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Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
Saturday, June 12 2004 @ 11:13 PM EDT

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.


  


Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown | 468 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections here please
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 | # ]

OT, links, yeah, yeah you know.
Authored by: Harry Clayton on Sunday, June 13 2004 @ 02:59 AM EDT


---
Linux: There is no infringing code or Manuals.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Not a hired hack
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 | # ]

Anti-FUD book titles
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 | # ]

Creative Commons License, except for ADTI?
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 | # ]

Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
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 | # ]

copyright on comments?
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 | # ]

Microsoft don't want to use their own money to fight OSS
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 | # ]

Ken Brown is consistant :->)
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 | # ]

Knocking LinuxToday.com
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 | # ]

"PowerPoint stupidity" at work?
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 | # ]

Copyright and the mind
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 | # ]

That quote is just begging...
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 | # ]

I especially like the mailinator.com address
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 | # ]

Alexis de Tocqueville's Tax Status
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 | # ]

My take on Open Source and IP rewards
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 | # ]

Don't Forget Moore's Law
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 | # ]

Unfair criticism of "leaders"
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 | # ]

Google vs the "experts"
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 | # ]

Maininator! These guys are TOCQUIN!
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 | # ]

Defining "from Scratch"
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 | # ]

A question I would like somebody to ask Bill Gates
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 | # ]

OT: on keeping knowledge - a historial example
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 | # ]

Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
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 | # ]

Is Brown A Protectionist?
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 | # ]

"Samizdat" EULA
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 | # ]

PJ's Future
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 | # ]

Destruction after 1 pair of eyes...
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 | # ]

Hard to write an OS yourself? Don't think so.
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 | # ]

Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
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 | # ]

This is exactly the point
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 | # ]

Doing the math
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 | # ]

Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
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 | # ]

Ebook format ...
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 | # ]

The Shizzolator
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 | # ]

    The truth about linux
    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 | # ]

    Nonexistent experts
    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 | # ]

      Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
      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 | # ]

      Book title idea
      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
      Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
      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 | # ]

      Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
      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 | # ]

      Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
      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 | # ]

      Murder mysteries and romance novels
      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 | # ]

      Book title
      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 | # ]

      Is Perens able to speak officially for Prentice-Hall?
      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 | # ]

      tg at redbluff dot com speaks!
      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 | # ]

      Hopeless
      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 | # ]

      Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
      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 | # ]

      Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
      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 | # ]

      EULA - Meaningless in law?
      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 | # ]

      Two More - Swartz and Perens - Rebut Alexis de Tocqueville's Brown
      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 | # ]

      Not all of us were bots.
      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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