It Official Linus stole Linux (Microsoft FUD)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040514/234/71e7q.html ^ | 05/17/2004 | Yahoo

[N3WBI3]

Torvalds claim to "invent" Linux probably false, says new study

Fri May 14, 5:49 PM ET

Washington, DC (FeatureXpress) May 14, 2004 - Popular but controversial "open source" computer software, often contributed on a volunteer basis, is often taken or adapted without permission from material owned by other companies and individuals, a study by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution finds. Among other points, the study directly challenges Linus Torvalds (news - web sites)' claim to be the inventor of Linux (news - web sites). In one of the few extensive studies on the source of open source code, Kenneth Brown, president of AdTI, traces the free software movement over three decades -- from its romantic but questionable beginnings, through its evolution to a commercial effort that draws on unpaid contributions from thousands of programmers. Brown's account is based on extensive interviews with more than two dozen leading technologists including Richard Stallman, Dennis Ritchie, and Andrew Tanenbaum.

[lelio]

Am I wrong in remembering this is the same bunch who came out with a 'study' that claimed open-source was more expenseive than proprietary?

I love those 'studies' -- its like compared some college kid's senior project that he put up on sourceforge to a commercial product that's been around for years. Of course the commercial one is going to be cheaper in the long run as they did the legwork for you.

I would worry about any manager that places any credence in these generic studies. Course there's never a shortage of idiots out there.

[zeugma]

MS funds AdTI

[Codeflier]

Forgive my ignorance - What does the acronym FUD stand for?

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[kevkrom]

Linux is Unix, AT&T invented Unix at Bell Labs. End of Story.

Um... no. Linux is not UNIX, but it is a POSIX-compliant operating system (like UNIX), and most of the standard UNIX tools have been ported to Linux, which makes the systems look similar to an end user. But they aren't the same.

[kevkrom]

What does the acronym FUD stand for?

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

Used to drive people away from a competitor, and by implication, toward you (see also: the John Kerry campaign)

[null and void]

Thanks for asking, I couldn't remember past "Fear"...

[Woodman]

Again, Supports and Funds are not really the same thing. If they are an ORG (nonprofit) the amount that MS gave/allotted should be a public record. I would love to know that amount.

[N3WBI3]

How is linux unix?

Windows 95 contained more actual UNIX code (TCP stack) than Linux does...

http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/32719.html

History may give us a place to start. Everybody knows Unix started at what was then AT&T Bell Labs and went through two enormous growth phases, the first at Berkeley in the early 1980s and the second at Sun 10 years later, but surprisingly few people know where Linux came from.

The current kernel is fundamentally the work of Linus Torvalds and people he recruited into the kernel development and maintenance process, but the kernel he started with -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum's Minix -- was unambiguously described by its author as "an open source Unix clone."

So Linux is actually a work based on a clone of UNIX, using GNU software (which is *not UNIX*)

[zeugma]

I wouldn't know where to look for that information, but their record to date would cause one to question their 'objectivity'.

[xm177e2]

Scholarly organizations are "institutes;" an "institution" is a mental health facility.

What about Brookings?

[jpsb]

Yea, that's just another way of saying Linux is Unix, without saying Linus is Unix. I have been playing with Linux for over ten years. Linux is Unix. It is a port of the Unix operating system to x86. This is not a secret, everyone knows Linux is Unix. So is FreeBSD, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, SCO and a dozen other OS's. All are varients of Unix.

The least yall Linux fans could do is give credit to AT&T for developeing the best damn OS ever.

[jpsb]

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

I don't believe Linus made a secret of the fact that he set out to recreate Unix on an x86. Did he use Unix code, probably not, did he recreate the behavior of Unix? Definately. Is SCO and MS full of BS? Definately, did Linus create a new wonderful OS? No, Linux is Unix on the x86 without the AT&T code. Just like FreeBDS which at least admits it is a Unix OS.

[N3WBI3]

Actually SCO openunix and solarix x86 is a port of Unix. Posix has nothing to do with UNIX... From *microsofts site*

NTFS provides a several features to support the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) standard, which is defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standard 1003.1-1990 (also known as ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990).

So NTFS is posix, and XP uses the 'more' command. with this and the history of actually using UNIX code (tcp stack) I guess windows is also unix..

FreeBSD, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, SCO *are* unix they have original UNIX code in the operating system and are on the UNIX family tree.

Why do you think saying Linux is not UNIX (after all GNU's Not Unix) takes anything away from UNIX. UNIX is a great operating system on of the best ever (though calling any OS 'the best' is entirely too complicated)..

[N3WBI3]

Were dealing in semantics here. From my side its not UNIX unless it has a UNIX code base in it. The GNU applications are not 'UNIX', they are used by 'UNIX'. If the two systems have completely different kernels but both use some of the same apps is it UNIX?

If I could hack windows to act like a UNIX box (shuddering) would it be UNIX? it is posix compliant, uses tcp-ip, and can run many of the GNU toolkit applications on it..

BSD is "based on the original UNIX code, while Linux is its own codebase." Free BSD is based off of the BSD code so while not a direct descendant of UNIX is also contains original UNIX code..

[jpsb]

I just believe in giving credit where credit is do. I have seen MS, time after time, reverse engineer soneone else excellent product/idea and then claim it's an MS invention. Kinda pisses me off. Prior to Unix, computer OS's sucked. Unix/C changed the world of OS's and programming. I kinda think Bell Labs should get the Lion share of the credit.

[kAcknor]

The "Alexis de Tocqueville Institution" is one guy with a $19.95 per month web site.

If that's the case, then he's also financially negligent also. Web sites can be had for less than $3.50 a month. ;)

[jpsb]

"Were dealing in semantics here", not really, I deal quite a bit at the requirements level. One could argue that defining a project down to the detailed requirement level is most of the work. Once that is done and done well the coding is relatively easy. That is what Linus got from Unix, at very good set of detailed requirement, plus the perfect environment to test (A Unix box). The work real work developing Unix and all the other Unix like OS's was done at Bell Labs.

Once At&t droped the ball a host of others picked it up and ran with it. Sun and Berkly the most notable.

[Know your rights]

D'oh!

[antiRepublicrat]

The least yall Linux fans could do is give credit to AT&T for developeing the best damn OS ever.

Definitely. But I think there's confusion here over the name "UNIX," the operating system and code "UNIX," and the OS behavior "UNIX." Linux fits the last one.