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What the benefit is to discrediting Linus? So what if he didn't start it. He runs it now and it's better than ever.

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The point of pointing a finger at Linus and saying "you didn't create this...you stole this" merely attempts to support the FUD machine's propaganda of the theft of IP in open-source software.

"If the so-called creator of Linux is a thief, what hopes are there for the rest of OSS?"

ADTI is providing no basis for these allegations, and only using the publicity to sell books (the book is authored by ADTI president K. Brown).

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Well if they pose that linus did not start it then you create questions. Questions such as well where did the code come from, did he steal it, is it legal... As you can see questions are bad especially for people buying from red hat and the like. You see in microsofts mind it doesnt care about the quality of its product it just wants to retain market share so that bottom line on the income statement looks good.

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Linux is seen as the Shining Star of the Open Source development model. It pits the old proprietary software development model against the new OS model, and proves that the OS model can in fact, create a highly complex, integrated system stretching across many different platforms and markets.

Proprietary vendors are fighting for their lives now. People are suddenly realizing that they no longer need the huge monolithic software vendors like Microsoft and Sun.

However, if it can be shown that Linux is successfully only because the underlying code was stolen from the much smarter, monolithic software vendors, then the whole OS development model collapses. It would show that Open Source developers really aren't as good as the proprietary companies, that Open Source software teams can't be properly organized and coordinated as well as their tightly structured counterparts at MS, Oracle and Sun, and that they are only successful because they build their systems on bits and pieces that they have spliced together from IP they have pilfered from existing products.

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The Author forgot the most important part about that article. Linus Torvalds has come out and stated he didn't invent linux, but that Santa Clause & the Tooth fairy did.

Now my own theory is that the Tooth Fairy stole the code from Unix while replacing the teeth of the childern of the people you developed Unix. Since back then code was stored on paper and could easily be copied by a sneaky theif.

All done in jest. I only wish Alexis? "study" was done in the same

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Actually this article was written prior to Linus's announcement. Perhaps Linus will need a new disclaimer for the kernel now; "no teeth were harmed in it's production"!

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Last time I heard, isn't this what is called slander and hence illegal. Sounds like a good law suit to me.

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Not slander and not illegal. To paraphrase Jonah Jameson in "Spiderman" : If you speak it is is slander, if you print it, it is libel. In either case, this is grounds for a civil suit. Now, if it were fraud, THAT would be illegal.

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> Now, if it were fraud, THAT would be illegal.

Presumably, if either Microsoft or Sun were to publish a paper saying that Linus had stolen from Unix to create Linux, that might be shown to be Fraud, since it would be much easier to prove that it was done in order to illegally disadvantage a competitor. However, even in that case, it would be hard to prove.

Now, if SCO were to publish this claim, in order to pump their stock, just days before their execs started dumping, then that would actually be fraud. Unfortunately, we can already see how hard it is to make that accusation stick....

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It's probably not technically slander, and thus not "illegal", since they included the word "probably" in the title, and it's not provably false. Also, it's hard to sue someone based on a simple, two paragraph announcement for a book that isn't even published yet.

Unfortunately, there's this little matter of "Freedom of Speech" here. The law makes it very difficult to prove "slander", even when the facts are fairly obviously false. For one thing, you have to show malicious intent, and real damages. I'm sure that, if you check the Groklaw site, you will find long discussion threads on what exactly constitutes "slander", and how difficult it is to prove it.

On the other hand, there are plenty of ways we can fight the lie. That is, after all, the reason we have Freedom of Speech.

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The people who are spreading the FUD get paid alot of money to do so, they could care less what any of us think I say dont even bother submitting any comments to these and any other articles that bash Linux or its creator, let them go ask bill gates when the last time they built something from scratch whitout stealing any piece of technology from small defenceless companies and pirate the technology to microcrap look good.

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AdTI is named after de Tocqueville, one of the great foreign observers of America. Obviously AdTI itself is neither foreign nor a great observer, except maybe of self-serving trends.

SCO is named after The Santa Cruz Organization, which contributed Xenix, the first important PC-based version of Unix. But SCO is really just a rebranding of Caldera, the failed ex-Linux vendor which spun out of Novell during Ray Noorda's tenure.

So these two companies with phony, self-aggrandizing names are now attacking Linus, who actually did invent something and successfully galvanized many others to help.

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Actually, Microsoft created Xenix --- SCO licensed if from them and ported it to the Intel architecture......

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I know they "owned" Xenix, but did they really "create" it? And if they did create Xenix, couldn't the same AdTI press release just be changed to say Bill Gates in place of Linus Torvalds, and Xenix in place of Linux? Wouldn't MS be guilty of exactly the same thing?

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Thats an example of another whopper that has been floating around the bowl for quite a while - never hear anyone trying to correct it......
Perhaps "Cringely" should write a follow on and get the Linus story straight...

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It's hard to believe anyone could seriously propose that Linus didn't create Linux. There must still be archives out there with his original Usenet posts on the subject. It was only ten years ago.

All you have to do to create something like Linux is to try to build an operating system that does what Unix does, and con a bunch of folks into writing it. This, essentially, is what Linus did. Do you suppose AdTI have heard of the POSIX specification?

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The AdTI is not claiming that Linus Torvalds didn't write Linux, but that he didn't "invent" it. Their argument is that Linux is an imitation of Unix and thus he just stole the idea. The subtle implication they're making is that ideas should be property and by "stealing" the idea, he didn't really invent anything. It's complete crap, but that's the "Big Lie".

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It is true that Linus has a lot to do with Linux. If he were not around, it would not exist. At least it is highly unlikely it would be called Linux. It may be called Horde - the GNU kernel. That project was started when Linus was still in High School. RMS is in Linux too. If here were not around Linux probably wouldn't exist either. Clearly he built a good foundation, a free software foundation.

Having said that, what exactly did he invent if anything? People who know me say I'm a die hard Linux fan. Whatever the question is - Linux is the answer. Did he invent the kernel? No, Unix had a similar one and I wrote a very similar one as a College OS project (ran on the PDP-11). Horde is very similar as well, as is MACH and many others. The kernel that we all use today is really not his either. It has been modified by many people over the years. All the changes I understand are all approved by him, however.

Linus is a guy who said to send me code. Unlike Gnu and I criticized them all the way back in 1985 about that. They didn't want anyone duplicating any effort. A noble cause to be sure, however their mechanism for doing that sucked big time and they never answered mail. I know, I waited 3 years for an answer and never got one, even writting to them throughout that period. Linus was different - just send it to him as long as it wasn't copyrighted stuff. You had to write it. Soon he was getting more code than you could imagine. All this before GHW Bush released the internet to the public in 1992. Yes, GHW Bush released the internet, not Clinton. It was one of the last things he did as President. And no, Algore had nothing to do with it except he slept on a comittee that heard the funding a few times. In fact he tried to kill it a couple of times if I recall correctly.

So I wouldn't say he "invented" Linux, no one person did. He had probably one of the biggest hands in making it what it is today, however there are thousands of us who wrote code that make it what it is today. Even the idea isn't his. It is the union of all of the good things that we learned in computer science from the 1960's on. Don Kneuth, Kernignham and Richie, Asreal Rosenfeld, Aho, Sethi, and on and on... Things that live in Unix because they were put into Unix from BSD (i.e. University of California owns BSD and those ideas, not the old USL and now SCO/Novell). Things like sockets, pipes, fork and vfork.

As much as I hate the idea, the notion is technically correct, Linus didn't "invent" linux by the definition of what invent means. I don't think he ever claimed that. He assembled it from code donated to him by others and his own code. He oversaw the construction and addition of all of the structures that make up the kernel and utilities. That is not to be taken lightly. He must be a superman and I don't know how he has done it over the years.

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Nobody ever accomplished everything. They all took advantage of great work before them, the books they studied, the teachers and colleagues they learned from, similar projects going on at the same time, etc. "Standing on the shoulders of giants" as Microsoft likes to say, after Isaac Newton. Of course, Newton didn't really discover anything either - it all came from his teacher Isaac Barrow, or Galileo and Kepler, or Leibniz. You and I can't/won't accomplish anything either. Let's go download some more MP3's.

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"Standing on the shoulders of giants" as Microsoft likes to say"
eh?? Microsoft would never say that, according to them they invented/innovated everything.
The I.Newton quote "standing on<nobr> <wbr></nobr>..." is used by GNU/Linux people

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Yes and No.

While something could be "technically correct", the effect it has on people is more important. Saying that Linus didn't invent Linux (thus implying that he stole the code), could be correct, but it's also something called "twisting the truth".

So, is Linux the "UNIX ideas and methods"? Or is it the actual kernel code? Because if it's the second, the Linus *did* invent Linux - of course, with the help of many people.

This is like saying that Mozart didn't invent his music. Of course, he took ideas from many places (hey! music has thousands of years of evolution!), so if someone tells me that this great composer didn't create his work because he took harmony, ryhtm and themes from other previous works, well, that doesn't make sense to me.

Perceptions rule the world!

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To use what you said, it is appropriate. I would agree that Mozart invented his music because he and only he created it from begining to end. Indeed, when he wrote it down there were no corrections on his original work. He had the ability to hear the whole thing as it would later be in production in his head. A truly gifted and tallented musician, no - maestro!

Linux on the other hand would be more like if Mozart had other people helping him compose his work. Others criticizing it or putting other stanzas or riffs. After all, Linux is not what Redhat or Suse puts out, they build on it. The core that is Linux is common between them and it is made up of the work of many.

This is not to even think that Linus somehow stole it or did anything improper. He didn't. It was contributed to his work. He gives credit to those who helped him and it is no secret.

Newton didn't invent Gravity, he is said to have discovered it BTW. However the Calculus that he came up with he did invent. There was nothing like it before.

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RMS is the grandfather

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Note that this article is a defense of Linux (and Linus) written by a person of the GNU project. Yes, read again - a so-called "GNU zealot" speaks up in defense of Linux.

Kinda hard to imagine it the other way around. A (most obviously non-zealot) 'open source' advocate finding anything good to say about the GNU project or its founder, Richard Stallman.

Next time before you 'Linux & open source' supporters decide to (yet again) flame, deride, or otherwise ridicule GNU/Linux & FSF & free software proponents please remember this.

Thanks!

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The only way other countries can avoid becoming slaves to Microsoft is to repeal intellectual property treaties with the U.S. If necessary, withdraw from the Berne Convention, too, or rewrite it to exclude the U.S.

Within the U.S., it's pretty well hopeless. Members of Congress and the state legislatures are just paid whores for their campaign contributors, especially Microsoft.

U.S. courts can still play fair, but they can only follow the law, and the law can be changed to suit whoever has the money to pay for new laws.

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1) 99% of other countries are *also* ruled by corporate whores
2) nobody wants to be bombed, included in some "axis of evil", declared "non-democratic", etc.

so between greed and fear - nobody will do anything

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It does show what lengts the proprietary software companies will go to to win. Only they won't we because Linux will be just chugging along at it's own pace.

The only way for software companies to win is to keep paying the politicians to make the laws against Linux and to basically outlaw it.

This is the only way Microsoft can win - they obviously can't make a better product - if they could all these patents and laws wouldn't be neccesary.

Gee - let's patent the translucent window - what greedy idiots.


 

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Read what Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the father of Minix has to say about the whole episode

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/

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An entertaining read, especially at the end where he attempts to revive the old microkernel debate. I like the line about Ashcroft and the Patriot Act.

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