Linux Online - 'Not the sharpest of knives' - praise heaped on Linux study author

'Not the sharpest of knives' - praise heaped on Linux study author


Publication:	The Register	Date:	May 21 2004
Reporter:	John Lettice

Previous suggestions that the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution would be publishing excerpts from its damning indictment of Linus Torvalds today would appear to be inoperative. According to the AdTI front page free copies are available for "Tocqueville supporters only", the study will be available for purchase from around 20:00 GMT today, and free review copies can be obtained by working press and academics "(copyright agreement required)".*

That last bit will have an obvious effect on a pretty large number of people who might be expected to take some issue with the opus, but considering how slick the rest of the AdTI marketing operation has been, we feel sure this was entirely unintentional. The AdTI first published a press release implying great things from a forthcoming work from Institution president Kenneth Brown. It was however couched in sufficiently weasel terms for one to deduce that the final work would not actually claim flat-out that Linus Torvalds is a liar. Subsequent claims along the lines of there being "a high probability that Linux is a derivative work" (Gregory Fossedal of AdTI to Newsfactor) seem to support this view.