An Open Letter to Intel • Hacker News Board

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#241

Post by bhouston » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:19 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #148

simias wrote: post #11

I can't tell if this is earnest or 2nd degree. Can people more familiar with Mr Tanenbaum's style enlighten me? Because if this is earnest I'm quite seriously baffled. I don't mind BSD at all and I won't comment on the political side of things but why on earth would you rejoice that you worked for free (I assume?) for Intel only to have your work end up in some user-hostile module forced on the users? Is Tanenbaum eg…

It seems entirely earnest. I think the Hacker News crowd is just a little baffled because there are some conflicting emotions on display from Dr. T here. Conflicting emotions are a very human thing to have, and are guaranteed to confuse the engineer crowd. 1. He's glad Minix is useful to others 2. He's slightly hurt that Intel repeatedly asked him for help (which he provided) but never bothered to thank him or even l…

I think he would of appreciated some type of compensation from Intel given its massive usage by a massive company. Not even a small thank you donation. It is sort of shitty on Intel's part to not compensate him at all and also they got a large number of questions/support from him.

They should throw a donation of $1M his way. Even at that rate, it is a massive steal.

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#242

Post by mcv » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:23 PM UTC

JepZ wrote: post #26

It is interesting to see that Andrew S. Tanenbaum released this letter to the public (probably to show that he was not directly involved in deploying Minix to all those chips), while saying that he is okay with the closed source nature, as long as there are good reasons to do so (to prevent causing any problems for him and for the person who made the decision at Intel). Hey Andrew, if you have no problem with Minix r…

That's exactly the opposite of what he said:

"Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs."

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#243

Post by keganunderwood » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #208

rbanffy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the GPLv3 would force Intel to do that. With v2 they can go the TiVo route and make the source available without giving out the means to make the hardware run your own binaries.

Which means they could’ve used Linux if they wanted to

Why can't Linux use gpl v2 or later? Because Linus doesn't want to?

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#244

Post by mr_isomies » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

We're talking about the granddaddy of click-bait here. I think that the only genuine thing about him is the bitter impression that he never got his due

From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: LINUX is obsolete Date: 29 Jan 92 12:12:50 GMT

http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/appa.html

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#245

Post by mintplant » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

fhood wrote: post #223

erhardm wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying North America and Europe don't have freedom because you're not free to kill/abuse/take advantage of the others however you like. Freedom doesn't work like that. The GPL restrictions are for keeping the freedom equal for all parties involved.

And it works great. I know very few software companies that will go anywhere near the thing. Good job GPL /s

Have you considered that developers may have motivations other than attracting as many companies as possible to make millions off of their free labor?

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#246

Post by TheCoelacanth » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:29 PM UTC

jwilk wrote: post #70

Bobbleoxs wrote: post #41

What I never understand is under open source license of any sort, do people generally expect credentials? Fame or money or both, do you think you should get at least one? Just a question, no opinion on Mr Tanenbaum's letter per se.

Some do, some don't. The BSD licence that MINIX 3 uses actually requires giving credit: Copyright (c) 1987, 1997, 2006, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands All rights reserved. Redistribution and use of the MINIX 3 operating system in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: [...] Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the a…

Exactly, a lot of people think of the BSD license as not reserving any rights, but it actually does reserve a few rights, such as the preservation of the copyright notice. A license that actually reserves no rights would be something like CC0.

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#247

Post by krylon » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

Has Intel responded to this in any way?

Ever since I first heard of the Management Engine, and of the various problems this thing raises, I found it curious that Intel remained so quiet about it.

I can think of two plausible explanations: a) They do not want to draw any more attention to this issue and are pulling a "reverse Streisand", if you will. If so, there could be several reasons for them to act this way. Or, b), they just don't care enough.

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#248

Post by sixdimensional » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

This brings a nice context to the phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" [1]. Who's the giant, in reality?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of...

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#249

Post by gpvos » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:31 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #180

Fredej wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably gonna be a controversial view but my experience is this as well: Deploying GPL code is a legal process. Deploying BSD is a development process. We spent thousands of dollars on legal advice when deploying GPL. In the end it was largely as we expected it to be: No significant action was needed beyond releasing the code to the components that we already got for free, with the minor modifications we had…

> Deploying GPL code is a legal process. It doesn't have to be. The GPL is very clear; anyone with even a semi-decent high school education can read and understand it. A company which requires legal consultation in order to know how to use GPL code has bigger problems. Of course, you can't both use GPLed code and deny your users' freedom. So don't do that. Sell hardware, sell services, just don't sell closed-source s…

The GPL may be very clear, but its interaction with the laws that are in force in your area may not be.

As a (very) extreme example: I could write a license that says: if you use this code, you are now my slave. This license would not be valid in most jurisdictions; in fact, it might get me in jail. So, what you read in a license may or may not be true or enforceable.

Re: An Open Letter to Intel

#250

Post by mr_isomies » Tue, Nov 07, 2017, 3:31 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #36

popee wrote: post #16

And now I'm happy that Linux won

Won what? - Being the kernel of ChromeOS and Android, not accessible to majority of userspace and easily replaceable by anything else (e.g. Fuchsia). - Lost to macOS and Windows on the desktop It only won on the server room, and now it runs under Minix supervision.

Saying "it only won on the server room" is like saying that alternative current only won on delivering electricity...