Andrew Tannenbaum's response to new BS

Message ID: 141640
Posted By: leclite
Posted On: 2004-06-07 00:22:00
Subject: Andrew Tannenbaum's response to new BS

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/rebuttal/

Message ID: 141644
Posted By: brightshiningreflection
Posted On: 2004-06-07 01:20:00
Subject: Re: Andrew Tannenbaum's response to new

Tannenbaum's response is sharp, witty and devastating. Brown won't understand. Brown isn't to be swayed by facts, logic and truth. Brown has a "theory" that he clings to regardless.

I have a theory too. In my family, we have an old saying: "It's often very hard to distinguish crazy from stupid." In Brown's case that's particularly hard. His logic is flawed, he systematically disregards facts and distorts others. He spells poorly, fails to adequately proof-read his "book" (mighty short tome that one), and he's dogged in his insistance on maintaining his theory in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.

The above could be a sign of simple stupidity. Many stupid people will argue doggedly and stick to their points because they're insufficiently nimble to adapt and respond appropriately. However, my theory is that Brown is mentally ill. Frankly, it would be difficult for someone to be as stupid as Brown appears and still travel to Europe, interview Tannenbaum, and write as many pages of drivel as Brown has produced recently. On the other hand, these are things a mentally ill person of average intelligence might be able to easily accomplish. Hence my theory.

Message ID: 141654
Posted By: jgabriel66
Posted On: 2004-06-07 05:55:00
Subject: Re: Andrew Tannenbaum's response to new

bsr: "However, my theory is that Brown is mentally ill."

Hmm. My theory is that Brown is neither stupid nor mentally ill, but evil and unethical.

I have no doubt that Brown know he is twisting facts to support a position he knows to be incorrect. He's doing it for the money. He's not getting paid to provide unbiased research; he's getting paid by corporate "donations" to provide position papers to the U.S. Goverment supporting entrenched businesses whose market is being eroded by changing social paradigms.

Hell, I'm a smoker, but I still know it's bad for your health and that the tobacco companies are basically legalized drup dealers. The growing recognition of the health problems associated with smoking and it's addictive nature have not been profitable for the industry, thus ADTI's papers supporting the tobacco companies efforts to avoid government regulation.

In a similiar vein, Free and Open Source software threatens the profit model for Microsoft, and perhaps other software companies. ADTI's Samizdat is an effort to keep the corporate "donations" from these MS ansd these other companies flowing into ADTI's coffers.

Message ID: 141663
Posted By: bruce_s01
Posted On: 2004-06-07 07:54:00
Subject: Re: Andrew Tannenbaum's response to new

Since the "book" came out I've been convinced that it was sponsored by SCOX. The reasons are:
It continues ideas that SCOX has been trying to FUD for a while.
The hastyness of the "report" was required for some specific reason.
The report will be a useful addition to MSes ongoing FUD campaign (esp. to delay Linux adoption for the release of Longhorn), but it was really too hastily put together for this longer term assault.
The short term requirement is for for SCOX, as this would be ideal evidence for SCOX to bring up in the press and courts, "An independent report states that...."

It appears to me that there is much more evidence of SCOX fingerprints on this than MSes. Though it it is quite possible that SCOX were pointed to AdTI by MS in a Anderer/Baystar sort of way.

Bruce.

Message ID: 141665
Posted By: nobbutl
Posted On: 2004-06-07 08:06:00
Subject: Re: Andrew Tannenbaum's response to new

<< Since the "book" came out I've been convinced that it was sponsored by SCOX. [...] it is quite possible that SCOX were pointed to AdTI by MS in a Anderer/Baystar sort of way.>>

Agreed. Baystar themselves seemed another possibility, to create the right climate for them to cash out. Then again, the $5bn pork barrel reeks of MS, or Sun.

In a sense, narrowing down any further who commissioned this crap is pointless. We know it's one of the usual suspects, and we know they'll all try again some other way.

Or maybe it's the OSDL dirty tricks unit? :D

The texts of these Yahoo Message Board posts have been licensed for copying and distribution by the Yahoo Message Board users "leclite", "brightshiningreflection", "jgabriel66", "bruce_s01", "nobbutl" under the following license: License: CCL Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike v2.0.