an open letter to George Soros

an open letter to George Soros

[Rick A. Hohensee]

Rick Hohensee
301-595-5804
rickh@capaccess.org
Oct. 2, 2002

Mr. George Soros,

I believe your involvement in Transmeta is utterly in conflict with your
ideals of openness in a way that I don't believe you are aware of. The
reasons I believe this are highly technical, and somewhat subtle, and yet
quite striking subjectively. Microsoft, as represented by Paul Allen in
Transmeta, would surely spend a fortune to keep Linus Torvalds on a leash.
For technical reasons, I believe this is why Transmeta was created, and
the real potential of an open source software revolution has so far been
thereby prevented. Linux's success is mostly inevitable as PC hardware
became capable of running unix. Now it is being prevented from succeeding
further. I believe similar motives are at work at Red Hat Software, which
has many prominent members of the Linux clique on the dole. This would
help explain RHAT's historically bizarre IPO circus, and helps to explain
why RHAT doesn't really comprehend unix and thinks they are Microsoft.
They are Microsoft, who don't comprehend unix.

Linus Torvalds consistantly favors modifications to Linux that pursue a
server orientation. This invariably leads to tremendous added complexity.
This also does not directly threaten what Microsoft calls "the client",
i.e. the end-user's PC, i.e. Windows. A servers-only orientation is also a
tiny subset of the potential of a free unix. By far the greatest possible
benefit of a free unix (which is what Linux is) to individuals and markets
is in direct competition with Windows. One might legitimately argue
otherwise, but direct competition with Windows has almost completely been
avoided, which is very strange. This is what I attempted to do, and was
completely ostracized.

Whether Torvalds' love of unix's traditional server role is 100% genuine
or not, it is a terrible disservice, and is not what George Soros
preaches. The open source unix world, including GNU, prevents real
effective openness with bogus complexity. In most cases, the so-called
open source movement is as hostile to real innovation as Microsoft is.

Admittedly, I am exactly the disgruntled, bitter malcontent that would
raise such accusations. By the same token, such are the people that see
such things. I submit my technical works, and thier utter lack of
proliferation, for the interested reader to guage the validity of my
accusations, and whether my bitterness is sui generis or justified.

        I have devised a preliminary compensation scheme for authors of
        open source software based on the songwriter royalties model.

        I am the first person ever to insert a Forth-like interpreter into
        a Linux (or any unix) kernel. This is historic, and was met with a
        few grunts in the Linux kernel mailing list. There have since been
        one or two other in-kernel Forths.

        I did the first syscalls-only linking library in Linux, libsys.a,
        which I suspect may have sparked the embedded-Linux efforts.

        I have devised the simplest means by far for a unix user to
        customize thier directory structure, a very basic convenience.

        I have written two better systems languages than C; osimplay and
        H3sm.

        Many other works in Linux, Forth-like languages, and
        documentation.

At this point, what Linux might have been will not spring from Linus
Torvalds. It will therefor probably not spring from unix at all. The
parasites have overtaken Linux, just as they did with the Commodore Amiga;
they bought it and killed it. Microsoft and Intel absolutely had to kill
the Amiga due to it's tremendous superiority to the PC. They packed the
board, who then scuttled Commodore. This destructive parasitic process
does not have to continue indefinitely, however.

As an ancillary matter, but also pertinent to your investment in
Transmeta, note that the Crusoe chip's crucial low-power characteristics
are a pitiful joke compared to stack machines. I tried meekly to convey
this to Torvalds before Crusoe came out.


flames > /device/bitbucket

Rick Hohensee

http://linux01.gwdg.de/~rhohen
ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/install/clienux/descriptive
ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/install/clienux/interim/ABOUT

Re: an open letter to George Soros

[Ben Greear]

Rick A. Hohensee wrote:

>         I have written two better systems languages than C; osimplay and
>         H3sm.

Holy shit!

You happen to have a tigon3 driver in forth that will work? ;)

Ben, who is not under the influence of the Man, for what it's worth!

-- 
Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>       <Ben_Greear AT excite.com>
President of Candela Technologies Inc      http://www.candelatech.com
ScryMUD:  http://scry.wanfear.com     http://scry.wanfear.com/~greear

Re: [lkml] an open letter to George Soros

[Ian Soboroff]

> Admittedly, I am exactly the disgruntled, bitter malcontent that would
> raise such accusations. By the same token, such are the people that see
> such things. I submit my technical works, and thier utter lack of
> proliferation, for the interested reader to guage the validity of my
> accusations, and whether my bitterness is sui generis or justified.
> [...]

Trolls got chops!
ian

dont feed the trolls! Re: [lkml] an open letter to George Soros

[Gerhard Mack]

On 4 Oct 2002, Ian Soboroff wrote:

> > Admittedly, I am exactly the disgruntled, bitter malcontent that would
> > raise such accusations. By the same token, such are the people that see
> > such things. I submit my technical works, and thier utter lack of
> > proliferation, for the interested reader to guage the validity of my
> > accusations, and whether my bitterness is sui generis or justified.
> > [...]
>
> Trolls got chops!
> ian

Esay fix:

:0 W
* ^(((From):)|( )).*rickh@Capaccess\.org
/dev/null

--
Gerhard Mack

gmack@innerfire.net

<>< As a computer I find your faith in technology amusing.

Re: an open letter to Geor

[Rick A. Hohensee]

>Holy shit!
>
>You happen to have a tigon3 driver in forth that will work? ;)
>
>Ben, who is not under the influence of the Man, for what it's worth!
>
>--

osimplay is one of two truly modern assemblers, and is written in Bash.
H3sm is a Forth-like 3-stack machine. H3sm doesn't care how big an int is.

Rick HohenseeB

Re: dont feed the trolls! Re: [lkml] an open letter to George Soros

[jbradford]

> > > Admittedly, I am exactly the disgruntled, bitter malcontent that would
> > > raise such accusations. By the same token, such are the people that see
> > > such things. I submit my technical works, and thier utter lack of
> > > proliferation, for the interested reader to guage the validity of my
> > > accusations, and whether my bitterness is sui generis or justified.
> > > [...]
> >
> > Trolls got chops!
> > ian
> 
> Esay fix:
> 
> :0 W
> * ^(((From):)|( )).*rickh@Capaccess\.org
> /dev/null

Sorry if this is off topic, but what on earth was this all about anyway?  Was it just trolling, or is their any truth in any of what he said?  Somebody please explain...

John.

Re: an open letter to George Soros

[David S. Miller]

   From: "Rick A. Hohensee" <rickh@Capaccess.org>
   Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 01:34:51 -0400

this is pure comedy, so I'll happily feed the trolls
   
           I have devised a preliminary compensation scheme for authors of
           open source software based on the songwriter royalties model.
   
<sarcasm/>

Yes, let's use the music industry to model how we compensate people
for their works, they schemes have an excellent track record

</sarcasm>

Re: an open letter to George Soros

[Rik van Riel]

On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, David S. Miller wrote:

>            I have devised a preliminary compensation scheme for authors of
>            open source software based on the songwriter royalties model.
>
> Yes, let's use the music industry to model how we compensate people
> for their works, they schemes have an excellent track record

Heh, you'd end up OWING money to the users, because of the
value of bugreports, paying for the download infrastructure
and rental of users' screen space ;)

Rik
-- 
Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH".

http://www.surriel.com/		http://distro.conectiva.com/

Spamtraps of the month:  september@surriel.com trac@trac.org

Re: an open letter to Geor

[Rick A. Hohensee]

>>            I have devised a preliminary compensation scheme for authors
of
>>            open source software based on the songwriter royalties model.
>>
>> Yes, let's use the music industry to model how we compensate people
>> for their works, they schemes have an excellent track record
>
>Heh, you'd end up OWING money to the users, because of the
>value of bugreports, paying for the download infrastructure
>and rental of users' screen space ;)
>
>Rik

Problems I'd love to have.

Rick Hohensee

Re: an open letter to Geor

[Rick A. Hohensee]

davem ridiculed...
>this is pure comedy, so I'll happily feed the trolls
>
>           I have devised a preliminary compensation scheme for authors of
>           open source software based on the songwriter royalties model.
>
><sarcasm/>
>
>Yes, let's use the music industry to model how we compensate people
>for their works, they schemes have an excellent track record
>
></sarcasm>
>
>

You like comedy? How about the "GNU business model" ?

Rick Hohensee

Re: an open letter to George Soros

[Rik van Riel]

On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, James Bottomley wrote:

> Is that really your aim?

+--------------+
|  Don't feed  |
|  the trolls  |
|              |
|  thank you   |
+--------------+
      | |
      | |
      | |
      | |
  ....\ /....

cheers,

Rik
-- 
A: No.
Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?

http://www.surriel.com/		http://distro.conectiva.com/

Re: an open letter to George Soros

[James Bottomley]

I'm not interested in disputing or evaluating any of the allegations raised in 
your letter, I'll leave everyone to draw their own conclusions.  However, I am 
curious about the consequences of what you propose.  In particular, your 
remedies.

Let us assume that George Soros accepts your letter and withdraws funding from 
Transmeta.  What are the consequences for Linux and Microsoft?

Transmeta could easily collapse, thus throwing several prominent Linux 
developers out into the job market.  Worse, the resulting publicity about the 
reasons would create a media circus that would be highly damaging to Linux as 
a whole and the release of 2.6 in particular.

Microsoft is bound to capitalise on this and sieze the opportunity to try to 
displace Linux from the server and enterprise (the very places it currently 
feels the greatest heat from Linux).  I don't claim it would succeed, but it 
will certainly try.

The net effect of your proposal therefore would be to cause a stall in Linux 
development and hand Microsoft an opportunity to capture the Server market and 
the Enterprise.  Is that really your aim?

If you really hold true to the principles of openness, why not instead ask 
Soros for funding to create a company that will produce the OS you think Linux 
should be and compete directly with Microsoft in "the client" arena?  At least 
that would be a positive remedy, intead of the wholly negative one you 
propose.  Perhaps it would even give you the opportunity to see at least one 
of your works proliferate?

James Bottomley