Free Republic

Linux represents a threat and an opportunity for every software and hardware company. Apple is once again at the crossroads. While it will take a couple of years before we know whether the company will make the right choice, one thing is clear: Apple's path is about to become vastly more interesting. I'm currently reading a science fiction book that refers to Bill Gates, and I was watching a movie recently in which one of the streets is named Microsoft Way, which happened to be on the moon. Clearly, Microsoft permeates much of what we do in tech, so it's...

It was a Hail Mary bet, but BayStar and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) (NYSE: RY) invested $50 million, in the form of convertible preferred shares, in SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX) earlier this year. The money was not to build products; instead, it was to pay attorneys to litigate against major players in the Linux marketplace because of alleged violations of SCO's intellectual property. SCO has not been modest in selecting defendants, which include such deep pockets as IBM (NYSE: IBM), DaimlerChrysler (NYSE: DCX), and AutoZone (NYSE: AZO). The IBM suit, for example, has a claim for $5 billion....

Samizdat is a series of excerpts from an upcoming book on open source and operating systems that will be published later this year. AdTI did not publish Samizdat with the expectation that rabidly pro-Linux developers would embrace it. Its purpose is to provide U.S. leadership with a researched presentation on attribution and intellectual property problems with the hybrid source code model, particularly Linux. It is our hope that leadership would find this document helpful with public policy decisions regarding its future investment in Linux and other hybrid source products. The United States is the home of the United States Patent...

"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...

SCO Begs the Court for More AIX Code Wednesday, June 02 2004 @ 08:06 PM EDT Now we know what SCO's Memorandum Regarding Discovery is. It's SCO begging the court once again to give it yet more AIX code, saying that " . . .because AIX's code does not contain any historical comments, or at least the AIX code provided did not, SCO has had difficulty determining all the portions of AIX that were taken from UNIX System V." Once again, they think it's probably the case that they could find more infringing code if they just had more AIX...

Man AdTI Hired to Compare Minix/Linux Found No Copied Code Thursday, May 27 2004 @ 05:01 PM EDT Andrew Tanenbaum has published the most remarkable email from the man hired by Ken Brown to do a line-by-line comparison of Minix and Linux, Alexey Toptygin, who summarizes his findings and posts them on the Internet: "Around the middle of April, I was contacted by a friend of mine who asked me if I wanted to do some code analysis on a consultancy basis for his boss, Ken Brown. I ended up doing about 10 hours of work, comparing early versions...

Ken Brown's forthcoming book, published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, is embarrassingly mistitled Samizdat: And Other Issues Regarding the 'Source' Of Open Source Code. No doubt you've heard of it by now, although more than likely you've only heard Andy Tanenbaum and others respond to it more than anything else. It's basically the world's largest troll, seasoned with more than a hint of flamebait. In the history of publishing there has never been a less scrupulous work than this book. It's a stinging insult to real books and genuine authors everywhere, harming the credibility of all of us who...

The copyright laws give an author exclusive rights to make derivative works. Creating a derivative work is a copyright infringement absent some license from the author -- or current copyright holder -- of the original work. Software is no different. Most of us are afraid of getting infected with a virus, whether it comes from a common cold or an attachment in our e-mail. Are open-source licenses viral in nature? Can they infect downstream users? The question is the subject of considerable debate. Companies refer to open-source software as "potentially viral software" in the end-user licenses that accompany their proprietary...

Linux represents the biggest threat that Microsoft has ever faced. No wonder IBM is spending billions to promote it. How is it that for eight months a team of up to a dozen IBM consultants has been toiling in the data centers and computer rooms of the Munich city government--free of charge? Having goaded Munich into embracing open-source software, IBM is helping it plan a migration of 14,000 computers off Microsoft Windows and onto the operating system known as Linux. Never mind that IBM doesn't sell Linux, which is distributed free. And never mind that Munich officials say they're not...

For those who don't know of it, slashdot.org is a "news for nerds" discussion site geared towards the Linux/open source community. The articles posted are mainly technically oriented although some regular news items get posted. The general tone is anti-capitalist, anti-Microsoft and anti-Bush, but there are a few posters who balance it out a bit. Most posters are left leaning, but the latest article shocked me with hundreds of extreme leftist comments. The topic, Michael Moore at Cannes. Cannes' Palme d'Or goes to Michael Moore As an example, one poster wrote: Even though I feel CNN is slanted to the...

IBM has asked the court for partial summary judgment, a declaration that IBM does not infringe SCO's copyrights by its Linux activities, in its Cross-Motion for Partial Summary Judgment on its Claim for Declaratory Judgment of Non-Infringement, telling the court that since SCO has been unable or unwilling for so long to show any infringing code, and shouldn't be allowed to now, they request the court to wrap this part of the case up and issue a declaration of noninfringement "with respect to IBM's Linux activities (the 'Tenth Counterclaim')." This is a cross motion, not just a motion, because, as...

Study says 100 million PCs to be replaced in 2004 By Dinesh C. Sharma CNET News.com May 20, 2004, 12:18 PM PT Nearly 100 million PCs are likely to be replaced this year, with 120 million being swapped out in 2005, according to data research firm Gartner released Thursday. The volume of replacements in the next two years will surpass the number of units replaced in the run-up to Y2K in 1998 and 1999, Gartner said. In 2004, replacement units will drive global shipments to 186.4 million--an increase of 13.6 percent over 2003. "Our first-quarter results suggest the...replacement cycle that...

The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information. Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been...

Fedora Core 2 is now available from Red Hat and at distinguished mirror sites near you, and is also available in the torrent. Fedora Core has expanded in this release to four binary ISO images and four source ISO images, and is available for both x86-64 and i386.

A study challenging the origins of Linux states that the open-source software frequently is taken or adapted from material owned by other companies and individuals. It also directly questions Linus Torvalds (news - web sites)' claim to be the inventor of Linux. The information is contained in a book by Kenneth Brown, president the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Portions of the book will be released later this week. Brown conducted a comprehensive study on the source of open-source code, tracing the free-software movement over three decades, including interviews with some two-dozen principal developers of Linux, according to Gregory Fossedal, a...

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,...

Three interesting tidbits from two interviews with Darl McBride. First, there is this article [sub req'd] currently on the cover of Fortune magazine, and there is a second interview in the Spanish-language El Pais in April. First, from the El Pais interview, we learn that Darl went to Novell's Brainshare conference. Nobody recognized him. Apparently he slipped in after everyone settled into their seats and the program was beginning. He claims he almost asked Linus a question from the audience. He went, he says, because while you stay close to your friends, you want to stay closer to your enemies....

Thunder, a supercomputer recently installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is possibly the second-most powerful computing machine on the planet--and it was built by a company with about as many employees as a real estate office. California Digital, a 55-person company located on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, created Thunder from 1,024 four-processor Itanium 2 servers to perform a variety of tasks at the lab. Capable of churning 19.94 trillion operations per second, it would have ranked second in the Top 500 list of supercomputers published bi-annually by the University of Mannheim, the University of Tennessee and Lawrence Berkeley National...

Why The Markets Still Don't Trust Linux Linux has only recently begun to regain credibility in the financial markets since its speculative debut. However, its licensing model, hefty competition, and lack of maturity still worry investors. Companies such as Red Hat, long past its 1999 speculative highs, are slowly gaining ground while other Linux companies, such as Linspire, are planning initial public offerings. Is Linux finally becoming a viable alternative to proprietary operating systems, or is this rise simply a byproduct of a mini-tech bubble? The past and present of Linux in the markets The infamous Linux debut came from...

Gartner: Worms Jack Up the Total Cost of Windows May 5, 2004 (2:58 p.m. EST) By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News Dealing with widespread worms like Sasser raises the cost of using Windows, a research analyst said Wednesday. Mark Nicolett, research director at Gartner, recommended that enterprises boost spending on patch management and intrusion prevention software to keep ahead of worms, which are appearing ever sooner after vulnerabilities in Windows are disclosed. This is part of the carrying cost of using Windows, said Nicolett. The cost of a Windows environment has gone up because enterprises have to install security patches very...