[Techtalk] One Standardized Version of Linux

[Travis Casey]

Saturday, May 11, 2002, 12:48:11 AM, kansas_kennedy @ phreaker . net wrote:
> On Monday 06 May 2002 16:31, you wrote:
>> Monday, May 06, 2002, 3:34:00 AM, BUNTER MATTHEW wrote:
>> > On Sat, May 04, 2002 at 10:25:01PM +0100, /dev/null wrote:

[rearranging, since I prefer not to top-quote]

>> >>> there isnt centralised 'control'... and when there is, in the case of
>> >>> Linus's work, he's known to be a 'benign dictator'... and people can,
>> >>> as you say, always go off and do their own things with the ideas if
>> >>> they want something different....
>> >>
>> >> And not only can they do their own thing with the ideas, they can do
>> >> their own thing with the actual source code.
>> >>
>> >> There is nothing stoping me having my own version of the Linux kernel :)
>> >
>> > Sorry don't follow here. I thought that the trademark of 'Linux' was
>> > owned by Linus. Doesn't this mean that he has saw over how the name is
>> > used?
>>
>> These are two different things, though.  The previous poster wrote
>> that she could make her own version of the Linux kernel -- that's
>> true.  Since Linus owns the trademark, she can't *call* it Linux
>> without his permission, but since the code is under GPL, she can
>> modify it and redistribute it, and there's nothing Linus can do about
>> that.

> Well....it's true that under Linux we can change the source code and make it
> fit to our use. But truly how many of us are really capable of doing this? 

> It takes a hell load to hack the source code. You have to be a genius in C.

That depends on what you want to do.  I'm far from being a genius in
C, but I was able to modify the source code for the USB Visor/Palm
driver to make it support my new M130 -- all it took was adding an
entry for it to a couple of tables.  (Only to find out that a later
kernel version already had that, but oh well...)

And even where I'm not competent to modify it, I get benefits from the
open nature of the code.  All I have to be able to do is find the work
of others who have been able to modify the code.  It's like Linux
itself -- I couldn't possibly write it, but I can *use* it.

The fact that Linux is open is what has let people port it to other
platforms, like the PowerPC and Alpha chips.  It's let companies use
Linux as a base to build products like TiVo -- if they had to pay to
license a proprietary OS or to build their own from scratch, those
things would be more expensive... and they probably wouldn't work as
well on top of it!

There are more benefits to open code than just the ability to modify
it yourself.

-- 
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net