Creator of Linux Defends Its Originality, Dec 23, 2003

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Linus Torvalds, creator of the popular Linux computer operating system, defended his work yesterday as not always lovely but original - and certainly not copied, as a Utah company has contended.

The Utah company, the SCO Group, has begun sending out a round of warning letters to large corporate users of Linux, which is distributed free. The letters, dated Friday, assert that Linux, a variant of the Unix operating system, violates an SCO license and copyright. SCO, based in Lindon, Utah, owns the rights to the Unix operating system.

Linus has taken a quick look at the files and has given permission for us to publish his first analysis. There will be more to say later, but the bottom line is that SCO appears to have made a copyright claim to some files that Linus wrote himself. I'll let him tell you about it, by reproducing his initial email to me from earlier today.

But why a penguin? Who came up with the image of a bird that some complained looked too much like Homer Simpson? It all started in 1996, when the 5-year-old operating system began to be more widely used and talk began about the need to create a logo for Linux.

"I always felt that the Linux logo should be something fun and something you can identify with," Torvalds explained in an e-mail interview. "And being fun and friendly pretty much means that you have an animal logo."

In this column, Linux creator Linus Torvalds rebuts Mr. McBride's arguments, arguing that the GPL (GNU General Public License) software license that governs Linux has far more in common with U.S. Copyright Law than McBride suggests.

Last week's "Linux Quote of the Week" may have been vintage Torvalds, but isn't the best thing Linus has ever said about SCO - says Kevin Mack, whose has his own Top Ten. We brings it to you here. One LinuxWorld reader comments: "Linus has a gift of saying what we all are thinking in a way that we wish we'd have thought of."

The Open Source Development Lab will pay its law firm to represent Linus Torvalds, the Linux operating system founder and leader who this week was subpoenaed in connection with a $3 billion suit against IBM.

OSDL is Torvalds' employer and a consortium set up to improve the open-source operating system. The lab is funded by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, Cisco, Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Nokia and many other significant computing industry companies.

"OSDL has agreed to fund legal representation for Torvalds and any other employees of the lab who may become involved in the litigation," the consortium said in a statement it planned to release on Friday.

Darl McBride, the man under whose leadership SCO has been transformed from a software firm into the high-tech equivalent of an ambulance-chasing law firm, has made a number of outrageous claims about Linux, open source development, and the GPL after filing suit against IBM in a contract dispute. But he has not been able (or willing) to substantiate any of them. If anything, he has gone out of his way to obfuscate rather than inform. But he has proven to be top-notch at one thing since SCO began its assault: annoying the free/open source software communities. And he's done it again.

As reported by CNet yesterday, SCO has announced that it has filed subpoenas in the U.S. District Court in Utah for Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman, among others. In that story, SCO spokesman Blake Stowell was quoted as saying he didn't know what was in them, but that he knew some had been served.

Last month, Geekcruises' Linux Lunacy cruise to Alaska proved that Linux and Open Source are hot enough topics to even warm up Northern waters. The feature of the trip was a candid Q&A with Linux creator Linus Torvalds. Courtesy of GeekCruises Capt. Neil Bauman and Senior Editor of Linux Journal Doc Searles, OET brings our readers an extended transcript of Linus' shipboard Q&A, where he responds to Linux dev questions on the future of Linux, including the status of Linux 2.6, impacts from increasing corporate (and vendor) adoption, an ever-growing kernel, and even on the pending lawsuit from SCO.

Linus Torvalds wants me to believe he's too boring for this story. The creator of the Linux operating system portrays himself as a mild-mannered soul leading a humdrum life, just another guy lucky enough to own a McMansion in the hills above San Jose courtesy of the money-mad late '90s. Before agreeing to meet me, Torvalds sent an email imagining that I'd be overwhelmed by the tedium of hanging around with the likes of him.

Torvalds released version 2.6.0-test7 of the Linux kernel on Wednesday, saying he and 2.6 leader Andrew Morton now are directing programmers to focus on stability rather than cleaning up the code.

"I and Andrew are trying to calm down development, and I do not want to see patches that don't fix a real and clear bug," Torvalds said in a message. "In other words, this should calm things down so that by the end of October we can look at the state of 2.6.0 without having a lot of noise from 'not strictly necessary' stuff."

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Q: You gave Linux, the operating system, to the world free, in effect jump-starting the open-source movement. Now this previously obscure company, SCO Group, claims ownership of some of the code and threatens to close the door on open source and Linux. I suppose it's to be expected that when you send your offspring out into the world, you have to be prepared for your kid to run with a crowd you don't approve of. Oh, Linux has grown up, and it's running with a crowd that I certainly never expected, like I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard. That's not the issue. SCO is claiming parenthood of that child and now wants to make money off the earnings of that child. Even though SCO has refused to undergo the technical equivalent of DNA testing, and even though my (and other people's) DNA is probably all over Linux.

Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox ask for strict limitations to software patents in their letter to the members of the European Parliament. The vote on the Directive will be on Wednesday and it is expected to be a very close one.

Linus Torvalds comments: "The experiences from the USA demonstrate that software patents don't benefit anyone but perhaps the patent lawyers. They will just weaken the market and increase spending on patents and litigation, at the expense of technological innovation and research." He continues: "We hope that the members of European Parliament see these negative sides and don't push the same chaos to the old continent."

In a letter dated Tuesday, the maintainer of the Linux kernel dismissed an offer from SCO Chief Executive Officer Darl McBride to negotiate the dispute with the open-source community. "There doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP (intellectual property) in the open-source domain," Torvalds wrote.

eWEEK: For its part though, SCO has said that there are so many lines of code, and a variety of applications and devices that use that code, that simply removing the offending code would not be technically feasible or possible and would not solve the problem. Do you agree?

Torvalds: They are smoking crack. Their slides said there are [more than] 800,000 lines of SMP code that are "infringing," and they are just off their rocker. The SMP code was written by a number of Linux people I know well (I did a lot of the SMP IRQ scalability myself, personally), so their claims are just ludicrous. And they claim they own JFS [journaled file system technology] too. Whee. They're not shy about claiming ownership of other people's code—while at the same time beating their breasts about how they have been wronged. So the SCO people seem to have a few problems keeping the truth straight, but if there is something they know all about, it's hypocrisy.

"So one code snippet was from pretty much original Unix -- and yes, Caldera released the old Unix code itself back when they still remembered that they made all their IPO money off Linux -- which is interesting partly because it shows how SCO has been lying all along: they said several times how they are talking about SysVr4 code, not 'old Unix' code, and now they show old Unix code on their slides."

He spoke candidly with San Jose Mercury News staff writer Dean Takahashi about the SCO Group vs. IBM lawsuit (where Big Blue is accused of illegally putting Unix code into Linux), about Microsoft and open source development.

He also shed light on his decision to leave chipmaker Transmeta for a Linux corporate software consortium, the Open Source Development Lab. Here is an edited transcript:

CRN: It's awfully weird timing considering that Linux is really starting to build a business following.

Torvalds: But that's the thing that makes it not so very weird timing. I can't say that I expected SCO to sue IBM. But I mean it was clear that in the U.S.-business kind of climate [that] once enough money is involved, lawsuits will happen. This is not an 'if,' this is a 'when' question. And most lawsuits are resolved. This one has gotten a lot of press because Linux finally got big enough that people decided we can make money more easily by suing somebody than by using Linux. In the end, SCO is not a very surprising [company to bring a lawsuit]. Their business was zero and it was shrinking.

In celebration of the birthday of Linus Torvalds, the Finnish student whose pet project has become the worldwide phenomenon known as Linux, a number of Linux user groups (LUGs) around the country will hold Installfests.

The Installfests will take place in Johannesburg, Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State on 13 September. The venue for the Johannesburg event has been confirmed, and it will be held at Uniforum Midrand. The remaining venues are still to be confirmed.

He recently talked about his new post and the future of Linux in an e-mail interview with CNET News.com.

Q: News.com: Has the SCO lawsuit changed your daily work practices at all, and do you envision a screening process before code is submitted or accepted, rather than letting copyright holders check after it's accepted?

A: We've had screening processes in place for the longest time, but they've not been for IP issues as much as a way to let people comment publicly on new features etc.

Q: What do you care about?

A: I still care about the technology and the community. The people putting it together. And I do care about if someone has actually copied stuff into Linux that they don't have rights to, I'd be upset about that. I care about software rights. Right now I'm taking a leave. From what it looks like, as long as it is contract rights between SCO and IBM, I don't care at all. IBM can defend themselves. And if IBM ends up having to say OK we did something bad, it's not my problem.

Although Linus Torvalds didn't meet a goal to release the upcoming 2.6 version of the Linux operating system in June, the Linux leader said a test version could come as soon as next week.

"I'm planning on starting the so-called 'pre-2.6' series in early July, and that is kind of a beta series," Torvalds said Wednesday in an interview. He and Andrew Morton, the programmer who will maintain the 2.6 version, "are talking about starting a pre-2.6 series next week," Torvalds said.

Just weeks after scooping up Linux Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system, as its first full-time fellow, the Open Source Development Lab is bringing his right-hand man Andrew Morton on board as well.

SCO alleges that you need to focus more on getting clarification as to where the code that goes in the Linux kernel comes from. Do you have any plans to change the current Linux development model?

No. I allege that SCO is full of it, and that the Linux process is already the most transparent process in the whole industry. Let's face it, nobody else even comes close to being as good at showing the evolution and source of every single line of code out there. The only party that has had serious problems clarifying what they are talking about is SCO, and now when details start emerging like with RCU, it's clearly about IP that they had nothing to do with, and don't even own. I'm sure that they are confident that they own the collective work of Unix, but that's a separate thing entirely legally from being the actual copyright owner of any specific section of code.

OSDL, a non-profit, global consortium of leading technology companies dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux, and Transmeta Corporation, the leader in efficient computing, today announced that Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, will join OSDL as the first OSDL Fellow.

One thing that isn't changing, even as Linux gains popularity, is Mr. Torvalds's remarkable lack of interest in translating his influence and importance into fame and fortune. He doesn't have a secretary, much less a PR person. He doesn't hobnob with the executives of the many big companies using his software. He'd rather be home with his wife and three daughters than out at conferences with the digerati A-list.

Appointing a believable panel would be difficult, Torvalds said in an e-mail interview. "I suspect the people I'd like to see are not people SCO would care for or [who] would be able to sign an NDA on it. The thing I would want is somebody who is able to actually trace things back in time to be able to make a judgment of whether it came from UnixWare or from Linux. Somebody who is technical enough and has enough background in the kernel that he can follow it down without going mad", he said.

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