayers@heaven.god don't worry if
it appears to bounce, I still receive it.
God
ps: please stop killing each other.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: red floyd on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 02:54 PM EDT |
I tried to finger the addresses given.
Of those addresses, at least two failed DNS lookup:
tg at redblufftech dot com
John.Luke at bmwna dot com
---
The only reason we retain the rights we have is because people *JUST LIKE US*
died to preserve those rights.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: El_Heffe on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:36 PM EDT |
"Robert Swartz, the founder of Mark Williams Company"
I'm surpised that Ken Brown didn't mention the fact that the founder of The Mark
Williams Company isn't named Mark Williams.
Surely that must be proof of SOMETHING!!
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: selan on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 03:51 PM EDT |
'Dat's Not True!
subtitled: The Free and Open Source Answer to Samizdat[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Book title idea - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:38 PM EDT
- FUD for dummies? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 07:52 PM EDT
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:01 PM EDT |
I have degrees in music theory and composition but I've made my living for the
last 20 years as a systems analyst for a large university, where we use Linux
for scientific applications. So I believe I have a unique musical/technical
perspective on creativity in both fields.
This point has perhaps been already made, but I can attest to the truth thereof:
writing an operating system by one programmer is no more difficult or incredible
than the writing of a symphony by one composer.
Happens all the time... hard as it may be for some small minds to accept.
But wait a minuite, didn't Beethoven use the same sonata-allegro form developed
by Hayden? Isn't Beethoven's Nineth symphony therefore a derivative work? How
is it my music theory and history teachers missed this?
All of western civilization may be in peril! What happens if the Chinese learn
about sonata-allegro form? Won't Beethoven be de-valued? We must act quickly
to protect our musical IP, lest other talented composers take advantage of our
laxity.
best
dpa
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 04:10 PM EDT |
Forget manners, modesty and consideration for others; I'm going to gloat
publicly.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: gjc on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 05:57 PM EDT |
PJ,
"What some enterprising innovator needs to invent is a way that a digital
work can self-destruct just as soon as one pair of eyeballs has read it. "
It's called "Windows"...
-gjc[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 06:45 PM EDT |
Yo, Ken, maybe this will help you.
Linux, Minix, System V, BSD, etc., are in the Unix genre but not identical to
Unix.
Think of murder mysteries and romance novels.
If I write and publish a romance novel today, that doesn't mean you can't write
and publish a romance novel tomorrow -- as long as you don't lift identical
passages from mine.
HINT: the key word is "identical." You can't just imply it. You
actually have to prove it.
Linux is Linus Tovalds' romance novel. Minix was Andrew Tannenbaum's romance
novel. BSD is Berkeley's romance novel. System V was AT&T's and is now
Novell's romance novel. Solaris is Sun's romance novel. HP-UX is Hewlett
Packard's romance novel.
You can't plug Mary Higgins Clark into Danielle Steel, John Grisham into Erle
Stanley Gardner, or Robert Parker (Spenser and Hawk) into Arthur Conan Doyle
(Holmes and Watson), Rob and Laura into Lucy and Desi, or Red Skelton's hobo
into Charlie Chaplin's.
Get it now?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: m_si_M on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 09:11 PM EDT |
Creativity is good thing - especially with respect to book titles. But why not
use a Darl/SCOG quote as title. I'd suggest something like "The owner of
..." or "We own it". Of course the teaser should be followed up
by a more describing subtitle. Something like "The unintended consequences
of the legal procedures against Linux [this isn't 100% correct from a legal
point of view, but that's what the announcements of SCOG/AdTI are telling an
ill-informed public] and the future of intellectual property". Sounds a bit
dry but maybe the community process will come up with better solution.
Any ideas?
And of course I have no idea who will be the person best suited for writing this
book in an informative, but still entertaining manner ;-)
---
C.S.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: stevenj on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:04 PM EDT |
Perens: We should not, do not, and can not claim as our own
the creations of the many millions of people who use our books as a reference in
their work every day.
Bruce Perens is a great guy and all, but
does he really have the authority to speak for Prentice-Hall? If not, what is
the point of this "rebuttal?"
Suppose, arguendo, that Brown's claims
are correct, and that some Minix code is included in the Linux kernel (or libc,
or whatever). How can Bruce then say definitively that Prentice-Hall has
neither the legal right nor the intention to sue people for re-distributing this
code without permission? Has he seen their contract with Tanenbaum, so that he
can say for certain that the contract does not given them exclusive publication
rights or the right to sue other distributors?
The accusations being made by
AdTI are ostensibly about copyrights, which cover only expressions and not
ideas, so to some degree Bruce is knocking down a straw man here with his point
about owning the "creations of ... people who use our books as a reference". If
he only wants to make the point that copyright is limited in this way, great,
but I fail to see why Bruce Perens' personal commentary on the scope of
copyright law is going to convince anyone outside the choir. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 11:56 PM EDT |
See the following: www.redblufftech.com.
tg is just
another hapless victim of AdTI's word-twisting. He/she, ironically, wrote an
email denouncing how AdTI was taking Linus and others out of context and
twisting their words. tg never claimed to be a "leader of the open-source
movement" and seems rightfully peeved at some grokkers' taking
AdTI's word for it.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 01:42 AM EDT |
It appears that Don Simon a.k.a. hopeless@pacifier.com isn't exactly a fan of
the current administration, and is a
bit of a raver.
I'd
say he's switched-on enough to know that Wired isn't top of the cool tree.
Still, that hardly warrants being used as "proof" of anything. [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: muswell100 on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 03:10 AM EDT |
An interesting quote here from Mr Brown:
"ADTI accepts money from Microsoft, but Brown refuses to say how much. 'We
don't talk about money with anybody ... but we'll accept money from anybody,' he
said."
...Yeah. So do prostitutes...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 10:44 AM EDT |
Quoted, in full, on AdTI :-)
"I believe they are
at times remarkably wrong, at other
times cunningly misleading, and
sometimes intellectually dishonest.
I have drawn the conclusion that they know nothing about
the origins of Linux and are unqualified to speak to that
issue." -- PJ, Groklaw [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: OmniGeek on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 11:34 AM EDT |
Looking at the AdTI EULA text as quoted by PJ, I wonder if it actually, with any
enforceable legal effect, imposes any meaningful restrictions on the "fair
use" exception to the copyright law. The "agree" link itself
would appear to state only that you agree not to violate the copyright on their
oil-soaked donut of a text; the rest of the "agreement" doesn't look
like it's formulated in a specific and legally meaningful way (real lawyers
please comment!). Sooo, I suspect it can persuasively be argued that their
"EULA" is effectively meaningless, and quotations etc. under
"fair use" can still legally be made.
I don't doubt that they WANT to preclude criticism, but I very much doubt they
they CAN do so with this trick except by waving it about in a threatening
manner, (much like bringing a loaf of French bread to a sword fight).
---
My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on
espresso.[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: ak_hepcat on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 02:05 PM EDT |
blivengood:
http://www.uaf.edu/woodctr/programs/awards/2002/schools.html
Seems to have received an award for his work in the College of Science,
Engeneering and Mathematics - for Computer Sciences.
Played on the 2001 and 2002 ACM Pacific Northwest Programming Contests.
He also seems to be subscribed to a local LUG, so at least there is some
connection.
Other than that, there's just the snipped posted on the
AdTI website: http://www.adti.net/samizdat/open.contradictions.html
[ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 14 2004 @ 08:35 PM EDT |
Considering I am "blivengo", I will agree to undergo turing tests to
determine my sentience. It is silly to require reading their book, so I just
took a cue from their liberal use of ellipses and quoted "..." as the
excerpt, since obviously (statistically) there are mistakes in it. Simple
solution for an amusing afternoon.[ Reply to This | # ]
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