Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Linus Not The Father Of Linux, According to Report

Posted by Hemos on Mon May 17, 2004 08:39 AM
from the fear-uncertaintity-and-doubt dept.
Linux Business Microsoft
MrIrwin writes "According to this article on Yahoo, Linus is not the real father of Linux and Open source software is really just code nicked from other sources. " Groklaw has done a dissection of the press release. It's a press release by the Alexis de Toqueville Institution, who gets funding from MSFT, as well as believes that US IT troubles are because of free software. Oh, and terrorism works better because of open source, and the "Star Wars" program was a good idea.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Linus Not The Father Of Linux, According to Report | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 867 comments (Spill at 50!) | Index Only | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1) | 2 | 3

  • Seeing as they like history...... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrIrwin (761231) on Monday May 17 2004, @08:39AM (#9172629)
    (Last Journal: Thursday April 29 2004, @05:55PM)
    .....and seeing as how they have such close ties to MS, perhaps they could run a study as to how Microsoft came to be born.
    • Re:Seeing as they like history...... by CoffeeCrusader (Score:1) Monday May 17 2004, @08:44AM

      • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MrIrwin (761231) on Monday May 17 2004, @08:48AM (#9172729)
        (Last Journal: Thursday April 29 2004, @05:55PM)
        I was reffereing to the fact that Paul Allen and Bill Gates started Microsoft porting Basic interpreters from a "borrowed" open source base.
        [ Parent ]

        • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:4, Funny)

          by plj (673710) on Monday May 17 2004, @09:26AM (#9173121)
          No, no, it was just that Linus had really boring at school, so he hacked to the M$ network and stole this [kernel.org] and related files from their labs, and put his name and street address under it.

          It should have become the kernel of their new, more advanced version of Windows, but as the code was leaked they decided to abandon it, blamed the leakage to its head developer and fired him - some guy called Stallman - and hired Cutler to his place.

          This was a brief history of Windows NT and Linux, and an explanaition why Windows sucks and Linux rocks today. Stallman, on the other hand, felt pissed and took the lead of certain miserable and insignificant foundation called FSF, which developed viral licenses to communistic IP-dishonoring hippies, and later on claimed himself its founder.

          By they way, I also heard recently that Linus' file in Finnish citizenship registry keeps magically getting erased at random times ever since the said registry was moved to run on .NET platform.

          But now you have to excuse me, as I'm out of crack and my hands are shaking too badly.
          [ Parent ]

          • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by txviking (768200) on Monday May 17 2004, @12:35PM (#9174869)
            Alexis de Toqueville would spin in his grave if he would know that an institude with his name is publishing a report slandering free (as in freedom) software. They should maybe study Alexis' book about the US democracy a little more !!!
            [ Parent ]
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

        • Microsoft's history of dishonesty and crime (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 17 2004, @10:42AM (#9173861)
          > I was reffereing to the fact that Paul Allen and Bill Gates started Microsoft porting Basic interpreters from a "borrowed" open source base.

          Why stop there? Almost every victory that Microsoft can claim has been achieved through dishonest, if not criminal means. Consider...

          MICROSOFT DEFEATS DR-DOS BY:

          - Fraud: Windows issues a warning about DR-DOS that MS knows is false.
          - FUD: The DR-DOS evidence includes Microsoft memos planning the FUD campaign.
          - Sabotage: Windows 95 has secret calls to prevent it from running on DR-DOS.
          - Sabotage: MS purposely keeps DR-DOS out of the Windows Beta-test program (also documented by evidence).

          MICROSOFT DEFEATS GEOWORKS BY:

          - Sabotage: New MS-DOS release causes Geoworks to fail.

          MICROSOFT DEFEATS WORDPERFECT BY:

          - Fraud: MS publicly announces that OS/2 is the future direction.
          - Sabotage: MS provides WordPerfect with faulty Windows APIs.

          MICROSOFT DEFEATS OS/2 BY:

          - Fraud: Microsoft pretends to support OS/2, then abandons it.
          - FUD: Microsoft pays people to disparage OS/2 in posts in forums, letters to the editor, etc.
          - Suspected Theft: Microsoft is believed to have borrowed OS/2 IP to use in Windows 3.1.
          - Suspected Sabotage: Microsoft is believed to have provided less than their best code for OS/2.

          MICROSOFT DEFEATS AMIPRO BY:

          - Sabotage: Windows 95 causes AmiPro function-keys to break.

          MICROSOFT DEFEATS NETSCAPE BY:

          - Contract Interference: Microsoft pays sites to stop using Netscape (thus "cutting off Netscape's air supply").
          - Extortion: Microsoft threatens VARs who preload Netscape.
          - Extortion: Microsoft threatens Apple with the cancellation of MS Office for the Mac, unless Apple drops Netscape.

          MICROSOFT ATTEMPTS TO DEFEAT JAVA BY:

          - Sabotage: Microsoft tries to "kill cross-platform Java by growing the polluted [J++] Java market."
          - Fraud: Microsoft memo shows plan to keep quiet about the incompatibilities so that J++ users will unintentionally create Windows-only code.

          AND NOW MICROSOFT IS ATTEMPTING TO DEFEAT LINUX BY:

          - Fud: Obviously.

          - Fraud: False claims, planted by partners like Toqueville.

          - Legal Attacks: Microsoft funded the SCO attack.

          - Patents: Future.

          - Legislation: DRM, etc.

          - Proprietary Internet Protocols: MS Multimedia formats, .Net authentication protocols, DRM.

          - Secret Hardware Protocols: Working with partners like NVidia (closed source drivers), ATI (closed source drivers), and AMD (the unpublished memory-access fix).

          - Locking-in Linux: Working with partners like NVidia and ATI (closed source drivers), possibly Trolltech (the proprietary version of Qt, Qt support for .Net), possibly CodeWeavers (promoting MS Office on Linux, and ActiveX on the Internet), possibly Xandros and a couple of other Linux distributers (proprietary Linux admin tools, Qt-only desktop environment, promoting MS Office on Linux, etc.), possibly Macromedia (Flash), and who knows who else.

          - Infiltration: MS plants joining Open Source projects to cause interference, wearing out the leaders through constant complaining, driving away other developers by acting like jerks, pushing the project in bad directions, etc.

          - Infiltration: MS plants joining Open Source projects and pretending to be die-hard supporters, then pushing for overly-tight licensing, convincing others to add special restrictions that limit the software's use (possible examples: DotGNU, XFree86), using LGPL for what should be BSD (CodeWeaver's Wine), using GPL for what should be LGPL (MySQL), and so on.

          AND JUST GENERAL DESTRUCTION...
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Microsoft's history of dishonesty and crime by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Monday May 17 2004, @12:11PM

            • Re:Microsoft's history of dishonesty and crime (Score:5, Informative)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 17 2004, @12:41PM (#9174922)
              > Just one bit of [proof] would be enough for me to not think you are some insane zealot.

              If you insist...

              Evidence of sabotage and fraud in The Sun vs Microsoft case [sun.com]:

              Memo to Bill Gates from the manager responsible for Microsoft's Java strategy:

              > When I met with you last, you had a lot of pretty pointed questions about Java, so I want to make sure I understand your issues/concerns....

              > 1. What is our business model for Java?

              > 2. How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?

              > 3. How do we turn Java into just the latest, best way to write Windows applications?

              > 4. What are we doing to leverage/expose Windows to Java developers?

              Microsoft's pricing strategy paper for its VJ++ development suite:

              > The "strategic objective" of its new toolkit is to "Eliminate/contain cross-platform Java by growing the polluted Java market," "migrate and lock Java developers to Win32 Java," and ultimately to "kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market."

              Statement by a Microsoft vice president:

              > I would explicitly be different -- just to be different.... [W]ithout something to pollute Java more to Windows (show new cool features that are only in Windows) we expose ourselves to more portable code on other platforms.

              Another Microsoft memo:

              > At this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps.

              Evidence of contract interference and extortion in The DOJ versus Microsoft case [usdoj.gov]:

              > "Content drives browser adoption, and we need to go to the top five sites and ask them, "What can we do to get you to adopt IE?" We should be prepared to write a check, buy sites, or add features -- basically do whatever it takes to drive adoption."

              > Gates wrote, "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office...."

              > In Waldman's words: Sounds like we give them the HTML control for nothing except making IE the "standard browser for Apple?" I think they should be doing this anyway. Though the language of the agreement uses the word "encourage," I think that the spirit is that Apple should be using it everywhere and if they don't do it, then we can use Office as a club.

              Evidence of intentional destruction of standard protocols in the Microsoft Halloween Document [opensource.org]:

              > "OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market."

              And so on.

              There is so much evidence that this (sabotage, fraud, and extortion) is Microsoft's normal way of operating, that the "zealot" position is anyone who attempts to claim that Microsoft is honest.

              As to what Microsoft is currently trying to do to defeat Linux, there was obviously some speculation there, which I indicated by repeated use of the word "possibly."
              [ Parent ]
          • Re:Microsoft's history of dishonesty and crime by JaxWeb (Score:3) Monday May 17 2004, @12:14PM

          • Re:Microsoft's history of dishonesty and crime (Score:5, Interesting)

            by 0x0d0a (568518) on Monday May 17 2004, @12:38PM (#9174896)
            (Last Journal: Sunday October 03 2004, @04:03AM)
            Uh...while a lot of this is true (and some is clearly stuff that folks are justified in being suspicious of but will never, ever be able to prove), there are some awfully bizarre claims here, and plenty of speculation.

            - Fraud: False claims, planted by partners like Toqueville.

            You have no knowledge that this particular instance was instigated by Microsoft. Microsoft has *definitely* paid off "independent researchers" to come up with misleading studies in the past, but this is not in the least unusual for large companies in the technology industry, much as I hate to say it.

            - Legal Attacks: Microsoft funded the SCO attack.

            This is certainly worth looking into, but it's not as cut-and-dry as you're making out.


            - Secret Hardware Protocols: Working with partners like NVidia (closed source drivers), ATI (closed source drivers), and AMD (the unpublished memory-access fix).

            Microsoft has not, to the best of my knowledge, conducted a "secret hardware" campaign or anything of the sort. A lot of the industry is (unfortunately) secretive for competitive reasons -- that doesn't mean that Microsoft is behind it, or even actively encouraging it.

            - Locking-in Linux: Working with partners like NVidia and ATI (closed source drivers), possibly Trolltech (the proprietary version of Qt, Qt support for .Net), possibly CodeWeavers (promoting MS Office on Linux, and ActiveX on the Internet), possibly Xandros and a couple of other Linux distributers (proprietary Linux admin tools, Qt-only desktop environment, promoting MS Office on Linux, etc.), possibly Macromedia (Flash), and who knows who else.

            Absurd. This isn't even remotely plausible. You have no evidence to back this up, numerous statements to the contrary from reputable people (if you think that Miguel de Izca is lying and secretly being paid off by Microsoft for doing Mono, and that TrollTech is in bed with Microsoft (instead of the much more obvious just trying to make a buck on their products)) you're loony.

            - Infiltration: MS plants joining Open Source projects to cause interference, wearing out the leaders through constant complaining, driving away other developers by acting like jerks, pushing the project in bad directions, etc.

            Sorry. People are jerks on their own. Microsoft may do this in the future on strategically valuable projects (it's clearly a viable and legal strategy), but I doubt it.

            - Infiltration: MS plants joining Open Source projects and pretending to be die-hard supporters, then pushing for overly-tight licensing, convincing others to add special restrictions that limit the software's use (possible examples: DotGNU, XFree86), using LGPL for what should be BSD (CodeWeaver's Wine), using GPL for what should be LGPL (MySQL), and so on.

            [Laughs] If Stallman and friends, with their pro-GPL rhetoric, are Microsoft shills, they could just revise the GPL. That's absurd.

            The most egregious things that we know happened that I think I'd highlight would be:

            * Netscape's server compatibility and attacks on the client by servicing MSIE clients first. These are clear, true cases of anticompetitive behavior.

            * Microsoft deliberately monkeying around with DR-DOS compatibility in their applications.

            * Microsoft working hard to keep protocols and formats closed and avoiding third-party compatibility to promote lock-in. Not that unusual for the technology industry, sad to say. The Kerberos SMB stuff was a good example.

            * Driver signing -- the claim that it's "for security" or "reliability" is as ridiculous as the claims of DRM being "to promote end-user security against malware", and everyone involved is quite aware of the fact. It's to give Microsoft a powerful club.

            * OEM pressure. Bundling, doing Windows only, etc.

            * Using Office support as a club against Apple.

            * Microsoft attempts to make Java Windows-specific have not, as far as I kn
            [ Parent ]

          • Re:Microsoft's history of dishonesty and crime (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 17 2004, @12:53PM (#9175043)
            Also:

            MICROSOFT DEFEATS STACKER (Disk Compression) BY:

            - Fraud: Microsoft incorporates the Stacker code, even the comments. MS lawyers drag out their defense of the suit against them until Stacker is bankrupt, then settle when the company has been forced out of business.
            [ Parent ]
          • This is easily one of the best posts I've ever read on Slashdot. Not only did you manage to site examples in which Microsoft has abused its monopoly position, you never once actually called them a monopoly, allowing the reader to come to that conclusion by reading the examples.

            Also, you didn't use the term "M$" and refrained from calling their employees "cockmasters" which, I must say, is somewhat of a rarity on Slashdot when discussing Microsoft. So bravo, AC. Excellent job. A lot of my Microsoft-loving acquaintances will find the URL to this post in their inbox very soon.

            [ Parent ]

          • Re:Microsoft's history of dishonesty and crime (Score:5, Interesting)

            by toriver (11308) on Monday May 17 2004, @04:33PM (#9177425)
            What, no mention of Lotus 1-2-3, one of the better-known examples of Microsoft screwing with a third-party? Remember "DOS ain't done until Lotus won't run"?

            Also add the undocumented method calls in their 32-bit version of Winsock 1.1 (Win95), used by Powerpoint 4.0 and an Outlook beta, causing customers who used other vendors' Winsock implementations (read: FTP Software's) to run into trouble. Mcrosoft did release patches that removed those method calls from the afflicted programs, though, but it still counts.
            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Microsoft's history of dishonesty and crime by dave420 (Score:3) Tuesday May 18 2004, @05:20AM
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • All of their competitors don't have... by Pac (Score:3) Monday May 17 2004, @01:01PM
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • 5 replies beneath your current threshold.
        • According to The Microsoft Timeline [microsoft.com] (note: Flash animated):

          "Using the Altair 8800, Bill Gates and Paul Allen develop the first programming language, and begin an extraordinary, history-making journey."

          It looks like Bill and Paul were the proud parents of the a bouncing baby programming language, the first one ever!
          [ Parent ]

          • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by gaijin99 (143693) on Monday May 17 2004, @12:45PM (#9174959)
            (Last Journal: Sunday October 03 2004, @06:02PM)
            Wow... My jaw is still dropped, I thought you were making that up. "Surely," I thought, "even MS wouldn't try to pull such a major re-writing of history as to claim that they invented the first programming language." But there it is, on MS's own website.

            That's on the same level as the Party in 1984 claiming to have invented the steam engine. The Ministry of Truth lives on at MS. I wonder how long before they either a) quietly remove that particular lie, or b) claim that its *obvious* that they meant the first programming language for the Altair, not the first programming language ever. On a side note, I wonder how long it is before someone posts the inevitable "Slashdot slams on MS and the groupthink supports it" post.

            Another prime quote from their time-lie: "1997: Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 gives users an unparalleled Internet client solution" Its marketing-speak gibberish running head long against reality. Wot the hell is an "Internet client solution"? I also like the breathless descriptive assumption that the world was just waiting for MS to provide this unparalleled Internet client solution becuase until then no one was actually able to use the net, it was just a vast wasteland until they came along and made it available to the masses.

            [ Parent ]

          • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:5, Informative)

            by RenaissanceGeek (668842) <<moc.tcennocr> <ta> <wrebmloh>> on Monday May 17 2004, @01:48PM (#9175615)
            The best part is, they WEREN'T using an Altair 8800 to write the code! (they were a terribly designed machine: a reliable Altair 8800 is practially an oxymoron.)

            In fact, the Altair 8800 hadn't even been RELEASED yet, when they developed Basic for it: they wrote it to run on the emulator that they had written to run on the PDP-10.

            The funny bit? Because it was all emulated, they never needed to actually LOAD Basic onto their test "machine", so they never wrote a loader. Paul Allen wound up coding one up ON THE PLANE TO ALBUQUERQUE to demo the finished product! (hey, it had to be keyed into the unit from the front panel switches, anyway.)

            [ Parent ]
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:Seeing as they like history...... by kavachameleon (Score:2) Monday May 17 2004, @08:09PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

        • Born in a Whore House (Score:5, Funny)

          by thales (32660) on Monday May 17 2004, @12:08PM (#9174609)
          (http://www.linuxstart.com/~thales | Last Journal: Wednesday December 24 2003, @12:06PM)
          "I was reffereing to the fact that Paul Allen and Bill Gates started Microsoft porting Basic interpreters from a "borrowed" open source base."

          Why stop at that? Where Micro-Soft's original corporate home was is very intresting. The Sundowner Motel in Albuquerque. The Sundowner was a seedy little Motel that was widely used by drug dealers and Hookers for their business.

          Microsoft was born in a Whore House! Dosen't that explain their Business ethics?
          [ Parent ]
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

    • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:5, Funny)

      by 2names (531755) on Monday May 17 2004, @08:47AM (#9172715)
      Does this mean Linus can stop paying child support?

      *ducks*

      [ Parent ]

    • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:5, Funny)

      by kryonD (163018) on Monday May 17 2004, @08:48AM (#9172724)
      (http://www.cynergysoft.com/ | Last Journal: Friday August 27 2004, @10:18AM)
      Yeah...based on the logic presented in that article, he is going to come to the conclusion that Linux was really the result of a gay marriage between Charles Babbage and Alan Turing.

      This is almost as funny as that "5 year study" on the Total cost of ownership of Win2K vs Linux that was released in 2001.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Seeing as they like history...... by Liselle (Score:3) Monday May 17 2004, @08:49AM

    • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by southpolesammy (150094) on Monday May 17 2004, @08:49AM (#9172742)
      (http://www.comprank.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday July 05, @10:59AM)
      And related to the article, perhaps they can also shed light on the "questionable beginnings" of MS Windows [osix.net].
      [ Parent ]

    • Re:Seeing as they like history...... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Zak3056 (69287) on Monday May 17 2004, @09:03AM (#9172884)
      (http://zak3056.livejournal.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday November 02 2004, @08:06AM)
      I happen to like the headline of this story from The Register [theregister.co.uk]: Alien puppet Linus swiped Linux from SCO, says balanced study. Trust the Reg to put this story in the proper context.

      Of course, what REALLY burns me is the line that says For almost thirty years, programmers have tried to build a Unix-like system and couldn't, somehow suggesting that UNIX is like the the tinfoil hat version of the pyramids of Egypt--some mysterious advanced technology that no one understands and couldn't possibly replicate.

      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Seeing as they like history...... by sabernet (Score:1) Monday May 17 2004, @09:08AM
    • no need for a study, just watch the movie by WormholeFiend (Score:3) Monday May 17 2004, @09:09AM

    • Linux's actual father (Score:5, Funny)

      by Aexia (517457) on Monday May 17 2004, @09:11AM (#9172954)