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Posted on 06/03/2004 4:17:02 PM PDT by Havoc
"The actual words I used were quoted correctly, but [author Kenneth Brown] deliberately confuses his terms, like 'Linux.' He confuses the Linux kernel, which I had nothing to do with, and the GNU OS project, which I launched," said Stallman, who characterized such mistakes as "deliberate."
GNU Project founder Richard Stallman has told LinuxInsider that a recent report's use of interviews with Stallman is a "deliberate" attempt to confuse people about the origins of the Linux kernel, the GNU system and software developed as part of the free-software and open-source movements.
"The purpose of this report is to confuse, to cause fear, uncertainty and doubt," Stallman said of a draft of a report by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute. "These people have taken money from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) , they've tried this before, and now they're trying to do it again."
The report, whose anticipated final release this week has been delayed, characterizes open-source software as the product of "reverse engineering, employee theft, or Rembrandt-like copying," which the report indicates have "become the proud flag of many in the open-source movement."
The author, Kenneth Brown, has told LinuxInsider that Linus Torvalds could not have written Linux due to his inexperience and the short, six-month development time without "stealing" from Minix, an operating system written by Andrew Tanenbaum -- who also has disputed the findings of the report, both publicly and in discussions with LinuxInsider. Brown holds that both Linux and the open-source movement are therefore forever vulnerable to intellectual-property theft claims.
Capitalizing on Confusion
In particular, Stallman criticized the report for capitalizing on common confusion between the Linux kernel, which Stallman says "Linus really wrote," with the full GNU operating system and associated software, which can be and generally is used with the Linux kernel.
"The actual words I used were quoted correctly, but [author Kenneth Brown] deliberately confuses his terms, like 'Linux.' He confuses the Linux kernel, which I had nothing to do with, and the GNU OS project, which I launched," said Stallman, who characterized such mistakes as "deliberate."
Stallman also said Brown himself misuses words in the report to tarnish both Torvald's Linux kernel work and Stallman's own Free Software Foundation (FSF) efforts, such as when Brown alleges Torvalds didn't "invent" Linux. "You don't 'invent' an operating system or a kernel, you write it," Stallman told LinuxInsider. "Copyright doesn't cover ideas; it's your expression of those ideas.
"And the open-source and free-software movements are very different," he added, arguing that the latter has a set of values codified by Stallman's oft-quoted "four freedoms," while the former is primarily commercial in its aims. "By misusing those terms, it's meant to confuse people who don't know any better," he said.
The Free Software Foundation's four freedoms hold that everyone has the right to the following: the freedom to use the software, including the source code; the freedom to distribute the software; the freedom to modify the software; and the freedom to distribute the modifications to the software.
Open Source versus Free Source
The status of the two groups' intellectual-property origins is also very different, according to Stallman. Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and pro bono attorney for the Free Software Foundation, said the FSF has for years required that contributors to its source code assign their copyrights to the Free Software Foundation, which promises to keep the source free forever.
In contrast, Moglen characterizes contributions to Torvalds' Linux projects as having been, until recently, "among the least concerned about documenting [intellectual property] rights" to its source code. To tar both movements with the same brush, said Stallman, is unfair and inaccurate, yet that's what the report does.
Report Still 'Under Construction'
Brown earlier told LinuxInsider that the report, titled "Samizdat: The Source of Open Source Code," would be released in final form this week. But a spokesperson said yesterday that the report is still being worked on.
Current plans are to incorporate material discussing both Brown's responses to his critics and the impact of Torvalds' recent announcement that, in the future, Linux kernel contributors will have to certify the origins of their code before it can become part of the kernel.
The spokesperson would not commit to a particular release date. Links on the ADTI home page labeled "To track updates and press coverage in the controversy, including ADTI replies to the emerging accounts of Messrs. Torvalds and Tanenbaum, click here," return "under construction" icons.
Pro and anti-open source/gnu software people, start your engines...
Shouldn't that be: .....Lame, Poorly Researched, but Well Refuted and Paid "Report" (work for hire) Attempts to Confuse, but Fails Miserably.....?
That sounds MUCH closer to the truth.
I believe that's the "report" Stallman is talking about.
ping
Bump.
gates shorts are gradually turning brown.......
Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!
Got root?
When widget production declines and along with it, revenues for such pools, decline, their lawyers and other "Wall Street" agents get the call to "do something about it."
The latest fashion is to practice money grubbing greed, by claiming property as your own, that either is not, or the property has been so long neglected by them, that they have lost track of it, and now are desparately disrupting all their neighbors with bullish forays through the garage in the middle of the night.
In such times, their lawyers will gladly take even more of their money and make war over every boundary line.
As with SCO... saddled with bad leadership and advice, now apparently so is the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute .
Alexis de Tocqueville is obviously unable to clear his name of that institute.
What we have here is an old fashioned range war, brought upon by what will eventually be likened to the "robber barons" of yore.
Microsoft is not the only company that can afford hired guns.
What Microsoft has not expected, nor SCO, nor Kenneth Brown & Associates, is that the people are much more organized and prepared to fight back.
Instead of like the old days, when the robber barons could rely upon the people being frightened away from the "rich lands."
What property belongs to Kenneth Brown, lawfully and legally, and what property belongs to SCO, lawfully and legally, is theirs, but none other.
What is most hurting them and Microsoft, is all their arrogance, which will be their undoing.
I've been around this stuff long enough to know that when a software company stops writing new software and starts suing their competitors, they're about done.
Thanks for the link FS.
I saw the release announcement today for XP sp2 and died laughing. As usual, the cure is at least as painful as what it's curing.
For those not familiar with Mr. Stallman, the man responsible for the questionable Linux license (or contract, there seems to be some legal confusion that has yet to sort itself out in a courtroom), as well as controlling authority for many applications packaged with the various versions of Linux, you can learn more about him by visiting his daily news section on his own personal website:
http://www.stallman.org/archives/2004-mar-jun.html
I'd suggest reading it before drawing your own conclusions as to the value of his statements.
Netflix carries a good documentary on GNU/Open Source called Revolution OS:
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?trkid=73&movieid=60025132
Questionable Linux license. You mean the one that allows you to modify Linux to meet your needs. You mean the one that allows you full access to linux source for your coding purposes if you don't want to build all your own libraries.
That license. I hope people do read it. Because it gives MS perpetual screamin runs. MS doesn't get to control who has access to the api functionality to make semi-stable apps. In linux everyone has access to make STABLE applications.
Stallman is an ok guy in general. Just has different views about software. And that's ok.
Yep. I happen to have a copy of it right here with me. Very good documentary movie. I highly recommend it.
No question except for you and Darl. It is a license, better fitting the definition of a license than many other "licenses" out there. Court cases for violation of the GPL have all been brought as cases of copyright infringement, and not as breach of contract cases (the latter of which you'll often find in commercial software).
Stallman's statements on various airy subjects are always to be taken with a grain of salt. However, the area Stallman is commenting on is the definitions of the GPL, FSF, GNU and Linux. He is definitely a trusted source for the definitions and purposes of the first three and their relation to the last one. It is in this area that Stallman says Brown is deliberately trying to confuse.
Aside from the lame attempts to bring IE up to par with the previous generation of other browsers, the update looks pretty useful, especially since they're supposed to have severely tightened their swiss-cheese RPC architecture.
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